Alone

by Lisa Gardner

  Oh God, that poor kid. To watch his father die.

  Why had the bastard made him do it? Why had Jimmy Gagnon just ruined Bobby's life?

  He moved without ever knowing he was moving. His hands were sliding under Susan's robe, trying desperately to find bare skin. She murmured something. Yes, no, he never really heard. He had her robe off, and was skimming his fingers across the thin lace that covered her breasts, while burying his face in the curve of her neck.

  She had beautiful fingers. Long, delicate, but shockingly strong. Fingers that could coax a fine wooden instrument into the sweetest sounds. Now those fingers were on his back, finding the knots that corded his muscles. She had his shirt off, was working on his pants.

  She was too slow. He was hungry, desperate. He needed things he couldn't name but knew instinctively she could give to him.

  Funny how he'd always been delicate with her before. Her skin was fine china, her beauty too pure to tarnish. Now he ripped the gauzy nightgown from her body. His teeth sank into her rounded shoulder. His hands gripped her buttocks, pushed her up, lifting her against him.

  They went down in a tangle on the hardwood floor. He got the bottom, she claimed the top. Her mouth was devouring his chest, her small, pale body writhing against his broad, dark frame. Light and shadow, good and bad.

  She was poised above him, she was pushing down onto him. Her shoulders were thrown back, her breasts thrust out. She needed him. He needed her. Light and shadow, good and bad.

  At the last minute, he saw the woman.

  At the last minute, he saw the child.

  Susan came with a guttural scream. He caught her as she collapsed upon his body, and he lay there withered on the floor, feeling a darkness that went on without end.

  D R. ELIZABETH LANE was thinking about getting a small dog. Or maybe a cat. Hey, what about a fish? Even a four-year-old could raise fish.

  She had this conversation with herself once a year. Generally, right about now, when the holidays were looming and people were talking excitedly about upcoming family gatherings, and she went home each night to an empty condo that seemed much emptier than it did in spring-filled May or hot, sunny August.

  It was a stupid conversation, which she of all people should know. For one thing, she had a very nice “empty” condo. Ten-foot ceilings, sweeping bay windows with original bull's-eye molding, rooftop terrace, gleaming cherry-wood floors. Then there was the furniture she'd spent the better part of her professional life acquiring—the low-slung black leather sofa, the bird's-eye maple cabinets, the stainless steel Soho lamps. She was pretty sure puppies and silk rugs didn't make a good mix. Cats and custom woodwork didn't sound like a good match either. Though none of that ruled out fish.

  For another thing, if the upcoming holidays were really all fun and games, Elizabeth's schedule wouldn't currently be so overbooked. In fact, she'd spent the majority of the past four weeks working ten-hour days trying to help her various clients devise coping strategies for just this time of year. She had to get the bulimics prepared to face the groaning Thanksgiving table. She had to get the manic-depressives medicated enough to handle the candy-cane-fueled, festively wrapped frenzy, then the inevitable shattered-ornaments, dying-fir-tree, nobody-loves-me letdown. And finally, she had to get everyone—the self-destructive, the obsessive-compulsive, the neurotic, the psychotic, everyone—in shape to meet their families.

  That alone should make Elizabeth grateful for her quiet home. Though again, it did not rule out fish.

  Truthfully, Elizabeth had a nice life. She loved her condo, loved living in the city, and most days liked her job. She was starting to approach forty, however, and not even a trained psychiatrist could stare forty in the face without feeling the weight of her baggage. The marriage that had failed. The children she'd never had. The distance she lived from her family in Chicago, which hadn't seemed so much at first, but now they were all so busy and flying was so damn tiring that she made the trip less and less and her parents and sister's family made the trip less and less and now it had been so long since she'd seen any of them in person, it would be awkward to go home. She'd throw them out of their own rituals and routines. She'd be the outsider, looking in.

  Maybe she'd get a Siamese fighting fish. Or better yet, a ficus tree. God knows a plant would probably be a lot less offended that she ate take-out sushi almost every other night. It was a thought.

  The buzzer sounded out in the front office. Elizabeth ignored it, used to the random sounds of a city office, and the buzzer sounded again. Now she frowned. It was after five, too late for deliveries, and she didn't schedule after-hour appointments on Fridays; she needed at least the pretense of having a life. The buzzer sounded a third time. Shrill. Insistent. Elizabeth finally grew curious enough to leave her office for her receptionist's desk, where she hit a few buttons on Sarah's computer and promptly saw the view from the security camera posted above the outer door.

  What she saw surprised her. But then again, maybe it didn't.

  Elizabeth let the man in. Minutes later, he'd mounted the steps to her second-story office. The weather outside had turned cold—they might have flurries overnight—but that wasn't the only reason this man had a dark blue Patriots cap pulled low and a thick red scarf wrapped tight. Unfortunately for the man, his eyes still gave him away.

  Elizabeth had seen the same cool gray gaze just this morning, staring back at her from the front page of the Boston Herald. “State Trooper Kills Judge's Son,” the headline blazed. “Late Night Shootout Leaves Family Devastated.”

  The photo had most likely been taken without the man knowing it. His gaze, peering off in the distance, appeared stark and grim. Elizabeth had no idea what it must feel like to kill a man, but the officer's expression implied that it wasn't great.

  “Good evening,” she said evenly, and held out her hand. “Dr. Elizabeth Lane.”

  The man's grip was firm but brief. Then he buried both his hands back into the front pockets of his jacket. “Bobby Dodge,” he muttered. “Lieutenant Bruni said he spoke to you.”

  “He thought you might be interested in coming in.”

  “Should I have made an appointment?” Bobby frowned. “I didn't think about it. Guess I should've called first. 'Course, it's late now, too. Maybe I should just leave.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Appointments generally help, but it just so happens that you're in luck. My plans have been canceled at the last minute, so as long as you're here, let's meet.”

  “I don't know how this works,” the officer said in a rush. “I mean, I've never gone to any shrink. I'm not even sure I believe seeing a shrink helps. But the LT said I should come, and the EAU guys said I should come, so, well, here I am.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I did my job. A woman and her kid are alive today because of me. I'm not ashamed.”

  Elizabeth nodded, and thought that anyone who asserted that quickly that he wasn't ashamed, probably was.

  She gestured to her coatrack. “Please, hang up your things and follow me.”

  Bobby shed his jacket, hat, and scarf. Elizabeth gestured him toward the opened door of her office. She followed behind him, already making mental notes as she went.

  She'd guess his age to be mid to late thirties. Not a huge guy. Maybe five ten, one hundred and sixty pounds. He moved well, though. Tight, controlled, a man who knew his way around. His jeans were well worn, same with his navy flannel shirt. She'd bet his family was strictly blue-collar, and that Bobby had been the first to attend college. Rather than follow his father's wish for a corporate dream, he'd split the difference and joined the state police—still moving up the economic rung from his father, but not drifting too far from his roots. He ran as a hobby and felt most at home when he was in the woods.

  She was guessing, of course. It was a game she liked to play with herself whenever meeting new patients. It amazed her how often she got it right.

  They entered her office and Bobby immediately spotted
the small leather sofa.

  “I'm not gonna have to sit there, am I?”

  “You could take one of the wingback chairs.” Elizabeth's office contained two hunter green chairs, tucked back from the desk, and not easy to see in the dim light. Most patients spied the sofa first and had their various reactions. Elizabeth often considered rearranging her office to make the chairs more prominent, but then again, a girl had to have some fun.

  Bobby took one of the chairs. He sat on the edge, knees apart, long fingers braced in front of him. He surveyed the mahogany-paneled room with his dark gray stare, absorbing all the details—the textbooks lining the shelves, the brass plaques on the wall, the Zen garden that drove the obsessive-compulsives nuts.

  There was something about him that niggled at her brain, but she couldn't quite place it. He wasn't just uncommonly self-possessed, he was preternaturally . . . quiet. No undue noise, no undue movements. She imagined he'd do very well with long stretches of silence. When talking to this man, he didn't come to you, you came to him.

  “Comfortable?” she asked finally.

  “Not what I was expecting.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  “Something . . . not quite this nice.” By “nice,” he meant wealthy. They both understood that. “You really work for the state?”

  “I started working with the state police fifteen years ago. My father's a retired Chicago detective, so let's just say I have a personal interest in the field.” She shrugged. “Perhaps I've never changed my rates. Shall I explain to you how this works?”

  “Okay.”

  “I am working for the State Police of Massachusetts, not for you. As such, I have a duty to report back based upon our conversations, which limits the confidentiality of anything you tell me. On the one hand, I never report specific details. On the other hand, I am required to give my conclusions and opinions. Thus, for example, you can tell me you drink three pints of whiskey a night, and while I wouldn't necessarily repeat that, I would have to recommend that you not return to duty. Is that clear to you?”

  “Watch what I say.” He grunted. “Interesting approach.”

  “Honesty is still the best policy,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I'm here to help you, or if we decide that I can't, refer you to someone who can.”

  Bobby just shrugged. “Fine, so what do you want me to tell you?”

  Elizabeth smiled again. Opening with blatant hostility. She would've expected no less. “Let's begin with the basics.” She picked up her clipboard. “Name?”

  “Robert G. Dodge.”

  “What's the G stand for?”

  “Given the limited confidentiality, I'm not saying.”

  “Oooh, that good? Let's see, Geoffrey?”

  “No.”

  “Godfrey?”

  “How the hell?”

  “Let's just say I also don't give out my middle name. Godfrey. Family name?”

  “That's what my father says.”

  “And your parents are?”

  “My father. His name's Larry. Lawrence, actually.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yeah, gone. Left. I was four or five. No, maybe six or seven. I don't know. She left.”

  Elizabeth waited.

  “I don't think marriage to my father was going so well,” Bobby added. He spread his hands as if to say, What can you do? Indeed, at that young age, what could he have done?

  “Siblings?”

  “One. Older. Name's George Chandler Dodge, so yeah, the whole family's cursed with rotten English names. Now, what does this have to do with the shooting?”

  “I don't know. Does it have anything to do with the shooting?”

  Bobby was on his feet. “No. None of that. That's why people don't like shrinks.”

  Elizabeth held up her hands in surrender. “Point taken. Honestly, I'm simply filling in blanks on the form. And for the record, most people like to make a little small talk first.”

  Bobby sat back down. He remained scowling, however, and those keen eyes of his were narrowed, assessing. She wondered how often he used that stare on people and found them wanting. She added to her mental list: Lots of acquaintances but very few friends. Does not forgive. Does not forget.

  And he had lied about his mother's leaving.

  “I'd like to keep this simple,” he said.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Ask what you gotta ask, I'll answer what I gotta answer, and we can both get on with our lives.”

  “Admirable goal.”

  “I'm not thinking of a lifetime plan.”

  “Wouldn't dream of suggesting it to you,” she assured him. “Unfortunately, this isn't single-sitting work.”

  “Why not?”

  “For starters, you didn't make an appointment and we don't have enough time to cover everything in one night.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, I'm going to suggest that we talk a little bit tonight, then meet again on Monday.”

  “Monday.” He had to think about it. “All right,” he begrudged the professional headshrinker. “I can do that.”

  “Perfect. Glad we got that covered.” Her voice sounded drier than she intended, but at least he smiled. He had a decent smile. It softened the hard lines of his face and put bracket lines around his eyes. She was slightly surprised to realize that when he smiled, he was one very handsome man.

  “Maybe instead of talking about last night, we can talk about today,” she said.

  “Today?”

  “Today is the first day of your life after you've shot someone. Surely that's noteworthy. Have you slept?”

  “A little.”

  “Eaten?”

  He had to think about it, then seemed genuinely surprised. “No, I guess I haven't. I went out to fetch coffee when I woke up this afternoon, but then I saw the Boston Herald and . . . I never got the coffee.”

  “Did you pick up the Herald?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Read the article?”

  “Enough.”

  “What'd you think?”

  “Massachusetts State Police officers don't target civilians, not even if they're judges' sons.”

  “Good piece of fiction?”

  “Yeah, based on the three paragraphs I read, I'd agree with that.”

  “You didn't read more? I would've thought you'd be more curious.”

  “About what happened? I don't need some reporter's account, I had box seats.”

  “No. About the victim. About Jimmy Gagnon.”

  That drew him up short. She gave him credit. She'd caught him off guard, but he took the time to consider her point. “Information is a luxury tactical units don't have,” he said finally. “When I pulled the trigger last night, I didn't care about the man's name, his neighborhood, his father, or his history. I didn't know if he beat his dog or gave money to orphanages. All I knew was that the subject had a gun pointed at a woman's head and his finger on the trigger. I had to base my actions on his actions. So I did. Now none of the rest matters anymore, so why torture myself with it?”

  Elizabeth smiled again. She liked Bobby Dodge. She hadn't seen so many layers of denial and rationalization in years, but she liked Bobby Dodge.

  “Exercise?” she asked. “Have you worked out today?”

  “No. I thought about going for a run, but with my photo plastered everyplace . . .”

  “I understand. Okay, this is your assignment for the weekend. You need to start taking care of yourself physically, so you can then tend to yourself emotionally. Is there anyplace you can go, maybe your father's, maybe your brother's, where you can escape and get some rest?”

  “My girlfriend's.”

  “And she's doing okay with this?”

  “I don't know. We haven't exactly had time to chat about it.”

  “Well, given what's happened, you're going to need a good support network, so if I were you, I'd talk to her about it.” Elizabeth leaned
forward. “Last night was a big thing, Bobby. It's going to take more than twenty-four hours for you to wade through it, so first things first. Eat three well-balanced meals a day and try to get a good night's sleep. If you're feeling tense and wired, engage in some light exercise to blow off steam. Be careful, though. There's a fine line between running six miles to help yourself relax and running fifty miles to grind your thoughts into dust. You don't want to cross that line.”

  “I promise not to run more than forty-nine miles,” he said.

  “All right, then. Have a nice weekend.”

  “That's it? Eat, sleep, work out, and I'm cured? I can go back to work next week?”

  “Eat, sleep, work out, and we'll talk more later,” she corrected mildly. “But not tonight; it's too late and maybe it's even too soon for you to know everything that's on your mind. I'm going to give you my phone number. You can call me if you do feel a sudden urge to talk, otherwise I'll see you on Monday. How does three sound?”

  He shrugged. “They won't let me work, so I guess my day's kinda open.”

  “Perfect.” She rose. He rose. He didn't bolt for the door right away, like she thought he might. Instead, he just sort of stood there, looking adrift.

  “Sometimes,” he said abruptly, “sometimes when I think about what happened, I get really angry. Not with myself, but with the subject, for going after his wife and kid. For making me shoot him. Is that weird? To kill a man and hate him for it?”

  “I'd say that reaction falls within the normal category.”

  He nodded, but didn't lose that unsettled look. “Can I ask you another question? A general psychobabble sort of one?”

  “By all means, allow me to babble away.”

  “We get called out for domestic disturbances a lot. Seems three, four times a week I'm standing in someone's yard while the wife yells at the husband or the husband screams at the wife. One thing always strikes me—that we're gonna be back. That no matter how much these people pound on one another, they always stay together. And if you do get a little rough with the boyfriend while you're loading him into the squad car, nine times out of ten, the woman, the same one who called nine-one-one and is wearing the imprint of the guy's fist, will attack us for hurting her man.”