by A. M. Arthur
He had to keep himself focused during his appointments. His patients were important to him and, Price or no Price, he wouldn’t let their care suffer because of his own issues.
His first appointment at twelve thirty had been simple enough. He’d been counseling Laura Golding for three years, and she’d made terrific progress since her first appointment. At twenty years old she had come forward and admitted to her mother that her former stepfather molested her when she was eleven. After an intense first few months, James and Laura only saw each other every two weeks now. She was working on her masters in American History, with the goal of being a college professor one day.
“Are you all right, Dr. Taggert?” she had asked once their time was officially over.
“I’m fine, Laura. Why?” Automated response. He didn’t share personal things with his patients, and he was anything but fine.
“I don’t know, you seem off today. Sad.”
“It’ll pass. I don’t want you worrying about me. You concentrate on that paper you’re writing.”
And that was that.
Fortified by the egg drop soup, he brought in his three o’clock.
Will Madden seemed to shrink a little bit more every time he came to see James, which had been twice a week for the past three months. And there wasn’t much to the kid to start with.
Sixteen and five-foot-nothing, Will had been brought to him by a social worker. Kate Alden had referred clients to him before, often abused teens, because she knew those cases were important to James.
Will’s story had horrified James and, after seven years as a therapist, it took a lot to do that. Will’s mother was an alcoholic who had lived on child support and disability after a slip at her old factory job wrecked her back. The accident left her addicted to painkillers, which turned into a heroin addiction. By the time Will was thirteen, he was fending for himself while his mother spent all of her money on drugs. No one noticed when he dropped out of school midyear.
James had always blamed the school system for that one. How did someone not notice when a thirteen-year-old stopped showing up for class?
Because of her expensive addictions, bills piled up and rent notices started getting pasted to their front door. Just after Will’s fourteenth birthday, his mother had sent him into her bedroom, where a man three times his age was waiting. Will was told to take off his clothes, before he was raped in exchange for an envelope of money. The faces of the men changed, but once, sometimes twice a week, Will was sold by his mother for her drug money.
For two years.
One of the men who’d regularly paid in drugs to rape Will was a dealer named Spax, who’d recently come under the eye of the state police. They’d put a tail on Spax, who had led them to Will’s house. They obtained a warrant to search the house, hoping to find something to force his mother to cooperate. What they found was a strung-out woman, a few grams of heroin and a terrified, abused boy no one remembered existed. After a few days in the hospital, which was where James had met him, he was put into emergency placement.
Will was in hell, and James was struggling to get him back out.
“Come in and have a seat,” James said.
Will didn’t speak, or nod, or even make eye contact. He shuffled over to one of the office’s long sofas and sat down on the corner. He wore his standard uniform of baggy jeans and a sweatshirt, despite the warm spring day. His shaggy brown hair spilled over his eyes, hiding them from view.
James sat on the opposite sofa, giving Will space. He didn’t take notes with Will. Every moment of this case was scorched into his memory. “What did you have for breakfast today, Will?”
One slim shoulder lifted in a shrug. Food was a struggle for him. For years he’d survived on bologna sandwiches and peanut butter, and now eating was more of a chore than a pleasure.
Twice already his foster mother Jennifer had taken him to the hospital for forced treatment.
James had been furious when he heard that Will had endured a feeding tube. He understood the need, but he’d still dressed Jennifer down for doing it without him present. The second time, James was there to talk Will through it. To explain why they were hurting him.
Neither ordeal had convinced Will that real food was a better option.
“Did you have breakfast?” James asked.
“Scrambled eggs.” Will’s voice never went above a whisper. “With pepper.”
“How did you like them?”
“They were okay. Jennifer makes them fluffy somehow. I like pepper.”
“That’s good. How about yesterday? Do you remember what you had for breakfast
yesterday?”
“No.”
“Lunch?”
Will picked at the knee of his jeans. “One of those canned shake things. It was really sweet. Jennifer wouldn’t let me leave the table until I drank the whole thing.”
James didn’t like Jennifer forcing Will to do anything, but a nutrition shake was better than a feeding tube. “How did that make you feel, Will? When she made you do that?”
“Stupid.”
Will’s response to most emotion-based questions was “stupid.” “Why did you feel
stupid?”
“Because I can’t eat unless someone makes me, and that’s so stupid. I’m stupid.”
“You aren’t stupid.”
“Yeah, I am. I am stupid.”
“Why do you believe you’re stupid, Will?”
“Smart people ask for help.”
James heart ached for the absolute desolation in Will’s voice. “Asking for help has nothing to do with intelligence. You were very young, and you were emotionally abused. You didn’t know it was okay to ask for help, or to say no. That doesn’t make you dumb or smart.”
“Then what does it make me?”
“It makes you a victim, but that is nothing to be ashamed of. Your mother violated your trust. She broke an unspoken promise between parent and child to protect you.” All words he’d spoken before, in different variations, and he’d say them again and again until Will finally believed him.
“Victim.” Will spoke with so much scorn that James paid closer attention. He’d gone completely rigid, his back straight, his jaw clenched. Odd.
“You don’t believe that you’re a victim?” he asked cautiously.
“I never said no.”
James went cold all over. Not only at the disgust in Will’s tone but at the conversation switch. Will had never opened up about what had happened with those men. James only had police reports, social worker statements and medical records to go by. Will had never said the word rape or molest or anything else that plainly identified what had happened to him. This was the first time he’d brought it up on his own. James waited, positive that if he spoke up too soon Will would shut back down.
“If you don’t say no, is it still a crime?” Will asked.
“Yes. Yes, it is still a crime. You were only fourteen. Any adult who touches a fourteen-year-old in a sexual way is a criminal. Especially one who pays to do it. Whether or not you ever said no, it doesn’t matter. You did not allow it to happen.”
“I didn’t?”
James swallowed, desperate for a drink of water, but he didn’t dare move. Will was getting angry for the first time, addressing the things done to him in a direct way, and he couldn’t interrupt. “Why do you think you allowed it?”
“Because I didn’t say no!” Will’s voice cracked at the end of the shout. He bolted off the couch and stormed to the far side, where he slapped both open palms against the wall.
James stood, the hair on his neck prickling, ready to intervene if Will started harming himself. He’d seen it far too often when the unacknowledged demons started surfacing.
“He didn’t hit me. He didn’t threaten me. Fuck, all he did was tell me to take off my fucking clothes, so I did. He pushed me down on the fucking bed, and I didn’t fucking move. I just covered my ears so I didn’t have to listen, and I cried like a fucking pussy
because it fucking hurt, and fuck!” Will slapped his palms again, the sound echoing through the office.
James pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the tears stinging his eyes. Took a deep breath, then closed half the distance between them. Tears streamed down Will’s cheeks as he stood facing the wall, braced on his palms. James wanted to offer some sort of comfort, but Will didn’t want anyone to touch him. Even in the hospital, he’d resisted the touch of the doctors and nurses.
“Will, do you think he would have stopped if you’d said no?” James asked.
He looked up then, cheeks flushed, his eyes glistening with tears and anger and grief. His mouth opened and closed, as though he wanted to say yes, the man would have stopped. But that wasn’t how life worked, and Will knew it. Deep down, he knew that saying no wouldn’t have made a difference. Fighting back would have ended in greater physical damage, possibly retaliation from his mother.
Laurie had said no, and it hadn’t made a difference to Stephen Price.
Will shook his head no. “Still should have said it. I didn’t do anything.”
“You survived. You’ve lived through the worst already, and you’re still alive. You’re fighting now, and I’m going to help you keep fighting.”
He sniffed. Wiped his nose on his sweatshirt sleeve. “Why? Why do you care?”
Because my sister was raped when she was thirteen, and she never got the counseling she needed to get through it, and I won’t let you go down her path.
“Because you deserve a future, Will.”
The emotion was fleeting, almost nonexistent, but for one instant, James looked into Will’s eyes and was positive he saw hope.
Nate sipped at his fourth mug of police station coffee, amazed he hadn’t vibrated out of his desk chair yet. They were at least a day away from an official report from the coroner, but an on-site examination of John Doe had led to a probable cause of death. He’d been stabbed through the ear by a long, thin object, directly into the brain. Fast and clean.
The “how” was pretty much answered. Now Nate had to figure out who the victim was, who killed him and why. Prints were being run, but they wouldn’t be useful unless the guy had a record, and he had someone checking John Doe’s photo against recent missing persons reports.
Slow work.
Slow work that kept his mind off James and all of the old, stashed-away feelings that were creeping back out of that box he’d put them in.
“Hey, Wolf.” Detective Wallace Carey stopped by his desk. “I hear you caught a John Doe.”
“Yeah, early twenties, male. Really odd cause of death.”
“Yeah?”
“He was stabbed in the ear.” Nate had requested a few old case files with a similar cause of death, and he had two Google browsers open researching possible weapons.
“Huh. I caught a case like that back in ‘03. Woman used a metal barbecue skewer to kill her cheating husband.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, said she saw it on a TV show.”
“Fucking forensic science television shows. But I doubt the motive is the same.
Something about this death seems impersonal.”
“Why’s that?”
“The man was naked. Bruising on the wrists suggest he was restrained. The body was dumped in an alley and left there to be found. Everything seemed meticulous and planned, rather than some heat of the moment killing.”
Carey nodded along, staring past him as though he was picturing all the puzzle pieces.
“Evidence of sexual assault?”
“No obvious bruising around the genitals, but the bowels had released, so I have to wait for the report.” Nate had already considered the possibility of a sexual encounter gone wrong. Or intentionally gone wrong.
“Good luck with it. Let me know if you need an assist.”
“Thanks, Wally.” Nate was still new enough as a detective not to dismiss advice from the senior detectives. Carey had twenty years of experience as a cop, thirteen of those as a detective.
Nate still had plenty to learn.
His cell began blaring Jim Carrey making an obnoxious noise. James had programmed it into his phone as his personal ringtone last month as a joke, but it amused Nate too much to change it. The call made his heart give a funny twist. “Hey, Jay.”
“You busy?”
“Doing some research for a case I caught today.” He glanced at the time on his computer.
After five. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just needed to hear a friendly voice for a minute.”
“Patient?”
“Yeah.”
James wasn’t immune to the pain and struggles he helped his patients work through. His own family had gone through it, and James still struggled with guilt over what had happened to his little sister. Nate never turned his friend away when he wanted to unload—a habit that still had him uncertain about the meaning behind last night’s unspoken kiss. A kiss that work had helped him forget about for a while, but that jumped back to the forefront whenever James was once again the center of his attention.
“It’s this one kid,” James said after a moment’s pause. “He’s been through hell. I mean real hell. He breaks my heart.”
He knew James couldn’t say much more about the case without breaking confidentiality.
“I’m sorry, bro.”
“Yeah.”
“So how’s the hangover?”
“Under control now.”
“You eat?”
“Gina got me some soup.”
“Thank God for Gina, or you’d never eat.”
“Fuck you, Wolf. I can cook just fine.”
“Only you don’t, because you’re lazy.”
“True.”
Nate tapped his fingers on his desk blotter, enjoying this ease and familiarity. Grateful it still existed. “You gonna go visit Elliott this weekend?”
A pause. “I should. I talked to him a few days ago. No change with Doug.”
“Right. Let me know when you go. If I’m not working, I may go with you.”
“Will do. Later.”
Nate put his phone down, then stared at the stack of case files on his desk. Burglary, assault, murder, another assault.
Sometimes his job really sucked.
Chapter Four
His mother called his cell right as James was locking the outer office door. He considered ignoring the call, because he was in no mood to listen to her crying again, but he wasn’t that big of a bastard.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Oh, Jimmy, honey.” And then she was sobbing. Sounded like a good, ugly cry too.
He let it play out in his ear while he walked to the parking garage across the street. Grace Taggert suffered from severe depression, and while she took medication, sometimes it simply didn’t help. She was the type of patient who drove him insane—refused to admit to her illness, refused to do anything other than toss drugs at her mood swings. James used medications, but he preferred combining them with in-person therapy sessions that identified and examined emotional triggers. He knew what his mother’s were, but she didn’t want to discuss them.
He switched to Bluetooth once he was in the car. Two minutes down the road, she finally settled.
“I was thinking of making pork chops for dinner,” Mom said. Apropos of nothing.
“Okay.”
“Will you come over, honey?”
Shit. He should have expected this, and he had zero desire to go over there while she was like this. His mother wasn’t self-destructive in her depression, so he never worried she would do something drastic. She simply cried and mourned her daughter and her failed relationships and her son who never came to visit even though he saw her every other week. James being there would change nothing, and he’d only feel worse for the hours spent in her miserable company.
“I can’t tonight, Mom, I’m sorry.” Think fast, asshole. “I promised Elliott I’d stop by the hospital.”
“Oh, of course. How’s
Doug?”
“No change.” And no one expected there to be any change.
“You give Elliott my love, all right?”
“I will.”
“I love you, honey.”
“Love you too.”
He went up two streets, then made a left, altering his direction to take him to Saint Francis Hospital, instead of home. He considered calling Nathan back, since he’d asked to go when James visited, but they’d talked less than twenty minutes ago. Nathan would be at work for hours yet, if he caught a new case today.
As much as he’d like the company, if only for the simple fact that he hated hospitals, he could do this alone.
He’d first met Elliott Quinn when they both worked for his mentor, Carl Abbott. Elliott had been a temp office assistant filling in for someone on maternity leave, and they’d clicked right away. Elliott was outgoing, spirited without being obnoxious and comfortable in his own skin. Four days into their acquaintance, James nailed him in the copy room before lunch. They started fucking somewhat regularly for a few weeks, until Elliott got clingy.
James had called it off, and Elliott was self-confident enough to call him an asshole, and then still be his friend. And they’d stayed good friends for the past five years, hanging out on weekends, partying together. Planning awful surprise birthday parties for each of their mutual friends as they turned thirty, including Nathan.
Nathan’s party had included tequila, pasties and a surprise appearance by Boxer’s drag queen friend Lenore Lestat.
A little over two years ago, Elliott had met and fallen in love with Doug Swanson. Doug was a store manager for a retail importer and very close to his family, which was something Elliott, who’d been disowned by his, had adored. And he was good to Elliott, so they integrated Doug into their circle. They were happy together. They moved into their own apartment, got a cat they named Alexander von Schtump because it didn’t have a tail, and this past Valentine’s Day, Doug had proposed. Elliott said yes.
Three weeks ago, during a spring thunderstorm, Doug’s car had spun off the road on I-95
and went through the guardrail. The doctors at Saint Francis declared him brain-dead. He’d never wake up, never talk or smile or open his eyes. Elliott had been devastated. He’d refused to leave the hospital at all those first few days, even after Doug’s mother arrived. Elliott didn’t have legal power of attorney, so letting Doug go was Claire’s decision.