The Unforgivable Fix

by T. E. Woods

  “She’s scared,” he continued. “And torn. She wants desperately to protect her parents. Both of them. As you heard on the tape, she talks about how happy her mother is. It’s clear she’s worried about what these allegations will do to her mother’s marriage. At the same time she’s grateful her father stepped in and stopped what Emma says her stepfather is doing. When she speaks of her father, she talks about wanting to make sure she gets to keep her time with him. It’s clear she’s a little girl who loves both mommy and daddy very much. She’ll want to please them both, of course. As all kids do.”

  Lydia nodded. She’d picked up the same sense from listening to the recording of their session together. So far Zach’s insights were spot-on.

  “And when she describes the abuse by her stepfather, what’s your read there?”

  Again Zach deliberated before speaking. Lydia couldn’t help but think he’d make an excellent witness should this case come to trial. “She recognizes the authority he has over her, both as her mother’s husband and simply by the type of guy he is. The big house, the trips, the standing in the community. Emma may be innocent, but she’s extremely bright. She’s confused. On the one hand she’s terrified by his actions, yet she’s grown to love him, as odd as that may sound.”

  Lydia knew too well the different types of abuse. In some ways violent rape was easier for the victim to come to terms with, despite its horror. Wrong place, wrong time. But intentional sexual abuse was more insidious. The good-guy grooming. The insistence that what they were doing was special and needed to be kept their own little secret. The reality that abusers were often loving and generous in other interactions with their victims. They all converged to keep the victim off-kilter, feeling somehow responsible. Not only for the abuse itself, but even for protecting their own rapists.

  “Your thoughts for therapy?” Lydia asked.

  “Oh, she’ll need some.” Zach sounded confident. “You heard her. She’s blaming herself. She feels different. Dirty. Isolated from other kids her age. She feels she can’t go to her mom and she was embarrassed to go to her dad. Even when Emma reports she’s glad her dad took action, she’s scared he’s going to do something that will get him in trouble, and she’d be responsible for that. And in some sad and innocent way she even wants to make sure her stepfather comes out of this okay. Her idea of self has been fractured. Her notion of agency is shattered. She feels helpless. The pain mounts in her, she’s convinced nothing and no one can help. Add to that, she feels weighted with responsibility that is not hers. She starts to see herself as wicked. All that torment turns inward. She lashes out at the one constant she sees in all this: herself.” Zach’s face was solemn. “So she reaches for a knife, or a razor, or a box cutter. She starts to wale away at the one evil person she can clearly identify. From there it’s biochemical. She feels a release from her agony. For a while. Then she’s shamed and feels guilty about cutting. Her agony is then multiplied. She keeps cutting because her pain keeps growing and it’s the only thing that eases it, if only for a moment. It’s a bitter cycle that always escalates.”

  Zach had conceptualized Emma’s case with the wisdom of a well-experienced clinician.

  “What about the bottom line, Zach?”

  He looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  Lydia tapped her pen against her desk.

  “You used words like ‘allege’ and ‘what Emma says happened.’ You’ve spent time with her. Got a sense of what she’s about. Kenton Walder is a well-respected man in this town. He’s showing every indication that he cares deeply for his stepdaughter. And he denies these actions categorically.”

  Zach nodded. “I read the papers, Dr. Corriger.”

  Lydia trusted her own instincts enough to form her own opinion about Will Sorens’s sincerity. He believed his daughter. But Kenton Walder was a man of considerable means, both financially and politically. Lydia would need more than her trust of Will Sorens to move forward. She needed to know what Zach thought. “What’s your take? Do you believe her?”

  Zach stuck with his habit of thinking before he spoke. He fully understood the gravity of what he was about to say.

  “Yes, Dr. Corriger. I believe Emma. I have no doubt at all that she’s been victimized and betrayed by her stepfather.”

  His words were hesitant. Lydia watched him for a moment. “There’s something else you want to say.”

  Zach nodded reluctantly. “Kenton Walder is going to get away with it.”

  Chapter 12

  OLYMPIA

  Lydia set the brown box next to the cage. “How you doing, little guy?”

  The small owl peered down from his perch and focused his golden eyes on Lydia’s hands. You’re a smart one, that’s for sure. Only three days and you already know food comes from these fingers. She looked at his neck. She’d studied what the Internet had to offer regarding treating wild birds. His gash appeared to be mending. She hoped his wing would do the same. She opened the cage and reached toward him. The owl’s screech caused her to immediately withdraw.

  “Now there’s a sign of healing if ever I heard one.” She closed the cage door. “You sound strong as an ox.” Lydia pulled a ruler from her desk drawer and approached the side of the cage. The owl sidled several inches away and kept his focus on her.

  Lydia slid the ruler between the thin silver bars of the cage. The owl recoiled as far as he could against the branch of pine she’d placed inside, yet remained steadfast on the perch. She maneuvered the ruler closer, gently touching the wounded wing.

  The tiny owl screeched again and glared in defiance. But Lydia got what she wanted. The bird flexed. His left wing unfurled in challenge. His right wing twitched.

  “Good job,” Lydia crooned. She pulled the ruler back and waited several seconds. “Can we try that again?” Once more she slid the ruler in close enough to touch the owl’s right wing. Again the bird responded, but this time his limp wing climbed perceptibly higher. Lydia repeated the action three more times, each effort resulting in a stronger wail of rebellion, with the injured wing lifted higher.

  She withdrew the ruler and returned it to her desk. “That’s enough physical therapy for now, little guy. What’s it going to take to get you off that perch? Fear will cripple you worse than that hawk ever could.”

  The owl screeched again, but softer this time, more plea than warning. He looked again at Lydia’s hands.

  She smiled. “Oh, no, buddy. My days of serving you are over.” She reached for the brown box, opened the cage door, and shook a field mouse into the sawdust and pine needles lining the cage’s floor. “If you want to eat, you’re going to have to get off that comfy spot and feed yourself.” She closed the door, stepped back, leaned against her desk, and waited.

  The owl tracked the mouse’s frantic scurry through twigs and dust. Twice the bird looked up to Lydia, as if urging her to bring the creature to him.

  “You get hungry enough, you’ll do what you need to.”

  The owl inched across and back on his perch. He hopped several times, as though summoning his courage to leap down and grab his dinner. Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, the owl let loose a piercing wail, unfurled his left wing while his right one jerked in tandem, plunged toward the mouse, and grabbed it in its talons. With one sharp dive of its beak, the bird snapped the mouse’s neck and dragged the limp creature to the far corner of the cage.

  Lydia watched the owl eat. A calm settled over her, followed by a mounting sense of strength and certainty she realized she hadn’t felt in a long while. She focused on the bird pulling the muscle free from the mouse’s bones.

  We’re alike, you and I. No wound or cage can stop us. It’s in our nature to kill.

  Chapter 13

  BARBADOS

  “Cissy?” Patrick Duncan startled the maid as she swept the kitchen floor. “Where’s Olwen? We’re scheduled at the stables for a six o’clock ride.”

  “I haven’t seen her since around ten.” Cissy kept her eyes averted when
she spoke to her employer. “She rested in the sun after breakfast then left in her car. Told me not to worry about lunch.”

  “Did she say she was meeting someone? Or when she’d be back?”

  “No, sir.” Cissy held her broom against her chest.

  Patrick looked at the clock. Five fifteen. It wasn’t like Olwen to be unavailable when he wanted her. A whiff of concern teased his mind. He went into the living room and called her cell. His stomach tightened when the sonic ping Olwen had chosen as her distinct ring tone sounded from the balcony. He closed his phone, went to Olwen’s, and scanned through the history of her recent calls. There wasn’t one number he didn’t recognize, either received or sent. He reviewed her texts. The last one she received was from her favorite spa in Bridgetown, reminding her of tomorrow’s facial appointment. Patrick could see Olwen had responded with a cheery assurance she’d be there.

  He called the hotel’s concierge. No, Mr. Duncan. We haven’t seen your lovely companion today. So sorry. He called her hairstylist. Sorry, Patrick. Haven’t seen her. She’s due in next week for a trim, though. He called her personal shopper. Thank you for calling, Mr. Duncan. Olwen had a two thirty fitting for the Stella McCartney dress. She never showed. She has to select handbags and shoes. Tell her to call me. He called her trainer, her manicurist, and her yoga instructor. None had expected or heard from her. His concern turned to panic.

  Tokarev! The name screamed through his skull. The Russian would have received his special-delivery package and would have no other option than to respond in kind. But there was no way the Russian could have gotten his people to the island this quickly. Patrick wanted to speak with Olwen tonight about his plan to keep the two of them safe until he could kill Tokarev with his own hands.

  Patrick flashed to the orchestrated raids in Brighton and Atlanta. To the ruble coins deliberately placed in a confident dare. Could the Russian already have men on the island? Was Tokarev’s plan to overtake Patrick’s organization already so far under way that he had operatives ready to respond when the hands of his whore were delivered to his Moscow doorstep?

  Patrick’s panic morphed quickly to anger and in a heartbeat climbed to rage. Tokarev had come for Olwen. He’d taken her. Patrick’s mind burned with images of what the Russian could have done with his beautiful Olwen by now. He thought of her perfect face, the hands that could tease him to heights of desire he’d never before experienced, the body that could at once satiate him and leave him perpetually hungry for more.

  My poor Olwen. You’ve never wanted anything but to please me. Revenge coursed through his veins. Retribution pulled at every muscle. He would find her. He would reclaim her. He would spend the rest of his life either tending to her scars or weeping at her grave.

  And Tokarev would beg for death before Patrick was finished.

  Patrick placed his palms against the limestone wall of the terrace, leaned forward, and pushed. He breathed away the irrational rage demanding action and channeled his fury into focused purpose. Olwen taught me this. When he was calm enough to speak he called his lieutenants. He was relieved they all answered. Tokarev had not yet mounted a full assault on his troops. They’d meet in twenty minutes. He’d inform them of the looming threat to their organization and the action the Russian had taken against Olwen. They’d organize a plan. Patrick would have her back by midnight.

  Then he’d go after Tokarev.

  Patrick went to the bedroom he shared with his beloved. He inhaled deeply and caught her favorite scent hanging in the air as he crossed to the safe mounted behind the long row of suits hanging in his closet. He keyed in a code and ran his hand over stacks of neatly bound US hundred-dollar bills. He grabbed six bundles and tossed them on the bed. His troops needed bribe money to hit the streets and loosen tongues about Tokarev’s activities. He grabbed six more. He would offer them as a reward to the man who brought back Olwen. He was about to close the safe when his eye registered something missing. He used both hands to shove aside stacks of cash in various currencies. He opened sliding drawers and rifled through Olwen’s rings and necklaces and bracelets.

  It wasn’t there.

  Patrick marched across the bedroom to her closet. He shoved aside a rack of haute couture and opened Olwen’s safe. The code was his birthday. He warned her it was predictable, but she was too trusting to change it. Patrick found the small stack of money he supplied her with for her daily expenses. The handgun he’d given her their first year together was there. He pulled open a drawer and saw the newspaper clippings of her father’s police cases, as well as her mother’s obituary and several reviews of her brother’s book. He ran his hands through the various papers and wondered, as he always did, why they were so important to her they were always the first thing she packed whenever they relocated.

  What he was looking for wasn’t there.

  He slammed the safe shut and turned to examine the closet. Rows of shoes, handbags, and scarves were undisturbed. Racks of designer dresses, slacks, blouses, and coats were just as they were yesterday.

  Patrick’s chest heaved as he tried to determine what this meant. The sound of his front doorbell pulled him away. His men were here.

  The war with Russia would begin.

  And Olwen’s passport was gone.

  Chapter 14

  OLYMPIA

  “Vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit.” The young man collapsed back against the sofa and gulped in air. “I did it.”

  Lydia picked up the twenty marbles from the bowl sitting on the coffee table that separated them. He’d deposited one marble each time he said the word. “Now, what’s your anxiety level? Use our old friend zero to ten.”

  “I’d say an eight.” Tim Jenkins had had his first visit with Lydia the day before. He was nineteen and living away from home for the first time. Several of the kids on his dorm floor had organized a ski trip to Snoqualmie over Thanksgiving break and Jessica Banner, the cute blonde two rooms down from Tim, had made it a point to invite him along. Despite never having skied in his life, the very notion of three days with Jessica inspired him to plop down his nonrefundable deposit immediately. There was only one problem. Snoqualmie was a three-hour bus ride away and Tim was phobic about long rides. At his intake, he described the elaborate machinations he’d gone through to survive high school without ever getting into a car with his friends. Lydia questioned him further and Tim admitted it was his loathsome fear of vomiting, and anything associated with it, that shrunk his world. Despite the fact he’d never been carsick, he avoided long rides unless his parents, who understood his dread of nausea and assured him they’d pull over whenever he wanted, were driving. The thought of being in a bus with twenty fellow students had him paralyzed with fear. What if he got sick? Surely some of the students would be drinking. What if one of them overindulged and vomited in front of him? He was certain he’d dissolve into a quivering mass of panic. Tim had never been to a psychologist before, but the vision of Jessica Banner in a hot tub after a long day on the slopes was enough for him to stand up to his fears. He told Lydia he had only four weeks to overcome a lifetime of dread and was ready to do whatever it took.

  Lydia rattled the twenty marbles in her hand. “Ten minutes ago you were green as a frog and soaked in sweat just from me explaining what we were going to do. Now here you are, already down to an eight and living to tell the tale.”

  Tim continued to pant. “Hurts like hell.”

  “I told you it would. But the more you do it, the less it’s going to.” She held out the marbles.

  “Again?” His eyes were wide. “Right away?”

  “Again. Right away.”

  He hesitated.

  “Jessica, Jessica, Jessica, Jessica, Jessica,” Lydia said.

  Tim heaved a sigh and shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Want me to ask what you’d like to do with Jessica in that hot tub?” Lydia rattled the marbles.
“I would expect full details.”

  Tim shook his head again and pulled his lanky body forward. He held out his hands and Lydia poured the marbles in. He looked at her, took a cleansing breath, and began his recitation anew, dropping a marble back into the dish each time he said the word. When he was finished, he gave Lydia a sidelong glare.

  “What’s your anxiety level?” she asked.

  Tim reached for a Kleenex and wiped his palms. “I’d say a four or five maybe.”

  “And look at your body. Still leaning forward. Hands relaxed in front of you. Not gulping for breath. You’ve cut your anxiety in half. What do you make of that?”

  Tim’s smile was wide and slow. “Maybe it’s working.”

  “Of course it is.” Lydia loved the role of cheerleader for hardworking patients. “And it’s going to be working even better by the end of this hour.”

  Tim’s smile disappeared. “We’re going to do this again?”

  Lydia nodded. “And again and again. Till we run out of time. Then you’re going to take these marbles home and do the same thing five times a day every day until your brain is absolutely, totally, and unquestionably bored with this whole damned thing.”

  He seemed unsure. A moment later he picked up the marbles and called out his fearsome word twenty more times. Then twenty more. Then again, but this time he threw in synonyms as he tossed in each marble. “Puke, hurl, barf…” By the end of the session he reported his anxiety over the word was at a zero.

  “We’re seeing each other in two days. Don’t forget your homework.” Lydia stood and stepped to the door. “And you have another piece of homework, too.”

  “You’re turning into another full-time class, Doc.” Tim pulled himself up out of the sofa. At six four, he towered over Lydia. “What else?”

  “I want you to go on YouTube. Use vomit as your search word. Watch at least five videos a day of somebody throwing up. Pay attention to your anxiety number. Watch it go down.”