Ethan had been putting this conversation off for too long already, he knew, but still his fingers hovered over the numbers and wouldn’t make the connection. It had never been easy to deceive Arthur Claussen. The man was good at what he did for a living, and he’d been doing it since Ethan was in kindergarten.
Ethan was going to find it difficult enough to lie about his reasons for being out of town and away from his practice for an unknown stretch of time. He seldom took time off for himself and never at short notice. Claussen would insist on an explanation.
But if Asia’s name came up in the conversation, dissembling was going to take on a whole new dimension. Much as he admired him, even loved him, in a way, Ethan knew the blunt curmudgeon was uncompromising to the point of rigidity about some things. Especially the particular point of ethics that required a professional distance between doctor and patient.
Like most psychiatrists, Claussen saw that point as a law written in stone. Ethan had already taken a hammer and smashed it into bits—and would gladly do it again for Asia’s sake. There was no going back for him, no matter what the cost. He simply didn’t want to fight that noble battle tonight on a cell phone with low batteries from a hotel room in Middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, after a long day being chased by a Still Unknown Menace.
God, he was tired.
He took a deep breath and tried not to think of Asia enjoying a hot bath in the next room. Then he pressed the keypad for Claussen’s number. After two rings, the old man picked up.
“Ethan, my boy, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for days!”
“Really? I was afraid you might say that. I’m sorry, I’ve been out of town, and I’ve had a hell of a time getting cell service.” It was his first lie. His expensive iPhone lay crushed and abandoned in a dumpster in Marlinton. “How are you?”
“Fine. Just fine. More to the point, how are you?”
“Well, actually, it’s been a rough week. I got a phone call over the weekend that a former patient of mine had died. Do you remember Ida Mickens?”
“Mickens. The woman from West Virginia? She lived at your friend’s house for a while. You didn’t have much success with her as I remember.”
Yes, thank you, Arthur, for finding a way both to chastise me for getting too close and remind me that I failed to help in the same sentence. “Yes. She passed away this weekend.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Claussen’s voice was not overly sympathetic. “You went to the funeral?”
“Yes. The family has asked me to stay on and help take care of a few of her affairs. She had some papers and so on, related to the delusions she suffered. I thought they might make an interesting case study. The family has given me time to go through everything before they get rid of her stuff.”
“Ethan, you are always too quick to get involved with your patients, as I’ve told you more than once.” There was a pause. “But in this instance, perhaps it will finally pay off. Let’s hope it leads to something productive. How long will you be out of town?”
“I’m not sure. No more than a few days, I hope.”
“Do you need help with your patient schedule?”
“No, thanks. I’ve already called everyone for the next few days and rescheduled.”
“You could have called me. I would have had Marilyn call them for you, especially if you were having trouble with your cell.”
Damn it! “I didn’t think of that. I canceled the early part of the week before I left. Then tonight as soon as I could get reception, I called Cindy to take care of it. I had to take my new phone all the way up to the next ridge to get a signal.” He laughed with what he hoped was convincing exasperation.
“Where exactly are you in West Virginia, Ethan?”
Asia chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom, her skin rosy and glistening with moisture, her breasts and the top of her thighs just covered by the towel she’d wrapped around her. She’d piled her hair on top of her head to keep it out of the bath—he’d never seen it like that before; it was sexy as hell—and her neck formed a long, smooth, curving line down to her bare shoulder that he longed to follow with his lips. She caught him staring at her and smiled.
“Ethan?”
“Oh, sorry. I—uh—I lost you for a moment there. What did you say?”
“Where are you again?”
“A place called Clay Fork, near Bluefield. But don’t bother looking on a map. You won’t find it.”
“You have an uncommon taste for adventure.” A taste it was clear Claussen did not share.
“They’re good people here, Arthur. They needed my help. I was glad to provide it.”
“Of course. Just don’t forget there are those who need you here. By the way, are you making any progress with that girl I sent you?”
Any hope that he might escape the conversation unscathed slipped from his heart. “Which girl is that?”
“Come now, Ethan. Do I send you so many you can’t keep track?”
“She has a name, then, Arthur. Let’s use that.” He couldn’t keep a note of irritation from souring his voice. He turned formal. “You saw my last summary, I believe.”
“That was, what? Three weeks ago? Nothing to report since then?”
Ethan took a breath. “In fact we’ve made the decision to terminate therapy. Asia no longer exhibits any of the symptoms that brought her to me. She’s sleeping well, she no longer drinks to excess or uses drugs. She has accommodated her grief. She seems relatively happy and well-adjusted. Neither she nor I saw any reason to continue therapy.” Just don’t ask me where she is right now.
“Indeed.” There was ice in Claussen’s tone. “And you didn’t see fit to consult me before you made this decision?”
He reacted before the warning buzz in the back of his head could stop him. “She was my patient, Arthur. The decision seemed unambiguous.”
“It may have seemed so only because of your relative inexperience, Doctor. From my work with Asia Burdette, I find it very difficult to believe you’ve ‘miraculously’ cured her in so little time. What about the unusual nightmares you mentioned?”
Anger flared at the old man’s insult. Ethan held on to it behind clenched teeth.
“She no longer has them.” He refused to elaborate.
“Really.” Claussen’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “And you don’t find that strange?”
“It is the point of the AL protocol, isn’t it?”
“Of course. Yet your reports up to three weeks ago made it seem that Asia was unusually resistant to the AL protocol. What do you suppose changed?”
Ethan felt his mind moving at the pace of a clumsy puppy trying to escape a pit bull’s jaws. A step ahead he spied a tiny hole in the fence.
“I can only assume the course of therapy was different for this patient because of the trauma she suffered. After all, we both know Asia is not our typical AL patient. In the end, as you suggested, I believe she actually responded more to standard talk therapy.”
There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. “A fascinating theory, Dr. Roberts. It’s your contention, then, that this is a standard case of trauma-induced amnesia?”
“Yes.” He hardly thought it would help him deflect Claussen if he said Asia had been abducted by aliens. He forced himself to use a more conciliatory tone. “And I apologize, Arthur. I know you have a special interest in this case. I just haven’t had time to write up the results.”
The old man seemed to accept the apology. “I’ll be very interested to read your report. You will have it to me soon?”
“Of course. As soon as I get back.”
“I look forward to it. Good night, Ethan.”
Ethan snapped the phone shut, closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headboard in relief. Asia, dressed for bed now, came across the mattress to his side, molded herself to him, drew a warm hand across his chest, pressed soft lips to his neck.
“The old man wasn’t happy, huh?”
>
He exhaled. “I think he misses you in group.”
She laughed, easing the tight grip of fear in his chest. “Maybe I’ll go back for a visit. That’ll learn him.”
He captured her hand with his, turned his head to catch her lips with his kiss. He took his time with it, letting his tongue play lightly with hers for a long, sweet moment. He had no plans to take things further tonight, though his cock was ever ready to write checks his body could not pay. He was exhausted, an exhaustion he could read in Asia’s body, too. It just felt so damn good to hold her. He took a deep breath.
“You smell good.” That tang of far-off deserts over the sweetness of honey.
“Umm.” Her eyes were already closing.
He brought the covers up around her and watched while she drifted off, knowing he wouldn’t be far behind. His conversation with Claussen nagged at him. The old man was far too involved in this case; he’d been too damn pissed off to hear they’d terminated therapy.
A tiny shiver of apprehension snaked up his spine. Ethan shrugged at it, trying in vain to dislodge it. In the end, he was just too tired to think things through. He could analyze the problem tomorrow when his mind was fresh.
He turned out the light and slipped under the covers with Asia. Poised on the edge of sleep, he smiled with pleasure at the warmth of her body next to his, the warmth of his heart expanding in his chest, the warmth of his future with her in it.
But a lingering question blew an icy breath across his mind as he dropped off: Claussen had been expecting something out of Asia’s sessions. What was it?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Fall had only just begun to make an impact on the slopes of the lower Appalachians. When we’d started out in West Virginia, the leaves had only a blush of color. Here in the Adirondacks of New York, they were blazing. Everywhere I looked, the hillsides were splashed in maple leaf red and birch yellow and every shade of orange in between. Only the firs and the tall white pines remained unchanged to hold the promise of spring.
We had gotten a late start, and Ethan had chosen a two-lane route from Binghamton, north through Utica. So it was late afternoon when we passed the boundaries of New York’s Adirondack Park. The autumn scenery grew even more awe-inspiring. The lakes of the Fulton Chain gleamed blue and untroubled through the trees to our right, reflecting the last of the afternoon’s sunlight. In contrast, the tacky “housekeeping cottages” and motels along Route 28 could have been lifted off of a postcard from the 1950s and were full of leaf-peeping tourists.
We turned left just outside the town of Eagle Bay, following the signs for Big Moose. But long before we reached another town, Ethan gave me a quick grin and took an unmarked road off to the right. “Almost there.” His face was as lit with excitement as a kid’s at the circus. He was coming home. My heart melted.
The road led us past several driveways cut into the thick forest. I looked hard, but I couldn’t see the water, even though Ethan assured me the road was taking us around the lake’s southern perimeter. Signs along the road announced private roads to camps with names like Richard’s Retreat and Carter’s Cove. Through the trees I could glimpse a few of them—massive log structures with the lake shining beyond or smaller cottages with a boathouse below. Unlike the highway we’d left behind, this quiet expanse breathed old money, and it was becoming more and more clear to me that Ethan had come from that world, whether he’d fully admit it or not.
He pointed to a driveway on the left. “We’re here.”
He pulled in and started down the steep gravel drive. On either side trees grew close to the gravel’s edge, forcing Ethan to take the drive slowly. A couple of fallen evergreens nearly blocked the way. “I’ll have to get the chain saw after those.” Ethan wrestled Baby to maneuver around them. “Looks like we might have had a storm recently.”
We emerged into a limited parking area in front of a large, dark-green clapboard house. Broad covered porches framed the house on two sides and overlooked the lake. A dappled patch of lawn dropped swiftly down a sharp slope to the lake, ending in a brief pebbly beach. A boathouse crowded the water to one side, painted to match the house. Tall trees leaned into the cleared space, the hundred-year-old oaks and the beeches in their fall finery interspersed with dark firs and cedars. The woods grew so thickly they blocked all sight of the neighbors on either side.
I parked the car, got out, and gazed at the place in open-mouthed awe. “Ethan, it’s gorgeous.”
He smiled and held out a hand. “Let me show you the lake before it gets dark.”
He led me down to the water’s edge as the sun was going down behind the trees, thin shafts of light finding their way like fingers out over the water. It was still, and quiet except for the steady trill of crickets and far out across the lake the weird warbling call of—
“What the hell is that?”
Ethan laughed. “A loon. Never heard one?”
“Television doesn’t do it justice.” The air coming in off the lake was beyond chilly; even in my sweater and jacket I shivered.
Ethan put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close. “Better?”
I snaked one arm around his back and snuggled closer. “Oh, yeah.”
We watched as the shadows lengthened and the mist settled across the water. On the other shore, the barely rippling surface reflected back the brilliant colors of the hardwoods and evergreens around the lake and on the slope of the mountain behind it. Here and there along the shore a boathouse or a stretch of beach leading down to the water betrayed the presence of a camp. At this hour, or at this time of year, maybe, there were no boats—and no other humans—to spoil the serenity of the lake.
“You know, this lake is famous,” Ethan said. “Sort of.”
I searched my memory banks. “Okay, I give up. Why’s that?”
“A woman named Grace Brown was murdered up here in the early 1900s. Theodore Dreiser wrote a novel based on the story.”
“An American Tragedy.”
He looked at me in astonishment.
I shrugged. “I minored in English while I was in college. Saw the movie, too.”
“Movie?”
“A Place in the Sun, with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor? I think Shelly Winters got the old heave-ho.” I looked out at the smooth, cold water and shivered. “This is the place, huh? It’s actually a little creepy, now that I think about it.”
He held me tighter, and I was suddenly grateful for his warmth, his nearness, his protection.
After a minute, I spoke again. “You spent summers up here?”
“No, usually we just got a couple of weeks. The rest of the summer I was stuck in Syracuse doing day camp at the YMCA. Some years I got lucky, and I stayed on with my cousins.”
“You must have loved it.”
“I thought it was heaven.” He smiled as he looked across the water. Then he looked back at me and turned so we were face to face. “Now I’m sure.”
He drew my lips toward his, and I smiled beneath his kiss, meeting his tongue with mine as he slipped inside my mouth. I teased and toyed with him for a long moment before he withdrew.
He stroked my cheek. “Come on, we’d better unload the car and get settled while we still have some daylight.”
I didn’t want to, but I let him go. For once I felt like there would be time to finish what we’d started. I took a deep breath of pine-scented air and followed him back to the house.
Inside the huge, rambling lake house Ethan euphemistically referred to as the “camp,” my sense of having been caught in some kind of time warp intensified. The high-ceilinged central room was wrapped in deep-silled windows looking out on the lake and paneled everywhere else in thick pine. The air inside was as frigid as that outside—Ethan explained that the house wasn’t winterized—but the place was warm with family memory. Photos on the walls and every surface, some of them nearly as old as the camp itself, showed smiling faces in groups of four or ten or twenty. The rest of the décor looked like an L.
L. Bean catalog. I was in love.
I volunteered to set up the kitchen and make dinner while Ethan unloaded the gear and brought in wood for the fireplace and wood stove that served the center of the house. He sweated and hauled while I banged pots and pans. Before long the fires were bringing the temperature up from bone-chilling to cozy and the smell of the Burdette family recipe for pasta sauce was mixing enticingly with the tang of wood smoke.
Ethan brought in the last of our things from the car and dropped them behind the sofa that faced the fireplace. Then he pulled out the sofa bed and threw the new sleeping bags we’d bought in Marlinton over the thin mattress, added a couple of pillows and stood back to admire his work.
I cocked my head at him. “I take it this is also the master bedroom?”
He grinned at me. “There are lots of real bedrooms off of this one, but no heat. We’ll be warmer in here. And the bathroom around that corner has an electric heater, so you should be nice and toasty all night long, even if you have to visit the facilities in the middle of the night.”
“That’s very thoughtful, hon.” I was teasing, but I appreciated it all the same.
He came behind the breakfast counter to the kitchen sink to wash up. After he dried his hands he caught me from behind as I stirred the sauce on the stove and nuzzled my neck.
“I’m starving. When’s dinner?”
“Now soon enough for you?”
“Perfect.”
“Open that bottle of wine, then, and I’ll dish this up.”
We ate side by side at the counter, so close our knees were nearly touching, taking the time to ask each other the things we hadn’t had time for until now—the silly little things, the important things.
We were lingering over our wine when Ethan got up to throw an extra log on the fire. “The fireplace was built when the camp was built in the ’20s.” He stirred the embers into flame. “Doesn’t give off much heat except up close. The wood stove is the real heat source.” He grinned up at me. “In case you were wondering.”
“In fact, I was just going to ask.” Must be a guy thing. “Yesterday you said your sister was out of the country. Where is she?”
Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1) Page 23