Poison

by Jordyn Redwood

  Donnely paused, a little longer than Lee liked. “Never assumed that.”

  “To me, the concept is counterintuitive.”

  “Usually people with a deep-seated fear will say that.”

  Lee fingered the cases as he walked by. Did the maneuver convince the doctor he was comfortable? He lingered, his nose close to a case. Pain replaced tension as it crawled into his mid chest, spreading into his shoulders.

  There it sat.

  Loxosceles reclusa.

  The brown recluse.

  The fiddleback spider.

  His scar burned at the sight.

  Donnely came beside him, took the case from the wall, and opened the top. He tapped his index finger against the spider’s web. The creature spun at the vibration of the silk threads. “Facing our fears is the best way to overcome them. Do you have any fears, Captain?”

  His gaze pinned Lee like a bug to foam board. “Not many.” Lee turned and eyed him evenly. “You?”

  Donnely shrugged his shoulders and placed the fiddler’s case back on the shelf. “Perhaps. But all of this is not really why you’re here. Perhaps we should join your partner.”

  The tension leached from Lee’s body with his foe imprisoned and back in its proper place.

  At least one of them was.

  They entered the main office. Donnely motioned them to sit in the overstuffed, posh leather seats.

  Lee watched the fine doctor closely. “First of all, we’re so sorry about Dr. Freeman. This news must be very upsetting.”

  “Yes, it’s strange not to hear from her for three days. Very unlike her not to show up for work.”

  Lee opened his mouth to speak, but Nathan gave a slight shake of his head to stop him. He assumed Nathan had told Donnely about the murder. How could he not know? Did he not watch the news? “She’s not been here for three days?”

  “Well, Monday. She didn’t show up for work.” Donnely’s eyes widened slightly, sensing he’d made his presence known at the edge of a web Nathan built. “Her patients were quite distressed.”

  Lee tapped his thumb against the leather. “I’m sure it will be hard for everyone to learn of her death.”

  The ticking clock marked off the seconds. A full thirty passed. They waited for the doctor to speak.

  “She’s dead?”

  “Murdered, actually,” Nathan offered.

  Lee stepped in. “I’m surprised you don’t know this. It’s been heavily reported in the news.”

  “When was she killed?”

  “Monday.”

  “Well, before you pin me as a suspect . . .”

  “Why would we do that?” Lee asked.

  “Let me explain. Dr. Freeman—”

  “You seem to address her very formally for a partner in a business. You’re not friends?” Nathan asked.

  The doctor shoved back from his desk and slumped in his chair. “If I could simply finish one sentence, you might be more apt to get some useful information.” He inhaled deeply. “Lucy works part-time. She didn’t show up for work on Monday. She normally sees patients on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. So one day of missed work is hardly anything to write home about.”

  “Did you call to check on her?” Lee asked. “Considering the distress of her patients?”

  “My secretary left several messages. Again, it was just one day.”

  Nathan eased his notepad from his coat. “Are you friends?”

  Donnely shuffled through a stack of manila folders on his desk, fidgeting. “Detective, you’re not dumb enough to play this game.”

  Typecasting. An aggressor’s use of a demeaning label to compel an opponent to defend himself against the remark in an effort to prove it’s not accurate. If onto Donnely’s game, Nathan should respond as he was.

  With silence.

  As if the insult had never been spoken.

  Donnely swiveled the chair. “We’re not friends.”

  “Why?” Lee asked.

  “We don’t have much in common.”

  “Did you have disagreements on how the practice should be managed?” Nathan asked.

  “Not at all. She had her treatment philosophy, and I have mine.”

  Lee edged forward in his seat. Nathan took his signal to lead the questioning. “This difference . . . did it concern more than one patient?”

  “It’s not unusual for doctors to vary their treatment style. Just because my treatment style may be slightly different from mainstream psychiatry doesn’t mean it’s harmful to the patient.”

  “What treatments did Dr. Freeman express concern about?”

  “She wasn’t a fan at all of hypnosis.” Donnely brushed at nonexistent particles on his desk pad.

  Lee smoothed his hands over his knees, mirroring Donnely’s movements intentionally to gain his trust. “Why not?”

  “She was concerned about its potential for leading patients to develop false memories.”

  “You don’t have this concern?”

  Donnely crossed his arms over his chest. “First, let me speak to how useful hypnosis can be. In documented cases, it has helped with smoking cessation, weight loss, and a myriad of other conditions.”

  “But you’re not using it for those situations exclusively.”

  Donnely squirmed in his seat. “No, but it’s not harmful.”

  Nathan tapped his pen against his pad. “Did Dr. Freeman accuse you of harming patients?”

  Donnely frowned. “I don’t know if I’d use that term. She and I discussed how some of my modalities concerned her.”

  “What specifically concerned her?” Nathan said, pointing his pen at Donnely.

  Gavin batted his hand in front of his face as if the pen was mere inches from his nose. “Freeman was stuck in the frame of mind that all hypnosis is bad. That’s simply not true.”

  “Are some people harmed by hypnosis?”

  “It depends on how you classify the word.”

  “What was Dr. Freeman’s concern?” Lee asked.

  “If you remember back into the nineteen eighties, a fair number of people were falsely accused of harming children. It came out that some of these supposed victims created false memories during therapy, becoming convinced they were harmed when no crime had actually occurred. Some adults were sent to prison based on these false accusations.”

  “And hypnosis was involved in some of these cases?”

  “Yes. But much of it surrounded recalling repressed memories. There was a thought at the time that some manifestation of psychiatric illness meant you were repressing memories of earlier traumatic childhood events and, if you were helped to remember those, it could provide healing in your current situation.”

  “Help remembering through hypnosis?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Isn’t it usually the forgetting part that’s the problem?” Nathan asked.

  “In what sense?”

  “My wife was a victim of a violent crime. Her problem is forgetting what happened. Most victims I work with are plagued with remembering.”

  “Post-traumatic stress. That’s one end of the spectrum. Repressed memories would be the other end.”

  Lee leaned forward. “So you say this phenomenon does exist?”

  “And you use hypnosis as therapy for such a condition?” Nathan added.

  Donnely’s head pivoted as if watching a tennis match from a court-level seat. “I think it can still be useful.”

  Lee stood from his seat and walked toward a line of medical texts near the doctor’s desk, a maneuver to close the gap and impinge on his personal space. “Did this conversation also surround a particular patient, Raven Samuals?”

  Donnely pushed his tongue into the side of one cheek. “Possibly.”

  “You are providing care for her, correct?”

  “Ethically, I shouldn’t even disclose that, but my guess is you already know. Yes, Raven is a patient.”

  Lee’s eyebrows rose at the confession. He’d assumed Donnely would try to hide it. �
�Are you using hypnosis as part of her therapy?”

  “Honestly, I’ve said too much already, Captain. You know I won’t be able to get into specifics about her care. Not without a warrant or her consent.”

  “Can you account for your whereabouts on Monday?” Nathan asked.

  “I was here. Came into the office about five o’clock in the morning. My secretary arrived shortly after.”

  Lee sidestepped a few feet closer to the desk. “Isn’t that awfully early for office hours?”

  “It works well. That’s an early day. Patients start coming in around six thirty. You know the harried business executive that can’t make it through the day without touching base with his psychiatrist.”

  “That feels a little derogatory coming from you as a physician.”

  Donnely backed a fingernail over pens sitting in a decorative cup on his desk. “Statement of fact. And they’re lucky to have me as only a handful of psychiatrists even do psychoanalysis anymore. What would I do without mental illness? It’s the bread and butter of my practice.” He swiveled in his chair and slid a few inches away from Lee. “Just because I call something what it is doesn’t mean I don’t care deeply for my patients. How excited do you think a surgeon is after he takes out his five hundredth appendix?”

  “In my experience,” Nathan proposed, “doctors with harsh attitudes toward their patients are usually hiding something. Something sinister.”

  Donnely waved it off. “You’re reading too many crime novels.”

  Lee stepped next to the doctor’s chair, placing one hand on the back. “One thing I’m curious about is the question you haven’t asked us.”

  Donnely folded his hands on his lap, perhaps making himself a smaller target. “What would that be?”

  “How Dr. Freeman died. It’s usually the first question. An inquiry as to what happened.”

  He huddled tighter. “Like I said: we weren’t close. Why would I want to know the gory details?”

  Lee leaned down like a compassionate father to a disobedient child. “It’s human nature to want to know. The only people who don’t ask are the ones who committed the crime or are sociopathic enough not to feel any compassion about it.” He leaned closer. “Either of those describe you Dr. Donnely?”

  Chapter 13

  KEELYN HAD WORN A PATH from her living room, to her kitchen, and back again. Sophia tore at her hair, her face red from her hour-long scream fest. Though Keelyn would never consider harming the child, she began to understand the line between good and bad parenting may be thinner than she’d imagined.

  Lee was unavailable. Often when her calls went unanswered, he was out on a SWAT call. She’d been too tired to truck up the stairs to check the scanner.

  No news was good news.

  Even though he was working with Nathan, Keelyn knew the call of his heart was the SWAT team, and if they needed him, he would go. That prioritization had never bothered her before, but would it be different when she was a mom? Would it still be okay to come second then? Would it calm her spirit to see him walk out the door to serve the police when she needed him to support her during these moments of sheer frustration? Could his priorities change? Would his love for her be an impetus for change?

  And what if he didn’t change? Could Keelyn handle the loneliness and stress?

  Would she meet the same fate as her mother?

  A depressed, solemn shell of the woman she was now?

  The stress of the moment brought back thoughts of her mother’s life. How the separation of living isolated on those acres had stripped the woman of her once faithful and optimistic spirit. Early in Keelyn’s childhood, her mother had planted the seeds for her faith by giving her a Bible and reading it to her. Keelyn’s cherished pink Bible with a white lamb on the front still sat on the bookshelf in easy view. It had been her prayer for years that her mother would find the strength to leave John Samuals and rescue her half siblings.

  Instead, her prayers for deliverance were met with the death of those she loved most.

  After that, Keelyn’s faith strangled under the assumption that possibly God didn’t have time for the prayers of those who called him Father. Her mother’s funeral had been more than she could bear. As a young woman, she’d sat with that pink Bible clenched in her fists on the plush, red velvet seat as the coffin lid closed on her mother’s finally peaceful face.

  When the trembling paralyzed her, keeping her from walking to the car for the funeral procession, and the funeral director had come to her aid, the Bible had fallen to the floor, and a piece of paper popped from between the tissue-thin pages. She’d grappled for the note like a drowning person for a life preserver.

  God never abandons his children. Faith is the hope for reclamation.

  When had Sophia written those words?

  That message helped Keelyn not blame God for her mother’s death and was the foothold for the faith she had now.

  Her lifeline.

  The girl screamed again and slammed her head into Keelyn’s chin, effectively pulling Keelyn back into the present. Keelyn plopped on the couch with the young girl and cupped her face in her hands. “What is it? I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  She eased back into the pillows of her couch. Sophia began to jump and claw at her arms. Keelyn pulled her close and swaddled her tightly with her arms and began to cry herself.

  How did she ever think she could do this? Care for a child?

  The stress of the last few days broke the dam that held back her emotions. Keelyn’s eardrums pained at Sophia’s high-pitched screams. The isolation of her life began to bubble up through the tears that slid down her face. Her mother and father were dead. Her stepfather imprisoned. Female friends? None she could rely on in a situation like this. They were young, unmarried, without a care in the world.

  The heaviness of her past was a shroud that kept people out. Was that by her design? A vibe she gave off that said keep away?

  Lee was her only lifeline. That couldn’t be healthy.

  Dear God, please help me.

  A soft knock at the door stilled her. She fought the urge to cover Sophia’s mouth with her hand to quiet her screaming. Had she imagined it in her desperation?

  Three hard pounds at the door. Her name called by a muffled voice.

  Keelyn gathered Sophia and neared the door. Surely, any nefarious character would run full tilt the other direction as soon as she opened the door and he saw the child in the midst of a nuclear meltdown.

  Without eyeing the visitor through the peephole, she flung the door open, almost welcoming the diversion of reckless abandon to free her from this drama. Her mouth dropped open as she saw Lilly Reeves standing there, a basket of supplies hooked in the crook of her elbow.

  Keelyn stepped onto the stoop and hugged Lilly tightly with one arm. “How did you know to come here?”

  Lilly hugged her back. “Here, let me take her.” She pulled Sophia from Keelyn’s grip and eased Keelyn back inside and locked the door in her wake. “Lee called me.”

  The relief at having reinforcements brought a new tide of jumbled feelings. Keelyn shook uncontrollably and sobbed into her hands. Lilly guided her back to the couch.

  As she sat, the quiet calm Lilly exuded comforted Sophia. Keelyn looked up and could have sworn she heard the alleluia chorus of angels singing. Though not completely happy, Sophia rested heavily against Lilly’s chest, whimpering softly.

  “How did you do that?”

  From her basket, Lilly pulled a box of Kleenex and handed one to Keelyn. “First thing to know about kids is they are very tactile creatures. The more stressed out you are, the more stressed out they’ll be.”

  Keelyn dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. “Is there a book somewhere that tells you that?”

  “Probably hundreds.” Lilly reached back into the basket and pulled out a large fountain drink from the local gas station. “Lee said Coke was your favorite. Fully loaded.”

  Keelyn accepted the cup from Lilly. The uber-col
d effervescent bubbles were like Valium to her frayed nerves. “Better than liquor for me.”

  Lilly smiled. “Good. Let me take Sophia upstairs with my basket of goodies and see if there’s anything causing this crying spell.” She eased off the couch, turned on the TV, searched through Keelyn’s DVDs, and inserted one. “While You Were Sleeping,” she said with a grin.

  “My favorite.”

  “Mine, too. Take a break and I’ll be back.”

  Keelyn’s eyes flipped open, and she nearly dropped the drink she’d cradled in her hands. Lilly was tugging at her shoulder. The quiet relief had apparently lulled Keelyn into a quick sleep.

  Almost an hour had passed.

  Looking up, the remaining stress eased as she saw Sophia’s happy face beaming back. The child reached for her, and Keelyn’s heart pooled in the sweetness of her smile.

  “You’re a miracle worker.”

  Lilly sat next to Keelyn on the couch. “I wish. It’s an ear infection.”

  “Shouldn’t I have known that?”

  “Of course not. She can’t verbalize to you exactly what hurts. I gave her some ibuprofen. A pediatrician friend of mine had some Amoxicillin samples on hand. Is she allergic to penicillin?”

  Keelyn shrugged. “If only I knew.” Sophia settled against her and took eager gulps of juice from her sippy cup.

  Lilly pulled an oral syringe of the pink fluid from her pocket. “Well, let’s try it. I’ll write you a script for the rest. I’ll sit with you a bit to make sure she doesn’t have any life-threatening reactions. If nothing happens in a couple of hours, she’ll probably do fine with it.”

  The fluid dribbled down her chin. Keelyn swiped it with her thumb. “I made cookies today. Can I offer you some? Would you like my house?”

  Lilly laughed. “Nathan and I may take you up on that. It’s a beautiful place.”

  Keelyn clasped Lilly’s hand. “Honestly, you saved my life today.”

  “I have a debt to pay to those who care for others’ children.”

  Keelyn was aware of Lilly’s history, of the twins she’d given up for adoption as the result of a sexual assault. “I know I should have something amazing to say, but I just don’t. I can’t imagine having gone through what you did.”