The Book Doctor: A Psychological Thriller

by Britney King

  I wash up, while simultaneously strategizing my exit. “I don’t think you should tell Liam.”

  “Liam who?”

  “Seriously.”

  She fixes her dress and then checks her face in the mirror. “Okay. Whatever.”

  “I think he can be dangerous.”

  She cocks her head. “What?”

  “Just don’t say anything,” I tell her fumbling with my belt. “And stay away from my wife.”

  Putting herself between me and the sink, placing her hands on either side of my broken up face, she looks me in the eye. “I want to have your baby.”

  I don’t know if I’m surprised. But I realize in that moment just how much more I have bitten off than I can chew. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This one isn’t just trouble; she’s smart.

  I’m actually kind of impressed. She’s offering me the only thing that I really want. A career comeback is all I’ve been focused on for months—years, if I really think about it. But why? It’s not for the accolades.

  It’s for the legacy.

  I’ve spent my entire career chasing that, because I know, after I’m dead and gone, nothing besides my work will be left behind. Every part of me that was supposed to exist in the future, the parts that were supposed to carry on long after I’m gone, are dead.

  “Imagine it, George,” she murmurs. “A little boy—or a girl—who cares? Imagine them running around this place.”

  The problem is I can imagine it. It’s the best and the worst idea I’ve ever heard. I shake my head, but the questions keep coming. How do you weigh the two? That which you know is wrong but also feels very right? How do you make the choice between your head and your heart? Is it even possible trying to please someone outside of you while trying to please what’s on the inside at the same time? “Please tell me you’re on contraception.”

  “Only time will tell.”

  I push her against the sink. It hurts my back. It hurts everything. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  I need a drink. “No.”

  “You know what I think, George?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me regardless.”

  She smiles. “I think this is humor on a cosmic level.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I haven’t set foot in the cottage in a long time. I wouldn’t be doing so now except for the fact that I can’t sleep, and I need to talk to Liam. I have to put a stop to him and his parties, even if they are self-serving, even if he is bribing his rich friends to buy my book and to talk about it to their rich friends.

  This, and he needs to keep the girl away. I have to let him know this without saying why. He’s not allowed to invite her back here. She needs to stay away from me and away from my property.

  The easiest way to fix the problem is to let him know that it’s time he moved himself back to the city. He’s worn out his welcome. As it is, I am having a hard enough time keeping the situation with Eve under wraps, and I don’t need it leaking out and somehow finding its way to my publisher, or worse, to the press. Not that they care all that much about me, but still. They’re more than welcome to write whatever they want about me and my drinking, about me behaving badly online, but my wife is off limits.

  By the time I reach the steps, I am fuming. It’s four in the morning and the place is lit up like a Christmas tree. I know the girl isn’t here—at least she’s not supposed to be. She said she was driving back to the city on account of business. What kind of business, she did not offer up, but I’m pretty sure Liam mentioned once that she works in public relations. It seems altogether fitting, even though she doesn’t strike me as someone who intends to be a part of the working class for long.

  Two raps and I twist the doorknob. Maybe I’ve had a few drinks, plus a painkiller or two, but then, maybe I’m just angry. My give-a-fuck meter is running on empty. This is my goddamned house; I’m not going to wait outside like I’m the guest.

  Turning the handle, I’m both annoyed and surprised to find the door locked. I knock once again, but the music is loud and it’s doubtful Liam can even hear me over all of this nonsense.

  When I go to bang on the thick cedar door a fourth time, I remember the spare key under the potted plant on the side of the cottage. It takes a bit of fumbling around in the dark, but eventually I locate it and open the front door.

  I don’t know what I was expecting to find. Or honestly, what I expected the outcome to be. I just know it wasn’t this.

  “George!” Liam exclaims over the bumping music. His voice is at full bore, straining the muscles in his chiseled neck. “Would you mind turning that down and giving me a hand?”

  I back away, stepping over the threshold, nearly tripping out the door. “Good God,” he says, removing one of his gloves. “What the fuck happened to you?”

  “Car accident.”

  “Today? Right now? Is that why you missed the party?”

  I shake my head and continue in the opposite direction. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “George,” he says, his voice tinged with concern. “Are you all right? You seem—”

  “Where is she?” I ask as my eyes survey the mess: the blood and the plastic sheeting and the dripping saw.

  He smears his gloved hand against his apron. “Who? Leslie?” Blood coats the front of it. A lot of blood. “She went back to the city.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ah,” he says, turning back to the body parts laid out on the plastic. “That’s no one.”

  I’m going to be sick. Right there at his feet, imminently, he’s about to have more cleaning up to do. “What have you done?”

  “I think you may have hit your head. Come here,” he motions. “Let’s take a look. Are you bleeding?”

  I scan the living room. There’s an arm and a leg, and part of something…it’s all strewn about like pieces to a puzzle. Upon closer inspection, I try to see if I can find any indication that it might be Leslie. There are tufts of blonde hair and the limbs are fair skinned and slim, although other than that I can’t make out anything discernible. But then, I can’t locate a head.

  “Do you know how much blood a person can lose before they die, George?”

  He’s talking about exsanguination. I first learned about it after Eve was attacked in college. I’d wanted to know how close I’d actually come to losing her. Pretty close, as it turns out.

  “Two and a half to four liters on average,” I say. “But it depends on several factors.”

  His bottom lip juts out. “Such as?”

  “Whether we’re talking about a child or an adult, for one. And the size of the person.”

  “I like you, George,” he tells me, and I know if a person says your name this many times they’re trying to sell you on something, and probably in this case, worse. “I’ve always liked you.”

  “Look,” I hold my hands up, palms facing him. “I’m going to get back to the house. I was just coming over to ask you to turn the music down. That and, well, the accident. I’m feeling a bit confused. Maybe a concussion…”

  “I think we need to get you checked out.”

  “In the morning,” I say. “I assume you’ll get this taken care of and cleaned up?”

  “Assumptions are always a bad idea.”

  “My father was a homicide detective,” I tell him. “Did you know that?”

  “I know everything about you, George.”

  Not everything. “Well, then you must know that over the past ten years, there have been three hundred and forty-seven murders.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Yeah—and there are approximately two hundred and fifty-one open cases which are still not solved.”

  He shrugs. “What’s your point?”

  “Homicide detectives tend to be some of the most committed officers in any agency. But they can't solve a case without the community's help, and the truth is, as you know, not every case gets solved.”

  “What does this have to do wit
h me?”

  “It’s math, Liam. Simple math. Each year detectives solve anywhere between 60-70% of homicide cases, but only about 30-40% are from that calendar year.”

  “Okay.” He walks toward me. “But just because it isn't solved doesn’t mean the case isn’t being worked.”

  “That’s my point. They may not catch you now, but eventually, they will.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘The Book Doctor’

  Journal Entry

  She was drunk. And worse, she wasn’t invited. I could describe her, but it’s probably easiest just to say she was the kind of woman who was insufferable and leave it at that.

  She was mostly sober by the time she finally died. At least I think. It was a thousand little cuts at first. She thought I wanted sex, but no. I wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. For one, I’d already been intimate with Leslie, and even then, I don’t want to cheat, not anymore. And if I were to do so, it wouldn’t be with someone like that.

  It took a lot to tie her up, but not that much. What I mean by that is at first she let me. Fetishes for the win! But then I realized, seeing as I couldn’t have her running off into the night half-dead, that a few zip ties probably weren’t going to cut it. Pun intended.

  Anyway, after I wore myself out getting her securely tied, I had to spread out all of the plastic sheeting. Better not to do it beforehand. Fetish or not, most people tend to shy away from that sort of thing. It can be a bit much. Unless you’re a neat freak, which I am. OCD leaves little room for real fun. Still, I try.

  Once I got the plastic all laid out, I realized I hadn’t sharpened my tools. A rookie mistake, but when you’re busy, you’re busy. Plus, I’d had another method in mind for killing her and only changed my mind at the last second. It was a great party, but it left me feeling empty and bored. I needed a little excitement, and simple asphyxiation just wasn’t going to cut it. Gah, the puns. I can’t help myself. I’m delirious. It’s late, or rather early, and I should be sleeping. This, and Leslie is back in my life. We made love, and it was everything I wanted it to be.

  Since I couldn’t sleep, I needed something time consuming, something to fill the hours until Leslie came back to me, and the insufferable, uninvited party girl turned out to be it.

  How many organs can you trench out before a person dies? How much skin can you peel away? How much flesh can you remove from bone? As long as you don’t nick a main artery, it’s more than you’d think. Four hours’ worth of amusement, this one got me.

  Although that doesn’t mean it was all fun and games. With all of her crying and begging, she was intolerable until the very end. I should have made it come sooner.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I have no idea how our story ends, but this cannot be it. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t manage to get out of that cottage and back to the illusion of safety in my own home. Not without Liam in tow. Of course I couldn’t. That would have been too easy. More and more, I am learning, nowhere is safe and nothing is easy.

  He’s going to kill me. That much isn’t too hard to work out. After I found him in the cottage, hacking up all the limbs, he marched me straight back here to my office. Now he wants me to write out the scene in detail. Also, then he’s going to finish me off.

  In this kind of situation, what you need to do is assess how important you are to another person getting what they want. That will tell you your odds of survival.

  The more you are needed, the more likely you are to survive. I’ve witnessed firsthand how talented Liam is. He hardly needs me. He’s already wealthy, and he can write. He has the chops. I’m just a cog in the wheel of whatever game it is he’s playing. A chess piece. A blip on his radar as he makes his way to the top. That’s the thing about rich people, especially those who also have talent. They’re endlessly restless. Always looking for something, or someone, to sink their teeth into. And why wouldn’t they? Their basic needs are easily met; how else are they supposed to fill all those hours?

  Imagine the press the book will get when I end up dead. Is that what he’s after? What else could it be, if not the fame and attention?

  Fame is dangerous, that way. It’ll get you every time. The thrill of acclaim, of having people think you’ve done something worthwhile. It’s a double-edged sword, notoriety, as evidenced by my current predicament. Liam doesn’t know this yet, but he will someday. There will always be someone smarter, someone younger, someone with more talent.

  All you can do is ride the wave when it comes and keep your head down after it passes. If only I’d been better at the latter.

  “You know,” he says, slapping the back of my head, the force of which causes blood to spray from my lips. “It really can’t get much worse.”

  Surveying the blood that coats my desk, I beg to differ.

  He spins the chair around until I good and truly can’t see anything. Then, he smacks me with the barrel of the gun. The crack reverberates from ear to ear, bouncing around inside my skull like a snare drum. “Write.”

  When I can manage and not a moment sooner, I flex my fingers. Stretch and flex. Flex and stretch. It’s a scene he is used to, which is maybe why he elbows me in the face. My mouth fills with blood. I spit a broken tooth onto the keyboard. “I told you. I can’t.”

  “You are going to die,” he tells me. “Either way, you are. How it happens is up to you.”

  When he moves to strike again, I lean away. This time, I hold my hands up in surrender. I relent. “Okay…just give me a minute.”

  I watch in relief as he shoves the gun in the waist of his tuxedo pants. He walks toward the door, and I think this is where it ends, but I ought to know him better than that. With a smile, he lifts a plastic bag from the floor and raises it until it’s eye level. “Do you know what this is?”

  I’m a writer. I’m afraid I might.

  He pulls out a container of lighter fluid and then another and another, counting as he tosses the empty bottles onto the floor. When the bag is empty, he drops it and fetches a book of matches from his coat pocket. On the front, the name of the restaurant where we had our first meeting. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’ll go quick.”

  My eyes dart toward the door. “Listen—”

  As he watches me contemplate my next move, a grin spreads across his face. He knows I’m thinking about what’s at stake if I don’t make it out of this room alive.

  She will die. She will burn to death, and while he will have been the one to set the house ablaze, we both know this is a fire that started long before he struck the match.

  “You see. This is what happens when a person doesn’t know their own limits.”

  He’s wrong. It’s the dead of night, and even if I could manage the mile and a half it takes to reach the neighbors, it would be too late.

  “You can’t save everyone,” he says, confirming my suspicion. “That’s the problem nowadays. Everybody wants to be the hero.”

  He lifts me by the throat and drags me across the office. I could ask why he doesn’t just put a bullet in my head and be done with it, but I don’t have to. That would ruin the ending.

  “It could have gone differently, you know.”

  I hold my breath as I crane my neck. There’s a car coming up the drive. Is it her? Is she coming back? Has she ruined my life, only to save it?

  Soon enough, I realize I am mistaken. No one is coming to save me. It’s only wishful thinking. Hope will suffocate you if you let it.

  My eyes flit toward the gun. His attention is on the door. That’s always been his weakness, his distractibility.

  He tears off a match and drags it along the rough edge of the matchbook. “I know what you’re thinking…”

  What I’m thinking is I’ve spent some time in burn units doing research. Even if I didn’t love Eve, even if I could hate her for what she’s done, inviting him into our home, I don’t want her to die this way.

  The match ignites. At the halfway point, he leans forward and stubs it out on my hand. I move
to block him, to go for the gun, and as I do my hand grazes my face in the process. Bile rises in my throat. What was once my jawline is now just flesh hanging.

  “It’s okay,” he says, shoving me toward the sofa. “None of it will matter when you’re dead.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Now is not the time for bargaining…” He strikes another match. “Really, you should be thanking me. At least she won’t have to see you like this.”

  My brow furrows, giving me away. I don’t mean for it to happen. My poker face has a habit of betraying me where she is concerned. Automatic response is inevitable, and if distraction is his weakness, she is mine.

  I’m half-seated, half-slumped on the couch when he pulls the gun from his waistband and aims it at my head. “I thought you’d be more comfortable here.” He motions toward the notepad beside me. “Now write.”

  “You might as well just shoot me.”

  Before the sound of the gun firing registers, I feel the white-hot searing pain. Before I feel the white-hot searing pain, I see bone fragments fly from my kneecap. The blood makes me realize I should have made an effort.

  Later, when I come to, I hear a mewling sound somewhere deep in the belly of the house. Maybe it’s her. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m dead, and maybe this is hell.

  He’s seated cross-legged on the floor in front of me, gripping the gun in one hand, picking pieces of bone out of the carpet with the other. “The things you make me do.”

  I watch as he spreads the pieces of my knee out in front of him and begins fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. “Not bad, eh?” He flashes a smile. “What do you think?”

  What I’m thinking is maybe it’s impossible to survive a man like him.

  “Now that you’re awake,” he says, “it’s time to finish the story.”