And I’d have to answer: “Because I’m a vengeful bitch.” That or “I dunno.”
I mash the Delete key until every word is gone. The blank page makes me feel better, like I can still be redeemed. Like I’m not beyond saving. But I’ll have to terminate with Cleo, refer her to someone else. Not right away. I can’t abandon her. But soon. Very soon.
I stare at the screen until it starts to blur, the funeral replaying inside my brain, every miserable word. But these especially: the Fidelity Five. That had been my idea. A five-minute test of faithfulness. Tasteless and tawdry and bite-sized. Not to mention pure nonsense masquerading as pseudoscience. If it hadn’t been so vulgar, it would’ve been brilliant—like naked daters or B-list celebrities duking it out in a boxing ring. The perfect, sordid combination for reality TV.
I have a sudden, desperate itch to see the video. As if it will be different this time. I open my browser and type in the search bar: Love Doctored Ricky Sherman Fidelity Five. That easily, I bring it to life.
BXA never aired Ricky Sherman’s appearance on Love Doctored, but like all things dark and insidious, it had found a way. Posted anonymously on YouTube a week after Vanessa’s death, it now lived forever.
The video starts with Kate. Her serious face. She’s mid-interview with Vanessa Sherman, Ricky’s wife of one year. They couldn’t look more unalike, and I’m sure it’s intentional. They’d positioned the dumpy wife—doughy and pale and exasperated—right next to Kate’s undeniable beauty.
“We always know, don’t we? Call it women’s intuition.” She makes eyes at the camera, and as always, I rankle. Every single time. “So when did you start to feel things weren’t right at home?”
“I got a little worried when Ricky started staying late at the office. But I tried to be supportive. I know how important his career is to him. And it’s hard to make partner at an accounting firm if you don’t put in those extra hours. It’s expected.”
Kate murmurs, as if she understands. As if she ever could. “You didn’t trust your gut, Vanessa. And now you’re here on Love Doctored . . .” Pause, for the obligatory cheers from the studio audience. “So it must’ve gotten worse.”
Vanessa sniffles, hides her eyes, whispers the next part. “It did. He started coming home drunk. And we stopped having sex altogether. It’s been a long time.”
“How long?”
“Six months at least.”
Cue audience gasp. Kate pats her arm, gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Is that why you contacted us? You need to know for sure, don’t you?”
Cut to Ian on a separate stage. He speaks as the music swells. “Ricky and Vanessa are about to embark on a journey to rediscover love. But a relationship is like a house. It must be built on a rock-solid foundation. And what is that foundation?”
He waits for the audience to answer in unison. “Trust!”
“Exactly. Without trust, the foundation is weak, and the house will fall. Before we can help Ricky and Vanessa, we have to test their foundation. And how do we do that?”
“The Fidelity Five!”
“That’s right! When Vanessa contacted us and told us her suspicions, we set up a five-minute experiment using our lovely confederate, Lacey, to test Ricky’s commitment. What you all are about to see, along with Vanessa, is the raw, uncut footage from that night. Vanessa, are you ready for the results of the Fidelity Five?”
Vanessa’s eyes dart like a cornered animal. She’s definitely not ready. But the video rolls on like a runaway train. It’s the most explosive—garish, if you will—Fidelity Five in Love Doctored history. Ian and Kate tell us so afterward. Lacey approaches an inebriated Ricky in their local bar after work, tells him she’s an accountant too. That she needs to unwind. That she thinks he’s hot. Within five minutes, Ricky’s pickled tongue is down her throat, and he’s leading her to a dark corner when she offers an excuse and slips away into the night.
“We’re all reeling from that,” Ian says, in a voice so contrived I wonder how I ever loved him. “And I think Vanessa needs answers. We all need answers. Ricky’s been watching backstage. He’s only just learned he failed the Fidelity Five. Let’s bring him out.”
The video cuts out after Ricky takes the stage. But I can’t watch that part. It’s like watching myself, the exact moment Ian told me about Kate. The bottom drops out, and there’s only the feeling of falling, falling, falling to a soul-crushing and inevitable end.
I scroll through the new comments, then the old, until I find it. Valentine’s Day, 2016.
Avenging Angel—two years ago
Fucking hypocrite. How can you live with yourself? You should end your pathetic excuse for a life before you hurt anybody else.
Not my finest moment or my soberest, but I’m up to 9,503 likes. Apparently, I’m not the only sicko hiding behind a screen name. My cursor hovers over the X, not for the first time, but I can’t bring myself to delete it. It feels like admitting I was wrong about him.
It’s just as well, because my phone beeps. A text from Luke.
Just talked to Coop. You should go to the station.
****
Detective Lennox—Doreen—greets me with the same disarming smile, taking the seat next to me. “Thanks for coming in, Doctor Lawson. We appreciate your cooperation.”
Jack follows behind her, silent and brooding. He says my name, greeting me with a nod, and leans against the wall like he has better things to do.
“This won’t take long,” she says. “We just have a few more questions. Is that alright?”
“Of course.” As if there’s any other acceptable response. “I want to help.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. Your ex-husband’s funeral was today, right? Did you attend?”
“Not exactly. I didn’t think it would be in good taste to show up in person. But I watched from my car.”
“You watched from your car?”
“It sounds weird when you say it like that. I just wanted to pay my respects. To get some closure.”
“I see.” That’s therapist speak for WTF, and I imagine cop speak isn’t so different.
“It’s a lot to process, as I’m sure you can understand. Ian and Kate murdered. And now this business with the escort. I thought it might help me get a grip on my feelings about it all.”
“And?”
I shrug. “It’s all still pretty surreal.”
“Indeed. Do you know Ricky Sherman?”
“The drunk funeral crasher?”
Doreen nods and chuckles, but I wonder if she’s acting. Taking her directions from the good detective script.
“He approached me a few months ago online. I’m not sure how he found me. We wrote a few times about his wife. And then he asked if I would help him blackmail Ian. Of course, I said no.”
I realize I have Ian to thank for the smooth timbre of my voice when I lie. The years of practice. It’s a risk, lying, but Ricky isn’t stupid. He wants the money I gave him. And he can’t have it both ways. Besides, he’s probably still too drunk to question right now, so I get first crack at the story.
“You didn’t think to mention it when we last talked? When we asked about Ian’s enemies?”
“Honestly, I forgot. The guy seemed like a drunk buffoon. I just figured he was broken up about his wife, and he’d get over it. I can’t believe he showed up here.”
“How did he know Ian had an affair with Kate?”
I lower my head, sigh. “I told him. I know it was stupid, but I felt like he understood. I actually thought he was too drunk to remember. He was usually drunk when we chatted online.”
“How could you tell?”
“Well, there were the typos. And he wasn’t shy about it.”
“I don’t suppose you saved any of those chats?”
I shake my head. Non-existent chats can’t be saved, unlucky for me. “Sorry.”
> Doreen looks at a stoic Jack and scribbles something in her notepad. Probably about how she doesn’t believe me.
Then, Jack clears his throat. He addresses the air, not me. “Fair enough. One more thing,” he says, as if it—whatever it is—is merely an afterthought and not the most important thing. The thing they’ve been saving.
“I heard Coop got called out to your office on Saturday. A suspected break-in, was it?”
“More like a misunderstanding. I thought I’d left the desk lamp on, so I stopped in on my run to check. Maybe someone saw me and got suspicious.”
Jack reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a photograph, and ambles over like we’ve got all the time in the world. He lays it on the table in front of me and returns to his spot, seemingly holding up the wall with the girth of his shoulders and sheer determination. “Have you ever seen this before?”
Too many times. “It looks like a kitchen knife. Not one I recognize, but it seems fairly ordinary.”
“Where did you go on Saturday after you saw Cooper at the office?”
“I finished my run down to the beach and back to the house. Then I went to Cliffside to see Mom.”
“How is your mother?” he asks, and I hate that he’s doing this, that he’s good at doing this. He’s making it personal when he promised he wouldn’t. And I can’t tell if he’s asking because he cares or because he wants to throw me off balance.
“As good as can be expected, I suppose. She has good days and bad days. That day was a bad one.”
“So you ran to Ocean Beach?”
“Yes. It’s one of my usual routes.”
“Would it surprise you if someone saw you out on the jetty throwing something into the water?”
Fear rushes into my head, whooshing through it, like I’ve pressed my ear to an empty conch shell. “I walk out onto the jetty sometimes, but I’ve never thrown anything into the water.” I’d only dropped it.
“Would it surprise you if your fingerprints were on this knife?”
“That’s impossible.”
My certainty warrants an eyebrow raise. “You sound fairly sure about that.”
“I am. I don’t own any knives like it. I’ve never touched it. And fingerprints aren’t as easily planted as they are in the movies.”
“I guess I forgot who I’m talking to. Your father taught you well. What about in Ian’s house? Any reason your prints would be there?”
He’s probably bluffing, but my hands tingle with guilt. The one thing I’d touched. So panicked I hadn’t even thought to care. Somehow, I manage a demure smile before I stand up.
“My dad also taught me that unless I’m under arrest, I’m free to leave at any time. So am I? Under arrest?”
“Of course not.” Jack opens the door and waits for me to dart past like a scolded dog. I try to saunter instead—or at least to manage a half-hearted stroll—but I’ll admit he scares me in the same way Luke does. He’s too steady, too solid. And I feel flimsy as a reed next to him.
From behind me, I hear Doreen fire one last shot, and it stings, because part of me thought she was on my side, that they both were. “Don’t leave town, Doctor Lawson.”
Chapter
Seventeen
Luke’s truck is parked in my driveway. He taps the horn when I get out and motions me over to his open window. There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach. A gaping pit. The Hydra’s there too, circling the drain.
“Do you want to come in?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “You said you weren’t going to the funeral.”
“I didn’t go. I just—”
“Enough, Ava. Enough.”
“If you don’t want to hear my explanation, why’d you show up here?”
His laugh is scathing. “Explanation? Is that what you call it? I came to tell you I went to Cliffside this afternoon, while you were sitting in your car stalking your dead ex-husband. I saw the log book. And that’s not my signature. I have no idea how it got there. But I needed you to know, because I wanted you to trust me.”
“Wanted?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
My mind goes blank—swept clean by those five words—and I stare at his hands on the wheel until I hear myself speak. “What does that mean?”
“It means I need a break. At least until this whole investigation blows over. And then, I don’t know . . . we’ll see.”
“We’ll see? Thanks for the consideration. I thought you wanted to make every day my favorite. Or was that just a line you wrote in a card?”
Luke sighs and sets his eyes on mine. I can’t breathe. It’s not supposed to happen this way. Him breaking up with me. Technically, I’ve never even called him my boyfriend.
“From the day you stole Dad’s badge, I always had a crush on you. You were a badass, showing up with your mom at the gun range every weekend, going target-hunting like a pro. You didn’t take any of Coop’s shit, and you didn’t follow him around all lovestruck like the other girls. And then, you showed up here again—beautiful and smart and a doctor—and I thought, for once, I could have something Cooper wanted. I really thought we had a chance. Now, I’m not so sure I want one.”
“Cooper hates me.” But even as I say it, I remember my first weekend back in Carmel. I’d run into Cooper at a local bar, and he’d bought me a beer without asking. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he’d said, which hardly seemed like flirting.
“Yeah. He hates everything he can’t have.”
“So that’s what you’ve been doing with me? One-upping your idiot brother?”
“Only at first. Until I totally fell for you. Now who’s the idiot?”
I reach through the window to touch Luke’s shoulder. His skin is fever hot even through his T-shirt. “I know I messed up. I told you I’ve got issues. Major issues. I have to take it slow.”
“It’s not about that. It’s the lies, the half-truths. About the hang-up calls and Ian and Cleo and that jerk from the funeral. Between you and me, you need a lawyer, Ava. I just don’t trust you anymore. And you, of all people, should know that’s a deal breaker.”
A surge of anger comes on quick, and my breath stutters, the way the lights flicker before they go out. I want to scream at full blast. Not at Luke, per se. But at my life in general. Which feels over somehow. Who’s catastrophizing now, Doctor Lawson?
But I don’t need Luke. I don’t fucking need anyone.
“I love you.” It comes out of my mouth without warning, and it feels true when I say it but wrong at the same time. A last-ditch manipulation. It’s something Ian would do. And I haven’t said those words to anybody but Ian.
Luke doesn’t melt as expected. He’s so calm, so unaffected. I realize then he’s actually leaving.
“I know that. I’ve known for a long time. And yes, it’s nice to hear you finally say it, but not like this. Not when you’re just trying to keep me here. For a shrink, you’re pretty clueless.”
I shrug and try to smile, but it falters. I stop myself from crying. Because that would be conniving too. But more out of force of habit. “And for a cop, you’re pretty enlightened.”
When Luke drives away, when he makes the turn without waving, my heart throbs in my hands like an open wound, and the wind cuts right through my empty rib cage.
That’s how it feels to be left.
****
I can’t go inside. It would be admitting something to myself. So I get back in my car and drive. And think. And drive.
Twenty-one years later, I still don’t remember exactly when my mom got there or how. I only recall the feel of my father’s note in my sock, pressed against my ankle as I stood on the porch. The hard edges of it, digging in, felt real. Nothing else did. People rushed past in a blur. Some of them touched me, spoke to me. They must have. And then my mother appeared with two grocery bags,
lumbering up the sidewalk. I remember the instant she saw me and her hands let go. The way her mouth opened like a sinkhole in the earth. The crack of my father’s favorite vodka hitting the sidewalk. An orange rolling to the street. I thought, Nothing counts anymore.
That’s also how it feels to be left.
I know where I’m going, but I take my time getting there. When I finally stop the car outside of Whispering Cypress Memorial, the sky is purple, a darkening bruise. And the sliver of yellow moon watches me like a jaundiced eye.
The wrought-iron gates are mostly decorative, and I slip through with ease, heading up the main road to the gravesite. From here, I already see two mounds of fresh dirt among the headstones, two mounds that will smell like grass and rain. I walk toward them, feeling more alive than I have all week. Skin, like frayed wire—exposed and buzzing in the cold. Breath, coming in wet, white puffs. Heart, hardened again, steely as the pavement beneath my feet.
The too-sweet scent of roses reaches me first. A bouquet of yellow ones lays at the foot of the granite headstone. I run my fingers across the stone, the names etched in it, the wedding date at the center, the birth and death dates. It’s all ice cold and slick from the fog. And real as that note in my sock.
A sob rises up in my throat, and I don’t try to stuff it down or swallow it. I let it come in like a wave and knock me to my knees. The tears follow, and I taste the salt of my own fathomless ocean.
“I’m sorry,” I say, after a while, after I’m emptied. Because I am sorry. Mostly. “I’m sorry it happened this way.”
And then, it hits me, and I chuckle. “I guess you one-upped me with the ultimate anti-Valentine’s.”
It gives me a sick and irrational satisfaction to stomp across Kate’s grave and shove my hands in the dirt on Ian’s side, digging down as far as I can go. The soil blackens my arms and roots under my nails. I’ll have to scrub a long time to get them clean again. When I’m satisfied with the burrow I’d made, I reach into my pocket and pull out the white gold band with its winking round diamond and drop it in.
“Goodbye, Ian.”
I smooth the soil over it until there’s no sign it ever existed at all. The death of a marriage should be like this. A ceremony. A burial. A stone set in the ground. Something to mark the end.
Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set Page 84