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“Why would Liisa be stirring all this shit up?” Simon asks, but he’s really thinking of the two women who just extorted a king’s ransom out of him.
“Jealousy?” Reese shrugs. “Two therapists. One’s a Xanax addict, the other’s famous for her successful treatment program. Maybe Liisa was envious?”
“Then why sign up for therapy with Dr. D in the first place?” Simon asks.
“To undermine it?” Reese suggests.
“That’s your theory?” Baljit rolls her eyes. “First, Liisa talks Elaine into thinking she was molested. But then Elaine overdoses—or someone does it for her—before she can ‘expose’ Dr. Danvers. You can’t pin that on Liisa. Why would she kill the one person who was going to take down her nemesis? Besides, how do you explain JJ?”
“Liisa’s an experienced therapist,” Reese argues. “She would know exactly what buttons to push. Maybe she got JJ drinking again. And then convinced her to jump.”
Baljit scowls. “And then Liisa just what? Fakes her own death and disappears? That makes no sense, Counselor. God, I hope you don’t practice criminal law.”
Simon, sensing Armageddon, leans back and waits for Reese’s response.
“Do you have a better theory?” Reese asks calmly.
“All I know is that Dr. Danvers assembled this group,” Baljit says. “She heavily medicated us to the point where some of us don’t even remember some of the sessions. And then the deaths and disappearances began.”
Simon turns to Baljit. “You’re saying that Dr. D has been manipulating us all?”
She holds up both palms. “Who knows? I was only trying to stop gambling. I never signed up for the rest of this snake pit.”
“Why don’t we at least talk to Dr. Danvers?” Reese suggests.
Baljit frowns. “Do you still trust her?”
“I do,” Reese says without hesitation.
“Do you?” Baljit asks Simon.
Simon mulls the question over. Dr. Danvers has helped him. A lot. Maybe more than anyone else since Jeremy. But he also can’t forget what she did to him at their previous session, adding that sedative on top of the ketamine. “Not sure I do anymore. Dr. D basically roofied me the last time I saw her. Why would she do that if she has nothing to hide?”
“Fine,” Reese says. “I’ll speak to her myself.”
They lapse into morbid silence for a few moments. Simon considers again how effective that combination of medications had been in smudging his memory—and how useful it could be under different circumstances.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it without her,” Baljit finally murmurs, her head hung, and her eyes glued to the floor.
“Do what?” Reese asks.
Baljit looks back up at them with uncharacteristic vulnerability. “Stay out of the casino.”
Reese shows her a small smile. “Took all my willpower not to stop at the liquor store on my way home from work last night.”
Simon nods. “Yeah, my… urges are coming back, too.”
“What a sorry lot we are.” Baljit chuckles grimly. “We can’t live without her. But no guarantees we’ll live at all if we stick with her.”
CHAPTER 52
“Papa?” Holly calls out from his doorway but gets no answer.
She became concerned when he didn’t answer her last two calls. Now her worry only grows as she moves from the kitchen to the office without spotting Walter. There’s a bowl with remnants of granola on the counter.
Has he fallen somewhere?
She rushes out the back door and into the garden. It’s not until she hurries past the flower beds and around the corner of the house that she spots Walter at the far edge of the hedge. Wearing a white undershirt and old jeans, he is stooped over, pruning the bushes with a pair of shears.
