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“She told me that women hardly ever make up claims like that.”
The hairs on Holly’s neck bristle. “Liisa told you that?”
“She said that abusers know how to turn accusations upside down. Make none of it sound credible. Typical victim-blaming stuff.”
Gaping at her blindfolded client, Holly struggles to keep her voice in check. “Liisa told you all that?”
“Yup. She even tried to convince me that maybe you’d also touched me while I was under. As if I’d let anyone get away with that shit!” She shakes her head. “Fuck Liisa! Acts like a know-it-all, but she’s as much of an addict as any of us. And Jesus, does she have a hate-on for you.”
CHAPTER 39
The hike along the Water Tank Loop trail was Aaron’s idea, but he’s already feeling winded as he pushes himself to keep up with Holly, who scrambles up the steep incline ahead of him. She finally slows to a stop at a viewpoint that overlooks the shoreline and the town of Laguna below.
Still panting, Aaron rests an arm across Holly’s shoulders. She doesn’t lean into or away from the embrace, and he enjoys the contact as they stare down at the endless Pacific. He inhales the warm breeze, picking up floral notes from the spring wildflowers dotting the landscape.
“Can we talk about it?” Aaron asks.
“What’s there to say?”
“A lot.”
“Papa was right,” Holly says. “Nothing in the world could justify me using a therapeutic agent to roofie my own clients. But I did it anyway.”
“You didn’t roofie anyone! You gave them the ketamine they were begging for,” Aaron says, finding himself once again in the paradoxical position of trying to defend her practices, when he doesn’t actually believe in them.
“These clients of mine, Aaron. Behind all their trappings of success, they’re so broken. They depend on me.” She sighs. “I’m supposed to counsel them, goddammit! Not interrogate them.”
“It was only Simon, right?”
“One is more than enough! Especially considering I even gave him midazolam to cover my own ass.”
“Wasn’t he having a dysphoric reaction?”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But that’s not why I gave it to him.”
“Sounds like he’s doing fine.”
Holly turns to him, her expression pained. “Ironically, I learned the most when I wasn’t even trying to pry,” she mutters.
He lifts his arm off her shoulders. “Care to elaborate?”
“My very next client, Baljit, blurted something about another member of the group while under ketamine. I’m still struggling to absorb it.”
Aaron stares at Holly, waiting.
“Remember the psychologist in my group?” she says.
“Liisa Koskinen?”
“Oh, yeah. She trained under you, didn’t she?”
He shrugs. “Not exactly. Liisa was doing a month-long rotation at my hospital during her doctoral internship. I was one of a number of psychiatrists who taught her.”
“Regardless,” Holly says, clearly uninterested in the distinction. “I can’t believe how badly I misread her.”
“In what sense?”
“Liisa was by far the most reluctant member of the group. The slowest to reach sobriety. And the most skeptical, too. Initially, I regretted including her. I saw her as a hindrance to me and the others. But after a few months, with dual therapy, Liisa had a breakthrough. I could feel her belief blossoming. I saw her as more than just a client.”
