Chapter 36 Gabriel
Gabriel
The Briarhaven Sheriff's Department runs on coffee, routine, and the kind of peaceful monotony most folks take for granted.
Radio chatter about lost cattle, maybe a domestic dispute over at the Miller place, occasionally Mrs. Henderson calling about her damn cat stuck in that old cottonwood again.
The kind of problems you can solve with common sense and a firm handshake.
It's the life I chose when I left the chaos of active duty behind. Predictable. Manageable. Safe.
But when I push through the glass doors expecting nothing more challenging than updating incident reports and reviewing patrol schedules, I find three strangers sitting in my waiting area like vultures on a fence post.
Every instinct I've honed over years of military service and law enforcement starts screaming. Wrong. Everything about this scene feels fundamentally wrong.
Two men in suits that probably cost more than most ranchers in Briarhaven see in a good season. One woman in medical scrubs so pristine they could've come straight from a catalog.
They look like they belong in some Manhattan boardroom or high-end medical facility, not in my small-town station with its scuffed linoleum floors, faded wanted posters, and the perpetual smell of burnt coffee.
The older man rises as I approach, extending a manicured hand that's never seen a day of honest work. Everything about him screams money and power. The kind that doesn't ask for favors, it expects compliance.
"Sheriff Maddox?" His voice carries the smooth authority of someone used to being obeyed. "I'm Richard Kensington. This is Dr. Harrison from Rosewood Behavioral Institute, and Nurse Patricia Wells."
Rosewood.
The name hits me like a physical blow, cold recognition flooding my system. I know that name.
It was in Mathew Carter's file, connected to Lucy's van registration, buried in the research I did weeks ago when I was trying to understand who she really was.
"What can I do for you folks?" I keep my voice professional, measured, despite every alarm bell in my head screaming at DEFCON 1 levels.
"We're here about Lucinda," Richard says, and something in my chest loosens fractionally.
Lucinda. Not Lucy. He's not here about my Lucy.
"I'm afraid I'm not sure who you're referring to," I say carefully, settling behind my desk with the deliberate calm of a man who's learned to control his reactions under pressure.
Dr. Harrison steps forward, a manila folder thick with documents clutched in his hands like evidence in a capital case. "Lucinda Kensington-Reid. My patient. We have reason to believe she's been living in your area under an assumed name."
The folder lands on my desk with a sound like thunder in the sudden silence. Through the clear plastic cover, I can see official letterheads, photographs, medical charts.
All bearing the face of the woman who kissed me goodbye this morning with sleepy contentment and promises of dinner together.
My blood turns to ice water in my veins.
"She's been missing for over two years," Richard continues, his voice heavy with what sounds like genuine anguish. "We've been searching for her everywhere. When we received word that someone matching her description was seen in Briarhaven, we came immediately."
"Missing?" The word scrapes my throat raw.
"She escaped from our facility," Dr. Harrison explains, settling into the chair across from my desk without invitation.
The presumption sets my teeth on edge. "Lucinda has been struggling with severe psychological issues since her mother's death.
Bipolar disorder, dissociative episodes, violent tendencies.
She can be extremely convincing when she wants to be, but she's also deeply unstable. "
Each word hits like a round to the chest. Violent. Unstable. Escaped.
"That's impossible." My voice sounds distant, strange to my own ears. "Lucy... Lucinda... she's not violent. She—"
But even as I say it, memories start shifting and rearranging themselves like pieces of a puzzle I suddenly can't solve.
The way she flinched when I first approached her outside Colt's clinic.
Her reluctance to talk about her past. The careful way she watches exits in every room, like she's constantly calculating escape routes.
Details I dismissed as trauma now take on a different, more sinister cast.
"May I?" Dr. Harrison asks, gesturing toward the folder with the practiced patience of a man who deals with denial professionally.
I nod, not trusting my voice. My years of training in reading people, in spotting lies and manipulation, war with the image of Lucy laughing over pancakes this morning, stealing bacon from my plate like she belonged at my table forever.
He opens the folder with deliberate care, revealing page after page of official documentation. Medical reports with Lucy's photograph paper-clipped to the corners. Police incident reports bearing authentic case numbers. Court documents with raised seals that look legitimate.
Everything screams official. Real.
"This was taken during one of her more severe episodes," Dr. Harrison says, sliding a photograph across my desk with the clinical detachment of a coroner presenting evidence.
The image makes my stomach drop like I've stepped into a mine shaft.
It's Lucy, but not the Lucy I know. This version is skeletal thin, all sharp angles and hollow cheeks that speak of self-neglect and something darker. Dark circles ring her eyes like bruises, and those eyes…Christ, those eyes are what gut me. Empty. Completely, utterly lifeless.
Dead eyes. I've seen them before, in combat zones and crime scenes. In Katherine, during her worst moments, when the pills pulled her so far inside herself that nothing could reach her.
She's wearing a hospital gown that hangs off her frame like a shroud, wrists circled with restraints that look like they've seen use. But it's her expression that destroys me. Vacant, lost, like the woman I love has been completely erased.
"Jesus," I breathe, unable to look away from the photograph even though every instinct screams to burn it.
"I know it's difficult to reconcile," Richard says, leaning forward with the gravity of a man delivering a terminal diagnosis. "This is what untreated mental illness looks like, Sheriff. This is what happens when someone refuses the help they desperately need."
I force myself to study the other documents with the methodical attention I'd give any case file. Medical charts detailing psychiatric holds, medication schedules, behavioral incidents. A police report from two years ago describing a "violent altercation" during transport.
"I don't understand," I say, my voice hoarse with confusion and growing dread. "She's been living here for weeks. Working at the clinic, contributing to the community. She's been..."
Happy. The word dies in my throat because suddenly I'm not sure of anything anymore.
"That's part of her pathology," Dr. Harrison explains with the patient tone of someone used to educating family members about difficult truths.
"Lucinda has always been extraordinarily gifted at creating personas, at making people believe she's something she's not.
It's a survival mechanism, but it's also how she manipulates situations to her advantage. "
Manipulates. The word hits like a physical blow.
Richard produces another document, this one bearing the gold seal of New York State Family Court.
"I'm her legal guardian, appointed after her mother's death when Lucinda was seventeen.
She was completely unable to function, the trauma of caring for a terminally ill parent, combined with her existing mental health issues, created what our psychiatrists called 'a perfect storm. '"
I scan the court order with the critical eye of someone who's seen plenty of legal documents in my career. The official language, the judge's signature, the notarized seal, everything appears legitimate down to the embossed letterhead and case numbers.
My hands shake slightly as I set the document down. "She told me her mother died when she was seventeen," I say, grasping for some anchor in the storm of revelation. "At least that part was true."
"Lucinda weaves truth into her fabrications," Dr. Harrison explains. "It makes her stories more believable, more sympathetic. She becomes whatever she thinks people want her to be. The perfect girlfriend, the ideal employee, the wounded bird who needs saving."
The wounded bird who needs saving.
The description hits too close to home, making me think of how protective I felt the first time I saw her, how every instinct screamed to shield her from whatever had put that haunted look in her eyes.
Had I been played from the very beginning?
"She needs help, Sheriff," Dr. Harrison continues, his voice carrying the weight of professional authority.
"Professional help that we can provide at Rosewood.
She's been off her medications for over two years.
The longer she goes without treatment, the more dangerous she becomes. To herself and to others."
Dangerous. The word echoes in my head like a ricocheting bullet.
"Where is she now?" Richard asks, his tone carefully modulated but with an undercurrent of urgency that makes my law enforcement instincts twitch. "We'd very much like to speak with her, help her understand that we're here because we care for her."
Every fiber of my being screams not to answer that question. But these people have legal documents, medical authority, what appears to be legitimate concern for someone who might be genuinely ill and in need of help.
And I'm a sheriff. I took an oath to uphold the law, even when it feels like it's ripping my heart out through my throat.
"She's at my house," I say, and the words taste like betrayal.