Chapter 61 Lord Edward
I limp into what looks like a disorganized study and see Amelia standing on one side of an enormous desk. Leaning against the desk is a man, his back to me. Amelia is bleeding.
“It’s time for you to go back to your room,” the man says. The room smells like cigarettes. There’s a baseball bat leaning against the door; I pick it up and run my fingers over it.
“Dr. Rush?” I ask.
The man—my therapist—turns to face me. It’s the first time I’ve seen him without his blazer and pressed slacks. He looks smaller.
Amelia shakes her head. “He’s really a wannabe musician.”
She seems to think this will shock me, but I already know Dr. Rush used to be some kind of rock star.
Anne read me his bio aloud when she decided to send me here.
Andrew Rush earned a PhD in psychology after his own brush with fame, the experience rendering him uniquely suited to work with high-profile clients.
He’s perfect for you, Anne had said. I knew she meant not only that he had personal experience with celebrity but that he’d had his own youthful dalliance—with music—before falling in line and pursuing the family business.
“Edward, thank goodness you’re here,” Dr. Rush breathes. “As you can see, one of our patients is a bit confused. She broke into my house, and I’m afraid she’s become a danger to herself and others.”
At once, he lunges across the desk and wraps his arms around Amelia like a straitjacket.
“Amelia isn’t dangerous,” I say, but even as the words come out of my mouth, I question them. I knew how much she wanted to access her mother’s file. I recall the broken glass I stepped over to get here and take in the pile of papers on the desk in front of her.
Dr. Rush gestures for me to take his place restraining Amelia. “I need you to hold her while I get something to calm her.”
He sounds nearly as reasonable as he does during our therapy sessions, though only half his words are accented with the Northeastern drawl I’m used to hearing from him; the other half are punctuated with the Southern twang I heard earlier.
Somehow, with Amelia squirming beneath his grip, his calm voice is more unsettling than if he were screaming, like a doctor listing clinical statistics after delivering a fatal diagnosis.
“Of course, it’s highly unusual to ask one of our guests to assist with something like this, but as you can see, special measures must be taken.”
Something to calm her means he wants to sedate her. Well, why wouldn’t he? She broke into his house. She’s twisting beneath his arms. She’s become, Dr. Rush said, a danger. I take a single step forward.
“Edward.” My name sounds like a plea coming from Amelia’s mouth. She looks so small beneath Dr. Rush, but I know how strong she is. She supported my weight more than once. “Please. He killed my mother.”
I stumble backward, bumping into the doorway behind me.
“Lord Edward.” Dr. Rush has never called me that, his voice solicitous. “As you can see, this patient is suffering from paranoic delusions.”
Amelia thought she saw something in the woods the other night. I told her it was a trick of the light, but could she have been hallucinating?
“My mother wasn’t really here for rehab. I’ll tell the police. They’ll question Evelyn. That’s why she was trying to get out the other night, right? To tell me what really happened?”
“You think the word of Florence’s grieving, mentally ill daughter or my demented mother will convince anyone of anything, Amelia Blue?
” Dr. Rush smiles cruelly, and for a moment he looks nothing like the calm therapist who’s been speaking with me all this time.
He even sounds different, emphasizing Amelia’s full name like it’s the punchline to a joke.
My doctor turns to me, his calm demeanor back in place, as though he’s slipped behind a mask. “You’ve been doing so well, Lord Edward. Your sister will be so pleased to hear that you’re ready to go home.”
“I’m ready to go home?” I echo.
“I was going to call your family with the news tomorrow.”
I imagine myself in the apartment in Tribeca, waking early to watch the dog walkers and runners out my window overlooking the Hudson River, their brisk steps along the West Side Highway.
Dr. Rush adds, “Of course, I might have to change my assessment if you’re backsliding.”
“Backsliding?” The word makes me think of falling backward, of brakes that fail.
“Aiding an out-of-control patient is hardly a sign of progress.”
I catch his meaning. If I help Dr. Rush now, then he’ll tell Anne I’ve been a model patient, I’m cured. Back home, my doctors will refill my prescriptions.
“Will you tell them to send me back to Manhattan, instead of London?”
“I can tell them it would be healthier for you to return to your old life.”
This is almost exactly what Amelia thought she saw in the woods days ago. A man restraining a woman. Seeing it right here, in front of me, I can’t recall why I ever doubted her. How can I doubt a word she’s saying now?
At once, Amelia brings her foot down, hard, on Dr. Rush’s instep. He howls in pain, loosening his hold enough for Amelia to break free.
When my doctor dives toward my friend, I don’t hesitate.
I bring the bat down hard and hear a terrible crack as it makes contact with my doctor’s skull.
He falls to the ground. The adrenaline coursing through my veins dulls the ache in my fucked-up leg.
Amelia bends over him. “He’s still breathing,” she says. “Edward? Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.” I look around the room, taking note of the mess.
“We gotta get out of here,” she says.
“What about your mother’s file?” I gesture to the pile of papers on the desk. After all Amelia went through to get it, I can’t imagine she’s willing to leave it.
Amelia shakes her head, her eyes very bright. “Let’s go.”