Chapter 12
My first supernatural client turned out to be human. Mostly.
I’d read Doug Holloway’s folder through three times by the time he arrived. It was a hefty case, both because Agatha took notes that rivaled the details in a violent epic fantasy and because Doug had been a patient for a long time.
Twenty years long.
Talk therapy was the oldest and most reliable method. It was also ineffective. Agatha had been a huge fan of letting a patient lie down and tell her about their mother. And sure, it had its place, I knew enough about Doug to get a visual of him before he entered.
But it didn’t give the patient, even a supernatural one, any power.
Despite the magical element to my practice, I had to believe that the same fundamentals I would use on a human patient applied. The problem was, I wasn’t sure how Agatha’s patients were going to react to my methods.
Doug wasn’t her longest-term client, but he was up there. After twenty years, Doug still had no agency in his recovery. He simply showed up and chatted. Our first session would be a good opportunity, for him and me, to decide if my new massive life change was permanent or not.
I was determined to make headway with Doug today. Maybe it was selfish, thinking of my own needs before the patient’s, but I needed the win. After reading Doug’s history, I had to believe he needed the win, too.
On a whim, I angled the couch and added the even-less-inviting chair Agatha had stashed in the corner. Too much change could increase a patient’s anxiety, but I wanted to offer some options. Even if having options for myself made me nervous.
A small chime alerted me he was in the waiting room. I took a deep breath, both to release my own tension and to clear my personal space so I could be there for my patient, then opened the door.
“Doug Holloway? I’m Simone. Would you like to come in?”
I’d never applied the term resting bitch face to a man before. Deep wrinkles and bushy gray eyebrows only accented the appearance of a surly old guy. He wasn’t that old, early sixties according to his file, but he felt older. He paused on his way into my office and surveyed the room.
“I decided the waiting room needed a spruce up.” I gave Doug my best formal smile and gestured to the office. “Don’t worry, not much has changed there.”
His only response was a grunt. Not a good start. When he reached the doorway, he halted again, so quickly I almost bumped into him. I edged around his tall frame and followed his eyeline to the new position of the couch.
“Like I said, not much has changed.” I smiled again, hoping I looked encouraging and not terrified. “You’re welcome to choose the chair today or return to the couch if that’s where you’re most comfortable.”
I was only half-surprised when Doug, after a moment of glaring at both, chose the chair.
His slacks were almost chest high and starched to perfection.
His shirt buttoned near to his throat with nary a wrinkle.
Everything in the way he moved and the efficiency of his actions told me this was an ex-military man, even if I hadn’t already read his file.
I took my seat, closing his folder in favor of my reliable yellow notepad and a comfy pen, and clasped my hands on the desk.
“So, Doug, I’ve had time to review the extensive notes that Agatha left. And I see you’ve been a patient of hers for a good long while. Since we’ve never met, and this is a lovely opportunity for us both to start fresh, why don’t we take a moment to get to know each other?”
Doug’s bushy eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch, my only indication he’d heard me. My notes told me he’d transitioned from military to detective in Chicago until his forced early retirement due to an altercation with his partner.
My notes also told me he had a unique ability. And, given that I had the distinct impression I was being analyzed right down to my roots, I believed it.
“I’m going to confess to you that I’m nervous, Doug. Did you know you’re my first patient in a very long time?” His eyebrows lifted a little higher. “Well, I had one other brief session. But this is the first scheduled one in quite a while.”
Doug’s lips thinned, but he didn’t speak. He must have been an amazing cop.
“Doug, would you like to start by telling me about your gift?”
According to Agatha’s file, Doug could read people’s intentions at a glance. He’d know if I was lying, he would sense if I was nervous or unsteady, and he’d “see” any efforts to misdirect him. I needed to be completely honest or he’d never trust me.
He let out an annoyed grunt, prompting me to check his notes again. Dammit. I’d already misspoke. Even after a lifetime, Doug still struggled to embrace his magic. I wondered if I would feel the same way in fifty years then shoved the feeling aside to focus on my patient.
“Sorry, Doug. I shouldn’t have referred to it as a gift.”
“Worse gift than socks at Christmas.” Doug’s voice was sandpaper and gravel shaking in tupperware.
I chuckled at his statement, but his face remained deadpan. Okay, Simone, he hadn’t been joking. Noted. I was going to have to take a different tactic here to open him up. Find common ground. Since I’d grown up here and he hadn’t, it wouldn’t be the town. Plus, I didn’t remember half of it.
What did we have in common? Only one thing. Or one person. And just like that, the perfect memory sprang to mind.
“Every year at Christmas, Agatha knitted me a new present. It was always the same shade of blue, like she bought the yarn wholesale and needed to get rid of it. It was a pretty color, but never something I could actually use. Scarves. Hats. Tea cozies. She gave me a pot holder when I was six. My mother called them my Blue Hoard.”
Doug's sudden laugh filled the room. It was a rich sound that lifted the tension from us both. A comfortable warmth settled in me. Not only had I found a way to reach him, but the thought of my mom and Agatha grounded me. I’d had a life here once. Maybe I could find it again.
“Okay, Doug.” I put my pen on the desktop and folded my hands, giving him my full attention. “Would you like to tell me about your ability?”
“Not much to tell.” Doug’s shoulders lifted in a deep shrug. “If you’re doing or saying something that goes against your nature, I know it.”
“How?” I leaned forward a bit, conveying my interest. “In all of Agatha’s notes, I noticed the detail of your magic isn’t in there. Given that a week ago I didn’t know anything like this existed, you’d be helping me out if you explained it to me.”
“Thought you were here to help me?” Doug bit the words out, an edge of his frustration showing through. Good. He was taking the bait.
“I want to help you.” I leaned back and smiled, gesturing at his massive folder. “It’s difficult to do that from a stack of files, though.”
Silence crowded the room as Doug’s eyes met mine. A clock ticked on the far wall, a clock I hadn’t seen earlier. At least the house had a sense of humor. I held firm, gnawing on the inside of my lip.
At long last, Doug grunted at me and waved his hands.
“You have a shadow. Sometimes it has color.” He traced an outline of me. “When you aren’t being true to yourself or you're telling a lie, it gets darker. Big lies go black.”
“That must have been helpful when you were catching bad guys.” His lips thinned again, and I realized I'd made another misstep.
Why was I struggling with my words? “And even more difficult when someone you trust is being dishonest with you. Like your partner in the force, who was on the take and put your life in jeopardy for money.”
His dark eyes flooded with unshed tears that surprised me. When was the last time Agatha had acknowledged that pain? He cleared his throat roughly and shifted in his seat.
“We all got hardships. Mine ain’t so bad.” His fingers fluttered to his collar, as if verifying he had it buttoned. “I’m only here because my wife makes me.” The fingers clasped into a fist, exposing gnawed-on, dirty fingernails. “What I meant to say was, my wife made me.”
“Your childhood sweetheart Maggie. Her death three years ago must have been devastating.” I felt his pain all the way across the room, and it struck a chord I wasn’t interested in plucking at the moment.
Jeff wasn’t dead, but my husband was gone, too. Years from now, would I feel the pain of our breakup the way Doug did? We’d raised a child together. Would I mourn this loss forever?
I didn’t think I would. I hated to admit it, but I barely missed him. My life was immensely different and yet, in terms of how often I saw or talked to him, it was the same. Maybe I hadn’t realized how far apart we’d grown.
Or was it that I’d never loved him in the first place?
I pinched the soft flesh between my thumb and index finger. Just enough to bring me back to Doug and the moment. My rambling mind and insane empathy had their time and place. It wasn’t now.
Something about Doug’s case was resonating with me, though. Maybe because it was my first supernatural one. Or maybe because he struggled with his gift, and I’d never known I had one. At least not a magical one.
We’d been silent for three full minutes. While I waxed rhapsodic internally, Doug was staring out the window behind me. I tried to bring him out a bit more.
“Know what else Agatha wrote about your sessions? That you spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling and not talking.”
“At least the window has a better view than the couch.” Doug’s dry smile broke my heart. The love he’d had for his wife sat on him like another skin.
He’d promised her he would seek therapy. He’d never intended to actually benefit from it. I couldn’t blame him. Ray was from a generation where men didn’t show feelings. They certainly didn’t talk about them.
Which was why Agatha’s well-meaning but outdated methodologies hadn’t made a dent in his resolve.
But his pain enveloped him like a shroud. It was a shield he’d worn to keep the world at bay, dented only by his wife. Now she was gone, and he was stuck in a dark past with no hopes of living out the last years of his life, of which he should have plenty, with any sense of joy.
Since he still wasn’t talking, I referred back to his notes. Doug had three grandchildren, still young. He had a job with Lone Wolf Sentries, a local security firm. He tended a garden in his backyard. He still had a life worth living.
Maybe I could help him see that. I took a deep breath and decided to use the tactic that had gotten me into this mess in the first place.