Chapter 27 Zeth
Zeth
This newan woman said to come by her office at two, but that’s not gonna fly.
She asked Sloane to come, but since she’s working, the prissy shrink will have found someone else to chaperone our little meeting, if only to prove a point to Sloane: This guy is not someone you should be spending time with.
She’s probably right, but it still pisses me off.
She doesn’t know what I’ve done so far to keep her friend fucking safe.
I’m glad Sloane couldn’t come, anyway. After screwing her brains out against the wall yesterday, I’ve been in a foul mood.
I shouldn’t have put down that rope. I should have tied her up and done whatever I damn well wanted to her.
Used her like I’ve used every other woman I’ve ever fucked.
And yet, I saw that look of hesitation on her face, and I changed my mind.
It’s not that I couldn’t have done it. I definitely could have done it.
I would have enjoyed it more than any normal person would.
But I didn’t want her to feel like that.
And then she ruined everything by kissing me, and I lost my shit and stormed out.
Seeing her is the last thing I need right now.
So yeah, it’s a good thing she’s at work and not sitting next to me outside Pippa Newan’s practice.
I show up at midday. The building overlooks Greenlake Park.
The place is a rainbow of autumnal colors—red, orange, russet, green.
Mountains of leaves are banked around the trunks of the trees, ready to be collected.
Families walk their dogs. Mothers push their kids on the swings.
A couple strolls slowly together, arms linked, thick coats drawn tight.
Steam rises from their takeaway coffee cups.
This is not the ghetto. Sloane tried to make her friend out to be some kind of fucking saint because her client list was comprised mostly of felons.
This looks like suburban highlife, though.
If I were as judgmental as Pippa, I’d assume she was getting rich and fat from the government stipend she receives to treat these motherfuckers.
Her parolees probably hate coming to see her, too.
Riding the number sixteen bus to this bullshit neighborhood?
A neighborhood where they’ll never be able to afford a cramped studio let alone a proper home? Yeah, that’s a pretty big fuck-you.
I hover outside the building, watching the entrance, smoking my cigarette.
This place will have security. Probably a concierge who doubles as muscle just in case the clientele gets rowdy when the good doc won’t refill their Valium scripts.
I finish that smoke, light another one. The cold sinks through my leather jacket and settles in my bones.
After a while, I get up and pace as I smoke, always watching the door.
Even though I’m paying attention, I still nearly miss my chance when it comes.
A kid, twenty, twenty-one, low jeans barely hanging off his ass, ball cap peak to the back, jogs up the stairs.
I flick the butt, a shower of sparks spiraling upward as I dash across the road.
I take the building’s steps three at a time.
The kid’s finger is on the buzzer when I grab him by the scruff of the neck.
“I’m your uncle,” I snarl. He spins, ready to swing, face twisted with a snarl of his own, but when he sees me properly, he pulls back.
“What you want? You ain’t my uncle, man.” It’s not my size that makes him back the fuck down, even though I am bigger than the little punk. It’s the look in my eyes. The don’t-think-I-won’t-kill-you-if-you-put-a-foot-wrong-here look.
“Right now, I’m your uncle. When we walk inside this building and go up the stairs, I’m still your fucking uncle. When we get up to the office, you’re gone. I’d better not see you for fucking dust.”
The kid hears the warning in my voice, but I’ll give him credit where credit’s due. He stands his ground. “I gotta see this shrink, dog. I miss my appointment, I’m going inside, and that ain’t happening. For real.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. I’ll make sure you’re square with the good doctor.”
“Hello?” The distorted voice of a young woman bursts out of the speaker in the wall. I glare at the kid, making sure he reads how much trouble he’ll be in if he fucks up this next part. He shoots me a filthy look and shrugs.
“Yo, it’s Mark. I gotta see Doc Newan.”
“Hi, Mark. Come on up.”
The door buzzes and a catch unlocks somewhere. Mark opens the door, and we walk inside. The mountain of a man waiting for us on the other side is the unfriendly type. He’s ex-military. I can smell jarhead a mile off. He’s a smart fucker, too. He knows something’s off as soon as he lays eyes on me.
“Dr. Newan know you’re bringing a guest with you today, Mr. Fletcher? You know how she hates surprise visitors.”
“Yeah, Franz. Chill. He’s my uncle. She told me to bring him.”
The guard, Franz—who the fuck calls their kid Franz?—gives me the once-over. “I thought your uncle was a resident of the Washington State penal system.”
“Just got outta SeaTac,” I tell him.
“Yeah. You look fresh off the bus,” Franz replies. He shoves a tray into my chest none too politely. “You should still know what to do with this, then.”
I empty my pockets into the tray, smiling brightly at the guard: wallet, cell phone, and keys.
I purposefully left the gun in the car. There’s nothing on the phone or in the wallet that could cause me any serious problems. Franz eyes me like he doesn’t believe I’m not packing.
I hold my arms up at either side: Search me, motherfucker.
He ignores that and shoves the tray into Mark’s chest instead.
A grubby bus ticket, a house key, and a crumpled twenty goes into the tray after my stuff.
I get the feeling that the contents of his pockets are pretty much all Mark owns in the world.
“Be waiting here for you on the way out.” Franz tips his head to the doorway behind him. “Better hurry. You’re gonna be late.”
The office is on the third floor, pretentious as shit.
When we enter, the owner of the bubbly intercom voice is on her feet, bouncing with, what is that?
Excitement? She can only be twenty herself, curly blond hair and a tidy body clad in a skirt and blazer right out of Legally Blonde.
She grins when she sees the kid next to me.
“Hey, Mark.”
“S’up, Patricia. This, uh, this is my uncle.” There’s something going on between these two. The girl practically mounts the little fucker right in front of me. Her smile slips when she looks at me properly.
“Oh, hi, sir. You came to show Mark some support?”
“Something like that.”
“Would you like to take a seat?”
“Actually, I was thinking maybe you and Mark could go spend some time checking out the skyline or something. I need to have a word with Dr. Newan about Mark’s sessions.” A stroke of genius. If the kid heads down there alone, that gung-ho guard will be up here in two seconds flat.
“Uh, I’m not supposed to leave the front desk.”
I just look at Mark.
“C’mon, Trish. It’s cool.” He holds his hand out and my suspicions are confirmed.
Trish goes bright red, taking his hand in her own.
She edges past me like I’m the devil incarnate.
Smart girl. With those two gone, I plant myself in a chair in the empty waiting room and do just that: I wait.
The intercom on the reception desk buzzes a couple of times.
Seven minutes later, a door down the hallway flies open and a tall brunette in a pantsuit stalks out.
“Patricia, how many times! The buzzer means I’m re—” She sees me. Halts. Places her hands on her hips. It’s a defense mechanism. When you’re about to be attacked by a bear, you make yourself look bigger.
I smile sweetly at her. She touches a hand to her forehead and looks down at her shoes for a second. Seems as though she’s trying to find the right words to say. When she looks back up at me, she’s one hundred percent in control again. “She said you were hideous,” she announces.
“I’m aware.”
“Should I even ask where my appointment and my receptionist have disappeared to?”
“They’re fine. On their first date, by the looks of things.”
Pippa shakes her head again. “Terrific. Well, I suppose you’d better come with me, then.
” She isn’t even flustered. I like and detest this at the same time.
I wanted to catch her on the back foot, but my unannounced arrival has barely made her blink.
She gestures into her office. I get up and walk inside.
She follows, closing the door behind us.
Together in an enclosed space? Alone? Yeah, this chick has steel cojones.
“You’re here to talk about your friend.” She sits down at her desk, crossing her legs and resting her interlaced fingers across her stomach. The posture immediately makes me angry. Prison counselor pose.
“I’m here to talk about you,” I correct her. I walk right by the chair in front of Newan’s desk and stand in front of the window. If she cares, she doesn’t show it.
“What do you want to know?”
“Are you in this for the money, or do you really want to help people?”
She shrugs. “I want both. I have bills I need to pay just like everyone else. But I get to make money by assisting people with their reintegration into society. Helping them isolate the problem areas in their lives and teaching them how to make positive changes.”
I hold up my hand—I’ve heard enough head doctor bullshit to last me a lifetime. It sounds like she’s reading from a script. The only reason I haven’t walked out already is because of the first part. She admitted to wanting the money.
“Have you ever had a patient confess criminal activity to you?” I demand.
“Yes.”
“And what actions did you take?”
“The appropriate ones.”
She called the cops. That won’t work. I don’t know for a certainty what’s gone on in Lacey’s past, but I get the impression that she did something crazy just before she showed up on my doorstep.
And it probably wasn’t legal. “What would it take for you to accept Lacey off the books? To keep everything confidential, no matter what she tells you?”
Pippa assesses me, thinking. “I’m a doctor, Mr. Mayfair.
I took an oath just like Sloane did. We are both bound by that oath to help people, so under these extreme circumstances I would be willing to help your friend without creating a file on her.
I am, however, also bound by the law. If your friend confesses that she has caused or intends to cause harm to herself or another person, I can’t turn a blind eye to that. ”
“So your Hippocratic oath will force you to help her, but your sense of civic duty will overrule that and ruin her anyway.”
She fixes steel-colored eyes on me. “That’s how these things often go.”
“And no amount of money will change your mind on that?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Mayfair.”
“Then I guess we’re done here.” Waste of fucking time.
I shouldn’t have bothered. I hustle for the exit, unwilling to expend any further breath on the dead-end conversation.
There are a million corrupt psychologists, doctors, and police officers out there.
I’ll just have to bribe one of them instead.
“Mr. Mayfair?” Newan is still sitting at her desk. She hasn’t flinched. “Against my better judgment, there is one reason that might persuade me to look the other way should your friend admit to something that might normally end in jail time.”
“Oh, yeah? And what would that be?”
She looks at me blankly, but I can see the worry in her eyes. That part is too difficult to hide. “You can stay away from my friend. Permanently. You can stay away from Sloane.”
Well, well, well. Conniving bitch. I definitely don’t like her now. “And if she doesn’t want me to?”
Pippa looks out of the window, over the park, purveyor of her safe little kingdom.
“I suppose if she wants to see you, I can’t stop her.
But then these sessions you need from me?
You’ll be paying me double. One for your friend, and one for you, too.
I don’t want a mentally unstable man anywhere near Sloane. ”