Chapter 36 Gabriel #2
"Perhaps we could all go there together?" Dr. Harrison suggests with the smooth efficiency of someone who's done this before. "It might be easier for her if you're there to help facilitate the conversation. Familiar faces can be comforting during a crisis."
The word 'crisis' hangs in the air like gunpowder smoke.
"I need to make a call first," I tell them, stepping into the break room and closing the door behind me.
My hands shake as I dial Colt's number. He picks up on the second ring, his voice rough with whatever he's been dealing with at the Morrison ranch.
"Miss me already?...."
"I need you to meet me at my house," I say without preamble. "Now."
There's a pause, then his voice sharpens with concern. "What's wrong?"
"Can't explain over the phone. Just... trust me. Drop whatever you're doing and get there."
"On my way."
Beau's phone rings four times before he picks up, and I can hear ranch equipment in the background.
"Gabriel? Everything alright?"
"I need you at my house. Emergency."
The equipment noise cuts off immediately. "Lucy?"
The concern in his voice, the immediate assumption that this is about her, makes something twist in my chest. "Just get there, Beau. I'll explain when you arrive."
"Ten minutes," he says, and the line goes dead.
Whatever's happening, whatever these people want, we'll face it together.
The drive to my house stretches like the longest twenty minutes of my life. Richard, Dr. Harrison, and Nurse Wells follow in their black SUV with tinted windows that reflect nothing but Montana sky.
Every few seconds, I catch glimpses of them in my rearview mirror, and each time my hands tighten on the steering wheel until my knuckles go white.
The familiar sight of my ranch house usually brings me peace. Today it feels like approaching a crime scene.
Colt and Beau are already there when I pull into the gravel drive, leaning against Colt's rust-streaked Ford with matching expressions of confusion and barely leashed tension.
Colt's got his vet bag slung over his shoulder like he's ready for an emergency call, while Beau stands with the controlled stillness that means he's prepared for trouble.
"What's going on, Gabe?" Beau asks as I climb out of my patrol car, his gray eyes scanning the SUV with the wariness of a man who's learned to read danger in expensive packages.
"Hell of a question," I say, just as the SUV doors open and our visitors emerge like something out of a government operation.
The change in both men is immediate and visceral.
Neither of them says a word, but I can feel their tension ratcheting up like pressure in a boiler about to blow.
"Gentlemen," Richard says, approaching with the kind of confident stride that speaks of boardrooms and country clubs, old money and older power. "I'm Richard Kensington, Lucinda's uncle and legal guardian."
"Lucinda?" Colt's voice is sharp, dangerous in a way that makes me glad these strangers don't know him well enough to recognize the warning signs. "Who the hell is Lucinda?"
"The woman you know as Lucy Reid," Dr. Harrison explains, stepping forward with his folder of documentation like it's a peace offering. "I'm afraid she's been lying to all of you."
We move inside my house, and I can't help but notice how Richard's eyes catalog everything. Like he's taking inventory or assessing threat levels.
The kitchen table where Lucy and I shared breakfast this morning becomes ground zero for the systematic destruction of everything I thought I knew about the woman I love.
Dr. Harrison spreads documents across the scarred oak surface like evidence in a murder trial, each piece more damning than the last. Medical records detailing psychiatric holds. Police reports describing violent outbursts. Court documents establishing guardianship.
Colt paces behind his chair like a caged wolf, too agitated to sit. Beau stands with his arms crossed, gray eyes moving between the documents and the strangers with calculating coldness.
"Multiple psychiatric holds," Dr. Harrison recites with clinical detachment. "Self-harm incidents. Three documented suicide attempts. A pattern of creating false identities and disappearing for extended periods."
I watch Colt's face go pale as he studies a police report, his green eyes tracking the words like he's reading his own death warrant.
"This says she attacked a nurse," he says, his voice strangely flat. "Put her in the hospital."
"During a psychotic break," Richard explains, his tone heavy with familial burden. "She doesn't remember incidents like that afterward. The medication helps with the memory gaps, but she's been off everything for over two years."
Beau picks up a medical chart, his jaw working as he reads. When he looks up, his face is carved from stone. "This shows a history of manipulative behavior. Documented instances of lying to medical staff, creating elaborate backstories."
"She becomes whatever she thinks people want her to be," Dr. Harrison says with practiced sympathy. "It's a survival mechanism, but it's also how she draws people in."
The description hits like a physical blow because it fits too well. Lucy showing up at the exact moment to help with the injured dog. The way she seemed to anticipate our needs, fit into our lives like a missing puzzle piece.
Had any of it been real?
"Where is she?" Colt asks, his voice deadly quiet in the way that means he's fighting for control. "She was supposed to be here."
I check my phone, scrolling through empty notifications. No messages, no missed calls, nothing. The silence feels ominous now instead of normal.
"Her phone's going straight to voicemail," I say, trying to call her again. The sound of her recorded voice, bright and cheerful and so achingly familiar, makes something crack in my chest like ice breaking under pressure.
"She does this," Richard says with the weary tone of someone who's dealt with this pattern before. "When she senses that people are getting too close to the truth, she runs. It's part of the pathology."
Dr. Harrison nods gravely. "Flight response is common in patients with her condition. She's probably already planning her next identity, her next location."
The words hit like bullets, each one finding its mark.
"Sheriff," Richard says, leaning forward with the intensity of a man delivering life-or-death news.
"I know this is difficult. Lucinda is very good at making people believe they know her, that they can save her.
But she's sick. She needs professional help, not the kind of enabling that comes from people who care about her but don't understand her condition.
And, I can see that you all care for her… "
Enabling. The word hits like a slap, making me question everything I thought I knew about love and protection and doing the right thing.
"What kind of dangerous are we talking about?" Colt asks, and I can hear him fighting the same battle I am. Love against logic, heart against mounting evidence.
Dr. Harrison exchanges a meaningful look with Nurse Wells before answering, like they're sharing the weight of terrible knowledge. "She's attempted suicide multiple times. Self-harm is an ongoing issue."
The room falls into heavy silence. I try to reconcile this version of Lucy with the woman who kissed each of us goodbye this morning like we were the most precious things in her world.
"The medications help stabilize her," Dr. Harrison continues, his voice taking on the practiced cadence of someone used to selling difficult truths to reluctant family members.
"The longer she goes without treatment, the more her grip on reality deteriorates.
She might genuinely believe the persona she's created.
In her mind, Lucy Reid probably feels completely real. "
"So everything was a lie," Beau says. Not a question but a statement delivered with the finality of a judge's gavel.
"Not lies, exactly," Richard corrects with what sounds like genuine compassion. "Delusions. She's not deliberately trying to deceive you, she's trapped in a reality that exists only in her mind."
Somehow, that makes it worse.
We sit in tense silence, the weight of revelation crushing down on all of us like the roof caving in. Richard, Dr. Harrison, and Nurse Wells remain seated around my kitchen table, their presence a constant reminder that everything we thought we knew has been turned inside out.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with doubt and growing resentment. Because the truth is, stripped of everything she's told us, we know almost nothing about the woman we've all fallen in love with.
Every story about her past, every explanation for her behavior, every moment of vulnerability could be fabricated.
We've been loving a ghost. A carefully constructed fiction designed to manipulate our protective instincts.
That's when we hear the rumble of an engine in the driveway.
Richard straightens in his chair like a hunting dog catching a scent, exchanging meaningful looks with Dr. Harrison and Nurse Wells.
The three of them transform before our eyes. From concerned family and medical professionals into something that looks disturbingly like a coordinated operation.
"Remember," Richard says quietly, his voice taking on an edge of authority I haven't heard before. "She can be very persuasive when she wants to be. Don't let her manipulate the situation."
Through the window, I can see Lucy's van pulling up beside my patrol car.
She has no idea what's waiting for her inside.
No idea that the perfect morning we shared was the last moment of happiness she'll know for a very long time.
The engine cuts off, and in the sudden silence, I can hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears like drums of war.