Chapter 31
Doctor Aspen
Another late night I hadn’t planned on.
I sighed as I finally shuffled through my front door, switching on the porchlight, grateful to plunge my heavy bag onto the old foyer bench—a family relic, passed on through the generations, but still sturdy enough to hold the mountain of work I brought home every weekend.
My car keys dropped into my bag, in-between the files I had lugged home.
I stared at those files. Another evening of admin, cheap red wine and a microwave dinner, in bed. Alone.
How glorious. Exactly how I envisioned my life at sixty-two. But alone was better than a deadbeat man draining the life out of me. Besides, I was married to my work. My patients had always come first. And I had no time for a man shaming me for it.
I sighed. Not even a pet to greet me at the door. I should get one. A cat wouldn’t mind being home alone for long periods of time. Maybe I could get two cats to keep each other company while I was away.
I shook my head. That was a slippery slope to crazy cat lady.
“She’s fucking him as we speak.”
The deep, unstable voice ripped through my body, stunning me in place. My heart shocked to a standstill. I scanned the dark living room in front of me, searching for the source of that dark voice.
Then I saw him. A man sitting in my armchair, shrouded in shadows, only his legs and hands visible. Shadows elongated his fingers as he dug them into the armrests, making them look like claws.
I stumbled backwards, pressing myself against the foyer wall, pressing my hand against the pain in my chest.
If I believed in such things, I might have mistaken the obscured man for a demon. But I knew better. And I knew men could do far worse things than demons.
I tried to take a steadying breath. I was all alone with this man, on my acreage of land, completely isolated from civilisation.
No one would hear me scream and no one would come look for me for at least three nights.
The hospital might send someone to check when I didn’t show up for my shift on Monday.
Who would plan my funeral? The seats in the church would be almost empty. Or would the hospital allow some of my patients to come?
Carl would go off the deep end. I had worked years to gain his trust. He would not accept any other psychiatrist. My death would shatter all those years of work, plunging him right back into the paranoia. They would have to lock him up again, under constant sedation.
I forced the air back into my lungs. Only seconds have passed, and the man had not moved, except for his knee, bouncing up and down. I tried to peer into the darkness, to get a better view of his face. If only I could see his face, read it, then I would know how much trouble I was in.
“Who are you?” I somehow managed to speak without stuttering, but my voice still trembled like a newborn fawn.
Get it together, Rosa.
The shadowy figure stirred. Ever so slightly, he leaned forward until a slither of moonlight danced across his face. His sharp features were set in a hard line, his eyes studying me, catching the moment realisation dawned on me, before retreating into the shadows once more.
“Grayson Varon,” I breathed, as the shock claimed my brain, rendering it useless. What was he doing here? In my house? Do I know something I shouldn’t?
I knew Ava was in constant danger from this man, how did I not think about myself? I was Ava’s therapist. She told me things no one else knew. Of course, this man would come for me too.
Oh, Rosa. You fool.
A restless, desperate energy was radiating off him, not unlike that of an addict on the cusp of crashing out—unpredictable and frighteningly dangerous, especially from a sociopathic man like him.
But I knew how to work with addicts. “What are you doing here, Mister Varon?” I asked as calmly as I could.
I needed to keep him distracted and engaged so I could get to my phone or my car keys.
Car keys. I needed to get to my car. It was the only way out.
I took a tentative step towards him, and my bag.
His leg started bouncing faster. He ripped a hand though his hair. “I don’t know. I… I need information.”
It was unexpected to hear him so uncertain. This was not the man Ava had described. Grayson was unshakable, unbreakable. But this man was clearly spiralling, deeply distressed, barely holding it together.
That made him more dangerous. But also, more pliable to outside influences. I had a shot at talking him out of whatever he planned to do to me.
I took the opportunity to take another step closer to my bag while he was distracted by the chaos in his mind. He was unstable and I was in clear danger. I had to get my keys. I quickly peered at my bag, trying to see where my keys had landed.
“I know what you’re thinking, doc.”
I snapped my eyes back to him, his sudden calmed voice raising my hair. He sat still as a statue. How did he regain composure of himself like that? It was unnatural.
“You’re thinking of getting your keys and making a run for it.
But, here’s the thing. You’ll never make it to your car.
Yes, you will make it out the door, feeling like you’ve won, but halfway to your car, and I’ll have you.
And no, there is nothing you can do to get away from me.
Trust me. I’ve already gone through every possible scenario, and you lose every time.
So sit down.” He stood and gestured towards the armchair.
“The scenario in which you cooperate is the only one you walk away from me with all your bones intact.”
I cleared my throat as it choked my air off and nodded slowly. “Mister Varon, I don’t know what informa—”
“Sit!”
I flinched at the harshness of his tone. It echoed a different kind of unhinged—a man with no moral compulsion for the preservation of the living.
I shouldn’t disobey him.
I moved slowly towards the armchair, not daring to take my eyes off him as I passed, then lowered myself into it on trembling arms.
He started pacing in front of me, a deep crease between his brows.
How was I going to get away from him?
He was significantly larger than me. I would be delusional to think I could fight him. Every part of his body screamed power, while every lithe movement of that body screamed danger.
I could suddenly understand just how scared and hopeless Ava had felt those first few weeks with this man. He was a menace. A deadly, calculated sociopath.
He stopped pacing, and I held my breath.
“You’re going to answer all my questions about Ava. Then you get to live. Understood?”
I swallowed hard. “Mister Varon, I am sworn to secrecy under the doctor-patient…”
“Don’t give me that shit! I don’t want to, but I swear to Ava’s gods, I will torture it out of you. Don’t fuck with me, doc.”
His hands were clenching and unclenching as he worked to control his anger.
I slinked a little deeper into the chair. “Okay, Mister Varon. Okay. I will tell you what you want to know. Just take a deep breath.”
He snorted a laugh. “I’ve been breathing through it my whole life. And it’s not working anymore. So tell me what I need to know.”
“Then ask your question,” I said in a soothing voice, hoping to calm him.
His jaw clenched and he shut his eyes. He was still for a while. “Tell me that she still loves me,” his voice cracked.
My mouth almost fell open, if my jaw wasn’t locked in absolute terror. I was taken aback. I expected questions of Ava’s knowledge on them, or how close she was at catching them. Not this. He almost sounded broken. Like he could feel.
No, it couldn’t be. This was merely an obsession. Which was disastrous for Ava. Obsessions of this magnitude never end well.
I made a split-second decision. I decided on saying something that would surely get me killed. “I’m sorry, Mister Varon, but she doesn’t.”
I held my breath, waiting on the crash-out, waiting for his hands to close around my throat.
It went against my most basic training to antagonise an unstable man like this.
I should have told him what he wanted to hear, to stabilise the situation, but even if it killed me, I would not be responsible for this murderer to re-enter Ava’s life.
She’d been through enough. I couldn’t live with myself. I had a duty to protect my patient.
Varon hadn’t moved a single muscle, except for the tilt of his head as he studied me.
He was a deeply unsettling man. His stare stripped the meat right off my bones, laying me bare for an autopsy.
His low voice startled me, after the seconds of deafening silence. “That was a lie, Doctor. You should know, you’re not the only one who can decipher human behaviours.”
He dragged a dining chair over the tiled floor, placing it right in front of me.
His movements were slow and certain as he sat down, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers between his spread legs.
Another switch. Another sudden change in his emotions, now radiating a lethal confidence as he observed me.
“That means she still loves me.”
I stayed quiet, not wanting to give him any more ammunition.
“But she loves Becket too.”
Clearly lying wasn’t an option. So I tried another approach. “What about you, Mister Varon? Do you love Ava?”
He studied me for what felt like hours, contemplating if he should entertain my question. Then his shoulders dropped, and his eyes softened into an utter sadness. “More than life.”
Another switch. Like an actor dropping his character. Was the sociopath just an act? Was Varon not the monster he portrayed?
I understood now how Ava had been so utterly conflicted about him when she landed in my office. Even I am finding it hard to read this man, to pinpoint his true nature.
“Don’t just stare at me, Aspen. Tell me what to do!” The pure desperation in his voice had me reeling.