Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
MINA
Later, the night terrors came. This time, I dreamed I was at the bottom of the lake, trapped in a car.
I could see Lock swim toward me but felt paralyzed.
Suffocated. He told me I woke up screaming.
I couldn’t tell him about the dream. I would have to tell him why I was so stressed, and part of me knew I still needed to keep it to myself.
The dream changed too. The man swimming toward me morphed into Daniel Palicki. Those cold, piercing eyes bore into me. He blew me a kiss. Then he swam up to the car window, smiled at me, and then left me there to drown.
Now, Lock and I sat in the car outside the Lasalle Harbor Medical Building. Our appointment was at 8:00 a.m. Lock pulled a string or two to have the doctor meet us an hour before her office officially opened. This town was far too small and neither of us wanted anyone else in our business.
“Baby, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does though,” I said.
He took my hand and brought it to his lips. “Come on. Dr. Wexler’s probably already in there.”
“We could have done this by phone,” I said. “Or through MyChart.”
Lock waved me off as he got out of the car and came around to my side. He insisted on opening car doors for me, though I’d told him a thousand times it wasn’t necessary. He was a throwback in so many ways.
“I hate MyChart,” he said. “I don’t want some dictated message back from Wexler’s nurse. I want you to be able to ask your questions directly, with her full attention.”
She was waiting for us with a kind smile when we walked in. As Lock requested, none of her staff had clocked in yet.
“Thank you so much for accommodating us,” Lock said, turning on his full charm. He towered over Gloria Wexler. She stood maybe five feet one in shoes.
“I don’t mind,” she said. Dr. Wexler ushered us into her small office and closed the door. She had a thin yellow file folder in the center of her desk.
“Relax,” she said, her smile bright. Since she was Lasalle Harbor’s only reproductive endocrinologist, Lock and I debated whether to choose someone out of town. But even coming from our small town, she was one of the best in the state.
She took two stapled packets of paper out of her folder and handed one to each of us. I saw rows of numbers under both Lock’s and my names. I saw a few for each of us marked in the abnormally high zone.
“Let’s start with you, Lock,” she said. “You’re about as virile a man as I’ve seen.
Three hundred and forty-two sperm per milliliter.
Nearly eighty percent motility. It means you’ve got a lot of swimmers, and they’re moving around extremely well.
So we can check male factors off the list of things to address. ”
“So it’s me,” I said.
“Not necessarily,” Dr. Wexler answered. “Most of your numbers are in great shape too, Mina. The only culprit I see is the ratio between your FSH and LH levels. Your LH is three to one higher than your FSH. We normally want to see that at one to one.”
“What does that mean?” Lock asked before I could.
“On paper, it looks like polycystic ovarian syndrome. You’re probably not ovulating regularly.”
“What do we do for that?” I asked.
“Let’s try a course of letrozole. You’ll take it for five days at the start of your next cycle. I think it’ll be just the thing to jiggle the handle, as they say. I’ll have the script sent over to your pharmacy today.”
“What kind of side effects can she expect?” Lock asked, his face filled with concern.
“Some don’t experience any,” she said. “But the most common ones are headaches, hot flashes, and the occasional mild mood swing. But they’re temporary if you have them at all.
Should you experience anything that impacts your day-to-day, give me a call.
But you’ll do fine. Trust me. A year from now, I hope to have you picking out cribs. ”
Lock beamed. It was hard for me to feel relief. I needed to study these numbers. Figure out what it all meant. In the short term, it told me what I’d always suspected. I was the problem. I might not be able to give Lock a baby. And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.
“Thank you,” Lock said. He reached over the desk and shook Dr. Wexler’s hand. I went on autopilot and did the same.
As we got to the car, Lock embraced me. “I told you,” he said. “It’s going to happen.”
“Then you heard something different than I did. She wants me on fertility drugs. I’m the problem.”
He looked skyward. “Will you stop? There’s nothing wrong with you. You just need a little jump start. That’s it. You’re missing the big picture, my dove.”
Dove. Dove. Dove. Corrine Egan’s WhisprMatch screenshots floated in my mind.
I had a demon sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear.
Why was I doing this? Why did I always get in the way of my own happiness?
Lock wasn’t the bad guy. Daniel Palicki was.
Wasn’t he? I just could not shake my doubts about Amy Pasko’s lineup ID.
I wished I’d been there. What I did see was her turning to Detective McCallister for assurance one too many times.
Had McCallister tainted her statement? If only Corrine had been able to corroborate everything.
Lara Pasko had a red ribbon in her car. Now, we knew Gretchen Small did too. Every time I thought I could dismiss it, that tiny seed of doubt was still there. I checked my phone compulsively, waiting to hear back from Dennison on the search of Daniel Palicki’s home.
“Think of how much more fun we get to have practicing,” Lock continued, a sinful growl in his tone.
He wrapped his arm around my waist, pressing me backward into a low dip as if we were dancing.
He ran his lips along my neck, sending searing heat along the path despite my mood.
How could he still have this effect on me?
Then he set me upright and opened the car door.
I wanted to share his optimism. But I just could not shake the feeling of impending doom. I stayed quiet the whole way home. Lock gave me my space. But when we pulled into the garage, he turned to me.
“Mina, look at me.”
“I’m okay. Really. I’m just trying to absorb it all.”
“No, you’re not. You’re catastrophizing again. I know that look. That tone. Our doctor just told you we’ve got nothing to worry about. There’s no reason we can’t have a baby together with time. But all you heard was that there’s something wrong with you. There isn’t.”
“I want to believe that.”
“Then do,” he said. “Baby, I always know what you’re thinking. So let’s play out your worst-case scenario. You know I don’t like to. But we’ll do it anyway.”
“Lock—”
“No, Mina, stop. If it doesn’t work. If you never get pregnant, it won’t matter to me. I need you to believe that. There are other ways to become parents when we’re ready for it.”
I screwed my eyes shut. I couldn’t even look at him.
“If it doesn’t work out this way, it’s because it wasn’t supposed to.”
“What do you mean?” I opened my eyes and watched as his shoulders dropped. Darkness settled in his eyes. The kind that frightened me. The kind that usually meant he would go stone cold like he did in the rose garden.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I didn’t pass on my genes, Mina.”
“Don’t ever say that,” I said, almost on impulse. “That’s your father talking.” He’d never said anything like that before. Did he believe it? Did I? I felt terrible. I could see he was hurting, and I was making it worse.
“I know my own mind. And I know I love you. I know I cannot live without you. I know I was drowning before you came into my life. And I wanted to. I wanted to sink to the bottom of that river, just like Bennett did. I deserved it for what I did to him.”
“You didn’t kill Bennett. Your mother’s a liar. I’m sorry, but she is. It was an accident. You were a kid and you thought you were doing the right thing. Because you were doing the right thing. You were trying to get your little brother away from your dad. It wasn’t your fault.”
His whole body started to shake. He could turn so quickly. Going from happy, loving one moment, to hard and tortured the next. I’d triggered him. I hadn’t meant to.
“Lock,” I said. “I think we both have to stop. You’re right. I have to stop thinking the world is going to fall apart on me every other second. And you have to stop thinking you’re not worthy of being loved.”
He got out of the car. It had started to drizzle. He walked up the drive and around the side of the house. I followed, having to run to catch up with him.
“Lock!”
He went to the edge of the pond on the west side of the grounds. In a few more minutes, we’d be walking through mud.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Don’t let my brooding take you down with me. I’ll get over it. You’re right. This was good news we heard today.”
He shook his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I made light of your feelings. I don’t know why you put up with me. You should go inside. I’m not fit to be around.”
I took his hand and rested my head against his arm. “Come inside with me. We’re both being ridiculous. It’s just all of it, Lock. My work. Your work. I wanted the baby-making to be easy. Well, it’s not going to be. So what? You’re right. It’ll be what it is.”
I tried to pull him along with me. It was like trying to move a slab of granite. “Lock,” I said. “Please.”
I saw his jaw clench. The whites of his eyes went red. I was losing him to that dark place. And it was my fault.
“Lock,” I whispered. I placed his palm on my chest. “Look at me. Feel me. We’re in this together, remember?”
He blinked. “You won’t go away?”
“What? Of course not. How could you even think that?”
“It just keeps getting so much harder not to think about everyone I’ve hurt.”
I bristled, worrying, but decided to stand firm. I was his everything, I had to believe him. “You’ve hurt no one. You’ve only ever tried to help people. And you can’t save the world.”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “I just wanted to save them all.”
“Them?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You didn’t hurt Bennett.” The photo of the boys Eli showed me in Lock’s office floated up in my mind. I couldn’t remember their names now. “And you’re not responsible for the choices any of the boys from Bennett’s Place make.”
I went up on my tiptoes and kissed him. Slowly at first, then I felt starved for him. I needed him. His touch. His strength. Finally, he responded to me as I stirred the same need in him.
The rain fell in earnest. Within a minute, we were both drenched. But it felt good. Cathartic in its way.
He took me there. Right at the edge of the pond. It was quick. It was rough. And it was exactly what we both needed.
Afterwards, he talked me into calling in sick. I made him lunch. He cooked me dinner. We took a shower together and Lock finally fell asleep in my arms.
He was right about almost everything. We would be okay no matter what happened. I was looking for clouds in the bright, sunny sky. The only thing he was ever wrong about was himself. Someday, I wished he would be able to see himself through my eyes. And I knew he thought the same thing about me.
We slept like the dead. When the sunlight finally stabbed through the windows, my ringing phone jarred me awake.
Lock moaned beside me, looking wicked as he stretched out, one arm above his head.
He held me tightly with the other. “You’ve been bad, Mina,” he whispered, pointing his chin toward my ringing phone.
I’d broken a rule and forgotten to leave it in the kitchen.
“You know what happens when you’re bad.”
I did. He would deliver delicious punishment for that later. A shock of need jolted through me as I imagined it. Sometimes, I was bad on purpose.
“Roy,” I answered the phone, clearing my throat.
“Are you sick or something?”
“No… I… I thought I was coming down with something. I feel better now.”
Lock stirred beside me and acted similarly surprised when he saw the time.
“Good,” Roy said. “I need you down here. We’re only about a quarter of the way through Palicki’s house. It’s a house of horrors, Mina. They videotaped everything. I need you to go through it with me.”
“Of course,” I said. The bubble of serenity Lock and I built last night burst as jarring reality set in. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Everything okay?” Lock asked.
I didn’t know how to answer. “Not really,” I said. “I have to go to work. And so do you.”
I leaned across the bed to kiss him. The light had come back into his eyes.
We chased away his clouds together last night.
And I was going to put my worries about him, about this case and his connection to it, to bed.
Lock was so wrong about himself. He wasn’t evil.
But I was about to confront something that truly was.