This is different, thought Grace.
Then something really different happened. Dodie turned and put her weight into it and hit Ardis back. A real fast upward swoop.
Tracing the space beneath his chin.
Weird place to hit someone. Then Grace saw it.
A thin red line forming, Ardis’s eyes opening in wonder as the line started seeping and Ardis stumbled back causing the line to widen into a gaping slash.
A second mouth, grinning across his neck.
Now Ardis’s blood was coming out a lot faster than the blood from Dodie’s nose.
He staggered, tried to talk. Nothing came out. One hand flew toward his throat but dropped before arriving. Weakly, he waved a fist at Dodie.
Then he collapsed. Blood pooled beneath him.
Dodie stared at him. Shifted her eyes to the knife in her hand. Little tan specks and bits — breading from the chicken pieces — clung to the blade, turning into red lumps as they mixed with blood.
Dodie looked down at Ardis. Screamed his name and went over to him and shook him.
He didn’t move. Flat on his back, eyes sightless, mouth gaping. The blood kept spurting out of his neck.
Dodie’s attention now shifted to Grace, hugging herself with crossed arms. Pressed to the wall, wishing she could push herself through the wall.
“You saw that,” said Dodie. “I had to.”
Grace said nothing.
“What? You think I started it?”
Grace tried to shrivel to nothingness.
“What?” screamed Dodie, advancing on her. “You’re saying it was my fault? That what you’re saying?”
Grace remained silent.
Dodie said, “You keep looking at me with that look. Like I’m — fine, have it your way, remember this.”
Giving a weird, drunken smile, Dodie clutched the knife with both hands and raised it high. Letting out a laugh that sounded like a screaming coyote, she stiffened her arms and plunged the blade into her own belly.
Laughter turned to an agonized shriek as the pain hit her and she looked down and saw what she’d done. Shaking hands fumbled to dislodge the blade, buried in her abdomen to the hilt. Each attempt twisted the knife, doing more damage.
Dodie fell to her knees. Inches from Ardis.
Her hands faltered and dropped. The knife remained deeply embedded but turned to one side.
“Hep me,” she croaked to Grace. “Puh it ou.” Eyes dropping to the knife.
She moaned in pain.
Grace stood there.
Dodie’s eyes fluttered. Slammed shut. The trailer was quiet but for the drip-drop of blood on the linoleum floor.
Grace watched as the room turned red.
Chapter 10
By the time Grace was sitting behind the precious barrier provided by her desk, Andrew Toner was perched rigidly on the edge of the patient chair, shoulders tight as bridge struts, looking everywhere but at Grace.
She had yet to completely collect her thoughts but began a cardboard speech that was better than nothing.
“Obviously,” she began, “this is awkward for both of us. Let me begin by saying I’m sorry.”
“No need, you didn’t know,” he said. “How could you?”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “Still. You traveled a long distance for my help.”
He brushed a wing of hair from his unlined brow and sat for a long time before mustering the faintest of smiles.
“Guess there are all kinds of therapy.”
Being a cheeky bastard? Would he be bragging to his friends in Texas the moment he left the office? Facebook, Twitter, some other hideous communication?
Guys, you’ll never believe what happened, I shit you not, this was straight out of bad porn. I fly to L.A. to meet this shrink, go for a drink the night before and...
But then he said, “Sorry, that was glib. I guess I just — I’ve never been that great at making conversation.”
Not a lout. Too bad. Seeing his faults would’ve been a pathetic way for her to feel less stupid...
She cleared her throat. He looked up. His mouth was set tight. Nothing more to say.
“I’m terribly sorry, Andrew. But what happened, happened, no sense dwelling. On the contrary, I’m thinking we could try to use this time constructively.”
His eyebrows arced.
Oh, no, not that, not that at all.
Grace leaned forward, faking calm and authoritative... professional.
“What I mean,” she said, “is that you traveled a distance because of questions you have. If you can put aside the distraction, I’d be happy to hear what they are. Obviously I can’t treat you long-term, but I can do my best to direct you to the best local referral possible.”
She had no dependable referrals in Texas but damn, she’d find one.
Andrew Toner didn’t respond.
“On the other hand,” she said, “if you find that too difficult, I understand.”
“I... maybe...” Pinching khaki, he began to cross a leg. Changed his mind and replanted both feet flat on the carpet. “Do you have any idea what I’m after?”
“If the article you mentioned to my answering service is relevant, I might.”
“Yes!” A single whispered word, emphatic. He sat up straighter. “When I came across it, I said this is the person I need to talk to.” He turned to the side. “It took me a while to find it. It’s not a topic psychologists seem to pay much attention to.” A beat. “Why is that?”
“Hard to know for sure,” said Grace, grateful to be discussing anything but last night. “I suspect some of it has to do with what we call small sample size. There aren’t enough people to do the kind of studies that get grant money.”
“Really?” said Andrew. “With all that goes on, you’d think there would be.”
“I imagine most people in that situation wouldn’t be interested in being studied.”
“Hmm. Yes, I can see that.”
Oh, you have no idea, Andrew.
Or maybe you do... you’re here.
“Anyway,” he said. “That’s how I found you. Researching.”
Grace pictured him clicking away at his computer, patient, methodical, like an engineer should be. If he was an engineer... whatever, he’d investigated because of his own situation, finally come across that article.
The piece was six years old, tucked at the rear of an arcane British criminology journal now out of circulation. Because Malcolm had guessed, probably correctly, that psych journals might not go for it.
An outlier, Grace’s only solo effort. Malcolm had been suggesting it for a while, finally she’d relented.
He’d so enjoyed seeing it in print.
Living with Eviclass="underline" Emotional Aspects of Kinship with a Murderer
What the journal referees hadn’t known — what no one but Grace and Malcolm and Sophie knew — was that Grace had done double duty.
Author and subject.
Referring to herself as Jane X and altering details so no one would ever detect autobiography masquerading as clinical case history.
She’d placed the “precipitating event” in another state, transformed the father into the initial killer and suicide, the mother into a hapless victim — in addition to camouflaging the facts, that would play well with the feminist editor of the journal. And, let’s face it, Ardis had been a star player in the tawdry melodrama that ended with his neck slit open. All that stupid testosterone unleashed by booze and dope. All those backhand slaps.
The stink of tension and fear when he entered the trailer.
Across from her, Andrew sat there and Grace realized she’d drifted off. She wheeled back her desk chair, pressed her back into leather, wishing she could melt into oblivion.