“Right. Put her there, Max. She might try to escape, so keep the door locked. By morning I’m sure we’ll know more. Mel and Earl are canvassing the town. They’ll find out who she is. Or when she wakes up, she’ll tell us.”
Max turned to her. “We’re in the deep end here, Ellie, and you know it. Maybe you should call in the big boys.”
Ellie looked at him. “It’s my pool, Max. I can handle one lost girl.”
THREE
Julia stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, studying herself with a critical eye. She wore a charcoal gray pantsuit and a pale pink silk blouse. Her blond hair was coiled back in a French twist; the way she always wore it when seeing patients. Not that she had a lot of patients left. The tragedy in Silverwood had cost her at least seventy percent of them. Thankfully there had been those who still trusted her, and she would never let them down.
She grabbed her briefcase and went down to her garage, where her steel blue Toyota Prius Hybrid waited. The garage door opened, revealing the empty street outside.
On this warm, brown October morning there were no reporters out there waiting for her, clustered together and yet apart, smoking cigarettes and talking.
She was no longer part of the story.
Finally, after a year of nightmares, she had her life back. It took her more than an hour to reach the small, beautiful Beverly Hills office building that she’d leased for more than seven years.
She parked in her spot and went inside, closing the door quietly behind her. On the second floor, she paused outside her office, looking at the sterling silver plaque on the door.
DR. JULIA CATES
She pressed the intercom button.
“Dr. Cates’s office,” came the scratchy-voiced reply through the speaker. “May I help you?”
“Hey, Gwen, it’s me.”
“Oh!”
There was a buzzing sound, then the door eased open with a click.
Julia took a deep breath and opened it. The office smelled of the fresh flowers that were delivered every Monday morning. Though there were fewer patients now, she’d never cut back on the flower order. It would have been a sign of defeat.
“Hello, Doctor,” said Gwen Connelly, her receptionist. “Congratulations on yesterday.”
“Thanks.” She smiled. “Is Melissa here yet?”
“You have no appointments this week,” Gwen said gently. The compassion in her brown eyes was unnerving. “They all cancelled.”
“All of them? Even Marcus?”
“Did you see the L.A. Times today?”
“No. Why?”
Gwen pulled a newspaper out of the trash can and dropped it on the desk. The headline was DEAD WRONG. Beneath it was a photograph of Julia. “The Zunigas gave an interview after the hearing. They blamed you for all of it.”
Julia reached out for the wall to steady herself.
“I’m sure they’re just trying to get out from under the lawsuit. They said … you should have committed their daughter.”
“Oh.” The word slipped out on a breath.
Gwen stood up and came around the desk. She was a small, compact woman who had run this office as she’d run her home, with discipline and caring. Moving forward, she opened her arms. “You helped a lot of people. No one can take that from you.”
Julia sidestepped quickly. If she were touched right now, she’d fall apart. She might never put all the pieces back together.
Gwen stopped. “It’s not your fault.”
“Thank you. I … guess I’ll take a vacation.” She tried to smile. It felt heavy and wooden on her face. “I haven’t gone anywhere in years.”
“It’d be good for you.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll cancel the flowers and call the building manager,” Gwen said. “Let him know you’ll be gone for … a while.”
I’ll cancel the flowers.
Funny how that, of all of it, broke the skin. Julia held on to her composure by the thinnest strand as she moved Gwen toward the door and said good-bye.
Then, alone in the office, she sank to her knees on the expensive carpeting and bowed her head.
She wasn’t sure how long she knelt there in the darkness, listening to the strains of her own breathing and the beat of her heart.
Finally, she awkwardly got to her feet and looked around, wondering what she would do next. This practice was the very heart of her. In her pursuit of professional excellence, she’d put everything else on the back burner—friends, family, hobbies. She hadn’t even had a date in almost a year. Not since Philip, in fact. She went to her phone and stood there, staring down at the speed dial list.
Dr. Philip Westover was still number seven. She felt an ache of need, a bone-deep desire to hear his voice, hear him say It’ll be okay, Julia, in that lilting brogue of his. For five years he’d been her best friend and her lover. Now he was another woman’s husband.
That was the thing about love—it was unreliable.
With a sigh, she pushed the number two button.
Her therapist, Dr. Harold Collins, answered on the second ring. She’d been seeing him once a month since her residency, when it had been required of all psychiatric students. In truth, he’d been more of a friend than a doctor.