“What’s she grounded for?”
“Sneaking out,” Shannon says, rolling her eyes. “We found her climbing out of her bedroom window at midnight. She did the whole rope-made-out-of-bedsheets thing, like you see in the freakin’ movies. Lucky she didn’t break her neck.”
I laugh again, clasping my hand to my open mouth.
“I swear, when Bill and I were dating and he told me he had a ten-year-old girl, I didn’t think much of it,” Shannon says, her voice low, staring at her stepdaughter. “Honestly, I thought I lucked out. A kid-on-demand, skipping right through the whole dirty-diaper-screaming-at-all-hours-of-the-night part. She was such a sweetheart. But it is amazing how the second they become teenagers, it all changes. They turn into monsters.”
“It won’t be like this for long,” Daniel says, smiling. “One day, they’ll just be distant memories.”
“God, I hope.” Shannon laughs, taking another swig of her wine. “He really is an angel, you know.”
She’s speaking to me now, but she motions to Daniel, tapping him on the chest.
“Planning this whole thing. You wouldn’t believe the time it took him to get everyone together in one place.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I don’t deserve him.”
“Good thing you didn’t quit a week earlier, huh?”
She nudges me and I smile, the memory of our first meeting as sharp as ever. It was one of those chance encounters that could have easily meant nothing. Bumping into an exposed shoulder on the bus, muttering a simple excuse me before parting ways. Borrowing a pen from the man at the bar when yours runs dry, or running a wallet left in the bottom of a shopping cart to the car outside before it drives away. Most of the time, these meetings lead to nothing more than a smile, a thank-you.
But sometimes, they lead to something. Or maybe even everything.
Daniel and I had met at Baton Rouge General Hospital; he was walking in, I was walking out. More like staggering out, really, the weight of the contents of my office threatening to tear through the bottom of a cardboard box. I would have walked right past him, the box obscuring my vision, my eyes downcast as I followed my own footsteps to the front door. I would have walked right past him had I not heard his voice.
“Do you need a hand?”
“No, no,” I said, shifting the weight from one arm to the other, not even bothering to stop. The automatic door was a yard away, less. My car was idling outside. “I got it.”
“Here, let me help you.”
I heard footsteps running behind me; felt the weight lifted slightly as his arm snaked between mine.
“Good God,” he grunted. “What do you have in here?”
“Books, mostly.” I pushed a strand of sweaty hair from my forehead as he lifted the box from my grip. And that was the first glimpse I got of his face—blonde hair and lashes to match, teeth that were the product of expensive adolescent orthodontia and maybe a bleaching treatment or two. I could see his biceps bulging through his light blue button-up as he hoisted my life into the air and balanced it on his shoulder.
“You get fired?”
My neck snapped in his direction; I opened my mouth, ready to set him straight, until he glanced my way and I saw his expression. His tender eyes, the way they seemed to soften as he took in my face, scanning his way from top to bottom. He stared at me as though he were staring at an old friend, his pupils flickering over my skin, searching for a trace of familiarity in my features. His lips curled into a knowing grin.
“I’m just kidding,” he said, turning his attention back to the box. “You look too happy to have been fired. Besides, wouldn’t there be some guards escorting you out by the armpits before throwing you down on the pavement? Isn’t that how it works?”
I smiled, let out a laugh. We were in the parking lot then, and he placed the box on the roof of my car before crossing his arms and turning toward me.
“I quit,” I said, the words settling over me with a finality that, for a second, almost made me burst into tears. Baton Rouge General had been my first job; my only job. My coworker, Shannon, had become my closest friend. “Today was my last day.”
“Well, congratulations,” he said. “Where to next?”
“I’m starting my own practice. I’m a medical psychologist.”
He whistled, poking his head into the box on my car. Something caught his eye and he twisted his head distractedly, leaning in to pick up one of the books.
“Got a thing for murder?” he asked, inspecting the cover.
My chest constricted as my eyes darted to the box. I remembered, in that moment, that situated next to all of my psychology textbooks were piles of true-crime titles: The Devil in the White City, In Cold Blood, The Monster of Florence. But unlike most people, I didn’t read them for entertainment. I read them for study. I read them to try to understand, to dissect all the different people who take lives for a living, devouring their stories on the page almost as if they were my patients, leaning back in that leather recliner, whispering their secrets into my ear.
“I guess you could say that.”
“No judgment,” he added, twisting the book in his hands around so I could see the cover—Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—before flipping it open and starting to thumb the pages. “I love this book.”
I smiled politely, unsure of how to respond.
“I really should be going,” I said instead, motioning to my car and offering my hand. “Thanks for your help.”
“The pleasure was mine, Doctor…?”
“Davis,” I said. “Chloe Davis.”
“Well, Doctor Chloe Davis, if you ever need to move any more boxes…” He dug into his back pocket, fishing out his wallet before pulling out a business card and pushing it into the open pages. He flipped the book closed and thrust it in my direction. “You know where to find me.”
He smiled at me, winking in my direction before turning around and walking back into the building. When the automatic doors closed behind him, I looked down at the book in my hands, running my fingers against the glossy cover. There was a tiny gap in the pages where his business card lay wedged and I stuck my nail into the crack, flipping it back open. I looked down, feeling a foreign twist in my chest as my eyes scanned his name.
Somehow, I knew that wasn’t the last time I would be seeing Daniel Briggs.
CHAPTER FIVE
I excuse myself from Shannon and Daniel and slip outside through the sliding door. My mind is spinning by the time I make it to the back porch, my hand clutching my fourth variety of alcoholic beverage. The endless small talk is buzzing in my ears, the bottle of wine I’ve polished off buzzing in my brain. It’s still muggy outside, but the breeze is refreshing. The house was getting stuffy with the drunken body heat of forty people bouncing off the walls.
I wander toward the picnic table, the heap of crawfish, corn, sausage, and potatoes somehow still steaming on the newspaper. I put down my wineglass, grab a crawfish, and twist it, letting the juice from the head drip down my wrist.
Then I hear movement behind me—footsteps. And a voice.
“Don’t worry, it’s just me.”
I swing around, my eyes adjusting in the dark to the body before me. The cherry-red tip of a cigarette glowing between his fingers.
“I know you don’t like to be surprised.”
“Coop!”
I drop the crawfish on the table and walk toward my brother, wrapping my arms around his neck and inhaling his familiar scent. Nicotine and spearmint gum. I’m so shocked to see him, I let the jab about the surprise party slide.