Dr. Mallory considered the question. “I am bound by privacy rules, Rain. Rules that protect what is said in counseling sessions.”
“Okay.”
“So I’m bound not to divulge what you say, but there are exceptions. In certain circumstances it is permissible to disclose things.”
Of course. There was always a catch. “Like what?”
“Well, for instance, if I determine that someone is a danger to others or to themselves. I am obligated to protect the health and safety of others as well as my patients. But anything else I am bound to keep confidential.”
“And you can’t tell my parents what I say, right? Just because I’m a minor?”
“What is it you want to say, Rain?”
She looked around the room, wondered what would happen if she just got up and left. No one could stop her. Her gaze fell on a leash hanging on the doorknob—Walker’s leash, and a rush of shame heated her face. I think your dog is going to die.
Dr. Mallory followed her gaze. “He’s fine, you know. Walker. He had an obstruction in his intestines, and the vet had to operate, but he’s fine. He’s coming home tomorrow.”
Dr. Mallory’s voice was normal, not angry, and Rain knew she should feel relief and couldn’t figure out why it would feel better if the shrink had shouted or something. She tightened her fingers around the stone and hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake. “He lied to them,” she said. “To the police.”
“I see.” Dr. Mallory closed her eyes a moment, thought. “Well, I wouldn’t think lying to the police is the wisest thing to do.”
“Everybody lies.” She stared at Dr. Mallory, challenging her to argue the point.
“Tell me more about that, Rain. Why do you think everyone lies?”
“Because they do.” Take her mother. She lied all the time. She even lied to herself. And her dad. She thought of the roster of people she knew for a fact had lied. Teachers. Friends. Even that policeman had lied when he told Duane they would send Lucy’s Yoda out for DNA and fingerprint testing.
“And by saying ‘everybody lies’ are you telling me that you think I lie as well?”
Rain shrugged. “Why should you be different?”
“In our times together, Rain, do you believe that I have been untruthful?”
Rain shrugged again. “Well, Duane lied. He lied to the police, and he lied to our parents.”
“Do you want to tell me more about that?”
Not especially. But it was like once she started, she couldn’t stop. “They asked all these questions about him and Lucy. About how well he knew her, as if Lucy was his girlfriend or something.”
“And he wasn’t?”
Seriously. Lucy and Duane? “No. It’s ridiculous they would think that.” Maybe by now everyone was back home. Or at work. Duane at the creamery scooping Double Chocolate Chunk Cherry into waffle cones or the pink plastic dishes they had for little kids. Her father pushing papers at the insurance agency. Her mother cleaning or shopping or doing whatever it was she did all day.
“Did they say why they wanted to talk to Duane?”
“Because of Yoda.” She told Dr. Mallory about Lucy’s little toy and how the priest had found it in the chapel and that they knew Duane had been in the chapel that week and they wondered if he had been the one to drop the toy. “He told them he didn’t. But the thing is, he did have it. He lied to them. After they left, when he was freaking out”—an image flashed of Duane standing in the kitchen sucking down beer—“he told me he did have it. He said Lucy gave it to him.”
“And do you think that is true?”
“Why would Lucy give it to him? It was one of her favorite things.” She slipped her hand into the pocket of her shorts and tightened her fingers around the stone, the stone that signified she and Lucy had been chosen sisters. “I mean, she barely even talked to him.”
“Did you ask him that, Rain?”
“He said it was a secret.”
“I see.”
“Between him and Lucy. But I don’t know how he would have a secret with Lucy. I mean, they barely talked.”
“And if they did have a secret, would it hurt to think Lucy might have a secret she didn’t tell you?”
“Everyone has secrets,” she said in the same flat voice she had said everyone lies. That was what the policeman had said last October when Lucy disappeared.
“And your friend Lucy had secrets?”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, said nothing.
“Secrets are curious things, Rain. There are secrets that are benign, even fun. Like surprise parties and gifts.”
Rain thought to when she was little and she and Duane had saved up to buy their mother a bracelet for Christmas. And the party she and her mother had planned to surprise Duane when he was ten. I know I can trust you not to tell Duane, her mother had said. So he will be surprised.
“Sweet secrets,” Mallory said. “Things you only tell your best friend about.” Lucy climbing into the front seat of Jared Phillips’s green Jeep.
“Like boys you have a crush on,” Mallory continued.
As if the little shrink knew the first thing about crushes. She probably didn’t even have a date when she was in high school. It remained a complete mystery to Rain why the tall, good-looking man she had seen in the photo in the shrink’s kitchen would have married her. And anyway, Lucy didn’t have a crush on Jared. He only wanted to ask her something. Don’t tell. Okay? Lucy had said. I don’t want my parents to worry. Because of Jared’s reputation. And that accident where a girl died. But he’s really a good person. A good person who made a bad mistake. That was Lucy. Seeing the best in everyone. And that was Lucy too. Not perfect. Even telling a fib to her parents so they wouldn’t know she was breaking her promise not to ride with Jared.
“And then there are secrets that are not benign, that can make us ill or warp our history.”