“I’ll try,” I say.
“Look, we’ll get the MRI set up for you tomorrow, but listen to me very carefully when I say this. Please don’t let that be my last effort in helping you. I want to be here. I want you to lean on me if you need to, okay?”
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t sound so convincing there, partner,” he says, a careful undertone of humor in his voice. “Can I get a side of emotion with that boilerplate?”
I try again. “Okay.”
“Better, but still not so great. It’ll reflect in your tip.”
I laugh a little.
“Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Just please take care of yourself, Chris.”
I try to smile my compliance. He does know me well enough to recognize my pain, even when I’m trying to hide it, but most of all, enough not to let it come between us.
I’m so lucky to have a friend like Adam.
Adam is trying to destroy you.
39
I enter the cafeteria—or start to—when my legs feel soft, my stomach a little narrow. Checking my watch, I see it’s five past noon.
I scan the room.
And now my reasoning feels wooly. On any given day, the traffic at this hour is at its peak, but on this day, that’s not the case. While many tables are occupied, an unusually high number are empty.
My feet shuffle forward, but I barely feel the flooring beneath them. I swing my vision to the line of hospital employees and visitors that normally extends out toward the exit doors, but today it’s only about half that long.
I try to strike a deal with reason and tell myself that perhaps the nursing staff is rotating through an offsite training program. That there’s some kind of flu bug going around, vastly diminishing the hospital’s staffing power.
That it’s not what I think.
But none of those explanations work for me.
In line, I slide my tray along the track, eyes suspiciously shifting from side to side. Observing.
“Sir?”
I follow the voice and find a worker staring at me expectantly.
I clear my throat. “Just the soup, please.”
She dips her ladle into a recessed pot, dumps the brown liquid into a bowl, then slings it onto the raised counter. I reach for the soup, place it on my tray.
Don’t eat that.
Huh?
It’s laced with poison. What do you think is happening to all the people here?
I lurch back and, in the process, knock my tray off the track. The bowl goes flying. Glass breaks, soup splatters everywhere. Silverware slides across the linoleum.
I take a flustered look around me. Everyone is staring.
“I . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
Don’t!
Don’t what?
Don’t talk to these people.
Why not?
They’re in on it. They’ve been sent here to watch you.
I rocket from the line and dash toward the exit like my ass is on fire.
40
How can I pull my mind together, when all the pieces are not only out of reach but twirling around me like scattered windup tops? With the deadline for my evaluation just two days away, I’ve got no time for crazy. I have to focus on this moment. I’m so close to breaking through Donny Ray’s defenses, to figuring out whether he’s malingering.
On my way to the consulting room, I inhale a staggered breath, try to collect myself. Several feet later, I reach a point of clarity, telling myself that I work best under pressure, that I’m competent, that I know how to do my job.
Now I can think.
I have to think . . . In our last session, Donny Ray was teetering closer toward revealing a significant piece of his past—then he pulled back on me. Miranda was his hot button, and I pushed it. Hopefully, with this new day, those emotions won’t betray him, and we can try again.
When I walk into the room, Donny Ray is the image of ebullience. His skin isn’t just clearer—it glows, the color in full bloom, the light enhancing his squared chin and chiseled cheekbones. Even his lips, pale during our first meeting, have warmed into a full, rich pink. But it’s not just his face: Donny Ray’s overall presentation is stronger, chest muscles well-defined through the T-shirt he wears, posture firm, head held high.
And then there are those eyes.
Still penetratingly sharp, still indefinably familiar, and—to be completely truthful—hard to turn away from.
I observe as he takes a seat across from me. Never before has the contrast between body and mind—between the outer beauty and inner darkness—been more striking. With his arresting good looks and athletic physique, he could be anyone’s all-American boy. Throw a few textbooks under his arm, and he’s rushing off to his next class. Toss on a ball cap and sweats, and he’s heading to the gym for his afternoon workout. Then I remind myself that Donny Ray Smith is nobody’s all-American boy. Regardless of whether or not he remembers his crimes, Donny Ray Smith is a deeply disturbed young man.
A killer.
I try to keep that in mind, to look past his aura of purity, of innocence. To understand that everything about his physical presentation seems tailored to entice, to charm and seduce.
To manipulate?
I’m still not sure, and watching him now, it almost seems impossible to believe. In fact, Donny Ray appears completely unaware that his good looks even exist, let alone the power they might hold.
An undulating noise from overhead distracts me, then a shadow from above drifts across the table. I follow the tail end onto the floor as it zooms across my shoe before rapidly fading.
I glance up toward the ceiling: nothing there.
“Christopher? You okay?”
Donny Ray is staring at me.
Hold it together.
I can’t afford to fall through the cracks of my mind right now. I have to do my job.
“You seem a lot better today,” I say.
He looks down at himself, then up at me.
“So . . . when you . . . When we first met you’d mentioned that you were from Texas?”
“Yes, sir. Born and raised.”
“The reason I bring it up is that I am, too.”
“Yeah?” His expression brightens a few shades. “Whereabouts?”