Page 71 of Lovely Darkness

It’s a neat office. Sparse. No file cabinets. This makes sense, I guess. Since Donovan is his only patient and this is just a temporary space in Adam’s home.

I start opening desk drawers and find what I’m looking for in the second one on the right. A small, electronic voice recorder one uses to make oral notes. I turn it on, flip through the menu, and press play.

“I told you, you have no idea what you’re doing. Leave it.”

It’s a young voice, maybe a British accent, but I’m no expert.

“Where is he?” That’s Doc. His voice is sterner than I’ve ever heard it. “Where is he, Donovan? Can you find him for me? Can I speak to him?”

“No. Go away.”

There’s a long gap of silence. Like maybe Donovan fell back asleep. Then some clicking noises, then more talking, but it comes in during the middle of a sentence.

“… and that’s it? That’s all you want?” This time the voice does not have an accent. It’s just regular American. But it’s clearly still Donovan.

Carter! I put the recorder up to my ear.

“That’s all I want,” Doc says. “One session with the two of you.”

Wait. What did I miss? How did we get here? I rewind. Listen to the start of the conversation again. But no. There’s a gap. Like maybe he turned the recorder off or maybe even erased it.

Hmm. I pick the conversation up where I left off.

“You know that’s impossible,” the American voice says.

“No, it’s not. I’ve seen it done before. You both just need to agree.”

“We don’t—”

The recording cuts off. Like. What the fuck? I rewind, try again. But no. This recording has definitely been tampered with.

I just stand there for a moment, trying to force this to make sense and in that ensuing silence I hear Cerene calling for me.

I make my way back to the breezeway and peek my head into the break room. She’s still on the phone. “Did you call for me?”

She mutes her phone, the person on the other end still talking, and whispers, “Donovan can’t be alone for this long. Did you find what you need? Can you go back and watch him?”

I want to ask her what she thinks he’s going to do, since he’s unconscious, but who cares.

“Sure.” I shoot her a smile and she unmutes and turns her back to me.

I go back to Donovan’s room and find him still there and still unconscious. I grab his chart and take a seat in the overstuffed chair to the left of his bed. It’s very comfortable and for a moment, I allow myself to relax and close my eyes.

The weight of this place is heavy. And I’m already tired of it.

But I found something that might be useful, so I force myself awake and press play again.

After the silence at the end of the conversation, I hear murmuring, but it’s incoherent. The chart did say he drifted away after three minutes and when I look at the timer on the little recorder, we’re at two minutes forty-seven seconds.

So that fits.

There’s nothing else after that. Just the one set of altered messages.

I play it again. Then again.

Except for the obvious fact that Donovan woke up and Doc actually managed to get both personalities to speak in the same message—and the alterations—there is really nothing notable about this recording, so I close my eyes and wonder what kind of excuse I might come up with to bow out of this little project sooner rather than later.

“That’s it, then? Gonna give up already?”