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“I’m Dr. Gibbons,” he began. Those winter blue eyes widened, then went warm as summer. “Philly.” He moved right past Eve, hands extended, gripped both of Philadelphia’s. “You look the same.”
“No. Of course I don’t.”
“To me you do. Nash contacted you. I’m so glad. I’m terribly sorry, but he couldn’t keep this from you. I couldn’t keep it from you.”
“You’ve been keeping it from everyone for fifteen years.”
He turned, eyes cooling again when they met Eve’s. “No, not what you’re thinking. We should go up to the conference room. My office is a bit small to fit everyone.”
“Where is Montclair Jones?”
“His room’s on the third floor, east wing.” At Philadelphia’s gasp, he looked at her again. “I’m so sorry. Nash is with him. If I could explain things to you—it’s Lieutenant Dallas, correct?”
“That’s right. Explaining’s a good start. Peabody, I want you on the door of Jones’s room.”
“Neither of them would leave, but I understand. Security will escort you,” he told Peabody.
As Peabody peeled off with security, Eve went with Gibbons up the stairs.
“Just this way. Nash came to my home yesterday evening. He was in a state of deep anxiety, even panic.”
“I bet.”
Gibbons opened a door, gestured.
It struck her more like a lounge than a conference room, though there was the requisite long table. Gibbons led Philadelphia to a sofa. “Can I get you anything? Your hands are cold. Some tea?”
“No, nothing.”
“You’re still wearing it,” he said quietly.
“No.” She looked down at the ring, then up at him. “I . . . oh, Peter.”
“This is difficult for you. For us all.” He sat beside her, took her hand in his, then met Eve’s eyes again.
“I should start fifteen years ago. We were fairly new at that time. I’d come on board the year before, at the inception. I’d kept in touch with Nash over the years.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“We’d both married, both divorced. You had your life, and I was making mine. Nash contacted me all those years ago, shaken, desperate. He told me Monty was in trouble, that he’d tried to hurt one of the girls in your care, and didn’t seem to understand the scope of his actions. The girl was safe, but he couldn’t allow Monty to be around the children, couldn’t allow him to go on without serious psychiatric help. Of course I agreed to take him as a patient, though we disagreed when he insisted you w
eren’t to know, Philly.”
“At the very least, Montclair Jones had committed assault,” Eve pointed out.
“Should the police have been notified? Perhaps. But a friend asked me to help his brother. I did. When Monty came here he was like a child. He remembered me, and that helped. He was happy to see me, and assumed you’d be coming any day, Philly, as I was here.”
“He always liked you, so much,” Philadelphia said.
“And that helped,” Peter replied. “He’d been afraid he was being sent away, to Africa of all places. His mental and emotional states were very fragile.”
“Like my mother,” Philadelphia added.
“He’s not suicidal,” Gibbons assured her. “Has never been, though we took precautions initially. I took it slowly with him at first. He was passive, obedient. He believed if he behaved, he could go home again, or you and Nash would come here. When we talked of what happened, he said the girl was bad, and he wanted to cleanse her in the waters of home, and once clean she could stay home. They would be home.”
“He would have drowned her,” Eve said.
“In his mind, he was helping her. Washing her clean of sin, giving her life—not taking it. His mother died in sin. That’s what your father believed, Philly.”
