AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pauses. He looks away from her face, around the room. At the books on the shelf, the certificates on the wall. Can he trust this woman? She sweeps a strand of hair off her face and the gesture feels familiar.
“Have we met before?” he asks.
“I don’t think so.”
“Have I interviewed you? Perhaps through my work? I’m a detective.”
“Definitely not then.” She pauses. “Do you always deflect away from the important questions, Adam?”
He smiles. “Yes. Yes, I do,” he replies. But it’s not just that. Something about her. It’s niggling. He pushes the feeling away. It’s that you don’t want to be here, he tells himself. Stop looking for excuses.
“My wife—my ex-wife—says I have a problem with trust. With letting people get close to me.”
“And would you agree with her assessment of you?”
Adam thinks about Jamie. How he struggled to be there for his best friend. How he pushed Romilly away—and nearly ended up dead because of it.
“Yes. That’s probably true. Do you think that’s something you can fix?”
She smiles gently. “Therapy is not designed to fix what is broken. It is there to make what is cracked beautiful again. So the light can shine through.”
The phrase resonates slightly in Adam’s mind. He frowns. Then he points to the form on his lap. “Should I finish this?”
“Sorry. Yes, do.”
One final question: Therapist’s Name. Adam feels his mind blank and glances up to the certificate on the wall. Dr. Catherine Jones. He writes it in capitals on the form.
Something sparks in his brain, synapses firing in recognition. He pushes his eyes shut, then looks up and stares at the woman.
“Is something the matter?” she asks evenly.
“No, it’s just … I’m sure I’ve met you before.”
She shakes her head slowly. “I would have remembered, DCI Bishop.”
It all comes back in a flash. Standing next to the bar, the smell of sweat, of beer. Her hand down his trousers, her lips against his neck. It had been dark, her hair wild, her face heavily made up. But it was her. His head snaps up but he stays sitting. A prickle runs through his whole body. He feels her eyes on him, forcing himself to stay calm.
“You remember me,” she says. A statement.
“Yes.”
“Do you do that often? Pick up women in bars?”
“Sometimes.”
“Closeness. Intimacy. But without the fear of rejection?”
He pauses. “Yes.”
She smiles. “See? Ten minutes in therapy, and we’re already getting somewhere.”
This is wrong. He knows that. This is Romilly’s therapist. It can’t be coincidence she’d met him that night in the bar. She must have gone looking for him. Sought him out. But why?
“I know something about that too, Adam,” she continues. “I look for men. Men I shouldn’t be close to. Men that are bad for me. Men that take advantage. Are you one of those, Adam?”
He thinks of Ellie. “I don’t want to be,” he replies slowly.
“That’s what he thought too. He said he wasn’t a bad man. That he’d take me home and look after me.”
