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“Now. Take Quinn with you. I’ll call once you’re on your way, brief you on what I know.”
Jamie does a mock salute with a smile, then leaves Adam to it.
He picks up the piece of paper that Romilly left on his desk. It’s nothing new. She sees him in everything: every missing person, every suspicious death. He can hardly blame her. Trauma like that, so deep-rooted. It scars you for life.
But on the surface, she looked bloody good. After not seeing her for years, having her walk into his office had been a shock. Instantly the old feelings came back. The warmth toward her, care, and concern. The love, but also the betrayal and the bitter sting of rejection.
He screws the piece of paper into a ball and throws it toward the bin. It misses, bouncing off the wall and coming to rest under a cupboard. He leaves it there. Out of sight. Ignored.
Where it belongs.
CHAPTER
13
A LAST-MINUTE APPOINTMENT, KEPT for emergencies. But this must be one.
Romilly rings the buzzer. On the large red painted door, between two white stucco pillars, next to the gold nameplate. She finds the expense reassuring: these people know what they’re doing.
Romilly is escorted straight through, past the patients in the hushed waiting room, receiving knowing glances from the haste.
“One of those,” their faces are saying. “I’m glad I’m not as bad as her.”
She sits down in the usual room, in her usual chair. She waits, taking in the neat bookshelves with their psychology tomes, the certificates on the wall, the geometrically ordered desk, a white Apple computer on top. There are no pinboards covered in thank-you cards. No photographs. No hint of personalization from the woman who knows everything about her.
Romilly remembers the early days here, in consultation room two. The crying. The hysteria. Sobbing so much her face would ache for hours after. Dr. Jones painstakingly unearthed years of ingrained trauma, then soothed, talked, and counseled Romilly into the functioning human she is today.
But now this. A new delusion. Romilly worries it’s all coming back.
Dr. Jones enters. She smiles, setting her glass of water down on the table to her right-hand side. Romilly has always envied Dr. Jones, with her calm, her cool air of efficiency and contentment. She has neat hair, tied back in a bun at the nape of her neck. No tendrils escape, not a hint of frizz can be seen.
They sit opposite each other. The doctor folds her hands into her lap, waiting.
“Thank you for seeing me at such short notice,” Romilly begins.
Dr. Jones nods. “Of course. I’m glad you thought of me.” There’s a long pause. The clock ticks on the wall, making Romilly aware of how much time she’s wasting. But she doesn’t know where to start.
“Begin with how you’re feeling,” Jones says, as if reading Romilly’s mind.
“Confused. Worried. Upset.”
“Okay.” The doctor pauses. “So why am I not seeing that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Outwardly.” Jones smiles gently. “Most people who ask for an emergency appointment exhibit an external manifestation of their feelings. They’re crying, visibly troubled. If anything, you seem angry.”
Romilly has always liked the fact Jones doesn’t talk down to her. They’re both doctors—smart women—and Jones treats her as such.
“I am angry,” Romilly acknowledges. “I saw my ex-husband today.”
“Adam?”
“Yes.”
“And how did that feel? Being with him again?”
Romilly thinks back. He’d looked the same. Same haircut, maybe slightly longer, but it suits him. More gray in his hair, additional lines on his forehead, but whatever he’s doing, it’s working. And he called her Milly. Still. He’s the only one that refers to her that way, something that now infuriates and pleases her in equal measure.
