Waylaid Page 9

  “Later!”

  I turn around, only to find Karim holding the door for me. “Good morning,” he says.

  “Morning.”

  “Rickie Ralls is your boyfriend?”

  I laugh. “Not exactly. We live together.” That came out wrong, but it’s accurate. “Like roommates.”

  “Oh. Cool.” He shrugs as I follow him through the lobby and into our office space. “Sorry. It just made sense to me. Like all the attractive, super intelligent people should really end up together.”

  I think Karim just called me super intelligent. And attractive.

  Weird.

  “Last year I was a TA. For a cognitive psych class. And the professor interviewed Rickie in class about his amnesia. That was interesting. But Rickie knew more of the neuroscience we were learning than most of the graduate students in the class. And then there's the whole speaking three languages thing. It does things for my competence fetish.”

  “Karim, do you have a man crush on my friend Rickie?” And just listen to me! I'm teasing my new coworker like a normal, well-adjusted person.

  "Oh, it's a full-on crush," he says. “Those eyes. Those tattoos.”

  My surprised laugh comes out as an undignified snort. “Don't ever let him hear you saying these things. His ego is king-size. He does enjoy flattery, though. Just a tip.”

  “Really?” Karim's eyes sparkle. “So you're saying there's a chance?”

  He leads me into a conference room, where Jenn is already waiting. "Morning!" she says, hoisting a postal service tray out of a box and onto the table. And with one glance I know what we're going to be doing today. The envelopes stacked into that tray are identical to the ones causing all the trauma in my life.

  I actually shiver.

  "This is the—“

  “Northeast Healthcare Workers survey. Vermont edition," I say, sounding like the worst kind of know-it-all. "Sorry. These envelopes haunt my dreams."

  And I mean that literally.

  "No problem! It's great that you've done this before. Once you get comfortable I'll just go over our procedure, because there could be differences?”

  "Absolutely." I shed my heavy backpack and slide Audrey’s pastry box onto a corner of the table.

  Then I listen like a champ as she explains the procedure. The surveys are separated from the envelopes, but the envelopes are retained by zip code.

  We did the same thing, of course. But Reardon had disposed of the extra envelopes too. It was the first thing I’d checked.

  It turns out they do things exactly the same way in Vermont. So we get to work. I'm already a pro at zipping the letter opener across the top of the envelope without slicing the papers inside, and the work goes quickly.

  "I brought treats," I say after an hour. "Blueberry scones."

  "Does that mean it's time for a coffee break?" Karim asks.

  “Yes!" Jenn shouts. "Our coffee break ritual is an episode of Cold In Death."

  "The true crime podcast?" I ask.

  “That’s the one. Are you a fan?”

  "Not yet. But first I need to duck into the library anyway and swap some journals."

  They both stare at me. “You didn’t,” Karim clears his throat, "finish reading those already?”

  “Well, sure. But I had a whole week. And I don't have a life, so...” I chuckle nervously.

  They exchange a glance. "Wait until she finds out our other favorite pastimes,” Jenn says.

  “They’re very intellectual,” Karim explains. “Darts at the bar. And karaoke."

  "I can play darts," I insist. "My grandpa taught me. He's a shark. Karaoke and I don't mix. Like, at all.” I don’t like to be stared at.

  “Eh, one out of two ain’t bad,” Karim says with a shrug. “Can I have a scone now?”

  “You can have two.” I slide the box toward him on the table. I already like these people. I can’t help but feel a little whiff of hope.

  Reardon seemed nice, too, my battered ego points out. You can never really tell.

  New friends are too risky. I learned that the hard way.

  Eleven

  Rickie

  “Hey,” Lenore says as I bounce into the chair across from her. “Thanks for pushing back a half hour. I know you were waiting around.”

  “No problem.” She’d texted to say that she had a patient in crisis, asking me to meet her a little later than usual. “I did an errand and went to the coffee shop.”

  “Is that why you look so jittery right now? How was your week?”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Another bear?”

  “Nope. Everything I faced down was human. I did what you said. I told Daphne about my issues.”

  “Oh!” She clutches her heart. “That’s so healthy of you, Rickie. You deserve a cookie.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Did you get a cookie?”

  “Your use of the word cookie confuses me. It’s almost like you’re making it sound sexual.”

  She snickers.

  “Nothing happened. Yet. But it turns out that Daphne is dealing with some things, too. She has a crazy ex who’s threatening her. It’s a long, weird story. And get this—he transferred from USTSA. A senator’s son.”

  “Okay?” Lenore plays with her earring. “Does that feel meaningful to you?”

  “Of course it does. I can’t remember my own life, so every mention of that place feels like a sign. Like I’m living through the second act of a horror movie, waiting for the big reveal.”

  “And I take it you didn’t recognize his name.”

  I shake my head.

  “Or his face?”

  “Nah, I didn’t Google him. Not yet, anyway. I was distracted when Daphne fell asleep on my half-naked body. On my bed.”

  “Oooh!” Lenore claps her hands together several times and looks far more entertained than a shrink is probably supposed to. “There you go burying the lede. Then what happened?”

  “Nothing. I lay there a while wondering why I can’t fall asleep with someone else in the room. It makes no sense. Daphne isn’t going to throw me off a wall. But it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t do it. I had to sneak out of there after a while and sleep in her room.”

  “Okay, let’s dig into that,” Lenore says. “What were you feeling right before you decided to get up and leave? Was it fear?”

  “Discomfort, I guess. I was tired, but I feel like I can’t let anyone else catch me asleep.”

  “Catch you,” she repeats. “That’s an interesting word choice.”

  “I know it’s weird,” I admit. “I didn’t use to be like this. I’d fall asleep on trains, or wherever. Like a normal person.”

  “Falling asleep is the most vulnerable you can be,” she says.

  “Defenseless,” I agree.

  “Falling asleep naked would be the only way to make yourself even more vulnerable.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I tell her. “But nudity doesn’t bother me. And yet I can’t stand the idea of napping in front of anyone. It gives me the willies.”

  “This is really bothering you all of a sudden, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I grunt. “Because I thought I was doing so good lately, you know? But Daphne has got me all stirred up in every possible way. And I swear to God I could write off six missing months of my life if I could just get back to a life of bad decisions, seduction, and sleeping wherever I happen to land.”

  Lenore bites back a smile. “Let’s try to figure out why you can’t. Why don’t you tell me about the weeks just after your accident,” Lenore says. “You were in a hospital, right?”

  “Right, but I don’t remember much. I was on a lot of meds. Broken bones are really painful.” And I had a bunch of them.

  “You must have fallen asleep in a hospital room in front of lots of people.”

  “Sure. Fine. I can see what you’re getting at. But actually the sleeping in a locked room thing didn’t start until after I’d been home for a while. A couple months, maybe.”


  She perks up. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I was trying to wean myself off the pain meds—which was no fun. And opiates fuck up your dopamine receptors. So I’d wake up at all hours.”

  It’s been a while since I’ve thought about those awful weeks. I was still in a brain fog half the time, too. But it’s hard to pinpoint when I started locking my bedroom door.

  Now here I sit, straining to remember something that other people would have no trouble with. Story of my life. The seconds tick by, and I just get frustrated. “I don’t know, Lenore. I can’t remember what I was thinking when it started. Maybe I thought it would help me sleep, because nothing else was working? I just don’t know.”

  “Okay,” she says gently. “Don’t force it. I can tell that this aggravates you.”

  “It does.” My own vehemence surprises me. “Because I can’t understand my own compulsion. The truth is I don’t really mind if the whole Shipley clan were to see me sleeping. Even if I’m drooling on the pillow or whatever. I don’t really care what people think of me.”

  “You are gifted in that way,” she says. “You could give seminars.”

  “But that means it’s a fear. Some kind of phobia. Even if I don’t know where I got it.”

  “Okay, good reasoning.” Lenore crosses her arms. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Isn’t that your job?”

  She just smiles.

  “I guess…exposure therapy,” I grumble. “That’s all I got, right?”

  “It’s certainly the most direct route to resolving this. You could sleep outside under the stars. Naked. Hey—where did you say you saw that bear?” Then she slaps her knee.

  “I hate you.”

  She smiles.

  Two hours later I’m sitting at a picnic table, eating an ice cream cone with Daphne. My lengthy dry spell means that it’s practically a sexual experience watching her lick the cone slowly. Her damn tongue on that scoop of toasted coconut is the most sensual thing I’ve seen in years.

  And the torture isn’t even intentional. I can tell her mind is miles away, while I sit here quietly dying. “I’m sorry I was late getting back to the truck,” I say in a blatant plea for attention. “My appointment ran late.”

  Her gaze returns to the present moment. “Appointment? I thought you had class.”

  Well, shit. There’s nothing like outing yourself as a mental patient to the woman you’re crushing on. “I do have class. But after class, I see my therapist.”

  “Oh.” She shrugs. “Actually, being late may have helped me. I was just sitting there with a dead phone, and it made me realize something.”

  “Did it make you realize you want to see me naked?”

  She frowns. “It made me realize something about the US Postal Service.”

  “Okay. I’m down for licking your stamps.”

  Her tongue meets the creamy cone again. “You might need to workshop that joke. It isn’t quite there yet.”

  “Noted. Now tell me about this postal thing.”

  “Today at work we opened a whole bunch of surveys—just like my old job. And they explained the whole procedure to me, even though I already knew what to do. Just as a formality, right? Hearing it all again gave me an idea.”

  “For what?”

  “Revenge,” she says slowly.

  Oh, Daphne. Can’t she see that we’re soulmates? I drop my voice. “Tell me this revenge fantasy. I’m listening.”

  “It’s not sexy.” Her brown eyes dance.

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Okay. So if you want people to return surveys, you pay for their postage.”

  “Sure.”

  “But you don't buy a stamp for all 70,000 envelopes, because only half of them are going to be returned.”

  “And your poor little research budget can't handle it?”

  “Exactly. So return mail is a thing where the USPS charges you only for the ones that come back.”

  “I see where this is going. It’s a way to prove the discrepancy. You paid for a number of stamps that should be greater than the data you entered into the system.”

  “Right. It should prove my theory. Nobody looks at those bills too closely, because nobody would bother to embezzle postage. But there’s one post office login for the whole study.”

  “Do you have the login?” I ask hopefully.

  “No, but I know where it is. I can picture the sticky note that’s taped inside the procedure folder, in the filing cabinet at Harkness.”

  “Okay.” I chuckle. “How are you going to get it?”

  In answer, she gets up and crosses to her brother’s truck, while I try not to stare at her ass in that slim little skirt she wore to work today. When she returns, she hands me a party invitation. The event is seven or eight weeks away, in September.

  “Oh baby,” I whisper. “You’re going to do this James Bond style? Drink a martini and then sneak into the office for espionage?”

  “It’s academia, Rickie.”

  “Ah. Cheap white wine and cheese cubes. Got it.”

  She leans forward across the narrow table, giving me a giant smile. “You do understand.”

  “So much,” I whisper. And I lean forward, too, drawn in by the magnetic pull of her brown eyes. She looks so happy for once.

  And now we’re close enough that if I lean a little further over the table, I could take her mouth in a kiss. She knows it, too. And that bright spark in her eyes tells me she likes this idea.

  Or maybe not. Because before I can seal the deal, she suddenly swings her legs over the bench and gets up. “We should get home,” she says.

  Right.

  Maybe next time.

  That evening after dinner—and after I wash dishes like a good houseguest—we go outside to horse around. Dylan is trying to teach Jacquie, one of his goats, to jump through a hoop.

  I’m holding the hoop, while Dylan does all the coaxing. “Come on, cutie,” he says, clicking his tongue. But she keeps trying to go around the hoop to reach the treats in his hand. “No, baby. This way.” He makes a kissy sound with his lips.

  “You have such a way with the ladies,” I tease.

  “She just needs a minute to get used to the hoop. Then she’ll bend to my will.”

  “Why are we doing this again?” I ask. “I bought some beer for us. And I was hoping to drink one in a rocking chair on your front porch.”

  “Ooh, beer,” Dylan says, instead of teasing me about being as tired as his grandpa. My shoulders still ache from tossing bales of hay up into the loft all day yesterday.

  “The good stuff, too. Sip O’ Sunshine,” I say, hoping to move things along.

  “Five more minutes,” he presses. Dylan has to feed his goat a metric ton of the treats in his pocket, but Jacquie finally walks through the damn hoop.

  “Yes! Done. Beer time.”

  “Awesome,” Dylan agrees. “Porch, or movie?”

  “Oh, so Chastity is busy tonight?”

  Dylan freezes, the hoop in his hand. “Am I really that bad?”

  “What?”

  “I am terrible, right? Ditching you every night. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, it’s fine. I just like teasing you.”

  Dylan gives me a sideways glance. “All right. If you say so.”

  “Besides, your grandpa is really improving my chess game. Although he prefers poker. Last week he got Daphne and Ruth to play, and he cleaned us out in half an hour.”

  “Yeah, you got to watch your wallet with Grandpa.” Dylan closes the gate of the goat enclosure behind us and we head for the house.

  “We were playing for cookies. Your sister almost got him in the last hand, though. So close.” I snicker at the memory of Daphne’s frustration when her grandfather revealed a straight, beating her three tens.

  “How’s she doing, anyway?”

  “Your sister? Fine. Why are you asking me?” I actually feel a rare flush of guilt at this question. And it’s not because of
all the dirty thoughts I have when I’m with Daphne. It’s the fact that an asshole is threatening her, and her family doesn’t know.

  “Because she might talk to you? She doesn’t talk to me. I thought deciding to switch schools was supposed to be a good thing for her. But she just seems so tense this summer.”

  “Did you ask her about it?” I hedge. It’s not my place to tell him Daphne’s secrets.

  “Nah, she’d never tell me. I’m the fuckup and she’s the overachiever. I’m the last person she’d tell if something was wrong.”

  “Oh.” I don’t have siblings, so I don’t really know how that works. “I’ll try to pay attention,” I lie.

  “Thanks,” Dylan says. “Now let’s get our beer on.”

  Later, after watching a shoot-em-up with Dylan, I turn in for bed. The night is still, and the only thing I hear through the open windows is a chorus of frog song, punctuated by the quick flash of firefly light outside my bedroom window.

  This is the safest, most serene place in the world. So I purposely leave the bedroom door unlocked as I climb into bed.

  I’m challenging myself. Aversion therapy is a time-tested way of getting over a phobia. Studies have demonstrated that the majority of phobia sufferers can experience relief from aversion therapy, sometimes quickly.

  It’s not like I have to plunge my hand into a box of spiders, here. All I have to do is sleep with the damn door open.

  But ninety minutes later, I’m still staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell is wrong with me.

  At one thirty in the morning, I get up to lock the fucking door.

  After that, I fall immediately asleep.

  Twelve

  Daphne

  That weekend I do some babysitting for my little nephew. And I feel crazy tonight. Sitting alone in the stillness of my older brother’s home isn’t good for me. I’m full of buzzy energy.

  It’s probably because I’ve never plotted revenge before.

  Okay, that's not strictly true. Anyone with a twin brother has plotted revenge. But this is on a whole new level. It requires a party, a theft, and delivery of an anonymous email that I will try to spoof so that it appears to originate from inside the Harkness system.