Compassionately, Cozy said, “Why don’t you do that? There’s a phone right over here.”

I smiled at Cozy’s panache as I walked over and assisted first Merritt and then Brenda into the ambulance. Finally, I leaned in and said to Merritt, “I’ll see you later today. You hang in there.”

She caught me with her eyes and without touching me held me as tightly as I’ve ever been held in my life. She waved good-bye to me, a delicate trill of the fingers of her left hand. I could not have been more moved right then had she spoken a thousand words.

Sam Purdy emerged from some shadows across the parking lot as I made my way to my car. There was no way I would have seen him lurking there if he hadn’t wanted me to. I raised my hand to wave and slowed my walk. He immediately receded again into the darkness.

I figured he had appointed himself Merritt’s guardian angel, willing to risk whatever it took to make sure that the transfer to Denver occurred without incident.

I changed my direction and headed toward him. When I arrived at the place where he had been standing, he was nowhere to be found.

Fifteen

Serendipity prevailed to allow me to meet Merritt’s friend Madison before Madison knew that Merritt was under investigation for murdering Dr. Edward Robilio. I rushed from my office after my ten-thirty patient to get up Broadway for my lunchtime rendezvous with Madison Monroe. Parking was sure to be a bitch on the Hill, so I grabbed a ride on the Hop.

Madison was almost a foot shorter than her friend Merritt. The color of her hair was the exact hue of coffee ice cream, but what was most striking about it was its texture, which was as fine as corn silk. It seemed to blow away from her face, moved only by the air I displaced as I approached.

On first blush, Madison seemed every bit as wary of me as her friend had been. She apparently guessed who I was by the way I hesitated and scanned the room. I kept my distance and sized her up.

She was already round and feminine in all the places where Merritt was still transforming from girl-child to woman. Madison’s hips were mature, and her breasts swelled against a short sweater that exposed an inch or two of her trim abdomen. She wore a jean skirt and tall black clogs with clunky Vibram soles that caused her butt to thrust out and up.

From at least five feet away, I said my first line, which had come to me as I was riding the bus. “Hi, you must be Madison. It’s a pleasure to meet a hero. I’m Alan Gregory, Dr. Gregory.”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t a great line, but I thought it warranted more of a reply than “yeah.”

“Can I get you something, some coffee?”

“You buying?”

“Yes, of course. You’re doing me a favor. I appreciate it.”

“A, uh, frappucino. Grandé.” She pronounced it correctly-grand-ay-but without much confidence. “With whipped cream. And a chocolate chip scone, too.” Madison’s apparent vanity didn’t include any worries about an avalanche of calories finding their way to her hips.

I waited in line and picked up her order along with an espresso for myself and joined her across the room at a high table about the size of a large pizza. We sat on metal stools.

Although I’d asked her to come to my office, she had declined. Meeting at the Starbucks at the corner of University and Broadway, close to both Boulder High School and the University of Colorado, had been her idea, but since I had expected her to refuse to see me at all, it seemed like a reasonable compromise.

I handed her the coffee and pastry.

She said, “You didn’t have to call my mom, you know? To set this up. She doesn’t know what I do.” Her tone was at once swollen with dismissiveness and disgust.

“I’m sorry. I…you’re not eighteen, and I felt I needed your parents’ permission-”

“I don’t need my mother’s permission to talk to people. So you sure as hell don’t need my mother’s permission.”

This, I suspected, was an argument I wasn’t going to win. I shifted gears and hoped she would tag along. “You did something wonderful, you know that? You saved Merritt’s life by what you did.”

She sucked on her straw and swallowed before she replied. “Yeah, well, I don’t know. I mean, I’m glad she’s alive and all, but…”

“But what?”

“How does it go? Every coin has two sides.”

I waited. When it became apparent that she wasn’t planning on flipping the coin over so I could see the other side, I said, “Meaning what?”

“Meaning that Merritt’s not especially thrilled about my heroics.”

“She’s angry?”

Madison had just bitten off a mouthful of scone. After she swallowed and chased it with a draw of frozen coffee long enough in duration to induce brain freeze in lesser beings, her voice turned sour and she said, “You tell me. You’re the shrink, right? She hasn’t said a damn word to me since she woke up. She won’t take my calls. I even went to see her once in the hospital and all she did was glare at me. Yeah, she’s grateful. No doubt about that.”

I wondered about the sudden animosity but decided to be reassuring. “People sometimes feel that way initially after a suicide attempt. They believe they still want to die. So at first they treat you like you’re a bad guy for saving them. That will change, believe me. I’ve been there before.”

“With her? She did this before?” She was incredulous, I suspected, not so much that it might be true, but that it might be true and that she didn’t know about it.

“No. With others. I’ve been doing this, being a psychologist, for a while. Unfortunately, I’ve been with a lot of suicidal people.”

Before I finished my sentence I knew I’d lost her; Madison wasn’t paying attention anymore. As I waited for a reaction to what I said, she offered a reluctant wave and a wan smile to someone across the room. She lowered her head, rolled her eyes, and under her breath said, “Dweeb.”

“Excuse me?”

“That guy. He’s so lame. I can’t stand it when he smiles at me like that.”

“Oh.” Madison had just reminded me that I was sitting with someone whose age was on the shy side of seventeen.

As fascinating as a detailed probe of Madison’s social life might have been in other circumstances, I felt a need to try to keep her talking about Merritt. “As I told you on the phone, Madison, I’m hoping to try to learn some things that will better help me understand why Merritt tried to kill herself. Everyone says you were closer to her than anyone else. I hope you can help.”

“Who says that? Who’s everyone?”

She had caught me exaggerating. With an adolescent, I should have known better. “Uh, well, her mother said that, I guess, mostly.”

She looked up at me, smiled, and winked. With definite joy in her tone, she asked, “Merritt’s not talking to you either, is she?”

“I can’t really tell you what she’s saying or not saying. I’m just not allowed to.”

She intertwined her fingers around her sweating frappucino. “I knew it. She’s not talking to anybody, is she? Nobody. This is rich, so rich. What about her stepdad? Is she talking to him?”

“I can’t say.”

“I bet she isn’t. This is sooo cool.”

“What is?”

“Nothing. You don’t know anything, do you?” She scrunched up her nose and smiled, disbelieving, like I had just told her I was giving her free backstage passes for Smashing Pumpkins.

“What do you mean, Madison?”

“Nothing.” The smile endured. “So, what did you want? Why did you want to talk to me?”

“Why did you mention her stepdad in particular? Why him, and not, well, her mom?”

Small head shake. “He’s normal. She’s a star. What did you want?”

Suddenly I was much more interested in what she thought I wanted than in sharing what I really wanted. “Well, what do you think I want?”

“She’s really not talking?”