What “had happened” to her was sexual assault at age seventeen. Warding off attempted robbery and gang rape years later.

She eyed her purse and I knew she was thinking about the shiny little gun. “What you do still turns me on, but this has been a rude awakening. I’m realizing that maybe there are aspects of it that aren’t healthy.”

“Like deception.” And holding down a woman’s ankles so a detective can hog-tie her.

Her eyes turned the color of gas jets. “You flat-out lied to her, Alex. A girl you didn’t know, with no consideration of the risks. I’m sure most of the time it’s no big deal, just a fib in the service of law enforcement and no one gets hurt. This time… maybe in the long run it will be good for her. But now…”

She put the mug down. “I keep telling myself if she was this close to the edge she would’ve been tipped over eventually. Maybe it’s my ego that’s wounded. I got caught unawares…”

I touched her hand. She didn’t touch back.

“Deception’s okay for Milo, I understand the kind of people cops come into contact with. But you and I took the same licensing exam and we both know what our ethics code says.”

She freed her hand. “Have you thought it through, Alex?”

“I have.”

“And?”

“I’m not sure my answer’s going to make you happy.”

“Try me.”

“When I see patients in a therapeutic setting, the rules apply. When I work with Milo, the rules are different.”

“Different how?”

“I’d never hurt anyone intentionally, but there’s no promise of confidentiality.”

“Or truthfulness.”

I didn’t answer. No sense mentioning the man I killed a few years ago. Clear self-defense. Sometimes his face came to me in dreams. Sometimes I manufactured the faces of his unborn children.

“I don’t mean to attack you,” said Allison.

“I don’t feel attacked. It’s a reasonable discussion. Maybe one we should’ve had earlier.”

“Maybe,” she said. “So basically, you compartmentalize. That doesn’t wear on you?”

“I deal with it.”

“Because bad people sometimes get what’s coming to them.”

“That helps.” I worked hard at keeping my tone even. Saying the right things though I did feel attacked. Thinking about six bodies, maybe seven, no obvious solution. Thinking about Cherish Daney in a way that I couldn’t let go of.

Allison said, “Is deception a big part of what you do?”

“No,” I said. “But it happens. I try never to grow glib, but I rationalize when I have to. I’m sorry about what happened to Beth and I’m not going to make excuses. The only lie I told her was that I was researching foster parenting in general. I don’t see that as a factor in her breakdown.”

“Getting into the whole issue precipitated her breakdown, Alex. She’s an extremely vulnerable girl who should never have been drawn into a police investigation in the first place.”

“There was no way to know that.”

“Exactly. That’s why we learned about discretion and taking our time and thinking things through. About doing no harm.”

“Witnesses are often vulnerable,” I said.

Long silence.

She said, “So you’re fine with all this.”

“Would I have approached Beth directly if I’d known she was going to decompensate? Of course not. Would I have taken another approach- like going through you? You bet. Because a lot is at stake, even more than I’ve told you, and she was a potential source of crucial information.”

“What more is at stake?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?” she said.

“There’s no need for you to know.”

“You’re mad so you’re doing a tit for tat.”

“I’m not mad, I want to keep you from the bad stuff.” The way I used to keep Robin.

“Because I can’t hope to understand.”

I thought you did. But it’s too much ugly.

“There’s just no reason for you to get involved, Allison.”

“I’m already involved.”

“As a therapist.”

“So I just run off and do my therapy thing and keep my nose out of your business?”

That would simplify things.

“It’s one of the ugliest cases I’ve ever worked on, Ali. You already spend your days soaking up other people’s crap. Why would you want more soul pollution?”

“And you? What about your soul?”

“Such as it is.”

“I won’t accept that it doesn’t affect you.”

Unborn children…

I didn’t answer.

She said, “You can handle it, but I can’t?”

“I don’t ask you about patients.”

“That’s different.”

“Maybe it really isn’t.”

“Fine,” she said. “So now there’s a new taboo in our relationship. What binds us together? Hot sex?”

I pointed to the toast. “And haute cuisine.”

She worked at a smile. Got up and took the mug to the sink, where she emptied and washed. “I’d better be going.”

“Stay.”

“Why?”

I walked behind her, slipped my arm around her waist. Felt her abdominal muscles ripple as she tensed up. She removed my hand, turned, and looked up at me. “I’ve probably put some kind of wedge between us. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and feel like a first-class idiot, but right now I’ve still got some righteous indignation burning in my belly.”

I said, “The higher stakes are six murders, maybe seven. If you include the girl who succeeded Beth as Daney’s assistant. She seems to have vanished and she’s not on the foster rolls.”

She stepped out of my arms, braced herself against the counter, and stared out the kitchen window.

“Plus a toddler,” I went on. “Two teenage boys, three women, a mentally challenged young man. And so far, no way to prove any of it.”

She lowered her head into the sink, heaved and dry-retched.

I tried to hold her as she shuddered.

“Sorry,” she whimpered, pulling away. Splashing water on her face, she dried it with her sleeve. Snatched up her purse and keys, left the kitchen.

I caught up as she opened the front door. “You’re exhausted. Stay. I’ll take the couch.”

Her lips were parched and tiny blood spots freckled her cheeks. Petechiae from the strain of vomiting. “It’s a nice offer. You’re a nice man.”

“I’d like to be a good man.”

Her eyes shifted. “I need to be alone.”

CHAPTER 40

I returned to the kitchen, chewed on the toast I’d made Allison, and thought about what had just happened.

Tomorrow I might also wake up feeling rotten. If I slept at all. Right now I was glad to be alone, reunited with the possibilities that had flooded my head.

It was eleven-fifteen. I figured Milo wouldn’t be sleeping much either. And if he had drifted off, too damn bad.

“What time is it?” he rasped.

“Cherish Daney told me she tried to open Rand up, wished she’d been more effective. For his sake. But what if she had another motive? What if she found out what Drew had done, wanted Rand to come forward about Drew’s involvement in Kristal’s murder?”

He let out a couple of barking coughs, cleared his throat. “Good evening to you, too. Where’d all this come from?”

“You’ve been saying all along Cherish had to know something. Maybe she had suspicions but was able to deny them until she finally came upon something blatant.”

“Like what?”

“Trophies. Someone with Drew’s control obsession might very well keep some. He got a kick out of sneaking around Cherish, a hidden cache would be great fun. But arrogance leads to carelessness. Maybe he slipped up and left something for her to find. Or all those trips with ‘assistants’ got her suspicious and she started to snoop around the house. If she’s anything but a monster herself, finding hard evidence of Drew’s crimes would horrify her. She’d also be scared on a selfish level: If the truth ever came out, she was sure to come under suspicion as an accomplice. One way to deal with all that would be to come forward with evidence of her own and bail. Having Rand corroborate Drew’s involvement in Kristal’s murder would be a big step in that direction.”