Page 58

Dinah

I am intimately familiar with handcuffs but have never had them around my own wrists, not in the last fifteen years. The last time was during the police academy, when we practiced cuffing and uncuffing suspects until it was a second-nature action we could do in the dark.

Having the metal cinched around my own wrists, no key in sight, my wrists pinned to either arm of the chair in front of Joe’s desk, is an entirely different feeling.

They are unnecessarily tight, pinching the skin in an uncomfortable manner.

I shift in the seat, trying to adjust to a better position, but it doesn’t help.

I twist my head, trying to see the door to the office and where Joe went, but I swear he intentionally put this chair in a position to block my view.

A power move. It doesn’t surprise me, and isn’t necessary.

I will do what he says and I will say the same thing, no matter how much psychological warfare he employs.

His footsteps sound, and I stiffen at the realization that there are two sets of footfalls. There’s only one person he might bring in here, so I am unsurprised when he journeys around the edge of the desk and has Jessica with him.

“Dinah, you’ve already met Jessica.” He gestures for her to take a seat.

She is not cuffed, and a sharp pain of jealousy stabs at me.

There is no one on this earth he trusts more than me, yet I am tied down like a dog while she is free.

Why? How? I glare at him, and he smiles.

This is intentional. Another power move.

He’s embarrassing me. I would have thought we were above this, but apparently, it’s this easy to puncture our balloon of respect.

“Hi,” she says, almost shyly.

I don’t respond. The one thing this isn’t going to be is a friendship-building exercise. I glance at her left wrist, which has a fresh bandage, and envision him bent over her, his touch gentle. I press my lips together and look away.

With all my mental preparation for a conversation with Joe, I did not prepare for a face-to-face with her.

Joe never commingles his patients. Great lengths are taken to make sure they are siloed and independent from each other.

Communication in a facility like this will lead to mutiny.

It is the job of the facility—our job—to keep the ship steady and head off potential problems.

I am a potential problem. It is a risk for Joe to have me in this close proximity to her. It only makes sense if he trusts me to keep my mouth shut, and that trust warms my soul. I need that hit, and I inhale deeply, reminding myself that today is a hiccup. That’s all.

“Jessica, are you curious about why Dinah is being restrained?”

“Yeah, it seems kind of strange.” Her voice is quiet, and I’m curious at how drugged up she is and how much of this she will remember.

More important, how much of the past she is aware of right now.

I have a feeling this session is going to be an inquisition, one designed to find out what secrets I am keeping.

“Dinah, why don’t you tell Jessica why you came into her room?”

I hate the tone he’s using. It’s that mild, passive-aggressive manner he learned from watching Dr. Phil on repeat.

Even the way he’s sitting right now—his chair pulled to the side of his desk so that we are in a small half circle, his ankle resting on his opposite knee, his hands clasped on top of his lap, elbows jutting out as if he’s an altar boy.

I clear my throat. “I came into your room to try to kill you.” I glare at my husband and am rewarded with a small crook of his lips.

That response, he wasn’t expecting. I’m sure his normal patients hem and haw and make excuses, but if I want him to believe my lies, I need to be brutal with my truths.

I look away from Joe and look to Jessica. “I was going to cut your wrists and stage it to look like a suicide.”

Her eyes widen, but she really shouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point.