Page 123 of High Society

Holly tries to sit up, but her head spins, and he helps her lie back down with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I still don’t follow. How did you know where to find me? And Reese?”

“I tracked her phone to this house. When I saw that the home was registered under the name of Danvers, I rushed over. I smelled the smoke as soon as I pulled up. Once I recognized it was coming from behind the house, I raced around the side and ran into Reese out back, trying to rinse the pepper spray out of her eyes and nose with a garden hose. I cuffed her to the gate and then kicked in the back door. She had tipped the hookah over, and the rags were burning, but the fire hadn’t consumed the room yet.”

Holly looks at him in awe. “And you carried me and my grandfather out?”

He shrugs it off. “Luckily, you’re both on the lighter side.”

She smiles. But then, unexpectedly, her eyes mist over, and her throat thickens. “Reese killed them all.”

“Your instincts were right about foul play.”

She wipes her eyes with a sleeve. “Thank you for following up on them, Detective Rivers.”

“It’s Cal.”

“Cal?” She cocks her head. “As in Calvin? Or Caleb?”

He shakes his head.

“Callum?”

He chuckles. “Just Cal.”

“I’m Holly, Just Cal.”

He nods to the pair of paramedics standing off to her right. “I’ll come check on you in the ER. OK, Holly? Meantime, I’ve got to go process Reese.”

“Yeah, of course.” She touches his arm. “Thank you, Cal.”

Another smile, and he’s gone.

A female paramedic appears at Holly’s feet and says, “We’re going to take you to the hospital now, Dr. Danvers.” And her partner pushes the stretcher from behind.

They wheel her toward the open back door of an ambulance. The shape of the vehicle reminds Holly of her dad’s old station wagon. Suddenly, the vision from her DMT trip rushes back to her. And with it, the actual memories of the accident flood back, too.

Holly can feel her heart breaking again in the moment when her dad told her the news about her parents’ separation. Even as a teenager, she had recognized how strained and loveless their marriage was. She didn’t care that he had found another woman. No. What devastated Holly was the thought of her father, the most important person in her world, choosing to live with someone else instead of her. She remembers grabbing his arm and begging him not to go. She also remembers her anger.

But the DMT-induced hallucination didn’t fully align with the recollection of actual events. Holly hadn’t wrapped her whole body around his arm. She had only tugged at his sleeve, pleading with him. True, she had distracted him at the worst moment. But the deer had darted out of nowhere. And she clearly remembers that her dad’s eyes were on the road when he yanked on the steering wheel.

The accident wasn’t my fault.

CHAPTER 62

Wednesday, May 8

Simon has long suspected that Salvador is Dr. Danvers’s favorite, not that the competition is all that fierce. But now he knows for sure. The session was the tribe’s idea. What was left of them, anyway. Dr. Danvers had been reluctant to go along with it, and she only acquiesced after Salvador convinced her.

They don’t use the group therapy room today. Too many uncomfortable memories. Too many ghosts. Instead, there are two extra chairs in Dr. Danvers’s office, and they sit in a circle. She allows the other three to do most of the talking as she sits back and observes, her fingers interlocked on her lap, her legs crossed.

“In the end, it had nothing to do with the ketamine,” Salvador argues.

“Yeah, your only real mistake, Dr. Danvers, was in trusting a lawyer,” Baljit grumbles, and the others chuckle grimly.

“Speaking of,” Salvador says. “I heard Reese pled not guilty.”

“As if it matters,” Baljit grunts. “She’s not going to weasel her way out of three murder charges.”

Salvador glances over to Dr. Danvers. “Not to mention two attempted ones.”