Chevy Stevens - The Other Side

“What do you think?”

“I think maybe there was a little more to it.”

“I think you’re right. Did you ever see Tom McBride around after that? Or did Mark ever mention him?”

“Never saw him, never talked to him.” Her gaze flicked up for a moment to a wooden fishing trophy tacked high on the wall. She realized I was watching and turned back to me. “And I never could figure out why Ginny got rid of Tom and hooked up with another asshole.”

It was an odd statement, considering the source. “People do strange things,” I said.

“That all?” She looked tired.

“For now, but some other officers will probably want to talk to you.”

“Might as well talk while I still can.” She broke into another cough.

I sat in my truck for a long time outside my old house. Where had my dad gone after he got out of camp? There’d been three days when no one saw him—his boss gave him his last paycheck and that was it. I thought back to when I was a kid, he and Mark coming home drunk as skunks, cleaning fish in the garage, their hands covered in blood and scales….

I called Doug. “We’re going to need some cadaver dogs, up at an old fishing cabin.”

They found my father’s body two days later. He’d been shot with a twelve-gauge shotgun—in the back. They weren’t sure whether Mark shot him before or after he killed my mother, but it didn’t matter. He was dead, and I could finally lay my father to rest.

For the next week, I threw up every morning, so I went back to the doctor. Then I went straight to Jeff’s office.

“Got some news.”

He wheeled back his chair. “Yeah? What’s that?

“I’m pregnant.”

He dropped the chair down. “Holy shit! How… like, when?”

“I guess the last time.” I knew I’d skipped my pill a couple of times when I rushed to the station early, but I’d just taken them the next day, figuring chances were slim. Obviously not….

“What are you going to do?”

“Keep it, I guess.”

He grinned, his face full of hopeful excitement. In a second he’d be handing out cigars.

I said, “I’m still coming around to the idea, so you have to go easy on me. No baby balloon bouquets yet, no telling anyone. It’s early, and I’m older, there could be complications.”

“Deal.” He stood up with his arms stretched wide. “Come on, give me a hug, Mama.”

“You shithead.” But I walked into his arms.

The next day I called Nadine Lavoie, told her I had some follow-up questions. She welcomed me at her office with a smile, but she looked concerned.

“Is Sara all right?”

“She’s doing fine, considering. I kind of lied about why I’m here. I need to talk to you about something else.”

Now she looked confused. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s about me. I think I need some help. My parents, they were murdered—years ago, but I still get nightmares. And I’m pregnant….”

“I see.” Her body relaxed. What had she thought I was going to say?

I noticed that some of her books had been packed. “You going somewhere?”

“Just taking a little sabbatical for the summer, while I consider moving to Victoria.” She touched her head where she’d been injured during the attack. “This made me do some thinking.”

“About your daughter?” It was a random guess, but her body stiffened.

“Yes, we’ve lost touch. She lives on the streets.”

How did a shrink’s kid end up on the streets? I thought of the baby growing inside me. What kind of hell would my child end up in with two cop parents? How bad would I screw him or her up?

Nadine shook her head, like she too was trying to clear away a negative thought, then said, “How about we talk, then I’ll see who I can suggest that you might connect with here?”

“It’s a start.”

She smiled. “We all have to start somewhere.”

You need to know the rest of the story…

Read on for the first chapter of Chevy Stevens’ chilling

ALWAYS WATCHING

Available digitally in June 2013

You can try to forget the past, but you can never escape it…

The first time I saw Heather Simeon, she was curled into a ball in the seclusion room at the hospital, a thin blue blanket tight around her, the bandages sharp white lines circling her wrists. Her blond hair obscured most of her face. Even then, she still gave off a sense of refinement, something in the high cheekbones barely visible through the veil of her hair, the beautifully arched brows, the patrician nose, the delicate outline of pale lips. Only her hands were a mess: the cuticles raw and bleeding, the nails jagged. They didn’t look bitten, they looked broken. Like her.

I’d already read her file and talked with the emergency psychiatrist who’d admitted her the night before, then gone over everything with the nurses, most of whom had worked in the Psychiatric Intensive Care unit for years, and who were also my best sources of information. I might spend fifteen minutes to an hour with each patient during my morning rounds, but the rest of the time I was at my office in the Mental Health building, treating patients who are out in the community. That’s why I like to bring a nurse with me when I first meet a patient, so we’re on the same page with the care plan. Michelle, a cheerful woman with curly blond hair and a wide smile, was with me now.

Heather’s husband had come home the night before to find her sprawled on the kitchen floor, the knife near her hand. When she was admitted to the hospital, she’d become agitated, crying and fighting the nurses. The emergency-room doctor ran a drug screen that came back clear, so she’d been given Ativan and placed in the seclusion room. She was under close observation on the monitor, and a nurse checked on her every fifteen minutes.

She’d been sleeping all night.

I knocked softly on the door frame. Heather rolled over and opened her eyes, blinked a few times. I stepped closer to the bed. She gazed up at me, licked her lips, which were dry and chapped, then swallowed. Her mouth parted as if she was going to say something, but only her breath escaped in a long sigh. Her eyes were dark blue.

“Good morning, Heather,” I said in my gentlest voice. “I’m Dr. Lavoie, the attending psychiatrist.” When I had my private practice up island, my patients called me Nadine. But since moving to Victoria to work at the hospital, I’d started using my title, had come to like the emotional distance—one of the reasons for my move in the first place. “Would you like some water?”

She was staring somewhere over my shoulder, her expression blank, devoid of sorrow or anger. She might not have succeeded in checking out physically, but she had definitely disappeared emotionally.

“I’d like to talk with you for a little bit if that’s okay.”

Her eyes skimmed past me, landing on Michelle. She pulled the blue blanket tight around her.

“Why… is she here?” Her voice was a whisper.

“Michelle? She’s one of our nurses.”

On the psychiatry floor, the doctors are generally in business casual, the nurses dressed more for comfort. Michelle tended to favor fun clothes, today a funky striped shirt with dark denim dress jeans. Unless you noticed the ID badge around her neck, you might not realize she was a nurse.

Heather’s body language was defensive, almost cringing under the blanket, her gaze flicking back and forth between us like a cornered animal’s. Michelle stepped back, but Heather still looked overwhelmed. Some patients felt ganged up on when we brought a nurse in with us.