how to react if he did. But his eyes remained dry, darting to the ceiling and back down again. “Very well, then. She’s not coming,” he sighed. “Well. Another time, then. Thank you, Ms. Hayes. Very sorry to have bothered you.”
He turned back to the waiting area and resumed his troubled pacing. I saw a small suitcase on the sofa. Was he just here to see Dr. Gardener, or had he been planning to check in?
“But if you want,” I offered, “someone else on staff could probably see you now. Dr. Gardener’s not the only—”
“Why would I want to see someone else? I thought I made myself clear, Ms. Hayes. I’m here as Dr. Gardener’s friend. We have a close, rather personal relationship.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Maybe I’ll wait just a bit longer.” He shifted from foot to foot, glancing up and down the hallway, and resumed his pacing. I left him there and quickly retraced my steps to the elevator. I’d ask Beverly Gardener about him. Maybe they were friends. But, if they were, why didn’t he just call her cell phone or her home if he wanted to talk? What was the big deal about surprising her? Oh, well. Not my business. What an odd little man. And what a street I lived on. Charlie, the delusional paranoid. Victor, the phobic recluse. And Phillip Woods apparently had a few personal quirks himself. Then, of course, there was me . . .
The note was still in my hand. Dr. Gardener was off assisting the police. Assisting Nick. Was she with him now? I pictured them together. Intense, energetic Beverly Gardener and rugged, big-bicepped Nick Stiles. Maybe she was helping him sort body parts. Maybe he was studying her profile. Maybe I should stop thinking about what they were doing. Whatever it was, why did I care? Dammit, why had I gone to bed with him? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about him? I had patients to see, a group session to run. A killer to watch out for. I didn’t need to spend time wandering a chilly basement, feeling jealous and suspicious, imagining the romantic escapades of a woman I didn’t know and a man I didn’t trust.
I hurried into the elevator, pushed the button, and didn’t look up again until the doors opened, delivering me from the bowels of the Institute to the gray light of the lobby.
TWENTY-SIX
THAT DAY AND THE NEXT, I CALLED BEVERLY GARDENER’SOF-fice several times, only to get Agnes. I left messages about rescheduling but got no reply. I thought of calling Nick about it but didn’t want to, except as a last resort. Besides, I was busy. I had a new patient, Celia Dukell. Celia was fifteen years old and had been carving herself with razor blades off and on for three years. Our first sessions went well enough, but I suspected she was saying and doing what she thought she was supposed to say and do. Her family portrait showed her as a bland and hollow figure amid relatives of substance and color. A polite, controlled, only slightly revealing sketch.
My other cases were demanding, as well. Amanda, almost completely bald now, drew her family without including any image of herself. Hank wouldn’t paint at all until the bristles on his brush were perfectly aligned, which was never. sydney, having adapted to his medications, began a still life of a vase, but the vase in his sketch, unlike the model, was severely chipped and cracked.
Evie Kraus finally painted something other than her literal surroundings. she did a self-portrait, examining her features closely in a mirror while she worked. I looked over her shoulder to see what she’d drawn; like the tattoos covering her arms, it was a coiled, thick snake, devouring a cat.
I finally heard from Dr. Gardener on Wednesday morning. I’d begun to think that I’d never see the profile, that Nick might have reconsidered having my input on the case. Then, Wednesday morning, I smelled flowers, heard the quick clack of heels against tile, and looked up to see Dr. Beverly Gardener herself bursting like floodwaters into the arts and crafts room.
“You must be Zoe.” Her eyes focused on me, drenching me with their intensity. she wore a cranberry tweed suit with a knee-length skirt that showed off her incredible calves, and she examined me from head to toe and back to head again, as if measuring me for curtains. “I’m Beverly Gardener. Nick stiles’s friend.”
His friend? Not colleague? Not consultant? His friend.