The Unforgivable Fix (2 page)

B
ARBADOS

Nigel Lancaster tapped his sterling silver butter knife against his glass. The tinkling crystal caught the attention of the seventeen people relaxing over their dessert of raspberry mousse and coconut cookies. He stood and smoothed a manicured hand over his dinner jacket. “I hate to intrude on what I assume is everyone's wonderful time.” A collective chorus of jovial support affirmed the Brit's supposition. “But let's steal a moment in all this conviviality to lift a glass to our gracious hostess.” Lancaster turned to the sandy-blonde beauty seated at the foot of the long candlelit table. “Thank you, dear Olwen, for gathering us all in this lovely spot. As a Londoner, I rarely get the opportunity to dine with the stars as my ceiling while the sea breeze caresses my wife's hair.”

Molvado from Portugal interrupted. “I told you he should have been a poet!”

The dinner guests chuckled as Lancaster smiled and continued. “The evening is superb. The food is exquisite, the service impeccable, and the setting challenged only by the loveliness of our ladies, who put up with us come what may.” Lancaster lifted his glass. “To Olwen.”

“To Olwen!” the guests echoed, and sipped their champagne.

Lancaster shifted his attention to the opposite end of the table. “And to our host. Lest we forget his generosity and leadership.” He raised his glass again. “For all Patrick does for so many, hear, hear!”

“Hear, hear!” the chorus answered. A few guests called for a speech. Patrick Duncan made a brief show of waving them off before standing to address his guests.

“Thank you, Nigel, for those kind words.” Patrick's gaze settled on the woman seated twelve feet opposite him. “And I'll start, as always, with a declaration of my devotion and appreciation to my extraordinary Olwen. Without you, this night doesn't exist.”

Olwen bowed her lovely head and smiled in a well-rehearsed show of humility.

“And to all of you,” Patrick continued. “Thank you for coming. I know it's never hard duty to fly away to a tropical island…” The guests laughed on cue. “But still, these three days take you away from your duties at home and I appreciate the sacrifice. We men have much to discuss. And as they say, there's no time like the present.” He signaled for his hostess to stand. “So, if you ladies would be gracious enough to follow Olwen, she'll escort you up to the hotel's roof garden, where I'm told a fashion show awaits that is sure to inspire your men here to work even harder to repair the considerable hole you're about to put in their wallets.”

Eight women pushed back their chairs, kissed their companions goodbye, and followed Olwen off the terrace and into the penthouse. Patrick raised his voice to be heard above their excited chattering.

“And Molvado here will lead you men to a conference room one floor below. I'll be along in a moment.” Patrick waved his finger in mock warning. “Leave a cigar and at least one drop of cognac for me.”

The men stood, clapping one another on the shoulders in congratulations for a record-breaking sales quarter in the cocaine, heroin, and illicit pharmaceutical market.

“Nigel,” Patrick called out. “Can you and Jillian hold back? I need a private moment with you both.”

The enthusiasm rushed out of the room. The women quieted. Those nearest Nigel's wife offered comforting hands and concerned faces. The men focused their attention on their own shoes.

Olwen directed the women out of the penthouse. She locked eyes with Patrick one last time before leaving and made a mental note to call room service as soon as she got the ladies settled up on the roof.

There'd be two fewer guests for brunch tomorrow.

O
LYMPIA

Lydia stood ankle-deep in the icy salt water of Dana Passage, shielded her eyes from the sun's slanted autumn rays, and stared up at the top of the 150-foot cliff. The view of her property was different here at sea level. An infinite number of small pebbles crusted the sand. Seaweed and driftwood littered the beach. The echo of waves off ten-ton boulders nearly drowned the call of seagulls gliding overhead. She zipped her windbreaker and bent to rinse her hands in the rising tide as the breeze whipped her hair about her face. In an hour, the spot on which she stood would be under five feet of water. She glanced at the switchbacked wooden staircase that had brought her twelve stories below her backyard to this secluded strand and considered taking them back up, brewing a strong cup of tea, and settling onto her deck to watch the sun's descent behind the Olympic Mountains.

But that would be too easy.

She dried her hands on her leggings and walked toward the cliff. Twenty feet east of the staircase was the most vertical plane. She reached up with her right hand, feeling along rocks and dirt until she found a hold. She duplicated the process with her left hand and pulled herself twelve inches above the incoming tide. Her left foot found purchase and she shifted her weight. She planted her right foot on a moss-covered rock and pushed herself higher.

Her face stayed an inch away from the cliff wall. Pulling with her arms and pushing with her legs, she climbed. Her mind focused on each effort. She used the diagonal tension of her arms and legs to steady herself between moves. One slip early in the climb would send her down a few feet. She'd be damp and might have to pull seaweed out of her hair, but only her dignity would be bruised. After ten minutes of ascent a miscalculated handhold or poorly placed boot would break the tentative stalemate she had with gravity, and she'd hurl down into the sea rising below her. Crushed against the rocks or pulled out into the waves, she'd be just as dead.

Left hand…right foot…left foot…right hand…left hand…right foot…left foot…right hand…
The mantra cleared her mind of judgments of her past and dread of her future. Although the climb strengthened her body in ways a gym never could, it was the total cognitive clarity that was Lydia's primary reason for torturing herself with this twice-weekly climb.

But it wasn't working today.

Lydia struggled to stay in the moment. She inhaled the earthy scent of mud and decaying moss. She kept her eyes focused on the roots and rocks protruding from the cliff's face. She traced the tension in her shoulders, arms, and legs as she shifted positions.

Still Mort's words invaded.

He's right. I have no connection to anything.
She mentally shook her mind clear and climbed. Shift right and pull. Shift left and push.
I'm alone.
Lydia looked down to the waves now crashing eighty feet below her. She looked up. The edge of the cliff seemed miles away. Her heart pounded, and the sound of sea and wind grew louder. She pulled her left leg loose and a cramp burned inside her calf. She resettled her leg on instinct and flexed the muscles until it cleared. She tossed her head as much as balance would allow, to dislodge an errant strand of hair teasing across her eyelid.

I could be done.
The old, taunting hope whispered from somewhere deep within her skull.
This can be over.
She tried to silence the dark thought, as familiar as her hand and as hated as her history.
Let go, Lydia. Hands or feet, it doesn't matter. One half second of relaxation and the earth will take it from there. Let go, Lydia. Be done with this. Let go, Lydia.

A tear escaped her right eye and she rejected the reflex to wipe it clear.
Let go, Lydia. No one will mourn you. You'll do no more damage.

She swallowed hard, pressed her closed eyes against the mud wall, twisted her hips, torqued her strength to her legs, and released her right hand. Her heartbeat calmed.

One more, Lydia. Be free. Be done.

A piercing wail sounded to her right. Lydia at first thought it was the torment locked deep inside her screeching at the promise of release. When it sounded again, she opened her eyes and turned toward it.

An outcropping of dirt and rock no larger than a Thanksgiving turkey platter jutted out two feet above her on the right. Lydia blinked her vision into focus. A small, wide-eyed owl stared down at her. It opened its beak and screamed another warning her way.

Lydia reflexively regrabbed her right handhold. She steadied herself and prepared for an air assault from the angry creature.

She was attacked by nothing but shrieks. Lydia studied the bird. It was October, too late to be protecting a nest. If the owl had a freshly caught mouse it was afraid Lydia was coming to steal, it would have attacked her by now.

Then she saw it. A flash of red just below the owl's large head. She tightened her grip and pulled herself higher.

Blood on the owl's feathers glistened in the setting sun's light. Fresh blood. Lydia craned her neck to survey the sky as much as she could without losing her balance. Far above her, a red-tailed hawk glided in wide loops on an invisible current. Perhaps the sight of a large mammal in a fluorescent-yellow windbreaker climbing the side of the cliff had startled the hawk into dropping its prey.

Lydia inched laterally to the outcrop. Again the owl sounded a warning, but it didn't seem as fierce. “Did that hawk get you?” She steadied herself on three points and reached her right hand toward the bird.

The owl gave one last attempt at screeching her away before spreading its wings. One wing cooperated. Lydia extended her hand close enough to touch the other, hanging limp at the bird's side. Warm blood dripped on her fingers. “You're dying, little one. It's me or nothing.”

She tilted her head. The hawk was still circling above them, high enough to escape any retribution for the damage he'd done. She pulled her right hand back, unzipped her windbreaker, and returned to the owl, now drained of any resistance. Lydia tucked the owl inside her jacket, secured the zipper tight against her chin, and reached again for a steady hold on the cliff wall.

“Don't get feisty in there.” Lydia looked up to the edge of her backyard and resumed her climb. “Hang in there, buddy. Nobody's dying today.”

O
LYMPIA

“I have somebody else who's been telling me the same thing.” Lydia sipped warm cider from a paper cup. “He tells me it's time to reengage.”

Sharon Luther set her own cup on the empty space of the wooden bench the two women shared. “He's right. There are too few clinical psychologists in Olympia.” Her grey eyes glistened in the light of the autumn afternoon. “I can click off the good ones with one hand and still have enough fingers left to flip my ex-husband the bird.” Her voice softened. “You've had rough times, Lydia. You know the best thing for you is to get back into life. It's the only fix.”

Lydia wondered what repairs Sharon thought she needed, then realized her injuries following her shooting had been well documented in the local media. But no one knew what she'd been up to in the months since. She looked across the broad boardwalk of Percival Landing to the narrow harbor filled with sailboats and tugs. Olympia's west side climbed up a gentle hill of middle-class homes with million-dollar views. Her mind drifted to Maizie, the sweet child with the vile father she'd met while recuperating on Whidbey Island. She hoped the little girl was happy in Maine, surrounded by a view as lovely as the one Lydia had.

“Bring me up to speed with what's been happening with you,” she said. “It's been, what? Two years since we've spoken?”

Sharon shook her head. “That whole time thing. If you figure out a way to slow it down, share it with me first, will you?” She took another sip of cider. “The assholes in charge are still pushing me to take on more administrative duties, but I've successfully dodged all their ham-handed attempts to pull me out of the lab.”

Sharon Luther was a professor at Evergreen State College. The nontraditional school had lured her away from Ohio State more than ten years earlier. She brought her international reputation as a memory researcher and several multimillion dollar grants with her, adding the credibility of hard-core science to the well-established liberal-arts status of the school. Her work broke new ground in how memories are encoded, stored, and retrieved that most wouldn't expect to come out of a school with fewer than five thousand students. Lydia met her not long after she'd opened her practice in Olympia. Sharon had been soliciting potential research subjects for a study she was doing on the impact of postpartum depression on the memory of new mothers. Impressed with her professionalism, Lydia had recommended her study to several patients. She'd come to expect a visit from Sharon every year or so. New funding meant new research and a need for new folks to study.

“I'm happy to report NIH keeps supporting my work at a respectable rate,” Sharon said. “It's more than enough to satisfy the bureaujerks that I'm earning my keep.”

“What are you working on now?”

“Babies!” Her face glowed with an enthusiasm not often seen in tenured faculty. “I'm surrounded by babies!” She chuckled. “You know, for all our so-called scholarly research, we know nothing about anything. It's what keeps me going, you know? For so many decades we assumed infants lacked the ability to remember what's happening in their lives. But I've developed a way—it's difficult given their lack of speech—to test how infants less than three months old recall new stimuli presented to them. I've only done a pilot, of course, fifteen little ones, but I've been able to show they recall things that are going on in their lives at identical rates to my comparison group of freshmen undergrads. Can you imagine the implications? All those mothers and fathers hissing at each other over the baby's crib and assuming the kid won't remember a thing?” She raised an eyebrow toward Lydia. “But who am I talking to? You earn your living dealing with the fallout of what kids remember. Hopefully my work will help us understand the mechanism behind how humans are shaped by their past, even from the earliest moments of life.”

Lydia offered a polite nod.
Do we really need to understand the how? Shouldn't it be enough to realize that cruelty leads to pain…pain leads to fear…fear leads to broken lives?
Her mind shifted to Maizie again. How long would the memories of what the girl's father did to her limit her ability to experience joy? At thirty-six, Lydia still battled the ghosts of her own childhood.

And she would dance any tune the devil called to erase the memories of what she'd become.

Lydia blinked and brought her awareness back to the conversation. “If you're looking for people, I can't help you, Sharon. I'm no longer in practice. And I never did see infants.”

Sharon leaned back. “Oh, my. Am I turning into one of those a-holes I rant about? Damn it, the only time I contact you is when I need something, isn't it? Such is the life of a lab rat, I'm afraid. Please forgive me.”

Lydia smiled at the world-class scientist. “I understand how work can consume. It's nice to see you no matter why you call.”

“I'm just happy you're still checking messages at your old office, or I wouldn't know how to find you. Why do you keep the place if you're not in business?”

Lydia often wondered, too. “I love the space. It's been good to me. And who knows? My license is current. Maybe I'll dust off the shingle one day.”

Sharon's enthusiasm returned. She looked Lydia up and down. “You seem fit and well healed. And like I said, Olympia needs good psychologists. Let me see if I can entice you. You see, I come, yet again, with a favor to ask of you. It has nothing to do with recruiting subjects, but I'm convinced you're the only one who can help me.”

“The only one,” Lydia said, teasing.

“I have a student. A postdoc, actually. Zach Edwards. Twenty-six years old. Finished his PhD last year at the University of Oregon. Smart as a whip. He's been with me less than two months and already I find myself counting on him more than I probably should. Zach's going to be a crackerjack researcher.”

“He's lucky to have you. Most postdocs are viewed as peon labor. They do all the work and the professor gets all the glory.”

Sharon winked. “Let's hope that changes as more women climb those slippery ranks of science. At any rate, he needs clinical hours. He needs his license. Zach will be looking for a faculty position of his own in two or three years. He'll be more attractive to schools if he can bring patient skills.”

“So he needs a supervisor. And you thought of me.”

Sharon nodded. “I'm giving him top-notch research training. It would be a terrific complement if he got his clinical supervision from the best as well.”

Lydia sidestepped the flattery. “Twenty-six, Sharon? And already with his PhD? That means—what did you say his name is?”

“Zach. Zach Edwards.”

“Zach's been in school straight through from kindergarten to doctor. What knowledge does he have of the real world? What can he bring patients?”

Both of Sharon's eyebrows shot up. “And how old were
you,
Dr. Corriger, when you got
your
credentials? You've been practicing nearly ten years. I can still do math, you know. You were finished with even your postdoctoral work by the time you were Zach's age. And when I call you the best, I mean it.”

By the time I was Zach's age, I'd been abandoned by my mother, never knew my father, survived sixteen different foster placements, and spent two years in juvie for beating one of my rapists into a coma with a baseball bat. I had more than enough life experience to build empathy…and I still went on to kill.

Lydia breathed the memories away before responding. “My practice has been closed for nearly two years, Sharon. I don't have any patients to offer him.”

Sharon gathered their empty paper cups. “Your reputation lingers, Lydia. Add to that you're a media star. Everyone in Washington State knows you're the woman who helped solve those murders up in Seattle. Open your doors and you'll be booked solid in a month.”

And I was responsible for one of those murders, Sharon. Imagine the media image I'd have if anyone found out I'd spent six years as The Fixer.

She recalled her last conversation with Mort. He preached the only alternative to spinning in self-hatred was stepping out and rebuilding her life.

“I suppose it wouldn't hurt to meet him,” Lydia said. “I'm not making any promises.”

Sharon slapped her knees then stood. “That's all I ask. I'll have Zach call you.” She tossed their cups into a trash can a few feet away and waited for Lydia to stand. “I'm glad you're going back to work, Lydia. Something tells me this is the start of a whole new adventure for you.”