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Thirty-Three

Madison left Talmadge’s office and headed for Dr. Connor’s. If traffic had cooperated, she’d have made it on time, but she turned up ten minutes late for her appointment.

She checked in and took a seat in Connor’s waiting area. The office was essentially three spaces—one for reception, another for waiting, and then the therapy room. Each area felt intimate and was decorated in soft hues, probably to have a soothing effect on patients.

“Madison.” Connor had come to collect her. If she had been with a patient, Madison never saw him or her leave.

“Hi.” Madison stood and followed the doctor into her office.

Connor sank into her chair that looked far more comfortable than the couch, even with its throw pillows. Madison piled them to the side, except for one that she hugged to herself.

“What’s happened since the last time I saw you? It’s been over a month.”

There wasn’t so much judgment in Connor’s tone or words as there was definite concern.

“Not a whole lot,” Madison lied.

“Last time we spoke, you were battling with guilt over your sister’s abduction.” Connor’s face was soft and motherly.

Madison gripped the pillow tighter, and after realizing it, she loosened her hold. “I’ve been very busy.” Spoken as if that stopped the guilt from surfacing. It was her actions, her interference with the mob that had resulted in Chelsea’s ordeal three months ago. Still, Madison refused to walk away—all because she couldn’t ignore what was going on in her city.

“Often it’s easier to keep busy than to face our feelings.”

Madison stifled the urge to defend herself and insist that she had truly been busy, but maybe some of it had been self-inflicted busyness. Then again, she felt like if she didn’t expose the corrupt cops, no one would. Most of the Stiles PD also believed the Mafia had left town when clearly that wasn’t the case. Not with a house registered to a company attached to Roman Petrov.

“Madison?” Connor prompted.

“My mind just drifted. But I guess as long as people are killing each other…”

Connor crossed her long, slender legs. “We’ve discussed how important it is that you take care of yourself, Madison.”

“I know.”

“Are you?”

“I’m doing my best.” Not a lie. She had gone to see Talmadge. But if she were really taking care of herself, she’d make time to rest and eat nutritional food at regular intervals, instead of leaving both things to chance.

“Share with me, please.” Connor gestured with her gold pen.

“I just saw my family doctor before coming here.”

“Oh?”

“It’s nothing. I’m sure I’m fine. I already feel better.”

“How were you feeling?”

“Sick. Off and on. Mostly on for several days.”

“I see.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’ve discussed this before, but when we don’t properly process our emotions, they can surface as physical ailments. An easy example is stress. It often can give someone a kink in their neck or back pain. Most of us have been there before.”

“Yep.” Sergeant Winston gave her a headache every time she saw him.

Connor went on. “The guilt you mentioned feeling over your sister’s abduction could be wreaking havoc. Making you feel ill…”

“I don’t think it’s about that.”

“So you feel all better about the abduction? Don’t feel it’s your fault any longer?”

“I never said that.”

Connor laid out both her hands, palms up, as if to say, See?

“I accept that I had a reason for doing what I did, for investigating the Mafia,” she said, stamping down her feelings of regret that still crackled in her veins. “Chelsea is fine, is going to be more than fine.”

“And what about you?” Connor’s question sank like a weight on a bungee cord, due to fling up at any minute. “You had to kill a man,” she said softly.

“It was self-defense.” She hugged the pillow tighter. “Necessary.” Something she never told anyone, not even Troy, was when it came to killing Constantine, she felt no regrets, no remorse. She was simply numb, indifferent, devoid of all emotion.

Connor held eye contact for a few seconds, then smiled reservedly. “It seems that you are feeling better.”

“I am.” Madison relaxed, but she wasn’t fooled by Connor’s new approach. The doctor was hoping Madison would let her guard down and start opening up about her feelings.

The clock on the wall ticked off the seconds, and Madison heard each one.

Connor uncrossed her legs. “How is your relationship with Troy?”

The question hit as a blow. “Fine.”

Connor’s lips twitched as if she was about to smile, but she didn’t. “If I took away that word, how would you describe it?”

Madison smiled, though she doubted it touched her eyes. “Tense. At the moment.”

“Why’s that?”

She hugged the pillow tighter again but ended up tossing it to the end of the couch. “I thought he was going to propose a few weeks ago, but he didn’t. Still hasn’t.”

“A few weeks ago? That was around the time of Cynthia’s wedding, wasn’t it?”

On her last visit, Madison had mentioned the upcoming nuptials. “Yeah. I actually thought he was going to ask that night.”

“Do you want to marry him?”

“Of course I—” She snapped her mouth shut.

Connor grinned. “Have you asked him what he thinks of marriage?”

“I know he was burned by his first wife. She cheated on him, and he swore off marriage.”

“But you think that’s changed?”

Madison met Connor’s gaze and nodded.

“What makes you think that?”

“I found a ring.”

“Oh.” A tiny word drawn out like it was four feet long.

“Yeah, and it’s beautiful. I think he was going to propose, and he’s changed his mind.”

“Have you asked him about the ring?”

“I don’t even know where to start.” Truth: she wasn’t sure her fragile heart could handle it if she brought up marriage and he shot her down. God, she hated being vulnerable!

“How about starting with, ‘I found…’”

Madison shook her head. “He’d hate that. I know him well enough. He’d view it as a violation of his privacy.”

“Okay, but may I ask, how do you know he doesn’t still plan to ask? You did find the ring. Say, if he was going to propose but changed his mind altogether, why keep it? He would have returned it or pawned it, but from what I gather, he hid it.”

“In a box in the laundry closet.”

“Just going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing that’s not someplace you would ordinarily go?”

“No.” Madison smiled, not offended but rather impressed her shrink knew her so well. “You think he still plans to propose?”

“I don’t have the answer to that.” Connor smiled kindly, a twinkle in her eye.

What if Connor was right and he still did plan to propose? She’d been so temperamental with him lately, and maybe in retrospect, she’d been more aloof than he’d been. She was the one who had changed, not him. After all, she kept secrets and stayed out all hours of the day and night. She was doing her best to avoid any time alone with him. And it was killing her!

She sprung up from the couch.

“We have five minutes left,” Connor said.

“I’ve gotta go.” She rushed out the door and didn’t turn back, but she called out, “Thank you,” and kept going.

She had planned to meet up with Terry at the station, but Troy should be home from work. Let her partner handle the chef from the Pig King while she whisked Troy out for a nice dinner. They were past due for some time together.

She was driving home, and her phone rang. Caller ID showed on her car display and told her it was Terry. Madison answered. “I was going to call,” she blurted out. “How’s it going with Clayton?” There’d be plenty of time to bring up that she was heading home for the day.

“He lawyered up.”

“Good sign the guy’s probably guilty.”

“So, what were you going to tell me? You said you were going to call? Was it just to ask questions that could wait until you got here?”

Voicing her decision to call it a day was a little tougher than she’d thought it would be. “Well, I was going to call it a day. Sounds like that might work out. Who knows when Clayton’s lawyer’s going to get there?”

A few beats, then, “Oh,” coated with disappointment.

“You need me back?”

“I think you’ll want to join me. I’ve discovered some things while reading Carson’s journals. I mean, otherwise, I’d just be sitting here doing nothing pretty much. But she was some sort of whistleblower. Potentially anyhow. She mentioned her suspicions that her boss was guilty of insurance fraud, and she vowed to expose both him and Saul Abbott.”

She stiffened at Terry’s words and stopped for a red light. “Okay, Rossi said that Carson was double-checking his work. He wasn’t pleased by that. Guess we now know why. He must have known she was going to report him.”

“Still need proof, something solid,” Terry said. “But what you’ll really get excited about is Cynthia has unlocked the password-protected files on Carson’s laptop. I thought you’d want to come back to the station and dig in with me. Carson didn’t have anything specific documented about Rossi in her journals, but—”

“Could be in those files.”

“Yeah, so are you coming back to the station? We can look at it together.”

The light turned green. She hesitated long enough that the person behind her honked their car’s horn and swerved around her.

“Maddy?” Terry prompted.

She had all these grandiose intentions of making things right with Troy—even if he didn’t know they were falling apart. But her job was calling. Carson was asking for justice. And if there was any proof that Carson was going to expose her boss, Dean Rossi, he would have motive for murder.

She checked all her mirrors, and no one was there. She cranked the wheel and was just about to start into a U-turn from the outside lane.

The impact came quick and hard from behind and threw her forward. Just before everything went black, a pickup breezed past and she saw the driver’s face. It was one she recognized.