“I gotta go, Mom,” I say.
“Are you sure you’re all right, honey?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
What’s one more lie? “I promise.”
28
I getto the clinic early today.
I keep strategizing for how to get out of this job. Yes, it pays well. But I can’t even walk through the waiting room without feeling sick about what I did to that man. I keep imagining blood covering the floor, the way it was that night.
If I could get that video Kovak has of me shooting Hooper…
When I get into the waiting room of the clinic, it’s empty and the door to the examining room is closed. At first, I think that Kovak hasn’t arrived yet, but then I notice the light on under the door, and as I get closer, I can hear voices. Somebody is in the examining room with him.
It’s a woman.
I creep closer to the door, trying to be as quiet as I can be, which is hard when you’re a big oaf like me. When I get a few inches away from the door, I can just barely make out the conversation.
“This is what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?” Kovak is saying.
The woman has a soft voice, which is hard to hear from behind the door. She says something that I can’t quite catch, but I hear the end of it: “It’s taken care of.”
“So you say,” he retorts.
“I promise,” the woman says. “I reassured him. He won’t give you any trouble.”
Kovak grumbles something that I can’t make out.
“Have I ever steered you wrong in all this time?” the woman says.
I can’t hear Kovak’s response, but then he says, “Look, you have to go. He’ll be here any minute.”
They must be talking about me. Except why?
I realize a split second too late that they are coming out of the examining room. I stumble backward, but when Kovak emerges from the room, it’s painfully obvious that I must have been trying to listen in. But my momentary embarrassment is overshadowed when I see the woman who walks out of the room.
It’s Patrice.
I stare at her for a moment, my mouth hanging open. What is Patrice doing here? And why was she talking to Kovak about me?
Her composure falters for a moment, but she recovers quickly, flashing me that same smile she gave me in her office the other day. “Abe! So good to see you!”
“What are you doing here?” I ask her.
“Well, you asked me to poke around, didn’t you?” Her eyelashes flutter innocently. “I just had a nice chat with Dr. Kovak here. It seems like a lovely clinic.”
Except she told me she already investigated. And even that aside, Iheardthat conversation.This is what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?That’s what Kovak said to her.
Holy shit.
Patriceis the contact at the school who is sending students to the clinic.
It suddenly makes perfect and horrible sense. She is the one who has intimate conversations with every single student—it’s mandatory, after all—where they admit whether or not they havebeen struggling. She knows exactly who is most vulnerable. How easy would it be for her to slip them Dr. Kovak’s name and tell them to make an appointment?
