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“No!”
The balloon was gone. The calming pool of light disappeared, leaving her chilled and shaking on the couch. She didn’t want to open her eyes.
Was that true? If faced with the situation again, would she choose to kill? Was it the easy way out? Had she lost her moral compass entirely?
Dr. James surely seemed to think she had. And her own actions last night certainly pointed in that direction. Was a moral compass key to getting her job back? Would her team think she was trigger-happy? No, they didn’t know. They couldn’t know. No one knew that she’d pla
She opened her eyes. Maddee was standing over her, watching, a small smile on her face. Taylor jerked back and upset her teacup with a clatter. It spilled to the carpet unheeded.
Maddee stepped back and shook her head. “Sorry, I was just trying to see if you were still under.”
“Not very—what the hell, Maddee? I am not some blunt instrument that kills for fun. I’ve only ever killed when I had no other choice, in self-defense. I hate that I had to, every moment of every day.”
“Wow. Your voice, Taylor. You’re back. And you aren’t under hypnosis. You’re speaking again. Well done.”
Maddee sat back on her chair, quietly contemplating Taylor. She steepled her fingers under her chin.
“Now. Let’s talk about what just happened. Do you really believe that’s true, Taylor? Be honest with me. Hell, be honest with yourself. If you look inside your soul, to your very core, can’t you admit that a part of you liked it? Liked pla
“No. Are you out of your mind? Absolutely not. It haunts me, Maddee. That’s why I’m here, trying to get away from it.”
Maddee shook her head slowly. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Oh, but Taylor, it’s all inside of you. You have free will. You have a choice. Even when your life, or lives around you, were in danger, you chose to kill. To end a life. What does that make you, hmm? How is that any better than doing it instinctually?”
Taylor didn’t like this at all. She wasn’t here to answer for her past sins. She was here to exorcise the demon of what she’d almost allowed herself to do. To regain control over herself, not go deeper into the abyss.
“Taylor, you’re not in therapy to regain your voice. That was a surface issue, a symptom. You’re here because the people around you don’t trust you anymore. Whether you realize it or not.”
“No. That’s not true.”
“You’re here alone, aren’t you? My God, you’re on an entirely different continent. Your boss wouldn’t let you go back to work. Your best friend is back in the States, letting you go through this alone. Your fiancé is off doing his own work. Even Memphis has left you behind. You’re here, all alone, because even you recognize that you’ve lost control. You’ve lost your edge. You’ve become the people you hunt. And everyone but you seems to know it.”
Taylor stood up, teeth gritted. Frustration made her cry, and she refused to let that happen now.
Don’t you dare do it, Taylor. Don’t you even think about it. You’ve shown her enough weakness. Walk away. Walk away now.
“I think we’re done here.”
“Don’t go, Taylor. Don’t run away now. We’re just starting to get somewhere.” Maddee sat contritely on the chair, her hand extended. “Please, sit down.”
Taylor shook her head. No. She was done.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Taylor grabbed her boots and Memphis’s jacket and took off out onto the grounds of the estate. It was freezing cold, about to snow, but she didn’t care. She just needed to get away. Away from Maddee and her accusations, away from herself.
She heard a car engine revving and looked over her shoulder. Maddee’s Mercedes. She was leaving. Good. Taylor didn’t want to be anywhere near the woman. She didn’t want to see Dr. Madeira James ever again.
She turned and headed off into the woods. Memphis said she could have anything she wanted. And right now, she wanted that therapist to go directly to hell.
She shoved her hands in the pockets of the coat to find her gloves. Instead, she found a pill bottle. Her Percocet. She didn’t remember putting it in there, but she was glad she had—her head was splitting. The demons from the past hour were close about. She popped the bottle open and shook two pills into her hand. Swallowed them dry, forcing them past the lump in her throat.
Leaves lay thick on the path, reds and oranges and golds, as if it were a gaudy New England fall. The seasons here were not distinct. She knew the temperatures were relatively consistent, a range that normally covered no more than thirty degrees between winter and summer.
The dogs were barking, chasing each other around in circles down the path toward the gardens. She avoided them, cut north, going up the hill. She didn’t know where she was going, just that she wanted to be away.
She could feel the storm brewing. There was a displacement to the air that she recognized from big weather at home. She hadn’t been paying too much attention to the forecast, just assumed it would be cold and rainy, with a few flakes of snow thrown in for good measure. She’d have to check it when she got back. She’d bet her life it was going to snow, and snow hard.
The path went steeply up a hill, and she followed it blindly, seething, angry with herself for rising to the bait, and wondering just what Maddee intended. Some sort of reverse psychology perhaps, or something meant to break her down, like they do in the military?
Taylor wasn’t familiar with therapy, per se. She’d done her scheduled meetings with the department shrink as required for her fitness reports over the years, but she hadn’t spent anytime on the couch herself outside of this recent…situation. Despite her earlier thoughts, she had changed her mind. She hated therapy. Hated it with a passion.
The path straightened and she realized she was out of breath. She stopped for a moment, laid a cold hand on the moss-covered stone wall to her right, and looked around her. There was forest on three sides, and a smallish village in front of her. She assumed that was where the original town would have been, housing the support staff for the estate—a smith, a distillery and the like. In front of her was a small stone bridge arching over the road, and to her left, barely shielded by the large stone fence and the heavy tree cover, she could see a pile of stones.
She set off in that direction. After twenty feet, the path opened into a clearing, and she realized she’d stumbled onto the back way into the estate’s kirk. The church was missing its roof. The windows were caved in as if the eyes of the building had gone blind, and the doorway resembled a mouth crying out in agony. Another ruin, the second she’d seen on Highsmythe land. It pissed her off even more. Did these people care nothing for their past? Were they so busy with their ghosts that they didn’t bother with their souls’ shelters?
She picked her way closer, through the moss and lichen-covered gravestones. There was a clear path here, the leaves brushed out of the way. Someone had been here recently.
There was a large gravestone, not weathered and covered in lichen like the others, but still shining with the moist green mold that coated most everything inanimate in the Highlands—fences, stones, roofs, trees. Graves.
There was a small bundle of heather intertwined with roses, still fresh, at the base of the grave. She looked at the names, and everything clicked.
EVANELLE FRASER HIGHS MY THE
BELOVED WIFE