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  “You must be a great doctor,” she says.

  Willow has a remarkable facility for changing subjects without notice. I wonder if this is who she is or if it’s the product of cocaine use.

  I respond, “Are you being facetious?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You mean because of what I did for Cameron?”

  She points to my face. “A couple of days ago your face looked like Dawn of the Dead. This type of healing is on a whole different level.”

  She’s got a point.

  “How did you manage that?” She says.

  “What made you decide to come to Manhattan?” I say, proving I can change subjects just as quickly.

  “You mean what made me show up on your doorstep?”

  “Yes. As I recall, when I made the original offer, you slapped my face.”

  “I slapped you because you tried to kiss me.”

  “I tried to hug you.”

  She shrugs. “Either one would earn you a slap.”

  I remember how she recoiled when I snuck a kiss to her breast that first night.

  “You brought a suitcase,” I say.

  “I had the cab bring me here from the airport. I thought you might recommend a hotel.”

  “Me?”

  “I’ve never been to New York, and you’re the only one I know who lives here.”

  “You have enough cash?”

  “For a room? Yes. For cancer treatment?” She shakes her head.

  “What type of cancer do you have?”

  “Offer me something.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m a guest in your home. You should offer me something. Water, tea, coffee?”

  “Oh. Sorry. Can I get you something? Some water, tea, or coffee?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine.”

  I give her a look.

  She smiles.

  “You’re funny,” I say.

  She shrugs. Then says, “Hodgkin’s.”

  32.

  “HODGKIN’S LYMPHOMA?” I say.

  She nods.

  “That’s terrible. But on the bright side, the cure rate for Hodgkin’s is extremely high.”

  “If it hasn’t recurred.”

  “Has it?”

  She nods.

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Still, there are plenty of treatment options,” I say.

  “For those with money or insurance.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ask me if I’d care to sit,” she says.

  “Would you?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She walks across the room, passing two chairs and a couch, and sits on a small stool beside the fireplace.

  “The sofa and chairs would be far more comfortable,” I say.

  “Those aren’t you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your decorator picked those.”

  “So?”

  “This stool was yours long before you bought this fancy penthouse.”

  I glance around the room a moment, then cross the floor until we’re about six feet apart.

  “How did you know?” I say.

  “About the stool?”

  I nod.

  “Men are control freaks,” she says.

  “Go on.”

  “When a woman decorates a room, the man insists on keeping something from his past.”

  “And you guessed the stool?”

  “It was easy enough.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s always the thing that looks completely out of place, because straight men can’t decorate for shit. But it’s not about the stool, Dr. Box.”

  “No?”

  “It’s about your identity.”

  Her eyes scan the living room a moment. Then, with great confidence, she looks me in the eyes and says, “This stool is the only piece you contributed toward decorating the room.”

  “You think?”

  “I know!”

  “What about the photographs?”

  “They don’t count.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t like them.”

  “Oh really? I don’t like them? Then why are they on my wall?”

  “You put them there hoping to impress people.”

  “What?”

  “But they don’t impress people.”

  “No?”

  “You know this already. You hesitated to tell me about them. You said I might think you were creepy.”

  “I only said that because—”

  I decide not to complete the sentence. For the second time in five minutes I’ve caught myself starting to defend a group of photos I can’t stand. This eighteen-year-old has me pegged. No psychologist in Manhattan could have done a better job of analyzing me.

  “Do you think I have issues?” I ask.

  “You’ve got more issues than Kleenex has tissues.”

  “That’s an old joke.”

  “You’re an old man.”

  “Old-er. Old-er. Not old.”

  She shrugs. “I like the stool, Dr. Box.”

  “You do?”

  “Ask me to call you Gideon.”

  “Please,” I say. “Call me Gideon.”

  “Thank you, Gideon,” she says, warmly.

  I know where this is leading. She hopes by being nice to me I’ll pay for her cancer treatment. Or maybe get her into a clinical study. The suitcase still concerns me. She couldn’t possibly expect me to let her stay here, could she? And how could I trust her? She and Cameron obviously broke into Chris Fowlers’ house after I left. What sort of people would do that?

  People like me. I broke into his home first.

  But why would Willow and Cameron steal from the Fowlers?

  Because they thought they were stealing from me. Because…

  I take a deep breath.

  “Willow, I’m sorry for the way I treated you and Cameron last Thursday.”

  “At the Firefly?”

  “And after.”

  Willow studies my face a moment, then says, “I understand you wanted some pussy. That makes sense. You also seemed to get off on humiliating me and trying to provoke me, which probably has something to do with your childhood. What I don’t understand is why, after fucking us, you robbed us at gunpoint.”

  I say nothing.

  “You hit me!” she says. “You threatened and terrified us.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Is this just you, needing to prove how powerful you are? Bullying a couple of teenage girls?”

  “I think it’s more complicated than that.”

  She nods slowly, then says, “Breaking into Chris Fowler’s house and stealing his identity is even more complicated, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know his wife was murdered?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Chris Fowler’s wife, Kathy.”

  “She’s been murdered?”

  “Shortly after three p.m. last Friday.”

  I do the math in my head.

  “Don’t worry, you’re safe,” Willow says. “As I recall you were in the trunk of a Mercedes at the time.”

  I recall it too, and it’s terribly embarrassing. There I was, Dr. Gideon Box, world renowned surgeon, curled up in the trunk of my rental car, nursing wounds I received from a brawl in a strip club parking lot. Apart from my embarrassment, I wonder how much DNA evidence I might have left at the scene. I tidied up before leaving Chris’s house, of course, but not the way I’d clean a crime scene.

  “Do they know who killed her?”

  “Getting nervous?”

  “A little. Aren’t you?”

  “Why would I be nervous?”

  “The bedding, vacuum cleaner, and whatever else you took.”

  “They’re saying the husband did it.”

  “Chris? Wasn’t he in the Caymans?”

  “They think he hired a contract killer.”

  “Did someone confes
s?”

  “I don’t know. This is just what people are saying.”

  I pause.

  “You said your father’s a lawyer?”

  Willow cocks her head and gives me a strange look.

  “I’m not asking you to pay for my cancer treatment,” she says.

  “You’re not?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Then—”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said you might be able to help me. I was wondering what you had in mind.”

  “Is your father in a position to pay for treatment?”

  “My father died in prison.”

  “Prison? But you said—”

  “I know what I said.”

  She sighs. “My father really was a lawyer. But he was also a wife-beater. One day he went too far.”

  “He killed your mother?”

  “Yup.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Almost fifteen.”

  “Was this in Cincinnati?”

  “Nashville.”

  “Did they put you in foster care?”

  “Those who were willing to take me didn’t have space yet, so I was placed on a waiting list. But I didn’t wind up in an orphanage, or children’s home, or whatever they’re called.”

  “What happened?”

  “At the last minute my aunt and uncle stepped up to the plate and took me in, which I thought was pretty nice of them, considering there was no inheritance or insurance.”

  “Were they good people?”

  “Were they good people?” she repeats. She thinks about it a moment.

  “You know, they went to church sometimes, and they both had jobs. They bought me clothes, drove me to school each day, took me to the doctor. But things didn’t work out. I stayed with them a couple of months, then ran away.”

  “Why?”

  “My uncle tried to grope me whenever his wife wasn’t around. I could deal with that. But when he raped me, I felt he crossed a line.”

  So Bobby was wrong. He wasn’t her first sexual partner.

  “Why didn’t you tell your aunt?”

  “He’s my father’s brother.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s just say Aunt May didn’t get all those black eyes by running into doors.”

  I ease myself to the floor and sit with my legs crossed, facing her.

  The last time I sat on a floor was in Chris Fowler’s kitchen, while gloating about fucking and robbing this same young lady, and her best friend.

  I look up into her eyes.

  “How’d you get away from your uncle? Where did you go?”

  “After my uncle fell asleep that night I stole all the cash from his wallet and ran to the bus stop, hoping to get out of town before he discovered I was missing. But when I got there I read the schedule and learned the last bus had already come and gone an hour earlier.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Put my head in my hands and cried like a baby. I kept crying off and on until a guy showed up on a motorcycle and asked if I needed a ride.”

  “Bobby?”

  She nods.

  “And you’ve been with him ever since?”

  “Until just recently,” she says.

  Right. Until just recently.

  Because just recently I killed him.

  I work it around in my head to make sure I understand the full impact of my actions.

  Last Thursday evening, to blow off steam, I made it my life’s mission to seduce eighteen-year-old Willow Breeland, an orphaned cancer patient who’s suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of her uncle and boyfriend. I manipulated Willow, humiliated her, and provoked her for no other reason than to get in her pants.

  But that wasn’t enough.

  I also felt the need to fuck her best friend, Cameron Mason.

  Then I pulled a gun on both women, slapped Willow twice, threatened them, frightened them, and stole their money, including the cash Willow was hoping to use for her cancer treatments. In the process, I upset her boyfriend, Bobby, who basically saved her life three years earlier. Then, when he was wounded, unarmed, and helpless, I killed him, even though I could have easily saved his life.

  And now I’m sitting here on the floor of my five million dollar penthouse, in perfect health, worried she wants something from me, like a place to stay for the night, and perhaps some sort of guidance regarding her terminal illness.

  If that’s not enough, while all these thoughts are going through my head, I can’t help but think how incredible it would be to get into her sweet pants again.

  I’m a bad doctor.

  She says, “I brought you something.”

  “You mean like a gift?”

  “More like a get-out-of-jail card.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sit tight. I’ll bring it to you.”

  “You’re not going to pull a gun on me, are you?”

  She stands, walks across the room, and gets her suitcase. She extends the handle and rolls it across the floor behind her.

  Now she’s standing over me, four feet away.

  “Close your eyes,” she says.

  “I’d rather not.”

  She laughs. “It’s not a gun, Gideon.”

  “Still.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

  She turns away from me and unzips the main compartment and removes something. When she turns back to face me I realize she is, in fact, holding a gun. My first reaction is to jump to my feet, but she cocks the hammer and snarls, “Don’t even think about it, Gideon. I’m dying, I’m angry, and have nothing to lose.”

  In the last few minutes Willow has put me through a lot of emotions. I’ve felt superior to her, inferior to her, sorry for her, curious about her, and even horny for her.

  Now all I want to know is one thing. And hope I can ask it without allowing my voice to crack.

  “What is it you want, Willow?”

  33.

  “LIE DOWN ON your back,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it, Gideon. I’ve come a long way to be here.”

  “If you’re looking for money—”

  “Don’t insult me. I’m here because I have nowhere else to turn. Yeah, I was dying of cancer before you ever blew into town. But thanks to you, I’ve lost my boyfriend, my job, my best friend, and my apartment. Now lie down!”

  I lie on my back and say, “Think this over before you do something stupid. I’m in a position to help you get the finest treatment available.”

  “Take off your clothes,” she says.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Strip. Now!”

  “No.”

  She leans over and slaps my face, hard. Then slaps it again, paying me back for slapping her at Chris Fowler’s house.

  “I’m dead serious, Gideon.”

  I remove my clothes but place them on my crotch.

  “Toss them toward the couch,” she says.

  I toss them.

  She sits on the stool and points the gun at my crotch and says, Spread your legs wide apart.

  I do.

  “It’s humiliating, isn’t it,” she says. A statement, not a question.

  I say, “Yes. It’s humiliating. You’ve made your point. But you’re a stripper. Making you strip isn’t far from what you do for a living.”

  “Oh, really? Well, you’re a surgeon, right? Maybe I should force you to perform surgery on yourself at gunpoint.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  She sighs. “I bet when you walk in the hospital you have total power. The nurses probably pee their pants worrying what you might do, or say, and your bosses have to bend over backwards to make sure you’re happy.”

  “If you’re planning to shoot me, can we skip the lecture?”

  “Know what, Gideon?”


  “What?”

  “You don’t look so powerful right now. You know how you look?”

  “Like a naked guy?”

  “Like a very average middle-aged man with a very flaccid penis.”

  She leans over me and flicks my dick.

  “Ow!”

  “I bet if a total stranger saw you like this, she wouldn’t be able to tell you’re a world-class surgeon. She’d probably guess you’re a janitor, a pest control guy, or a TV repairman.”

  I’m lying on the floor on my back naked, my legs spread wide apart while an eighteen-year-old woman talks trash and stares at my genitals. The one thing that makes it almost bearable, we both know she has every right to do it. I close my eyes in deep humiliation and shame, and neither of us speaks for a full minute until I say, “How long do you expect me to lie here like this?”

  “We’re almost done.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I haven’t robbed you yet.”

  34.

  “YOU’RE PLANNING TO rob me?” I say.

  “No. I was just messing with you.”

  Willow walks over to the couch, picks up my clothes, and tosses them back to me.

  “You can get dressed now,” she says. “But don’t stand up till I say you can.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  While I put my clothes on, she says, “I actually did bring you something.”

  “What, nunchucks? A bazooka?”

  “A peace offering.”

  She pulls a zip-lock plastic bag from her suitcase.

  “Recognize this?” she says, holding it up.

  “Looks like a garage door opener.”

  She tosses it to me and says, “Think about it, Gideon.”

  I do. It’s Chris Fowler’s garage door opener. The one I removed from the burgundy Escalade in his garage after breaking into his home. I must have left it in the rental car.

  Perhaps I’m not suited to a life of crime.

  “How’s this a peace offering?” I say.

  “The police are seeking the hit man who killed Kathy Fowler. Your fingerprints are all over her garage door opener.”

  It hits me like a ton of bricks.

  “You could have framed me for murder,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  I think about it some more. “A few minutes ago you said you were dying, angry, and had nothing to lose. But you weren’t angry. If you were angry, there are a thousand ways you could have gotten this into the hands of the police.”