Lisa looked forward to her Wednesday-night therapy sessions at Dr Roberts’ plush Century City offices the way she used to look forward to scoring Vicodin, or getting laid by one of Willie’s big, black NFL players in the Beverly Hills apartment he’d bought for her two years ago. Back then, she hadn’t seen how totally controlling Willie was being. Like he was trying to buy her or something. Dr Roberts had totally opened her eyes on that score.
She’d also helped Lisa to realize how much inner strength she had. Like, kicking the pills was a big deal. Willie had picked up Lisa’s tab at Promises, but it was Lisa who’d agreed to go to rehab, Lisa who’d changed her own life.
I’m a good person.
If left the drugs behind, I can leave Willie Baden behind.
She would keep the apartment, of course. Or rather, she would sell it and keep the money. Ditto the Cartier sapphire-and-diamond necklace Willie had bought her for her twenty-fifth. New starts were all well and good, but Lisa Flannagan wasn’t about to walk away destitute from an eight-year relationship with a billionaire. That would be plain stupid. Besides, it wasn’t as if Willie needed the money back. Plus she’d done the responsible thing and terminated his baby, not hung around and demanded baby-momma money for the rest of her life, like most girls would have. The way Lisa saw it, once Willie got over the initial blow to his pride, there was no reason why she and her married lover couldn’t part as friends.
As she talked, sipping cucumber water from the jug on Dr Roberts’ coffee table, Lisa Flannagan stole occasional glances at the woman sitting opposite her, the therapist she had grown to rely on and to think of almost as a friend.
Dr Nikki Roberts.
What was her life like, outside these offices?
Thanks to Google, Lisa already knew the basic facts: Dr Nicola Roberts, née Hammond, thirty-eight years old. Graduated from Columbia before doing a postgrad in psychology at UCLA and an internship at Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
Lisa wondered whether that was where Dr Roberts had met her husband, Dr Douglas Roberts, a neurosurgeon and specialist in addiction-related brain disorders. Unfortunately, she couldn’t ask. Asking your therapist personal questions was against the rules.
What Lisa did know was that Dr Roberts’ husband had been killed in a tragic car accident last year, right about the time she first started coming to therapy. The LA Times had reported on his death, because by all accounts Doug Roberts had been an amazing guy and a big deal in the LA charity world, campaigning tirelessly to help the city’s addicts wherever he found them, from downtown’s skid row to the mansions of Bel Air.
It was bizarre to think that the poised, attractive, professional woman sitting opposite Lisa, with her sleek brunette bob similar to Lisa’s own hair, her slender figure and intelligent green eyes was actually a grieving widow, whose own inner life was presumably in total turmoil.
Poor Dr Roberts, Lisa thought. I hope she has someone to talk to.
She deserves to be happy.
‘I’m afraid that’s our time, Lisa.’
The therapist’s mellow, soothing voice broke Lisa’s reverie. She looked at the clock on the wall.
‘Oh my God, you’re right. Time passes so fast in here, it’s crazy. Do you find that, Dr Roberts?’
Nikki smiled diplomatically. ‘Sometimes.’
Lisa Flannagan stood up to leave.
‘Don’t you have a coat?’ Nikki asked. ‘It’s pouring out there.’
‘Is it?’ Lisa hadn’t noticed the pounding on the windows.
She was dressed in a tiny denim miniskirt that barely skimmed the top of her thighs, and a tank top with the words ‘ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE’ emblazoned on the front, a garment so tiny it would have struggled to adequately cover a child’s chest, never mind Lisa’s ample bosom.
‘You’ll be soaked to the bone out there,’ said Nikki. Standing up, she reached for her own trench coat, hanging on the back of the door. ‘Here. Take mine.’
Lisa hesitated. ‘Don’t you need it?’
Nikki shook her head. ‘I’m parked downstairs. I can take the elevator right to my car. You can return it at our next session.’
‘Well, if you’re sure …’ Lisa took the coat, smiling broadly. ‘That is so kind of you, Dr Roberts. Really.’
She took the therapist’s hand and squeezed it. It was little gestures like that, going the extra mile, that really set Dr Roberts apart from other therapists. She wasn’t in this for the money. She actually cared about her patients. She cares about me.
Outside in the alley behind the Century Plaza Medical Building it was cold, wet and dark. His legs ached from crouching for so long. His skin burned and so did his throat. Every breath felt like he was gargling razor blades, and every drop of rain felt like acid, a tiny burning dagger slicing into his frayed nerves. When it was over, he would get what he needed. Pain, unimaginable pain, would be replaced with exquisite ecstasy. It wouldn’t last long, but that didn’t matter. Nothing lasted long.
The streets of Century City were full of cars, but the slick sidewalks were deserted. No one walked in LA, especially not in the rain.
She did, though. Usually.
Sometimes.
Would she come out tonight?
Come out, come out, wherever you are!
There she was. Suddenly. Too suddenly. He wasn’t ready.
His heart began to pound.
She belted her coat and put her head down against the rain. No umbrella. She was walking fast, crossing the opening to the alley.
‘Help!’ He tried to shout, but his voice was so raspy. Would she hear him? She had to hear him! ‘Help me!’
Lisa Flannagan turned. There was a figure, a man, or maybe a boy – he was tiny – slumped beside some trash cans.
‘Please!’ he called again. ‘Call 911. I’ve been stabbed.’
‘Oh my God!’ Pulling out her phone, Lisa moved towards him, already punching out the numbers. ‘What happened? Are you OK?’
He was bent double, clutching his stomach. That must be where the knife had gone in. She squatted down beside him. He was wearing a hoodie that was soaking wet, covering his face and hair.
‘Emergency, what service do you require?’
‘Police,’ Lisa blurted into her phone. ‘And ambulance.’ She touched the boy lightly on the top of his lolling head. ‘Don’t panic. Help’s on the way. Where are you hurt?’
He looked up and grinned. Lisa felt the vomit rise up inside her. The face beneath the hood wasn’t human. It was the face of a monster, green and rotted, strips of flesh literally curling off the bones and hanging down, like the skin of some rancid fruit. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
‘Ma’am, can you give me your location?’
He recognized the terror in her eyes as she crouched over him, open-mouthed. Still grinning, he plunged the blade deep into her abdomen and twisted. Oh, the scream came then all right! Loud and piercing and horrified. He pulled out the knife and plunged again, so hard that his fist followed the blade somewhere deep inside her, somewhere warm and wet and enticing.
‘Ma’am, can you hear me? Ma’am? What’s happening? Can you tell me where you are?’
Dr