Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Sagan

Esme’s eyes widen as we enter the busy parking lot full of Christmastime shoppers.

“My happy place,” I tell her as I find a spot far away from the worst of the traffic.

She smiles up at me as I let her out of the truck. “I like parking far away, too.”

Inside the store, she watches wide-eyed as I show the greeter my membership card.

“What is this place?” Esme says, touching everything, from cheap sweatpants to giant tubs of pickle relish.

“Oh my god, who needs this much toilet paper?”

“Schools. Offices. You’d be surprised.”

“This is amazing! Look at this! Can we get some?”

I laugh as Esme picks up a mammoth tub of cheese balls that could feed an army.

“Put it in the buggy, baby.”

“Yay!”

As we’re rounding a corner, with her humming along to the holiday music, she spots the display of Christmas ornaments and shrieks in delight. Meanwhile, I spot the New Jersey Nets jersey. That’s not a thing around here.

I glimpse the side of his face and know it’s him. Stalker.

I sidle up next to him, both of us pretending to be super interested in the giant flats of Duke’s mayonnaise, just out of Esme’s earshot. “Talk to me.”

Esme looks over at me from where she’s putting boxes and boxes of ornaments in the buggy and smiles. I wave at her.

“Dr. White?” I say.

Stalker scoffs. “Yeah, I would say the word ‘doctor’ is a bit of a stretch.”

“What do you mean?”

“He used to own a so-called healing center in Georgia that went belly up after he failed to pay taxes. Then he registered as a practitioner in North Carolina, same thing.”

“Go on,” I say, not wanting to alert Esme that I’ve put this questionable friend of mine on the case to investigate Dr. White.

“Get this. Both of those retreat centers used to be family homes belonging to rich women, and both built by someone called Zane Cowen. The Georgia one was a widow who White somehow hooked into marrying him. When she died, the estate was given to the ‘good doctor.’ The one in North Carolina was a spinster, and same thing. A crazy-expensive retreat center and full control of the woman’s finances after she became so sick with dementia that she gave him power of attorney.”

I look back at Esme and make sure she’s not listening. Zane Cowen…that’s the contractor she’s using now. How did it come to this? Who the fuck knows, but clearly the two of them are working together.

I need to break all this to her gently. “He’s been giving her beta blockers and a bunch of herbal shit that my GP says she shouldn’t be taking at the same time. Honestly, I don’t think she needs ’em.”

“Your guy is a piece of work.”

Just then, my phone pings with a Venmo notification. I open it up to find that Stalker has returned to me the $400 with a note that reads, “Forget about it. It was fun. Omnes enim amor.”

All for love.

That’s all it took for him to see it—the way Esme and I looked at each other like idiots in love. Who knew a hardened criminal could be such a softy.