Chapter 29

As Holly leans back in her office chair, she checks her phone again. It’s almost three p.m., and JJ hasn’t responded to any of her three texts. Holly feels trapped. As if her head is already stuck through the hole and she’s only waiting for the guillotine blade to drop.

Holly scheduled her day to end early, with the intention of working on her manuscript. Of course, there’s no hope for that now. She wonders how she even managed to navigate her other appointments after her run-in with JJ. The rest of her clients certainly didn’t get her at her best. But it was helpful, almost calming, to listen to their issues and be distracted by problems other than her own.

Her phone vibrates in her hand and Aaron’s name pops up on the screen.

“How are you?” he asks as soon as she answers.

“Not great, Aaron. In fact, not good at all.” She goes on to tell him about her disastrous altercation with JJ.

After she finishes, he asks, “No word from her since she took off?”

“She hasn’t responded to my texts.”

“And you haven’t heard from anyone else? No one in the group that she might have talked to about you and the DMT?”

“No. But it’s only been a few hours.” Holly runs a hand through her hair, resisting the urge to pull out a clump. “It’s basically déjà vu.”

“How so?”

“Like with Elaine. I can’t believe I’m back here in this same mess. Helplessly waiting for a second client to destroy my career with her allegations.” She stops to swallow away the lump in her throat. “But this time is even worse because JJ’s are true.”

“Not really,” he says. “She misinterpreted the situation.”

“Did she? I was getting stoned in my own office, Aaron.”

“For therapeutic purposes, right? Besides, you did it after work. It’s not like you were seeing patients while under the influence.”

“That kind of hairsplitting won’t matter much to the Medical Board.”

“Enough with the defeatism!” Aaron says, but his tone is good-natured. “Let me help take your mind off things. Let’s grab dinner tonight.”

She smiles at the phone. His fierce loyalty might be the best thing she has in her life right now. “Thank you, Aaron. Truly. But I’m not hungry. And I’d be terrible company tonight.”

“So what? I’m starving. And I’d be terrific company.”

She laughs. “Not tonight. I don’t have it in me. How about dinner tomorrow?”

“It’s a date!”

“Aaron?”

“Yes?”

“If JJ tells people about the DMT…”

“It’s going to be OK, Holl. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

“Thank you.” She pauses. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“I do now,” he says with a soft laugh.

Holly heads home right after the call. She sits down to work on a chapter of her book, but failing to put two coherent sentences together, she gives up and lies down on the couch. To distract herself from her negative thoughts, she leafs through a psychiatric journal and ends up nodding off halfway through a particularly dull article on how vegan diets could affect the required dosage of certain mood stabilizers.

Holly wakes up a few minutes after seven o’clock feeling groggy, amazed that she was able to nap, which she almost never does. Feeling like she should eat, she heats up some leftover Thai food she ordered in a few nights before but merely picks at it before eventually throwing most of it away.

She tries to watch an episode of a streaming series on her laptop but loses interest within minutes. She considers opening another bottle of wine but realizes that won’t help. As her restlessness crescendos, her sense of inaction makes her feel physically ill. By nine o’clock, she can’t take it anymore. She calls JJ, but the line rings through to voicemail, and Holly slams the phone down on the cushion beside her.

I can’t leave things like this!

She turns to her laptop and looks up JJ’s address in her electronic medical record. She is unsurprised to see that the heiress lives in one of the most luxurious neighborhoods in Newport Beach, which boasts some of the highest priced real estate in the country. Holly assumes JJ must live in the penthouse suite.

Knowing better, and with a sinking feeling in her gut, Holly gets to her feet and grabs her car keys.

It takes less than fifteen minutes in the light evening traffic to reach Lido Park Drive in Newport. A few blocks from her final destination, she hears a siren and sees the flashing lights of a police cruiser in her rearview mirror. She worries that she is about to be pulled over, but as she slows to the side of the road, the cruiser races past her.

Even before her GPS announces she has reached JJ’s home, Holly’s heart begins to thump against her ribs. More flashing lights are clustered out front of the building ahead of her. The gnawing in her stomach turns to burning.

She finds a parking spot a block away and hurries toward the entrance on foot. An older, Black police officer with gray hair steps forward to intercept her, waving her back. “Sorry, ma’am. We’re not allowing anyone in or out right now.”

“What happened?” Holly demands.

“There’s been a medical emergency.”

Holly notices a group of first responders collected near the far corner of the building. Behind them stands a cluster of civilians, presumably other condo residents. Making a wide sweep around the officer, Holly hurries toward the gathering. “Ma’am!” the officer calls to her back, but fear propels Holly forward.

She reaches the civilians, some of whom are wearing pajamas and nightgowns. A few are chatting in hushed voices, but most stand in silence, staring at the wall of first responders in front of them.

Holly moves toward the uniformed personnel. A tall, broad-shouldered female firefighter steps forward to cut her off. “You can’t be here,” the young woman says.

“What’s happening?” Holly asks.

She motions to the civilians. “You need to step back with the others, ma’am.”

Holly stands on her tiptoes to peer over the first responders. She scans the ground behind them and catches a glimpse of what appears to be a tarp thrown over a section of the blacktop.

Right as she feels the firefighter’s hand grip her elbow to pull her back, Holly notices an unnaturally twisted leg extending out from under one corner of the tarp.

As shocking as the sight is, it’s the purple-and-white sneaker that steals her breath.