Chapter 39

The hike along the Water Tank Loop trail was Aaron’s idea, but he’s already feeling winded as he pushes himself to keep up with Holly, who scrambles up the steep incline ahead of him. She finally slows to a stop at a viewpoint that overlooks the shoreline and the town of Laguna below.

Still panting, Aaron rests an arm across Holly’s shoulders. She doesn’t lean into or away from the embrace, and he enjoys the contact as they stare down at the endless Pacific. He inhales the warm breeze, picking up floral notes from the spring wildflowers dotting the landscape.

“Can we talk about it?” Aaron asks.

“What’s there to say?”

“A lot.”

“Papa was right,” Holly says. “Nothing in the world could justify me using a therapeutic agent to roofie my own clients. But I did it anyway.”

“You didn’t roofie anyone! You gave them the ketamine they were begging for,” Aaron says, finding himself once again in the paradoxical position of trying to defend her practices, when he doesn’t actually believe in them.

“These clients of mine, Aaron. Behind all their trappings of success, they’re so broken. They depend on me.” She sighs. “I’m supposed to counsel them, goddammit! Not interrogate them.”

“It was only Simon, right?”

“One is more than enough! Especially considering I even gave him midazolam to cover my own ass.”

“Wasn’t he having a dysphoric reaction?”

“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But that’s not why I gave it to him.”

“Sounds like he’s doing fine.”

Holly turns to him, her expression pained. “Ironically, I learned the most when I wasn’t even trying to pry,” she mutters.

He lifts his arm off her shoulders. “Care to elaborate?”

“My very next client, Baljit, blurted something about another member of the group while under ketamine. I’m still struggling to absorb it.”

Aaron stares at Holly, waiting.

“Remember the psychologist in my group?” she says.

“Liisa Koskinen?”

“Oh, yeah. She trained under you, didn’t she?”

He shrugs. “Not exactly. Liisa was doing a month-long rotation at my hospital during her doctoral internship. I was one of a number of psychiatrists who taught her.”

“Regardless,” Holly says, clearly uninterested in the distinction. “I can’t believe how badly I misread her.”

“In what sense?”

“Liisa was by far the most reluctant member of the group. The slowest to reach sobriety. And the most skeptical, too. Initially, I regretted including her. I saw her as a hindrance to me and the others. But after a few months, with dual therapy, Liisa had a breakthrough. I could feel her belief blossoming. I saw her as more than just a client.”

“A friend, too?”

“No, more like an advocate. Someone with the expertise and the clout to back me up in group discussions. And to be honest, it was validating to see a colleague respond so well to my therapy.”

“I’m confused,” Aaron says. “What does this have to do with what Baljit told you?”

“I was wrong about Liisa. So wrong.” Holly sighs. “She’s been trying to undermine me the whole time.”

“Undermine? How?”

“Liisa told Baljit that Elaine’s accusations about me were probably true. She even tried to convince Baljit that I might have molested her, too.”

“What the hell?” Aaron’s voice rises. “Why would Liisa put herself into counseling with you—especially group therapy!—only to sabotage it?”

“I don’t have a fucking clue, Aaron.”

“How do you know what Baljit told you is true?”

“I didn’t ask her. She just offered it.”

“While high on ketamine?”

“While medicated, yes.”

Aaron exhales. “Did you confront Liisa?”

“No. Not yet.”

“How reliable are memories shared under the influence of psychedelics?”

“It depends how deep the person is. How altered.”

“But isn’t it possible that Baljit misremembered?”

Holly stops to consider it. “Possible, I suppose. But unlikely. It was a spontaneous utterance. She believed what she was saying. I’m sure of that.”

“Are you going to tell that detective?”

“You know I can’t betray patient confidentiality like that. And as of now, it’s all just conjecture.”

Aaron knows his wife won’t be able to leave it alone. “What do you plan to do, Holl?”

“I haven’t decided. But I have an appointment with Liisa tomorrow.”

Aaron shakes his head. “This tribe of yours…”

“It’s not my tribe. It’s theirs.” Holly locks eyes with him. “But if Liisa really was so determined to sabotage the group, to convince members that they’d been molested under the influence…”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t it possible she could have gone further?”

“Holly…”

“Think about it, Aaron. What if Elaine began to resist Liisa’s suggestions, like Baljit did? Maybe Liisa was worried Elaine might expose her? Maybe Liisa thought she had to silence her?”

“Wasn’t Elaine laser focused on exposing you before she died? Where’s the resistance in that? And besides, how do you explain JJ?”

Holly snaps her fingers. “OK, let’s say Elaine did OD on her own. But then Liisa tried to pull the same routine on JJ. To convince her that she’d been a victim, too. And then after Elaine died, maybe JJ felt guilty for not having warned her about Liisa. Maybe that was what was stressing her out?”

“And then what? Liisa silenced JJ by pushing her off her own balcony?” Aaron digests it for a moment. “It seems so… outlandish.”

Holly eyes him intently. “How else do you explain what’s been happening?”

Aaron reaches out and caresses her cheek. “Do I need to give you my not-everything-makes-sense-in-the-cosmos speech again?”

Holly spins away from his palm and sets off up the trail. Aaron hurries after her, relieved that the incline has lessened. By the time he catches up to her, Holly wears a distant look, and she avoids his eyes. She motions to the taller hills ahead of them and says, “Back there somewhere is Route 73.”

“And what’s the relevance of that?”

“It’s where my dad died.”

In the twelve years he has known her, Aaron has never once heard his wife willingly mention the car accident that killed her father, despite all the times he tried to get her to open up about it. He has no idea why she’s raising it now, but he senses it’s best to let her volunteer more.

“I found the site of the crash, Aaron,” she murmurs without looking at him. “I went to see it. For the first time since the accident.”

He wants to touch her, but he resists the urge. “And how did it feel to be back there?”

“Nauseating.”

“Anything else?”

She kicks away a small rock. “Incomplete, maybe.”

“Why incomplete?”

“For the last twenty years, since Peru, I stuck my head in the sand. I avoided talking or even thinking about the accident. And then, after Elaine… and my intense DMT trip… I decided I had to know. But what did I discover? Absolutely nothing. There was no explicable reason for the accident. Just more of that senselessness and randomness you love to fall back on.”

“It’s a huge step that you even tried, Holl. You confronted your fears, your denial.”

“And what good did it do me?”

“You can’t know that yet. Not right away.”

“I’m not convinced, Aaron.” Her voice thickens. “And you want to hear the worst part?”

“I do.”

“I hurt Papa. Badly.”

Aaron shakes his head. “What does this have to do with Walter?”

“It was my choice to confront those memories. Not his.” She stops to swallow. “And it wasn’t until I started pressing him for details that I came to realize he’s been struggling to bury the memory of that day as much as I have.”

“You didn’t mean to, Holly.”

Her shoulders rise and fall. “Poor Papa. My rock.” She sniffles. “The strength it must have taken him to shield me from his devastation at losing his only son. He could’ve plummeted into despair like my mom did. But instead, he showered me with all the love and support I needed. What my mom wouldn’t give me. What she couldn’t give me.”

“Holl…”

“Every time I go looking for answers, Aaron, I make things worse. But I just can’t help myself.”

He swallows her in a hug, feeling her chest pound against his, as her chin presses into his neck.

Walter might be your rock, but I’ll always be your protector.