CHAPTER ELEVEN
"So, tell me about—"
"You watched me last night."
"I'm sorry?" I peered at Carl McTavish. He was the fourth and final patient in Ward Z.
"You watched me. All of you." He glanced around. His salt and pepper hair smooth against his head. Not a hair out of place. Kempt. Not the way you would expect a patient with schizophrenia to look. In fact, he represented everything you would expect from a former oncologist. A weathered face. One with creased lines of worry, of years spent giving tragic news, of cutting out cancerous disease, only to have it return, or not. His hands sat steady on the table in front of me.
"Who watched you, Carl?"
"Everyone. All of them. You," he whispered, glancing around again. Nervous, but steady.
"No one is watching you, Carl. It's just the two of us in here."
He shook his head. "No, they're here. Just because you can't see them doesn't make them any less real."
I mulled this over. "I suppose that could be true, Carl. How many are there?"
"Too many to count."
"Who are they?"
"The ones who know."
I scribbled down his words. "What do they know?"
"Everything. That's why I listen to them."
"You can see them too. I know you do."
I glanced around. "I don't see anyone, Carl."
"You see him. I know you do."
I frowned and looked down at my notes. Carl McTavish's story wasn't new to me. I'd heard of him. Everyone in America had heard of the leading oncologist. The one who saved little Susie Lauren's life from cancer at the age of just seven delicate months. He performed a miracle when he saved that little girl over fifteen years ago. I could remember being in middle school and hearing about the story on the news. The family had been resigned to the infant's death. She had stage four, bone cancer. It had eaten up her tiny little body, the disease everywhere. Doctors said she wouldn't live a month, maybe not even a week. Her parents wanted to fly her across the country to Dr. Carl McTavish, who claimed he could save her. The hospital that had her in their care fought them, for whatever reason, claiming she would never make it. It would just be strain on the few fragile moments of life she had left.
The courts got involved. First the state she lived in and then the Supreme Court. And finally, Susie Lauren ended up in Dr. Carl McTavish's care.
Somehow he saved her. The newspapers, the news, everything exploded, when little Susie started getting better.
A Miracle in the Purist Form
She lives!
Dr. McTavish works miracle on little Susie
The headlines went on and on. He became a superstar almost instantly. People who had never dealt with cancer in the slightest, knew who he was. Even my oblivious middle school self knew his name. They gave him his own television show. It came on after Jerry Springer, but before Dr. Phil on daytime television. Dr. Oz couldn't even compete with his ratings. The world wanted him – the miracle worker who saved little Susie Lauren.
No Soul More Pure: Dr. Carl McTavish
People came from across the world to meet him, to shake hands with the miracle man himself, and hope some of his healing powers would seep into theirs from those few moments of contact.
How Dr. McTavish saved me with just a touch: A testament
People found him to be one of those most selfless people in existence. He wasn't one of those doctors whose new fame and fortune kept him on the big screen and out of the office. Carl continued his work in the operating room. There were thousands of people on his waiting list to see him. Hundreds died before he could even get to them – people were literally willing to let the cancer kill them, before they would go see another doctor.
As time would tell, those people might have been the lucky ones. The patients who did manage to see him after the onset of his fame, some of them died, in fact, a lot of them did. But that was normal. People with cancer died. It happened. It was life, fate. Whatever you wanted to call it.
After awhile things stopped adding up. While hundreds died waiting for him. Hundreds more died from his treatment. Until eventually, every patient he saw died from their cancer within a month of their prognosis.
He'd been poisoning the chemotherapy the patients were on and then claimed their symptoms were normal. The patients would return over and over, poisoning their body until they were too far gone. Until they died. Perhaps the worst part was the surgeries. More than forty botched surgeries were revealed once bodies were exhumed and autopsies were commenced. He had stopped removing the cancer from his patients, in some, he gave the more. In others, he removed vital pieces of their insides. One woman's body revealed he'd performed a total gastrectomy – the complete removal of the stomach. Gone from her body, as if it had never even been there, with clean, spotless suture marks.
Those were just the bodies the court had been able to exhume. Some families hadn't wanted to go through the trauma of digging up their loved ones. Other had been cremated. The evidence melted into ashes that would never speak their truth. After years of digging, literally and figuratively, investigators found that at least three hundred of McTavish's patients had fallen victim to his malpractice
People around the nation had demanded to know why – how someone could get away with something without anyone noticing for so long?
When Carl had finally been arrested, he told the police, the voices had told him to do it. The angels. This had led to a series of documentaries that chronicled Carl's ascent into fame and his descent into serial killer. When Angels Speak – the name of the first one. I'd watched it in on Netflix in my dorm room during undergrad in college. I'd had trouble sleeping that night.
Now I sat in front the doctor himself. My patient.
Life is weird.
"They know about you," Carl said.
"Do they?" I shuffled through a folder.
"Will you look at this picture for me Carl?" I placed an inkblot in front of him. I had already done this test on him before, during our first session, like with the rest of the patients, however, because of his schizophrenia – they often perceived the images differently, depending on their mood.
"They are disappointed in you."
I tapped the top of the inkblot. "The picture, Carl. What do you see?"
He glanced at it, before shaking his head. "I don't like these."
I frowned. "Why not? You didn't seem to have a problem with them before." I recalled our first session. He had been calmer, more in control of his emotions. He'd looked at each inkblot and answered calmly, giving some of the most common answers associated with each one.
"No." He shook his head and closed his eyes. "It's going to make me sick."
"Why is that? What do you see?"
"They wont stop moving." He swallowed. "Put it away, please."
I placed the inkblot back in its folder. "I put it away, Carl. You can open your eyes again."
I picked up my pen and started writing in his file. There was a certain thrill under my skin. It made me want to call all those who doubted the inkblot and tell them to return to the old ways. Rorschach had created the inkblots precisely for this reason, to uncover mental disorders, especially schizophrenia. People with these types of problems tended to see the inkblots differently, especially the most standard one, which resembled a moth to the average person.
"What was moving in the picture, Carl?"
He blinked at me, taking a deep breath. "The demons. They move so quickly."
"Demons?" I raised my eyebrows. He had spoken about his angels in each session, but never demons.
"Yes, your demons."
I stopped writing. "Mine."
"Yes."
"You don't think they're your demons? You're the one who can see them."
He shook his head, a smile on his dry lips. "Not mine. Never mine. My angels are here."
"Are they?" I glanced around at the empty room. "Right now?"
"Yes."
I chewed the inside of my lip. "What do your angels think about you, Carl?"
"They know I am doing God's work. They have no qualms with me."
"Okay." I kept my voice even, smooth. "What do they tell you?"
"I am the chosen one. Of course. They tell me everything."
"So they aren't mean, or rather, critical of you?" I'd seen it in the past with patients who heard voices, or saw non-existent figures, that these imaginations were often extremely critical of them. The illusion of criticism, a creation of their mind from some sort of traumatic events of their past – so traumatic that their minds created an illusion as a coping mechanism.
"Never." He paused and began to talk about how divine beings had always been drawn to him, praising him, begging him to do their work. I should have been writing these things down. I should have been thinking critically about what these things meant for Carl, and for my work here with him, in room Z12. But I wasn't, no matter how hard I tried, my mind continued to drift. Carl's calm voice took backstage to Aaron.
I'd gone to bed last night after my foray in the surveillance room. I'd run there. Out of that room, away from Aaron. My fingers sticky from my orgasm. My skin flushed. Sweaty. I thought I'd be awake all night swimming in a pool of shame. Instead, I'd fallen asleep almost instantly. Quiet, dreamless sleep.
This morning I'd awoken and gotten ready, taking special care with my hair and makeup. Silly, sure, but necessary it seemed. My black pencil skirt hugged my hips, my light blue top, and low black heels were ones I hadn't worn in months, but I wore them today.
"They know all about you, Dr. Violet."
I blinked, realizing I was staring at the camera in the corner ceiling of his room. The same place as the one in Aaron's room. I returned my focus to Carl. His face had contorted into a sneer. "They're critical of you."
"Are they?" I let out a whoosh of air and ran a hand through my hair. Get it together, Adeline. "What do the angels say about me?"
"They know what you want, but you can't have it. They know you've sinned."
"But don't we all sin, Carl? Isn't that the very essence of being human? Sinning, making mistakes?"
"Oh, sure, Dr. Violet. Jesus died so you can be a whore, a sinning, feckless whore. I just bet that's how you got this job, isn't it? By whoring yourself around."
I wanted to giggle. I didn't. Carl McTavish, was far from the first patient to try and claim I was divinely damned. "Did your angels tell you that, Carl? That I got my job here by being a whore?"
"Maybe."
"Do you think that's a little unfair, to call me a whore?"
"Not if it's true." He wasn't looking at me anymore, but at the wall behind me, as if someone else was there.
"Do your angels think murder is a sin?"
"Obviously."
"Then what do they think about what happened between yourself and your patients? Is one sin more acceptable than another?" I asked.
His gaze met mine again. "They know what you're doing late at night. They know who you're watching, and you'll burn for it."
My heart sped up, panic bubbled under my skin. "Wh-what are—"
"The cold will come for you first. You'll be so sorry, but it will be too late. It's already too late."
The cold? "Carl—"
"The guilty are the first to go. It doesn't matter how you hide."
I left Carl's room sometime later, unsettled. He'd changed the topic soon after, rambling on about the importance of his work, God's work. But I couldn't let go of what he said. "They know who you're watching."
It didn't keep me from where I went next though. After a bathroom break, where I adjusted my hair, and double-checked my makeup, I was standing with my palm against the pad that would lead me into Z15. To Aaron.
Excitement thrummed under my skin as I stepped inside. He was seated, waiting for me.
"Back so soon?" A smile stretched across his face.
Something inside me swooned. It was pathetic, but today, it seemed, I was past caring.
"Do you have an answer for me?"
I glanced up at him as I sat. "Answer to what?"
"The story I told you, about Marissa and her sister Shellie. Why did Marissa kill Shellie?"
I hadn't even thought about it. The story had vacated my mind the moment I left his room yesterday. I'd spent the entirety of the day convincing myself that I shouldn't watch the feed – which I did anyway.
"I told you to have an answer when you came back." Irritation laced his words.
"Well," I adjusted my hair, tucking a piece behind my ear. He watched the movement with his twitchy gaze. "Do we know for sure that Marissa killed Shellie?"
"Yes." He sounded impatient.
"How do you know for sure?"
"That's not important, Violet." He tapped his fingers hard against the table.
Why is he so angry? Here, I'd been excited to see him. My patient, whom I'd orgasmed to last night while watching him jerk off on camera.
He's insane. That's why he's here, Adeline.
What had I expected from him? Some sort of declaration of…what?
Disgust filled me. Disgust with myself. Aaron Whitman wasn't guilty, not this time. I was the guilty one. The doctor who breached her patient's privacy for my own sick and twisted pleasure. I knew better.
I had the urge to scream at myself.
You don't deserve this job, Adeline.
"You're so disappointing, Violet." Aaron's words mirrored my own thoughts, yet somehow it made me feel worse to hear him say it.
"I, uh, I know." Defeat. That's what I felt. The surge of it was almost crushing. A simple tap on the shoulder would have sent me collapsing to the floor from the weight of it all. It reminded me of when I was eight years old, when I rode my bicycle with my best friend Maria. We went so fast down the hill on Wuthering Lane – our street. We laughed. The bells on our bikes chimed in time with our happiness. Until the crash and the blood.
Maria was gone. I missed her.
At her funeral her mother got me alone. I don't know how she did, there were people everywhere, too many. She pinched my cheek hard. Too hard. I tried to push her away, but I couldn't. I couldn't get away from her. "It should have been you."
The burden of that reality weighed heavily on my eight-year-old shoulders. Crushing, suffocating. I had failed Maria. I had failed many times, and I was failing now. At the only job I had ever wanted – needed.
"Tell me why you're a disappointment, Violet."
I blinked and felt them. Those traitorous tears, two again, hot against my cheeks.
"It should have been me," I told him.
I expected him to ask why, who, how? He didn't. Instead he looked at me with those gray eyes, too intelligent, too perceptive. "You're right. It should have been you."
I sucked in a breath. I wanted to run. To escape, but I stayed in my seat.
"Your eyes are pretty when they're wet like that. I used to hate it when women cried. Crying is weakness. It's warm." He cocked his head to the side. "But yours, they make your eyes wider somehow, darker. One letter away. Clear droplets of water, from inside you." He licked his lips. "They make me want…" His voice trailed off, but his gaze remained unwavering.
"Want what, Aaron?"
He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed. "You."
My skin flushed, the heat seeming to spread across my body. The word shouldn't have affected me. It shouldn't have meant anything. But it did, somehow it meant everything in that moment.
Perhaps it was ironic that I had spent extra time trying to look beautiful for Aaron, and yet it was my tears that provoked him to attraction.
"Tell me something true, Violet. Something true about you."
His request took me by surprise.
I sucked in a deep breath and sat up straighter. "About me?"
"Yes."
"I don't understand you," I said.
"No," he chuckled. "About you, not me."
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, and I could of sworn, some sort of growl left Aaron's lips at my movement.
"I don't like peanut butter."
His lips quirked ever so subtly in the corners. He had a dimple on his right cheek I hadn't noticed before, a punctuation to the words tattooed there. "Of all the things…" He let his words trail off into his humming, as if he just didn't know what to make of me.
"I watched." I swallowed. "Last night."
"I know." He didn't act surprised. "And how did you like the show?"
I realized now, that I was leaning forward, my chest pressed against my notebook on the table. Yet, there was still over a foot of space that separated Aaron and I. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted. I could feel his skin. I could rub Love with the capital L. It seemed to be darker, deeper in his skin. Would it feel different than his other tattoos? Would it be the same? I wanted – no – I needed to know.
"I liked it." The words were breathless as they slipped from my lips.
"Just like?"
"More," I whispered. I moved my hands closer. His hands tapped their rhythm. He didn't grab me when my fingers touched his, like I expected. He continued to tap, steady. The pads of my fingers found their path. His hands were warm, inked, soft.
Love.
The word was in my sight. Just on the inside of his wrist, close to his pulse point.
"Tell me something true," I said as I moved up his hand.
"I like chunky peanut butter."
I met his gaze, just as a soft giggle left my throat. "That's worse than smooth peanut butter."
My fingers reached Love with a capital L. The skin was slightly raised. That's when I felt it. His pulse. It jumped out at me, like a thundering gallop. I sucked in a breath. It shouldn't have made me feel anything. It should have just felt like skin, like a pulse on anyone, but it was more than that. So much more.
"The scar on my head," his words were quiet, just above a whisper. "the person who cut me open, Violet, they made me a murderer."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not," he said.
He hummed. I stared at him, openly admiring him for the first time. I could read all the words clearly now on his face. And the monster let them scream. The script ran along his smooth jaw, flawless, seamless swooping lines.
That's when it hit me.
"I know why Marissa killed her sister."
Aaron's gaze lit up. "Do you?"
"She met the man at her mother's funeral and fell instantly in love." I paused, a smile creeping across my lips. "And when she couldn't find him, she killed her sister, hoping her mystery man would show up to Shellie's funeral."
A deep rumbling laugh erupted from Aaron's chest.
"I'm right, aren't I?"
"Yes."
"But did he show up?"
"Did Marissa even get to go to the funeral?" he asked me.
I frowned, his pulse still throbbing under my fingertips. "I don't know. It's your story."
"Lot's of questions," he said. "There are rarely answers."
I didn't know what that meant, but I didn't ask and we didn't say anything else.
I don't know how long we sat like that. Him chained to the table, my fingertips feeling his heartbeat through his veins, while he hummed and tapped. It could have been forever or no time at all.
I couldn't explain it, not even to myself. Not on my walk home. Not when I stood in front of the large screen in the surveillance room later that night.
I had no answers.
Only questions.