Dr. Ian West

A nice dose of numb is what I need right about now.

I pull my flask from the inseam of my blazer and twist off the silver cap. Swallow two long gulps. The evening air is tinged with smoke and dead leaves; the scent of fall in the city, where chimneys billow puffs of gray into the air, clearing out months of nonuse.

That scent—the first hint of winter—used to put me at ease. Quiet my ever-present thrum of stress. I work in a high anxiety kind of atmosphere, where every case brings a certain level of demand. And when we’d walk down the sidewalk and get that first whiff of fall, Melanie would say: “Time for the lion to slumber.”

Now, as I smell the smoke drifting through the crisp air, dread takes up residency within me, a reminder of that phone call three years ago. It’s like waiting for a bomb to go off. But it never does. There’s just the trepidation, the apprehension. The wait for something bad to happen.

I empty my flask and mutter a curse. Not nearly enough. My destination is five blocks away. I’m so close, but a pit stop won’t take long. Luckily, The Bar is just one block to my right.

I make the detour and, as I enter the bar, it’s already lively with the after work crowd. Young executives and of course lawyers, being that it’s in the downtown Courthouse District. No one wants to roam too far to find a watering hole.

I lean my elbows on the bar top and order a shot of bourbon. “Make that two,” I amend to the bartender. What? Might as well be realistic. My clients lie for a living. I don’t.

“Can you make that three? Put it on his tab.”

My eyes close at the sound of her voice. “Porter Lovell. No escaping you today, is there?”

I can feel her body heat along my left side. I have the urge to slide closer, knock her off the stool. But that would be a little too crass, I think. Even for me.

Her deep breath sounds as irritated as she always appears lately. “If you want to avoid lawyers, West, you should probably avoid bars. Especially The Bar.”

“What’s up with that name, anyway? Is it some kind of play on passing the bar? Or a reference to Gone Girl? All you defense attorneys love that book, right? Crazy Amy got away with murder. She must be your hero.”

Her smirk makes the cute dimple in her cheek pop. I look away, resenting that dimple. It’s hard to portray an incensed, scorned adversary when your opponent is so damn beautiful. The world is mocking that way.

Porter hooks her dark waves behind her ear. “And who’s your hero, West?”

The bartender sets the shots in front of me. I give him a curt nod before tipping one back. I breathe out a sharp breath from the burn. “I prefer having no hero, Porter. Makes it harder to be disappointed in people when they fail.”

“And people always fail you, don’t they?”

“Nah ah.” I waggle a finger at her. “Leave reading people to the professionals. But speaking of work—”

“I am not discussing the case with you.” She takes down half her shot.

I smile, mainly to myself. Once upon a time, Porter was a prosecutor. A damn good one. Oh, the righteous convictions of youth. How we believe early on that we’re going to change the world, right the wrongs, and all that bullshit.

Then reality sets in. Which usually happens right around the time the importance of money makes itself known. At least, I think that was the case with Porter. She used to drive a Honda. Now she rolls up to court in a Bentley GT. She’s made a hell of a name for herself these past few years.

Anyway, Mel and Porter started off in the same firm. Two prosecuting lawyers taking on the system. Melanie was the reason I got involved in all this legal crap to begin with. I wasn’t a young idealist. Yeah, hardly. I just didn’t want my hard-earned psychology degree to go to waste, which it seamed to be doing at an expedited rate with the economy. My future was looking bleak, with the choice to work within general counseling (shoot me now; I fucking hate whiny married couples), or waiting tables.

Honestly, I made a killing at F&B (that’s food and beverage for the ones who never had to flip burgers during college).

Then Melanie invited me into an interview with one of her clients. She wanted me to get a read on him, to discover if he was lying.

Because, even though Mel was a prosecutor, she didn’t just take on any case. She had to believe in their virtue, in their pursuit to sue, in the truth of their testimony.

Being on the right side was important to Mel. She was an angel in a sea of devils. If she took a case, it was because she cared. It became not just a case but a cause. And she’d work herself to death fighting for it.

I stare down at the amber liquid in the tiny glass.

When Melanie died, she took with her the best of all of us. Including Porter.

“She’d understand…” Porter starts. “It’s my job, West. I took an oath to represent my client zealously and to the best of my ability. I don’t have to like him—”

“I was wrong, Porter. You do read people pretty well.” I dig out a couple of bills from my wallet and drop them on the counter, where I leave my second shot of bourbon. Then I look her right in her golden eyes. “Enjoy the drinks,” I say, when what I really want to voice is just how disappointed Mel would be in her for representing Shaver.

Mel was the nonjudgmental angel. Not me. Judging people is what I do best.

“Wait, West…”

There’s something in her voice that makes my insides quiver. Anguish. That’s what it is, and I have the sudden impulse to comfort her. Make her pain stop. Dammit. The bourbon in my stomach burns, the ache in my chest hard to breathe around. I need to get far away. Right now.

“I’m late for a thing, Lovell. See you tomorrow.”

“I hate when you call me that.”

I make it to the door, almost free, but her voice chases after me, far too close. “She was my friend, too. I miss Melanie…especially today—”

I push the door open, thankful for the brisk rush of air that hits my fiery skin, and the city noise that drowns out her voice. I can’t fall victim to Porter, to the past. Not today.

I hit the sidewalk with heavy steps, moving fast and far away from Porter and her memories and her sympathetic tone. It’s a noxious mix that won’t change anything; only makes my anger spike. And I try really hard not to be that guy.

Rounding the street corner, I spot the cemetery sign. I only come here once a year. And I come here alone. On the first anniversary of Melanie’s death, Eddie, Mia, Porter and every other person in the greater DC area, made the attempt to be here. Sort of a group effort, a show of support. It felt more like an intervention, and I quickly remedied that.

I didn’t show.

Later, when each approached me in turn, I claimed I’d forgotten the date. They saw through my bullshit, of course, but it was established—in my preferred unsaid way; very passive-aggressive, I admit—that I wanted this day to myself.

I’ll work. I’ll go about my day like any other. But at 7:00 p.m. on the first of October, the hour of the phone call, the hour that Melanie was taken from this fucked up world—that hour belongs to me.

I don’t share my grief.

Actually, I’m a hoarder of grief.

I pile it up into a tight little ball every year and stuff it into a dark corner. I think it’s located beneath my left rib cage. I’ve amassed a nice collection of decaying grief balls over the past few years. That’s probably where the extra pounds came from.

The gate to the cemetery is open, and I walk in like an expected guest.

Melanie’s grave is located in her family plot. Her mother’s side of the family has lived in the city since the turn of the century (last century; not this one. I’m showing my age). We had planned to purchase—very expensively—my own plot for our bones to lay, side-by-side, lovers in the afterlife. But then the unthinkable happened.

It’s always the unthinkable. Because really, who the hell thinks about their fiancé getting hit by a car while walking home to their second-floor loft? Just two blocks away. She was one minute from being with me…and then she was gone. A hit and run.

The bastard who murdered the love of my life was never found.

According to the ER doctor, it happened instantaneously. By the time Melanie arrived via ambulance to the hospital, she was already pronounced dead. He said this to me as if it would bring some form of comfort.

She died instantaneously.

I punched him.

I was removed from the hospital very promptly after that. I never got to see her in that cold, stale place, and maybe, in some way, that’s for the best. The sight of Melanie’s lifeless body isn’t one of my memories of her.

Her mother opted for a closed casket. She couldn’t bear to see Mel in that state either—she was gone. Gone. Just gone. The funeral just a ceremony based on etiquette because that’s what people do.

As I head farther in, I stuff my hands in my jacket pockets. I finger the charm there, the anniversary gift I bring her every year. It might be kind of morbid to celebrate a death anniversary, but as I’m a psychologist, it’s my own coping mechanism. Our wedding was to be a few weeks later. Mel loved Halloween. We were getting married on All Hallows’ Eve. She was a bit twisted like that. I smile at the thought.

So I know she’d love the little silver witch charm.

The white marble headstone is up ahead, and my chest pangs with that familiar ache. The closer I get, the more real the pain. I do a decent job of distancing myself from it most of the time. Sarcasm helps. No one can get close to a sarcastic asshole.

But seeing the headstone, knowing her body is just six feet below…

I stop before the white marble and breathe. I drag a deep breath into my lungs to expand the aching pressure trying to squeeze the life out of me.

I know some people like to talk to their dead loved ones. Talk to the headstone like it’s just been sitting there, resting, waiting like some ethereal entity for dumb fuckers to unload their burdens.

I can’t talk to her.

I dig out the silver witch and set it on the base of the marble. Melanie and I…well, I don’t have to say anything. I never had to voice myself when she was alive. She could read me with one look. At times, I hated and loved that about her. There was no hiding my emotions from her.

So being here, it’s like opening a vein.

All that piled up grief bursts through the dam, cracking my rib cage as it flows.

I will always be the man who loves Melanie Harper.

I don’t have to tell her I miss her every fucking second of the day. I don’t have to say what a shit I’ve turned into without her. Or that this life is bitter now that she’s gone.

She knows all of this, because wherever she is, she can see right through me.

When I’ve had my fill of the pain, I turn to go, but something catches my eye.

I kneel down on the dry earth of dead grass and leaves and swipe my hand across the grave. Someone else has left her a gift. Tucked beneath the leaves is a card. A black-and-white design on the back…and as I flip it over, an image of a cloaked man and cups.

I frown, eyes squinted. What the hell? It’s old. Tinged with age and use.

A Tarot card.

A surge of electric apprehension hits my chest, ice-cold as it webs through my veins. Months of research come at me fast, my mind finding the threads and linking them together. This isn’t a gift.

It’s a warning.

A threat.

From Shaver.