Page 10 of The Dark Before Light

“Well?” he barks, ever the battering ram. “How’d it go?”

I ignore him and narrow my focus on Gail. Her smile wavers and her eyes don’t quite meet mine. Anxiety rolls off her in waves. Killer instinct, my brother calls it. My innate ability to hone in on a person’s mental state has served me well in life. It’s second nature now, so fine-tuned that meeting someone I can’t read is highly unusual.

It’s been a highly unusual day.

“How do you know Dr. Stirling?” I ask Gail.

A personal favor is the only conclusion that makes sense for why I was seen on such short notice on a Saturday. While I couldn’t sense much of anything beneath Stirling’s Fort Knox exterior, instinct tells me she doesn’t give a rat’s hairy ass about my money, celebrity, or even the fact I’m, as she expressed, “one misstep from the psych ward or a rehab facility.”

Moreover, according to the preliminary profile my private investigator scrounged up this morning, most of her clients are rich and famous. He’s the one who likened her to the Wizard of Oz. As much as it irritates me, having met her, I see merit in the comparison.

Pink infuses Gail’s cheeks. She glances at Alastair and laughs nervously. Realizing my error, I swear silently; it didn’t occur to me until this moment that she might be one of Stirling’s clients.

You’re slipping, Kier.

I’m scrambling for a way to pull my foot out of my mouth when Gail says in a too-high voice, “Funny story, actually. We were roommates in college. Until this morning, I hadn’t spoken to her in years.”

As I absorb this unexpected information, Gail turns to Alistair with a contrite expression. His brows rise, curious rather than suspicious, and he reaches for her hand. I look away.

“Sorry for not mentioning it, honey,” she murmurs. “I didn’t intend for it to be a secret.”

Even with my gaze on a potted plant, I feel her furtive glance at me. She did intend for it to be a secret. From me, at least. Curious. More importantly, why?

Before Alistair can reassure her—he can do that shit out of my sight—I ask her, “Undergrad at UCLA?”

Gail has a communications degree, but to my knowledge, she didn’t do any post-graduate work.

She nods. “I was a junior when I moved into the apartment. Talia was already living there. I think she was a year or two ahead of me? I can’t honestly remember.” She giggles breathlessly. “College years, you know?”

Frowning, I compare that to the bullet points from my PI. Gail and Stirling—I can’t think of her as Talia—are the same age, thirty-one. Her PhD would have taken five or six years, which means she graduated anywhere from two to four years ago. But it doesn’t add up. The woman I met today was far too confident and successful for what should be a relatively new career. Which either means she graduated high school years early or accelerated her degrees. Or she didn’t complete her degree and is a fraud.

I make a mental note to text my PI to go ahead and compile a more extensive dossier. With dates and receipts.

When I surface from my thoughts, I find Alistair staring at me over the rim of a glass of iced tea while Gail munches on a small plate of grapes and berries. I look at the nearby table on which trays of food and pitchers of water and tea sit—none of which I noticed being delivered.

Another slip.

Rubbing the throbbing spot on my forehead, I brace myself. Alistair has been surprisingly patient, but the look in his eyes tells me his patience is dangling by a thread.

“How was it?” he asks, more demand than question this time.

I lower my hand back to my stomach and shrug. “Fine.”

Just because he’s genuinely concerned about me doesn’t mean I won’t make him sweat. He’s my brother, after all.

“Just fine?” he grumbles, glancing at Gail. She blinks wide eyes at me. Interestingly, her color is still high.

“I have another session with her tonight.”

Alistair’s confusion is as telling as Gail’s suddenly blank expression. My brother glances at her. “Is that normal? To see a therapist on a Saturday night?”

She hurries to swallow the food in her mouth. “I don’t know,” she says, but it comes out like a question.

This time, Alistair’s stare on his wife is laser focused. “Gail?” he asks in a voice I know means business. It’s made grown men’s balls shrink across many a conference table.

She cracks instantly. “I’m sorry. I had the idea of calling her and it snowballed from there. Maybe I didn’t really think it through.” She glances wildly between us. “It’s just… Talia has always been an unconventional woman. Brilliant to the point it’s kind of scary. I saw an article last week about her and I thought… I don’t know, that Kieran might benefit from someone like her. An out-of-the-box thinker.”

Alistair glances at me in bafflement. I shrug back at him. Gail’s distress isn’t comfortable to witness, strumming the brittle strings of my protective instincts, but I want to hear where she’s going with this. Obviously, she knows about those disturbing certifications on Dr. Stirling’s wall and just as obviously, she withheld that information from my brother. His reaction would have been far more inflammatory than mine. I have no doubt he would have quashed the idea outright.

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