"You are not my psychiatrist!" All the anger had returned in a blinding blaze, and she shoved him from her so hard he staggered away. "How dare you!"
Paul stood just off the path, hands palm up, his face searching hers. "I'm just trying to – "
"You're trying to get me into the sack! You're being self-interested and opportunistic, and you're being intolerably condescending. You're thinking of me as some kind of psychological specimen under your microscope, Paul! You're violating a basic professional precept, which is that people ask you to analyze them, you don't presume to do so unless you are asked. And I most definitely do not want you to be my psychoanalyst!"
Furious, she strode away, leaving him standing there.
"What would you like me to be, Cree?" he called after her. "Maybe it's time to figure that out."
She stormed back to the car, tears burning on her cheeks. It wasn't until she saw the BMW below her that she realized that of course there were no clean exits here. She was dependent on Paul to drive her back downtown. A couple of other cars were in the lot now, trunk lids up as families unloaded picnic gear. She stumbled down the steps, ashamed of her red, tear-slicked face, of her predicament. She wanted to hide in the car, but of course the doors were locked and Paul had the keys.
So she leaned against the hood, her arms crossed hard, occasionally wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, doing her best to swallow the sobs before they could burst out. Everything hurt. The picnickers averted their eyes as they went past her to the stairs. Paul was a little figure at the top of the levee half a block away, walking along slowly, head down, hands in pockets, kicking at stones.
She hated him. She hated being wrenched open and exposed. She hated having to face that truth in her. She hated that Paul was right.
Oh, Mike! she cried inwardly. The rest was right there, the part she had never been able to say or even think: Set me free! Please, my love.
Paul came to the top of the stairs but stopped suddenly to dig his cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open, put it to his ear, and listened intently. His face changed.
Then he was trotting quickly down the stairs and jogging toward her. Whatever they might have said or not said was moot, because when he was fifteen feet away he called out, "That was Jack Warren. Lila has attempted suicide – he doesn't know, maybe she's succeeded. Cut her wrists. They've just taken her to the emergency ward."
36
There wasn't much to be done. By the time they got to the hospital, Lila had already undergone surgery to stop the bleeding and had been sedated. Now she slept in a private room with her wrists bandaged and strapped to the sides of the bed. Paul conferred with the surgeon and came back to report that she had lost a lot of blood, but that she'd received transfusions and was expected to be fine. Physically.
Of course, if she were really determined to do it, she'd try again.
Cree had no standing – she wasn't family, was not Lila's physician or psychiatrist, wasn't even licensed to practice in Louisiana. If Lila woke and asked for her, she might get in to talk with her, but otherwise not. And maybe not anyway: Jack made it clear that he blamed Cree for Lila's state of mind, and he claimed that given Lila's instability, he had some presumptive power of attorney that would allow him to prohibit future contact. The attending physician looked at her with suspicion and distaste.
Pauclass="underline" She was pretty sure she'd blown it with him yet again, terminally. Or vice versa. Whatever, Cree thought viciously.
She slipped away while Jack and Paul talked. Downstairs, she found a pay phone, called Joyce, and went outside to catch a cab.
They met at the base of Canal Street, on the riverbank – Cree still wasn't feeling up for interiors. They found a bench in the narrow riverside park that adjoined the Aquarium of the Americas. The sun had become merciless, hard and heavy as hot bronze, so they chose a little enclosure shaded by oak trees and cooled by a weak breeze from the river. Today it carried a faint sulphur smell, pollution from some downriver chemical plant. Cree brought Joyce up to date on their discoveries in the Epicurus archives and described from a clinical perspective the many ways Pdchard's rape explained Lila's life choices and current mental state.
Listening, Joyce took on an old and world-weary look. But hearing about Lila's suicide attempt brought her eyes wide with urgency again.
"Cree, we're gonna have to step back a bit here. I mean, do you really need me to tell you how you look right now? It's not just last night, either – swear to Gawd, Cree, you've lost easily ten pounds since you got here, and you did not have it to spare. But last night, do I have to tell you how bad that was? How close you've been cutting it? When you tell me you've got to kind of go crazy, and when the person you're getting this super-empathic link with slits her wrists? What am I supposed to do? I keep telling you, this is a job, okay? It's not supposed to kill you."
"It'll only kill me if we lose – if we fail to solve the problem. If I can save Lila, I can save myself."
"The problem is not just Lila! Look, Cree, I'm no psychologist, but it doesn't take Uncle Sigmund to tell that some of this is Cree and Mike and nine years of ambivalences. And you can't stake your survival on shedding all that in a matter of days!" Joyce shook her head, and her voice softened. "Cree. You know I'd do anything for you. I would. You're like… like a sister to me. More than a sister. We play this game, you and me, a lot of times I'm kind of the court jester with you, I'm trying to keep you happy and grounded?" Joyce's lips went into a trembling pout, and Cree realized how deep this went, how naked an admission this was. "But I can't find a way to do that here. Being the funny girl-buddy sidekick, you know, like in the TV sit-coms? It doesn't help, it's not enough. I'm scared. None of this is funny any more."
Moved, Cree reached out to touch Joyce's cheek. "You do keep me happy and grounded. Joyce, we're getting toward the end, I can feel it. We're beginning to get a handle on this."
"Yeah?" Joyce's anger rose again. "Well, I hope you are, because I've come up with just about squat that's gonna be useful. Richard Beauforte – there's a ton on the guy. He gave to charities. He was president of civic groups. He bought and sold properties. He entertained. He was buddies with mayors and other bigwigs. In the obits everybody called him practically a saint."
"He was capable of raping his own daughter in the most sadistic way imaginable. There has to be some indication of that elsewhere in his life. Somewhere we're going to find what we need to undo him."
Joyce opened her briefcase, took out a thick sheaf of photocopies, and shakily leafed through them, pulling one here and there to hand to Cree."Well, you're gonna have to read a lot between the lines, Cree. Let's see – he got caught driving under the influence twice in his life. Got himself lawyered up, no convictions. Does that mean he had an uncontrollable alcohol problem and that he was out-of-control drunk when he raped Lila? Maybe, maybe not. Okay, here we got a sexual harassment suit by a female employee at his firm. He denied everything, fought it, settled it on some unspecified terms. A valid complaint, suggesting the guy had impulse control issues with the opposite sex? Or a frivolous thing by somebody who wanted a raise and didn't get one? Oh, and here he's doing some litigation himself, suing a former business partner, seeking damages and insisting the court revoke the guy's license to practice law. Was it appropriate, or does it show our man has a nasty, vengeful streak?" Joyce shrugged, flopped the sheaf against her leg. "If you want to know who this guy is from this material, you're gonna need more than empathic talents, Cree. You're gonna need to be clairvoyant. Because to me, this doesn't add up to a hill of beans."