“She was quite upset to find you gone. Apparently, your aunt, the sovereign of the sirens, Queen Lopaka, has been trying to reach you. She’s quite insulted and offended that you haven’t returned her messages.”
“I can imagine she was upset.” Because queens don’t like to be insulted. Except that nobody had tried to contact me that I know of, other than Ren’s visit. “But since I had no idea she’s been trying to reach me, I’m not sure what to do about it. Has she been trying to reach me, Jeff? Has your staff withheld messages from me?”
“Nobody has contacted our facility until today, I promise you. It’s not the sort of thing we’d keep from you. We would discuss it in therapy at the very least. I’ve sent you an e-mail with the details of her visit, along with the results of your most recent blood work and . . .” He paused for a long moment and I could hear him breathing as though summoning his courage. “I’ve also sent you an agreement to sign, terminating your stay here and releasing us of all responsibility. Once you fax it back to us, we’ll refund all your money.”
“B-but—,” I stammered, trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. He was kicking me out? Could he do that?
“I’m sorry, Celia, but the fact is that you’re simply too much of a security risk. I can’t have people wandering in and out of our facility at will, manipulating the patients and staff. It’s dangerous. I know you’re not responsible for it, but the fact of the matter is that they are coming here because of you.”
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. He was right. I might not want to be a patient at Birchwoods and might not think I deserved to be there, but I sure as hell didn’t want it to get out that I’d been evicted. If word got out, I’d never get another facility to take me if things went south. Of course, the state would still be more than happy to let me in and then throw away the key. I wasn’t going there. I’d rather die.
“Tomorrow, movers will pack your possessions and deliver them to your office. We’ll cover the cost.” His voice was still cold, flat. He was doing his very best to be businesslike and make it absolutely clear that this was non-negotiable. Damn it! Dammit, dammit, dammit.
“Is there anything else?” I sounded a lot calmer than I felt. Shock maybe. Possibly fatalism. There’s only so much the mind can take in a short period of time. At some point, if you have enough disasters hit close enough together, you just get shell-shocked. I had not only reached that point, I’d also sailed right past it. All I could do now was just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
He kept talking, a little too clipped and high-pitched to sound normal. “Your therapist has indicated she is willing to continue seeing you privately, off-site. Dr. Talbert has also indicated her desire to work with you in the future. I took the liberty of giving them both your e-mail so that you can work that out between you.”
Did I want more therapy? I wasn’t really sure. While a part of me was thrilled that I could go home and didn’t have to be locked behind gates and wards anymore, I also felt . . . sort of weird. Now I understood what Vicki had meant when she said that the outside seemed too open. But there was nothing more to be said, at least not to Dr. Scott. “Wow. Well, I guess that’s it, then.”
“Yes, it is.” Long seconds of silence ticked by. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Good-bye, Jeff.”
“Good luck, Celia.”
He hung up. For a long moment I just sat there, holding the receiver. I was stunned. As of this moment I was probably the only homeless multimillionaire in the country. I had inherited the guest cottage and part of the beach from Vicki. But that was still in probate and I hadn’t signed the lease papers before Creede spirited me out of there. No doubt Cassandra would even contest that. Everything was going to be tied up in legal limbo for God alone knew how long. I hadn’t worried too much about it until now, because I’d been scheduled to be at Birchwoods for weeks.
Where the hell was I going to stay? Even if I bought Gran’s house, it would still be her house. And if Mom didn’t go to jail, she’d probably live with Gran. I couldn’t live there, too, and I couldn’t afford to buy another place and pay two mortgages if I bought another place. I make a good living but not that good.
I set the phone back in its cradle and put my head in my hands. Dammit, I didn’t need this shit. I’d had enough. More than enough.
There was a tap on the door. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”
I looked up to see Bubba leaning against the door frame. He was holding a pair of beers from the mini-fridge in his office. I appreciated the gesture, but no alcohol. Not right now. Every day, every negative event was becoming a new temptation to drink. I didn’t need crutches, I needed solutions. The hard part was, there weren’t any to be found.
“You ever just want to say ‘screw it all’ and walk away?”
He grinned, giving me a glimpse of a chipped tooth that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him. Ah, the joys of being a bail bondsman. “All the time, babe, all the time.” He twisted the cap off one of the bottles and tossed it into the trash with a deft flick of his wrist. He offered the second bottle to me, but I shook my head no. “But what else am I gonna do? And you know it wouldn’t be any better anyplace else.”
I gave a gusty sigh. “You’re probably right.”
“You know it.” He set the unopened bottle on my desk in case I changed my mind, and sprawled into one of the guest chairs. Raising the bottle in salute, he said, “Screw the bastards,” before taking a long pull of beer.
“Screw the bastards,” I agreed.
“So, what can I be doing to help you?” Bubba asked. “ ’Cause I know you’re needing help.” He looked me up and down and my eyes followed his gaze, trying to see if I had shit on my clothes.
“I don’t look that bad.”
“Nope. Worse.” He smiled to soften the words.
Ouch. Well, that was not particularly flattering but probably honest. We sat in silence for a moment, and in that moment of peace and quiet something occurred to me for the first time. One of the biggest problems I’d been having was that too many things were happening to me, so many that I didn’t have time to do more than react to them. I got bit, I reacted. I got charged, I reacted. I was put in Birchwoods, I reacted. We were kidnapped, I reacted. Over and over again until I was exhausted and looking for escape.
If that went on, the pressure would break me, and soon.
It was time to break the cycle, to start forcing people to react to me. I raised my eyes to Bubba’s. I smiled, showing my fangs. Screw the bastards, indeed. “You still have that GPS navigation unit?”
“Yeah. It’s down in my truck.”
“Any chance I could borrow it for a couple days?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I have to find an island.” Specifically, I needed to find the Isle of Serenity. If the queen was annoyed I hadn’t dropped by . . . it was time to go find out who didn’t want me to meet her.
He didn’t seem bothered by my request. Then again, Bubba liked to deep-sea fish. Every time he could manage to wrangle a couple of days off he was out on the water in his boat, Mona’s Rival, so named because she was the only thing that came close to his wife in his affections. She was a good-sized vessel, too, big enough to hold five in reasonable comfort. That was convenient, since that’s exactly how many I needed to bring along. I didn’t know what Bubba would charge me, but it had to be less than one of the commercial rentals. Despite what I’d told Gran, I wasn’t broke yet, but I was going through capital at a truly alarming rate. That refund from Birchwoods couldn’t come too soon.