That got a few laughs. But just a few, and not loud.
“Levi, please. Come, join us.”
Jordan’s anxiety returned — the only place for the interloper to sit was in an empty chair on her either side. He was going to talk to her, she just knew it, and she wanted no part of talking to him or any other guy, any other human, for that matter.
And if he hit on her...? She would hit on him, all right, and not in a way he would enjoy.
As Levi pulled out the chair on her right, she looked up, and he gave her a nod and a quick smile. Was there a leer in it? Was he flirting with her?
Asshole. If he so much as whispered in her direction...
As the new entry got settled in next to her, Jordan was dismayed to see the faces in the circle slowly turning back her way.
She sent her eyes to Dr. Hurst, begging not to have to speak.
Across from her, someone said, “Why don’t I take the plunge?”
She looked up to see the middle-aged man who had come in ahead of her. The woman he had come in with sat half a dozen chairs to his left, approximately halfway around the circle from Jordan. Not a couple, evidently.
“I’m David,” the man said.
At least no one said, “Hi, David,” like it was an AA meeting or something. They just sat and waited.
For the first time, Jordan really looked at him. Tall, slender, his dark hair showing some gray, David wore a three-button navy polo and jeans. His black New Balance sneakers looked like they had just come out of the box. With his prominent cheekbones and well-carved if sharp nose, he might have been handsome, but his hollowed-out cheeks made that a nonstarter. He wasn’t much older than Jordan’s dad had been when he died, though his dark blue eyes seemed about a hundred.
Finally, looking up almost shyly, David said, “Jordan, welcome to group. These are nice people here. But we’re all messed up. Or Levi, if you prefer? Fucked up.”
David smiled and so did Levi and some of the others. Some.
“We’re none of us here for our amusement. We’re here for a reason. Mine happened six years ago.”
The room, despite the circle of people and metal folding chairs, became so quiet, the sound of her own breathing made Jordan self-conscious.
“I was still writing then,” David said. “Belle... my wife... was expecting, our second daughter on the way. We were home that night with Akina... our other daughter. We weren’t doing anything that special. It was like... a thousand other nights, with the possible exception that Belle, pregnant and all, was getting these cravings. Like, she would look up and announce suddenly that she simply had to have a sardine and peanut butter sandwich, or a grape Popsicle, or... or a Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza, from Salvatore’s.”
A few people nodded at the latter — indicating Salvatore’s pizza was worth craving, even if maybe that combo wasn’t. Why, Jordan wondered, did this white guy have a daughter with what sounded to be an African-American name?
“Belle was having a difficult time with her pregnancy, and I was doing everything I could to make it go easier. Hey, if she wanted Salvatore’s, Salvatore’s it was.”
Jordan’s eyes drifted to a dark-haired man seated halfway between Dr. Hurst and David. This group member had obviously undergone some serious plastic surgery. What was his story? she wondered. Was he a burn victim? Whatever the case, he was watching David raptly. Everyone else in the circle did likewise, if without that intensity.
“Didn’t matter that Salvatore’s was clear across town,” David said, “and didn’t deliver. She wanted what she wanted, and I wanted her to have it. Called in the order and drove to pick it up.”
He drew in a deep breath, let it out, and looked toward the doctor, the way a guy on the wrong side of a lifeboat views somebody with a spare life jacket. What he got was an encouraging nod.
“When I got back...” David stopped.
The group sat silently. A thirtyish brunette woman sitting next to David touched his elbow. When he turned to her, she patted his arm.
“When I got back, they were dead, Belle and Akina — shot. And... mutilated.”
No one moved.
“I still don’t know whether the killer had been waiting for me to leave, or whether he would have killed me too, if I had been there.”
Silence.
“I wish he had killed me.”
Dr. Hurst said, “Do you, David?”
“... No. Not really. What I wish is that I had been there, too, to defend them, to stop him or die trying.”
The doctor nodded and smiled a little. Apparently arriving at this place had required a long journey for David.
“But I wasn’t there,” he said. “I wasn’t there to defend them or to die. Except... he did kill me, in a way.” He let out something that might have been a laugh, but wasn’t. “And there hasn’t been a David Elkins novel since.”
David Elkins. The thriller writer! Jordan had never read him, but his books had often rested on the nightstands of both her parents. And hadn’t there been movies?
She knew nothing of the loss he’d suffered. Was it a famous crime, out in that world she’d withdrawn from? Certainly David had been famous. Or famous for a writer, anyway.
And now Jordan spoke: “Did they catch who did it?”
Every eye turned to her, and it knocked her back.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Dr. Hurst said, “Jordan, that’s all right. Usually we don’t ask questions until we’re sure the group member is done speaking, but... I didn’t give you the protocol. My bad.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Jordan said again, weakly. “None of my business.”
The doctor said, “We’re here to share...”
“It’s all right,” David said, looking at Jordan, but his smile died somewhere on its way to his lips. “No, they... the police... never did.”
“I’m sorry,” she said yet again.
“I’ve never been able to understand why he picked my family. Was it the nature of what I wrote? Was I spared? Or was my survival just a fluke?”
I was spared, too, she thought. But didn’t say it.
The brunette woman was squeezing David’s shoulder now. He had the expression of a crying man, but no moisture came.
Too cried out, Jordan thought. She knew all about that.
Dr. Hurst said, “David, I know how difficult that was. I would never have asked you to put yourself through that. Why did you?”
He made a tiny hand gesture in reference to the much grander one he’d just made. “I thought our new member should know that she wasn’t the only one here... the only one in the world... to have lost everything.”
She hadn’t known of David’s tragedy, but he seemed aware of hers.
“This group has done me good,” he said to Jordan, “and it can do good things for you, too. But it starts with you letting it. You can’t allow this thing to fester inside of you. Or it will kill you.”
“What doesn’t kill ya,” Levi muttered.
Jordan turned to him sharply.
“Makes ya strong?” He held up his hands in surrender and returned to silence.
She supposed he was just trying to help. But what Levi had said — did that mean this long-haired goof knew who she was, too, and what she had gone through? How much did they all know about her?
Dr. Hurst said to David, “I understand that you’re writing again.”
David gave up a halfhearted shrug. “If you can call it that. Certainly nothing that’s worth a diddly damn.”
“Are you working on something now?”