She eyed me, nodded slowly. “Do you want to tell me how the pills started?”
I told her. Everything. From how I’d lost Chloe to what grief had done to me and how I’d struggled to cope with that, right up to how I’d come to be institutionalized. She listened patiently while the rain fell.
“See?” I said. “I have a history—drug abuse, mental illness, violence, memory loss. He can use all that against me if I lodge a complaint or file a charge. Doug sure did when he filed for divorce. Martin could even have me locked up again, maybe even get power of attorney because we’re in business together and he’d need my signature on things. He’d have full access to all my funds.”
A look of doubt creased her brow. “You don’t think that’s a stretch?”
“Honestly, I don’t know anything for certain right now.”
She watched me, her face tightening into something that looked like anger. I felt it, too, coming off her in waves. I feared that now I’d armed Willow with information against a man who’d assaulted me, she’d take actions on her own initiative—actions I wouldn’t be able to stop. Things would avalanche out of my control. She swore softly, got up abruptly, and put a kettle on. “Have you spoken to anyone, Ellie—called a friend? Family? Told anyone else?”
“This morning I called my friend Dana.”
She glanced up. “In Canada?”
I nodded. “Right after I flushed the pills. My call went to voice mail. She won’t return it.”
“Why not?” She poured hot water over tea leaves in china cups. Her bracelets chinked. I envied her grace, her beauty.
“We fell out. It was over Martin.”
“So Dana really didn’t like him?” She carried the teacups over.
“Hadn’t actually met him, but—” I glanced at the crystal ball on the buffet, the tarot cards on the coffee table, the Himalayan rock salt lamp on the bookshelf, the tiny wind chimes in the kitchen, and said, “Dana claimed Martin had a bad influence on my aura. She said it was dark after I’d been with him.”
Her brow ticked up. She half smiled, raised her cup from the saucer, and sipped.
“Did you ever feel Martin had a bad aura?” I asked.
“I’ve never tried to read Martin. Don’t really know him other than from the Puggo and from hearing the local enviro group go on about him and his project—your project.” She paused. “You know, El, from what you’ve told me, I think that you were barely recovering from grief and PTSD when you met Martin—not that one ever fully ‘recovers’ from these things, but rather finds a new kind of normal. And now you’ve had a setback. You should talk to someone. A professional.”
“I’m talking to you. You said you were a therapist.”
“I’m not practicing. I don’t have a current license. I stopped years ago in favor of life coaching and these so-called woo-woo pursuits.” She tilted her chin toward the tarot cards.
“Why?”
“Why the tarot and tea leaves and coaching instead of therapy? It’s more fun. As a coach I get to make healthy clients even better. I work with the conscious mind. I work with goals and specific timelines within which to achieve those goals. As a psychotherapist I worked with pathology, illness—I worked with the unconscious. I worked with open-ended outcomes, seeking to understand the why as a primary aim. The list goes on. For me coaching has also been more . . . lucrative.” She smiled. “And a lot more flexible with my online business component. I can travel. Do it long distance from anywhere in the world.” She tipped her cup toward me, and her smile deepened into a grin. “Some of my fiercest competition comes from Roma fortune-tellers in Bulgaria.”
I laughed. We finished the tea, and as Willow cleared the cups, I said, “So will you help me?”
She hesitated. “What was the trigger, Ellie? What caused Martin to suddenly snap and hurt you—was it just the issue with the hooks on the boat, and getting drunk?”
I studied her for a moment, then said quietly, “That was the other thing I wanted to ask you about. I need a PI.”
Surprise flickered across her face.
“I believe Martin is having an affair. I accused him, and that’s when he struck me.”
Her mouth opened. She blinked. “What?”
I cleared my throat. “He’s sleeping with someone behind my back, in my own house. I need to look up a private investigator. I want someone to follow either him or his mistress. I need photographic evidence of them together. If he can arm himself with my mental history, I need to arm myself as well. With anything I can find.”
She’d gone dead still.
“Willow?”
“With . . . Who do you suspect he’s sleeping with?”
I hesitated. “You . . . promise you’re not going to go and say anything to anyone? Not yet.”
“I promise.”
“Rabz. I think it’s Rabz.”
THEN
ELLIE
When I left Willow’s house, it had stopped raining and I had a plan.
I’d given her the bulk of my drugs, and I’d committed to quitting drinking. Willow would be like my sponsor. She’d keep my secret. For now. Because I knew that if this went sideways, she was the kind of woman who’d go straight to the cops and demand action.
She’d also said she’d find me a PI and I could pay the investigator in cash via her.
