The silence in the waiting room was heavy, broken only by the sound of Ryan’s ragged breathing. He knew. He knew that I knew.
He looked at me, his eyes no longer full of rage but of a new, dawning terror—and the war had just begun.
Ryan’s composure was a cheap suit, and it was ripping at the seams.
He collapsed onto one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room, but he couldn’t sit still. He was vibrating with a toxic energy. He was a cornered rat, and he was getting desperate.
I knew my part to play.
I slumped into a chair across from him, burying my face in my hands. I let my shoulders shake, mimicking the sobs of a broken old man. I was crying, but not for Emily. I was crying for the daughter I had already lost—the one who had tried to chemically erase my mind.
“Dad.” Ryan’s voice was sharp, suspicious. “Are you okay?”
I looked up, letting him see the tears I knew were staining my face.
“I just…I don’t understand, Ryan. Antipsychotics? Why—why would she have that? Does my daughter have schizophrenia? Have you been hiding this from me?”
It was the perfect question. It gave him an escape route, a lie he could build on. He seized it.
“I…I didn’t want to tell you like this, Dad,” he said, his voice dropping into a fake, compassionate whisper. “We’ve been struggling. She’s been seeing a doctor. Dr. Reed. She must have…she must have confused her bottles. She must have taken the wrong dose.”
Dr. Reed. The first piece of the new puzzle. I filed the name away.
“Oh, God,” I whimpered. “My poor girl. And…and Dr. Chen said…the police. Why the police, Ryan?”
“He’s an idiot,” Ryan snapped, his mask slipping. “He doesn’t understand. He’s…he’s just a resident. He’s overreacting. I’ll handle it. I’m calling Dr. Reed right now. He’ll—he’ll come down here and straighten this all out. He’ll explain.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice trembling. “Yes, please, son. Call him. I…I need some air. I think I’m going to be sick.”
I staggered to my feet, hunched over, and pushed my way through the double doors leading to the main corridor.
I didn’t go to the bathroom. I didn’t go outside. I hid in a small alcove by the vending machines, just out of sight of the waiting room doors but close enough to hear.
Ryan must have thought I was gone.
He burst out of the waiting room a second later, his phone already to his ear. He was pacing, his voice a venomous whisper that echoed in the sterile hallway.
“Reed, it’s me. The plan is a disaster. She drank it. Emily drank it.”
He stopped, listening, his free hand tearing at his hair.
“I don’t know how the old man—he must have…I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He’s here acting all confused and broken. But Reed, he’s here. He’s not the one who took the drug.”
Another pause. Ryan’s face was contorted with rage.
“Yes, she’s…she’s stable, but they ran a tox screen. They know it’s olanzapine. They’re talking about a psych hold, police reports. This is—this is falling apart.”
He was practically vibrating now. He slammed his fist against the cinderblock wall.
“What do we do? The hearing is at 8:00 a.m.—that’s in five hours. How are we supposed to get a conservatorship over him if he’s the picture of health and she’s the one in the psych ward?”
8:00 a.m. The second piece of the puzzle.
Dr. Reed. An 8:00 a.m. hearing.
“No,” Ryan suddenly yelled into the phone. “No, you listen to me. You’re in this just as deep as I am. Your gambling debts aren’t my problem. You were paid to handle the medical side, so you handle it. You get down to this hospital. You tell them Dr. Chen is an idiot. You tell them you’re her primary physician. You tell them she’s unstable, that she’s a suicide risk, that she’s been stealing his medication. I don’t care what you say. Just fix this. And you’d better be ready to testify at 8:00 a.m.”
He hung up, breathing like he’d just run a marathon. He stood there for a moment, his back to me, trying to regain his composure. He ran his hands through his hair, straightened his suit jacket, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
Then he turned and saw me.
