I look old, she thought. Old and exhausted.
It was hardly surprising. She’d had a tough day. A tough month. A tough year, in fact, since Doug died. But at some point, these were all excuses. That’s what Doug would have said, anyway. ‘Snap out of it, Nik! You’re better than this. Where there’s life, there’s hope, right? We’re blessed.’
That was a catchphrase of his. ‘We’re blessed.’ And they had been. At least, Nikki thought they had been.
No. To hell with that. We were blessed. Just because Doug kept secrets from me, it doesn’t take all that away. We were blessed. I still am blessed.
That was the key point, surely? Doug might be dead. His blessings were over. But Nikki was still very much alive. Still here, still helping people, still doing important work. Where there’s life, there’s hope. That was another of Doug’s catchphrases, one he used to trot out to the recovering addicts at his clinic all the time. He was always so upbeat, the bastard. Those junkies must have hated him for that, in all the moments when they weren’t throwing themselves at his feet as their lord and savior.
The truth was, although Nikki struggled to admit it, it wasn’t only grief over losing her husband that had etched the lines around her eyes or punched the two dark, plum shadows underneath them. It was also Anne Bateman.
Anne. Beautiful, talented, weak, volatile, intoxicating Anne – was threatening to go back to her husband. A man who, by Anne’s own account, she was afraid might kill her. A man whose jealous, controlling nature had so crushed her spirit that Anne had arrived at Nikki’s office three months ago, starvingly thin and shaking, like a dog that had been dumped on the freeway, terrified to make even the smallest decision about her own life, such as what to eat for dinner or which skirt to wear to a performance. Nikki had taken her in, comforted her, helped her. Nikki had rebuilt her, piecing back together Anne’s shattered ego, her wasted sense of self, and returning it to her intact. And all for what? For her to hand it back to her bastard husband, to be stamped on and broken all over again?
Nikki knew she shouldn’t take it personally. But God it was frustrating when patients did this. When all their hard work – all Nikki’s hard work – was for nothing. Doug used to deal with it all the time, working with addicts at his clinic. The recidivism, people sliding back into the depths of hell after months, years, sometimes even decades clean, for no apparent reason at all. Love, especially toxic love like Anne Bateman’s for her controlling ex, was an addiction like any other. With her professional hat on, Nikki knew that.
The problem was that, with Anne, her professional hat kept slipping. Nikki’s feelings for Anne Bateman went well beyond professional boundaries. They exhausted her, and kept her up at night, and aged her horribly, as her reflection grimly attested. To be honest, they embarrassed her. They weren’t sexual, at least not overtly. But they were certainly obsessional and unhealthy and … Eeeugh.
Pulling up to one side of her driveway gates, Nikki got out of her car to punch in the code. Nothing happened. She was rocking on her heels, waiting for the stupid panel to reset, when her cell phone rang.
‘It’s happened again.’
Anne’s voice was ragged, fearful.
‘What’s happened?’
Nikki felt a wave of protective feelings rise up inside her.
‘The man. He’s back. He’s following me again!’
Poor thing, thought Nikki. Years of living under her husband’s Stasi-like surveillance had left Anne deeply paranoid, jumping at her own shadow. She was constantly complaining of being ‘followed’ but never seemed able to describe the cars or surveillance operatives in question, or any way in which she was being threatened.
For the next few minutes Nikki spoke to her soothingly, talking her down from the ledge, as she always did when her fears took hold. ‘This isn’t real, Anne,’ she said. ‘None of it’s real. It’s only your ex, getting into your head. This is why you need to escape him. For good.’
‘Maybe …’ Anne wavered. ‘But what if it is real, and nothing to do with him? I mean, there have been two murders.’
‘Anne. No one is following you.’
‘You say that. But how do you know? The police said we should all be on our guard, all your patients. That if we see anything suspicious we should report it.’
‘But, Anne, you haven’t seen anything, have you? This is only a feeling you get. A sort of sixth sense that someone’s tailing your car, that something sinister is over your shoulder?’
‘Well, yes. I suppose so. But …’
Nikki took a few more minutes to reassure her before she hung up. As always after speaking with Anne, she felt conflicting emotions. Happiness, that Anne had chosen to turn to her for advice; and frustration that she still allowed her husband so much power over her life. There was something indefinable about Anne – her youth and vulnerability, combined with her huge talent and an overpowering, almost tangible neediness – that spoke to Nikki in a way that other patients didn’t. Perhaps, at its core, her attraction to Anne was about need. Anne Bateman needed her. At this chaotic juncture in her own life, Nikki needed to be needed. Perhaps that was her drug of choice.
Whoosh!
A gust of air was the first thing Nikki felt: hot and fast and very close.
Then the noise. The scream of an engine.
A car.
She turned – half turned, for it all happened so quickly, in a fraction of a second. An SUV, big, and black with tinted windows, coming towards her at breakneck speed. There was no time for anything, not even fear. Instinctively Nikki flattened herself back against the wooden gates, closing her eyes.
Another screech of brakes and it swerved, missing her by millimeters.
Nikki opened her eyes. What just happened? The driver must have come in at an angle, swinging violently to the left as he hurtled down the narrow road. Had he lost control? Rooted to the spot, her heart pounding, Nikki watched in mute horror as the car skidded to a halt, turned, and came at her a second time, this time backing up very deliberately, straightening up so that it would hit her head on, the engine revving like a maddened bull about to charge.