She sprang from the chair, shaking her head as she bordered on sprinting toward the door. “I shouldn’t have come, really, this was a huge mistake. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
Sighing, Dr. Merino stepped into the hallway, momentarily staring down it before retreating within the office and shutting the door. “Her problems must not have been so urgent, after all.”
“Why did you let her leave?”
“Just as I can’t force people to come into my office and talk to me, I can’t make them stay any longer than they’re comfortable.”
“You let her in here during your appointment block. Why?”
Dr. Merino raised his dark brows as if she’d posed the most naive question possible. “She seemed to be under a great deal of duress, did she not?”
“We have to help her.”
“It isn’t that simple, kid. She didn’t ask me to intervene in any way on her behalf. Slippery slope.”
“Are you honestly going to look me in the eye and tell me she didn’t need help? When she came in here sobbing with a bruised neck talking about how she’s afraid that she won’t wake up one day? Excuse my language, but what the hell was that if not professional negligence?”
He restated his position calmly, “She didn’t ask us to intervene.”
The woman’s unexpected presence evoked something within Kenna. No one had intervened between Reid and herself. No one had intervened between Dr. Merino and his victims.
She was hard-pressed to call them victims. The encounters had been consensual and they were alive, however unwell.
Broken hearts still beat.
“If you’re satisfied with your little interrogation, it’d be wise for us to get back to work.”
22
DEVIL IN THE FLESH
Desolation was the library’s parting gift to her on the last day of classes ahead of spring break. In the two and a half hours Kenna had been stuck behind the check-out counter, one student had come through to return books. Not that she blamed the collective avoidance of the humdrum building.
She, too, was eager to kick off the week-long vacation.
While her peers were off hitting the slopes at Big Bear or flying out to music festivals, Kenna planned to stay cooped up in her apartment compiling and organizing any and all information she’d collected on Dr. Merino.
She performed a routine scan of the room to be sure no one had snuck in under her nose before deeming it vacant and pulling out her phone to send a message to Erin and Charlee.
Though it required heavy-duty convincing, Kenna had gotten their permission to create the group chat in the end, citing tired phrases like ‘strength in numbers’ and ‘three heads are better than one’ whose banality she needed to look past and believe for herself.
K:Did you guys know he played lacrosse?
C:Never heard a thing about it.
E:He probably made it up.
Erin had a point.Lying didn’t seem out of character.
A quick search for ‘Dayton Merino lacrosse Oregon’ produced an article inThe Register-Guardfrom 1998. It detailed the game that had catapulted his school’s team into the state playoffs. Kenna pasted the link in the group chat and waited for an influx of what would surely be dissenting comments.
Eleven agonizing days had passed since she kissed Dr. Merino, and though he’d indicated interest on his part, nothing had happened since. His determination to not breathe a single word about their awkward peck incited further puzzlement.
Had he decided he wanted nothing to do with her? She thought perhaps she’d inched closer to figuring him out.
Cue new complications arising and overshadowing all of her progress.
E:Did he tell you or did you find it on your own?