The First Cut by Ellery A. Kane

Author:Ellery A. Kane [Kane, Ellery A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-07T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Sixteen

Nerves jangling, I drive back to the office and head up the stairs. I’ve canceled my afternoon clients, but it feels wrong to go home now. I’m too keyed up, too exposed, and the house is too empty. And I’d only sit there and wonder about Ricky. What he’s saying and not saying and how long until they come for me, the jilted ex-wife with an axe to grind.

So I fall into my desk chair instead, open my laptop, and try to distract myself with yesterday’s session notes. But with each tap of the keys, I only imagine Jack Donovan combing through them for evidence. His eagle eyes reading between the lines.

Name: Cleo Campbell

Session Date: 2/20/18

Client presented on time, oriented in all spheres. Mood was distraught, tearful, but client denied suicidal ideation. Discussed issues of grief and loss. Client continues to be hyperfocused on others’ judgments of her, possibly due to complicated relationship with father. Challenged client’s cognitive distortions (i.e., catastrophizing). Recommended book on grief, The Year of Magical Thinking. Next session scheduled for 2/22.

Jack would notice the session dates, that I’d seen Cleo outside of our regular schedule, that she’d been distraught. He’d ask how much I knew about her and when and how. And why. “Why did you provide therapy to a client involved in an intimate relationship with your ex-husband?”

And I’d have to answer: “Because I’m a vengeful bitch.” That or “I dunno.”

I mash the Delete key until every word is gone. The blank page makes me feel better, like I can still be redeemed. Like I’m not beyond saving. But I’ll have to terminate with Cleo, refer her to someone else. Not right away. I can’t abandon her. But soon. Very soon.

I stare at the screen until it starts to blur, the funeral replaying inside my brain, every miserable word. But these especially: the Fidelity Five. That had been my idea. A five-minute test of faithfulness. Tasteless and tawdry and bite-sized. Not to mention pure nonsense masquerading as pseudoscience. If it hadn’t been so vulgar, it would’ve been brilliant—like naked daters or B-list celebrities duking it out in a boxing ring. The perfect, sordid combination for reality TV.

I have a sudden, desperate itch to see the video. As if it will be different this time. I open my browser and type in the search bar: Love Doctored Ricky Sherman Fidelity Five. That easily, I bring it to life.

BXA never aired Ricky Sherman’s appearance on Love Doctored, but like all things dark and insidious, it had found a way. Posted anonymously on YouTube a week after Vanessa’s death, it now lived forever.

The video starts with Kate. Her serious face. She’s mid-interview with Vanessa Sherman, Ricky’s wife of one year. They couldn’t look more unalike, and I’m sure it’s intentional. They’d positioned the dumpy wife—doughy and pale and exasperated—right next to Kate’s undeniable beauty.

“We always know, don’t we? Call it women’s intuition.” She makes eyes at the camera, and as always, I rankle. Every single time. “So when

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