Not What it Seems by Nicky James

Two

River

He was onto me.

I knew this would happen. The minute they’d told me I was meeting with a new doctor, I’d suspected trouble. When Dr. Cyrus Irvine, a man I’d fucked a half dozen times over the course of a weekend a couple of months ago, graced the room and landed his analytical powder-blue eyes on me, I knew it was game over.

Was he somehow part of this?

There was no way.

Was there?

Where did I go from here? Did I keep playing a game I couldn’t win, or did I wave the white flag and accept my fate?

Every time I turned around, doors slammed in my face.

Clamping down on my anxiety, I stared at the brown folder, knowing all it contained. When the police had arrested me, I’d been so confused, distraught, and sleep deprived, I had been on the verge of losing my mind.

None of that had helped my case.

I hadn’t done anything wrong. When they’d presented piles of incriminating evidence, the pieces had slotted together. I still couldn’t see the whole picture, but I knew enough to understand my predicament.

I was going down for murder. The murders of three women I didn’t know. Women I’d never met in my life.

When I’d seen an opportunity, I’d ridden their suspicions right into New Horizon.

I was terrified. I’d reacted. But who wouldn’t?

In the end, it had been far easier to feign illness than it had been to prove my sanity and innocence. The police had interviewed me for hours, days, listening to my unchanged story as I went over the convoluted details again and again, hearing the ludicrousness of it all. They’d assigned me representation—a droopy-eyed stiff in an off-the-rack suit with pimples and a bad haircut who hadn’t given two shits about my case or my future and who’d told me flat out I wouldn’t get bail.

After several rounds of interrogation where I’d been asked to replay the weeks leading to my arrest over and over, concerns had risen. My story didn’t change. My certainty was absolute. The police had reluctantly called for professional help. I couldn’t blame them. If I’d been sitting on the other side of the table in the interview room at the police station, I’d have called for backup too.

The whole story was insane.

Convoluted.

Impossible.

I’d spent days in a cell with too much time to think. The second they’d brought in a psychiatrist to evaluate me, the moment I understood where it was going, I’d concocted a weak plan.

Ride the wave, I’d told myself.

Go big or go home.

Live in a cell for the rest of my life or live in a ward. At the time, the ward had seemed like a better option.

There was no chance they were letting me out. Not with the evidence against me.

Not when the truth sounded too much like a lie.

Not when friends and colleagues had backed up the claim that I was a notorious liar when it came to everything.

It had been easy. They’d shipped me to New Horizon within a few days. I’d rolled with the punches. Everything was going according to plan.

Until he walked in. How did I move forward this time? Somehow, I doubted Dr. Random Bar Fuck was as gullible as the rest.

“River,” Dr. Irvine said. He leaned across the table, lowering his voice. “Or should I call you Craig?”

My gaze snapped to his, a shiver rippling up my spine.

“Whatever the fuck’s going on, you’d better make me believe it, or you’re on a one-way track to prison.”

The thing was, since the day the cops had arrested me, all I’d done was tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

At the police station, I’d gotten so twisted up in laying out the facts that I hadn’t realized at first how warped it sounded. How unhealthy. Unreal. When I’d had a second to consider it from an outsider’s perspective, fear had sunk in.

What if I wasn’t okay? What if something truly was wrong with me?

At the police station, I’d started to believe there was a possibility I was sick. I’d started to see what everyone else saw. For a time, in the beginning, I’d been terrified, convinced maybe I was hearing and seeing things. Maybe I was mentally ill.

Until they’d moved me from a cell to New Horizon.

The minute they’d locked me up in a mental hospital—or whatever they called this place—everything had stopped. There were no more voices calling to me from the window. No more undefined shapes hiding in the deepest darkest corners of the night. There were no more taunting women in the distance, urging me to follow. No more cloying smells I couldn’t explain. No more paranoia, fear, or confusion.

Everything. Just. Stopped.

Except…

The woman at the tree line yesterday.

Lilacs.

I frowned.

Almost everything had stopped. What if…?

I guess I was about to find out just how smart Dr. Hungry For Dick was.

“It started two months ago. In the middle of the night.” I lifted my gaze to Dr. Irvine and watched his reaction to my next statement. “I woke from a dream. I was pouring sweat. But that was probably because there was a hot naked guy passed out on top of me. For a minute, I was confused. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten home or who the guy was, but it slowly came back to me. I’d picked him up at the bar. The Tool Shack. It’s in the Masonville area in London. You heard of it?” I smirked. It had been mere days after I’d decided the hot older guy across from me was getting a little too clingy, and I’d stopped answering his texts.

Cyrus clenched his jaw and nodded.

“We were both pretty loaded. I took him home, we fucked for hours, then we passed out in a heap on my bed.”

A powerful sense of glee swept through me when color rose up the doctor’s neck and settled in his cheeks. He reached for his tie, touched it, then lowered his hand again. I had to give him credit. He didn’t break eye contact. Sweat glistened at his temples. He didn’t wipe it away.

I hadn’t missed the way he’d stared at my ass when he’d first come in the room. When he’d feigned interest in the file to cover his long perusal, I’d almost laughed out loud. How many times in twenty minutes had he relived our handful of hot nights? The poor guy was doing all he could to act professionally when really, I had no doubt he was seething under the surface at the mention of his replacement.

I considered whether or not I could use our previous connection to discredit him if this didn’t go the way I wanted. It was probably frowned upon for a doctor and patient to have the history we shared. I kept that thought in the back of my mind to analyze later.

“Did something wake you?” Dr. Irvine’s voice carried a hint of strain.

“I didn’t know at the time, but I think so. I shoved the guy off me and got up, cracking the window for air because I was hot. I live on the second floor of an apartment building. Terrible circulation, you’ll remember.”

“I’m familiar,” he spat. “Go on.” Cyrus plucked a pen from the front pocket on his shirt, and for the first time, pulled out a notepad so he could take notes.

“My bedroom window looks out into an alley. It runs in both directions, but there’s also a service road across from me that runs perpendicular between two other buildings. It’s the shittiest view in the city. I don’t keep my window open because there’s a string of dumpsters along that service road that stink to high heaven. The alley is a wind tunnel, and it carries that stench right into my apartment.”

“But you opened the window?”

“I told you. I was hot. Sweaty naked guy all over me, remember?”

The doctor feigned interest in his notepad and didn’t respond.

“I stood there a minute and let the night breeze cool my skin. Once I felt better, I went to the bathroom and took a piss, debating if I should tell the guy in my bed to take a hike or worry about him in the morning. You see, I don’t usually let guys stay all night. That’s a privilege.” I let that statement hang. I’d let Cyrus stay all weekend and most of Monday. He was a good lay—until he wanted more. Maybe if I stroked his ego, he would take pity on me.

“Anyhow, I was in the hallway just outside my bedroom when I heard it.”

It had been a perfectly explainable and logical sound until I’d investigated.

“What did you hear?”

“Something hit my window. The first time, I couldn’t place the noise, but it happened again almost right away. It sounded like someone throwing rocks at the pane. Plink… plink… plink. You know? I went back into the room to check it out. At the window, I scanned the alley in both directions. The service road too. There aren’t streetlights back there. It’s pretty dark, but the moon was high and bright, and I didn’t see anyone.” I shrugged. “Figured it was nothing.”

“What did you do next?”

Dr. Irvine was focused on my story, brain whirring and spinning around each detail. His concentrated gaze was raw and open, his face expressive.

For an older guy, he was ridiculously attractive in a buttoned-up, straitlaced, stuffy kind of way. It was why he’d caught my eye at the bar a few months back. There was something about him that called to me. It was why I’d done a three-peat—and I never did three-peats.

Cyrus Irvine had a sorely repressed playful side in bed. That wildness showed in his untamed curls, but otherwise, he was the definition of prudish, bordering on nerdy. The hints of silver at his temples and the slight creases beside his eyes made me guess he was somewhere in his forties. I hoped I looked that good at forty.

“I was tired, so I went back to bed—or rather, I intended to. I abandoned the window, figuring I was hearing things, and crossed the room to lie down. As I was pulling back the covers, I heard it again.”

“Same noise?”

“Yes. A plink. Just once. I spun and darted back to the window, then scanned the night to see who’d thrown the rock because I was certain that’s what it was. But… no one was there.”

I’d revisited and replayed the scene in my head a thousand times. I hadn’t imagined it, even though I’d thought so at the time.

“I stood longer at the window before giving up. I managed to get into bed and under the covers when it happened again. I was pissed. I blasted out of bed and woke up… God, I don’t know his name. It doesn’t matter. He was pissed and asked me what the hell was going on because I was at the window, yelling at whoever was throwing fucking rocks to stop or I’d beat their head in.”

“There was still no one there?”

“Nope. No one that I could see. There are all kinds of hidden alcoves, so I kept expecting someone to pop out. They didn’t. I pulled on a pair of jeans, grabbed my keys, told what’s-his-face to get the fuck out, and went down to check it out. The long and the short of it, there wasn’t anyone around. I walked up and down the alley and scanned every dark nook and cranny of the service road for over an hour before giving up. When I went back to bed, it didn’t happen again.”

Dr. Irvine studied me for a long time before taking a few notes.

I’d been sitting too long. He would likely assess me as much as the story. If I didn’t get up and pace or show distress or anxiety or something akin to restlessness, it would only confirm his suspicions. It was better I kept him skeptical until I figured out what I was going to do. The whole pretending-to-see-something-over-his-shoulder thing had failed. Not once had he questioned me about it. He was too astute.

Why the fuck was he here? Of all people. It unsettled me. Too many weird things were happening. Maybe I was paranoid. Maybe I was losing my fucking mind.

I shoved away from the table and treaded around the small room, gnawing my thumbnail, hugging myself. When I stopped at the window, I angled my body to watch him in the reflective pane. His eyes were glued to me. Assessing. Analyzing. When his attention shifted to my ass, he caught himself and looked away.

I turned, leaning on the sill, holding his gaze and smirking.

He flushed and looked at his notes, clearing his throat before asking, “Did the incident ever repeat itself?”

“Oh yes. Several times. Didn’t you read the notes in my file? That was only the beginning.”

I considered the paths before me. Cyrus Irvine was intelligent. He wasn’t sold on the schizophrenic label the first doctor had readily slapped on me after a short evaluation at the precinct and a more in-depth analysis at the hospital. Could I possibly change his mind? I risked prison if I failed. I risked a lifetime of living in a psychiatric hospital if I succeeded.

Neither option suited me, but I didn’t know how to convince people I was innocent.

If I stuck to the truth, could I convince the smart man in the paisley tie with the wary eyes who’d loved every second of my dick pounding his ass to see the bigger picture the police refused to acknowledge? Could I win him back and convince him to help me?

I was set up. I was framed.

Everyone had it wrong.

There was a killer on the loose, and no one was looking for them.

But how did Cyrus fit into all this?

What were the odds our paths would cross again? Like this?

Was it all a coincidence?

I didn’t like any of my options.

“Did your”—Dr. Irvine stumbled, waving a hand—“um… bed partner hear the noise that night?”

Bed partner. Cute.

“I don’t think so. It was when I jolted from bed that he woke. But I don’t think he was awake enough to register what was going on. I shoved him out the door, more concerned about hunting down whoever was throwing rocks at my window. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have told him to stay. Asked him to witness it with me.”

“When did it happen next?”

“Over the following two weeks, it happened several times. Always in the middle of the night. I’d wake up from a dead sleep and just know it was happening again. I’d lie quietly and wait. Then I’d hear it. Plink… plink… plink. I’d bolt to the window or race downstairs to the alley, but there was never anyone there. I… It might have been the third or fourth time when I kind of lost it a bit. I stood on the service road and shouted for the person to reveal themselves. I was so fucking tired and pissed off. I hadn’t slept a full night in a week. My nerves were shot.”

I wiped a hand over my face and shook my head. “Anyhow, my outrage caught the attention of some people in other apartments. They opened their windows and shouted at me to shut up. They told me if I didn’t, they’d call the police.” I laughed humorlessly. “I almost told them to go ahead and make the call. My next-door neighbor met me in the hallway when I went back upstairs. It was three in the morning. She gave me the what-for and threatened to tell the landlord. She’d always been a bitch to me. Didn’t like my extracurricular activities.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. “I started leaving my window open at night. Garbage smell be damned. I would lie in bed and listened to every fucking noise, waiting, anticipating hearing the person in the street. The rocks stopped after that, but…” I blew out a breath, my cheeks and lips fluttering as I remembered it all like it was yesterday.

“Go on.”

I held my hands out wide. “That’s when the voices started.” I added air quotes because it all seemed so ridiculous.

I stared at Dr. Irvine, wishing I could see inside his head to what he was thinking. He stared back, probably desiring the same.

“Tell me about it.”

I rolled my eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. “I woke to someone calling my name. No, not calling. It was more of a whisper or a hiss. It wasn’t clear. At first, I didn’t know what I was hearing or what they were saying. I woke, thinking I’d been dreaming and whatever I’d been dreaming was lingering in my head or something. You know how that happens? But I heard it again, and it was coming from outside. I snuck to the window, determined to catch the person. It was dark. No moon that night. It was overcast. So many shadows. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard it again. River. River.” I recreated the call in the same harsh whisper as the day I’d first heard it.

“Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s?”

I paused, frowning. “I want to say it was a woman’s, but that’s only because of what I saw three days later. To be honest, the voice was too indistinct to determine.”

“What else did the voice say?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Just my name. Over and over. Taunting. Calling out to me.”

“Did you search the alley again?”

“Not that night. I was… rattled. It kinda freaked me out. I closed the window and went and slept on the couch.”

“Understandable.”

“It happened three nights in a row. I was pretty messed up in the head by that point. I hadn’t slept a proper night in ages. I started drinking a few beers before bed to try to calm myself down. I had to. My anxiety was through the roof. I know what you’re thinking, but none of this is alcohol related. I was never drunk. I didn’t have that much, just enough to calm me down. Anyhow, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I was starting to question if I was being haunted by some restless spirit.” I laughed humorlessly. “Stupid, huh?”

Dr. Irvine hmmed and scribbled a note on his pad. “What happened on the third night?”

“That’s when I saw her.”

“Who? Your mother?”

I scowled, waving a hand at the window. “No. This has nothing to do with that. This is something else.”

But at Dr. Irvine’s mention of her, I spun to the window and searched the tree line. Her appearance had thrown a wrench into everything. My mother was dead. She couldn’t have been there. I couldn’t have smelled her cheap, flowery perfume from the yard. Why did that have to happen?

I shooed the thought away. One thing at a time.

“River, do you know who the woman was? The one you thought was calling your name. Tell me about her.”

“I don’t know who she was. I just kept waking up and hearing it. Same way every time. Like a hiss. Taunting.”

“Your window was open?”

“Yes, because I was determined to catch whoever was harassing me. So, like, the third or fourth time it happened, I went to the window. On the service road, past the dumpsters, maybe fifty yards away, was a woman. It was too dark to see much. She was nothing more than a silhouette in the distance.”

“How did you know it was a woman?”

“Seriously? How did I know it was a woman?”

“Yes.”

“Because she looked like a woman.”

“Describe her.”

I washed a hand over my face. “I can’t. It was dark. I couldn’t see anything more than her outline. It wasn’t clear.”

“Could you see breasts?”

“What? No.”

“Long hair?”

I shook my head. “She was a woman, all right?”

“Did she call out to you?”

“Yes. No.” I ran my tongue along my teeth, frowning. “I… I don’t know. Someone said my name again, but…”

“But?”

“It was… closer. Different. God, I don’t know. This sounds so stupid. I know it does.”

“What did you do?”

“I threw on some clothes and went after her.”

Only, the woman hadn’t been there when I’d reached the alley. The service road had been empty, and I’d started to doubt myself. I’d followed it to the end. I’d checked behind the dumpsters, and I’d walked the streets of my neighborhood for hours, my nerves on alert, my mind racing, my blood pumping hot in my veins.

“Did you find her?”

“No. If I’d found her, I might know what the fuck was going on, but I didn’t.”

“How much did you have to drink that night?”

“I told you. I wasn’t drunk.” Pressing my lips together, I reined in my irritation. I knew how it sounded. Hell, it was why I was in New Horizon. The police had enough evidence to convict me, but they’d seen it too. I was losing my mind. They’d called the psychiatric doctor—or whatever she was called—then they’d rolled me on through to the coo-coo’s nest. “I’d had five or six beers. But that was all. I was barely feeling it. I have a high tolerance.”

Cyrus held my gaze a moment before nodding. “Was this person on the service road an isolated incident?”

“No.”

Dr. Irvine set his pen down and drummed his fingers on the table as his forehead creased. “How do you conclusively know it wasn’t your mother if the person you saw was as unclear as you put it?”

“I just know, okay? It wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been her. My mother’s dead.”

“But you claim you saw her yesterday at the tree line when you were in the yard.”

My skin prickled as the image flashed across my mind. I had. At least, I’d thought it was her. Could I have been wrong? I didn’t know how to explain it better, but I knew what I knew, and the woman in the alley was not my mother.

The woman at the tree line…

I scrubbed a hand over my face and growled.

Dr. Irvine stared, puzzling, assessing, and absorbing every little nuance of my behavior before leaning forward, hands folded on the table. “River, I have a question for you. Have you heard this harsh whisper of your name, heard rocks hitting your window, or seen the unclear image of a woman since arriving at New Horizon?”

I worked my jaw, unsure how to answer. I still didn’t know what direction to take. The doctors at the hospital all thought I was medicated, but would drugs halt hallucinations completely? What the fuck did I know? I tried drifting to that spot above his shoulder again, feigning distraction, hoping to urge the conversation elsewhere. Dr. Irvine didn’t fall for it. After a minute, I met his gaze.

Not for the first time, the feeling of being trapped made my heart beat a little faster. The walls shifted closer. The truth had put me in here. But the truth could hurt my case at this point too.

Was I ever going to fool this guy?

Fuck it.

“No. Nothing. The drugs are helping, I think.” I wished I knew better how those things worked. Should I yawn? Show fatigue? Was it overkill? Did any of it matter at this point? I was on a slippery slope with this all-too perceptive man who’d known a part of me before he’d even walked in the door.

I was spinning in circles, scrambling for purchase.

I made my eyes droopy and relaxed my tense muscles. This was the hardest part. How did the medication work? All I knew was a brief rundown, spewed from a day nurse who’d been the first to bring me pills not long after my arrival. Lethargy. Dry mouth.

Dr. Irvine puckered his lips to the side and made a quiet clicking noise with his tongue as he narrowed his eyes. His gaze bounced all over my face. Calculating. Powder-blue eyes like a cotton candy sky.

“Sleepy?”

“Yeah.”

“Thirsty?”

“A little bit.”

He dropped his notepad on the table and rose, holding up a finger. “If you’ll excuse me a moment.”

The war drum inside my chest slammed harder, louder. What was happening? Was he getting me water? Was the gig up?

Dr. Irvine used his badge to unlock the door and poked his head into the hallway. A moment later, I heard whispering as he spoke with someone on the other side.

What was he doing?

Several minutes passed. He glanced back into the room and smiled but remained at the door, his foot holding it open a few inches so he could pop his head out. He spoke again to someone on the other side and then returned to the room, the door falling shut behind him with a decisive thunk and click. In his hand, he carried a clear plastic container with an orange lid.

Oh shit.

He marched forward, never taking his eyes off me, and placed the container on the table. “Unfortunately, our session has run long today, but before we go any further, I’d like to run a simple urinalysis and check your levels. It concerns me that you haven’t adapted better to the medication at this point.” He shrugged. “Not a big deal. Quite routine. We might need to make some adjustments is all.”

The gleam in his eyes made sense. He was calling me out without calling me out. He knew I’d been ditching the meds. He knew I was a liar—or he suspected as much and wanted to see how I’d react.

I was fucked.

“Is there a problem, River?”

Yeah, there was a big fucking problem, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I picked up the sample cup, turning it in my hand, piecing together options. When his test showed no signs of antipsychotic drugs in my system, he’d call me a phony. The police would show up and arrest me. How could I prove I hadn’t murdered those girls when all the evidence said I had?

No bail, my lawyer had said.

My life was over. This was it.

And how lame was it that it was the guy I’d fucked and ghosted who was going to be the one banging the drum at the head of the parade.

Was this his sweet revenge?

I needed to find out who’d set me up. What the hell had I done to deserve this?

If I could delay Cyrus’s diagnosis, if I could somehow lure him to my side… make him listen… make him hear me…

Maybe…

I set the cup down and stared at the hard surface of the table. The artery in my neck pulsed so fast it was like fluttering moth wings beating under the surface of my skin.

All pretenses vanished.

Had they really fooled him anyhow?

“Look.” My voice rasped. “I need your help. I know you’re pissed I didn’t text you back. It wasn’t personal. I know I didn’t give you my real name, but that’s how I do things. Please. I didn’t kill anyone. Everything I’ve told you is the truth.” I lifted my gaze, pinning Cyrus Irvine with a look of desperation. “I don’t think I’m sick, but I guess that’s up to you to decide.”

The doctor wore a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face.

“They sent you here to assess me, didn’t they?” I wasn’t stupid. “How long did they give you?”

“Until the end of the month, but look at me, pegging you in just over an hour. This is a record. You didn’t even fight it.”

“Oh, I’m going to fight it.” I braced my hands on the table, leaning over, bringing us closer together. Cyrus hadn’t sat. He stood tall and proud, arms crossed over his paisley tie. “I need your help, Doc. I know you hate me, and I deserve that. You’re a better person than I am. You deserved better than me anyhow. I did you a favor by not texting back. Can you do me one too? Give me a few days to explain everything. If you tell them my brain is intact, they’re going to let me rot in prison. A lot of weird shit happened to me, but I’m innocent. I swear.”

He looked ready to laugh in my face and tell me to forget it.

“Please. If you don’t like what you hear when I’m done, then you can go ahead and tell them I’m a fake. The police will lock me up and throw away the key. But…” I lowered my voice. “If you let that happen, other girls will die because the real killer is out there. All I’m asking for is a few days for you to listen. Hell, maybe I am fucked in the head. Sure feels like it when I hear myself talk. But if I did what they say, I honestly don’t remember.”

Cyrus Irvine was a smart man. Not once since he’d walked in the door had he stopped assessing me. Every word that fell from my mouth was turned around and processed and picked apart. He didn’t know what to think. Was I a sociopath looking for an easy ride, or was I telling the truth?

I didn’t know Cyrus apart from the few days we’d shared my bed, and he didn’t know me. I was putting all my trust in a stranger. What choice did I have?

The silence between us stretched. Neither of us broke eye contact.

There was nothing more I could say. I sat back, shoulders slumped.

Cyrus straightened, smoothing a hand over his tie. “A nurse is waiting outside the room. He will take you to the bathroom and collect the sample from you. It will go to the lab today, and I’ll have the results this afternoon.”

Another truth. “I haven’t been taking their drugs. You won’t find what you’re looking for. But you knew that already. Please. Before you walk away, give me a chance to explain. They’re going to convict me, and I’ll go away for life. I didn’t murder those girls, but someone did.”

Dr. Irvine pressed his lips together. The first tiny cracks in his veneer showed. He was curious.

He pointed at the sample cup as he grabbed the brown folder. “I’ll make my decision when I see the results. Have a nice day, Mr. Jenkins.”