Gray's Domain: Purgatorium Series, Book Two (7 page)

“You’re making
me
mad! Get off!”

He kissed the backs of her fingers. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed, softly, gently, the very top of her head, over and over, every inch of it, while she lay beneath him sobbing. He was tender, and she was grateful—grateful that he hadn’t easily given in to her tantrum and rolled away. She had wanted him to fight for her, to show he meant what he had said when he had said she was beautiful. She hadn’t believed he could stomach her bald head, and now he was kissing it, was making love to it. 

God, she loved this guy.

A moment later, he pried her fingers from her face and kissed her eyelids, her wet cheeks, and her mouth.

“Let me love you,” he whispered with his mouth against hers. “Please. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” He kissed her softly—her forehead, her nose, her eyes, her cheeks. “I was so scared of losing you yesterday. You can’t imagine how terrified. Those bastard sharks. I wanted to kill them.”

She felt warm tears drop from his face onto hers. She opened her eyes and reached her arms around his neck, pulling him close, ready to finally let him love her.

After they had each showered and dressed—she in another borrowed hoodie now that her scarf was ruined—they met her parents for breakfast. As soon as they arrived, her parents hugged her and asked about the cut on her leg. Daphne told them it was fine, and, as they filled their plates in the buffet line, she listened to them replay the events of the day before—how terrifying it had been to see those sharks, and the blood, and her father floundering, and how grateful they were that their baby girl was alright. Daphne lost her appetite. The guilt was getting to her.

Hortense and Lee Reynolds and their ilk were sitting at their usual table, pretending not to watch her and her family make their way to theirs. The younger crowd of regulars hadn’t yet arrived, except for Dave and Vince. When she glanced their way, Dave winked and smiled before saying something to Vince. Vince grinned, nodded, and gave Daphne a finger wave. As the hour passed, the others trickled in: Emma and Gregory entered holding hands, followed a few minutes later by Stan.  Cam and Bridget were the last of the group to arrive. They came together, each with glowing faces, tan from the sun, but beaming with happiness, too. This made Daphne wonder again if there were something more than friendship between them.

“I’m real impressed with the food here,” Daphne’s father said as he loaded his fork with a bite of waffle and scrambled egg.

“And the rooms are nice,” Sharon added.

Daphne stifled a laugh and thought,
Well at least there’s that. You’re about to be tortured out of your mind, but at least you’ll be able to say the food was good and the rooms were nice
.

“You okay, Daph?” Brock asked.

“What? Oh, yeah. Fine.”

“Did you remember to take your antibiotic this morning?” her mother asked.

She hadn’t. “I’ll take it as soon as I get back.”

“You won’t want an infection in that wound,” her dad said.

She suppressed the urge to say, “Obviously.”

She didn’t have to fight hard to keep from speaking her thoughts, though, because at that moment, a scene broke out across the room at the younger crowd’s table. Hortense Gray stood, stiff and frowning, in front of her son and
Emma. The table was quiet and still, except for Gregory, who looked up at his mother with eyes of resentment.

“Come with me, Gregory,” Dr. Gray commanded.

Daphne expected Greg to put up a fight, but he hung his head and left the table. He followed his mother from the dining hall. Once they had gone, a murmur erupted around the younger crowd’s table, and Emma was in tears.

“I wonder what that was about,” Sharon said.

Daphne shrugged and acted like it had been nothing, but she, too, was curious. Was Hortense Gray upset over her son’s relationship with Emma? Maybe she didn’t want him mingling with the natives, so to speak—the natives being the patients.  That seemed a bit ironic to Daphne, since she had walked in on the doctor and her former patient, Arturo Gomez, the previous evening.

As Daphne, Brock, and her parents were carrying their trays of empty plates back to the bussing shelves, Dr. Gray returned to the dining hall. Greg wasn’t with her, and she wore the expression of a conqueror. Before returning to her table, Dr. Gray walked up to Daphne and her parents—Brock had just gone to the restroom.

“We have something special planned tomorrow evening. It’s the highlight of the summer,” the doctor said smiling. “Our costume ball.”

“But we didn’t bring costumes,” Sharon said.

“Oh, that’s no problem.” Dr. Gray flapped her hand in a dismissive gesture. “We have an entire roomful for you to peruse. I happen to be a costume aficionado and have amassed quite a collection over the years.”

“Interesting,” Joe said. “Does
everybody
dress up?”

“Absolutely,” Dr. Gray replied. “It’s required.”

Joe wrinkled his nose at Sharon and then Daphne.

Dr. Gray added, “And it’s an important part of the therapy.”

“Well, in that case,” Sharon didn’t finish her sentence.

“I’ll have Cameron show you my collection.” With that, Dr. Gray excused herself and returned to her table where the older crowd still sat, as though waiting, like students, to be dismissed from class.

“Don’t be a party pooper,” Sharon warned Joe before Daphne’s father could complain.

They chatted together as they made their way to the elevator, where Daphne forced herself to ride. Her father asked Brock if he knew about any fishing on the island, and her mother asked about the spa, and then they reached the ground level and exited the building. Once they neared the pool, Daphne and Brock parted ways with her parents, who wanted to lounge around a bit. Then Brock put an arm around her as they strolled toward her room.

“Aren’t you hot in the hoodie?” he asked her.

“I think I’ll check the gift shop. Something tells me they carry a lot of scarves.”

Cam caught up with them from behind and took Daphne by the elbow.

“Hold on,” he said. “Dr. Gray wants to show you something.”

Daphne glanced at Brock. “Both of us?”

“You go on without me,” Brock said. “I want to go for a swim.”

“Meet you later?” she asked him.

Brock kissed the side of her head.
“Absolutely.”

Cam linked arms with her and took her back toward the main building, while Brock headed for the cabanas.

“How sure are you about him?” Cam asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you sure he’s the one for you?”

She cracked a smile and playfully rammed her shoulder against his. “Jealous?”

“Hell, yeah.” He was smiling, too.

“What about Bridget? Aren’t you two a thing?”

“I guess so.” He opened the door of the main building for her to enter first. “I like her alright. I like her a lot, actually. But you’ll always be my number one.”

Heat rushed to her face, and she was glad he was behind her so he couldn’t see it. She tried to brush it off.
“Yeah right.”

“Seriously.”

“You’re crazy. We’re best friends, right?”

“Always,” he said with a half-smile that filled her with guilt.

They took the stairs up to Dr. Gray’s office and knocked on the door.

“Enter!” the doctor’s voice called out in her usual stiff and formal manner.

Cam opened the door to the chaotic room, which had a few more art pieces stacked on the floor right by the entryway. Daphne and Cam stepped around these and made their way to the desk overflowing with files, a small bronze bust, a golden medallion, two hand-painted plates, and the old-fashioned record player. The record player was propped open and was playing opera music at a low volume.

“Follow me,” the doctor said, removing the needle from the album.  Then she led them through another door into a much larger, more orderly, room. Dr. Lee Reynolds sat behind a desk along one wall, and he nodded at them as they entered.

It was dark and
cold, and the lights flickering from the enormous grid of monitors along the back wall gave the impression of walking into a lightning storm without sound or rain. As Daphne looked more carefully at the twenty-inch surveillance monitors lined up like a chess board, she began to recognize the places—the pool, the ballroom, the beach, the ancient oak tree, the pier at Willows Anchorage, Bowen Point, Laguna Beach, Christy Ranch, and—Daphne swallowed hard—the stream in Central Valley. With a sinking feeling, she realized the cameras had been trained on her the whole time she’d tried to drown herself.

“This is how Prospero knows everything that happens on this island,” Dr. Gray said with an air of grandeur. “There’s always someone here, watching. We want our patients to be safe, and we want the exercises to run smoothly.”

Daphne’s attention was caught by the sight of her parents entering their unit. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but could see the concern on their faces as they sat in the two striped chairs and put their feet up. Her father was complaining, probably about having to go to the ball, and her mother was rolling her eyes and barely tolerating it.

“What about privacy?” Daphne asked as her father unbuttoned the top of his pants to make himself more comfortable.

“Your modesty is sweet,” Dr. Gray replied. “But this is science. This is important work. There is no such thing as privacy when it comes to saving lives. This is surgery for the soul.”

Heat rushed full-force across Daphne’s cheeks as she thought of someone watching her and Brock. “Are these cameras in every unit?”

At that moment a door opened on the opposite wall of Dr. Reynolds, and Mary Ellen entered. “Excuse me. Am I interrupting?”

“I’ll call you back in a minute,” Hortense Gray said.

“Shall I step out, too, then?” Lee asked.

“If you don’t mind,” Hortense replied. “This won’t take long.”

Lee stepped out of a door behind his desk, which Daphne saw led to his office. So he, Mary Ellen, and Hortense all had offices leading to the surveillance room. Daphne wondered if Mary Ellen was also a psychologist of some kind.

When Daphne and Cam were left alone in the room with Hortense, the doctor said, “I sent for you because there is something I want you to see.”

“Oh?” Daphne noticed Brock diving into the pool.

“We have a new arrival. His name is Giovanni.”

“Cam mentioned him.”

Hortense Gray arched a brow and then glared at Cam. “Is that so?”

Daphne wished she hadn’t said anything. Now Cam was in trouble.

“I just told her that he arrived. I didn’t share any sensitive information.”

“I see.” Hortense pointed to one of the screens. “No matter. Look here. Put on these headphones and have a listen.”

A dozen headphones covered the desk in front of the computer monitors. Hortense put on a pair, and Daphne and Cam followed suit. The doctor pulled a switch, and sound came over the phones.

Giovanni sat on the chalky bluff, on the ground, across from Bridget, who bathed in the sun on her belly in her pink bikini. She tugged at a few weeds and twisted them in her fingers. The sun blazed down on them, and the wind whipped her blonde hair to one side of her face. Giovanni’s dark eyes were trained on her through the dark wavy hair that fell across his brow.

“So why did you do it?” Bridget asked.

“Do what?”

“
It
?”

Giovanni licked his lips and threw his head back. “Man, let me guess. You don’t mean the drugs.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Of course I do. Please?”

He looked over her beautiful body and then closed his eyes and sighed. “I was fourteen. There was this girl.”

“I thought so.”

“My foster parents, they were really religious, you know?”

She nodded.

“They didn’t understand that I couldn’t share their beliefs. They put me in a Christian school and took me to church, but, man, if there’s a God, I don’t really want to have anything to do with him, you know?”

Bridget didn’t reply. She watched him and waited.

“And I know he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“Why would you say such a thing?” Bridget asked.

“’Cause I’m no good.”
He smiled, as though he were proud of that fact.

“Of course you’re good. We all have some good in us, somewhere.
I
think so, anyway.”

“Nah.
God has favorites, and I’m not one of them.”

Bridget sat up and moved closer to Giovanni. “I don’t believe that.”

“Well, anyway…” He kind of laughed.

“Go on. Tell me.”

“So I liked this girl from my school,” he continued. “And one day, right before spring break, I got her number from a friend of mine, and I texted her.”