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  Mae guided him, her hand on the back of his neck, massaging, and presented him to the psychologist like some shaken, bedraggled prize a cat might lay at its owner’s feet.

  “Ms. Radescu.” Miguel appeared beside Kate. “We need to talk. Damage control.”

  She looked at the small crowd on the steps of the conference center. It was growing. More phones were up. Why did some idiot have to call security? Maybe it was standard procedure with a disturbance, but Jamie hadn’t been dangerous or violent. If he hadn’t been a local celebrity, or Jill a national one, no one would be taking pictures of him being escorted into the building like this. But they were. He would be on YouTube any minute. Rumors would follow. “Yes. Let’s talk.”

  “I sent Jill to my room, so we can’t go there ...” Miguel looked across the patio. “Let’s go over to that corner.”

  Kate cued Lobo to walk and they followed Miguel. He sat back in a big white wooden chair, steepling his fingers and then interweaving them. “Do you know how to reach Jangarrai’s manager?”

  “Yes.” Kate had plagued Wendy Huang all winter, trying to get Jamie to make a commitment to the fair. For some unexplained reason, it had taken until mid-March. “You want her to do the damage control?”

  “She needs to be in on it. Brainstorm. Find ways we can spin this to make both our clients look good.”

  Kate had no desire to make Jill look good, but he was right, they had to do it. It was his job as Jill’s agent, and Kate’s as director of the fair. She let her mind go blank and open the way she did before a reading, hoping for a brainstorm. Nothing came.

  Miguel prodded. “What could help sell your fair? Something positive. It doesn’t have to be true.”

  No wonder Jill kept her glowing reputation. Miguel wasn’t her book publishing agent, he was her handler and image-maker. She’d probably signed with him the day Kandy Kahee died. Kate checked the time on her phone. Amazingly, she still had ten minutes before she had to interpret another presentation. Ten minutes in which to think of a spin, even a lie, if this pro didn’t think of one first. Wendy might be able to help. As Kate looked up her number, the edge of an idea began to surface.

  “Crisis,” Kate said, listening to the ringing. What had Hilda said about crises? “Emergence. Look it up in Jill’s books. Shamanic conductor, some shit like that.”

  “I like it.” Miguel leaned toward her, his eyes alight. “Some shit like that indeed. Keep going.”

  Kate pressed the end button before Wendy could pick up.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The hotel manager glared at Jamie. Her voice was as stiff as her spine and her gelled hair. “Personally, I think I should have you arrested, but this doctor wants me to wait. Will you submit to a psychological evaluation?”

  Mae fought the urge to tell the woman to back down. It wasn’t as though Jamie had meant to damage the garden. He’d toppled a cactus and broken the arm off another, but it had been an accident. He sometimes ran like that when he had a panic attack, deaf and blind with fear, and running into more cacti had to have made the panic worse. Her body ached to hold him, but he was too thorny. She rubbed his neck. The muscles were rigid, and his skin was hot and damp.

  “Come on, sugar. Tell her you will.”

  Jamie stared at the floor and whispered, “Bloody hell.” He sighed. “Yes.”

  The manager said, “Doctor Gorman, if you think we should call for the police or an ambulance, don’t hesitate. Horace will be outside the door if you need immediate help.”

  She nodded to the guard, who led them to an office accessed through an alcove behind the front desk. The clerk put a plastic bag, a towel, and a first aid kit on an end table in the office, then returned to his station. Mae followed Jamie as far as she felt she should, bringing his shoes, and picked up a flower that fell from him. He held out his hand for it.

  Dr. Gorman paused at the office door and spoke to the guard. “I don’t think we’ll need you, or the ambulance, but thank you.” He looked at Mae. “I’d like your assistance with the thorns. Jamie, will it be all right if she joins us?”

  Jamie nodded. The security guard closed the three of them in the office. The doctor sat on the edge of the desk. Jamie looked down at the flower cupped in his hands.

  “Mae.” Dr. Gorman didn’t take his eyes off Jamie. “It’s going to be hard for you not to comfort him. But with his permission, I’m going to ask you to help him with the thorns, and that’s all. No interruptions if he’s talking with me. Jamie?”

  Jamie mumbled his assent. Another flower fell off and he reached for it, which dislodged the rest. Mae picked them up and handed them to him. Did that count as comforting? She knelt and began to extract thorns from the tops of his feet and the tips of his toes. He made noises and his toes tended to curl.

  “Stop squirming, sugar. I don’t want to break these stickers off in you.”

  He froze and let her finish. She helped him out of his pants carefully so the thorns that remained on his legs came with them. Before he could take off his shirt and its coat of thorns, she had to remove the spines in his hands and forearms. Gorman waited. Mae sensed a powerful, compassionate presence in his silence, his every fiber tuned to Jamie.

  Talking to the flowers, Jamie finally spoke, his voice small and flat. “You going to have me committed?”

  Dr. Gorman asked, “Do you think you need to be?”

  Jamie shook his head.

  The doctor propped one elbow on a stack of shrink-wrapped packs of glossy magazines and interlaced his fingers. His silver rings clicked. “Were you trying to hurt yourself?”

  “Nah. Panicked. Hate thorny plants.”

  And Jill. You need to talk about Jill.

  Gorman raised an eyebrow. Jamie glanced at him, wriggled his shoulders, and returned to his absorption in the flowers. The silence grew long and heavy. Was therapy always that slow, or was it because Mae was in the room? She cleared Jamie’s arms and the backs of his hands as quickly as she could. The only sound was each cactus spine tapping into the wastebasket, hitting the plastic liner and some crumpled candy wrappers.

  “Dog scared me, too,” Jamie said. “He was coming at me.”

  Gorman sounded puzzled. “The sign interpreter’s service dog?”

  Mae explained. “I think Kate was trying to get to Jamie to help him—”

  “Let him speak for himself.”

  Jamie said, “Little kid tried to grab him earlier. I—” He bit his lip and his fingers wriggled under the flowers. “I had a flashback, y’know? I mean, my mind knows he wouldn’t hurt me, but—fuck, he’s a dog.”

  The doctor lifted his chin slightly.

  Come on, sugar, tell him about Jill. The famous author hadn’t moved when Kate did, but had stood and watched Jamie react to his hands full of cactus spines. Mae wished she knew what they’d been saying before he’d smacked his palms back into the plant. His palms. They were full of thorns and he was covering them with the flowers. “Let go of your flowers, sugar, so I can finish and take your shirt off.”

  He separated his hands with a small shudder. Somehow she knew the pink petals had become a comforting obsession, a distraction, but she had to take it away from him. She dropped the flowers into the trash. Neither the doctor nor Jamie said anything more while she extracted the spines from his palms and fingers.

  When she was finished, she drew his shirt off, bringing the final thorns with it, and put both shirt and pants in the plastic bag the clerk had left. Jamie looked vulnerable, standing there in his undershorts, his scarred body a mix of strength and softness, freckled with tiny blood spots. She dabbed antibiotic ointment from the hotel’s first aid kit on his wounds. The need to say reassuring things, to promise him he would be okay, pushed at her throat, but she restricted herself to, “All done, sugar.”

  Jamie made a sound that might have been thanks.

  Gorman looked at Mae. “Take his keys and bring him some clothes. Thank you for your help.”

  She picked up the
bag of thorny clothing and left the office, closing the door softly. Maybe after this bizarre crisis, Jamie would have to talk about Jill in therapy—and about Kandy.

  Kate and Bernadette were gone. They must have had to get back to the conference. Mae approached the front desk. The manager and the clerk looked up from a computer.

  “Yes?” the manager asked.

  “I’m sorry it’s taking so long,” Mae said. “I’m gonna get him some fresh clothes and I reckon the doctor will be done by then. I’d like to pay for the damage to the garden before I go. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you for offering. It won’t cost much, and Ms. Radescu took care of it already.”

  Surprised, Mae texted her thanks to Kate. Even if it hadn’t been expensive, the gesture had been kind, especially since Kate didn’t seem to like Jamie. Did she feel responsible for sending Jill to make peace with him? It was hardly her fault he’d reacted that way. She couldn’t have seen it coming. Mae should have, though. She should have stopped Jill from even talking with him. Jamie was getting stronger and saner in a lot of ways, but not when it came to coping with Jill.

  Mae hastened to his apartment for fresh clothes and returned to the hotel. Jamie’s hand, spotted with little holes, reached through the cracked-open office door to receive his fresh outfit. “Thanks, love.”

  She walked to the patio doors and watched two groundskeepers in long sleeves, long pants, and heavy gloves at work in the garden. One was removing the stump of the knocked-over cactus, the other trimming a damaged one. They were talking in Spanish and laughing about something. Mae caught the word loco.

  She felt rather than heard people come up behind her. Dr. Gorman walked as noiselessly as Jamie did. She turned. Jamie’s hair was a disaster area, and he looked drained. His doctor stood back a step, apparently waiting for something.

  “Fuck.” Jamie stared through the door and grasped the handle. “I should help.”

  Mae put her hand on his. “You should not. I’m not pulling any more thorns out of you. Five hundred was enough.”

  “Wasn’t five hundred. Jeezus.”

  “Felt like it.”

  She thought she detected a crinkle of amusement around Dr. Gorman’s eyes. He said, “I’m going to talk with the management and recommend that Jamie shouldn’t be prosecuted for willful damage. You should wait in case they disagree.”

  Jamie nodded and let Mae take his hand off the door. He looked at his palm. “Think there’s some still in there.”

  “No. It just hurts. I got ’em all.”

  The psychologist went back to the front desk. Jamie slipped his arms around Mae and held her quietly cheek to cheek. She returned the embrace but kept her touch light, so as not to hurt him. “How you doing, sugar?”

  “Mm.” He rocked her gently. “Little wobbly still. Not bad. Need to pay for the mess.”

  “Kate already did.”

  “Fuck me dead.” Jamie drew back. “She say why?”

  “I was still plucking you. I don’t know. She’s in the conference now. I sent her a text. You can thank her later, too, if you want.”

  “Jeezus. Yeah. Pay her back or something.”

  “You could, but it didn’t cost much. What’s your doctor want you to do?”

  Jamie took a list from his pocket and handed it to her. It was in his slanting, sprawling script, scrambled in places.

  I will not harm myself or objects in my nevrinmnet

  I wlli ont be aloen for sevnety two hours.

  I will call in tiwce day for four days and ocne a day for hte next week.

  I will get eight hours sleep ervey night or attenmtp it without struggle. No coffee aftre four.

  I will go to yoga classes every day and tell my teachers I had a wobbly. (Bad wobbly.)

  I will finish that song.

  I will notice my fleelings and say whta they are before I xelpode or lose cotnrol.

  It was more than a list; it was a signed contract between patient and doctor. Mae gave it back to Jamie.

  “That’s a good plan, sugar. And I’ll stay with you, of course. I can wait to go to back to Bernadette’s.”

  “Nah. You need a break. I’ll stay with the oldies.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Sleep there I can have the light on.” He pumped her arms back and forth in a little dance. “Nah. Kidding. Need time to work on Gasser. Heal him, y’know? So he won’t be jealous.”

  The manager called them over and had Jamie sign an agreement not to come back on the property for two years. He looked wide-eyed at his psychologist, who nodded. It struck Mae as extreme, too, but she guessed the duration implied Dr. Gorman’s estimate of how long Jamie’s therapy would take. Good to know what she was in for.

  As soon as they got to Jamie’s apartment, he brushed his teeth and went to bed with his cat. She sat next to him and asked if he needed her to brush his hair or to lie beside him. He mumbled, “Nuh, ’m awright,” and drifted off, so soundly asleep he didn’t stir to her kiss.

  Mae stroked his face and smoothed his eyebrows. He was right—it wasn’t going to be easy, loving him. No, the love was effortless. It was the life that might come with it that could be hard. Last night’s fractured sleep was only the tip of the iceberg. He wasn’t supposed to be alone for three days, so she couldn’t leave. She had hours to fill before she’d need to wake him to go his parents’ house. The possibility of years like this loomed. Could she handle it? Was this the future with Jamie? Two steps forward, one big breakdown back?

  No. She couldn’t let herself believe that. Dr. Gorman knew what he was doing. Jamie was never going to be normal, but he was going to get better, even if it took a few years. He was wearing the bracelet and the ring. He had even offered to heal Dahlia. It had been a brave offer, but he’d overestimated himself. Good thing Kate had come up with another plan.

  Mae took her pouch of crystals and Lily’s Dahlia card from her purse and went down to the living room. Back when Jamie had first told her about studying with Fiona, he’d said Andrea was competent but not strongly gifted. She would need all the help she could get if she was going to heal Dahlia. Jamie’s idea of drawing a sort of target might work. If Lily had wanted the baby and miscarried, the desire for a child could be an opening Andrea could work through, a vulnerable place in Lily’s energy. Indecision and delaying an abortion would mean something different—maybe a more conflicted desire for a child. Would this explain how she used his image in her witching? It was a strange thing to do with a lost but wanted baby.

  Mae did a long, deep visualization exercise to prepare for her work, and then lay down with the card and the crystals and set the intention to learn about Lily’s pregnancy. How had she felt about her unborn son?

  The psychic vision tunnel opened and brought Mae to a place she hadn’t seen before. In a short hallway between two dressing rooms and the doorway to a ballet studio, youthful dark-haired Naomi stooped to speak to five-year-old Lily, introducing her in a baby-talk voice to Mr. Calvin Mackenzie. Mae recognized the golden-haired man Lily would spy on later. “He’s the best ballet teacher in Asheville. He used to dance in New York.”

  The little girl in wrinkly pink tights and a baggy black leotard joined other children in the studio. Naomi and the dance teacher chatted warmly. The vision moved through the tunnel again to show Lily, tight-faced and determined, aged twelve or so, in the studio rehearsing with other girls. Calvin critiqued the ensemble’s pirouettes and demonstrated a correction. Another vision. Naomi and Calvin, older, kissed and groped each other halfway up the stairs in her house. Adolescent Lily froze at the open door downstairs and closed it again in slow motion without a sound, her expression more contemptuous than surprised.

  The next vision showed the dance studio again. Lily, tall and fluid, around age fourteen, spun in a series of spectacular whipping turns. Calvin congratulated her on her improvement and suggested an appointment for her next private lesson. He opened the door to an office at the opposite end of the studio
from the dressing rooms and began to step through.

  Lily pulled hairpins from her bun and let her hair fall down. “Can we talk, Mr. Mackenzie?” She swung a leg up onto the barre and began to untie her pointe shoes. She undid one ribbon easily, but yanked hard on the other, making its knot tighter. “Do you have time?”

  “Sure, Lily. What is it?”

  “Darn. This knot is stuck. Can you get it?”

  He came back and worked on it without success. Lily giggled. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

  “You’ll just have to cut these off and put on new ribbons. That is one hell of a knot.”

  “Can you get the scissors, then? I really need to take this shoe off.”

  “Okay. Hang on.” He disappeared into his office, and she sat on the floor to remove her other shoe. When he sat beside her and began to cut the knotted ribbon, she laid her leg in his lap and smiled.

  “Lily.” He looked up with a frown. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “I do. I take after my mother.” She glowed as his jaw dropped and he blushed. “Do you know I’ve had five boyfriends already?”

  Hastily, he finished cutting the ribbon and started to stand, but she used the leg in his lap to reach around his waist, like a spider pulling itself along a web. “I’m tired of boys,” she said, hooking her worn pink satin heel into his back. “I want to find out what a man is like.”

  As her arms stretched out for him, he braced his to resist her. “Lily. Stop. Someone must be waiting to pick you up.”

  “No. I said I was staying to practice after my lesson.”

  “My wife is upstairs.” He placed his hands on her pink-tights leg. She held him with it. He protested, “No, Lily. This is wrong.”

  When he tried to stop her arms reaching for his shoulders, she grasped his hands.

  “You’re too young.” He managed to keep her at a distance, but she changed her grasp, wrapping her fingers around his forearms, forcing him into a wrestling match in spite of his greater strength. He arrested the struggle for a moment. “I’m your teacher. It’s all wrong.”