has become responsible. It’s his baby now. He walks back to the Escort, opens the front door, flips the door lock button. Finally, he opens the back door and says, “Why don’t you come out of there, Ms. Grand?”
He says it nice, not threatening, because he doesn’t want to pack this woman off to the psych unit at Kings County Hospital for three days of observation. Not when the only crime she committed was being stupid enough to proposition Anthony Ribotta.
Carolyn Grand turns her head first. She’s smiling, her gaze frank and unafraid, even defiant. Of course, she has to turn her body, tuck in her knees and scoot along the edge of the seat to clear the seat back in front. Which pulls her skirt up even higher. Brady doesn’t turn away, but he’s not enjoying the show. He’s evaluating her readiness to assume responsibility for her own life. Then she does something totally unexpected.
“Please,” she says, extending a hand. “Help me out.”
Even as he shakes his head no, Brady takes her small hand and gently pulls her to her feet. He’s thinking that she’s definitely going to try to screw her way out of her predicament, but she freezes instead, her eyes blinking rapidly as her hands flutter over her cheeks and mouth. Then she buttons the front of her blouse and smooths the miniskirt over her thighs, her breathing shallow, her fingers trembling. Finally, her cheeks the red of an overripe tomato, her mouth so tight her lips vanish, she manages to speak a single, barely audible word.
“What?”
Brady shudders. It’s like glancing into a mirror only to find someone else glancing back. This mousey woman with the frightened eyes—her neck curled as though she’s afraid even to raise her chin, fingers picking at a button on her blouse—this is not the same woman who stared at him from the back seat of the unit, not the woman who slid toward him, her skirt rising to her hips. This is someone else, the transformation rapid enough to leave him with his mouth open.
So, it’s no good. No good at all. Brady’s first partner, the veteran who broke him in, had made it plain before he put their unit in gear.
“Only one rule, kid, which you should carry with you every day, every minute. Cover your ass. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because, kid, in the cop world you joined, there’s always a foot headed right for it.”
Brady recalls the advice even before he asks Carolyn Grand the obvious question. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
The woman looks down at her feet, hesitating for a moment, but then finds her resolve. “I’m afraid,” she tells him, “that I’ve forgotten.”
It’s the best she can do, and Brady admires the effort, but it’s not enough. He puts her back in the car, then again approaches Ribotta. The woman’s nuts, that’s for sure, and there’s no knowing what she’ll do next. Meanwhile, Ribotta ran her name, so there’s a record that leads right back to Louis Brady.
“Call in the EMTs, send her to Kings County,” he tells Ribotta. “Let the shrinks figure it out.”
Brady takes a final look at Carolyn Grand as he heads for his own unit. The look of utter defeat tugs at his heart. He tells himself that if he’s wrong, if she’s not crazy, she’ll only spend a day or two at Kings County. No big deal, right? But some tours of duty, as Brady learned many years before, are worse than others. Some tours are worse than others and some tours are fucking impossible.
CHAPTER ONE
VICTORIA
I take a second to adjust my game face—I should say we, because there are others watching—before I open the door and step into Dr. Halberstam’s office. It’s four days since we were discharged from a locked psych ward at Kings County Hospital and our appearance is a condition of our discharge. Do it or else.
I find our therapist standing behind his desk, his expression as composed as my own. He says, “Good morning, Ms. Grand, please have a seat.”
I accept the chair he offers, though I would have preferred another. The back of this chair is tilted. I can’t sit up straight unless I perch on the edge. Nor can I walk out of his office, which I and my sisters and my brother would most like to do. I’m stuck here, forced into a posture, if not seductive, at least vulnerable. For the present, Dr. Laurence Halberstam owns us. I know it, and he knows it.
I watch him sit behind his desk, his chair back far more upright than mine. I watch him shuffle through the case file on his desk, our case file: thick, substantial, the history of our lives as told by the many therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists who’ve dissected us over the past twenty years.
“Well, Ms. Grand—”
I stop him with a small shake of my head. “There’s no Ms. Grand, Doctor, and there hasn’t been for many years. There’s only us.” I can afford to be open here because I’m not telling him anything he doesn’t already know. “I want to be frank,” I claim, “right from the beginning.”
His expression doesn’t change, but I didn’t expect it to. Our therapist is in his midforties, with a slender body and a full head of neatly parted hair that I suspect to be his pride and joy. Every hair is in place, every strand uniformly black. There’s not a hint of gray, or even a thinning on top when he bends forward to study his notes, taking his time about it. He wears a gray suit over a starched blue shirt and a muted red tie. The tie’s Windsor knot forms a perfect triangle beneath his chin, but the tie itself is slightly askew, an imperfection that somehow pleases me.
Without changing expression, he lifts his head and looks at me, a technique we’ve encountered several times in the past. Still, I have to concede Halberstam’s mastery of the silent stare. His blue eyes are piercing, even behind the glasses. Finally, he says, “Can I assume that I’m talking to Victoria?”
Presenting an acceptable public face is my job, my function. I represent the family, the four girls and one boy who share this body. In that capacity, I’m required to project, first and foremost, that our situation is under control. Which it’s not, of course, which it’s never been, as my siblings are quick to remind me when I’m too full of myself. Still, I’m wearing my demure best, a full, brown skirt that falls to within two inches of my knees, a white blouse with a scalloped collar and a tan sweater. My shoulder-length hair has been swept back to cover my ears. Except for a light coating of dark red lipstick, I’m not wearing makeup.
“And where are the others,” Halberstam asks, his tone studiously neutral. “Right this minute?”
“Some watching, some wherever.”
“That’s interesting. Who would you say is watching? And why?”
As I compose myself, I glance around Halberstam’s office. We’ve passed time in many psych offices, enough to know they fall into three general patterns. The warm and cozy, the ultrahip, the cool, calm, and collected. Halberstam’s office fits the latter category. Beige wallpaper, a lacquered desk that reflects my shins, hints of mauve in the chairs, porcelain and pottery in lit niches. LED lights frame the outer edges of the ceiling, while a desk lamp with an amber shade provides the only real color in the room.
The décor advertises Halberstam’s approach. He will be neither friend nor foe. He will play the part of the objective observer, his goal to help us help ourselves. Sadly, we’ve generally
