Free You've Been Warned by James Patterson Page B

it so, does it? Listen to yourself. Are you listening to yourself, Kristin?”
    I stare at Dr. Corey in, well, disbelief. This isn’t the same guy who cheerily used to offer up those self-help mantras. He’s Dr. Downer now. Or maybe it’s only me he’s down on.
Is he pissed that I stopped seeing him?
    “Don’t you understand what I’m saying, Dr. Corey? All these strange and bizarre things are happening to me. They’re really happening. I’m starting to think that I’m going insane.”
    “Maybe you are. Who am I to say?” he replies matter-of-factly. “All I know is that I’m not about to invest my valuable time again in someone who treats therapy like a fad.”
    I knew it!
    “I told you, I thought I was better,” I explain.
    He sniffs. “Yeah, you’re
obviously
a lot better.”
    I’m in shock. He’s so mocking, so disdainful. How can he act this way toward me? I was his patient.
    “I don’t have to sit here for this,” I say.
    “You’re right. You don’t. Feel free to leave at any time. Just like you did before.”
    My eyes start to well up. I can’t help it. The shakes are back, and I’m trying to control them. I don’t want his pity.
    “Oh, spare me the waterworks, will you?” he groans. “And don’t try that insipid wink of yours either.”
    “What’s
happened
to you, Dr. Corey?”
    “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
    “It’s clearly something, because you’re being an incredible jerk.”
    “Better than an ungrateful bitch, I imagine.”
    That does it!
    I spring from the couch and race out of there, but not without a parting shot from the door.
    “Fuck you!” I scream.
    “Go to hell!” he screams back.
    And then, just as I’m shutting the door to his office, “I still want to know what happened to you at the Fálcon Hotel. Kristin? Kristin?”

Chapter 35
    IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE.
    The dream is even more vivid this morning. Actually, it’s excruciating.
    I wake up and smell that same burning smell. It’s awful; I can’t stand it.
    The hives are back too. They’re worse than ever, all over my hands, my arms, my face. I strip off my T-shirt, and there are red blotches on my chest and stomach, my legs, everywhere. I want to scratch my skin off.
    And the music — that damn music — it’s back inside my head.
    The only saving grace? It’s Sunday — I’m supposed to spend the day with Michael.
    The phone rings at a few minutes after eight. The caller ID tells me it’s him.
I bet he uses the line about the phone sex wake-up call.
    “Hello?”
    “Hi,” says Michael.
    It’s only one little word, one meager syllable, and yet I realize right away from how he says it. Something’s wrong.
Something else.
    “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
    “It’s fucking Penley,” he says. “When I told her about not going to her parents’, she went ballistic. She’s still in orbit. Sean is calling her Penley Neutron. You know, like —”
    “Yeah, I know, the cartoon.” And his favorite socks, remember?
    I feel like a fool standing in little else besides my socks, scratching red patches all over my body.
    “You explained it was a work emergency, right, Michael?”
    “Yes. But she didn’t want to hear it, especially since that was the reason I didn’t make the trip to Connecticut last time.”
    “She really cares that much if you go?”
    “Christ, I don’t know. She kept saying how much I’d be disappointing her parents.”
    “That’s it, isn’t it? This is about her
father.
”
    “You don’t have to say it like that.”
    “Why do you kowtow to him so much?”
    “It’s not so simple, Kristin.”
    No, it isn’t. There’s a certain undercurrent to Michael and Penley’s marriage, all but unspoken. Michael makes a lot of money. In the millions. But it’s chicken feed compared with the fortune that Penley’s father, Conrad Bishop, sits on. The man was CEO of Trans-American Steel for twenty-five years. He’s worth north of $200 million. More to the point, thanks to