Free Mirror Image by Dennis Palumbo

car in the space behind mine. She pointed up at bright white lights fanning out from openings in the garage’s upper level.
    “Poor bastards are in for straight double-shifts,” she said as I walked up to her on the sidewalk.
    I opened the double front doors and let us into the lobby. Pulled by the wind, the door shut behind us with a whoosh, as though vacuum-sealed. We took the elevator up to the fifth floor.
    I unlocked the outer office door, then the connecting door into my consulting room. I flipped on the overhead and led us over to my file cabinets. I’d already signed the subpoena for Kevin’s records, so I slid open the file drawer and started looking for his folder.
    Casey stood beside me, taking in the décor.
    “Nice office,” she said. “Kind of like—”
    Her voice caught. I turned, and saw that her face had gone ashen. I whirled around, following her gaze.
    There on my desk, stark against the whiteness of the blotter, lay a blood-covered knife. The blade was long and thin, the blood dried, caked, black like soot.
    I took a step toward my desk, heart pounding.
    “Don’t,” she said, her voice a gasp. “Don’t touch it.”
    “I know.”
    I stared down at the knife. I’d never seen one like it before. But I knew what it was.
    Just as I knew whose blood was on it. It was the knife that had killed Kevin Merrick.
    It was also a message.
    Next time, it said, the killer would get it right.
    Next time, the blood would be mine.

Chapter Sixteen
     
    Casey and I backed out of my office, careful not to touch anything more, and I locked the door.
    We went down the elevator without saying a word, then both got into my car. I handed her my cell phone.
    I laid my head back against the seat cushion, listening as she called her boss. The conversation lasted less than a minute. When she hung up and rested the phone in her lap, she just sort of slumped in her seat.
    “Nobody’s going to be sleeping tonight,” she said. “Including you and me.”
    “That’s what I figured. What’d Sinclair say?”
    “Not much. He’s probably trying to figure out how to spin this for the mayor. Sort of a practice run for when they have to spin it for Wingfield in the morning.”
    “You mean, because it looks like I’m the killer’s target again?”
    She handed me back the phone. “If Kevin was killed by mistake, and it’s certainly starting to look that way, it means the focus of the investigation has to shift to you. Your life, friends, possible motives. The Wingfield connection becomes…well, less relevant.”
    “But not to him ,” I said. “I mean, if I were Wingfield, I’d still want to nail the bastard that killed my son. No matter who the intended target had been.”
    The cell phone beeped in my hand. I had seven messages in my voicemail, one marked “Urgent.” I shrugged at Casey, and punched in my code. The message was from Dr. Phillip Camden. I let out a breath.
    “Important?” Casey searched my face with weary eyes.
    “Yes and no. I figured I’d hear from Phil sooner or later, after the news hit. It’s just lousy timing.”
    “Want my advice? Unless it’s the killer, don’t return any calls. You’ve got enough on your mind…”
    “You mean, like staying alive…?”
    She gave my arm a reassuring squeeze, leaving her hand there as we waited for the cops. The part of me that was still in the car with her was grateful. But some other part of me had already drifted away…
    ***
     
    Phillip Camden, M.D., Ph.D., professor of behavioral sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, author of three definitive textbooks in the field, was something of a legend in the graduate psych department. Primarily a researcher, not a therapist, he took pride in never having actually treated a patient.
    Instead, he “evaluated” them—in controlled studies, cranial autopsies, and by virtue of his nationally-known expertise in interpreting psychological tests. “Patients are subjects,” he’d announce from the