Free Nine Years Gone by Chris Culver Page A

upset,” I said. “But this isn’t the place to discuss this.”
    “I’ve got a picture of you sticking your tongue down some bimbo’s throat,” said Katherine, her eyes sharp. “Do you really think you’re in a position to tell me that my behavior is inappropriate?”
    “I didn’t mean it like that.”
    “Then how did you mean it?” she asked, crossing her arms. “Enlighten me as to appropriate workplace decorum based on your extensive experience.”
    “Now that’s unfair.”
    Katherine cocked her head to the side. “If you think my behavior is unfair, I’m pretty sure you don’t know what the word means.” She pointed to the picture. “Who is she?”
    My wife has a tongue like a scalpel, but rarely has she turned it upon me, and never has it been mean-spirited. Then again, never before had anyone sent her a picture of me kissing another woman. She deserved the truth, but I didn’t know what I could tell her in public.
    I lowered my voice and leaned toward her. “It’s Tess Girard. She kissed me. I didn’t want her to. Okay? I’ll tell you the rest at home.”
    “No, Steven, you’re not going to bullshit your way out of this. This isn’t some lost picture from college,” said Katherine, shaking her head, not modulating the volume of her voice in the least. “This was recent. I saw you in that outfit yesterday.”
    “This was taken yesterday, which is why we need to talk about this at home.”
    She started to say something, but stopped mid-word and leaned forward, her eyebrows raised. “Tess died nine years ago.”
    I lowered my voice still further. “No, she didn’t. That’s why the police never found her body.”
    As Katherine reached to the exam table and picked up the picture of Tess’s goodbye kiss, someone opened the door and one of the nurses, a plump woman with dyed blonde hair, brown roots, and blush the color of pink cotton candy, stuck her head through the crack. She looked at me and then to my wife.
    “Is everything okay, Dr. Hale?”
    “It’s fine, Jackie,” said Katherine, softening her tone. “Can you shut my door, please?”
    Jackie, the nurse, shut the door and left, cutting off the sound of a busy office behind her. Katherine’s eyes drilled into me. “Tess Girard was one of the nicest girls I’ve ever met. If this is her, why didn’t she stop her stepfather’s execution?”
    Leave it to my wife to ask the hardest question first.
    “That would take some explaining.”
    Katherine’s face reddened. “I’m all ears.”
    I hadn’t spent that much time in the Children’s Hospital, so I didn’t know how well soundproofed its walls were, but obviously the nurses could at least hear that we were fighting, even if they couldn’t make out exactly what we said.
    “I’ll tell you everything at home, I swear, but I can’t get into it here. If someone overhears me, there could be serious ramifications for a lot of people.”
    “If you don’t start talking, there are going to be serious ramifications for you right now.”
    One look at my wife’s eyes and I knew I wasn’t getting out of there without saying something, not if I wanted to avoid damaging our relationship permanently.
    “Tess didn’t stop his execution because Dominique deserved what happened to him. He hurt her.”
    Katherine blinked once and then twice before the muscles of her jaw relaxed and the sharp, angry expression left her eyes. “What are you saying?”
    “I’ll tell you at home.”
    “What did he do?”
    “It’s bad, probably worse than you think.”
    Katherine paused and blinked as if she were thinking. “You’ve never lied to me before.”
    “And I’m not lying now. This is Tess Girard. I swear.”
    She stared at me for at least a minute, making up her mind, but then her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and all at once, it was like the light dimmed from her eyes. “In college, I heard rumors about Tess’s stepfather, but I didn’t know if they were true.”
    “What kind of