Free The Art of Death by Margarite St. John

whereas the psychiatrist was thinking like a lover.
    She kept her eye on the hallway where the artist had disappeared to make a call. Would Madeleine return with the glittering eyes and heightened mood of someone with a secret habit? Babette did not disapprove of recreational drug use on moral grounds, nor was she surprised by anything artists did. But if the drug began interfering with the quality of the woman’s art, then she would drop her like a hot stone. Life had not made Babette a sentimental fool.

Chapter 13
Our Little Secret
Saturday, May 11, 2013

    When Kimmie Swartz was troubled, she did one of two things, depending on the weather. When it was inclement, she worked on a complicated jigsaw puzzle, one with at least a thousand pieces. Her favorite was a stylized map of Cape Cod, where she hoped to vacation one day. In her tiny studio apartment, the bistro table that her mother had purchased so her daughter could eat meals in a civilized way was never used for its intended purpose. Instead, it was dedicated to unfinished puzzles. Because Kimmie couldn’t bear to throw away puzzles she’d already assembled, the folding bookcase beside her futon was stuffed with colorful puzzle boxes awaiting the day when she ran out of new ones -- an unlikely event, but she was always expecting the worst.
    In all other weather, Kimmie rode her bike, usually along Wallen Road, sometimes diverting to the Highland Park Cemetery, where she was safe from careless traffic. Fatal bicycle accidents were unfortunately rather common. Besides a special helmet, she donned knee and elbow guards, loaded her bicycle with reflectors and lights and bells, and carried enough water to satisfy an elephant.
    She also carried an EpiPen just in case she got stung by a bee. She hadn’t known she was highly allergic to bee venom until the incident at the Dunes twenty-three years earlier. Almost dying at the age of eleven from anaphylaxis had left her with a lifelong fear of bees and wasps.
    She was proud of her Nishiki bicycle. At five hundred dollars, it was unaffordable on her salary. Fortunately, her grandmother when she died had left her a thousand dollars with a note suggesting she use the money to repair scars on her ankles from the bee stings she’d suffered at the Dunes on that fateful Fourth of July. Instead, Kimmie treated herself to the bicycle she’d wanted as a child but had been denied.
    When Kimmie was in the mood, she halted for a few seconds near her grandmother’s grave and silently thanked her for the gift. Occasionally, she brought flowers and laid them on the grave.
    Today, she had some thinking to do. She dismounted from her bike and sat down against her grandmother’s simple unpolished headstone. She could not decide whether to report Dr. Beltrami for what he’d done to her when she was thirteen. Today, she was inclined to make the report, for Mattie’s taunt about being a coward rankled. She was a coward, but still . . . it was rude to say so. She knew now that what the psychiatrist did was not standard practice but at a minimum statutory rape and endangerment of a minor.
    Amber Wilkins, the only friend other than Mattie to whom she’d disclosed the “therapeutic” sex and drugs, reacted in shock. Amber told her that it was her moral duty to stop being his patient and report the man to ensure that he didn’t do the same to other young girls. At that advice Kimmie nodded compliantly, pretending she agreed, but that wasn’t what she was thinking at all. She was less interested in other girls than in herself.  
    The problem with reporting was how to do it. Who would take her seriously? What form should the report take -- a personal appeal to a medical official, a formal complaint filed with the police, an interview with an investigative reporter, an accusation on her Facebook, or something else? Should she provide details, and if she did, how could she prove she wasn’t making them up? Was her silence for the last twenty