A Familiar Sight (Dr. Gretchen White, #1)

by Brianna Labuskes

Youth had a way of making secrets seem delectable rather than the rotting things age helped you see that they were.

A teenage Claire, on the other hand, had loved stadiums. Not baseball, but the places themselves—modern-day amphitheaters, the pleasure palaces of their times is what she always said. They were where the rigid class structure that existed everywhere else dissolved like the blue and pink cotton candy that bobbed through the crowds. Never mind that while Reed and the others baked under a hot sun, barely able to see if there were players on the field, Claire had access to season tickets in an air-conditioned VIP box with all the champagne and high-class finger food she could want.

Was Tess Murphy really important at all? Or was Gretchen finding ghosts where none actually existed. I messed up, Gretch. You have to fix it. Had Lena messed up with Tess Murphy’s disappearance? Or the investigation into Claire Kent’s murder? If she took Lena’s last call at face value, then nothing would point back to Tess Murphy.

“Conspiracy theories play into humans’ worst instincts,” Gretchen commented idly as she watched for any signs of their food. When Marconi glanced up with a small smirk, Gretchen narrowed her eyes. “What?” “The way you call us humans,” Marconi said, amusement thick in her voice. Then she shook her head and went back to scrolling. “It’s like you’re not a part of that group.”

“There are brains that are more prone to illusory pattern perception,” Gretchen said instead of acknowledging it. “More prone to finding connections in unrelated data. They’re simply wired that way.” “All right, so what brains are prone?” “People who have an excess of dopamine pumping through their gray matter,” Gretchen said, popping a slice of decadent duck into her mouth. “It’s the reverse of low dopamine in addicts. That deficit makes them think that nothing matters. For someone with high dopamine levels, they think everything matters.”

“That’s not everyone, though?” Marconi pressed. “I mean most people believe at least one wild theory, right? JFK, Pearl Harbor, Tupac Shakur still being alive, etcetera. They don’t all have excess dopamine levels.” “Pareidolia,” Gretchen said easily, snagging the last pierogi without shame. “That’s a fancy word for humans’ tendency to find significance in something where there is none. Like kids finding shapes in clouds. We do that a lot. And that technically is a subset of apophenia, which is the tendency to find connections where they don’t exist.” Gretchen paused, looked up, studied Marconi for a moment. “Are you lost yet?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets so that she wouldn’t be able to see the tremors in his fingers. Lena had always been able to read the thoughts he didn’t say. But here was another truth: he’d always been able to do the same with her. And in the space between those flimsy words, he heard what she really believed. Who do you think killed Tess? You.

“So,” Gretchen said, trying to keep any annoyance out of her voice, trying to keep it gentle, the same way Marconi had when she’d apologized for something that was in no way her fault. “What made you suspect that it was foul play twenty-four hours after she’d gone missing?” “I just knew that Reed Kent boy had something to do with it,” Fiona said, her eyes narrowing into slits. “Lena thought so, too, she told me.” Gretchen tried not to pounce. “Lena thought Reed had killed Tess?” That was what Declan had said, too. Did that make it true? “Well.” Fiona patted her hair, looking a little less certain in the span of a few seconds. “She didn’t say it in so many words, but she might as well have.”

Little by little, Reed’s muscles loosened. This was irrational emotion speaking. Not facts. Not some hidden evidence that had somehow resurfaced after twenty years. Everyone but a few die-hard obsessives knew that Tess had been a typical teenager, tired of living in a volatile home. She’d looked around, seen nothing to keep her there, and taken off for parts unknown. Fiona zeroed in on him just as he had the thought.

“Who said anything about Kent murdering his wife?” Shaughnessy asked. Marconi winced and Gretchen just rolled her eyes, consigning her promise to Viola to hell. “If you want to bury your head in the sand and blame the girl, fine. But you can’t deny there’s something strange going on here. Ordinary people don’t end up connected to separate murders.” “And at least three deaths if you count Lena Booker,” Marconi added.

Another viable suspect. The words might as well be branded into Gretchen’s skin for how familiar they were. That’s what they’d always said about her aunt Rowan’s case. Couldn’t find another viable suspect, so it must have been the eight-year-old. Never mind that the assumption had burdened said eight-year-old with a lifetime of suspicion and a reputation that she had never been quite able to shake no matter how upstanding a citizen she’d proven herself to be.

Gretchen hated women like Penny Langford because they tended to see through any performance she put on. While Gretchen knew that most things about herself were smoke and mirrors, she didn’t particularly enjoy it when other people noticed.

That got his attention. “What?” “I know you were dating Tess, but she was too much of a people pleaser for you,” Ainsley said, a shrug in her voice. “I figured you’d get the blonde out of your system and then settle down with Lena. She was always the one, wasn’t she?” Lena Booker. Honestly, he hadn’t thought about her in years. But if pressed, he would admit that his eyes sometimes drifted around crowded galas or auctions, searching for someone. Not anyone in particular, he’d always told himself. But someone. She was always the one, wasn’t she?

He knew better. He knew Claire had been the wrong choice. But he’d made it with eyes wide-open. And Ainsley couldn’t take that away from him. Life wasn’t always about making the right choices. Sometimes it was about making the wrong ones just to see what would happen.

Gretchen guessed that Marconi would find some new and spectacular way to irritate her before the day was done, but for now, she was proving herself worth keeping around.

It was rare someone could surprise Gretchen, yet Marconi seemed to have the ability. Gretchen filed that little observation away in the many folders she kept neatly cataloged in her head. That was for later, this was for now. Her fingertips brushed against ribbed wood just as she had the thought. She closed her eyes in silent thanks to Lena’s predictably paranoid soul, and pulled what, to the casual observer, would look like a book from behind a pile of old sci-fi classics.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you tonight.” “Or Milo,” Sebastian said, always stubborn, always too brave. “Or Milo,” Reed agreed, knowing he had no ground to stand on. In the light, the bruises on the boys’ arms proved him a liar. But in the dark, they could pretend he meant what he said. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Tonight. Reed counted each inhale, each exhale as Sebastian finally relented, his tiny, tired body giving in to the false security that Reed offered.

“Claire,” Lena started gently, and Gretchen could almost see her touching the other woman’s hand to offer comfort, a gesture Gretchen had seen countless times. “I have to ask . . . Why now?” In the pause between the words, Gretchen heard the question that must have been obvious. Is this a woman seeking revenge on a cheating husband? “I’m under no delusion that my husband is faithful to me. But that’s not what this is,” Claire said with a twist to the words. She’d likely heard the suggestion of a hidden motive layered underneath. “I was in the attic the other day.” “He kept this bracelet in the attic?” Claire huffed out a disbelieving breath. “Can you believe it? In a box of old baseball cards. He must have thought I’d never look there.” Which actually seemed like a fair assumption. Why had Claire Kent been in her attic? She seemed the type of woman to hire someone to bring her the boxes she wanted. Marconi’s brows had gone up a notch. “This could be nothing,” Lena said. “Maybe she gave it to him before she left, and neither noticed the blood.”

The fact that both women in the recording were now dead made the unfinished thought all the more chilling. Marconi shifted in the passenger seat, clearly uncomfortable.

“All right, here’s what we know,” Marconi said, closing the laptop before shifting toward Gretchen. “Claire Kent hires Lena Booker to look into the disappearance of Reed’s childhood sweetheart. Lena and Ainsley are in on some pact where no one tells Reed anything. Declan thinks Reed killed Tess because Lena showed him the evidence that Claire brought in.”

As someone who’d researched domestic violence extensively, Reed knew that didn’t really indicate anything, but he’d seen more than one set of shoulders relax when Milo buried his face in Reed’s neck or Sebastian clung to his leg.

No authorities had been called in. Reed wondered how many times similar scenes played out throughout the country for other reasons—biases, societal norms, manners, manipulation. Reed wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t been wearing a thousand-dollar watch, if he hadn’t played the part of concerned—and privileged and wealthy—parent so well.

Reed knew the statistics. If he brought a gun into the house, it was more likely one of them would end up accidentally shot than stopping something that shouldn’t be happening.

Viola had a way of picking the weakest members from the herd. He used to watch her sometimes, before it made him too sick to his stomach to do so, when they were at the playground or a birthday party. Any social gathering was ripe with promise for his little psychopath.

Sometimes the attacks were fast and vicious, though. It was terrible to think, but Reed actually preferred those outbursts. Quick pain instead of prolonged fear. Her brothers were the ultimate long game. And Reed didn’t go one day where that knowledge didn’t paralyze him with terror.

So when Viola’s pretty teacher, with her concerned eyes and gentle hand laid on his forearm, had asked if he needed water, he’d nodded, followed her, flirted with her, and then nudged her into the storage closet. For ten minutes, he’d been able to do something other than drown beneath the crushing weight of his own life. Afterward, the teacher whose name he couldn’t even remember now had been so flustered that she hadn’t pushed the issue much further beyond handing him some pamphlets. Reed had nearly laughed at those. What were they going to give him? How to Manage Your Sadistic Psychopath in Three Easy Steps?

They knew a guy at school who knew a guy who knew a guy who had been able to hook Tess up with a believable-enough driver’s license to get her by for a while. “You’re just going to disappear then?” Reed asked, though he’d heard the details of her plan enough times. It still felt like there was something she wasn’t telling him. The reason she startled sometimes when someone moved too quickly toward her.

An idea was beginning to form, but she didn’t want to look straight at it, not yet. She still wanted to talk to Viola. And, more important, Gretchen didn’t want to get sidelined from the investigation if she told Shaughnessy her suspicions too soon. But she wondered if assumptions and confirmation bias had trapped her just as much as they had Shaughnessy.

“Our justice system is a funny thing, isn’t it?” Gretchen said, idly flipping through the papers once more. “It’s set up to prevent biases, and yet every step of the process relies on human judgment in all of its flawed glory.”

This case felt like one of those images that actually contained two separate pictures—a vase and also two women’s faces looking at each other, the wife and the mother-in-law, a rabbit with its ears tucked back and also a duck with its bill tipped up. Ambiguous images, they were called.

When some people came into your life, the ground shook. And it left nothing but devastation in its wake.

It was rare that she used her hands, he later learned. She was small and he was big and sheer force wouldn’t cut it. She could punch down when the occasion called for it. But Claire didn’t like the brutality of closed fists or even the weakness implied in a slap. Instead she employed a tool belt of weapons. Lit cigarettes, scissors, hot metal in various forms. A knife, a threat, both just as sharp and deadly as the other. Claire liked control more than anything, and what screamed control more than a cowering man, all six feet two inches of him, his muscles straining, the unrealized ability to break a neck there in his big, calloused palms?

A pause as Viola’s gaze raked over her face. “They call us evil, you and me.” “Yes.” “Do you ever think they’re wrong, though?” Viola asked. “That maybe it’s not us who are the awful ones.” She paused, but Gretchen didn’t rush to fill the silence.

Claire hadn’t been just a normal person, though; she hadn’t been an empath. She must have thrived on violence, on power, on the little kingdom she’d created, able to blame everything on Viola if anyone started throwing questioning glances her way. It wasn’t just about her husband leaving her. She needed to reestablish herself as the one in control.

In that moment, he didn’t see Claire’s face, the impassive expression as she brought the searing hot metal down onto his arm, but rather he saw Sebastian and Milo, their vulnerable skin and their breakable bodies. And he knew he had to lie.

At least she hadn’t done anything deliberately malicious to the children yet. Some part of Reed knew that the yet was getting ever more certain with each passing day.

Maybe she’d thought Viola deserved to be in jail—as her lackluster defense efforts seemed to show—and she’d had to self-medicate with opiates to numb the guilt. I messed up, Gretch. Lena knew exactly how that could affect a young girl’s life, had watched Gretchen deal with the stigma for years. Lena also knew Gretchen didn’t have that pesky conscience that empaths were saddled with. She’d left behind audio that in a short amount of time laid bare the dynamics of this twisted group. She let Gretchen know she didn’t fully trust Reed, let her know she was fooling Declan Murphy.

Reed took the stairs two at a time on his way to help her, but she flinched, and a tiny part of Reed died. This was his fault, this was absolutely his fault, and Ainsley was justified in her repulsion. He nodded once. “Go.” “You psycho bitch,” Ainsley screamed at Claire, who stood halfway down the stairs, pressed against the wall from where Reed had brushed by her, a small, crooked smile on her face. “You’re never getting near him again.” Then Ainsley was gone.

He pictured her holding Milo against her chest two nights ago, looking like an avenging angel about to go into battle. Pictured the way she touched the back of the boys’ necks at dinner, lovingly, as if she could press tenderness into their bodies with just her palm. Pictured the way she read to them, spoke with them, took them for ice cream and bandaged their hurts. He and Claire were meant to burn each other to the ground along with Viola. But Milo and Sebastian didn’t have to be destined to that fate. They had someone who loved them beyond measure, someone who would stab her brother in the heart if it meant getting the boys out safe.

“It was me,” Reed said, and it came out strong and steady. “Viola didn’t kill Claire. It was me.” “We both know that’s not true,” Gretchen said, not taking her eyes off Reed’s face, though she knew the gun had twitched on her words. “It’s a confession,” Reed countered. “You can’t prove otherwise.” Gretchen considered that. She might be able to if she really wanted to. But she was far more curious for the details of the truth than some kind of pursuit of justice. Claire Kent had clearly deserved to die, and even if she hadn’t, Gretchen wasn’t the type to get tangled up in some kind of universal grief for lost innocence.

Reed stopped outside the boys’ room, pressed a palm to the door, pretended he could feel their heartbeats. Saying goodbye would be a bad idea. Milo was too young to keep a secret, and Sebastian too volatile these days. Viola might overhear and pull some stunt. Saying goodbye would be a bad idea.

Reed blinked at that. He would never have considered such a thing. The thought of her waking up tomorrow, the boys gone, her leverage, her power stripped away, and realizing that she’d slept through the whole thing was so deeply satisfying that Reed almost did relax just then. Lena studied him for a long minute. “I wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t guessed,” she admitted, like the confession had been a heavy burden she wanted off her shoulders.

“You have to go somewhere you’ll be seen,” Ainsley said, her voice tight but almost calm, sounding every inch the ex-soldier she was. “But not with Lena. Right this second. Hang up and go somewhere you’ll be seen.” “What happened?” But he was already moving his body, following the clear command in the words. There was a beat, and he knew, he knew before she said it. “Claire’s dead.”

They stopped on the sidewalk, and only then did Reed ask Ainsley, “How?” But he knew. He knew. Again, that same pause. “I was in the foyer with Milo, and . . . Reed, I’m sorry . . .” Reed squeezed his eyes shut. “Sebastian?” “He’s covered in blood,” Ainsley said, and like a switch had flipped, the composed soldier was gone and it was just his sister, her voice trembling, her inhale shaky. On a sob, she said, “He stabbed her. God, Reed.” Stabbed her. Stabbed her. Stabbed her. “Reed, you have to go.” Ainsley was almost yelling now. “You’ll be the prime suspect. I’ll take care of it.”

His skin was too tight against his bones, his tendons stretching and pulling every inch of him apart. Was he going to do this? Was he really that person? Yes. Yes. He would sell his soul to the devil without hesitation, would gladly live out eternity in hell if it would just save Sebastian. This was his fault, his failure, his responsibility. Sebastian shouldn’t have to pay for Reed’s mistakes for the rest of his life.

Lena licked her lips. “Go.” There was no point in asking her again, no point in trying to convince her. Reed ran for a taxi that had just passed by, not even knowing what he hoped her decision would be. Because it wasn’t just his soul he was selling to the devil. It was both of theirs.

“I take it not all of those injuries splashed across the TV were from Viola?” Gretchen guessed. “Some were,” Reed admitted. “A lot weren’t.” People saw what they were told to see, what they expected to see. He swallowed, and it was loud in the quiet room. “You knew.” “Suspected,” Gretchen corrected. Though it had been a strong enough guess that she called Ainsley. Something had stuck with Gretchen from that first interview with Viola, buried by every other chaotic detail of this case, but there, lodged in some corner of her mind. “Sebastian I would have gutted slowly,” Viola had said. “The older one?” Gretchen had asked. “Why Sebastian? Not Milo?” Viola had never answered. But then during that second conversation: “I already told you what you need to know.” Gretchen had narrowed down her suspects to either Ainsley or Sebastian Kent. And she’d decided to take Viola at her word. The girl hadn’t mentioned Ainsley once.

Marconi took a half step forward, and he wondered what he’d sounded like just then, how he had been almost yelling before. How that last bit had come out quiet and controlled. And he realized it was the exact same tone Claire used before she brought a lit cigarette down on his thigh. It was the exact same tone Viola used when she’d told him how she’d skinned the rabbit alive. It was the voice of a psychopath. And it had come from him. But Gretchen recovered swiftly, waving her hand at him like he wasn’t about to kill her in cold blood. “Will you put the gun down? Marconi is going to pop a blood vessel.” Marconi huffed, but her eyes were locked on Reed, her stance battle-ready. He lowered his weapon but didn’t drop it. It wasn’t just the easy out. It was his only out. One way or another. “What’s going to happen?” he asked. “You are going to put down that gun before you accidentally shoot your foot and embarrass everyone,” Gretchen said. “And I am going to convince Marconi here that she came into the house five minutes later than she actually did.” Reed didn’t blink, didn’t react. But his lungs filled with air, his head stopped pounding. And deep in his chest, a tiny spark flared to life. He knew that spark was dangerous, and yet it was there anyway, waiting to catch fire. “No,” Marconi corrected. “Mr. Kent is going to put down his gun, and then we’re all going to go down to the station and figure this out.” Which was why hope was dangerous. His fingers tightened around the ...

Sebastian had been quieter these days, kept to his room mostly, and wouldn’t meet his or Ainsley’s eyes. Reed had been coaxing him out of his stupor little by little, with plenty of setbacks. And Milo, finally free from relentless terror, had blossomed in just six months into a sweet, funny kid.

“Reed was right, wasn’t he? That’s what got to you?” Gretchen said, seizing on the little tidbit. “The knife.” “The premeditation, yeah,” Marconi said. “Lena and Ainsley, they were acting in the heat of the moment. Reed had planned for it.” “And who knows what he was thinking when he saved that knife with Viola’s fingerprints on it,” Gretchen agreed. If she had to guess, she would say he’d been plotting something like this in the back of his head, and the moment just happened to fall into his lap.