Lucinda.Not Lucy. He's not here about my Lucy.
"I'm afraid I'm not sure who you're referring to," I say carefully, settling behind my desk with the deliberate calm of a man who's learned to control his reactions under pressure.
Dr. Harrison steps forward, a manila folder thick with documents clutched in his hands like evidence in a capital case. "Lucinda Kensington-Reid. My patient. We have reason to believe she's been living in your area under an assumed name."
The folder lands on my desk with a sound like thunder in the sudden silence. Through the clear plastic cover, I can see official letterheads, photographs, medical charts.
All bearing the face of the woman who kissed me goodbye this morning with sleepy contentment and promises of dinner together.
My blood turns to ice water in my veins.
"She's been missing for over two years," Richard continues, his voice heavy with what sounds like genuine anguish. "We've been searching for her everywhere. When we received word that someone matching her description was seen in Briarhaven, we came immediately."
"Missing?" The word scrapes my throat raw.
"She escaped from our facility," Dr. Harrison explains, settling into the chair across from my desk without invitation. The presumption sets my teeth on edge. "Lucinda has been struggling with severe psychological issues since her mother's death. Bipolar disorder, dissociative episodes, violent tendencies. She can be extremely convincing when she wants to be, but she's also deeply unstable."
Each word hits like a round to the chest.Violent. Unstable. Escaped.
"That's impossible." My voice sounds distant, strange to my own ears. "Lucy... Lucinda... she's not violent. She—"
But even as I say it, memories start shifting and rearranging themselves like pieces of a puzzle I suddenly can't solve. The way she flinched when I first approached her outside Colt's clinic. Her reluctance to talk about her past. The careful way she watches exits in every room, like she's constantly calculating escape routes.
Details I dismissed as trauma now take on a different, more sinister cast.
"May I?" Dr. Harrison asks, gesturing toward the folder with the practiced patience of a man who deals with denial professionally.
I nod, not trusting my voice. My years of training in reading people, in spotting lies and manipulation, war with the image of Lucy laughing over pancakes thismorning, stealing bacon from my plate like she belonged at my table forever.
He opens the folder with deliberate care, revealing page after page of official documentation. Medical reports with Lucy's photograph paper-clipped to the corners. Police incident reports bearing authentic case numbers. Court documents with raised seals that look legitimate.
Everything screams official. Real.
"This was taken during one of her more severe episodes," Dr. Harrison says, sliding a photograph across my desk with the clinical detachment of a coroner presenting evidence.
The image makes my stomach drop like I've stepped into a mine shaft.
It's Lucy, but not the Lucy I know. This version is skeletal thin, all sharp angles and hollow cheeks that speak of self-neglect and something darker. Dark circles ring her eyes like bruises, and those eyes…Christ, those eyes are what gut me. Empty. Completely, utterly lifeless.
Dead eyes. I've seen them before, in combat zones and crime scenes. In Katherine, during her worst moments, when the pills pulled her so far inside herself that nothing could reach her.
She's wearing a hospital gown that hangs off her frame like a shroud, wrists circled with restraints that look like they've seen use. But it's her expression that destroys me.Vacant, lost, like the woman I love has been completely erased.
"Jesus," I breathe, unable to look away from the photograph even though every instinct screams to burn it.
"I know it's difficult to reconcile," Richard says, leaning forward with the gravity of a man delivering a terminal diagnosis. "This is what untreated mental illness looks like, Sheriff. This is what happens when someone refuses the help they desperately need."
I force myself to study the other documents with the methodical attention I'd give any case file. Medical charts detailing psychiatric holds, medication schedules, behavioral incidents. A police report from two years ago describing a "violent altercation" during transport.
"I don't understand," I say, my voice hoarse with confusion and growing dread. "She's been living here for weeks. Working at the clinic, contributing to the community. She's been..."
Happy.The word dies in my throat because suddenly I'm not sure of anything anymore.
"That's part of her pathology," Dr. Harrison explains with the patient tone of someone used to educating family members about difficult truths. "Lucinda has always been extraordinarily gifted at creating personas, at making people believe she's something she's not. It's a survival mechanism, but it's also how she manipulates situations to her advantage."
Manipulates.The word hits like a physical blow.
Richard produces another document, this one bearing the gold seal of New York State Family Court. "I'm her legal guardian, appointed after her mother's death when Lucinda was seventeen. She was completely unable to function, the trauma of caring for a terminally ill parent, combined with her existing mental health issues, created what our psychiatrists called 'a perfect storm.'"
