Page 13 of The Girl from Widow Hills
CHAPTER 5
Friday, 5:30 p.m.
DR. CAL’S RECEPTIONIST LEFTa message that he would stick around after hours to fit me in. This was after she’d first tried to schedule me in two weeks’ time and I’d told her it was urgent. The magic word, especially from a colleague at the hospital.
By the time I left my office, the administrative wing was as empty as it had been when I’d arrived that morning.
Dr. Cal’s office was two floors up, on the fifth floor, and I took the stairs. The hallway lights were off. Only a strip of light filtered from under one doorway—the rest of the offices appeared closed up for the day.
I knocked before turning the handle, poked my head in. The receptionist was in the process of gathering up her things, eyes on the clock behind her.
She spun at my entrance. “Oh,” she said, hand to heart. “Olivia?” Her red lips pulled into a practiced smile. “We’ve been waiting for you. Go on in, he’s expecting you.” Her purse was already packed, sitting on top of the desk, a pair of heels sticking out.
“Thanks for squeezing me in,” I said, heading toward the door.
Dr. Cal was facing away when I pushed the door to his office open, though I assumed he’d heard us chatting—there wasn’t much distance between us.
But maybe I was wrong. Because he turned around with an expression that went from neutral to beaming smile within the span of a second, like I’d really surprised him. I guessed he was one of those people who lost contact with reality as they sank deeper into their work.
He rose to a full six feet, hand extended, as I shut the door behind me. And then there was just a steady hum of white noise, like a ceiling fan, dulling everything, and faint classical music.
I almost smiled.That’s it, that’s his trick, I decided.Lull you to sleep in his office. You’re cured.
“Olivia Meyer, so nice to meet you,” he said as his hand met mine. “Seems we have some friends in common.”
I didn’t know Bennett considered him a friend, or whether Dr. Cal had asked around before agreeing to see me. I looked away first, scanning the room for a place to sit. I took the only other spot, a cushioned love seat across from his office chair. There were three pillows in varying shades of blue softening any possible edge. Even his furniture was designed to inspire sleep.
He settled back into his chair, rolling a little closer, hands clasped together over a pad of paper in his lap.
“Now,” he said, “why don’t you tell me what’s brought you to my office today.”
He tilted his head, eyes focused on me. I cleared my throat, looking anywhere but directly at him, as Bennett had jokingly suggested. The degrees on the wall, the certification, the articles printed out and framed—they were too small to read closely. I couldn’t tell whether he was displaying general advice or showcasing his own work.
Probably the latter.
Everything about this room, and him, was deliberate. To judge from the way he was sitting, body angled and waiting, Dr. Calvin Royce was someone who knew exactly what he looked like. He had probably perfected the angle and smile in the mirror. Slept with a teeth-whitening tray, or an eye mask, at the very least. When he crossed his leg over his knee, the bottom of his pants rose up to reveal a quirky neon green sock with dog bones, probably designed for disarming. A conversation starting point. A way in.
I decided point-blank he was a sociopath.
It was easier to avoid someone’s charm when you could see behind it from the start.
“Last night, I was sleepwalking,” I said. The truth, then. The reason I was here.An urgent sleep issuewas what I’d told his receptionist, after all.
A slow nod, his face giving away nothing. He didn’t blink. “Has this happened before?”
“Not since I was a kid. Almost twenty years ago. I thought I outgrew it. Or it was fixed. Either way, it stopped happening.”
Another nod. “Were you seen by a doctor back then?”
Everything about that time was a blur. There had been so many doctors. Checkups and follow-ups; pre-ops and post-ops and physical therapy, before my mother decided they were doing more harm than good, perpetuating the trauma.
“Yes, I was given medicine, and the sleepwalking stopped,” I said, so he would know that I was aware of my own history and how best to address the issue at hand. All I needed was his signature.
“You were given medication as a child?” he asked, head tilted slightly in the other direction now. A better angle of the jawline.
“Yes,” I said.
“What kind?” He twirled his pen in his fingers, ready to make some notes.
