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  So, yeah. Everyone here was screwed.

  Mr. Dante asked only that I did my best as the clinic’s administrator and full-time on-site therapist. I threw in the guarantee that I would never again square off with my famous mother on a national talk show. Uh-huh. That happened. It was fun, if my definition of fun was “humiliated and disgraced by psycho(therapist) parent in front of a live audience.” Did I mention the serial killer I’d let loose on Oklahoma City? Okay, not on purpose, but still totally my fault.

  What’s done is done, I reminded myself. Unless someone invented a time machine and a way to give me a personality transplant, I couldn’t change my past.

  I refocused my attention on the new patient.

  The poor guy didn’t even have a pair of boxers to cover his . . . um . . . I blanked as he made another turn and revealed his front. Yep. There it was. In all its glory.

  Sweet mamma jamma.

  His penis was huge, and it wasn’t even erect.

  Heat swept through me, along with a big heap of shame. Get a grip, Kelsey, you heartless slut. I was behaving unprofessionally—even though it was only mentally. Just because I hadn’t had sex in . . . er, ever, didn’t mean I had the right to entertain the idea of sleeping with a client.

  No matter how gorgeous.

  Or well-endowed.

  For all my faults as a psychotherapist, I’d never had sex with a patient. (See, Mother? I could too be ethical.) No matter how badly I had messed up last year, I still wanted to help as many people as I could. I might’ve chosen my profession out of duty (and maternal expectation), but I was committed to it all the same. Sometimes I dreamed about the other things I might’ve done with my life. I could’ve been a scuba diving instructor. Or a painter living in an artists’ colony. Or an alligator wrangler in Florida. Ah, well. Dreams were for people with choices (and who had mothers who didn’t begin every sentence with, “It’s your duty to . . .”).

  I studied my new client. His thick black hair reached midback and swung like a dark curtain as he whipped around, his agitation growing with each long stride. He was well over six feet tall. Every part of the man was built—a beautiful body crafted by hard work, not gym time. I pegged him for a construction worker, or maybe an outdoorsman. It was wrong, so very, very wrong, to watch the bunch and flex of his muscles. Oh, baby . . . Okay, okay, enough. Sheesh. He deserved better from me than a hormone-fueled assessment of his physical attributes. I really needed to study him from the point of view of an open-minded, nonjudgmental, kindhearted (and mature) therapist.

  He was dirty and bruised. Scars crisscrossed his torso, and there were burns on his arms, too. He’d been tortured, though he seemed unconcerned by his injuries. With my empathic abilities, I could literally know about a person’s pain, whether physical or emotional. That ability was another reason I became a therapist. I thought it was God’s big hint to me about my life’s purpose: Go forth, Kelsey, and help wayward souls.

  I wanted to help this man, even though he didn’t particularly strike me as a wayward soul. I got the distinct impression he was strong in mind and heart—but that was more a supposition than an empathically derived certainty.

  I felt the sudden, intense snap of his anger. It reached out and tried to bite at me, but I slapped it away. I was used to fending off the emotions of others, but his were somehow different.

  Every so often he paused to punch at the walls. He was also cursing—in German.

  The walls and floor were padded. The cell—and I cringed to call it that—had no furniture. The place was called the induction room because sometimes new clients needed time and space to calm down before being assigned a residency. Their suites were no less secure, but when an angry psychiatric patient threatened to rip off your head, he might actually try to do it.

  He stopped in the middle of the room. His head rose, and he stared at the door. His eyes were like chips of jade. I saw the flare of his nostrils. He was . . . scenting?

  He rushed forward so fast he was nearly a blur, and slammed his entire body against the steel. The metal actually groaned.

  I squeaked and backed away, forgetting that I was the one in charge here. Could potent masculinity reach through two feet of steel to taunt me? Or was it my libido’s insisting to replay the images of his gorgeousness?

  His face pressed against the glass. He studied me with a cold expression. “Let me out,” he said. “Now.”

  Holy crap. He was scary. But he wasn’t the scariest person in the clinic. That would be my boss, Mr. Dante, and after him, the enigmatic Sven, who was in charge of security here.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  His lips thinned. “What’s yours?”

  “Kelsey.” Asking patients to use my first name was my initial salvo to make them feel comfortable, but I got the feeling he was too much an alpha personality. I straightened and put my shoulders back. “Kelsey Morningstone. I run this facility.”

  He gaze dropped to my breasts, which I had sorta thrust out there in an effort to create my “in-charge” body language. I couldn’t back off now, so I tried to pretend that his gaze wasn’t wandering over my boobs, or that I noticed his inspection.

  “Let me out, Kelsey.” His voice had gone low and smoky. My belly clenched as my girly parts perked up. Stop that, I demanded. He’s a patient.

  “Do you know where you are?” I asked.

  One eyebrow quirked.

  I flushed at the silent chastisement. Of course he knew he was in a padded cell. Okay. Seriously. I had to get in control of myself, the situation, and him. “You’re at the Dante Clinic. You were brought in last night from another facility.”

  “What facility?”

  I hadn’t been told much, only that he’d been rescued from a private laboratory. I shuddered to think about the kind of experimentation he’d gone through, much less why he’d been chosen to be a guinea pig. I hadn’t asked more questions about the patient’s previous situation because one, you didn’t question a billionaire, and two, the less I knew, the less I had to wrestle with my conscience about this job and all that it entailed.

  “You don’t remember?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you know your name?”

  “Damian.”

  “Is that your name,” I asked gently, “or is that the name your captors used?”

  “Captors.” He made the word sound like both a question and a statement. He pushed away from the door, his frustration bubbling through my psychic shields. I returned to the window to watch him pace. He was frowning and rubbing his temples, obviously trying to remember what he’d forgotten.

  Which was his entire life.

  “As soon as you’re ready, we’ll get you a shower, some clothes, and a hot meal. Then we can talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” he said. “I want to leave.”

  “Where would you go?”

  For the first time, I saw panic enter his gaze. His anger shot out again, and wrapped deeply within it was a terrible sorrow. Staving off his emotions was difficult. They were so strong, and so . . . strange. Animalistic.

  Primal.

  Like him.

  “When will you let me out?” He sounded like he was chewing gravel. I was sure it chafed his ego to ask even that simple question. Even without my empathic abilities, I knew he was not used to relying on the kindness of others.

  “I’ll make the arrangements,” I promised. “Damian, you must accept that the clinic is your home now. The sooner you do, the sooner we can focus on how to help you.”

  He considered my words for a moment; then he looked at me solemnly. “I have nowhere else to go.”

  Yeah. That made two of us.

  “We sure got a live one, Doc,” said Marisol Brunes. “And lord-a-mercy, he’s a hunk and a half. Too bad he’s one taco short of a combo platter, eh?”

  I looked up from my clipboard so Mari could see how unthrilled I was with her assessment. I liked Mari. She was short and chubby with silver hair
and twinkling blue eyes, but tough as nails. She was sorta like a biker version of Mrs. Claus. She’d been at the clinic since opening day more than ten years ago, and she’d been kinder to me than the rest of the staff. I was younger than all of them, and certainly younger than my predecessor Dr. Danforth Laurence, who’d been a renowned mental health researcher and a well-respected psychiatrist.

  Me? Not so much.

  After staying silent under my chastising glare, Mari finally caved.

  “I know,” she said, her gaze twinkling—with mischief, not contrition. “Derogatory language is a subtle but damaging way to assert our superiority over people who deserve nothing less than our compassion and assistance.”

  “Glad you’ve been listening.”

  I looked back down at the paperwork, but I knew she was rolling her eyes. I’d taken over the Dante Clinic only three weeks ago—mere days after Dr. Laurence had died unexpectedly in his sleep. I’d managed to skate into the first of December without anyone dying or anything blowing up. So, you know, huzzah an’ all. Poor Dr. Laurence had been in his late fifties, and had died from cardiac arrest. We should all be lucky to go that peaceably. There were worse ways to die.

  My stomach took a dive as an unwanted image flashed: the knife in my hand, the gleam in Robert’s eye, the blood spilling over both of us.

  No. You will not go there, Kel.

  I stepped off that particular dark mental path and circled back to something less soul crushing.

  When Jarred Dante approached me, I was living in Tulsa and working for a nonprofit medical clinic. It didn’t pay well, but I couldn’t complain since I hadn’t expected to work as a therapist ever again. I was one paycheck away from being destitute—I’d been sued numerous times and I lost every case. How could a conscientious jury not punish the therapist who’d failed to treat the evil Robert Mallard—especially after hearing from the grieving families of his victims? I would’ve nailed my ass to the wall, too. I lost everything. My practice. My new house. My Mercedes. Even my clothes.

  Someone had to be blamed. Robert was dead. And I was the only visceral link left to the tragedies he’d caused. It had not mattered that I, too, had been a victim, or that I was the one to exact the final, fatal price from Robert. The cost of his actions—and of mine—had been too great. Too horrifying. (Like a Lifetime movie, only without Tori Spelling or the happy ending.) Then my mother added the whipped topping and cherries to my failure cake by taking me to task on the Leo Talbot Talk Show. (You’re welcome for the ratings, Leo.)

  After that debacle, Mother rescinded her invitation to the traditional family Christmas gathering, and had not invited me to anything else, not even her local book signings. She no longer bothered with the monthly perfunctory phone calls, either, the ones her executive assistant scheduled, so Margaret Morningstone could check “speak to youngest daughter, make her feel inadequate” off her list.

  My disgrace had tainted her, and she hadn’t forgiven me.

  I really should’ve picked up the hints she’d pretty much disowned me after telling the whole world I was incompetent. What you’ve done is a great disservice to our profession. You’ve shamed the family, Kelsey, and yourself.

  Somewhere inside me was the rejected little girl who wanted Mother’s unconditional love. She’d spent my entire life pointing out numerous times that no emotion was unconditional, least of all love, and I hadn’t believed her.

  Until now.

  After Mother’s very public rebuff, my brother and sister followed suit. We’d never been particularly close anyway. I’d been a surprise child, one born eighteen years after my sister. Our father died when I was only two. My mother’s psychotherapy practice was already well established as was her career as a lecturer and author. Not long after my father died, Mother hit the New York Times bestseller list with her book, Lies Your Mother Told You: How to Discard Your Childhood Drama and Build a Real Life.

  Her entire career went platinum gold.

  Anyway.

  When Mr. Dante showed up and offered to make all my debts go away, including the pending payouts to the families, and give me a cushy job that included luxurious digs and a generous paycheck, I didn’t turn it down. Granted, I didn’t accept right away. I knew the folly of allowing someone else to sweep in and solve my problems. I even gave myself a stern lecture, which included phrases like “stand on your own two feet,” “if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you strong,” and “face the music.”

  But . . . well, I guess I wanted the chance to redeem myself. And yeah, okay, I wanted to be free of those burdens heaped upon me by my family, the victims, the courts, and my own conscience. I could never, ever take back what happened. So I could either slit my wrists or I could take the opportunity Mr. Dante offered and try to move on.

  I chose Option 2.

  The Dante Clinic was a privately funded psychiatric facility that supported the care and well-being of clients handpicked by the facility’s benefactor. No one knew why Mr. Dante chose the people he did—only that most of the cases were hard-core and the patients had no families. Many of them had been homeless or locked up in state facilities. Dante picked up the considerable tab for high-quality care. I had yet to understand his motivations, but maybe it was nothing more than an eccentric indulgence of the super-rich.

  Okay. I didn’t buy that, either.

  Located just outside Broken Arrow, the facility had been created from one of Dante’s refurbished mansions. It was a huge towering Gothic structure plopped into the middle of a heavily wooded ten acres. It looked like Dracula’s castle and operated like a king’s palace. There were never more than ten residents. With Damian added to the roster, we now had six full-time patients.

  Every client had a personal maid and butler, who also served as certified nursing assistants, and when necessary, guards. They were all black belts in various martial arts forms, and they behaved in military fashion. Working in a psychiatric facility wasn’t exactly safe, so I could understand why the security was intense. The suites were large and sumptuous, but impregnable. Everything could be locked down within a matter of seconds. If patients got out of line even the tiniest bit, privileges were revoked, and in the three weeks I’d been here, no client wanted to be without their Egyptian cotton sheets or nightly hot cocoa and scones. Meals were taken together in a dining room roughly the size of a football field. I supposed the more . . . er, unusual aspects of the clinic were easily balanced out by the quality of care. The facility offered the best of everything to its patients. Maybe the reason I felt unsettled was that I didn’t feel like I was the best option—either as administrator or as psychotherapist. Yet I’d been given a prime opportunity, deserved or not. I would do my best to earn what I had been given.

  “You look like you need a Starbucks,” said Mari. “A triple shot.”

  Sheesh. I’d been meandering down memory lane, staring sightlessly at the clipboard in my hands. Crap. “Maybe a triple shot of vodka.”

  She grinned wickedly. “’ Atta girl.”

  I signed off on the entrance paperwork for Damian NoLastName and handed her the clipboard. “I’ll be in my office until my two o’clock with Mr. Danvers.”

  “Good luck,” she said sympathetically. “Sven caught him cutting out paper feathers again.”

  “Oh, jeez. He’s already sprained his ankle jumping off tables.” I paused. “Do you have the shock bracelets on him?”

  She nodded, and I saw the distaste in her gaze. I felt the same about the bracelets, but they were effective. Until the guy stopped believing a demon wanted him to fly or we found a more palatable way to keep him grounded, he would have to wear the bracelets. The clinic employed many experimental psychiatric tools. I was not sold on the bracelets, but Mr. Dante insisted. I couldn’t deny he seemed to genuinely care about the well-being of our clients. Still, he was a man who knew how to exploit the vulnerabilities of others; he was an effective manipulator.

  Then again, so was I.

  As I said good-bye
to Mari and headed toward my first-floor office, I thought about Mr. Danvers. He blamed all his bad behavior on a demon he called Malphas, who supposedly took the form of a crow. He claimed the demon inside him wanted to return to hell, and he wanted to take Mr. Danvers with him—by flying into a portal located in a Tulsa hotel. I can Google as well as anyone, so it easy enough to figure out how my patient had come up with both the name and the ideology behind Malphas. It was on Wikipedia, for heaven’s sake. A hellmouth in a hotel was a good twist, though.

  What I was trying to understand was why Mr. Danvers had created the delusion. Right now, I was still building trust between myself and the patients. It would probably take a while for Mr. Danvers to reveal anything that might allow me the insight I needed to help him.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in psychic phenomenon. After all, I was an empath. I could feel other people’s emotions. I knew how to tease out the hidden nuances from the main emotion. Someone who was angry almost always had strands of sorrow or hurt or abandonment woven into their fury.

  Nothing was ever as it seemed.

  My ability usually made it easier to connect with patients, and to help lessen their distress. Unfortunately, Mr. Danvers was a particularly difficult case. Truth and sincerity emanated off him in waves. That was the problem with dealing with delusional patients—they believed absolutely in the realities they created.

  Not long after opening my practice, I’d learned by sheer accident that I could also absorb emotions. After I figured out this new facet of my ability, I started using it to just take away the pain, the anger, the confusion, even the crazy. I didn’t realize I’d made myself vulnerable, or that I’d taken away the ability for my patients to work through their issues. They didn’t stop engaging in the destructive behaviors that had led them to my door—they just didn’t feel bad about those actions anymore. I’d given them a magic pill. And I’d taken all their poison into myself.