“I’m afraid—”
“Please, let me finish. My wife and child are my whole world. I’ll do anything for them, and I’ve got my hands full at the moment with…other issues. Daphne needs help—help I can’t give her. You’re good, and you’re here. She won’t have to be away from the baby more than an hour or so at a time if she goes to therapy here in Snow Creek. You’re the best choice.”
“I can’t—”
“Please, Doctor. You’ll never be threatened again. My father is dead.”
“I’m not the best choice, Mr. Steel.”
“You are.”
“I have a history with your family.”
“Can you recommend someone else, then? Someone who can come to Snow Creek and treat my wife? He or she will be handsomely compensated.”
“I cannot. Not in good conscience.”
Life sometimes threw you curve balls. This was one of those times. I was the head of the Steel family now, and the job of protecting my family was mine.
My family included my wife—my wife, whose medical records I’d read, nearly making myself ill, and subsequently burned to keep them from her forever.
This was the legacy left to me by George Steel—the man who sired me.
The man who created the Steel empire.
Now it was up to me to make it bigger. Grander.
And to protect those who were mine.
“I understand your issues with my father, Doctor,” I said calmly and devoid of emotion. “Believe me, I had my own issues with him. But this concerns my wife, and I’ll do everything I can to see she gets the best treatment available. So it may interest you to know that my father left everything to me. All of his money…and all of his guns.”
Chapter Fifty
Daphne
“You can get my records from Dr. Mitch Payne,” I said to Dr. Pelletier after he’d closed his office door, giving us privacy for our first session. “He’s in Westminster.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, “first thing tomorrow morning. You’ll have to sign a release on the way out. For now, what can I help you with, Mrs. Steel?”
“This is difficult for me, Doctor,” I said. “It took me a while to get comfortable with Dr. Payne, and now I need to begin again.”
“If you feel you should be seeing Dr. Payne, I certainly don’t want to interfere.”
“No. I want to see someone here in town. Dr. Payne is in Denver.”
“I’m sure your husband could arrange for him to have an office here in Snow Creek,” Dr. Pelletier said.
A touch of snideness laced his voice. Or was I imagining it?
I cleared my throat. “No, I’m sure you’re very competent, Doctor. I’d like to talk, if I may.”
“Of course. That’s what I’m here for. Please, proceed.”
“I have a history of anxiety and depression. I was…hospitalized most of my junior year in high school. Apparently I was bullied by a couple of girls at school, and they beat on me a little, but not enough to do any significant damage.”
“I see.”
“The problem is that I don’t remember any of this. Apparently I got a concussion and lost the memory of the incident plus a couple days before.”
“Retrograde amnesia,” he said. “Not uncommon from a concussion, especially if the patient loses consciousness.”
“I probably did, though I don’t know for sure.”
“Of course. Because you don’t remember.”
“Well, I wouldn’t remember anyway if I lost consciousness.”
He smiled. “True. So what brings you in here today? Are you having trouble dealing with your prior hospitalization?”
“No. I mean, sort of. I don’t remember most of that year, and I always thought it was because of the medication I was on.”
“What medication was that?”
“I don’t know, honestly. I was a minor at the time. I pretty much did what I was told. You can get those records from Dr. Payne.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Anyway, just the other day I remembered something. Or I should say, someone. Or…more than one.”
“What did you remember?”
“The patients who were at the hospital with me. Only I didn’t remember their names. I don’t think I ever knew their names, or I never bothered to learn them.” I quickly relayed the information I’d remembered about each person.
“So you knew them only as these nicknames you made up.”
“Yes. Correct.”
“And you have no doubt that this is a real memory?”
I widened my eyes. “You mean there’s such a thing as a fake memory?”
“The human mind is a delicate thing,” Dr. Pelletier said. “It’s hardly infallible. Sometimes we make up scenarios to fill in what we don’t recall. It’s a defense mechanism and is well documented. You can actually be certain that something is true, when in fact, it didn’t happen at all.”
“You mean because I have a history of mental illness.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Steel. This is common in people who don’t suffer from mental illness. Most everyone does it to some degree.”
I sat, my jaw dropping. Truly? Could I have made up those patients at the hospital?