“I’m an open book, Mr. Davies,” I told him, and he gave me a doubtful smile.
He’d let himself go since those pictures I’d seen were taken. He had a gut now, though he was still reasonably handsome. His shirt had pit stains on it, even though the AC was on in his office. He looked like he’d given up.
“I assume this isn’t really about supporting my small business,” he told me with a sly grin. “So why don’t you start by telling me exactly what you’re doing here, Mr. King.”
I hated the bastard. He was slimy.
“Well, I have a… personal interest in one of your former patients,” I said with a smile, and the man chuckled.
“I’m sure you know, Mr. King,” he said. “I am not at liberty to discuss my patients.”
“It was before you started working here,” I told him. “When you worked at Pine Hill High School.”
“Oh?” His brows shot up. We both knew exactly who I was talking about, yet he feigned ignorance. “And who might you be interested in, Mr. King?”
“Sapphire Rose Faye,” I said through gritted teeth. “She was a senior. Graduated half a year ago.”
“I remember her,” he said, and I wanted to punch his teeth out.
I bet you fucking do, prick. Bet you still jack off to her tight little ass every night.
I focused my gaze on the wedding ring on his hand, and he rubbed his fingers when he felt me staring.
“What would you like to know about Miss Faye?” he asked. “Of course, I am not willing to say too much, you understand.”
I glared at him, pulled a couple of hundreds from my pocket and laid them plainly on his desk.
“How about now?” I asked.
He made a semi-desperate grab for them. So business wasn’t going that well, then.
“Sapphire Rose Faye was a very troubled girl,” he said with a sigh, pocketing the cash. “Very pretty. Very aware of it. A very, very troubled girl she was.”
“Elaborate,” I said.
“She was a poster child for Borderline,” he said. “Of course, I wasn’t allowed to prescribe her medication, but I did my best to help with her situation.”
“Situation?” I asked, and my heart pounded painfully in my chest. Surely, she hadn’t told this monkey what had happened to her?
“She was a very dramatic girl,” he said. “Very… prone to lying.”
“That’s news to me,” I said.
“You better believe it,” he said, his tone almost patronizing. “She lied to me so often, Sapphire did. To the point where I didn’t believe a word she was saying.”
I wondered if we were even talking about the same girl.
“And how did you attempt to help her?” I asked him.
He sighed and stretched on his chair.
“In my expert opinion,” he started. “Sapphire was extremely troubled, and would not accept help.”
“What do you mean?” I stared him down.
“She refused to take my advice,” he said. “Refused to do what I said.”
“So?” I asked. “Doesn’t every teenager rebel?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But she refused to get better. She refused to admit to her own mistakes. The fact that she was mentally older than her age suggested.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I asked.
“She was seventeen at the time I met her,” he said. “Yet she didn’t act like a girl. She fought me on everything. It was like she was a combination of a petulant child and a know-it-all adult.”
“Your point?” My tone was cold.
“My point,” he continued, “I deemed her unfit to attend college.”
“You what?” I practically jumped out of my seat.
“I suggested to Sapphire, as well as her teachers, that she take a gap year,” he said. “She was unfit to be in school.”
“Did you ask her what she wanted?” I asked.
“She had some dreams of an Art History major,” he waved a hand dismissively. “Not realistic, given her situation.”
“So you fucking buried her academic career,” I sneered. “Did she apply to colleges?”
“She did,” he said simply, looking irritated. “It was my decision to deny those applications, in Sapphire’s best interests, of course. I explained all this to her.”
I was ready to knock him out, but I had more questions.
“You told her to take a year off,” I said, and he nodded. “What did her parents say to that?”
“They were not aware of my conclusion,” he said. “Sapphire dealt with it herself.”
So he fucking made her deal with his executive fucking decision. Way to be a fucking adult. Way to fucking help a seventeen-year-old with fucking Borderline.
“One last question,” I sneered, getting up from my seat. “I want to know why you keep talking about her in the past tense.”
He sighed and rubbed his temples, and I fantasized about dislocating his jaw.
“When Sapphire walked out of here,” he said. “She told me she would kill herself.”
“What?” I was left speechless.
“Of course, it was all part of her dramatic personality,” Davies said. “I knew it was an empty threat. However, the girl did disappear. He parents contacted me after, told me she was gone. All her friends, the school, everyone lost touch with her.”