Dr. Binchy’s expression was carefully noncommittal. “No pharmacist is going to make that kind of a mistake.”

He was calling me a liar.

Rather than a hot burst of anger, I felt a strange prickling on my nape. If it wasn’t a mistake, then someone had to be giving me the drugs. “I’m being poisoned.”

Dr. Binchy’s pupils blew up. “Aarav, how long have you been suffering from paranoia?”

My skin burned. “It’s not paranoia if it’s true.” Shoving the lab results back across his desk, I said, “You can see that in the results!”

“Okay.” He rubbed his jaw. “Why don’t you wait here while I go talk to the technician?”

I began thinking about the look in his eyes the instant he left the room. He wasn’t going to talk to the technician. He was going to call someone who’d have me fucking committed. Getting up, I opened the door and walked down the plush-carpeted corridor as fast as the crutches would allow.

The receptionist smiled at me. “Already finished, Mr. Rai?”

“Yeah. Can you email me the invoice?”

“Oh, there’s no invoice. You’re still being referred through the public system.”

I wanted to get the hell out of there, but I smiled at her before making my way out. My cellphone rang five minutes after I’d begun driving, Dr. Binchy’s name flashing on the screen. I used the car’s hands-free system to answer. “Sorry, Doc. Family emergency.”

“Aarav, we really need to talk.”

“So you can tell me I’m secretly doing drugs and losing my mind?”

“Can you hear yourself? That is not a rational statement.”

“Doc, you’ve only known me since I took a knock on the head. I’m an asshole in normal life.”

“This is serious—you shouldn’t be driving given what we found in your blood. If you don’t listen, I’m going to have to alert the authorities.”

“Do that and you break patient confidentiality.” I actually didn’t know if that applied in a situation like this, but I knew it’d cause Dr. Binchy to think twice. “If it makes you feel better, I have a driver.” No way for him to confirm that for a lie now that I was gone from his parking lot.

“I know you’re feeling confrontational,” he replied, “but there are grave issues with the cocktail of drugs in your blood. You could do incredible harm to your body. I strongly feel you need some help with—”

“Try anything, and I’ll sue your ass three ways to Sunday.” New Zealand’s legal system wasn’t designed for such suits, but there were ways to leverage the threat. “I might fail to get the case to court, but I’ll make it such a circus that none of your rich clients or friends will want to be seen with you ever again.”

This time, the pause was longer. “I’m highly concerned about your mental and physical state. Go home and think about how you’re acting, what you just threatened me with, and reconsider.” His voice remained calm, the kind of calm you used with the unhinged. “If we get you into rehab now, there’s a chance to stop things before the damage escalates.”

I hung up.

Rehab?

Who the fuck did he think he was talking to? I wasn’t one of those rich suburban junkies who went around sourcing hits from some slick dealer in a thousand-dollar suit. I was Aarav Rai, number-one bestseller in twenty languages and counting. Millions of copies of my book sold. Hundreds of millions of dollars made on the movie adaptation.

I was not a drug addict.

My hands shook.

58

Fueled by need, I drove to the mouth of the same trail I’d used the last time to get to the site of my mother’s murder. It was easier to walk to the location this time—my foot was feeling much better and I had two crutches.

Silence permeated the green, no trace remaining of the caution tape. The media had come and gone, and no civilian lookie-loos could be bothered to trek this far when nothing remained of the Jaguar. As a result, the area was peaceful, a dark green haven where I didn’t have to wear a mask.

Seeing a large log that had fallen to the earth so long ago that it was covered in moss, and a home to small ferns, I headed to it, managed to get myself down into a seated position. The forest was cold around me, the tree leaves motionless in a way that seemed a judgment. The moss, by contrast, was soft under my fingertips, the leaf litter equally soft under my boots.

The sun rarely penetrated this deep, the moisture remaining where it fell.

I became hyperaware of the pounding of my heart.

Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Boom-boom.

Like that old Poe story.

I could feel this beat in my mouth, in my skin, in my bones.

My mother’s bloody ghost sat in an equally ghostly Jaguar and smiled at me. “Never thought it’d be you, Ari.”

Throwing back my head, I screamed.

It didn’t echo, the canopy thick enough to absorb all sound, the tree trunks an endless wall. Shoving my hands through my hair, I sobbed and thought of the other ghost, the one with whom I’d shared a drink.

Was Dr. Binchy right? Was I losing my mind? Was I a secret addict?

Yes, my brain was shaky, and yes, my memories were crap, but how could I be an addict and not know? Where would I source my drugs, for one?

Thien.

It was a sensuous whisper in my blood, the name of my friend who could get his hands on anything a person wanted—for a price. But if I’d done that, it’d mean I’d forgotten every single interaction, every single exchange of money for goods.

All those hours lost to migraines—was it possible I’d been up and moving without conscious knowledge? I had proof I was a sleepwalker, but this . . . If I was going into fugue states, then I had bigger problems than drugs.