I sit there, staring down at my hands, absorbing this piece of information. I was happier thinking that it was all just a delusion. But this is real. Graham is really doing this to me.
“Now that I know,” I say, “I’ll be careful around him. I won’t drink or eat anything he gives me unless he’s eating it or drinking it himself.”
“Yeah…” Harry shifts on the bench. “The thing is, you have said those exact words to me multiple times now. You knew he was drugging you. You tried to avoid it. And… the next day, nothing has changed. You’ve still lost your memory.”
“So… maybe that means it’s not a drug?”
He pulls the brim of his baseball cap down lower. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Ziggy trots over to me, carrying a stick in his mouth. He places it on my lap and looks up at me expectantly. I take the stick and throw it across the length of the park. He goes nuts chasing after it.
“What if we take off?” I say. “You and me. What if we just leave right now? We can take Ziggy with us.”
Harry flashes a sad smile. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s your husband.” He ticks it off on his fingers. “Also, he’s your legal guardian. You go with me and I’m kidnapping you, whether or not you came willingly.”
My chest tightens as I absorb his words. I want to believe that can’t be true, but I have a feeling he’s right. When the police showed up this morning, they didn’t even listen to what I had to say. They assumed I was too impaired to know what was going on. Even if Harry told them otherwise, they wouldn’t believe it.
“Graham has a desk upstairs,” Harry says. “That’s what you told me. There’s a drawer that’s always locked, and you said you think that’s where he’s keeping whatever he’s giving you. But as far as I know, you haven’t been able to find the key. He must keep it on him.”
“Oh…”
Ziggy trots back with the stick, but this time he gives it to Harry. Harry rubs him on his head and the dog pants happily. Then Harry tosses the stick again.
“I’m sorry.” Harry is looking off to where Ziggy is searching for the stick. “I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could do more. All I can do is tell you the things you already knew days ago that didn’t help at all. This is… frustrating.”
“Yeah.” My throat feels tight. “What about Lucy?”
“Lucy?”
“You remember Lucy.” I study his expression—I wish he would take off those sunglasses again so I could see his eyes. “My best friend from college. We used to hang out.”
His lips curl in disgust. “Yes, I remember Lucy.”
Well, I don’t need to see his eyes to recognize his feelings about Lucy. I’m shocked by the amount of venom in his voice. When Harry first met Lucy, they seemed to get along well enough, but over the years, he became less and less enthusiastic whenever I mentioned her name. I finally confronted him about it.
She’s kind of toxic, isn’t she? he had said. She never passes up an opportunity to put you down.
But he was wrong. Okay, Lucy had her flaws. But she wasn’t a toxic friend. And she might be the only person who I trust right now.
“Maybe Lucy could help.” I dig my phone out of my pocket. “Her number is on my phone. We must still be in contact. I could call her and—”
“No. No.” Harry flinches. “Don’t tell Lucy about this. You can’t tell anybody about this.”
“I can trust Lucy.”
“Don’t tell Lucy anything.” His jaw tightens under his beard. I’ve never seen Harry with a beard before—I can’t decide if I like it. “You can’t trust anyone.”
“How about you?”
He slides off his shades for a minute to stare at me. The sight of his brown eyes makes me want to reach out and throw my arms around him again. “You can trust me.”
“But you just said—”
“Right, but…” He leans in slightly. “Fine. Maybe you can’t trust me. But you’re the one who came to me, and I’ve been trying to help you. And it would be hard for me to be responsible for any of this, considering before last month, we hadn’t seen each other in six years.”
That last revelation hits me like a punch in the gut. “Six years? We haven’t seen each other in six years?”
“Well, we broke up. What—were we supposed to stay best friends?”