The pale blue, one of her suits. Memories flooded my head. Fitted jacket, skirt short enough to show a nice bit of knee. Braiding around the lapels, covered buttons.

Lots of buttons; it could take a long, sweet time to free them.

The pain in my skull took over. My back and my right side—

Someone moved. Above Allison. To the right.

“Can’t you see he needs help— ”

“Shut up!”

My eyelids sank. I blinked some more. Turned it into an aerobic activity and finally achieved some focus.

There she was. In one of the soft white chairs where she hadn’t been before...how long ago?

I tried to look at my watch. The face was a silver disk.

My vision cleared a bit. I’d been right: She was wearing the exact suit I’d pictured, give the boy an A for...

Movement from the right.

Standing over her was Dr. Patrick Hauser. One of his hands had vanished in her hair. The other held a knife pressed to her smooth white throat.

Red handle. Swiss Army knife, one of the larger versions. For some reason, I found that ludicrously amateurish.

Hauser’s clothes clinched it. White golf shirt, baggy brown pants, brown wingtips.

Hard-toed wingtips, way too dressy for the outfit. White was the wrong color if you wanted to avoid those stubborn bloodstains.

Hauser’s shirt was sweat-splotched but free of red. Beginner’s luck. No sense rubbing it in. I smiled at him.

“Something funny?”

I had so many snappy comebacks. Forgot all of them. Gong. Gong.

Allison’s eyes shifted to the right. Past Hauser, toward her desk?

Nothing else there but a wall and a closet.

Closet blocked by the door when you opened it.

Deep blue irises moved again. Definitely the desk. The far end, where her purse sat.

Hauser said, “Sit up and get that pen.”

I was already sitting. Silly man.

I spread my arms to show him, hit an arm of the wooden desk chair.

Not sitting at all. Slumped, nearly prone, head tilted back, spine in an odd position.

Maybe that’s why everything hurt so bad.

I tried to straighten, nearly passed out.

“C’mon, up, up, up,” barked Hauser.

Every inch of movement heated the toaster coils that had replaced my spinal nerves. It took years to reach a sitting position and the ordeal robbed me of breath. Inhaling was hellish, breathing out, worse.

A few more centuries and my eyes got clearer. I gained a sense of context: Allison and Hauser fifteen feet away. My chair pushed up to Allison’s desk. The side where a new patient might sit, seeking consultation.

Therapy charts and Allison’s desktop doodads on the pale oak surface. She’d been doing paperwork when he’d—

Hauser said, “Get the pen and start writing.”

What pen? Ah, there it was, hiding among the noise and the color. Next to a clean, white sheet of paper.