Page 8 of Torn In Two

But one only I knew about.

The group didn’t have a fancy name like Alcoholics Anonymous, though it worked in much the same way. There were some differences, like meeting when a member called, not at a set time.

But if that phone rang, then we went. All of us.

Well, all but one.

I sighed, noting the empty chair Trigger’s absence left. I still set it out for him whenever the group descended upon my home, but it hadn’t been used in a long time.

“He’s not coming, Doc,” Whip commented idly, following my line of sight. “You know he’s not.”

I forced myself to nod. “I know. But there’s always a tiny part of me that hopes he will.”

Whip stirred sugar into his coffee. “You’re going to give yourself an ulcer worrying over him.”

He was right about that.

I glanced over at Torch, X, and Ace, the three of them chatting quietly amongst themselves while they waited for the toaster to pop and deliver their breakfast. These meetings always seemed to get called early in the mornings, and I understood why.

Nights were hard for men like them. The darkness outside whispered seductively in their ears, and it was when temptation was highest. The morning brought regrets.

So I always kept a loaf of bread in the freezer, just in case I suddenly needed to feed the four of them toast.

Five of them, if Trigger had come.

But there was no point waiting for him. Whip was right. He didn’t care if he was breaking the number one rule of the group. Which was if that phone rang, you answered it. You showed up for the others. Because then one day, when you needed them, they’d be there for you the same way you’d been there for them.

Trigger had pissed all over the one damn rule I’d set, and he didn’t give a fuck.

I lifted my arm to glance at my watch and then whistled at the trio still slapping peanut butter on their toast. “Let’s go, guys. I’ve got work this morning.”

To their credit, all three politely nodded and brought their plates to the circle I’d set up in my living room. All four of them looked expectantly at me.

I grinned. “Really? We’re going to start with me?”

X eyed me. “You could have called this meeting as much as any of us.”

The second rule of the group was when someone needed a meeting, we called for it on a private number. Nobody actually answered their phones. There was no need to, nobody but the six of us had those numbers. But a call on those specific phones meant at the top of the hour, we would meet to talk. And that meant all of us talked, not just whoever was in need the most.

In an attempt to gain their trust, I’d started participating in the group as much as running it.

There were things on my mind. Things that seeing another strangled woman on the table of a morgue had brought up. The marks around her neck had been the same as the ones around my wife’s neck years earlier.

Maybe it was a coincidence. Plenty of killers strangled their victims.

But I couldn’t rule out that the person who’d killed my wife and my sister-in-law might also have killed the woman lying dead on that table.

And that Kara could be next.

I wasn’t going to say that to these men though. Or the one so notably missing from the room.

So I shrugged and lied, “Nothing to report here. Just work. The gym. Hockey. All pretty boring.”

Ace tilted his head to one side, studying me. “You’re lying. Something is up with you.”

X nodded in agreement. “You’re being cagey as fuck.”

Unlike most of my patients, who were so self-involved I could have strapped on some fake boobs and sung Dolly Parton songs without them noticing, these guys understood people and human behavior in the same way I did.

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