Chapter 43

Quinn was grateful that the receptionist in the otherwise empty office was more interested in copying his insurance card and filling out forms than in actually looking at him with his knit cap, hoodie, dark glasses, and fingerless gloves.

Once inside Dr. Matthew’s office, however, the gloves came off—as did his clothes and any pretenses. Dr. Matthew gently examined his hands, the bruise at his temple, the welts on his back, the burns on the back of his neck.

“Why? Why do you let him do this to you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Quinn cried. “I tried. I looked for the card you gave me. I did. But I couldn’t find it.”

His brain, freed from the confines of plastic, was on a tear now, charging down the field of the imagination.

“So I Googled this place in Manhattan, only the woman behind the desk looked at me with such hatred, as if I were the enemy, which I guess as a man I am.”