One With You Chapter 15 Part 1:
My portion of the chapter is essentially the scene at the end of Psycho where they break down the psychology of Norman Bates. At least in Psycho, you were familiar with Norman for the whole film. Whereas, who the fuck is this ‘Hall’ guy?
“My dad shoved the photos away. “Was Hall targeting my daughter or Cross?”
“Hall believes Cross betrayed him,” Graves answered, “by getting married.”
I stared at her. She wore no jewelry or makeup, yet she was fiercely compelling. Pummeled by the realities of her job, she still had a passion for justice—even if it came outside the law. “If he couldn’t have Gideon, no one could?”
Does anyone else feel like that aside about Grave’s came at a really weird time? The woman is revealing this batshit stuff and you’re thinking about her lack of jewelry and makeup and her passion for justice? What the fuck?
“Not quite.” She looked at Gideon. “Hall believes he has an ‘entwined destiny’ with you—some kind of cosmic pact—and that your marriage breaks this pact between you. Killing you is the only way to prevent his life from going in a direction he doesn’t want to go.”
“Is that supposed to make sense?” Cary asked, setting his elbows on the table and gripping his head in both hands.”
Thank you, Cary. You have proven yourself to be the MVP of this book by your unwillingness to pretend you understand anything that is happening in this story. It’s a brave choice.
“Hall’s fixation isn’t sexual,” Michna elaborated, looking rumpled and tired from pulling an all-nighter. Still, he was keenly and disconcertingly observant. His partner zeroed in; he assessed the periphery. “It’s not even romantic. He claims he’s heterosexual.”
Useful (?) information, but this did not unlock the mysteries of the situation for Cary or myself, I’m sure.
The detectives pull out another photo that surely will unravel this tangled web of mysteries. And at least one character is contractually obligated to ask who she is, and this time it’s sadly not Cary:
“Who is that?” my dad asked, his voice firm and flat.
“Dr. Anne Leslie Lucas,” Graves replied. “She’s the psychiatrist who was treating Hall, although she met with him at a second office away from her primary practice, using the alias Dr. Aris Matevosian.”
Ooookay.
“Will someone explain who Dr. Lucas is,” my father demanded, “and her relevance to Hall and Monica?”
And the rest of the story too, please!
“Gideon returned and held out his phone, showing a picture he’d taken.
Michna examined the image. “A prescription for Corinne Giroux written by Dr. Aris Matevosian. Why do you have this?”
“There was a time, a couple months ago,” Gideon said tonelessly, resuming his seat beside me, “when Corinne became erratic. I discovered she’d been seeing a therapist who prescribed antidepressants, which were causing her mood swings. I took a picture of the label so I’d know who to contact if she continued having problems.”
This mystery is really easy to solve, surely there must be something left to unravel…although we are getting to the end of the story…
“His chest rumbled beneath my ear as he spoke. “So Anne was Hall’s therapist,” he said, his voice rough with fatigue. “Why the alias?”
“She thought she was smart,” Grave said bluntly. “We’re smarter. And we have Hall, who is very disturbed but also very cooperative. He confessed the minute we sat down with him. He was also clever—or paranoid—enough to secretly record all of his sessions with Dr. Lucas, which we recovered during a search of his vehicle.”
“We’re smarter” is a bit of a leap given the man immediately confessed. Luckier, perhaps, but smarter? Not so much.
“I don’t think Hall was ever playing with a full deck,” Michna said, “but he used to have a job, a place to live, and no particular interest in Cross. Anne Lucas did a number on him.”
Graves started gathering up the photos with the help of her partner. “He mentioned to her that he dropped out of school after the Cross Ponzi scheme wiped out his grandparents. It wasn’t something he held a grudge over, but she got him thinking that his life and Cross’s are paralleled in some way.”
“Can she go to jail for that?” I hung on tighter to Gideon. “What she did—that’s part of the reason my mom’s … gone. She can’t just get away with that, right?”
I really want to know how those conversations went where she “got him thinking that his life and Cross’s are paralleled in some way”. What does that even mean? It would make more sense if she got him to try to take revenge on Gideon for what his father did, but to have him think they were connected is such a convoluted way to tie this all together.
I know, I know the whole series is half-assed, but THIS IS SO HALF-ASSED. I want to believe Day had no idea how to end this and haphazardly threw this ending together, but I’m scared that this was actually what Day had planned all along (or at least for a couple books). Take a moment to consider that this scene, which essentially reads the way I make dinner when I’ve almost run out of groceries, was actually determined before she started writing this book. It’s hard to live in this world with this hanging over my head.
Anne is going to be thoroughly questioned, and I’m pretty sure this is almost the last we hear about her aside from a throwaway line letting us know what happened (if my memory serves, but Matthew will have to confirm or deny this tomorrow.)
The detectives leave, and Eva’s dad tells Gideon they need to talk. But first, Gideon makes everything about himself:
“Do you see me?” he asked hoarsely. “Are you looking at me and seeing me?”
My frown deepened. I looked him over from head to toe. Oh. He’d dressed for me. Thinking of me. “Yes.”
He reached out and touched my face. His tormented gaze held mine. “I feel like I’m invisible to you.”
DUDE, HER MOM JUST DIED AND ALSO YOU INITIALLY LIED TO HER ABOUT IT, FUCK OFF!
Gideon freaks out and demands that Eva yell at him because this is all his fault, he lied about her mom being dead, and he’s the worst. Not entirely untrue, but Eva is like, “Nah.” I’m relieved because I think we might actually never ever have to read another Gideva fight ever again even though this would have been a pretty reasonable fight to have.
They kiss passionately because this is the final Crossfire book, damn it.
Afterwards, Eva’s dad tries to talk to Gideon alone, but Eva demands she be there too. They work out some logistics about family coming to be there for Eva, and then her dad reveals he wants to move to New York. This works out perfectly because Gideon wants to hire him to be head of security for Eva! Eva is super uncomfortable about this, but both men basically tell her to suck it up.
“Another thing to think about,” Gideon began, “is the reality of your daughter being my wife. Certainly we would be mindful of your personal role in Eva’s life and be respectful of that. But respecting your place as her father means we won’t be brazen. It doesn’t mean we won’t be intimate.”
Oh my God. My shoulders hunched with embarrassment. I glared at Gideon. So did my dad.
This really is weird and uncomfortable, I feel for Eva. Maybe they could just not be ‘intimate’ while Eva’s dad is driving them somewhere? Just a suggestion.
Later, lots of people get in touch with Eva to offer their condolences. One of these folks is Trey, and Eva basically talks him into giving Cary another chance, I think?
“It was worth it, Trey,” I said softly. “It’s not wishful thinking anymore. We’ll still hit bumps, people will throw us some curve balls, but when we say we’re going to get through anything, it’s nothing but the truth.”
“You’re telling me to give Cary another chance.”
I reached out to Gideon, felt a soft stirring in my chest as he came to me. “I’m saying I think you’ll like the changes he’s made. And if you meet him halfway, you might find it’s worth the trip.”
Trey doesn’t give an answer either way, but I think we’re supposed to assume Eva’s ~inspirational~ speech was just the push he needed.
After a dramatic day, Eva and Gideon settle down to sleep, and Eva has a dream…
THAT MATT WILL DESCRIBE TOMORROW. BAI!!!