Kill Switch Read Free Page A

trauma hadn’t taken a toll on Quimby’s boyish good looks. He was thin but not gaunt; he had some muscle on him. His short auburn hair crowned a freckled face with striking green eyes.
    â€œYou the shrink?” he asked halfheartedly.
    His eyes locked on hers. Claire remembered the first lesson she learned in her psych residency: The patient who looks down or away doesn’t give a shit. The ones who look you in the eye want help. It’s like a first date, each person sizing up the other. Claire watched Quimby’s eyes dart about, down to her hands, then back to her eyes. He’s checking out my body language, looking for weakness, an advantage, Claire realized. She wasn’t about to let him read between her lines.
    â€œI’m Dr. Waters,” she said, trying to convey both authority and compassion. She wasn’t sure she pulled either of them off convincingly. “I’ll be your therapist while you’re on parole.”
    â€œNobody said nothin’ to me about parole.”
    Claire tapped the folder in her hand. “It says in here you’re eligible now. That’s why I was brought in.” She sat down in the metal chair facing Quimby. The fluorescent lights above reflected off the shiny table, giving Quimby’s face a ghostly glow.
    â€œI don’t need another therapist.”
    â€œYou do if you want to get out of here.”
    â€œTalking to you ain’t going to make me any more ready than I am right now.”
    â€œMaybe. But after we talk, I’m going to write a report we call an exit assessment. The parole board will use that to decide whether you’re ready.”
    â€œAnd if you say I’m not, so what? I can do two more months in my sleep.”
    Now Claire stared into his eyes. And she saw his bravado was covering up fear. Use it , she told herself.
    â€œOnce you’re out, you want to stay out, right?”
    â€œWho wouldn’t?”
    â€œYou tell me. How many times have you been in here?”
    â€œFour.”
    â€œYou want to come back again?”
    â€œMy last shrink tried that tough-love bullshit on me. Didn’t help.”
    But she got a response; he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Slowly, Claire cautioned herself. Seduce him .
    â€œWork with me, Todd. You’ve got nothing to lose and two extra months of freedom to gain.”
    â€œIf you like what I tell you.”
    Claire leaned forward and stared right at him before she spoke. “Try me,” she said invitingly.
    The hint of a wry smile appeared on Quimby’s face. Women didn’t usually talk to him this way.
    â€œWhere do we start?” Quimby asked.
    Â 
    â€œGet right to it,” said Curtin. He sat in another room several yards away, watching Claire’s exchange with Quimby on three monitors. Hidden cameras were trained on each of their faces; a third camera concealed in a corner of the ceiling captured the scene from above.
    â€œShe’s easing him in, Paul,” came a female voice from behind Curtin. “She’s doing fine.”
    The voice belonged to Dr. Lois Fairborn, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Manhattan City University’s School of Medicine. She was Curtin’s boss, and perhaps the only person who had any sway over him. In her fifties and trying to look younger, she favored Calvin Klein suits and dark red on her lips and fingernails, maybe a shade too dark, prompting Curtin to call her “the Vampire” behind her back. Though she ran her program with iron fists, Fairborn knew full well that Curtin’s fellowship was the butter on her bread. So she gave him a wide berth but made it her business to observe every new student.
    â€œShe’s courting him. She’ll lose him if she doesn’t find a way in,” Curtin said to Fairborn.
    They heard Claire’s voice over the monitor: “You suffered quite a trauma as a child.”
    Fairborn looked over at Curtin, who was