Vodka Doesn't Freeze Read Free Page A

examiner wiped at his forehead with a lavender handkerchief. Scotty smirked at Jill while the man leaned on his assistant and emptied the sand from his shoes.
     
'Let's get everyone away from this area,' he snapped, motioning Jill and Scotty to follow him. 'This is a crime scene.'
     
No kidding, Jill sighed inwardly. She fell in behind the bristling doctor. They'd be in the sun for a while yet.
     
Mercy Merris didn't notice the driver of the courier van screaming 'Crazy bitch!' as he over-corrected and almost lost control when she sped past. Already two lanes away from him on the freeway heading southwest, her black curls streamed with her cigarette smoke out the window of her red Mercedes CLK. Belting out Aretha Franklin, she half-read one of the files propped open on her passenger seat; files she wasn't supposed to have removed from the psych hospital. She expertly flipped open her phone when it rang and overtook two cars in the left lane. Late again. They'd want to tell her her 11 a.m. appointment had arrived and her 10 a.m. patient was becoming impatient.
     
She recognised the voice of an ex-patient, Lisa, crying, halfway through a sentence that didn't make sense.
     
'. . . and I wasn't there for her and I said I would be . . .' The voice on the phone sounded fractured, slightly hysterical.
     
'Lisa. Calm down. What's wrong?' Mercy was surprised to hear her so distraught. Their therapy had been over for months now, and the last time they'd talked Lisa had been functional, rational. Mercy hadn't thought she would regret giving Lisa her private phone number.
     
'Calm down, Lisa,' she said again, suddenly tired. 'What's happening?' She glanced at the dash clock. Shit, she swore inwardly as she saw the time. She pressed the accelerator a little harder, then noticed a cop car ahead. Great, she thought, that's all I need, another speeding fine on the way to work. She jabbed the CD off and swerved her car into the break-down lane. She braked hard and the files from the passenger seat flew forward, merging into a mess on the floor.
     
Mercy heard Lisa's voice from the mobile still in her hand.
     
'It's Carly Kaplan,' Lisa sobbed. 'She killed herself last night. You weren't there for her either.'
     
Mercy felt, rather than heard, a high-pitched whine begin in her head. Guilty thoughts of her last session with Carly, one of her most troubled patients, stabbed at her consciousness.
     
Carly had threatened suicide in her last session, as she did almost every session, but Mercy had helped her consider other options, refusing to give in and admit her again to hospital – Carly seemed to deteriorate further when in hospital. She'd seemed calm when the session ended.
     
When Carly hadn't shown for her appointment yesterday, Mercy had been relieved rather than worried, kicking off her heels and reclining in her chair to read. She knew she should've called her, but she had been so tired, and she'd felt angry that Carly was manipulating her again by failing to show up. She'd told herself to discuss this resentment in her next supervision session, at the same time knowing she wouldn't – she'd already decided to skip supervision again.
     
And now Carly was dead. Mercy felt her racing thoughts slow, becoming syrupy and hard to grab hold of. Her patient had committed suicide and she had breached at least five hospital rules regarding her care. She hadn't written up her file notes in weeks, and she had the file off the hospital grounds; she hadn't brought Carly's case to the team supervision session for two months, and she hadn't mentioned to the team that Carly had threatened suicide again, even though the threat would be clearly recorded in the session audio tapes. The hospital would be looking everywhere for the file by now. There'd be a formal enquiry.
     
Mercy found she'd disconnected the phone with Lisa still speaking, but she hadn't registered any words since she'd heard that Carly had killed herself.
     
When she realised