Chapter 13: Delete It

Eli walked into St. Brendan's at twenty past seven on Monday morning with his head up and his hands shaking.

Gabe had wanted to walk in with him.

Eli had said no in the car, and then he had said it again at the curb, and Gabe had finally sat back and let him go.

"The chair wants me at eight," Gabe said through the window. "Be somewhere else by then."

"I will."

He had no intention of being anywhere else.

The residents' conference room was on the second floor, and its door stood open.

Eli stopped outside it, because the first thing he saw was himself.

The clip was frozen on the projector screen, twelve feet wide.

It showed a man on a table with one forearm over his eyes and a sheet pulled up in a gloved hand.

Someone had cropped it neatly.

Dr. Kessling stood beside it with a remote, in front of forty residents with coffee.

"This is what a boundary failure looks like," Kessling was saying. "I'm not here to shame anyone. I'm here to protect this program."

Eli walked in.

Nobody noticed him until he reached the front row, and then the whole room turned, one head after another.

"Mr. Winslow." Kessling's smile did not move. "This is a closed session."

"That's me on your screen."

"I understand this is difficult."

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