“Maybe we should start thinking about making our separation official,” Richard had said.

Val had hung up on him. If she couldn’t have a happy marriage, she’d have everything else. Everything. And so had begun her revolving door policy of hustling appointments, prescribing the appropriate meds, and shopping for clothes and antiques.

Hippocrates glowered at her from the desk.

“I didn’t intentionally do harm,” Val said. “Not intentionally, you old buggerer. Fifteen percent of all depressives commit suicide, treated or not.”

“Whatsoever in the course of practice I see or hear (or even outside my practice in social intercourse) that ought never to be published abroad, I will not divulge, but consider such things to be holy secrets.”

“Holy secrets or do no harm?” Val asked, envisioning the hanging body of Bess Leander with a shudder. “Which is it?” Hippocrates sat on his Post-its, saying nothing. Was Bess Leander’s death her fault? If she had talked to Bess instead of put her on antidepressants, would that have saved her? It was possible, and it was also possible that if she kept to her policy of a “pill for every problem,” someone else was going to die. She couldn’t risk it. If using talk therapy instead of drugs could save one life, it was worth a try.

Val grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial button that connected her to the town’s only pharmacy, Pine Cove Drug and Gift.

One of the clerks answered. Val asked to speak to Winston Krauss, the pharmacist. Winston was one of her patients. He was fifty-three, unmarried, and eighty pounds overweight. His holy secret, which he shared with Val during a session, was that he had an unnatural sexual fascination with marine mammals, dolphins in particular. He’d confessed that he’d never been able to watch “Flipper” without getting an erection and that he’d watched so many Jacques Cousteau specials that a French accent made him break into a sweat.