He lifted his gaze, and his eyes met hers. “From Facebook. You wrote a post about it on the fifth anniversary of it happening. It was really sad to read.”
Lynn put the pen down. A strange sensation rushed through her body, which she pushed away as fast as possible.
“You’ve been checking my Facebook account?”
He blushed. “No, no…I mean, yes…I did…but just once.”
“That is not a very good idea, Jeffrey,” she said. “And I think you know it. You and I have a different kind of relationship. We’re not friends. I am your therapist.”
He looked sheepishly at her. “O-of course. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just…I was curious. I won’t do it again. I promise.”
His gaze made her smile. She couldn’t help herself; she felt flattered. He wasn’t the first patient to have checked her social media profiles or Google her name. One had even run a background check on her, getting her address and phone number. It wasn’t unusual to be curious like Jeffrey said. Most patients were. But she knew it was essential to stop that sort of behavior right away. Patients were supposed to become attached to their therapists, but there had to be clear boundaries from the beginning. Once one of them overstepped those boundaries, the relationship would shift, and it would become something other than a patient-therapist relationship.
And that was where the danger lay.
Chapter 10
Matt stood with his arms crossed while I finished my breakfast. Angel was napping in her crib upstairs, and I was hurrying to be done with my food so I could get dressed. All the kids had left for school—except Amy and Owen, of course—and the house had finally gone calm.
“You actually told him you’d help him?” he asked, giving me one of his angry and disapproving looks. “You want to help that prick?”
I looked up at him. “That’s not very nice.”
“But that’s what he was back then. We hated him, remember?”
“That was twenty years ago, Matt. He is in trouble now. Something happened to his girlfriend. I can’t just not help him because we didn’t like him back in high school.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “I just don’t get it. What is it with you two, anyway? I didn’t even know you knew one another. You barely spoke back then.”
I sipped my coffee and closed my eyes briefly. I really didn’t want to get into it now. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to. It had stirred up some strong emotions from back then that I didn’t really want to resurface. But I just couldn’t get that sentence out of my mind again. His girlfriend had known something might happen to her. She had warned him.
“We don’t know one another very well,” I said. “I just want to help him, okay? It’s not so much for his sake as it is for his girlfriend’s. If she told him that he should look for her if she ever disappeared, then she must have feared that something would happen to her. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“And what about Angel?” he asked. “Who’s gonna take care of her? I have to go to work.”
“I’ll bring her with me,” I said with a shrug. “As soon as she wakes up and I’ve changed her and fed her, I’ll go.”
He tilted his head. “And you’re sure that’s a good idea?”
I scoffed. “It’s not like I’m going somewhere dangerous. I’m just going to talk to the detective on the case. He’s an old colleague of mine, and he owes me a favor.”
Matt smiled and shook his head. “You’re incredible; do you know that?”
“I hope that is meant as a compliment,” I said and sipped more coffee. I was going to need it to stay focused today. Angel had kept me awake from two until four o’clock, refusing to fall asleep. I had ended up sleeping with her while sitting in my chair, the baby lying on my chest. That was how we woke up this morning.
Matt grabbed a bowl and poured in some cereal, then started to eat. “I don’t understand why you can’t stay home and enjoy this time with Angel?”
I sighed. “Just let me have this, okay? I’m going a little stir-crazy home alone all day. Helping Scott and maybe Sarah out will give me something to do. A purpose.”
“And taking care of our baby isn’t purpose enough?” he asked, crunching his cereal loudly.
I finished my cup and put it down. “Let it go, will you?”
I rose to my feet, then leaned over and kissed his milky lips before Angel’s crying stopped us.
“I just wish you’d tell me why you two seem to know each other so well,” he said as I ran up the stairs to attend to her. “You’re being weird about it.”
I stopped briefly at the top of the stairs, biting my lip, thinking back on Scott and what had happened back then, then sighed. Angel’s insistent cries pulled me back to reality, and I rushed into her nursery and smiled as I saw her beautiful face staring back at me from inside the crib. It was amazing how one small smile from such a little creature could make all my problems and bad thoughts disappear in a heartbeat. I grabbed her in my arms, then heard the front door slam shut as Matt left for work.
Chapter 11
“Eva Rae Thomas!”
I opened the door to Detective Jake Perez’s office at Rockledge Police Department. He was part of the Criminal Investigations Division, and he was the lead investigator on the case of the missing Sarah Abbey. I had worked another case with him ten years ago, back when he was in Tallahassee, and I had saved his life in a shootout with a serial killer who strangled his victims as part of a sexual ritual.
Jake looked at Angel, who was strapped to my chest in her sling.
“Cute kid. I can’t believe you’re still having more?”
I sat down in a chair across from him, ignoring his comment that obviously revealed that he thought I was a little old for having a baby.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “You said on the phone that it was about the Sarah Abbey case? What’s your interest in that?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, looking down briefly at the baby as she started to complain. I found the pacifier and tried to get her to take it, but she hadn’t really accepted it yet and spat it out as soon as I tried.
“I have a lot of time,” Jake said.
“I just want to ask you for some details, if I may,” I said.
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I’m not really allowed to since you’re technically not working. You quit, right?”
“Yeah, well, that didn’t really work. Work has sort of kept following me since I stopped. But technically, no, I’m not FBI anymore.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, then shook his head. “I don’t think I can help you, Eva Rae; I’m sorry.”
Angel fussed, and I tried the pacifier once more. It stuck for about a second before she spat it right out again. I couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t take it. All my other children had loved their pacifiers from the first moment I introduced them.
“Come on, Jake. I just need to take a look.”
He gave me a glare across the room, then tilted his head while rubbing his stubble. “Oh, I have a feeling I’m going to regret this big time.”