Trust

by Sherri Hayes

  Because our session had been cut short on Friday, Dr. Perkins had insisted I come see her on Monday. That was how I found myself standing outside her office with what felt like a swarm of bees buzzing around in my stomach.

  “It’ll be okay, Anna. I promise.”

  Jade’s reassurance did little to help the chaos in my stomach. If anything, it made it worse.

  Before Jade could attempt any more encouragement, Dr. Perkins’s door opened, drawing our attention. “Good morning, Anna.”

  I swallowed, trying to push down the fear.

  When I stepped forward, Jade touched my arm. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”

  I shook my head. No. If I was going to find out what Cal had told Dr. Perkins about Stephan, I had to do it on my own. Didn’t I?

  Dr. Perkins smiled as I walked past her into her office. I took a seat on the couch, the same as I’d done the last two times I’d been there.

  “How are you feeling this morning?”

  I looked up at her and then back down. “Fine.”

  She was quiet for too long, so I glanced up. The frown on her face told me she hadn’t liked my answer. I wasn’t sure what she wanted from me, though. I was fine—for me at least. There was nothing wrong with me physically, and although I was nervous about this meeting, I wasn’t in so much of a panic that I couldn’t think clearly.

  “How about the weekend—did you do anything fun?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Dr. Perkins set her notepad aside and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Anna, I feel like something happened last time that I’m not understanding. Can you explain it to me?”

  This was it. I needed to ask what Cal had told her about Stephan.

  I opened my mouth to ask, but no sound came out. My throat was dry, as if I hadn’t had anything to quench my thirst in days.

  “Take your time.”

  Closing my eyes, I fought back the tears that threatened to fall. I reached up and took hold of Stephan’s collar, trying to find the strength I needed. The sound of his voice filled my head as I replayed his letter in my mind. I’d read it so many times over the last five days that I had it memorized. The simple letter might not have meant much to someone else, but it did to me.

  After several minutes, I took a deep breath and opened my eyes to look at Dr. Perkins. She hadn’t moved. “What did . . .” The words sounded gravelly, so I cleared my throat. “What did Cal tell you?”

  She tilted her head to the side, and her brow furrowed in confusion. “What did Cal tell me about what?”

  Holding tighter to the collar around my neck, I felt it dig into my skin. “Stephan.”

  “The only thing I know about Stephan is what you’ve told me and your friend Cal’s reaction to him the first day you were here. Were you concerned he’d spoken to me independently about him?”

  I nodded.

  “And that upsets you.”

  I nodded again.

  “Anna, even if your friends had told me something about Stephan, it wouldn’t matter. This is about you, and whoever Stephan is, he’s obviously important to you.”

  We sat in silence for a long time. She appeared to be waiting for me to say something. I decided to take a chance. That was what I was here for after all. “He saved me.”

  Dr. Perkins sat back in her chair. “What do you mean when you say he saved you?”

  I didn’t answer right away. Even though she said everything we talked about would remain between us, I couldn’t risk putting Stephan in danger by admitting anything that could hurt him. “He took me into his home . . . after. He helped me.”

  “Ah. So you feel grateful to him. Protective of him since he helped you.”

  “Yes.” I wasn’t sure I should tell her that I loved him. That felt like a betrayal somehow.

  “That’s understandable. And your friend Cal doesn’t like him. That has to be difficult for you.”

  “Yes. I . . .” I took another breath in and let it out slowly. “I don’t like it when they fight.”

  She raised her eyebrows in question, and I realized she wanted me to elaborate.

  “They argue a lot.”

  “What do they argue about?”

  “Me.”

  “Ah. So you get put in the middle.”

  I nodded.

  “How does that make you feel, when they put you in the middle?”

  “Cal makes me angry.”

  Dr. Perkins wrote something down and then refocused on me. “Just Cal? Not Stephan?”

  I nodded.

  “Why is that?”

  “Cal always starts it. He doesn’t like Stephan—he never has.”

  “So the two have a history.”

  I nodded again.

  “Have you tried talking to Cal—telling him how you feel?”

  “I’ve told him . . . or I’ve tried to. He doesn’t listen. He’s . . . stubborn, I guess.”

  “Most men are. I think it’s something in their DNA.”

  She winked at me, and I smiled. Maybe going to see Dr. Perkins wasn’t so bad.

  The discussion about Stephan and Cal took up most of the time, but at the end, Dr. Perkins gave me a type of assignment to work on before we met again on Friday afternoon. “I want you to think about what you’d like to get out of therapy, Anna. What you would like to see happen. Not for your friends, but for you.”

  It was a good question. I mean I knew I wanted to get better for Stephan, but I didn’t think that was the answer she was looking for.

  Jade had a grim expression on her face when I reentered the waiting area. “What’s wrong?”

  She stood and took hold of my hand before leading me discreetly out of the office. Whatever was going on wasn’t good.

  My tension grew as Jade continued her silence until we were back inside her car. “Emma called while you were with Dr. Perkins. Agent Marco wants to talk to you, and apparently he’s not taking no for an answer this time.”

  I started to shake. Two months ago, I’d had the distinct displeasure of meeting Agent Marco. He wasn’t a large man, but he liked to invade people’s personal space. When we’d met last time, I thought Emma was going to throw something at him when he’d gotten too close to me and wouldn’t back away. She’d promised me after that meeting that she’d do everything she could to keep me away from him, so I knew it must be serious if I had to talk to him.

  “We’re meeting them in her office. Emma thought you’d be more comfortable there.”

  She was right about that. Agent Marco’s office had made me feel trapped.

  Jade placed her hand on my arm. “Emma and I will be right there with you. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Okay.”

  The frown on her face told me how unconvincing my response was. She squeezed my arm reassuringly before starting the vehicle. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I’d only been to Emma’s office twice before—usually she came to Cal’s house to see me. The building wasn’t anything spectacular. It was gray with lots of windows on the lower level. We rode the elevator to the second floor where her office was located. Jade didn’t say much, but I knew she was watching me closely. I was a mess on the inside, but at least I was trying to appear calm. Like she’d said earlier, I just wanted to get this over with.

  There was an older lady sitting behind a reception desk when we exited the elevator. “We’re here to see Emma Sanders,” Jade announced to the woman.

  “Your name, please?”

  “Anna Reeves.”

  “Yes, she’s expecting you. One moment, and I’ll let her know you’re here.”

  The woman made a quick phone call. About thirty seconds later, Emma came around the corner. “Hi, Anna. Jade. Thank you for coming. If you both would follow me, we have a few minutes before Agent Marco is due to arrive.”

  We followed her to her office. She motioned for us to go inside, and we all took seats around her desk.

  “
What’s up, Emma? Did something happen with Stephan or Anna’s father?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Agent Marco wasn’t all that forthcoming. He just insisted on speaking to Anna as soon as possible. It was either meet with him or he was going to use more ‘extreme measures.’ I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I’m confident that we don’t want to find out.” Emma turned her attention from Jade to me. “Are you going to be all right? After your last encounter with Agent Marco, you can’t be anxious to see him today.”

  Before I could answer, her phone rang, and I knew the time had come. Agent Marco was here.

  Sure enough, about a minute later, the man in question entered the room. Like before, it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the space, and it was difficult to get enough air in my lungs. This man made me nervous. The steely look in his blue eyes was hard, as if there were no emotion behind them.

  His posture was stiff as he strolled across the room before stopping several feet away from me. I felt myself react to his nearness and had to remind myself to breathe.

  He crossed his arms and leaned one hip against Emma’s desk. “I know you don’t like me, Miss Reeves, but avoiding me is not in your best interest.”

  Jade snorted. “After the last time, can you blame her? You weren’t exactly the epitome of warmth and helpfulness.”

  Agent Marco shifted his attention to her briefly and then back to me. “My apologies if I came across a little . . . aggressively. This is a serious matter I’m dealing with, and I need your help since you appear to be at the center of it.”

  “What exactly do you want from Miss Reeves, Agent Marco?” Emma asked.

  Instead of answering her, he looked at me when he spoke. “I have a proposition for you. Your father has given us a statement regarding his relationship with Jean Dumas, and his part in your apparent kidnapping. He knows as well as anyone how unfavorably a jury would look at a father who turned a blind eye knowing his daughter had been taken. I’m confident the information we garnered from him coupled with the bank records provided by Coleman and his lawyer will be sufficient to put both your father and Dumas away for the rest of their natural lives.”

  He paused before continuing. “Perhaps you should know that, given your father’s cooperation, his attorney has negotiated for him to be kept separate from the general prison population. Because of his law enforcement background, he wouldn’t last that long in gen pop. He should be going before a judge within the next few weeks, and after that, he’ll be transferred to one of the state prisons to serve out his sentence.”

  I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this, and apparently neither did Emma. “Is there a point to all this, Agent?”

  Agent Marco shrugged. “I just figured Miss Reeves would like to know her father’s fate.”

  “Well, now she does. Can we move on, please?”

  One side of Agent Marco’s mouth lifted slightly at Emma’s admonishment before he resumed his speech. “My case against Ian Pierce isn’t as solid as I would like it to be, which is where you come in. Although I’m confident I can nail him on several counts of theft and money laundering, a good team of lawyers, which he has, will probably be able to talk down the charges so that with good behavior he won’t spend more than a decade or two behind bars. I, for one, don’t want to see that happen. I’m assuming you don’t either.”

  “What about the other women?” Jade questioned.

  Again his gaze shifted to Jade and then back to me. “There isn’t enough evidence to get him for the murders. According to him, the other two women stayed with him for a few months and then left on their own. He claims never to have seen either of them after that. While I don’t believe one word of it, I can’t prove otherwise, and his girlfriend, Alex, is backing up his story.”

  Of course Alex was backing up his story. He was her Master. She would never contradict him.

  “That, once again, brings us back to you. I know you didn’t escape, Miss Reeves. I think I’m pretty good at my job, and I know when things add up and when they don’t, even if I can’t prove it.”

  I didn’t say anything. How was I supposed to respond to that?

  “So let me tell you what I do know. Your father owed Dumas a large sum of money. Dumas owed Pierce, so Dumas sold you to Pierce to pay off a debt—kill two birds with one stone. Then about ten months later, Stephan Coleman comes into the picture. I haven’t quite figured out the how or why of it, but he bought you from Pierce. For three months after that, you lived with him. Then, suddenly, the day your father shows up trying to snatch you from Coleman’s building, you move out—disappear—except you now have a lawyer to represent you. A lawyer who seems to be close friends with Coleman’s attorney.”

  The air was thick—the only sound was our breathing. Agent Marco stared at me but remained where he was.

  Eventually, Emma broke the silence. “That’s a riveting story, Agent, but I still don’t see the point.”

  He never once took his eyes off me. “I’ll tell you what I want. I want to see that arrogant bastard pay for what he did to those two women and what I know he would have done to you as well, if given the chance. What I want is for you to help me put him away and keep him there.”

  Agent Marco didn’t give any of us time to answer before he pushed off the desk and stood to his full height. “For whatever reason, you’re protecting Coleman. I don’t like it, but in order to get what I want, which is Pierce, I’m willing to make you a deal. You help me put Pierce away, and I’ll stop pursuing Coleman. At best, he’s small potatoes in all of this anyway. Although his arrest would make for a good headline, I want Pierce more.”

  For the first time since entering Emma’s office, he turned to face her. “Think about it. Talk it over. Keep in mind that if I find something solid on Coleman between now and the time you make your decision, I’ll run with it. The man’s hiding something. I just haven’t found out what it is yet.” With that parting comment, he marched out the door and disappeared.

  Emma held up her hand to hush Jade when she opened her mouth to comment. Going to the door, Emma checked to make sure Agent Marco was nowhere in sight and then locked it.

  She returned to her desk, folding her hands in front of her. “I’d want everything in writing, but it’s a good offer, Anna. Stephan would be protected, and Ian Pierce would get what he deserves.”

  The first thing to cross my mind was that I wanted to talk to Stephan, but I knew that was impossible. It was too risky. I had to make this decision on my own. No one could make it for me.

  “What would it mean for Anna, though? I mean, would she have to testify?”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but it was a good question. Jade had been a good friend to me. I didn’t know how I’d ever repay her.

  “It’s possible,” Emma said, “although we could include that in the conditions of the agreement—specify that only as a last resort would you be required to testify, Anna. I’d like to hope that once Pierce’s lawyer sees your statement, he won’t want to pursue the charges in court. I don’t think a jury would react well to your story. They’d want to burn him at the stake. Any lawyer worth his salt in this town would know that. “

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  The two women looked at me with concern. “Are you sure?”

  I took a deep breath, reached up to touch the one part of Stephan I had with me, and gave her my answer. “As long as you can protect Stephan, then I want to do it.”

  “Anna . . .”

  Turning to the side, I met Jade’s worried gaze. “Even if it means I have to testify in front of all those people.”

  Jade’s shoulders lowered, defeated.

  “Very well, then. I’ll get something on paper and have one of our criminal attorneys look over it. Once I have everything put together, I’ll give you a call.”

  Walking out of Emma’s office, I felt a pressure I hadn’t realized was there lift from my shoulders. Stephan was going to be okay. I was going to make sure of it. />
  Chapter 11

  Stephan

  It was hard to believe a week had gone by since my last meeting with Ross. Our lunch this week wasn’t as tense as the last one. He gave me a rather brief update on Brianna, which included him insisting that reading my letter had upset her, the opposite of what he’d expected. Ross did comment, however, that whatever I’d said had made a difference in her eating habits. I’d known he hadn’t been completely truthful when I’d inquired about how she was eating. Brianna internalized when she was upset. I knew that would more than likely spill over into her not eating as she should.

  Once he shared all the information he was willing to regarding Brianna, we moved on to the less emotionally charged topic of the fall gala. It was just over three weeks away, and given his company donated a significant amount of money to the foundation, someone from his family typically attended. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work this year with Brianna living under his roof. Would he bring his girlfriend and leave Brianna by herself, or would he choose to come alone? I hadn’t seen his RSVP, but I would guess he’d marked it as plus one. That would make sense given he and Jade had been dating for over a year.

  I tried to pay attention to the conversation as much as possible, but my mind kept slipping back to Brianna. What was she doing while we were sitting here eating lunch, trying to act as if we were friends instead of two people who merely tolerated each other? She’d been upset with my letter, although I had no idea why. I couldn’t think of anything I’d written that would have garnered such a response.

  The walk back to my office was relatively uneventful. There’d been breaking news of some sort of political scandal this morning. Most of the reporters had left their post for something juicier than the mundane activities outside an office building. The few remaining reporters kept a respectable distance.

  Jamie glanced up as we stepped off the elevator. She’d been less hostile this week. I had a feeling Lily had said something. My assistant even managed a small smile as we passed by her desk.