Not a Word

by Stephanie Black

  “About her stalker worries?” Skyler asked. “Yep. Hope you aren’t mad at me.”

  “Listen hard, lady,” Kirk said sternly. “You have good judgment. If you didn’t take her seriously, it’s because her concerns didn’t warrant it.”

  “She’s dead,” Natalie said shortly. “Her concerns were serious.”

  Kirk shook his head. “Her death might have had nothing to do with a so-called stalker.”

  “That makes for a big coincidence,” Natalie said. “She was scared, and now she’s dead, but those facts aren’t related?”

  “Maybe not,” Kirk said. “Coincidence is more credible than the theory that over a few days, somebody escalated from rearranging pumpkins to strangling her.”

  “I tried to tell Natalie that,” Skyler said. “This could be a random crime or connected to some issue that had nothing to do with Camille’s notion that Jack the Ripper was peeping at her in the deli department. Rotten stuff happens. You can’t blame yourself.”

  Natalie wanted to absorb their words and feel better, but she couldn’t yet.

  “If she’d told me the things she told you, I would have thought it was melodrama and nonsense,” Kirk said. “Maybe there was a stalker, but given the evidence, I would have recommended therapy, not police involvement.” He scratched his jaw through his trim beard. “Poor Camille. Deborah and I took the kids for a walk at Lake Ohneka yesterday, and I kept thinking of you talking about how you and Camille liked to go stargazing there. At Beau Lac pier, right?”

  Natalie nodded.

  “That’s where we were. Nice area. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. I need to get ready for my client.” Blinking, Natalie hurried toward her office. Just thinking about stargazing with Camille made her eyes fill up. If she tried to tell Kirk she and Camille had been at Beau Lac a few days ago, she’d crumble.

  “Any time you want to talk, I’m ready to listen,” Kirk called after her.

  “For his usual rate of a hundred fifty bucks an hour,” Skyler added, and Natalie smiled over her shoulder at her colleagues, glad for a glimmer of humor.

  She entered her office, closed the door, and settled into her favorite chair. Instead of reviewing her client notes, she lifted her hand to her head and gingerly traced the bruise hidden by her hair. The swelling had started to recede, but a significant bump remained where Felicia had struck her.

  She’d tried to contact Gideon about the incident, but he hadn’t answered his phone or returned her voice mail or texts. If he was ignoring “Please call me as soon as possible” and “Felicia’s behavior was frightening and erratic” and “Your stepmother needs help,” he too must have decided Natalie was some type of traitorous conspirator. She could call Felicia and ask for an explanation, but if Felicia were rational enough to explain, she would have already called Natalie to apologize.

  Natalie hadn’t done enough to help Camille, and Camille was dead. She’d tried to help Felicia, and Felicia was falling apart. Here she sat in her office with her comfortable furniture and serene landscapes and soothing gray-blue paint, waiting for people to write her checks in exchange for her guidance.

  She pressed a fingertip harder against the bruise. Pain twined around her scalp and neck.

  “. . . right now! This can’t wait!”

  “Please calm down. You need to—”

  “I need to talk to her. Now!”

  Natalie opened her eyes and tuned in to the muted sounds of an argument.

  “. . . can’t wait for my appointment, and I think my husband canceled it anyway. She’s here, isn’t she? This is important!”

  Lacey Egan. Natalie opened her office door so she could hear more clearly.

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” Jeanne suggested. “I’ll bring you a cup of tea. You can relax a moment while I check Dr. Marsh’s schedule and we figure out a good time for you to see her.”

  “I can’t wait! What if he checks on me? He told me not to leave the house. I need to—”

  “Can I help?” Skyler’s voice.

  “Thank you,” Jeanne said. “Could you escort Mrs. Egan to a seat while I—”

  “This can’t wait!” Lacey shrieked.

  “Ma’am, we can’t have this disruption,” Jeanne said. “Other clients will be arriving soon. If you can’t calm down, I’ll need to call the police.”

  “No. Please—”

  “No worries; we don’t want the cops,” Skyler said. “They’ll eat the best donuts. Come sit down.”

  Natalie hurried toward the door that led to the waiting room. Standing behind the reception desk, Jeanne spotted her approaching and whispered, “Do you want me to call for backup?”

  “No. I’ll talk to her and see if I can settle her down.”

  “Do you want me to contact your first appointment to see if we can reschedule? You have an opening this afternoon with that cancellation.”

  Natalie zipped through an instantaneous mental evaluation. The first client on her schedule could roll with a delay; it wouldn’t be a problem. “Yes, do that.”

  She opened the door to the waiting room. Skyler was artfully backing Lacey away from the reception window. “Let me get you something to drink. Coffee? Tea? Water? Mountain Dew from my secret cache?”

  Lacey and Skyler both saw Natalie. Skyler stepped between them, ready to intercept Lacey if she lunged.

  “Hello, Lacey,” Natalie said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry.” Lacey tried to step around Skyler. He moved sideways with her. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the right way to do things; I’m not supposed to come in like this, but I don’t know who else . . . No one else can help me.” She wiped her face with the sleeve of her blouse. Though it was a cool, rainy morning, she wasn’t wearing a jacket. “Please don’t call the police.”

  “I won’t,” Natalie said, “if you demonstrate that you can control yourself. Lacey, this is Skyler Hudson, our biofeedback therapist. I don’t think you’ve met him.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Skyler held out his hand. Fingers quivering, Lacey shook it. “Would you like coffee?” Skyler asked. “And we really do have donuts. I brought some this morning. May I get you one? We have Boston creams.”

  “Oh . . . um, that’s nice of you, but no, thank you.” Lacey’s cornered-animal mien was softening. “I don’t want anything.”

  “Come in.” Natalie gestured Skyler and Lacey through the doorway. When they stopped at Natalie’s office, Skyler grinned at Lacey. “Holler if you change your mind about the donuts.”

  “Okay.”

  Skyler strolled away. Lacey entered the office, and Natalie closed the door. “Have a seat.”

  Lacey collapsed into a chair. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry I yelled at your receptionist. I know I’m acting horrible. I can’t stop thinking about this, and you were the only one . . . There’s nobody else I can tell.”

  Natalie felt weary and sluggish as she sat down, her professional instincts distorted by pain. Was Camille’s death part of the reason Lacey was so agitated today? It still surprised Natalie that Lacey had been close enough to Camille that Jonas had searched for her at Camille’s house.

  Could she continue as Lacey’s therapist while both of them mourned the same friend? That didn’t seem like a good idea, but on the other hand, could she, right now, inform Lacey that she had a conflict of interest and Lacey needed to see a different therapist? Natalie imagined herself handing Lacey a referral and telling her to pack up her tumult of emotions and haul them to a stranger. She’d been terrified to begin therapy in the first place.

  The best course was to find out what was going on with Lacey this morning so Natalie could make a decision that was wise, ethical, and compassionate. “Tell me why you’re here. What upset you?”

  Lacey wiped her eyes. Her hair was clean and brushed, and she wore nice jeans, a ruffled pink blouse, and a gold heart locket. In contrast to her neat clothes, her face was a mess of makeup and tear blotches.

  “Um
. . .” Lacey poked at the sleeve of her blouse where she’d smeared mascara on the fabric. “I’m afraid I’m . . . I’m . . . crazy for real.”

  “Why do you think you’re crazy?”

  “Is it possible to . . . to . . . do something horrible and not remember it?”

  “Do you think you did something horrible?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think I . . . but . . . I know I did some bad stuff, so maybe . . .” Her lips pinched closed, popped open, pinched closed as though she couldn’t decide whether or not to let the rest of the words emerge.

  “Would you like to tell me what ‘bad stuff’ you did?” Natalie asked.

  “It’s . . . weird,” Lacey mumbled.

  “I’m here to listen to you, not judge you.”

  “I guess I don’t know how to say it.” She picked at a ruffle on her blouse.

  “Say it in any way you’d like. You’re sharing something in a safe setting. You don’t have to give a speech.”

  “True . . . well, there was this person I met a few years ago. I’d pretty much forgotten about them, but then I met them again recently and was . . . really impressed with them. Fascinated by them, I guess.”

  An affair. Jonas must have suspected it; that was why he’d wigged out when Lacey had disappeared. If he’d found proof and confronted Lacey this morning, no wonder she was hysterical.

  “Did you act on those feelings?” Natalie asked.

  “Well . . . yes. I thought it was harmless, that it would help me, but . . .” She trailed off again. This time, Natalie didn’t nudge her. After a few seconds of silence, Lacey said, “I think it did help me in some ways, but I had trouble keeping it under control, I guess. I got . . . I got obsessed.”

  “How did this person respond to your interest?”

  “Oh, they didn’t know.”

  “You never shared your feelings with them?”

  “I couldn’t. They’d think I was crazy. I didn’t want them to find out. I don’t think they ever did find out. I thought I could . . . you know . . . keep my distance but watch. Learn.”

  This wasn’t going the direction Natalie had expected. “What did you want to learn from them?”

  “Everything. I . . . well, like I said, I admired this person—this woman—too much. Not romantic-like. Like an idol, I guess. I’d watch her for anything that might help me.”

  “Help you in what way?”

  “To . . . be stronger. Things she did or said or expressions on her face or what she was wearing or how she walked. Then I . . . I . . . well, I’d practice. When Jonas was gone, I’d see if I could do the things I’d watched her doing, like if I could sound like her, not like me.”

  “How did you feel when you imitated her?”

  “Oh, that depends on how good of a job I did. If it was pathetic, I felt silly. But if I nailed something, I felt strong like her.”

  “You said this was something bad. Why do you feel it’s bad to admire someone and privately imitate her?”

  “I guess I . . . pushed it too far.” Lacey squirmed in her seat, facing one way, facing the other.

  “How did you push it too far?”

  Lacey froze, gaze anchored on Natalie, then started fidgeting again, looking around the office. Fear had engulfed the determination she’d shown in the waiting room.

  Natalie spoke gently. “Are you afraid of what I’ll think of you if you tell me?”

  “This was dumb,” Lacey whispered. “Jonas told me not to talk to you.”

  “That’s not his decision to make. You wanted to talk to me. You demanded to talk to me so insistently that you alarmed Jeanne and Skyler.”

  “I’m really sorry. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Have you changed your mind? Do you want to keep silent and take all your fears home with you?”

  Lacey moaned. “I’m crazy for real. I’ll get locked up.”

  “You’re not crazy. Let yourself say what you came to say. How do you feel you pushed things too far with this woman?”

  Lacey strained forward and leaned back as though she wanted to stand but was bound to the chair. “Like . . . I followed her. Spied on her.”

  “All right. What else?”

  “I even . . . well, a few times . . . went to her house. Outside it, I mean, like hiding behind the bushes. That’s horrible, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not judging you. What else?”

  Lacey stopped shifting position and sat with hunched shoulders. “I started . . . I know this wasn’t nice, but I started scaring her.”

  Natalie’s thoughts jounced and high-centered on an obstacle she should have seen long before she hit it. “Scaring her?” she asked, tone matter-of-fact and mind frantic to find out her assumption was wrong. “In what way?”

  “Little things, like tapping on her window and running away. Silly stuff. I admired her so much—I shouldn’t have liked spooking her, but . . . I mean, here was this amazing woman who didn’t let anyone push her around, but I could shake her up by tapping on her window!”

  Lacey hadn’t been Camille’s friend. Lacey had been Camille’s stalker. That was why Camille had never mentioned Lacey except in the context of the purse—she hadn’t known Lacey that well. Natalie had dismissed Camille as overimaginative and overstressed even as her own client had been rapping an SOS on Camille’s window.

  Natalie used every speck of her training to keep her panicky, guilt-wracked thoughts veiled. Lacey had opened herself in a way that left her excruciatingly vulnerable. If Natalie handled this poorly, the damage to Lacey would be brutal.

  Lacey’s panic and desperation when she’d stormed the reception desk. Her question to Natalie: “Is it possible to do something horrible and not remember it?”

  Like commit murder?

  You need to end this session now. Tell her you can’t continue as her therapist. This is an ethical nightmare. Don’t ask more questions. End it.

  Lacey shriveled in Natalie’s silence. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  Don’t ask her. Don’t ask her. The words boomed in Natalie’s head, but her mouth opened anyway: “Lacey . . . you . . . asked if you could do something horrible and not remember it. What horrible thing do you think you did?”

  “I don’t remember doing anything. But the woman who I was following, she . . . she’s dead. Jonas thinks I . . . killed her.”

  Stop. Don’t go on with this. End the session. “Why does he think that?”

  “He found my notebook where I wrote about this woman, about all the times I’d stalked her or whatever, all the things I admired about her, the times when I’d scared her. Then he learned that she . . . she’d been murdered. Killed on the night I ran away from him, when I freaked out because he took my notebook. I remember driving past her house that night, but I never stopped or went inside. I don’t think I stopped. But what if I . . . Could I do something like that and forget it? I know my . . . my mind is a mess.”

  Natalie felt stuck, kicking in midair, scraping her toes along the impossible rock she’d attempted to scale. You know what you need to do. Do it. Let go. Get your feet back on the ground.

  “Lacey,” she said quietly. “I asked you this question at our first session, but I’m going to repeat it now. Are you worried you might hurt yourself?”

  Annoyance overshadowed the anxiety in Lacey’s face. “No, I still don’t want to do that. I got hurt enough from my family; I’m not doing their work for them.”

  “I apologize for the repetition. My primary concern is your safety, so I have to ask. Are you worried you might hurt someone else? I’m not asking if Jonas thinks you might have harmed someone. Are you worried that when you walk out of here, you might be a danger to anyone?”

  “No, I’ve never worried about that. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I guess . . . well, sometimes I imagine hitting someone, or something like that, but I know I’ll never do it. That’s why it’s so weird, but I was stalking her, so maybe something happened inside me that I don’t know about? But I hate
. . . I really hate violence.”

  “All right. Thank you for your patience and your honesty. I’m so sorry about this, but I can’t continue as your therapist. I have a conflict of interest.”

  Lacey gasped, air screeching down her throat. Her reaction exposed her terrified conclusion: Natalie believed she was a murderer and didn’t want a murderer for a client.

  Natalie spoke rapidly. “Please listen to me. I’m not assuming anything about your guilt or innocence. Did Jonas tell you he called me when you were gone, after you argued?”

  Lacey shook her head.

  “He told me he went looking for you at Camille Moretti’s,” Natalie said. “That’s who you’re talking about, isn’t it? The person you were obsessed with?”

  “He told you what I wrote in my notebook?”

  “No. He didn’t say anything about your notebook. He told me you were friends with Camille and that’s why he thought you’d gone there.”

  “He found her body,” Lacey whispered.

  “He told me.” Natalie hesitated, wondering how much detail to give but knowing if she didn’t explain, Lacey would keep thinking she’d scared Natalie away.

  “I knew Camille.” Grief knifed Natalie, as it did every time she referred to Camille in the past tense. “We were close friends, lifelong friends. My connection with her could affect my ability to provide you with the best possible therapy, and I won’t take that risk. I want you to get the most effective care.”

  “You were friends with Camille?”

  “Yes. That’s not a healthy situation for a therapeutic relationship. I’m so sorry.”

  “Jonas is protecting me,” Lacey said. “I heard him lying to the police for me. He thinks I killed Camille when I was . . . I don’t know, in a trance, I guess, or that I blocked it out afterward. Can that happen?”

  “What I hear you saying is that it was Jonas’s assumption that made you doubt your memory, not your own experience or perceptions. Is that correct?” Stop. Why are you asking her questions? You just told her you couldn’t continue therapy with her.