Nash Security Solutions

by Lola Silverman

  “Oh.”

  He realized that his words had rearranged some things in her mind. “It occurs to me that hearing about the violence in my past might have made you worried, or even made you believe that I could be violent toward you if I got really angry.”

  The smooth column of her throat moved as she swallowed. “The thought might have crossed my mind. Maybe a little.”

  “I would never.” He tried not to be insulted. There was no way for her to know such a thing. “If another man suggested that I could be capable of that sort of behavior, I would beat the shit out of him.”

  “You realize that’s rather an oxymoron, don’t you?” She tilted her head and looked so damn beautiful that he almost lost the thoughts in his head.

  “I could say something lame like, ‘Yes, I am an ox and a moron,’ but that seems trite,” he teased. “So, I will just say that, yes. I realize that telling you I would commit violence because I was accused of being capable of it is most definitely a strange sort of hypocrisy. However, the situation makes complete sense. Ask any man, and he’ll tell you the same thing.”

  “Oh, a man.” She gave it an extra helping of drama. “Of course, if a man says it, it must be completely illogical. After all, men aren’t capable of logic.”

  He laughed. “Okay. So it was a little rude of me to throw all women in that category without making allowances for exceptions to the rule.”

  “Am I an exception?” She wanted to know.

  “Nope.” He winked at her just as the waitress swooped over with their plates.

  “All right!” The waitress set the food down on the table. The tray was overloaded with all of the plates, a huge container of maple syrup, and even steak sauce for Quentin. “Here you go, and I want the two of you to enjoy!”

  Francesca waited for the waitress to retreat before leaning in closer to Quentin. “I feel like she knows I’ve never been in one of these places before.”

  “I think your outfit totally gives it away,” he teased. Then Quentin looked at the huge plate of pancakes in front of Francesca. “And do you really think you can eat all of that? Where are you going to put it? I swear the plate weighs more than you do.”

  “Men,” she said with exaggerated sarcasm.

  Quentin began cutting away at his steak as Francesca started shoveling pancakes into her mouth. He watched her close her eyes in bliss as she tasted the crispy-edged, monster-sized flat cakes. They did look good. In fact, they looked as if they’d been cooked in butter and then sizzled to perfection.

  “Do you know how many calories I’m consuming?” she moaned.

  He glanced at the pancakes and came up blank. “Uh, no.”

  “Neither do I!” she crowed the words and shoved another bite into her mouth.

  “Why pancakes?” Quentin wanted to know. He liked breakfast for dinner or lunch or pretty much anytime it was available, but that wasn’t the norm in his experience.

  “Comfort food,” Francesca admitted. “I have an appointment with a new clinical psychologist at three o’clock. I don’t want to go. I don’t even want to think about going. Eating these pancakes is letting me focus on something else.”

  “I suppose that’s important,” he agreed softly. “Why don’t you just stop this? Why go to another psychologist? What will it accomplish?”

  “Hopefully, it will undo the harm the other one did,” she admitted with a sigh.

  Quentin realized that this was probably true. That didn’t mean that he liked it any more now than he had earlier. “Then this time you’re not going in alone,” he told her firmly. “I’m going with you.”

  “Into the appointment?” She sounded absolutely floored. “I don’t even know if that’s possible.”

  “It’s your appointment. You’re paying for it. It’s up to you. I will wear earplugs if you want me to, but I’m not leaving you alone again. Is that understood?”

  Finally after a few moments had gone by, Francesca nodded. “Thank you, Quentin. I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  This time, the clinical psychologist’s waiting room was a little more “normal.” If there could be such a thing. Francesca and Quentin were seated in comfortable padded chairs against the wall. The ceiling was vaulted since they were on the second floor. A skylight had been added at some point, and it offered plenty of natural light. The building was newer and didn’t have a historic feel at all. The furniture was worn, secondhand maybe, and the magazines on the coffee table were as varied as you could possibly imagine.

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes.” Francesca nodded to Quentin although she could not manage a smile. “I hope she knows we’re here.”

  Quentin shrugged. “No receptionist means less overhead. Seems reasonable to me. Either people show up or they don’t.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Francesca was just hoping that this psychologist would be able to counterbalance that other horrible person, in court. It was so difficult to imagine that she was going to a hearing on Friday! That was only four days away. There was so little time to get ready. “I think I’m just worried,” she told Quentin.

  “I think you’re right to be worried.” He touched her hand. “It’s going to be all right, Francesca.”

  She gave a bitter chuckle. “You can’t promise that.”

  “Maybe I can,” he murmured.

  The inner door popped open, and a woman in her thirties poked her head out into the waiting room. She was nothing like Francesca had expected. This “clinical psychologist” looked like she had just gotten done with a yoga class. She was even wearing yoga pants and a baggy sweater. Her reddish hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The smile on her face was warm and friendly, however.

  “Are you Francesca?” The woman stepped into the reception room and stuck out her hand. “I’m Carly Baker. Come on in, and let’s have a little chat. You didn’t say exactly what you needed on the phone.” Carly’s expression turned wry. “Or perhaps you did say and I just didn’t get it all. You seemed extremely stressed out.”

  “Yes,” Francesca said hurriedly. “I’m sorry to make you come in on your day off, but I really needed a second opinion, and my hearing is on Friday.”

  Beside her, Francesca heard Quentin grunt with irritation. She could not remember if she had told him that detail or not, but it didn’t matter now. Carly raised an eyebrow at Quentin and put out her hand to him as well. “Carly,” she said with a slight emphasis. “And you are?”

  “Quentin Torrance.”

  “Nice to meet you, Quentin.” Carly gestured to the magazines. “I hope you’re able to entertain yourself for the next hour or so while Francesca and I chat.”

  “No dice,” Quentin shot back. “I’m coming in there with you.”

  Carly drew back. Her expression grew guarded. “And is Francesca all right with that?”

  Francesca hurried to explain. “He’s not some overbearing husband afraid of what I’ll say,” she told Carly with a rueful laugh. “He’s my bodyguard. The last psychologist was so mean—well—let’s just say I’m a little skittish.”

  “Wow. Okay.” Carly opened her door and ushered them both inside. “Let me apologize for my colleague. Who did you see, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Lauren Grimes,” Francesca said promptly. “It was…”

  “Court mandated.” Carly sighed. “Yes. I’m familiar with Dr. Grimes. This isn’t my first time out.”

  “You mean your first time trying to counterbalance what Dr. Grimes has decided?” Francesca felt real hope. “You’re used to her biased opinions?”

  Carly waited until Francesca and Quentin were inside her office before closing the door. The place was very homey. She had a big, overstuffed yellow chair with a throw tossed carelessly over the arm. Her footstool was piled with clinical journals, and there was a teacup sitting in a saucer on the side table.

  “Oh, sorry.” Carly gestured to her chair. “I use my day off to
catch up on my clinical reading and do paperwork. Thrilling, I know.”

  It might not be thrilling, but that little bit of down-to-earth mentality went a long ways toward making Francesca feel comfortable. The walls were painted a nice, neutral sand color. The furniture was a hodgepodge that seemed to go together in spite of the fact that it came from multiple styles and eras. There were some antiques, and yet the bookshelves lining the wall on the left side of the office were quite modern and filled floor to ceiling with volume after volume of thick tomes that looked official, and other things that looked as though they might belong to a regular bibliophile.

  “Have a seat.” Carly pointed to the sofa. “Mr. Torrance can remain however he likes. It won’t bother me.”

  Francesca was just about to suggest that Quentin just stand in the doorway when he plopped down on the couch beside her. He settled himself into the corner, and his eyes immediately dropped to half-mast as though he were going to go to sleep. There was no way that was true, and Francesca knew it. He was just trying to take himself out of the equation.

  “Do you see a therapist or a psychiatrist regularly?” Carly picked up a legal pad and settled herself in her chair with the pad of paper in her lap.

  “Josie Waller.” Francesca licked her lips. “I think I’ve been seeing Josie about nine years now. Just after my husband shot himself, she convinced me to go and see Dr. Cooper about my anxiety. He’s the one who officially diagnosed me with PTSD.”

  And so it began. Francesca was startled at how relaxed she felt. Some of it was certainly Carly’s easygoing manner and very relaxing personality. But there was no doubt in her mind that having Quentin sitting beside her like a great big watchdog was helping her remain focused and in the moment. Nobody was going to push her around if Quentin was there.

  QUENTIN FORCED HIMSELF to remain still and to listen. He wondered if Francesca was truly aware of how much she was revealing of herself in this interview. From behind his half-closed eyelids, he could see that the good doctor was very affected by what Francesca was saying. Carly Baker might have a stellar professional poker face, but nothing got by a man like Quentin, who had been trained to see the nuances in expression that most people are incapable of hiding.

  Of course, had Dr. Baker not been reacting to what Francesca was saying, it would have indicated that she was short on compassion. What kind of person could listen to something like this and not feel something akin to horror?

  “So, you found your husband on the floor in his study?” Carly pressed. “I cannot imagine how that must have felt. Can you take me through your thought process that morning?”

  “He had left a note,” Francesca said quickly. “But I wouldn’t find that until much later. He had left it in my jewelry box. So, for the moment, I was completely stunned to find him dead. There was so much blood.” Francesca’s eyes fluttered closed. “It smelled like old pennies. It was everywhere. I got a bucket and some rags, and I tried to clean up. I didn’t want Emily—she’s our maid—to have to touch something like that.” The glassy-eyed expression on Francesca’s face suggested she had left the room for a moment. “I got some old towels. I remember thinking that I didn’t care if I never saw them again. I wrapped his head in them to keep it from making the floor even messier.”

  “You touched him?” There was a note of surprise in Dr. Baker’s face. “That must have been very odd.”

  “No.” Francesca shuddered. “He was cold, but he wasn’t stiff. I don’t know how long it takes for rigor mortis to set in, but it hadn’t been that long. I didn’t love him.” The announcement was short and very direct. “I think that made it easier.”

  “That’s a really good insight,” Dr. Baker murmured. “If we can distance ourselves from an event because we did not feel particularly attached to the individual involved, it can make us capable of doing just about anything.”

  “Lyle was mean.” Francesca could not seem to stop herself from talking. Quentin did not bother pretending to keep his eyes closed. If she got too overwrought, he was calling a stop to this evaluation. “Lyle would beat me for the smallest infraction of his ‘rules.’ Sometimes, he wouldn’t talk to me for days or weeks. He would keep me wondering what it was I had done to make him angry. Then, finally, he would tell me, and I was so grateful that he was talking to me again and that the silence had ended that I would agree to do just about anything he wanted.”

  Carly Baker cleared her throat. She was scribbling furiously on her legal pad. “That’s very abusive. Did you ever tell anyone that he was doing these things?”

  Francesca’s bitter laugh was answer enough. “He was a Hyde-Pierson. You didn’t tell on them and get away with it. At the time, I just kept my mouth shut and prayed that he would have a heart attack.”

  “I understand,” Carly nodded. “Many women in the same situation feel equal sensations of distanced anger and a desire for ill will that doesn’t come from wanting something bad to happen, but from wanting the bad stuff to stop happening to them.”

  “Exactly!” Francesca sounded excited. “I finally had my life back. It was a relief. I could run my household the way I saw fit. I could do what I wanted, or say what I wanted. I could watch what I wanted on television and read the books I liked. I could dress however I liked. It was very liberating.”

  It was disgusting. Quentin could not imagine what sort of cowardly man wanted to control every single facet of his wife’s existence just because it made him feel more in control of her life in general. It was pathetic.

  “And now?” Carly moved them along. “How do you feel now?”

  “Stronger.” Francesca sighed. She kept twirling a ring round and round her right middle finger. “I’ve even stood up to Stedman a few times. I think that’s why he’s decided he needs to put me back under his thumb. I have too much say in how the company is run, and in the last few years, I’ve spoken up when I felt things were headed in the wrong direction.”

  “How so?” Carly wanted to know. She flipped over to a new sheet of paper on her legal pad and shifted in her seat. “What kind of things are you trying to accomplish?”

  “Hyde-Pierson Financial is a huge Fortune 500 company, and yet we do almost nothing to give back to the community. So, I’ve been working with some of the other board members to come up with assistance and scholarship programs to help kids in underprivileged neighborhoods in Boston.”

  Quentin stared in wonder as he watched Francesca grow eager and animated. It was a stark change, and he could see that the doctor noticed as well.

  “Last year,” Francesca said eagerly, “I met with three principals from high schools in some of the worst districts here in the city. They each submitted the name of one high school senior. The student had been voted by peers and by the teachers as having the most promise. These kids got an all-expenses paid four-year full ride scholarship to the University of Massachusetts. It included room and board so that they would not be dragged back into the morass of negativity in their old neighborhoods while they were trying to better themselves with a college degree.”

  Carly let her pen rest for just a few moments. She smiled at Francesca. “I bet that felt really good.”

  “It did!”

  Then Carly pressed her lips together. “How did Stedman take that?”

  “He was less than thrilled,” Francesca admitted. “In fact, he was pretty damn pissed off that we had wasted almost a hundred thousand dollars. Even if it was a tax write-off.”

  “And here we come to the point of our interview,” Carly murmured. “I think I’m getting an accurate idea of what’s really going on.”

  Francesca impulsively reached over and grabbed Quentin’s hand. She held it to her chest and practically bounced in her seat. “You were right!” she told him. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

  Carly eyed the way Francesca was hanging onto Quentin’s arm. “Yes. I’m definitely getting a better picture of the issues.”

  Quentin hid a smile. Apparently, the clinical
psychologist was sharp. Although, he had a feeling it didn’t take a college degree to see that there was a lot more between Francesca and Quentin than clenched teeth and duty.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Francesca sat curled up in her favorite chair in the living room. She had turned on the gas logs and was enjoying a nice fire against the evening chill. In Boston, even late spring and early summer could have chilly nights where the fog rolled in and the air was simply damp and depressing.

  The crackle of the flames had always made her feel better. She could recall sitting in front of her parents’ wood fireplace as a little girl and staring at the flames until her mother would warn her to back away before she was mesmerized and fell in face first. Somehow, she had never fallen in, and she had always been safe. That was the one thing she could say about her childhood. She had grown up happy and loved. She would have never known any sort of hardship if she hadn’t married Lyle Hyde-Pierson.

  “Hey there.” Quentin lowered himself to the floor beside her ottoman and propped his elbow on the padded footrest. “It’s been quite a day.”

  “I can hardly believe this was all one day!” Francesca moaned and let her head loll back against the cushions. “This morning, I went to see my therapist, the lawyer, a horrible psychologist named Dr. Grimes. I had a late lunch in a diner and then saw another psychologist. It seems like too much to have taken place in one day.”

  “It was certainly a roller coaster,” he murmured. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a wet dishcloth.” It sounded ridiculous, and yet very true. “It’s like I’ve been wrung out and used to scrub a really gross countertop.”

  His laugh startled her. Quentin so rarely laughed—really laughed—that when he did, it was a little bit like a gift. “I was thinking that you felt wrung out because you’ve had your emotions pushed around all day long.”

  “I have,” she agreed softly. Moving her gaze back to the fire, she considered his words. “This morning, I thought I hated you after sleeping with you last night. I woke up with you, and yet a few hours later, I never wanted to see you again. Then we went to that diner and you were so sweet and so much fun to be around. I didn’t know what to think. In fact, I don’t know what to think now. I wish you could tell me.”