by Mysti Parker
“I don’t know for sure. She doesn’t really talk about herself very much. I do think you should ask her out, though. She seems lonely.”
He nodded, but didn’t want to keep interrupting Marge when she was concentrating so hard on her chopping technique. He tried to focus on the vegetables again, but couldn’t get what Marge said out of his head. She seems lonely. Poor Leigh. He wondered what her childhood must have been like, if she was so sick she had to be homeschooled. She probably hadn’t had many friends, much less boyfriends. Maybe she was just scared to date anyone because she'd been shut away that long and had no experience with guys. But she’d gone to college. Surely, she’d dated someone there.
A terrible thought hit him. He gripped his knife tighter and wielded it more like a cleaver as he whacked at a carrot. What if a college date had hurt her? Had she been raped? His heart thumped harder, raising his blood pressure until it pounded in his ears. If it took finding the son of a bitch that hurt her and beating him to a bloody pulp before he locked him away, he’d do it for her.
Unfortunately, the carrot he’d been slaughtering got tired of his assault and slipped out from under the knife and rolled right onto the floor. He started to bend over and pick it up, wondering if the five second rule would apply here, but Marge gasped. He stood up straight again and saw what made her gasp. Blood dripped from his thumb onto his cutting board. He’d been so worked up he hadn’t even felt it until now. It stung like crazy.
“Wrap it up in a paper towel,” Garrett said. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
Marge watched in horror, her face turning paler by the second.
Jesse tore off a paper towel from the roll between them and wound it tightly around his thumb. “It’s not that bad. I don’t think it’ll need any st—”
Marge let out a little groan and went limp. Jesse caught her under her arms before she hit the floor. Great. Now his number three had fainted as the result of his horrible knife skills and lack of concentration.
On the drive back to Marge’s house, she was quiet for a while before breaking the silence. “I’m so sorry I fainted. I’ve never been good with the sight of blood.”
“I’m sorry I ruined your night.”
“Oh no, not at all! This was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time. I had forgotten how much I love to cook. Ever since I left culinary school, I’ve stuck to frozen dinners and microwave meals. It just hurt too much to think about what I’d been missing. But now…you’ve rekindled it for me. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
The tension in Jesse’s shoulders eased. He exhaled a long, relieved breath. “Don’t thank me. Just enjoy your classes. I’ll stick to my dishwashing deal and hopefully keep my fingers intact.”
Chapter Seventeen
Leigh looked at her appointment book for the umpteenth time, hoping that her one o’clock would have miraculously disappeared or been replaced with someone who didn’t make her skin crawl.
11:00 – Margaret Richardson.
12:00 – Lunch
1:00 – Mitch Perkins.
Nope. Still there. If she could just get through the day without totally losing it, she’d be okay. Even the news that her CT scan had been clear didn't relieve much of her stress. Lunch didn’t sound appetizing. Her stomach was in knots. That was a shame, because she’d planned to eat with Avery today, but she doubted she could handle the Burger Shack’s greasy food.
To make matters worse, Dr. Gadbury would be watching her appointments again today from his office, where the session would be live-streamed and recorded on his computer. All her clients, of course, were told their visits would be recorded until Leigh had been fully licensed. She still had a few hours of supervised sessions left, which made the knot in her stomach bigger.
She texted Avery: Not feeling much like eating. Rain check?
Avery replied within seconds: No way. Are you sick or what?
It’s just nerves. I can’t eat much when I’m this anxious.
Just meet me at the Burger Shack. I’ll get you a Sprite and crackers. It’ll do you good to get out.
OK I’ll be there.
Avery was right. Leigh could use some fresh air on her lunch break. At least her eleven o'clock appointment wasn’t anything to dread. She genuinely liked Margaret, though she felt a little awkward now, knowing the things she had confided to Leigh about the way Jesse treated her in high school. He had been really cruel to her and to so many people. Totally different from the good man Leigh had watched him becoming.
Becky chirped over the phone intercom, “Your eleven o’clock is here.”
“Okay, show her in.”
How that woman could be so perky on a crappy, rainy Monday, Leigh had no idea. She consoled herself with her certification hour countdown she had stored on her cell phone. 3960, just forty hours away from being able to take her licensing test. She could do this. Maybe.
The door opened, and Becky ushered Margaret into Leigh’s office. Her usually solemn client had a big smile on her face. What was up with everyone liking Mondays all of a sudden?
“Good morning, Margaret. You look happy today.” Leigh sat in her armchair, glancing at the video camera, while her client took a seat on the couch.
Margaret plopped her purse on the ground. “Oh, I am happy, and you’ll never guess why.”
Leigh grinned. “Let’s see, maybe a free HBO preview weekend so you got to watch The Game of Thrones season premiere?”
“No, I have HBO all the time, and my DVR is pretty much dedicated to that show.”
“Okay, then what’s got you smiling today?”
“I took a cooking class!” Margaret exclaimed, flashing a gleeful smile.
“That’s great! I hope you enjoyed it.”
“I did, and you’ll never guess who took me.”
Leigh hoped it was her husband, Ray, but the chance of that was slim to none. He hardly ever left the house. But she asked anyway. “Was it Ray?”
“No.” She shook her head and chuckled. Her face, usually strained with bitterness and doubt, looked ten years younger.
“Then I have no idea.” A thought occurred to her – she had counseled more than a few people who had affairs and felt free to spill all the details of their rendezvous. “You don’t have to tell me if you—”
“It was Jesse Maddox!” Margaret blurted out. “Can you believe it?”
Leigh dropped her pen. Bending over to fetch it off the floor, she replied, “I’m… No, I would have never guessed that.”
“Well, he did. He called me and and offered to take me to cooking classes down at Mann Cakes. And get this—he paid for a whole year’s worth of classes for me. Actually, he traded his time for it. The classes were full, but he made a deal with Garrett to wash dishes to pay for them.”
Pen back in hand, Leigh tapped it on her notebook and blinked at her client. She couldn’t show too much interest in this development, or her boss would know she had more than a counselor/client thing going with Jesse.
“He picked me up and was so nice, too. Not great at chopping, but he did try, poor guy. Sliced his thumb, and then I fainted.”
“Fainted? Why?”
“The blood,” Margaret whispered with a grimace. She shuddered. “I was so embarrassed.”
“How did Jesse respond to that?”
“He caught me. Then he brought me home. I was okay, though.”
“How did you feel when he called you?”
Margaret blushed. “I hung up on him. But he called back and left a message asking if he could take me to that cooking class. I picked up the phone then. He had me at cooking class.”
“I see,” Leigh said in her serious counselor tone, making a few notes which didn’t even register in her head. All she could think about was Jesse and how she’d fled when he kissed her. Here Margaret was, with every reason in the world to hate him after years of being bullied. Leigh’s distrust seemed petty somehow, her fears of falling in love just that. Fears. Cowardice.
She cleared her throat, coming back to the reality of the camera on the wall and her boss analyzing her every move and word. “The last time you were here, you mentioned that you couldn’t stop thinking of yourself as ‘Large Marge’ since you ran into him at the doctor’s office. Do you still think of yourself this way?”
“You know, I think I’m starting to feel better about myself. Thanks to Jesse, weird as that sounds. I can understand now why he acted the way he did back then, with what happened to his dad.”
That got Leigh’s attention. She needed only a few pieces to finish the puzzle surrounding Jesse’s broken family. “What happened to his dad?”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you about it, but since everything’s confidential in here…”
Leigh gave her an encouraging nod.
“Well, I heard this from my mother a long time ago. His mom and dad were both terrible alcoholics. They got into a fight one day and shot each other. She survived. He didn’t.”
“That’s so tragic.” Leigh had to keep her empathy in check, with only just enough to show she cared about a fellow human being and not the man she was falling for. “What happened to his mom after that?”
“She left the boys with their grandparents, Lorraine and Sylvester, and just never came back. Lorraine died not long after, so Sylvester was left to take care of them. And he was so grief-stricken, he didn’t pay much attention to the boys for a while. I guess that’s when Jesse turned bad. I wish I’d have understood that back then. It might have saved me years of counseling…no offense.”
“None taken.”
As soon as Margaret left, Leigh got on her laptop and searched online for news related to the alleged shootings. It didn't take long. Her search led her to the Beach Pointe Tribune's archives, where in a little sidebar article, a headline from 2001 read: “Man Gunned Down by Wife in Drunken Rage.” She kicked herself for not thinking to search for this earlier, though she wasn't surprised she hadn't heard about it before. Small town gossip ran rampant, but it often overshadowed dirty little secrets like this.
There were no photographs, but a short and simple account of what happened:
A woman is hospitalized and a man dead after a double shooting yesterday. Deputy Sheriff Ken Stanton was first to arrive on the scene. According to Deputy Stanton, the victim and alleged perpetrator had a history of alcoholism and domestic violence. It culminated in yesterday's tragic incident during which Lori Maddox, a Beach Pointe native, and her husband Steve Maddox exchanged gunfire in their trailer on Paradise Lane. Mrs. Maddox sustained gunshots in the leg and shoulder, while Mr. Maddox was shot in the chest and died at the scene. Two children, sons ages nine and eight, witnessed the incident but were unharmed. Mrs. Maddox was taken to Beach Pointe Baptist Hospital and is expected to recover from her wounds. Steve Maddox was a veteran of the NYPD before moving to Kentucky with his wife and two children in 1991. Funeral information is not available at this time.
Leigh covered her mouth, blinking back tears. Not only had Jesse's mother killed his father, but he and his brother had witnessed it. She could only imagine how traumatizing that must have been for them. No wonder Jesse didn't want to talk about it.
Among all the clients she'd had, none of them had experienced something like this. But what if they had, and they hadn't told her about it? How many hidden traumas existed in her clients? Was she helping them at all? She shut down her laptop. Now wasn't the time to wallow in self-doubt. She had to be strong for all of them, and especially for Jesse.
Chapter Eighteen
Leigh barely heard Avery over lunch at one of the Burger Shack's outdoor tables. Avery chattered on about narrowing down her speed-dating candidates. She seemed to have her sights set on Jesse's brother, Jack.
"I hate to tell you this, but every single woman in Beach Pointe is trying to land him," Leigh reminded her.
"Except you, but you're into his brother—which still weirds me out, by the way—so I may have one up on the competition."
"Don't count on it. Jesse and Jack have a strained relationship."
"Really? Why?"
Shrugging, Leigh sipped her Sprite and played dumb. She couldn't tell Avery that Jack had seen his mother kill his father. There wasn't a lot she didn't share with her best friend, but something like this deserved more discretion. If Avery managed to hook up with Jack, maybe he'd tell her about it someday.
Leigh smiled and laughed as Avery rambled on about a shipment of lace that still hadn't arrived and her aversion to selling a wedding dress to a bride who wanted an underwater wedding. Leigh's eyes kept drifting to her cell phone. The time flew as if someone had pushed fast forward. And then a quarter till one, the hour she dreaded, rolled around. She drove back to the office, tempted to turn around and keep driving in the other direction. A nice hotel on the Gulf Coast, an alias, a rented convertible—all that sounded much better than her next appointment.
She had just gotten settled at her desk after spending a little too long in the bathroom trying not to throw up.
“Your one o’clock is here,” Becky chirped.
Leigh stabbed the intercom button with her finger. “Could you possibly tone it down a little?”
“I’m sorry?” Becky sounded genuinely confused.
“Never mind.”
“Okay. Should I send him in now?”
No, send him to Mars, please. “Yes.”
The door opened, and Becky ushered Mitch Perkins in. He wore the very same clothes as last time, only dirtier. She forced her feet to carry her to her armchair, while he took a seat on the couch. Thank God it was faux leather. She'd have to disinfect it when he left. Body odor wafted up as he fixed her with a cold stare, head tilted down so she could see the whites of his eyes. His face twitched in random places—one eye, then the other, then his nose, the left corner of his mouth, then the right.
Leigh focused on her notebook instead. “Good afternoon, Mitch. How are you today?”
He scratched at his neck. “I killed a dog.”
“Okay… Did it run in front of your truck?”
“No. It was spying on me.”
“Okay, why do you think the dog was spying on you?” Leigh tried to hold her pen steady, but her hands shook so badly, she had to rest them on her lap.
“He kept coming in my yard, looking at me through the window. It followed me to the barn and watched me while I fed the pigs."
"Is it possible the dog is just a stray that's hungry and followed the smell of the, um, pig slop?"
"No. It put thoughts in here.” He tapped his temple with a dirty finger. "I think it's one of the aliens in dog form."
She didn't want to ask, but that red camera light reminded her that it was her job. “What thoughts, Mitch?”
“Thoughts about hurting someone.”
“How so?” Hair prickled on the back of her neck. She looked pointedly at the camera, hoping Dr. Gadbury would get the hint and intervene. He didn’t.
“Don’t matter. Just fix it. Get these thoughts out of my head.” A fly landed on his nose. He snatched it in his fist and crushed it, then wiped the remains on his jeans.
This guy needed some serious help. Neither she nor Dr. Gadbury could prescribe medication, but she’d brought the subject up to Mitch before. He always refused.
She decided to try another approach. “Would you reconsider seeing a psychiatrist for a more thorough treatment regimen? We have a few good ones nearby who often work with our clients.”
“I ain’t stupid. You mean medication.” He hung his head, speaking through gritted teeth. “What is it with you doctor folk? If you put that stuff in me, the aliens will have access to my brain. They'll force me into some hybrid experiment. They'll make me fuck a dog or something."
“There are very good medications on the market with few side effects. I think it would help you. I'd never suggest it if I didn't.”
Head still down, he muttered, “I told you…” He raised his creepy eyes to hers, his mouth in an angry twis
t. “I don’t want no goddamn medication!”
Without warning, he slammed his fists in the couch seat cushion. Startled, Leigh cringed in her chair, pushing herself as far away as she could, which was nowhere near far enough. Mitch stalked out of her office, slamming the door behind him. Leigh covered her face with her hands, trying to calm her racing heart. Why would her boss not intervene? Had he even been watching?
She had no more appointments that day, so once she was sure Mitch had gone, she grabbed her purse and keys and hurried out. Dr. Gadbury's office door was wide open, and he wasn't there. He wasn't at the receptionist desk, either, when Leigh breezed by Becky without so much as a glance at her chipper, "Have a lovely night!"
Leigh went straight for her car, got in, and turned the key. As she backed out of her parking space, she saw Dr. Gadbury outside near the corner of the building, on his cell phone. He was hunched over slightly, grinning like a fool. Probably talking to the thong lady, but Leigh didn't give a shit about who was on the other end.
Leaving work usually relaxed her, but the farther she drove, the madder she got. Her ass of a boss knew she felt uncomfortable with Mitch. He didn’t even have the decency to watch their session in case the guy got violent. She gripped the steering wheel until her fingers hurt and huffed a sarcastic laugh. But he’d be sure to review the video and tell her all the things she’d done wrong. If she went home all wound up like this, her mom would freak out and try to convince her to quit. She didn’t want to quit. She just wanted to get her license and go start her own practice, preferably far away from Dr. Gadbury and Mitch Perkins.
As if her subconscious had taken over, she realized she had turned off the road and onto Jesse’s driveway. She put on the brakes and stopped about halfway down the drive. What the bloody hell was she doing? Was she really that drawn to this place? That drawn to him?
Looking in the rearview mirror, she put the car in reverse and started backing out of the driveway. A truck pulled in behind her. Crap. Blocked. Jesse's driveway was narrow and lined with huge trees and fences. No way she could get around it.