The Good Listener

by B. M. Hardin

  “I thought I told you not to come to my house.”

  Joel slammed the front door, just as Blake responded.

  “If you had picked up the phone…I would’ve kept driving,” he said and immediately started talking about something else.

  ********************************************

  Chapter EIGHT

  I stared at the phone.

  I waited for it to stop ringing and then it started ringing again.

  Summer’s name and number flashed, and it was as though I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  I was stuck.

  So she was alive?

  Finally, able to move, I answered it in a hurry.

  “Hello? Summer?”

  No one said a word.

  “Hello? Hello? Summer are you okay?”

  They breathed hard as though they were running.

  “Hello? Please say something.”

  But they didn’t.

  They hung up instead.

  I hurried to the spare bedroom, but Joel wasn’t there.

  I called him, but he didn’t answer.

  I dressed in a hurry and headed to the police station.

  “Officer Parks,” I stated and waited around until he appeared.

  “Mrs. Lewis, are you ready to confess?”

  I shook my head.

  “Look, she called. It’s Summer. She’s alive.”

  He looked at my phone.

  “Her phone could be anywhere. Anyone could have her phone. You could have it. You could have called yourself.”

  “No. Someone called me. Someone called me from her phone.”

  “Did they say anything?”

  I shook my head.

  “Of course, they didn’t. You better get to work with your plan. Time is one thing that you don’t have on your side, Mrs. Lewis.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I headed out of the police station, calling Summer’s phone over and over but no one picked up.

  Someone was trying to drive me crazy.

  Speeding home, I saw that Joel was now there.

  “Where were you?”

  “At the store. Why?”

  “Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

  “I left it in the car.”

  “Why didn’t you call me back?”

  “Because I was on my way back here.”

  I stared at him.

  “Someone called me from Summer’s phone.”

  “What?”

  “They called me. I answered, and no one said anything.”

  “So, she’s alive?”

  “If it was her. Like the police said, anyone could have her phone.”

  I’d tried calling her once before, but it had gone straight to the voicemail that time, so someone must have turned the phone off.

  Things just weren’t adding up.

  “She probably just left on her own. Maybe she was ashamed.”

  “She didn’t seem ashamed to me. And if that was the case, why was she bleeding?”

  “Maybe the blood was old from a cut or something.”

  “What about her attempting to spell my name with it on an envelope?”

  “Hannah, I don’t know. I’m just trying to make you feel better about all of this. I’m just throwing out possibilities. I’m worried about you.”

  “This is all you fault. All of it. It’s all your fault. Had you not had sex with Summer, I wouldn’t be a person of interest in her disappearance. But no, you just had to have her. You just couldn’t keep your penis in your pants could you?”

  “Here we go again with the blame game. I’m sorry. I really am. But I can’t change it. I can’t change the past Hannah. I can only change the future.”

  “If she weren’t missing you would probably still be sleeping with her.”

  “Do you really think that?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “I’m on your side, Hannah. I know that you didn’t do anything, and I just want to be here to help you get through this. I’m all that you have.”

  “That’s the sad part.”

  Without saying another word, he headed to the spare bedroom and shut the door behind him.

  I sat there in a daze, and then I decided to call Summer’s phone just one more time, but it was no use.

  The voicemail came on immediately.

  Something just isn’t right.

  ~***~

  “Do you resemble your mother or your father?” Blake asked.

  “Hmm, I probably look more like my dad; just a prettier, feminine version of course. Folks would tell me that I looked just like my mother, but I don’t see it. Who do you look like?”

  “I think I’m a mixture of both. My father’s eyes and ears. My mother’s everything else.”

  “You still remember how they look?”

  “How could I ever forget? It’s because of them that my life has been hell. I dreamt about them all the time. Their images were always in my head. I always wondered what it would have been like to have normal parents and a normal life. Is it really all that it’s made out to be?”

  “For me it was. I had a great childhood. I was the only child, so I didn’t have to worry about much. Whereas in my husband’s case, there were way too many of them, and there never seemed to be enough to go around. He had a hard childhood even though both of his parents were in the picture. So I guess it just depends.”

  “I don’t think that I would be like this if my childhood were normal,” Blake concluded.

  “That’s not true either. I’ve had some patients that have had it all. They have lives of luxury, two successful parents, everything they have ever wanted, but still needed therapy. They still turned out all wrong.”

  “But you’ve never had a patient as messed up as I am.”

  “Maybe they weren’t murderers but some were still pretty messed up.

  “So, you’re suggesting that my childhood and my bad experiences didn’t make me this way?”

  “It’s a possibility. Maybe. Or maybe not. Everyone handles different situations in their own way. What may have done permanent damage to you, mentally, may not have had the same effect on me had it happened to me. It really just depends.”

  “Interesting. So, in your professional opinion, I could have had great parents, an outstanding childhood, and still turned out to be this way?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  Blake was quiet.

  We were back at the park again since I couldn’t go in to my office.

  I still agreed to see him since he stated that he would confess to Summer’s disappearance if all else failed and if she never showed up.

  I didn’t know if he was really going to do it or not, but I didn’t really have anything to lose.

  Either I helped him, fixed him, saved a life, and possibly save my own.

  Or I didn’t, he killed and went away, and I still possibly go down for a crime that I didn’t have anything to do with.

  “Some people just wait too long to get the help that they need and by then it’s too late. The mind is tricky. The slightest thing can trigger a psychotic breakdown or cause someone to do something that they know is wrong and that they wouldn’t normally do.”

  “I’m not normal.”

  “At some point you were.”

  “A long time ago. You wouldn’t understand because you haven’t been in my shoes or the situations.”

  “That doesn’t mean that I can’t relate.”

  “Experience is the best teacher.”

  “Maybe. But someone that has been through the same things that you have and maybe even worse is walking around, right now, just fine. People deal with life, heartache, trials and tribulation, completely different.”

  He was listening to me.

  I could tell that he was taking everything in.

  “A normal life…”

  “Start right now.”

  “I want to. It’s just,”

  “What?”

  �
��I still have the urge. I still want to kill.”

  “Then fight it. People want to do things all the time. But they don’t. It’s like an addiction. You get the urge, but you don’t do it. And after you have resisted for so long, eventually, you no longer have the desire to do it anymore. Killing is your addiction. You’re addicted to murder, but you don’t have to be. You can start over. You can start brand new. Fresh. No killing.

  “Okay. After him.”

  Him?

  “What do you mean him?”

  “I meant her.”

  “Or did you really mean him?”

  “No. I meant her.”

  I wasn’t buying it.

  So he wanted to kill a him?

  Not a her?

  After leading me to believe that it was a woman all this time?

  “Where is your father?”

  “Dead. I told you that,”

  “How do you know that? If you haven’t seen him since you were a child and since he left, how can you be sure?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Was he planning to kill his real father?

  For abandoning him?

  My mind was going a hundred miles per minute, and all kinds of ideas were popping into my head.

  Or had it been a her, and he already killed her, probably Summer, and now he was looking to kill a him; maybe his real father.

  Or maybe Joel

  I was confused.

  But something told me that he’d just made a mistake.

  One that wasn’t meant for me to hear.

  “Do you want to kill your father?”

  “My parents are dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have the resources to find out you know. He’s dead Hannah and so is my mother.”

  “Then why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because you have finally listened to at least one thing that I have been saying all this time. You’ve gotten it into your head, and that alone will come in handy one day with your other patients and even in your own life. People and papers lie.”

  He had definitely taught me just that.

  “What about your foster parents? All of them?”

  “I don’t know. They were from all over the place. I never bothered to look them up or see if they were still living. Surprisingly, I never went back for any kind of revenge. Despite how awful they were to me.”

  “Then who is him?”

  “It is a her.”

  “The identity that you plan to use, when you disappear, whose is it?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Aren’t you going to kill to get it?”

  “No.”

  “But you did before.”

  “Are you and Joel going to work it out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think that he really loves you?”

  “Maybe. I think he made a mistake.”

  “Do you think that he tried to fix that mistake?”

  Was he trying to tell me something?

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think he tried to fix his mistake? Summer was his mistake.”

  Uh oh.

  “I’ve been wondering that myself.”

  “If he was, responsible for whatever has happened to her, could you forgive him?”

  “Could I forgive him for murder?”

  “No. Could you forgive him for murdering Summer?”

  “Honestly, yes. I would. But none of that would matter.”

  “Would you turn him in knowing that he had gotten rid of the problem?”

  “Well, if I didn’t turn him in, all roads would lead to me. But the more and more I think about it, Joel wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why? Because he’s normal?”

  I didn’t know how to answer him.

  “If he made Summer pay for ruining his life and marriage, then who was going to make him pay for the part that he played?”

  What?

  “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  Was he trying to tell me that Joel killed Summer?

  Was he trying to tell me that Joel had to pay for what he’d done?

  Was he going to kill Joel?

  I hated Joel.

  For what he did to me, I really did hate him.

  But I didn’t want him to die.

  Right?

  Just like I didn’t technically want anything to happen to Summer.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you plenty since we have been meeting but,”

  “I know, I know, I’m not listening.”

  “Exactly.”

  He started to walk away but little did he know, I was listening to him now, more than ever.

  Now I had to figure out just what I was going to do with it all.

  But I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let him kill my husband.

  Or would I?

  “Some people just don’t know how lucky they are. Some people just don’t know that they were a step from becoming someone like me.”

  We ended the conversation and headed on our way.

  I waited until he pulled off to head to my car.

  My plans were to sit there for a while just to think but Joel called me, and though I didn’t want to, I answered.

  “The police are here again. With another warrant.”

  “For what?”

  “They are searching the house again. They said that they had a tip that on the night that Summer went missing, someone saw someone dressed in black, sneaking around our house. They said that they were in our backyard. They won’t tell me whether it was a neighbor or not that said it. So, now they want to search the house again and the backyard.”

  I sped out of the parking lot and headed towards my house.

  I tried to think about the night, of the day that I last saw Summer.

  I know that I didn’t go anywhere.

  I was sure of it.

  I’d cried myself to sleep all night because my heart had been broken.

  But that was it.

  I hadn't left.

  So, who had the witness saw going around the house?

  I tried to remember if the alarm or motion detectors had gone off that night but I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t remember.

  They went off so often that it was hard for me to think back to that night.

  I pulled up at the house and saw two police cars.

  Dreadfully, I made my way inside.

  “What are you looking for now?”

  “A witness said that they saw a figure, dressed in black, going around your house the same day that you confronted Ms. Waters. The same day that she was last seen. And the same day that you put a hit out on her.”

  “Wait a minute? What? When did you put a hit out on her?” Joel asked.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Mrs. Lewis telling someone to kill her is indeed similar to ordering a murder hit. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Who did you tell to kill her?”

  “Her patient. Mr. Blake Griffin. By the way, what are all the meetings in the park about?” Officer Parks questioned.

  “I’m still trying to help him with what we discussed.”

  “Hmm,” the officer said as another officer yelled his name.

  “You told Blake to kill Summer?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t mean it. And he didn’t do it.”

  “Why would you even ask him to?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I didn’t know that, exactly, but I believed that he didn’t more than I believed that he did.

  The officer came back carrying a zip lock bag, with a phone inside of it.

  Immediately I spotted the bloody fingerprints on its side.

  “What do we have here?”

  “I don’t know whose phone that is.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. But I’m willing to bet that it belongs to our missing woman. The same woman that you swore called you
the other day. We found it thrown in some bushes in your backyard.”

  “I didn’t put it there. I swear.”

  “But someone did call you from it? Correct?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t put it there.”

  “Mrs. Lewis, call your lawyer. I’m sure we will be back.”

  The officers headed out the door, and I immediately fell to my knees.

  Someone was trying to set me up.

  I was being framed.

  I started to cry, and Joel tried to comfort me, but I didn’t trust him either.

  I saw my life flashing before my eyes and Blake’s words were ringing in my ear.

  All of his words and riddles replayed themselves and their meanings over and over again in my head.

  I couldn’t trust anyone.

  I was on my own.

  I couldn’t trust my husband.

  I couldn’t trust my patient.

  I couldn’t even trust the police officer who was so sure that I was guilty.

  I could only trust myself.

  I knew that I was innocent, and maybe even the police knew it too.

  Maybe he was working for Blake.

  Maybe even Joel.

  Who knows?

  But I wasn’t going to just roll over and let them lock me away for something that I didn’t do.

  Joel helped me up, and he seemed to be talking but believe me this was one time that I wasn’t listening.

  Who put the phone back there?

  It had to be after they called me.

  The only time that they could have planted it was when no one was home, or when the alarm sounded like it always did.

  Or maybe the person who put it there was sitting right in front of me.

  “Why the hell would you ask someone to kill someone? That doesn’t make sense Hannah.”

  “I was angry. I didn’t mean it.”

  “But you said it, and now it’s being used against you. And you said it to Blake? What would make you comfortable enough to say something like that to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, you don’t know. Looks to me like I wasn’t the only one having an affair.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I can’t help fix this if you don’t be completely honest with me.”

  “What do you know about honesty?”

  “You’re right, maybe I don’t have the right to say anything about honesty, but you are going to go to jail Hannah. Or don’t you see that? Everything is pointing to you and quite frankly, I don’t know what to believe. Tell me.”