by Julia Derek
Hopefully it wouldn’t have to come to that, though. I would miss all those multiple orgasms this man was capable of giving me. He was truly amazing in bed. Besides, I knew I would be the cops’ prime suspect if someone figured out there had been foul play. Sadly, I did have a great motive. A few hundred million of them. Even with all the evidence, it would be a challenge pinning it on Jordan only.
“The best part is that Ariel already has a weak heart,” Jordan said and ran his fingers through my hair.
“Right. You mentioned that. Why was that again?”
“Because that means I only have to give him a tiny dose. He’ll never notice that he’s ingesting it. It won’t taste like anything.”
“And you think that’ll still do the trick?” It would be so annoying if Ariel didn’t experience a deadly heart attack after all the trouble I had gone through. All the risks I was taking. “Isn’t it better to give him a little extra? To be sure he’ll die?”
Jordan smiled at me. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll give him extra. The coffee has a strong enough taste to hide the meds.”
I smiled back at him. “Yes, that would make me feel a lot better. We want to make sure he’s gone so you and I can be together for real.” I pulled down his head to mine and gave him a kiss.
“Yes, my love,” he said obediently as I pulled away. Then he slid on top of me to bring me another orgasm.
34
Shane
It turned out that my grumpy neighbor, whose name was Steve, was a very nice guy, not grumpy at all once you got to know him. I spent the rest of the morning in his apartment, telling him about my mother and what she had done to me. Much to my relief, he believed me. When he found out who I was, he told me that he had followed my trial and that he had always been suspicious of my mom. She’d seemed too good to be for real.
What had clinched the deal for him was the fact that my mom had rented Ella Stoyanova’s apartment. He agreed that SueAnn Beck just had to be Mom’s alias. There was really no acceptable reason for her to rent the apartment and lie about her name to management only days after I had moved in. Just so we could be absolutely sure, though, he would text Ella and ask her if she’d had any dealings with Mom.
I had managed to get him so pissed about what had happened to me that he was offering to help me put Mom in jail. She was obviously a grave danger to society in general, he’d added.
“What really worries me is that I can tell she’s up to something,” I told Steve. “As you can imagine, she’s doing everything she can to get me back in jail. At first I thought my parole officer was working with her, but now I’m no longer so sure. He was being too nice to me about my drinking. Too understanding. It doesn’t fit.”
“Why not just kill you to get rid of you? She wouldn’t be the first person people would suspect, given how much she has done for you.”
“Trust me, I’ve been wondering that myself. Why not just kill me? Have a car hit me or something? Should be easy enough. I guess that could still be her plan, but I don’t think so. She’s putting way too much effort into turning Ariel against me.”
“Ariel is loaded, isn’t he? Maybe she is planning on killing him and pinning it on you. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d pinned murders on you.” He gave me a lopsided little grin.
I stared at Steve for a couple of silent beats, wondering what he was getting at. And then it hit me like a mountain of bricks falling on my head. Of course. Of course that’s what she’s trying to do!
I grinned big at Steve. “Yes, you’re right. She’s trying to get rid of Ariel and pin his murder on me. That way she’ll get all his money and I won’t ever again see the light of day. It’s gotta be what’s she’s up to!”
He returned my grin. “Yes, it’s gotta be. It makes too much sense. How do you think she’ll make it happen?”
The excitement inside me vanished. “If only I knew that. See, that’s the problem. She’s brilliant. She won’t make it obvious. She’ll find a way to make it happen that I can’t figure out in advance. Before it’s already too late.” I sighed heavily. “Like she did with the other murders.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll come to you. In the meantime, be super careful. Plus, you need to do something about your hallucinations.”
“I’d love to do that, though, I have to admit that I’ll miss seeing and talking to Sophie.” I chuckled. “She really is an awesome chick. Like, my dream chick.” Which should prove to me further how unreal she had to be. My mind had created my dream chick for me to hang out with. It really was too bad. “You said something about seeing a psychiatrist?”
Steve nodded. “Yes. My brother’s girlfriend used this Spanish lady who hypnotized her. It did wonders for her in general, but in particular it helped cure her psychosis. I can ask her for the woman’s contact information. Do you want me to do that?”
I shrugged, unconvinced. I wasn’t sure if I thought hypnosis would fix me, but I supposed it was worth a try.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s not like I have anything to lose.”
He pressed his lips together and nodded grimly. “No, it isn’t.”
He promised he would have the contact information for me by the time I was back from my lunch shift that I had to leave for then.
A few hours later, Steve was texting me that he had not only found the psychiatrist’s info—her name was Anita Navarro—but that he could also get me in to see her later in the day if I was game.
I texted him back that I could see her any time after three thirty today.
At seven that evening, I rang the buzzer to a brown apartment building in Brooklyn. Dr. Navarro’s apartment was located on the fourth floor. It had struck me that it would be better if I could see the doctor at her house instead of at her office. If Mom had me followed, she would likely wonder why I was seeing a psychiatrist. She might suspect that I had figured out I was experiencing a psychosis, and I couldn’t risk that. She obviously wanted me to keep thinking Sophie was for real. Thankfully, Dr. Navarro hadn’t objected to my suggestion.
The front door to the building clicked open and I took the elevator up to the fourth floor.
As I exited the elevator, I spotted a short, dark-haired woman in her fifties standing in the doorway to one of the apartments. She gave me a warm smile with her red-painted lips.
“Shane?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, that’s me.”
She waved a hand with lots of rings on it for me to enter her place.
I walked into a cozy living room with lots of flowers, a big couch with lots of throw pillows that matched the curtains in the windows, and colorful wooden furniture. She extended a hand at me. I shook it.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I told her.
She took a seat in a tall armchair in a corner, motioning for me to have a seat on the couch. I plopped down on the couch so that I was facing her.
“I’m glad you came to see me, Shane,” she said and placed her hands on her lap. “I’m very excited to work with you. Hypnosis and hallucinations are my specialties. Because you’re Rita’s friend and are paying cash, I’m going to give you a special price. Only $150 a session. Normally I charge $300.”
Rita was the name of Steve’s brother’s girlfriend.
“That’s so nice of you,” I said, glad I was getting a discount. I only had $200 in cash in my wallet. “I appreciate it very much.”
“You’re welcome.” She grabbed an iPad from a side table and glanced down at it. She had sent me a health questionnaire that she had emailed me, and that I had filled out on my way over to her office. “I see that you’re a very healthy young man. Except for insomnia and anxiety, you have no issues. And you’re not taking any drugs for the insomnia?”
“I tried, but nothing helped. The one drug that did make me fall asleep a few hours made me all groggy the next day, so I stopped taking it. I should be able to fall asleep on my own eventually, right? Lately, I actually managed to fall asleep for an entir
e night on my own.”
She studied me across the room. “You should be able to fall asleep eventually, but being so young and strong, it might take a while. Your body will be able to endure a lot of stress at this age. It would be better if we could figure out why you’re not sleeping. I’m thinking the fact that you’re sleeping so little is the reason you’re experiencing hallucinations. It’s quite common. Can you remember if you ever hallucinated when you were extra tired?”
I thought about her question. The more I considered it, the more it felt like she may be right. I had always been extremely tired when Sophie had popped up.
“I think so,” I told her.
She nodded. “Good. I’m sure all the anxiety you’re experiencing isn’t helping. Steve told me you’ve been through a lot, that you spent the majority of your teens in juvenile detention. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Okay.” She put away the laptop. “Let’s see what I’ll find out when I hypnotize you. Have you ever been hypnotized before, Shane?”
I smiled at her, attempting a joke. “Not as far as I know.”
She ignored it, stood up, and said, “Well, let’s see how you do.”
35
Dr. Navarro told me to lie down on the big couch, make myself comfortable. When I was stretched out, leaning against a bunch of pillows at the end, she pointed at the green lamp in the ceiling.
“You see the lamp?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.” It was a pretty lamp, made of crystal.
“Look at the lamp. Focus only on the lamp. It’s a beautiful lamp, isn’t it?” Her voice had become soothing, and she was speaking slower.
“Yes,” I said, staring at the lamp.
“Put your hands on your belly and breathe in deeply through your nose. Breathe in all the way to your stomach. Deep down into your stomach. Don’t force it. No need to force anything.”
I did as I was told, slowly breathing through my nostrils so deeply I felt my stomach expand in my hands.
“Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out,” she continued in a soft voice. “Feel how you’re relaxing. Keep looking at the lamp. Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out. All the tension in your body is leaving you. Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out.”
She kept repeating the same calming phrases, and much to my surprise, I felt myself drifting away, as though I was floating in the air all of a sudden. It was a weird but pleasant sensation. I kept breathing deeply into my stomach, feeling more and more relaxed.
“Close your eyes now,” she instructed and I did. “Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out…” Over and over, she repeated the same words, soothing my mind. I felt like I was entering a dream of sorts, yet I was still awake. I couldn’t remember ever having felt so at ease, so relaxed as I did right then. A sense of goodwill enveloped me, lulling me into a soft trance.
Suddenly, Dr. Navarro whispered, “What are you so scared of, Shane?”
Scared? I wasn’t scared. Why was she asking that?
“Why are you so scared, Shane?” she repeated with a touch more urgency, gently cutting through the trance-like aura surrounding me.
But I wasn’t scared. Could she please stop saying that? I didn’t like it.
“Why are you so scared, Shane?”
Please stop asking me that…
“Tell me, Shane. Why are you so scared?”
I could feel tears forming in my eyes. Hot, sticky tears burned my eyelids.
“Shane, it’s okay to tell me why you’re scared. I promise.”
More and more tears filled my eyes.
“Tell me what you’re so scared of, Shane.”
The tears kept coming and soon they were sliding down my cheeks.
“That’s good, Shane,” she said soothingly. “Let it out. You’re safe here with me. Let all that you are so scared of leave you. Once you let it out and confront it, it won’t control you any longer. It will go away. You will no longer be scared.”
My eyes were overflowing with tears now, my face wet.
“Can you tell me what’s scaring you so much, Shane?” she repeated softly but with a distinct urgency. “Remember, you’re safe here with me. Nothing can happen to you. No one can do anything to you. No one can hurt you. It’s just you and me here. You’re safe with me. Please tell me what you’re so scared of.”
“My mother,” I stuttered then, and it prompted me to cry harder.
“Your mother?” Dr. Navarro repeated. “Why are you so scared of your mother, Shane?”
“Because she hates me and wants to hurt me. And I know all the bad things she’s done. I read about them in her blue diary.”
“Good, Shane. Good. When did you read about them in the diary?”
“When I was little. Only eight. She told me they were all part of her story telling, but I could tell that she was lying. She was lying. The scenes were about her and Dad. What they had done to people. But I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe my parents were capable of such bad things. So I made myself forget about them. I wiped it out of my mind.”
“Can you remember them now?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to think about it. It’s so bad. So evil. So gruesome.” I could feel my throat closing up as memories of gouged eyes and chopped off limbs came back to me. It was suddenly hard to breathe. A wave of nausea floated through me.
“Stop thinking about the contents in the diary,” Dr. Navarro ordered me softly. “Tell me instead where you found the diary. Where did you find it, Shane?”
“In a drawer. In a drawer that was broken. In her desk.”
“In a drawer that was broken? What part of it was broken?”
“The bottom part. It fell out when I dropped the drawer on the floor.”
“You dropped the drawer on the floor?’
“Yes, I was looking for candy and I pulled out all the drawers in Mom’s desk. One of them slid out of the desk and I dropped it. It broke on the floor. The bottom part fell out and the diary was there.”
36
I was deep in thought when I left Dr. Navarro’s apartment forty-five minutes later. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt as good as I did right then, walking down the street toward the subway station. I felt relaxed and no longer as anxious. The hypnosis she had put me through had definitely released something inside me, calmed me down. Fortified me.
The best part of the session had been when I had suddenly remembered Mom’s preference for secret stash places. Was she still using those to hide her journal? I couldn’t see why not. She was a creature of habit, and she didn’t know that I had found her old stash place in her office. I had been too freaked out to say much about what I had read in the blue book. I preferred just forgetting about it, and she hadn’t really understood what I was talking about anyway.
Surely, she kept her journal in some stash place in her new office, I thought. She had mentioned that she was doing all her writing in the giant space when she and Ariel had given me a quick tour of the penthouse. If only I could get my hands on it… Maybe I would then find out what she was planning on doing to me. How she would make it look like I had killed Ariel. The more I considered her planning to kill her husband so she could pin it on me, the more sense it made.
It had to be that.
As I waited for the subway train to arrive, I texted Steve, thanking him for hooking me up with Dr. Navarro. Then I asked him if he had time to get together.
He told me that he did, but only briefly. We could have a quick bite for dinner together. Perhaps I could bring some Chinese takeout on my way home?
I told him I would pick up rice, sweet and sour chicken, spring rolls, and beef with broccoli at the local Chinese restaurant. All of it would be on me. That was the least I could do for his help.
An hour later, I was back in his apartment, feasting on all the Chinese takeout. I didn’t realize just how hungry I had been until I had g
otten started on the spring rolls.
“She’s cool, huh?” Steve asked me in between shoveling sweet and sour chicken with rice into his mouth.
“Very,” I replied and chugged the rest of my Coke. “A hundred times cooler than the other therapists I’ve dealt with before.” I had told Steve about the guy I was forced to see for several months after I had accidentally shot Dad, and then briefly about the woman I had dealt with in juvie. Actually, there had been three different therapists who I had dealt with at Ramsdale, but Dr. Cogan had been my main person. She had meant well, but she had always been exhausted and stressed out, the state overworking her. At least that’s what she had told me each time she had zoned out, not paying attention to what we were doing or talking about. Sometimes she had snapped at me when she was really tired, and it had been obvious that she had just gone through the motions. I was still grateful to have been assigned Dr. Cogan, as she had been the one recommending that I started to paint as therapy. I’m pretty sure that had only been to get some more time for herself, but getting to paint instead of talk had been a huge relief for me. I hated talking about myself and my life with the therapists at Ramsdale. Maybe it was because I sensed they either didn’t care or, as in Dr. Cogan’s case, didn’t have the energy to do their job properly. When I remembered that Dr. Cogan was the one whose final evaluation of me had resulted in me getting approved for early parole, I felt bad for thinking any negative thoughts about her. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been a wreck most of the time.
