Burn

by HELEN HARDT

  If what I suspected was true, Gina did not leave any other suicide notes.

  Because she had not committed suicide.

  “Jonah, I’m going to trust you with something. Something big.”

  “You can trust me with anything.”

  I cupped his cheek, his stubble rough against my still-sore fingers. “Thank you. Thank you so much for that.”

  “I love you, and I trust you. I want you to know that you can trust me with anything.”

  I combed through the files until I found the letter, which had been in the back of Gina’s file. I handed the piece of pink stationery to him.

  As he read, I went over the letter in my mind. I had long since memorized its contents.

  Dear Dr. Carmichael,

  I can no longer go on.

  This isn’t your fault. You did your best to try to help me, but I’ll never be able to forget what my uncle did to me when I was so young. I tried, and I prayed that I could heal, but it’s just not in the cards for me.

  There’s something else I need to tell you. This isn’t easy for me, and I wish with all my soul that I had the courage to tell you in person.

  I love you.

  And no, I don’t mean I love you as a friend or as a therapist. I mean I’m in love with you. I’m truly in love with you.

  I don’t normally fall in love with women, at least I never have before. The feelings I have for you are so strong that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt anything close to them for anyone, male or female. I dream of kissing your red lips, taking you into my bed and making love. I dream of you holding me in your arms, chasing the beasts away.

  I don’t expect you to return my feelings. I know you could never be interested in someone as horribly defective as I am. But before I leave this earth forever, I want you to know how I feel.

  Please don’t blame yourself. I know you did your best for me. No one on this earth could have helped me. I’m too damaged. I wanted to be whole, but I know now that I never will be. I’m not good enough for you or anyone else. You deserve so much better.

  That’s why I must leave. Please don’t worry about me. I’ve chosen a painless and cowardly way to die. For that’s what I am, a coward. I don’t have anything more to give to this life.

  I will love you forever, even beyond the grave.

  Yours,

  Gina

  When he finished, he sat down on the bed. “Wow.”

  I sat down next to him, caressing his forearm. “I hope you don’t think less of me because I didn’t tell you about the letter. In truth, I haven’t told anyone. It was personal correspondence to me and not part of her official record. I know I should’ve turned it over to her family when I received it, but I…couldn’t.”

  “I don’t think it would have been a bad thing to show it to them,” he said. “But I also don’t think it changes anything. If nothing in your sessions indicated that she was suicidal, you’re still in the clear. After all, the deed was done by the time you got the letter.”

  I nodded. “This letter was the bane of my existence for many months, Jonah. I never thought to question its validity. But after having been kidnapped myself and thrown into a garage with a running car, I began to wonder. Could the same thing have happened to Gina?”

  “It’s probably a long shot, baby.”

  “It could be. Probably no one thought to look at her wrists or ankles for signs that she might have been bound, that she could’ve been killed the same way my attacker tried to kill me. And if my theory is correct, when the killer went back later, he simply unbound her, put her in her car, and made it look like she had committed suicide. The letter to me served as further proof.”

  “No one knows about that letter.”

  “Precisely. It only serves as further proof to me. If her parents found her unbound in the garage with the car running, they wouldn’t have thought twice about suicide. It was apparent. But as a therapist, I would require more proof because nothing in my sessions with her indicated that she was suicidal.”

  “So you think the letter is a forgery.”

  “Yes, I think it might be. She may well have written it, but what if she was forced to do so? And the killer added the part about her being in love with me to further throw me off track?”

  He furrowed his brow. “Wow.”

  “It’s funny. I’ve been thinking more clearly since I was attacked. It’s like I stepped outside the box and started looking at the situation from a different angle. It made me question Gina’s suicide. So then I started thinking about the letter. I’ve had patients develop feelings for me before. It’s very common in therapy. Granted, they were all men, but I saw the signs right away and nipped them in the bud before they could go too far. It seems I would’ve seen the signs if Gina had been in love with me. And I’ve had suicidal patients before. I’m well-versed in suicide. I know the signs, Jonah. I’ve spent the last several months going over and over her sessions in my mind, and I can’t find any indication that she was suicidal, other than a remark she made when she was flashing back to the first time her uncle raped her. She said ‘I’d rather die.’ But she was talking to her uncle at that specific time, not saying it in real time. In fact, she had told me earlier that her uncle wasn’t worth her life.

  “It finally dawned on me, after I was attacked, after I was left to die the way Gina died… Maybe I missed those signs because they weren’t there.” I took the letter from him. “And something else never dawned on me either. Why would she send me a letter? I haven’t gotten a handwritten letter in ages. Why wouldn’t she have sent me an e-mail?”

  “Maybe because an e-mail is delivered instantaneously, and she didn’t want you to try to stop the suicide.”

  “But she could have put the e-mail in her out-box and programmed it to be sent later.”

  He nodded. “That’s true.”

  “I realize I could be wrong, but I have to know for sure. She always said the uncle who had abused her was dead, but she could never tell me how he died. I asked her several times to ask her parents about it, but she kept saying she forgot, or that she didn’t want to talk to them about the situation. Even though I stressed to her how important it was that she understand how he died and that he was gone, she wouldn’t take that step.”

  “Do you think maybe the uncle isn’t dead?”

  I nodded. “It’s a leap, yes. But it rings true for me. Maybe, Jonah, just maybe, I didn’t make a mistake here. Maybe I didn’t miss the sign that she was suicidal. Maybe she wasn’t, and maybe that uncle, whoever he may be, found out she was in therapy and thought she might go to the police, so he took care of her.”

  “But why would he do the same to you?”

  “Because I knew the truth about him. She could have told me his name, for all he knows.”

  Jonah rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. “Like I said, we’ll put some private investigators on this. And we’ll need to talk to her parents. As far as I’m concerned, they are still prime suspects in your attack.”

  “Yes, I understand that they are. I haven’t heard from the police. I’m going to give Officer Lee a call tomorrow.”

  “You’ve raised some good points, sweetheart, but why didn’t any of this occur to you before?”

  “I think I just didn’t believe in myself enough. I didn’t…” I sighed. “I was programmed from a young age to think of myself as average, no matter my successes. Average body, average mind. In fact, when I first awoke after being taken, I decided to let the chips fall where they may because maybe I deserved it for letting Gina die. But now… I don’t know. Once I was actually in that garage with that running car, things changed. I changed. For the first time, I truly understood the human instinct for survival. I got out of that horrible, frightening mess, Jonah. I got out of it alive by using my wits. Granted, a little bit of luck helped too, but I was determined, and do you know why I was so determined?”

  He smiled. “Because you realized you’re brilliant, and you knew you had a good
life?”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “No. I was determined to get back to you. I had fallen in love with you, and it killed me that I might not ever be able to tell you.”

  “Oh, baby.” He pulled me to him and kissed my forehead. “You have no idea how glad I am that you got out of that situation alive. If anything had happened to you…”

  I edged back a little. “Nothing happened to me. I’m here, safe, with the man I love. Sure, I have a few scars, and it’s taken a toll on my mental health, but I’ll recover. I know I will now.”

  “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.” He kissed me on the forehead again. “Every day you amaze me more.”

  “I never thought of myself as strong. I never thought of myself as anything other than average in every way.”

  “Baby, you are so much more than average.”

  I smiled. “I see a little of that now. Don’t worry. I’m not going to get a big head or anything. I won’t be turning into Brooke Bailey anytime soon.”

  “Oh, God. Please.”

  “That woman has such a big head. I don’t know how she got through Talon’s door. All she talked about today were her glory days of modeling. Oh, and she talked a little bit about you.”

  “Me?” Jonah squirmed.

  “Does that make you uneasy?”

  “No. But she…” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m not quite sure how to tell you this.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “I know that. It’s just… Brooke came on to me yesterday.”

  I shot up from the bed. “What?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in her.”

  “She can keep her mitts off of my man!” And then I laughed in spite of myself. “I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth.”

  He laughed. “You know, you’re cute when you’re jealous.”

  “Jealous of that has-been?” Then I frowned. “I didn’t mean that. She’s kind of…sad, really.”

  “Brooke Bailey was given the gift of beauty,” Jonah said, “but so were you, Melanie. And you were given so much more than she was. Now that her modeling career is over, all she has left is her vanity. Her past successes. She’s the one who’s jealous of you.”

  “Why in the world would she be jealous of me?”

  He guffawed. “Because you have me.”

  Chapter Twenty–Seven

  Jonah

  She looked at me and burst out laughing.

  “Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.” I smiled.

  “Oh, no, it’s just the way you said it. Poor Brooke.”

  “Poor Brooke? How about poor me? She’s been stalking me over my phone.”

  Melanie dropped her mouth into an oval. “What?”

  “She’s been sending me texts. Saying stuff like she will have me. She wants me. That kind of crap.”

  “She can stop that right now,” Melanie said.

  “She sent me two this morning while I was sitting in Talon’s kitchen. Didn’t you notice her using her phone?”

  Melanie scratched her nose. “I remember her using it once. Honestly, though, she could’ve used it more than once. I stopped paying attention to her after a while.”

  “I came out to confront her about it and tell her to stop, but you looked so relieved to see me, I decided to just get you out of there.”

  “Yeah, I was certainly ready to leave.”

  “I’m sorry to drag you through that.”

  “It was my decision. I didn’t want to stay here alone. I’m going to have to be okay with that from now on. I know you can’t be here all the time. You have a ranch to run.”

  “Yes, and unfortunately I have to be in the north quadrant at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”

  She turned to me, cupping my cheeks. “Look, I really am feeling better. Believe it or not, I think the attack on me jarred me a little. Yes, in a bad way, but also a good way. I was forced to use my brain, to think about things that I normally wouldn’t think about. And it opened my mind to these new things, to look at Gina’s situation and her letter in a different way. To see that maybe Gina wasn’t suicidal.” She shook her head and chuckled. “To think, I almost destroyed that letter.”

  “What?”

  “I walked into the hardware store in Snow Creek the day I was taken. I bought a document shredder.” She closed her eyes. “That’s the first time I’ve even allowed myself to think the words ‘document shredder.’ I was so freaked that I had bought it, that I was thinking about destroying the letter.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. My head was a little screwy that day. It has been since Gina’s death. But no more. I’m going to figure this out.”

  “But what if…” I couldn’t finish.

  “I’m wrong?” She bit her lip. “I might be. And I’ll deal with that. Every doctor loses patients. It’s a chance you take when you’re a healer.” She sighed. “We’d all like to be able to heal everyone. Every doctor out there. But no one can.”

  I wanted to be supportive of Melanie. She was so strong. So we would investigate this theory of hers. I just hoped that it didn’t turn out to be nothing. I wanted as much as she did for her to be able to put this behind her.

  Melanie’s phone rang. “Do you mind?”

  “No, go ahead and take it.”

  I left the room for a moment, looking through the kitchen to see what we could whip up for lunch. I was hungry. My freezer was full of frozen meals that my personal chef had made up for me. I pulled out two, not even looking at the labels, and threw them in the microwave to heat up.

  I poured two glasses of iced tea and returned to the guest room.

  Melanie was just ending her phone call.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “It was Officer Lee. They found the place where I was held.”

  My heart stopped. “Yeah?”

  “It’s in a rural area, about two hours from here. It’s owned by some corporation. No names of individuals are on record except for the registered agent, an attorney in Grand Junction. His name is Frederick Jolly.”

  I couldn’t help a laugh. “Jolly?”

  Melanie smiled. “Yeah, I know. Funny name.”

  “Have they arrested Dr. Cates?”

  “No, they haven’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “They questioned him, but he has an ironclad alibi. He was with his wife at the hospital pretty much nonstop during the entire time I was gone.”

  “That doesn’t mean shit. He could have hired it out.”

  “I agree, but they don’t have any probable cause. Plus, he reported the Eldorado as stolen. A couple days before I was taken.”

  “That could all be part of the ploy.”

  “I know that, and so do the police. They’re putting some detectives on the case.”

  “Well, there’s no reason why we can’t question him.”

  Melanie shook her head. “Nope. In fact, he’s rented a small townhome in Grand Junction.”

  “Then it’s settled. I have a big day around here tomorrow, but we can go to the city on Tuesday. First, we’ll visit this Mr. Jolly and get some information from him, and then we’ll go and see the esteemed Dr. Cates.”

  Melanie smiled and took a sip of the iced tea I’d handed to her. “What do we do in the meantime then?”

  I smiled. “I’m sure we can think of something, and I think it might begin in my swimming pool. Right after lunch.”

  * * *

  Melanie insisted on wearing her bathing suit for our afternoon swim.

  “Each time I’ve been in your pool, you promised me we would be alone. And each time, someone has shown up and embarrassed the heck out of me. Not this time.”

  I simply smiled at her and humored her by wearing trunks myself. What she didn’t know was that the suit would be long gone thirty seconds after she got into the pool.

  The morning with Felicia had me antsy, so I dived in and swam several laps bef
ore worrying about divesting Melanie of her suit.

  When I finally took a break, she still hadn’t entered the water. She was lying on a chaise longue, her eyes closed. Her suit was an emerald-green one-piece that perfectly matched her eyes. She looked gorgeous, but Melanie had the body for a bikini.

  A purple bikini.

  Better than that, purple lace lingerie.

  I smiled as I walked to her chaise and stood over her, dripping.

  She opened her eyes and jerked upward. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting you wet.” I grinned. “And then I’m going to get you wet.”

  I picked her up from the chair, walked to the pool, and unceremoniously dumped her in.

  She bobbed to the surface, laughing. “That’s the second time you’ve done that to me.”

  “And it was fun both times, so don’t think I’ll be giving it up any time soon.”

  She laughed again. “Did you do your laps?”

  “Yup, and now I’m ready for a soak in the hot tub. Join me?”

  She pulled herself up on the edge of the pool and then stood. “Sure.”

  “But Melanie, first the suit comes off.”

  “I don’t know. Every time—”

  I stopped her with a kiss. She opened for me instantly, twirling her soft tongue around mine. It had been a while since I’d simply kissed her. Kissed my woman. And I had missed it. I had missed it a lot.

  Her nipples hardened under her suit, grazing against my wet chest. My cock grew in my trunks. I needed a fuck—a good old-fashioned fuck in the hot tub with this beautiful woman. I edged her across the concrete toward the tub, still kissing her. When I broke the kiss and inhaled, she sighed against my neck.

  Slowly I caressed the straps of her suit over her shoulders until I had exposed her breasts. Her nipples were turgid and beautiful, and I bent to take one between my lips. Hard. Just the way she liked it.

  She inhaled sharply. “Jonah…”

  “Relax, baby. No one will interrupt us this time. You have my word.” I continued to suck on her hard nub. Such gorgeous nipples. Fuck, she made me hot.