Part of her was still eighteen years old, waiting for her father to come home and finish her birthday cake.
Chapter Three
Now
“How did your session go? Did she find all the gears that need polishing up in that brain of yours?”
I shoot a glare at Eric as he laughs and pushes away from the porch column so he can follow me down the steps of the therapist’s office.
“You are so supportive,” I roll my eyes at him.
“You know I’m just kidding. I think it’s great you agreed to see the doc after everything you went through the last few months.”
“‘Agreed’ is probably a bit of an overstatement,” I tell him, settling my sunglasses into place and sweeping my blond hair up and off the back of my neck.
I’ve only been outside twelve seconds, and the steamy heat of a Virginia summer is slicking sweat across my skin.
“Alright. I think that it’s great Creagan forced you to see the doc after everything you through the last few months. Is that more accurate?” he asks.
“Closer.”
“It’s good for you, Em. I know you don’t like talking about things, but sometimes you have to let people help you.”
“I know. Which is why I’m still going. I just wish she would stay focused.”
“What do you mean?”
We walk down the sidewalk toward the parking deck. The therapist’s office is close enough to the main office complex where we work that I didn’t bother to drive. Scheduling my appointments for right after work means I can just walk over and then walk back to my car. It makes wedging the meetings into my calendar seem like less of an intrusion.
“Creagan sent me there because of what happened in Feathered Nest. He thinks I need help getting through that experience and the trial,” I explain.
“Which you do. Anyone would,” Eric nods.
“Then why does she keep trying to wander off into talking about my parents? Or Greg? I mentioned them the first appointment with her because I was trying to explain what was going on leading up to me going undercover, but she keeps going back to them.”
“I guess she thinks they have more of an impact than you do.”
“But that’s the problem. I can’t even connect the dots. There are these big glaring holes even I don’t know how to fill. So how is she possibly supposed to pick them apart and analyze it?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Just, Emma…” he pauses, and I turn to look at him. “Please try.”
“What do you mean?” I frown, starting to walk again.
“You know what I mean. You’ve gone through more in the first almost twenty-eight years of your life than most people do in their entire life, and you let it get to you. You weren’t yourself when you got banished to desk duty, and I don’t think you were fully back when you went to Feathered Nest. You were in a bad place, and it seriously affected you. Some of the things you did and decisions you made…”
“I know, Eric,” I interrupt, pushing the button for the parking deck elevator. “I’ve had a few months to think about it.”
“And you’re going to have to keep thinking about it. Until the trial is over…”
“Even when it is over, I’m going to keep thinking about it,” I reply. “It’s never going to go away.”
“No, it’s not. Which is why you need to work through it. Don’t push against her. It could have ended much worse for you there, and I don’t ever want to feel that fear about you again.”
The elevator opens, and I let out a long breath before stepping out.
“I’ll try harder,” I promise.
“Good.”
We walk across the mostly deserted floor toward my car, where I parked it in the same place I do every morning. I surreptitiously peek under it as I walk around behind it and glance through the back window. It’s a habit I picked up in college and have found myself drifting back to since getting home. Eric doesn’t mention it, but I see his eyes follow the path of mine like he wants to confirm my car’s safety for himself.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask.
I open the back door and toss my bag onto the seat.
“Can’t your best friend wait encouragingly for you to make sure your therapy session went well without you being suspicious about it?” he shrugs.
I narrow my eyes at him across the roof of the car.
“No,” I tell him.
He gives a dramatic sigh, his shoulders sagging.
“I’ve been sent to collect you and bring you…”
“No surprise parties,” I say, opening my door.
“Bellamy has been planning…”
“No. Surprise. Parties,” I repeat, getting into the car.
Eric quickly opens the passenger door, knowing full well I am not above driving off with him still standing there.
“Emma, your birthday is tomorrow.”
“As I’ve been reminded by various restaurant email newsletters I don’t remember signing up for and my eye doctor who sends the same birthday card-slash-appointment reminder with a big owl every single year,” I tell him. “I’m not surprised by it and don’t need to be surprised by a party, either.”
He reaches over and latches onto the steering wheel before I can start driving away.
“I know better than anyone else you don’t like to celebrate your birthday. That’s fine most years. Not this one. Bellamy and I came far too close to losing you earlier this year, and we both think the fact that we didn’t is worth celebrating. So, with every ounce of patience and love I have in me, I’m telling you you’re going to stop arguing, drive to my place, put on the outfit Bellamy picked out for you, and then go to your house for the party she snuck in to throw for you.”
“Well, that was forceful,” I mutter.
“You didn’t leave me much of a choice.”
I roll my lips in to stop myself from laughing.
“Wait. Did you say she snuck into my house?” I ask.
“Yes. Moving right along.”
He gestures through the windshield like he’s directing me to leave the parking deck.
“How did she expect you to convince me to change my clothes without you giving away the surprise?” I ask.
“I don’t think she thought that far ahead,” he offers.
“Where is your car?”
“She did think far enough to bring me to work this morning.”
I pull out of the parking spot, and Eric reaches forward to turn on the radio. One of the lessons from my father I’ve carried with me since he taught me to drive was not to have the radio on in the car. As he put it, getting too wrapped up in the chorus of one song could end in being wrapped up around a tree. Not exactly the image I like having on my mind when on the road. Eric, however, is one of those people who seems to think the radio is in the car because it’s a critical component of an internal combustion engine. He always has to have something playing if he’s in the car, even if he’s not driving. This time he compromises by settling on the news rather than music. It picks up at the beginning of a report.
“Three days after the mysterious disappearance of 10-year-old Alice Brooks, police are no closer to finding the fifth grader from Sherwood,” the reporter says.
“Sherwood,” Eric repeats. “Isn’t that the town you grew up in?”
I nod. “As close to it as I got.”
“Brooks disappeared during her first week at the Twin Rivers Summer Camp,” the report continues. “Fellow campers say she attended all the evening activities as planned and was in her assigned cabin when they all went to bed. At some point within the next hour to two hours, Brooks either left or was taken from the cabin. A cabin mate discovered her absence and brought it to the attention of counselors. Camp director Troy Macmillan is cooperating fully with police and provided full access to the camp, facilities, and surrounding areas for investigation. Sandra Brooks, the child’s mother, has been working actively with the investigation. If you have any information, please contact local law enforcement.”