Anything else between them, she couldn’t determine. And couldn’t think about at the moment. She felt like she was coming out of her skin. Losing her grasp on reality.

  And at the same time the drive to let go of her grasp wouldn’t stop, as though she had to hurry up and get wherever she was headed.

  No matter what.

  She didn’t like no-matter-whats. Period. Her life was built around plans and sticking to them. The success of the shop, of her career, of her aunt’s ability to become a fabulous overnight single parent, all stemmed from making plans to handle a situation as soon as it presented itself. And, while being flexible to their change, sticking to those plans.

  Inside the cabin, she glanced at the laundry basket and pan still in the middle of her floor, the bowl on the little table just inside the door. Picking them up, a bit embarrassed for the psychiatrist to see them there, she then quickly deposited the two smaller items in the basket and slid it just inside the bedroom door, while Jackson asked Dr. Chase if she’d settled into her cabin okay.

  She couldn’t tell if he had any plans to join her there. But then, neither of them would let on to something like that with her.

  And it wasn’t like it was going to hurt her case if they did. Jackson had done Aimee a huge solid, getting an expert to town overnight, just to help her find answers. Any private relationship he had with the woman wouldn’t conflict with that.

  She still didn’t like the idea. For no good reason.

  But for a not good one.

  She felt drawn to the sheriff and didn’t want to share him during her time in town. She didn’t want to sleep with him, either, though, so it wasn’t fair or even kind to want to deprive him of companionship with the beautiful psychiatrist.

  And...she was stalling her own thoughts, distracting them, and she knew it.

  An activity that absolutely did conflict with her reason for being there.

  Feeling awkward as she joined them, she asked if they’d like some tea or bottled water. Both declined. Did she show them to the living room? Was Jackson going to leave?

  The home was hers. The party was about her. But she wasn’t the one throwing it.

  The psychiatrist formally introduced herself, telling Aimee to call her Kelly.

  “I’d like to stay, on an official capacity, just for this first conversation, since I’m the one hiring Sierra’s Web services,” Jackson started in, still standing by the door.

  Kelly, in dressy-looking black shorts and a white button-down short-sleeved blouse, stood just off his right and nodded. “I told him that I’d only agree to his presence if you were okay with it,” she said to Aimee.

  Aimee nodded. Relieved.

  Why she’d want him there, she couldn’t explain, other than that, in Evergreen, she felt best with him around.

  They all three sat then, her picking the only armchair in the room, first, and the two of them settling on opposite ends of the matching big dark brown leather couch where she’d fallen asleep the night before.

  A table made out of knotted pine logs sat in front of them.

  “Sheriff Redmond filled me in on what’s transpired since you arrived in town yesterday morning,” Kelly, who just seemed to establish by her presence that she was the hostess of their little shindig, started. “Is there anything you want to add, before we talk about what part I might play in helping you find your answers?”

  Did she talk about the near-psychotic-feeling space-outs she’d had since arriving in town, at this point? The swing incident and the longing she’d felt that morning? Or did she wait for a private session?

  She’d never seen any kind of mental health professional.

  She looked at Jackson, who, while he couldn’t have any idea what she was thinking, nodded.

  “Jackson told you about the memory I had yesterday morning out in that field?”

  Kelly nodded.

  “So...this morning...we were driving by this house... I know now it was where I lived with my parents right after I was born, but I didn’t know that then. And I didn’t recognize it at all...” She needed to get that right out there. She didn’t want them thinking her episodes were any more than they were. Didn’t want to waste everyone’s time.

  She really just wanted to know where her parents died, why there was no record of the car accident, and go home.

  Or, that was what her brain wanted, at any rate.

  Two sets of professional eyes were trained on her. “Seriously,” she blurted, letting out a breath and following it with her brightest, friendliest smile. The one she used for customers at the shop who clearly weren’t interested in buying anything, but kept reaching out to touch and handle one-of-a-kind, breakable pieces, in spite of the signs instructing them not to do so. “I’m happy to speak with you, Kelly. I’d love any help you think you can give me, but I don’t want you here under false pretenses, like there’s something serious going on, some mystery to solve. And...” She glanced at Jackson, “I told you I’d pay Sierra’s Web’s bill. This isn’t anything the city of Evergreen needs to take on...”

  The whole thing...it was getting out of control...

  “We’ve got the disappearance of two people who we can trace back to living in this town until your aunt took custody of you,” Jackson said. “I’ve heard back from the morgues and mortuaries and no one has record of your parents’ bodies. Your aunt was told by social services, I’m assuming, that there was a car accident, and yet there’s no record of one...but we’ve got record of both of your parents owning vehicles that were registered in Evergreen. The tags were last renewed just months before the accident was said to have happened...”

  “Sheriff Redmond has asked me to see what I can help you remember, in the hopes that it could help him solve a missing persons case,” Kelly said.

  The words struck her heart like a painful bolt of lightning. “My parents aren’t missing,” she said. “They’re dead. Their ashes are in a vault in New Orleans...”

  “Until there’s some record of them, some proof that those ashes really do belong to Adele and Mason Cooper, we...”

  “It’s them,” Aimee said, feeling a little dizzy with the rate that things were spiraling. “We had DNA tests run a few years ago...there were fragments in the ashes, tooth or bone, and...we spent the money to have the testing done. I’d been talking about not knowing my father’s ancestry and...my aunt had it run as a gift to me. You know, from one of those new DNA ancestry places.”

  “Then I need to know how they died without there being a record of it,” Jackson said. He looked straight at her, then at Kelly. “I need to know that whatever happened...truly was an accident.”

  “You have reason to believe it might not have been?” Aimee got the words out through a dry throat.

  “I have reason to question when records can’t be found.”

  Okay. That made sense. She sat back. Took a deep breath. Was surprised at how emotional and overreactive she was getting.

  “Right,” Kelly said. “So for now, I’m working for the Evergreen Sheriff’s Office. Do you still want to meet with me?” Her glance was kind, nurturing and completely straightforward, too.

  “Yes.” The response was unequivocal and just flew out.

  “If, as things progress, the sheriff department has all it needs, but you want to continue our sessions, we can talk about a different payment arrangement.”

  Her nod came easier, with less tension from the cords in her neck. “Thank you,” she said. Glad to be dealing with forthright business. She was good at it.

  “You were talking about a house you drove by this morning...”

  She hesitated another second and then gave in. If her reply sounded woo-woo and out there, and as though it bore no validity, better that they all found out sooner rather than later. “I had no idea I had any connection to the place,” she started slowly, her gaze glued on the doctor now. “And didn’t feel any sense of having ever seen it before...but as I looked at the place, this lovely big elegant home with a mother-in-law suite over the garage... I felt such an incredible longing to someday own a place like that. And... I identified with my mother all of a sudden, was overcome with sadness that she wasn’t there, that I didn’t know her...which sounds perfectly natural, considering I was orphaned so young, except that it’s the first time I’ve ever been aware of feeling that way. To the point that, when I realized what was going on, I felt guilty, like I was betraying my aunt...” She sounded like a bad soap opera character. Creating drama where there needn’t be any.

  Should she lie down on that couch? Close her eyes and give her mind up to being scientifically studied?

  Or maybe just suck it all up, head back to New Orleans and quit laying her guts out in the open in front of strangers...taking up time better used for real criminal and psychiatric work.

  Jackson’s glance at Kelly blew out any other thoughts from her brain, as she watched the silent exchange between the two. Personal, professional, she didn’t know, but she was done being their guinea pig. She was going to...

  “Do you mind answering a personal question?” Kelly asked. “It’s something I’d generally ask in a confidential session with just myself and the client present, so we can wait if you’d rather...”

  She shook her head. Another session seemed highly unlikely at that point. Might as well give them whatever they wanted, if it could help Jackson get on with real sheriffing work.

  And justify the expense of Kelly’s presence in Evergreen.

  “I’d like to know about your personal relationships.”

  “What about them?”

  “You were close to your aunt...obviously...since you felt guilty experiencing feelings of longing for your mother.”

  “I didn’t know until I was in fourth grade that my aunt wasn’t my mother.” She heard the defensiveness in her tone, wondered at it, but couldn’t take it back. “So, yes, we were close.”

  “Would you say soul deep close?”

  “Yes.” Absolutely. Soul deep close.

  “And who else are you close to?”

  She shook her head. “I mean... I have so many friends...people my aunt and I know together, share holidays with, artists we work with, a gang from college, another one from high school...”

  “And you’re soul deep close with all of them?”

  “No. Of course not.” And soul deep, what was that? Certainly not a psychological term.

  “So let’s talk about those friends. The ones you’re deeply heart connected to...”

  Not one name sprang to mind. Because there were so many of them. Her life was full. Lovely. Or had been until Aunt Bonnie’s accident.

  “I’m the type of person who has a ton of friends, who’s open to so many people,” she said. “Not the type who only has a few close friends that she tells everything to.”

  “What about a romantic relationship?”

  She shrugged. Uncomfortably aware of Jackson Redmond sitting there, watching her, listening. She tried to ignore his presence as she said, “Nothing serious.” She shook her head. “Not because I’m opposed to it or anything,” she quickly asserted. “I’ve always thought I’d get married, have a family. I’d definitely like that. I just haven’t met the right guy. And I know it wouldn’t be healthy to settle...”

  She’d been busy with the business. And her art.

  “I date regularly,” she added, not wanting her current problems to seem more than they were. “I’m open to more...it just hasn’t happened yet.”

  Yeah, she’d pretty much said that already. Fell silent.

  She’d lobbed the conversation back to Kelly, and was leaving it there.

  After an intolerably long and uncomfortable few seconds, Aimee was ready to pack her bag, turn in her rental car and jump on the first plane that would take her someplace else.

  “Here’s what I think.” Kelly’s voice was like a rock against glass. It shattered whatever peace had been left in the room, filled her with fear and garnered Aimee’s full attention.

  “I think what could be happening here is that you witnessed something when you were three, that you are starting to slowly remember what it was, for any number of reasons, but most likely associated with your aunt’s sudden and tragic death, and that whatever it is has to do with your parents in some way. I think this could, in part, be why you’ve failed to form deep connections with anyone else in your life, other than the aunt who saved you at the time.”

  Okay, that was just a bit over-the-top. There was nothing wrong with her relationships...

  “You think, somewhere inside, she knows what happened to her parents?” Jackson’s voice brought her gaze back to him. She let it stay there. Giving her something upon which to steady herself.

  “It’s possible. It could also be something as simple as being present during an argument between the two of them the day that they were killed in the car accident. A three-year-old mind would see the argument as the hugest, most horrible thing she’d ever experienced, and then them not returning could have solidified that that argument was the end of life as she’d known it. Ordinarily, a three year old isn’t going to remember an argument, but one with a major life change attached could hang around in her psyche.”

  It could be that simple? An argument. And her ability to have healthy relationships was just fine.

  Then why in the hell didn’t she just remember the damn thing? Come on, younger kid me, cough it up.

  “It could also be something horribly tragic. Until your mind shows you, we can only guess...”

  “You think there’s valid reason for you to be here?” Aimee asked the question, afraid of the answer, either way.

  “I do.”

  Then she had to follow this through. “So when do we start?”

  “We can start now if you’d like. The first thing I’d like to do is a cognitive interview about yesterday’s memory...”

  She was nodding, sitting forward before the woman even finished the sentence. Anything. Whatever it took.

  Jackson stood. “I’ll be heading out...”

  “No!” Aimee had no conscious thought of deciding to stop him. The outburst was purely reactionary. So unlike her. And yet, not to be denied. “I’d like you to stay. In case...you’ve been here your whole life. And we were three together. Maybe you’ll relate to something...”

  The justification was clearly bogus.

  He glanced at Kelly. Who shrugged. “That choice is between the two of you,” she said to Aimee, and then included Jackson with a quick glance.

  Aimee looked up at him. “You can go if you’d like.” She had no business keeping him.

  “No.” He sat back down. “As long as I’m not in the way, I’d like to be here.”

  Her old self would have smiled. Thanked him. Offered him another shot at tea or water. Her current self just sat there, glad that he was sitting there, too.

  Chapter 8

  He should have felt awkward, out of place, sitting in that small cabin, witnessing an intimately personal moment for a woman he’d just met. Or, at the very least, had the wherewithal to shield himself in professional immunity.

  He didn’t even realize his lapse until his heart leaped in his chest and he got a visual of himself sitting forward, completely engaged, and more emotionally tuned in than he could ever remember being.

  “That voice...the angry one...do you recognize it?” Kelly’s question came gently, but with soft authority, as she sat perpendicular from Aimee, who sat head back, eyes closed.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you see who it is?”

  “No... I can see the branches and leaves. They start in a vee at the trunk and go up and form a heart shape right above me. Hearts like on the bottom and ear of my teddy bear. The white one, with the red hearts...” Aimee’s response took on an almost childlike quality, but in the voice he recognized. He didn’t want to move, felt as though even a breath inhaled or released too strongly could interrupt what was happening before they found out what they needed to know.

  “Where is that teddy bear?”

  “In the house. In my big girl bed. He stays there and plays and waits for me to go to sleep with him.”

  Aimee opened her eyes. “What was that?” She looked only at Kelly.

  “It’s okay,” the psychiatrist said, as though calming a child. “Close your eyes and tell me about the voice.”

  A second or two passed, and then Aimee’s lips moved, but emitted no sound. They moved again, and, “It’s getting louder.”

  “Because it’s getting closer?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you recognize it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Daddy.” The response was so matter-of-fact-stating something in a way that expressed surprise that there’d been any doubt—that Jackson was taken aback.

  Had she known all along?

  Even as he had the thought, Aimee’s lids popped open again, her gaze wide, her brow lined with pain. “It was my father!” She looked at Kelly. “My father was coming toward us. He was making the man cry.”

  “The man?”

  She shook her head. “The boy, man, it’s never really clear. It’s like a really big boy. I don’t see him, other than the dirt on his hands, or his clothes. There’s never a face...”

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  “No.” Closing her eyes again, Aimee shook her head, her mouth pinched, her hands clasped with one thumb rubbing up and down the other, over and over again.

  “But you’re afraid of your father?”

  Another shake. “I was then, but... I think that’s what scared me.”

  Kelly was so focused, as though she was only aware of Aimee in the room, as though she was watching the past unfold right along with her. “I don’t understand. You were scared because he scared you?”