“I tried, but he made sure I couldn’t get in touch with her at all. Finally I gave up, and the divorce went through.”
Blythe was outraged. “You’re telling me that this man used his position as her therapist to turn her against you and marry her?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Why didn’t you report him?” Ed asked. “He’d lose his license, maybe even go to jail.”
“I wanted to, but they’d made me out to be an abuser. It was her word against mine, and she threatened to tell my boss I’d beaten her. He’d convinced her that I threw her down the steps and caused her to miscarry. A few years later I moved down here from Boston for this job, and when I was packing up, I found her journal. There was an entry about the time she ‘remembered’ me throwing her down the stairs. I knew that I’d been away for work then, away that whole week—and I could prove it. I took the diary to her job and left it there for her. She called me a few months later. I told her that Dr. Hunter—her husband—must have tricked her somehow.”
“What did she have to say to that?” Gabriel asked, his tone softening.
“She was upset, rambling about him being controlling, possessive. She was going to take their little girl and leave him.” He sighed. “I just wanted to prove to her that I wasn’t a bad guy. That was the last time I heard from her.”
“With good reason,” Gigi said. “She must have confronted Julian, and he probably did something to hurt her. That’s probably why she was on the road that night.”
Zane looked dejected. “Maybe I shouldn’t have reached out to her.”
Gabriel shook his head. “You’re not responsible for what happened.” He held out his phone to Zane. “But can you confirm that this is your ex-wife?”
He took the phone and studied the picture for a brief moment. “No, that’s not Cassandra.” He glanced down at the screen again. “It looks a little like her, but it’s definitely not her.”
Blythe and Gigi exchanged glances.
“Julian Hunter claims that she had a bad car accident, and her face needed to be reconstructed,” Ed said. “Is it at all possible that this could be her, after a round of plastic surgery?”
Zane’s brows knit together. “Let me look again.” He enlarged the picture and shook his head more vehemently. “Unless the car accident changed her cheekbones, and made her eyes go from brown to green, it couldn’t be her.” His face went white. “If Julian is pretending that the woman you know is Cassandra, what happened to my ex-wife?”
“I don’t know, but we need to get to Boston. Now,” Ed said. “Something is very wrong.”
Blythe’s stomach was in knots as they all gathered their things to leave. She hoped they weren’t too late.
??61??
Cassandra
I close my eyes for a moment, squeezing them shut so hard that it hurts, and ready myself to take the pills. As I breathe deeply and slowly, building my courage, I feel Julian’s hand on my shoulder and shudder. He’s telling me it’s time. I open my eyes and look at the mound of white pills resting in the palm of my hand, and then raise my eyes to the ceiling, hoping that a feeling of peace will descend.
Instead of feeling a calming sensation, I spot something in the upper corner, where the walls meet. I blink, squinting to make sure it’s what I think it is. An understanding begins to dawn on me.
Julian’s hand tightens on my shoulder. He moves in front of me and thrusts the water glass into my other hand. But I don’t swallow the pills. The infinitesimally small camera mounted in the corner tells me that I’m not crazy or paranoid. He’s been spying on me. Out of the corner of my eye, I look at the camera again. There’s a speaker too. The voices were real, but they were Julian’s. I am not crazy. Julian is the crazy one.
“Come on. You’re going to feel really sick if you don’t take the rest soon,” he prods, his voice tinged with impatience.
My mind races. I have to do something, buy some time, think.
“There’s one more thing I want to write in my letter,” I blurt out, spilling the pills from my hand onto the desk and pulling open the drawer where I saw him place the letter. Instead of the letter, though, the drawer contains the watch that Gigi gave me, as well as the bottle of perfume I thought I’d misplaced. Julian laughs. “Well, what do you know? Here’s the watch you were so careless with.”