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  “You are scaring me, Detective.” An understatement. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer.

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  “I’m ready to leave, Dr. Gallant,” Bertie said. “Got everything back in place. Anything else I can do before I go?”

  “Thank you, Bertie. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Would you let Daisy out, please? And make sure the back door is secured when you come in.”

  “Sure. Come on, Daisy, Bertie’s gonna take you out.”

  Daisy padded to the door, her excitement audible. When she returned, she stuck her head under Abby’s hand, demanding attention. Golden retrievers were affectionate and eager to please, but Daisy took her guide responsibilities seriously. Abby would be lost without her.

  After thanking Bertie and letting her out, Abby double-locked the door, hooked the safety chain, and returned to her office. Current patients’ information was on the computer and on audio. When a patient completed counseling, she converted the text, using Braille translation software, then printed it onto special one-hundred-pound paper on a Braille embosser. She pulled up records going back five years. The files were kept in an unlocked cabinet. No one with access could read the code but her. The system worked well.

  A couple of hours buried in the files uncovered no surprises. No one reached the level of likely suspect. Then who? And why?

  The only person who ever wished her harm was dead.

  * * * * *

  Abby referred Luke to Greenville psychologist, Dr. Mack Tollison, a colleague and friend. She made sure Mack understood that the reason she withdrew from Luke’s therapy was personal and didn’t reflect on him as a patient.

  She and Luke agreed to wait until after his evaluation to explore a relationship, for his protection as well as hers. Abby wanted no hint of impropriety. That didn’t stop Luke from emailing or having Pete check on her, which instilled a sense of security into her unraveling life.

  Everything all right? he wrote. Drop a line if you need to talk. I won’t tell.

  You’re making this hard as hell, she answered.

  Still, she looked forward to his messages and felt disappointed when they weren’t there.

  The next month passed without incident. No break-ins, no scary emails or phone calls, nothing suspicious at work. Abby tried to put the menacing situation out of her mind, but it resurfaced without conscious effort.

  Luke kept his word. He made no overtures to see her. The inability to cultivate the relationship somehow made the idea more desirable, much like forbidden fruit. His emails fostered the impression that he’d adjusted to his job, but she read between the lines that marking fingerprints and referencing other data bored him. She credited him for sticking with it but kept her professional opinion to herself.

  After six sessions, Mack informed her that he’d completed Luke’s evaluation. “Just letting you know,” he said. She didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t offer the information.

  Luke showed up at her office a few days later, unannounced. Cleo showed him in.

  “This is a surprise,” Abby said, pleased to hear Luke’s voice.

  “So was my evaluation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As if you didn’t know. All you shrinks stick together.”

  Abby stiffened at the acid bite to Luke’s tone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What did Dr. Tollison say in his evaluation?”

  “He said I’m through.”

  “Through? How?”

  “Some damn psychobabble about feeling diminished and angry.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Damn right. I’m about to lose my job.”

  Abby didn’t know what to say and questioned whether she wouldn’t have come to the same conclusion had she completed his counseling. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

  “Would you have agreed?”

  She hesitated. “I…I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do. You knew the first time we talked.”

  The hairs on Abby’s neck prickled. Luke was forcing her to divulge an evaluation she could only surmise, but she decided to be as honest as possible. “I never formed an opinion, but I told you I thought you had issues you weren’t facing.”

  “So you would have cost me my job too.”

  “Is that what happened?”

  “Not yet. The evaluation is under consideration, but I can see the handwriting on the wall. You saw it, too. Oh, I forgot. You don’t see anything, do you?”

  If she hadn’t been sitting down, she would have collapsed into the chair because her knees went weak and rubbery. Responding to the hurt that must have shown on her face, Luke knelt close and reached for her hand. She jerked it away.

  “God, Abby, I’m sorry. That was inexcusable. I spoke without thinking.”

  His words were a low blow, spoken in momentary anger and frustration, but how they stung. Though Luke’s emotions simmered close to the surface, she hadn’t expected them to boil over so soon. Certainly not at her.

  In that moment, Abby lost her sense of equilibrium. She reached for the intercom button to call Cleo and couldn’t find it. Groping around the desk, she felt blind in her own office, one of only three places where she felt normal. She finally found the phone base and depressed the button. “Cleo, would you come in here, please?” She turned to face Luke. “I’d like you to leave.”

  “Forgive me, Abby, please. I’m a jerk.”

  “Go, would you? Just go.” She swiveled the chair around so he couldn’t see her eyes fill with tears or her lips say something she might regret. She wanted to tell him again to leave but heard him walk to the door as Cleo came in to ask what she wanted. The outer door closed.

  Cleo approached and put her hand on Abby’s shoulder. “What happened?”

  Ellie followed close behind. “Abby, tell us. Did he hurt you? If he did I’ll—”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s the downside of therapy. You can’t always make everyone happy.” Abby managed to contain her emotions but felt a surge of sadness breaking through her ever-present veneer of resolve. “I need to go to the restroom.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Cleo asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I’ll be fine.”

  She knew the layout of her office, hall, and bathroom. Brushing alongside the desk, her outstretched hand touched the doorframe. Straight ahead. Ten steps through the outer office. Right turn. Twenty-six steps to the bathroom door, hand skimming the wall. Seven to the stall, where she locked the door, sat down on the commode, and burst into tears.

  What just happened? She’d been ambushed. Betrayed. She needed time to make sense of it. All her training left her unprepared because this was personal. She felt like someone had rammed a fist into her gut and pushed the air right out of her. Her tears exhausted, she hung over the sink for a minute, took a few deep breaths to fight off the nausea, then splashed cold water on her face. She blotted it with a paper towel—grateful the mirror’s reflection didn’t stare back.

  Cleo ushered Abby into the office and embraced her as soon as the door closed behind them. “There, there, let me wipe away your drippy mascara. Jonah Wall is out there, and we wouldn’t want him to see his therapist upset, would we?” Cleo took some lotion and patted it under Abby’s swollen eyes. “He can’t be worth it if he made you cry, honey.”

  “Oh, dear. Jonah. I forgot. Of all people. No, I wouldn’t want him to see me upset. I can never get away with anything. There’s always a telltale clue. That damn mascara is supposed to be waterproof.” She sniffled and wiped her nose with a tissue. “I feel like an idiot.”

  Cleo put the finishing touches on Abby’s face. “There isn’t a woman alive who hasn’t felt the same way.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better. How do I look?”

  “This might be a good time for your dark glasses, honey. You’re a bit—”

  “Puffy?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Great. Jonah Wall’
s puffy-eyed therapist needs a therapist.”

  For the next hour Abby tried to concentrate on her patient, but Luke’s sharp words twisted her stomach in knots while she struggled to hold back the tears. How would she ever get through the day?

  * * * * *

  Luke couldn’t hear the sound of his own words, but remembering the expression on Abby’s face, he knew how much he’d hurt her. Words once spoken can never be retracted. God knows, he tried. He didn’t blame her. She tried to help and he stabbed her in the back. But that had been his habit, his signature as far back as he could remember. Letting down the people he cared about.

  Mack Tollison concluded the only way he could, and Abby would have agreed. They were both right. That’s exactly what she said he wasn’t willing to face.

  No, he wasn’t. He wanted his life back the way it was before the accident. He wanted his old job on the streets, to hear the sound of Abby’s voice. Then the thought struck. Abby hadn’t been part of his old life, and he’d done everything to insure his new life would be without her too. Time to get his head straight, put things in order, or he’d continue on a straight path to nowhere.

  He had some time coming. He’d ask the captain for a few days now while they discussed his future without him around. He needed this job, and he’d leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’d do whatever necessary to keep it. Then he needed to come to terms with the new Luke McCallister.

  Chapter Six

  The Internal Compass Goes Awry

  That evening, Abby listened to the computer’s robotic voice of Luke McCallister begging forgiveness. For once, she was glad she couldn’t hear the inflections of someone’s words.

  “I know I have issues,” he wrote, “and that Mack Tollison’s evaluation was spot on, if I were being objective, which right now I’m finding difficult.”

  Another apologetic email followed. Then another. She didn’t answer any of them.

  Abby knew Luke was going through hell. Bad enough to lose your hearing to the job, but to lose the job because you couldn’t hear was a cruel irony.

  During her training dealing with disability—she gave in to the word—her instructor had posed this question: Which handicap is worse, being deaf or blind? She remembered the words of Helen Keller because at the time she didn’t agree.

  I am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus – the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.

  Abby thought about those words for a long time after hearing them, and eventually agreed. Through a sign language interpreter, a former patient, deaf since birth, conveyed her total isolation from the hearing world, from music, from television before closed captions.

  Although the intellectually-gifted woman had been mainstreamed in school, children still teased her and called her dummy. She felt ostracized from both the hearing and the deaf worlds and attempted suicide in her adult life when the loneliness became so pervasive she couldn’t go on. Luke could communicate, but his situation still left him at a disadvantage concerning the work he loved.

  She weighed Luke’s situation for a few days, pondered his apologies, and found both difficult to consider objectively. When she did, she wrote him an email. No response. She didn’t want to ask anyone to text him, so she waited. Still nothing. Finally, she called Pete Valkonis.

  “Pete, I’ve been trying to reach Luke. Do you know where he is?”

  “Luke’s taking some personal time.” Pete hesitated. “He didn’t say where he was going, and I didn’t ask. I could text him if you want.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  Pete changed the subject. “Have there been any more incidents?”

  “No, thankfully.”

  “I doubt there will be. Whoever spooked you accomplished what he set out to do. Call if you need me.”

  * * * * *

  Abby scanned the letter that waited for her when she got home from work. She listened to its contents. Someone had lodged a complaint against her to the Board of Examiners of the South Carolina Psychological Association.

  She called immediately. “Can’t you tell me who made the complaint?”

  “No, Dr. Gallant. All I can say is that someone filed an anonymous complaint that you have engaged in unethical conduct with a patient. You’ll be assigned an investigator who’ll communicate with you in the near future.”

  “You mean you don’t even know who filed the complaint?”

  “That’s all I can say. I assure you the investigation will be conducted in a fair and thorough manner.”

  She got off the phone and realized she hadn’t felt this low in years. Everything was happening at once: the ransacking of her home, the phone calls and computer messages, the complaint to the ethics committee…and Luke McCallister. She knew she’d acted properly, but that didn’t assuage the sickening rumbling in her stomach. What a mess.

  Abby called her attorney, Zeke Barnes, to establish her rights. “I’ll accompany you if it comes to a hearing,” he said, “but considering what you’re telling me, I doubt it will.”

  She called Don Weston and explained the situation. He’d been her counselor in school and had helped her through some bleak days. They’d developed a professional and personal relationship, and she felt he would advise her objectively. She assumed the unethical behavior charge concerned Luke and explained the situation to Weston.

  “I can’t discount the possibility of a future association with this man, Don, although at the moment it seems remote.”

  “Abby, I don’t see you’ve done anything inappropriate or unethical. Conversely, your actions were above reproach when you recused yourself. Even if a relationship develops, I think vindication is in order.”

  Don’s evaluation lifted her spirits, at least for the moment. The complaint still weighed on her mind, and she worked late into the evening, burying herself in current files to free her mind. Stressed and tired, she almost fell asleep at her desk. Time to call it a night.

  She called for Daisy, who’d been in the back yard for the last hour. “Come on, girl.” She waited, leaning against the doorjamb. “Come, Daisy.” Abby was dead on her feet and wanted to go to bed. She whistled and cajoled, but still no Daisy.

  A noise in the far corner of the yard drew her attention. She never ventured past the chairs on the patio but knew the grassed area stretched almost thirty feet deep, enclosed on three sides by a high wooden fence attached to both ends of the house. A locked gate on the right side let the yardman enter with his key. The sound persisted, now identifiable as Daisy’s whimpering. What happened? Abby felt her way along the boxwood hedges bordering the house until she came to the fence.

  One foot in front of the other. Working her way around, she followed Daisy’s mewls as they grew louder.

  Thirty feet to the left corner. A splinter from the fence slivered into her finger. She barely felt it as she continued along, hugging the slatted enclosure. Daisy rustled in the grass, her whines more pronounced.

  Movement on the other side of the yard. Daisy expelled a warning growl and shifted in what sounded like an attempt to rise, followed by a grunt and a thud as she dropped to the ground.

  “I’m coming, Daisy. I’m almost there.” Then, another sound from farther back.

  “Who’s there?” Abby cocked her head to listen, but all she heard was her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. The fine hairs on Abby’s arms stood erect like sentries warning of impending danger, exactly like the day in her office building.

  Footsteps in the grass advanced toward her.

  Slowly.

  Deliberately.

  She stood pinned against the fence, ears pricked to the sounds.

  “Please answer me,” she said, her words no more than a whisper. “Why are you doing this? Tell me. Maybe we can solve the problem. If it
’s something I’ve done…”

  But what? What can I do to make it right? Is that what I should say?

  Nothing she’d ever done merited this intrusion into her life. She wouldn’t beg, and she’d be damned before playing the role of victim again. She wanted to scream. But as she stood frozen, a Pompeii victim in her own yard, her vocal chords were as paralyzed as her body.

  The steps in the grass came closer.

  A shift in the airwaves. That indiscernible feeling someone sighted doesn’t notice but a blind person is conditioned to sense. To hear. The difference between a closed room and wide-open spaces. Whoever invaded her home came with a purpose, and he stood right in front of her. She felt his heat.

  And she smelled cloves.

  She wanted to push him aside and run, but who was she kidding? One thing running on a track with a guide, another on unfamiliar, uneven ground. Before she could say anything, a gloved hand reached around her throat and squeezed, trapping her words inside her. She pushed his hand away and started to scream, but he grabbed hold again, snickering under his breath. His other hand pressed hard against her mouth.

  “Shhh,” her tormenter whispered. “Shhh.” The force of his body crushed her to the fence. Evil radiated from him, surrounding her like the devil’s fire. She looked straight at him, conjuring up an image of his height and the mass of his body, but not his face. Never his face. How safe he must feel, knowing she saw nothing more than the blackness of night.

  She tried to wriggle away, to raise her knee into his groin, but she couldn’t move, her strength no match to his. His hand tightened around her neck, cutting off her air supply. She drew a ragged breath into her lungs. Not enough to scream.

  His breathing rose and fell like someone in a deep sleep whose heart beat half the rate of hers. The pungent smell of cloves made her want to gag.

  She lunged at him, pushing her body off the fence with as much force as she could muster, but lack of oxygen rendered her light-headed, and her body went limp, supported only by his hands. Breathe. She was slipping away. It can’t end like this. Not like this. Breathe, Abby, breathe.