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  She was right. Of course she was right.

  “The other thing is your safety. You need some checks and balances if you’re sleepwalking. Since you live alone, you need to set up some sort of system that will wake you up or keep you in the house instead of leaving. Could your friend Tami possibly stay with you?”

  “I’ve asked. She’ll stay when she can, but she gets called in at all hours.”

  She scrunched her nose. I took it that was her main plan.

  “I’m not tying myself to the bed, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I softened my sarcasm with a grin.

  She chuckled. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of placing a bell on your bedroom door. What if you set up your alarm system so Tami got a text if you left in the middle of the night?”

  I gave that some thought.

  “Have you thought about taking sleeping pills?”

  I recoiled at her suggestion. I hated taking pills. It was bad enough I took something for my migraines.

  “I’d rather not.”

  She leaned her head to the side, tapped her pen against her cheek. “Is there something about the idea of taking the pills that bothers you?”

  “I don’t like how they make me feel.” That wasn’t a cop-out. It was the truth. I’d taken them in the past and hated the grogginess that followed the morning after. Not to mention the brain fog.

  “Someone has come into my home and left me notes. My doors are locked all the time. I don’t feel safe, and if I take those . . .” I didn’t finish my sentence because I didn’t need to.

  She nodded. “That makes sense. Which is why I suggested Tami staying with you. I hate to say it, Danielle, but considering you have no recollection of what you’re doing while you’re asleep, I’m not seeing any minus signs, you know? You’re right, someone has come into your home, and it doesn’t seem safe.”

  My eyes narrowed somewhat as I realized what she was really saying.

  “You’re saying there’s no difference between taking the pills or not taking the pills.”

  “Right. But”—she paused and looked down at her file—“I’m not about to ask you to do something you’re really uncomfortable with. There are more natural sleeping options if you’d prefer to go that route. You’ll have to play with them, see what works and what doesn’t. But you can find them in any drugstore.”

  I let that thought play around in my head. “Natural as in herbal?”

  A grin bloomed on her face. I think she heard the hope in my voice, the acceptance.

  “I would prefer you taking a prescription, but I’ll be happy if you do this too. Just ask the pharmacist to assist you. There are a lot of options, and they’ll be able to help find the right one. I really think it would help.” She leaned forward. “I even take them,” she admitted.

  Knowing that, it helped.

  I’d ask Tami to stay, but I’d make it casual and have it appear as if I wanted to look after her while she worked these murder cases, not because I was scared. But . . . what if I had a bout of sleepwalking when she was there? I hadn’t yet, not any time she’d stayed in the past, but there was always a first time for everything.

  I didn’t want her to worry about me, and she would if she knew the truth.

  “Let’s talk about the notes you’ve received. Have you told Tami?”

  She wanted me to say yes. I wished I could.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Tiny lines of disappointment crinkled along her eyes and forehead.

  It was a simple question, although the answer was anything but simple.

  “I know what the notes say, but I don’t want to believe them. I don’t want to believe one of my patients is the killer.” There was a level of certainty in my voice as sure, as solid, as stable as concrete. Would she believe it? I doubted it. I wasn’t sure if I did.

  “But what if it is true? What if one of them is the killer?” Dr. Brown asked, her hands folded on top of her lap with a look on her face I didn’t want to read.

  It’s not that I couldn’t read it—I just didn’t want to.

  “Danielle.” Her voice had that it’s-time-to-face-reality tone to it. “You’re here not just because you need help handling your stress but also because you need help in reading your clients. You’re not sure if you’re helping them, which tells me you’re not sure if you know them enough.”

  I sat there, stone cold, a blank statue without facial features she could read.

  “If you don’t know them the way you feel you should by now,” she continued, “then how can you be so sure that the notes aren’t warnings about them?”

  I didn’t know what to say. She was right, to a point.

  “I understand what you’re saying, but—”

  “But you don’t want to accept it.” She stood and headed to her desk. She pulled something from a drawer.

  “You can’t be expected to know everything about your patients, Danielle. This might sound harsh, but the reality is you’re never going to be everything your patients need. That’s Psychology 101, something your professors would have said year one. It’s definitely something you learn within a few patients into your practice.”

  The way she watched me, careful, with considerate caution, unsure of my reaction, bothered me. I was wary now of what she would say.

  “Just after I started my own practice, I had a client who touched my heart. She was a twenty-one-year-old college student, came from a family who sacrificed everything so she could succeed. She was bright, intelligent, and had so many friends who loved her.” She was holding a photograph in her hands, and the smile she gave me was full of sadness and guilt.

  She turned the photo so I saw the student in front of a building, a bag full of books across her body. She wasn’t smiling.

  “I thought I knew her. Our sessions were focused on strategies to handle the stress of her parents’ expectations, of her own, and I really thought we’d made progress. Sometimes we would meet in my office. Other times, I’d join her for coffee while she worked on assignments. This photo,” she said as her sad smile wobbled, “was taken one day before she died by suicide.”

  Like a gut punch, I flinched. She’d told me this story to share a message. One I heard loud and clear.

  “I had no idea,” she continued, “no idea she was that close. I knew she was depressed. It was something we’d discussed and had some strategies to help with, but if you would have told me she’d be dead the day after our coffee meeting, I would have called you a liar.”

  She set the photo down on the coffee table faceup so it was there, a subtle reminder.

  “If it’s true,” I said, “if it’s true that Savannah, Tyler, or Ella is the killer, why tell me?”

  “Good question. Why do you think?”

  I shrugged. Hell if I knew. “Why not just go to the police? If they know something I don’t, why play this game with me? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why are you so sure it’s not them?” Her voice was strong but soft and missing everything I’d expected to hear.

  “I . . .” The words disappeared. The things I wanted to say, the things I needed to admit—they were glued to my tongue. I couldn’t say them because, deep down, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, was I? It was hard to face that truth.

  “Are you a mind reader?” she asked.

  I sighed.

  A small ball of stress appeared beneath my fingers when I placed them at the base of my neck. Despite the pain relievers and the neck warmers, no matter how much I massaged it myself, that ball wouldn’t go away.

  “Okay. Let’s discuss the notes.” She paused, looked around as if collecting her thoughts. “If you’re scared, then you need to share them with the authorities. Especially Tami. Someone has come into your home. That would scare me.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?” she asked. “Share them with the authorities or tell Tami?”

  “They’re one and the same, and I don’t want her to know ye
t.”

  “Why?”

  “She doesn’t need the stress. Not right now. Her focus needs to be on catching the killer.”

  “What if your notes hold a clue?”

  What if. I didn’t want to play this game. “There’s no clue because it can’t be real.”

  Did she hear the doubt too?

  I was my own worst enemy right now, going back and forth.

  “What you’re telling me is that you’re not ready to tell Tami. Which is okay. For now.” That last part she added with a smile.

  I smiled back, wobbly and uncertain. I bit my lips and stared at the potted fern she’d added since I had last seen her.

  “How about we focus on trusting yourself?” she asks. “Trusting your instincts, especially when it comes to your clients.”

  I wanted to snicker, to scoff at the idea that I could trust my instincts. Not being able to read those instincts was why I was there. Which, given our conversation about my certainty that none of my patients could be the killer, was hilarious.

  I saw what she did there.

  “I think my instincts have taken a vacation.” Sure, let’s add some humor to the discussion. You didn’t need to take Psych 101 to know humor was used as a deflection mechanism.

  “Let me rephrase that,” I said. “How do you know if your instincts are right or not? I mean, I’ve been working with my patients long enough now to know that they should be getting better. Right? Or am I just being too hard on myself?”

  “Therapy is just a means to healing. It’s not the cure.”

  I wanted straight talk, not psychobabble.

  “Okay,” said Dr. Brown. “Let me put it this way, then. Just because someone comes to you for help doesn’t always mean they are ready for it. There’s only so much you can do as their therapist. You know that.”

  “I know.” Air puffed out from my compressed lips. “But that doesn’t negate the fact I feel like a failure.”

  “I think you asked the perfect question before. Do you think you’re being too hard on yourself?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” The challenge in my voice was loud. She looked at me like she was waiting for me to say something, to maybe retract my words. I wasn’t going to.

  My question was real. I wanted to know. I needed to know.

  “Yes, yes, I probably would be if I truly wasn’t helping my patients,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t let it linger, and I would remember that I was doing the absolute best I could, and that includes seeking help. You’re here, and that’s a huge step. You’re doing everything you can, Danielle.”

  I was ready to argue that point, because we both knew it wasn’t true.

  “You mentioned self-love.” Dr. Brown tapped the notepad on her lap. “Did you ever focus on this with your patients?”

  Self-love? As a focus?

  “Of course.” It came out more like a question than an answer. “Especially with Ella.” I added some strength to my words so I seemed more in control, like I knew what I was talking about.

  She wrote Ella’s name down on her pad of paper.

  “I know you believe you failed all your patients, but why don’t we focus on how you helped them. Sometimes all it takes is a different outlook to counteract the negative voices in your head.”

  I flinched. I didn’t mean to, but she’d hit the nail on the head.

  Before now I would have said I was a positive person, that I looked for the good in people, for the bright side, for the rainbow, so to speak. But now I was all doom and gloom. I saw only the damaging, never the positive.

  When had that changed?

  “Danielle.” Dr. Brown twisted in her seat. “Why don’t you list for me five positive things that happened today.” Her voice was upbeat and as sugary as a lollipop.

  I hated lollipops.

  “Fresh coffee, hot shower, blue sky.” I counted off the first three things that came to mind. She waited with a mixture of exasperation and encouragement. “I’m alive, and . . .” Listing five things off the top of my head wasn’t easy. I wanted to go for a run, clear my head, focus on only my breathing and the sound of my feet as they smacked the pavement.

  “And I’m here with you.” I said this last one with a feeling of triumph, like a little kid who finally got the answer he’d been searching for all day. “I suppose you want me to find five ways I’ve helped my patients too, right? Is this where we’re headed?”

  I didn’t wait for the good doctor to agree with me.

  “Let’s start with Ella. When she first introduced herself to me, she was a shell of a person. No eye contact, jumpy, and when she spoke, I could barely hear her.”

  Looking back, I realized just how far Ella had come since we’d first been introduced, and a little bit of hope bloomed inside me.

  “It’s been a process, but she’s better.” I let that sit with me for a moment.

  “Better how?” Dr. Brown asked.

  “She looks me in the eye more than before, she can handle sudden noises, and we can have a conversation without me having to ask her to speak up.” I touched that bump again at the back of my neck. Pushed on it. Pushed through the pain my touch brought.

  “Did you notice any other changes with her?”

  “Ella . . .” I paused to find the right words. “Ella is a strong and amazing woman, full of surprises. But she doesn’t see herself like that. I’m not sure she ever will. She’s had to remold herself into a new person more than anyone else I’ve ever known. That’s . . . not healthy, and damaging to one’s true identity.”

  “What’s her true identity, then? Did you ever see it? Did she ever reveal it to you?” Dr. Brown’s shoulders were hunched over her chest as she leaned forward, her arms straight out, resting on her knees.

  My answer was important to her.

  Why?

  Chapter Thirty

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 22

  Ella and her missed sessions had to stop.

  No word, no warning, no response to my multiple messages to make sure she showed up tomorrow. Something didn’t add up, and my gut told me that whatever was going on with her, it wasn’t good.

  In the past, I wouldn’t have stressed so much. In the past, I would have assumed she was busy working. But after her admission about the murders, I wasn’t just worried.

  I was scared.

  Her last words to me had been a confession that it was her fault those parents were dead, and then she’d bolted from my office.

  She said it was her fault. She said she was responsible. She never explained how.

  I appreciated how Dr. Brown had walked me through my thought process regarding the notes. No matter how convenient it looked, I knew it couldn’t be Ella. I refused to allow her past to tarnish her future. “Once a killer always a killer” didn’t apply to Ella. She’d been a child under extreme stress.

  She’d changed. She was no longer that young girl she’d been.

  And yet doubt clouded my mind like mist drifting off a mountain.

  Since Ella wouldn’t come to me, I would go to her.

  From my home to the library was about a thirty-minute walk. I grabbed a coffee from one of the many coffee shops lining Wonderland Street and took my time.

  I loved the town of Cheshire. Loved everything about it, from how quaint the stores were to the little boutiques and bed-and-breakfast locations. I adored all the secondhand shops and the bakeries. The town reminded me of what you’d find in Europe, minus the cobblestone walks.

  When I first moved here, I wasn’t sure if I would fit into such a small town, where secrets were never kept, where life moved more slowly than normal, where things appeared to be too good to be true.

  When things appeared to be too good, most of the time they weren’t.

  Serial murders happened in big cities, not towns far from the bright lights and busy streets. Sleeper towns were just that . . . sleepy. People moved here to get away from the busyness, because they needed to feel safe, to raise their growing families in a
community they believed they could trust.

  On my way to the library, where normally I’d see smiles and laughing children flocking the sidewalks, there was almost no one out.

  “Danielle.” I heard my name being called.

  Sabrina had stepped out of her store and waved. She wore a flowing blue dress and held a pale-yellow scarf around her arms. Her hair was in a loose braid that fell over her shoulder, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she knew the secret to remaining young despite the gray in her hair.

  “I just wanted to check that you were feeling okay,” she said, her voice soft and full of concern as I backtracked to see her.

  By the puzzlement on my face, she must have noted my confusion.

  “Last night, remember? You were sitting there on that bench when I closed up the café.” She pointed to the one in front of her store. “You said you were feeling a little dizzy, that you’d been so busy you’d forgotten to eat, so I gave you a trail bar I’d baked that morning. I didn’t realize you were hypoglycemic.”

  “I’m not.” I looked to the bench and then back to Sabrina. “Last night?”

  “You don’t remember? You were supposed to call or send me a text once you got home.”

  Last night I had been at home.

  “I stopped by a little while later, after running to the store, but you were fast asleep on the couch.” She lightly rubbed my arm with her hand. “You really do need to close your curtains, especially at night. Don’t worry, I couldn’t see anything since you were under a bundle of blankets, but with you being so close to the park and all, you don’t want any Peeping Toms looking in, especially since you’re single.”

  My curtains were always closed at night. I was fastidious when it came to privacy.

  “What time did you stop by?” I knew for a fact I hadn’t slept. The mound of blankets had been just that. A mound.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Sabrina glanced at her watch. “I saw you here around eight o’clock, then I ran to the store, chatted with Gloria, the one who works the night shift and bakes all those cakes. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her, so . . . I was probably there almost two hours. My husband texted, wondering if I was coming home or not.”