Never Lie (8)

Statistically, the risk of such a thing is low. Less than a quarter of all homicide victims are female. Most of those women are young and low-income.

“Or get a boyfriend,” Paige adds with a laugh. “Like I said, happy to help on that front.”

Up to seventy percent of females who have been murdered are killed by an intimate partner. So in actuality, her suggestion to “get a boyfriend” is not only highly judgmental and insulting but would only increase my risk of meeting with a violent end. But I will not debate this woman.

“I’m really fine,” I say again. “I don’t need a security system.”

She considers this for a moment then snorts. “Yeah, that’s right. You invite the crazies right in, don’t you?”

It hits me now. I don’t know how I never saw it. Paige doesn’t respect what I do. She has been my advocate through two publications, and in her defense, she’s damn good at it. But she doesn’t believe in any of it. To her, the people I help are a bunch of “crazies.”

During the five years I have known Paige, she has insulted my home and my lifestyle choices, and she’s been the harshest critic of my manuscripts. I have taken every bit of her abuse because she’s good at what she does. But today, she has crossed a line.

Nobody talks about my patients that way.

“Paige.” I tap the corner of my right eye. “You’ve got a bit of mascara caked right here.”

“Oh!” Her black eyelashes flutter as her hand flies self-consciously to her eyes. She automatically reaches into her purse to search for a compact, but in the process, her phone slips from her left hand and clatters loudly to the wood floor. “Shit…”

She scoops up her phone—there’s a spiderweb of cracks imprinted on the screen. She looks like she’s going to burst into tears.

“Oh, dear,” I say. “It looks like your phone got cracked.”

“Shit.” She runs her index finger over the screen as if she might magically fix it with her touch. She swears again and yanks her finger away. The glass has sliced right through the pad of her finger. “Just my luck, right?”

“Maybe it’s a sign,” I say. “Perhaps you should spend less time on your phone.”

Paige laughs like I made a joke. She doesn’t know me well enough to know that I don’t make jokes.

Her smile is strained as I lead her to the door, and once she gets outside, the smile drops off her face altogether. I watch from the window as she makes her way back to her car, this time avoiding the treacherous loose brick. As soon as she slides into the driver’s seat, she twists her body to look at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She touches the corner of her eye, frowning as she searches for the mascara I had assured her was caked in there.

She’s having a bad day. But it’s going to get much worse when she gets the email from me terminating her as my agent.

I turn away from the window and look down at the manila envelope that Paige left me. My book. Two years of blood, sweat, and tears.

I carefully lift the clasp and open the envelope. I pull the proof copy of my book from within. The corners of my lips twitch. The book is exactly the way I envisioned it. My name is in bold block letters: Adrienne Hale, MD, PhD. The publisher balked when I suggested the knife dripping with blood on the book cover, but after the success of my last book, I got to call the shots. They must realize now what a brilliant decision it was—how striking the image is. I trace the letters of the title as I read the words out loud:

The Anatomy of Fear.





Chapter 4


TRICIA



Present Day




I don’t have much hope for the kitchen. If this house hasn’t been lived in during the three years Adrienne Hale has been missing, how can there be any food in the refrigerator? The best we can hope for is some stuff in cans that we can heat up.

The refrigerator is at least twice the size of the tiny one we have stuffed into our kitchen at home. Everything here seems to be orders of magnitude larger than what we have back in the city. About ten copies of our kitchen could fit into this one kitchen. I wonder if Dr. Adrienne Hale was a skilled chef. She seems like the sort of woman who could whip up a gourmet meal.

Ethan throws open the refrigerator and peers inside. “Well, we can make ourselves sandwiches.”

“Really?” I look over his shoulder into the fridge. There’s a loaf of bread in there and a bunch of cold cuts. There’s even a jar of mayonnaise. My stomach turns and I almost gag, thinking about how long that food has been sitting in there. “I’m not eating that. It probably expired years ago.”

He picks up a packet of bologna. “Nope. It doesn’t expire for another week. Judy must have bought it.”

I try to imagine Judy purchasing a packet of bologna for one of the houses she is showing. I can’t seem to do it. She’s more of a caviar-and-smoked-salmon type of person. “Are you sure? Are you looking at the year?”

“Yes. Here, look.”

He hands me the bologna. Sure enough, the date on it is from the current year, one week in the future. I open it up and sniff it, and it doesn’t smell rancid. The color looks okay.

“I’ll make us sandwiches,” he says.

Ethan lines up a loaf of bread, the bologna, and a jar of mayonnaise on the counter, and he gets to work making us sandwiches. He likes to cook for me. It’s sweet. Not that I can’t make a simple sandwich on my own, but it’s romantic the way he enjoys pampering me. Yet another thing I’ve quickly learned to love about him.