The Stranger in the Mirror(78)

“Very strange. The last time I spoke with her was around four years ago,” Zane told her. “We hadn’t exactly stayed in touch.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to get divorced. I thought we were happy enough, even though we’d struggled to have children. But she accused me of some horrible things, then essentially ghosted me and had me served.”

Gabriel leaned forward. “What kind of things?”

Zane threaded his hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, so let me back up. She was in therapy to deal with depression. She’d had three miscarriages and was grieving deeply over them. Instead of helping her, her therapist convinced her that I’d caused the miscarriages by hurting her.”

Watching her son, Blythe saw the color rise to his face. “Hurting her how?” he asked, his tone aggressive.

Zane threw his hands up. “Hold on. He was lying. He’s a specialist in post-traumatic stress disorders. He started her doing hypnosis, some sort of treatment thing to get rid of traumatic memories.” He sighed. “Cassandra grew up in foster care, and she’d had some very bad experiences there. At first he seemed to be helping her, but then she started to change.”

“In what way?” Blythe asked.

“Pushing me away, spending a lot more time in therapy sessions. She was going every day—it seemed like overkill. The next thing I knew, she told me that she’d moved in with him, and she had her attorney send me divorce papers.”

“She moved in with her therapist? Doesn’t that violate every professional standard?” Blythe asked, indignation in her voice.

Zane looked straight at Blythe, and before the words left his lips, she knew what he was going to say. “Her therapist was Julian Hunter.”

Gabriel sprang up from his seat. “I knew that guy was full of shit. Didn’t you have any recourse? Couldn’t she be deprogrammed?”

“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.