She set down her coffee. She steadied her voice. “Here comes Kevin. If anyone comes to Franklin’s office, text me.”
“I’m actually sitting here on a stakeout,” he said in mild disbelief.
“Yes, and don’t be looking at your phone, you’ll miss seeing something important. Keep your eyes open.”
“Yes, bossy.” But he said it like the rift was now healed between them.
She got out of the car. Kevin was fumbling at the door with the key, then dropped it, trying to hold a Lava Java cup and a satchel and a file of papers.
“May I help you with that?”
Kevin glanced up at her and the surprise spread itself across his face. “Hello. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I just couldn’t wait for our next session. It’s funny that you’re not listed on this practice’s website.”
He kept his smile in place. “I’m new.”
“And yet they got your name on the door before the website?”
“We’re not very tech-y here,” he said. “You seem different today.”
She ignored the comment. “It’s a little weird. You’re two doors down from the PI who investigated my car crash on behalf of my accusers. You volunteer to be my counselor. Just a coincidence?”
“Let’s talk inside,” he said quickly. The office was empty; it was early. He gestured with a nod of his head toward a closed inner door. She followed him in and sat down. The room was calm greens and grays, the only decoration an antique painted map of his native Tanzania, framed and matted behind his desk. Next to his university diploma and a graduate degree.
She pointed at the framed vellum. “You’re not a grad student.”
He smiled. “But I am. I’m getting an additional master’s at Saint Mike’s and I’m not taking on new clients until it’s done.” It sounded so reasonable and for a moment her resolve wavered. “Are you upset I didn’t tell you I have an office in Lakehaven?”
She took a measured breath. “It’s just that you were very careful to present yourself as a regular graduate student. Someone desperate to make his mark and I was your project. I was the one you needed to help. You made no mention of ties to Lakehaven. Or being Randy Franklin’s neighbor. Did he hire you to spy on me? Is Perri Hall behind this?”
He gave her a confused smile. “I didn’t think the fact that I just, two weeks ago, got an offer to join an office here was pertinent to us working together.”
“You being in Lakehaven is pretty pertinent to me. Is Lakehaven why you had the interest in me? Heard all the rumors about the Norton girl?”
“No. Your memory condition was. I am only trying to help you.”
“Maybe your job is to prove I’m faking amnesia.”
“No,” he said. His mouth twitched.
“Then who sent you? Someone did and don’t lie to me, not if you want to help me. Who?”
“Jane, really…”
“I don’t like this coincidence. I will go to the graduate dean and report you for lying to a patient unless you tell me the truth. Tell me.”
He hadn’t even set down his briefcase yet, but now he did, and arranged his jacket on the back of his chair, and then sat across from her. He gestured and she sat, perched on the edge of the chair. “Your mother,” he said.
She stared at him. “My mother.”
“She called me. I don’t know how she found me, but she knew I had joined this office in Lakehaven and had just started graduate work at Saint Mike’s.”
Mom knows where I’m living, she thought. How does she know? I don’t tell her. She had made sure the tracking on the phone Mom gave her was turned off. But the rideshare charges: too many landing close to the campus. It wasn’t a hard guess. Or worse: Adam.
“And she paid you to prove I’m faking? Or see if you could get me to remember.”
“She believes you’re in danger, but she said you wouldn’t listen to her.”
“Did she mention having me committed to a facility?” Her mother, yesterday, coolly saying how better off she’d be in a hospital.
“Just generally. To keep you off the streets and to get you into intensive therapy.”
“And she paid you what for this service?”
A momentary biting of his own lip. His voice choked with shame. “Jane…”
“How much?”
“Twenty thousand. I would not have done it if I had not desperately needed the money. And, more importantly, she said you desperately needed help.”
Jane stood up and began to pace the room.
“Jane.” He made his voice a soft cajole. “I truly want to help you. Your mother only wants to help you get your life back on course so you can be whole and happy.”
“But you were eager to take her money.”
“You know what school costs. My family came from nothing in Tanzania, I came to the UK and then here, but the accreditation…I had to have more schooling. The rents in Austin…the money would have gotten me established.”
“And you write a diagnosis of commitment, and she gets what she wants. Draw up the papers to have me involuntarily committed.”
“It would only be a recommendation…” His voice trailed off and then he cleared his throat. “And unnecessary if you would fully embrace treatment.”
“How do you report to her?”
“I text or e-mail her.”
“Text her. Tell her you must meet her. Face-to-face.”
He stared at her.
“Do it,” Jane said, “or I’ll sue you, and even if I don’t win, no one will hire you. And don’t you dare warn her that I know. I’ll go to the state licensing board.”
She knew how to scare a therapist. He stared at her and then got out his phone and wrote a text message.
Her own phone buzzed. Adam, texting her: A woman just went into Franklin’s office.
“You call me when you set up the meeting. I want to be there. Maybe I’ll have commitment papers drawn up for her.”
Kevin nodded, miserable. “I sincerely want to help you. So does your mother.”
“You have an odd way of showing it.” And now he looked stricken. She thought maybe he’d been played, too. Her mother, pretending yesterday at lunch that Kevin wasn’t qualified enough, being doubtful of his therapy, which of course would have made Jane take his side in reaction. Her mother really was sharper than anyone realized.
She walked out of the office and to the car, fighting down a surge of nausea.
Adam rolled down the window. “A woman went in. She knocked, then she dug a key out of her purse, and opened the door, and called in, like she wasn’t sure she could just walk in. Then she went inside. As you can see I was not staring at my phone.”
“So not a client,” Jane said. “Maybe a temp? He didn’t have a secretary on duty yesterday.”
“Well, I don’t know. A temp, I think. She seemed a little hesitant about just rushing inside.”
“I’m calling you and leaving my phone in my pocket. You listen in. I need to get into Franklin’s files and I might need a diversion.”
“Are you crazy?” He grabbed her arm.
“Let go, Adam.”
“Jane. Consider what you’re doing, this is breaking the law.”
“Kevin just told me my mom is working on having me committed to a facility. I really hope you’re not part of that.”