Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

“When they’re brought to a session with me, they’ll be wearing cuffs, ankle bracelets and a belly—”

“Like this guy was? The man who just hurt you?” her mother broke in before she could qualify that statement, as she’d planned.

“Yes, but...I wasn’t expecting him to act as he did. He’d barely walked into the room. I had no idea he’d rush me so quickly.”

Her mother’s hands, with the cuticles around her nails torn up from the way she constantly picked at them, tightened on the bed rail. “Where was the guard, for crying out loud?”

Evelyn allowed her eyes to close. “The officer who escorted him didn’t expect it, either, I’m sure—or he...would’ve been more prepared.”

“So what are you saying? Whoops? It won’t happen again?” The pitch of Lara’s voice shot up an octave. “What if this psychopath had had a homemade weapon? A shank or whatever they call it? He could’ve stabbed you. Killed you. Is that what you’re hoping will happen? What Jasper did when you were in high school was...beyond a nightmare. After surviving such a horrific ordeal, why wouldn’t you do everything possible to avoid men like him? I mean...what are you thinking? Do you have some kind of death wish?”

Evelyn opened her eyes and managed a scowl. Surely by now her mother should know that what she did wasn’t really a choice. She had to do it; couldn’t do anything else, not after what’d happened when she was only sixteen. She’d found her best girlfriends brutally murdered—all three of them! She’d almost been killed by the same boy. After three days of torture, Jasper Moore had slit her throat and left her for dead—and it wasn’t as if he’d been a mere stranger. He was her high school boyfriend, someone she’d trusted enough to give her virginity.

But she was still struggling against the debilitating effects of the meds they’d given her, so all she could say was, “No. Of course not.”

Lara’s head jutted forward. “Then why must you surround yourself with conscienceless men who’ll do anything to hurt other people? Lust killers? You’ve told me yourself that they take pleasure in causing pain. You’re only thirty-six years old, Evelyn. And you’re so beautiful! Regular men trip over their feet when they see you. Of course the sickos behind bars are going to fixate on you.”

Many of her opponents had pointed to her gender, age and physical appearance as reason she shouldn’t be working in the criminal justice system, especially in such an impactful way, but she wasn’t about to tolerate that bias. “Those are all things I can’t change. I...I am what I am, but I won’t let the fact that I was once...terrorized get the best of me.” She could feel the pain in her head growing stronger but she was slowly regaining her faculties and was too caught up in what she wanted to say to pay that dull ache any attention. “At some point, we simply have to...to come to understand why psychopaths act as they do. How they come to be. How to stop them.” She drew a bolstering breath. “Only then can we protect the innocent.”

“And what if there are no answers?” That her mother spoke through her teeth gave evidence of her deep-seated anger—and the fact that Evelyn hadn’t gone through her painful ordeal alone. “Sometimes there isn’t a reason for what people do!”

“There’s always a reason, Mom.” Evelyn had to swallow to be able to continue. “Besides, the more we try to ignore the psychopaths who live and work around us, hoping they’ll...they’ll go away on their own, the more...the more power people like Jasper will possess.” She allowed the volume of her voice to drop. “And the more people they’ll hurt.”

Lara’s dangly earrings swung as she shook her head. “But there’s no understanding crazy!”

The degree of her belief in what she was about to say gave Evelyn an added shot of adrenaline. “I’ve told you before, Jasper wasn’t crazy and neither are the men I study. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that.”

Her mother straightened. “I don’t care if they’re sane or not. I don’t even care if there’s a great need for your work. You’ve done enough. You’ve convinced the government to build this study facility. Now let someone else take over. Don’t go to Alaska.”

Still struggling to maintain the clarity she needed to continue this argument, Evelyn shifted in the bed. “I have to.”

“Why?”

“Hanover House will need me in order to succeed. Nobody else seems to feel quite as passionately as I do—and, let’s be honest, I’ve been the driving force behind it from the beginning.”

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