Page 32 of One Last Goodbye

“And this diagnosis comes from your many years of experience as a licensed psychologist?”

That stings a little. I had just begun medical school in pursuit of a degree in psychology when Annie disappeared, and I switched my focus to education. Despite the fact that I never achieved a degree in the field, I believe I have a solid understanding of the human mind. Sean knows this, and is clearly poking fun at me because he's irritated that I went to the police.

“You can be dismissive all you want,” I tell him, “but I believe she is the most likely culprit in Frederick’s death. It’s very possible that Hugo is involved as well. Either he convinced her to kill Frederick so they could be together—”

“Or more likely she convinced him to kill Frederick and offered herself as the prize,” Sean finishes. “It’s a tale as old as time. All right. I’ll see if I can dig up some dirt on them. Does the house have security footage?”

My eyes widen. I don’t think about that before now.

“Ifit does,” Sean says quickly,“Iwill look into it.”

“How will you do that?”

“The technical jargon will take too long to explain, but the short answer is that I have experts I can contact who can obtain any footage uploaded to the servers of every major civilian security company in the world. They don’t work for free, but since you’ve been so generous with my wages, I can happily pay for their services. What I really need from you is for you to not do any more work yourself.”

I nod. “The second suspect—”

“Mary. I would like to hear you say, ‘Sean, I will not look at the security footage myself, because doing so would be incredibly foolish and place my life at risk, and I am an adult woman who isnota fool, so I won’t engage in foolish activities.’”

I sigh. “The second suspect is—”

"For God's… fine. Christ, I wish I'd never opened my mouth. Just so you know, if you die, Iwillattend your funeral, and Iwilltell everyone that I warned you, and you were too stubborn to listen.”

“Fine by me,” I snap. “Thesecond suspect, or third, I suppose, if we consider Catherine and Hugo to be separate, is Thomas Keller.”

“The estate manager slash money launderer. That makes sense.”

“Yes. Veronica Baines is clearly interested in him, so I suppose she could be a suspect as well.”

“You don’t sound too keen on her.”

“She appeared genuinely devastated when he died. I suppose it could be an act, but in general, she seems too fragile to me to shoot a man in the head.”

“She’s thirty-three years old, Mary. She’s not a little girl. Besides, plenty of killers show remorse after the fact.”

“Do you believe she’s more likely to be the killer than Thomas?”

“Honestly, yes, but I’ll keep an eye on Thomas too. If his bank account—any of them—increases by a significant amount in the near future, then it could be because he was paid to off Frederick by some disgruntled associates.”

I shiver. “Could you not say it like that?”

“Say what?”

“‘Off’ him? It just sounds so…” I shiver again. “Cold.”

Sean, thankfully, doesn’t feel a need to apply his acerbic wit to that request. “Very well. I will look into the possibility that Thomas was paid to kill Frederick. Anyone else I should look at?”

I hesitate, unsure if I want to add this final person. After a moment, though, I decide to go with my gut. “Yes. Doctor Eleanor Strauss. She’s the family therapist.”

“Ah. You think she was blackmailing him with the records of their private sessions?”

I hesitate. “Yes.”Sure. Why not?

I’m certainly not going to tell him that the real reason is that I just have a sense that she’s evil and that I suspect that mostly because she is a member of a profession I despise.

It’s a touch hypocritical that I despise therapists so. Prior to Annie’s disappearance, I was studying to become one. Of course, that was before I understood how thoroughly evil most therapists are. It is a profession that attracts leeches and vipers, and I am grateful that I chose a different path before counting myself among them.

Sean continues, pulling me from my thoughts. “Hmm… That’s a stretch, but it’s not unheard of. I’ve been hired plenty of times to obtain someone’s private mental health records as weapons against them.”

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