Page 4 of Fallen Petal

“Yes, you didn’t while she was gone,” Christopher cuts me off. “But I know you talked to her after she came back. Several times actually. You showed up at their shop just a few days after she returned, and she’s been seen at your house in Barrington, too.”

His face darkens during that last sentence. I know he’s trying to intimidate me, pinning me down in my seat with an ominous threat looming behind his intense gaze. It doesn’t work on me, shit like that never has.

I’m not surprised to hear that her father knew about the visits to my place in Barrington. I never told him and neither did she, but it made sense to assume he knew, nonetheless.

That fucker knew about every breath she took.

Until I stepped in.

“Yes, it’s true that she has visited me a couple of times,” I admit, remaining calm and unfazed by his words. “Never on my invitation, though.”

“What did she want from you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Yes, it is!” he insists, letting his fist fly down onto the table for emphasis. Contrary to the pens on his desk, I’m not shaken by his sudden outburst of aggression.

“She was seen at your house two weeks before she disappeared,” he adds. “You were one of the very few people who had any contact with her in the time leading up to her disappearance. She’s turned into a missing person case. Everything that transpired between her and another person is my fucking business now!”

I raise my hand in defense, hoping to calm the fucker down.

“No reason to lose your shit,” I say in a calm voice. “She came by a few times because she wanted to talk to an old friend—”

“An old friend.” Christopher spits the words like an insult, huffing in disgust. “Yeah, right.”

We exchange a look that’s heavy with distrust and a history that is nothing but a pile of disdain. He’s hated me for almost ten years now, and I can’t even blame him for it. Because it’s true that I took something away from him

Or rather, someone.

Her.

I glare at him. “She wanted counsel.”

“From a psychic?”

I hate it when people call me that. It makes it sound as if I make my money performing show acts on a stage in Las Vegas. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“You know I can’t disclose anything that falls under doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“You’re not a real fucking doctor, Jayson. And you know that things change when there’s a police investigation underway.”

His grimace is laced with loathing as he shakes his head at me. “Why are you being such an asshole? You know you’re not making yourself look good here?”

“I didn’t come here to brush up on our special friendship, Christopher,” I snarl at him. “But I can tell you this: you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I last saw her more than two weeks before her disappearance, and I wish there was anything I could tell you that would help us find her.”

I grimace, overplaying the strain on my face. “I don’t even want to think about it. That she could...”

“Could what?” Christopher probes, leaning in closer as his eyebrows furrow with impatient concern. “That she could what, Jayson?”

I glance at him with a dark expression, trying my best to convey ominous premonition. “That she could be his next victim.”

Christopher jerks back, his nostrils flaring as he takes a sharp inhale.

“His next victim?” he asks, seemingly ignorant, even though I’m sure he knows exactly who I’m talking about.

“The Bridgewater murderer.”

He locks me down with an angry stare, looking as if he wants to say something, but he refrains from doing so. I can see his mind working, crunching thoughts and dissolving them into nothing before he voices them toward me. It would be easy to be intimidated by the way he looks at me, suspicion seemingly rising in his gaze as he contemplates.

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