Page 85 of Please Remember

And now I'm in a therapy session. "Ever since Jax and his friends threw me away, yeah."

"How did you meet Natalie?" Shields asks.

"We met at the mall when I was thirteen."

"The same time Ms. Moran went missing?" Dr. Victor asks.

My eyes widen. "Yeah, I guess, but Natalie has never said a wordabout Ms. Moran. I don't think I met Nat until after the teacher disappeared."

"You had a problem with Ms. Moran, didn't you?" Parsons asks.

"She didn't think I was smart enough for my class. She wanted to keep me back a grade."

"And you couldn't fall behind a year because you'd be in a different class than Jax. You wouldn't have any classes with him, and you'd probably fall off his radar," Shields says.

Snorting, I shrug. "Yeah, pretty much. But I'm smarter than Ms. Moran ever gave me credit for."

"And when she went missing, the subject was dropped.”

"Yeah, I guess so. She's the only teacher who ever thought I was dumb. I'm not dumb. I'm very intelligent. She just had an issue challenging me."

"Did you see Natalie the night Allie disappeared?"

I stare at the wall behind them and think back. "I don't think so. I don't remember, but she wouldn't have been invited."

"If you were friends with Jax and Allie, and she was your best friend, wouldn't she have been part of the group?" Parsons asks.

"They didn't get along," I say. "She didn't like how most of them treated me."

"Laura," Dr. Victor says and leans forward a little. "We've talked to your parents and Jax and his friends. No one knows Natalie."

"That's crazy. My mom's met her a hundred times. Natalie practically lived at my house when I wasn't hanging out with Jax and his friends."

All three of them exchange a look, and I glance at my lawyer. Shouldn't he be doing something?

"She was your best friend, and she was listed on the wedding programs as your maid of honor, but Jax has never seen Natalie. Not even a picture," she says.

"She hates pictures. And Jax has met her. I know he has. And so have the others. She was at the engagement party!" I exclaim. "He's trying to make me look crazy. He's doing this for Allie!"

Not a single hair falls out of place as the doctor shakes her head and gives me a sympathetic look. A look I'd slap off her face if I didn't have cuffs on with two cops across from me. "No, Laura, he hasn't. When I spoke with your mother, she said you would talk to an imaginaryfriend, which was why she was happy when you started spending time with Jax and his friends. She was concerned about you."

"No, she's met her!" I cry. "Mom tried to force me to see every doctor she could growing up. Do you have any idea how many times she said I needed psychiatric treatment? There's a reason we're estranged."

"I believe your mother was right, Laura."

"If Natalie is real, where is she?" Parsons asks.

Grinding my teeth, I crack my neck and glare at him.If she’s real?"She's not answering my calls."

"We pulled your phone records, and we found the number. The number belongs to you," Shields says. I shake my head, ready to answer, and she starts again. "You have both numbers on your phone plan. There are no connected calls between you and Natalie. You have voicemails left for her, but she never calls you back. She never texts you back, either."

"Sure, she does," I say as I try to remember. "She has to."

"Here's what I think happened," Parsons says. "I think you killed Ms. Moran when you were thirteen. You planned to do it, and that's why you hooked up with Danny Tomlin. You knew there was a place you could hide the body and the car. You may not have planned to truly kill her once you saw what you could after getting inside the house and looking around, but it ultimately happened. You did it to keep yourself close to Jax."

My eyebrows lift. "Really?"

"When you found out Jax wanted to marry Allie, you planned to take her to the same place. Now, this is just my opinion, but I think you wanted to torture Allie, which is why you kept her alive instead of killing her. If you could get Jax to yourself, you could make her suffer. You didn't plan on her losing her memory though. You opted to concealyour identity just in case anything should happen, such as her getting out."

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