Page 48 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

She visibly started. Then placed her tea bag on a napkin. “I guess that’s why I’m here, right?” She glanced out the window, appeared to struggle. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Wherever you like.” When she didn’t immediately respond, he said gently, “How about why you were seeing Dr. Wade and then you can go back as far as you want.” He sent her a reassuring smile, knew the rimless glasses he’d donned helped soften his visage, and made him look more intellectual than intimidating. “We’ll work forward or backward from the starting point. I just want you to be comfortable.”

“Kinda hard to do when someone’s dissecting your life.”

“Not dissecting.”

“Then examining.”

He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, his chin propped in his hands. “Look, I don’t know how you did things with Dr. Wade, but let’s start fresh. Don’t think of me as dissecting or examining, or looking too deep into areas you want to keep hidden. We can begin with a dialogue and go from there. We can begin by talking about your family.”

“My family,” she said and sighed so deeply that her hair ruffled. “Well, okay. Let’s start by saying we didn’t put the fun in dysfunctional. The Montgomerys have been in Savannah about as long as there’s been a Savannah,” she said, looking away from him as she rubbed a finger over the edge of the couch. She seemed to loosen up a bit, explaining that in the first few years of her life she’d thought everything was perfect. She had a twin, Kelly, and they were close; her other siblings, five of them, were spread above and below; the twins were the middle children. One of her brothers, “Baby Parker,” had died as an infant from SIDS, and the eldest, Charles, had been killed in a freak hunting accident, and she had recurring dreams about finding him in the woods. The other hunter, whoever he was, had never been found. As for the remaining siblings, her older sister Amanda, the lawyer, was “driven,” her brother Troy, “controlling,” and her baby sister, Hannah, a “worry.”

She talked for nearly two hours and he learned that her oldest sibling, Charles, had been the heir apparent. Then he’d died. Now the duty of running the vast Montgomery wealth was split between Amanda as the oldest sibling and Troy, the next to youngest, who just happened to be the last standing male in the family.

As Caitlyn spoke, Adam observed how careful she was, how she looked him squarely in the eye, only to quickly glance away, as if suddenly shy. He’d gone through Rebecca’s notes on Caitlyn, but some of them were obviously missing, the pages having disappeared. Unless Rebecca had stored them somewhere else. He hadn’t found them yet, though he’d torn this office upside down and come up empty-handed. The quick search of Rebecca’s house hadn’t shed any light on the missing pages, either. Odd, he thought. Had she taken them with her?

Everything Caitlyn confided he already knew about her, though he played the innocent, leaning back in his chair, scribbling notes, asking the appropriate questions or nodding thoughtfully. He even made a couple of jokes and was rewarded with her lips twitching into a beguiling smile.

“. . . so then I got married,” she said and lifted a shoulder. “No one was happy about it.”

“No one, meaning your family.”

“Right.”

“Why did they disapprove?”

“Josh had been married before to an older woman, Maude Havenbrooke. He’d even adopted her child from a previous marriage.”

“Divorce is fairly common.”

“That was only the first strike against him. Josh had a reputation for being . . . er, making reckless investments. My family thought Josh was after my money—I, um, have a trust fund.” She cleared her throat. “But I didn’t care what anyone thought about Josh. I was in love.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head, then hesitated before adding, “And . . . and I was pregnant.” She blinked and looked at her hands. “Jamie was born seven months later and she would have been five if . . .” She cleared her throat. Struggled for words. “. . . If she had survived. She died.” Nodding her head as if to convince herself, she added huskily, “She was my baby and . . . and my whole life.” Tears gathered in her eyes and she blinked.

He felt a pang of sympathy for this woman trying so hard to hold herself together. Without saying a word, he rolled Rebecca’s chair to the bookcase, picked up a box of tissues and handed the box to her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be. It’s hard to lose a child.”

“It’s hell,” she corrected, spitting out the words and touching a tissue to the corner of her eyes. “Do you have any children, Dr. Hunt?”

“No.” His ex-wife had never wanted any. It was a bone of contention and had contributed to the breakdown of his marriage.

“Then you can’t begin to imagine the pain I’ve gone through, the guilt I’ve borne, the . . . the desperation I’ve felt. I wake up every morning and think about her, wish that I could have taken her place. I would trade in an instant.” Her eyes were suddenly dry, her shoulders stiffening, the tissue crumpled in her fist. “But I don’t have that choice and my husband . . .” She let her breath out and visibly stiffened. “My husband was going to file a wrongful death suit against me. Can you imagine? As if I . . . I had killed my daughter, our daughter.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I!” She shot to her feet. “He claimed I was neglectful . . . that I didn’t get her to the hospital in time, that I was too wrapped up in myself. It’s ridiculous. I was still recovering from a sprained wrist, but I was well enough to take care of my daughter. I just thought she had the flu and . . . well, by the time I got her to the hospital . . .” Her words faded and she stopped talking to stare out the window, as if mesmerized by a dove roosting on the eave of the next building. Sunlight gilded the dark strands of her hair, made the red in it appear. “It was too late. Josh blamed me. And I blamed myself. I should have taken her in sooner, but I didn’t know.” She turned, her wide eyes red-rimmed, one small fist clenched tight. “He went to his grave believing that I’d somehow purposely endangered my child’s life.” Her shoulders slumped. “I went over all this with Dr. Wade—well, not about the lawsuit. I didn’t know about it until after our last session.” She flopped back on the couch, checked the time and said, “I think I’ve run over.”

“I don’t have that many patients yet.”

“Maybe I should refer the rest of my family. We could keep you and about five other psychologists busy for the rest of your life!”

Smiling as if in disbelief, not wanting her to know that he’d read every page he could find on her already, he took off his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief.

“If Dr. Wade calls you, would you tell her ‘hello?’ ” She tossed the wadded tissue into a trash basket at the end of the couch.

“If she calls,” he promised, feeling a twinge of guilt at the deception as he slid the reading glasses onto his nose. It seemed as if all he did these days was stretch the truth, or bend it, or even break it. But he couldn’t be honest with her, not until he found out what he needed to know.

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