Page 14 of Possession

“We’d like to speak with Dr. Parrish.” Joseph stepped in when words clogged my throat.

“Sure thing. Follow me if you would.”

With letter still in hand, the detective led us out of the conference room and back the way we came, stopping at the interrogation room we’d first passed. He opened the door and we followed him in. Joseph slammed into me when I drew up short, and I rocked forward on my toes before gaining my balance. Son of a bitch. I heard him mumble “shit” under his breath behind me, which jerked me back to attention, and I continued moving into the room to allow my partner entrance.

Madeline’s expression of utter shock and mortification was obvious. Quickly though, she cleared all emotion from her face and sat perfectly poised in the rusted metal folding chair, her white-knuckled hands resting on the table the only sign of her agitation. Roberts closed the door behind us, and his gaze darted questioningly between us and the woman I hadn’t been able to get out of my head. I ignored him.

Continuing as though my entire axis hadn’t just shifted, and ignoring the speculative glare of the detective, I calmly nodded in greeting before introducing myself. “Dr. Parrish, I’m Federal Agent Nathaniel Morgan and this is my colleague, Agent Joseph Crocker. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright.”

“Of”—she fisted her hand over her mouth and cleared the gravel from her throat—“of course.”

While Roberts stood in the corner, we took a seat; me across from her and Joseph at the head of the table to her right facing the door. He laid the letter on the table and when her eyes dropped to it, all the color left her face, leaving her looking like she’d seen a ghost.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask. The least of which included the fucking letter that suddenly seemed to be burning my fingertips even though I no longer touched it — but the others would have to wait. The current situation was most important and needed to be dealt with first.

The Dom in me warred with the agent in me. For the past six years I’d been a no-nonsense, some might say callous, investigator. But, knowing this was Madeline, I wanted to both protect and spank the hell out of her for putting herself in possible danger by potentially ignoring these letters for so long. I needed to find a way to meld the two cohesively. Joseph was always the gentler one of us. The one who put everybody at ease. I didn’t think I knew how. For Madeline, though, I needed to try.

“I understand from the detective that you recently moved to the D.C. area. Can you tell us what brought you here?”

She shifted slightly in her chair. Not like she was guilty of something, but like she was uncomfortable sharing her reasons. It made me want the answer all the more. Reining in my patience, I waited until she was ready to speak.

“My… boyfriend and I broke up a few months ago, and I was ready for a change of scenery. I was also fed up with these letters. I assumed once I was no longer around, they would stop. But this one is different than the rest. There’s almost an angry tone to it. Like he’s annoyed that he had to track me down.”

I’d caught Madeline’s earlier pause and wondered if she’d actually meant Dom. It was definitely a question I would be asking later. In private. And there would be a later.

Joseph jumped in with the next question. “You said he. Are you sure the author is a man?”

She nodded and straightened confidently. “I may not be a criminal profiler, but I am a clinical psychologist. I’ve been studying the human brain for over fifteen years. The way people think, feel, and act. There is a distinct difference in tone and specific word usage between a man and a woman. Yes, the prose seems flowery, but the words themselves are not. If you actually filter through the letters, they come from a more sexual than emotional place. They’re definitely written by a man.”

“When did you receive the first letter?”

She turned back in my direction. “The first letter I ever received was on March 3rd. I was working late that night and on my way out of the office. I spotted it on the floor in the waiting area of my practice. I don’t know how long it had been lying there, and since my secretary hadn’t brought it to me when she left, I assume whoever delivered it slid it under the door.”

“Were all the letters delivered the same way? Anonymously to your office? You didn’t install video cameras, considering how long you say you’ve been receiving them?”

“Nat,” Joseph practically growled in warning next to me. I couldn’t help the delivery of the last question, and everyone in the room, most notably Madeline, could hear the frustration, and terseness, in my tone.

“No, I never installed video cameras,” she responded with slight sarcasm. “At least not on the floor where my office was. I was protecting the privacy of my patients. I believe the building itself has surveillance cameras, at least outside and most likely in the lobby. However, it’s a large, heavily-trafficked office building with over twenty businesses housed inside. There was no way to pinpoint who was going where. But, to answer your question, yes, they were all delivered to my office.”

She paused and all traces of sarcasm vanished. I could tell she was remembering something because her body began to tremble, and her voice shook slightly when she continued. “Until this one.”

My hackles rose when I saw how visibly spooked she was now. “Where was this one delivered, Madeline?” I barely noticed my slip from professional to personal. I only knew my need to protect and keep my submissive safe from harm was flaring to life. Every protective instinct was firing at the moment. They erupted when she finally answered my question, her voice barely audible.

“It came to my home.”

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