Page 138 of Everything She Feared

“Yeah, pretty banged up. And it’s been in the water all this time,” Tilden said. “I called the forensic IT guys. They weren’t hopeful but they’ll see what they can do. I’m going there after I show this to Art.”

“Good work,” Grotowski said before his phone rang.

Corporal Taylor with the RCMP in Ottawa had returned his call.

“Thanks for getting back to me,” Grotowski said, then explained his request to run Sara and Katie Harmon’s names and details in all databases in Canada.

63

Seattle, Washington

Dr. Mehta leftthe Rosling Center after a meeting with other professors and walked across the campus to her car.

Leaving departmental politics behind, she’d just begun thinking about her upcoming afternoon sessions with patients, starting with Katie Harmon, when her phone rang.

It was Nadia from her office.

“Hi, Sally. Calling to let you know we have a cancellation. So, you have some free time.”

“Who canceled?” Dr. Mehta reached her Subaru and pressed her key fob. It chirped, unlocking the doors, and she got in.

“Katie Harmon. Sara called to cancel.”

“Sara canceled? Did she reschedule Katie?”

“No. Actually, she said she thought Katie didn’t need any more sessions.”

“Really?” Dr. Mehta thought for a moment, then said: “Can you send me Sara Harmon’s contact information? I’ve got it on my laptop but it’d be faster if you sent it. Thanks, Nadia.”

After hanging up, Dr. Mehta tapped her phone to her steering wheel, processing what had happened. The phone chimed with a notification from Nadia. Dr. Mehta then debated calling Sara.

No, I won’t call her. Not just yet.

She drove off.

Halfway to her office, she stopped at a coffee shop. It wasn’t busy. She found the aroma relaxing. She got a latte and a table in a quiet corner. Amid the subdued clatter and drone of the TV on the wall behind the counter, she put her laptop on the table.

Sara canceled and wants to end Katie’s sessions.

Dr. Mehta went back over their meeting at the mall. Maybe she’d been too forthcoming and made Sara uncomfortable about her thoughts on Katie and the subject of abuse. Sara’s decision to end Katie’s therapy sessions was the wrong approach.

It concerned Dr. Mehta, deepening her dilemma.

She opened her laptop, logged in and examined Katie’s case. She went through her notes, Katie’s guilt, her nightmares, her anguish with conflicting “bad” thoughts that she’d either refused to articulate or was unable to bring forward. She looked at Katie’s sketch of herself with Anna Shaw on the cliff.

Is it a depiction of what happened? Or could it be something else? Have I completely overlooked another aspect to this?

There was Katie’s unwillingness, and Sara’s refusal, to provide any details about a past traumatic incident concerning a boy who died in Katie’s presence. Katie had been on the cusp of opening up a little. She’d said that a boy had said mean things to her in the past—but she wasn’t supposed to talk about it. Was this the same boy? What happened?

Was the boy’s case an accident? A violent death?

Most troubling of all were Sara’s cryptic questions about a history of violence in her family, and whether violent traits could be inherited. It signaled so many concerns.

Had Katie been abused? Had Anna’s death triggered a deeper traumatic psychological wound?

Still, none of this fit.

Dr. Mehta knew that all families had secrets and would do anything to keep them behind closed doors.

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