Chapter 5 – Amanda
Five
Amanda
E than Shaw locks the door behind us and points to the bed.
“Sit. I need to make phone calls and think.”
I knew he was big when I first met him and he followed me to my office, but I didn’t get a good look at him until now. It’s like being in a broom closet with a horse.
Not only is he over a foot taller than me, he looks like he eats a whole cow every day to maintain that much muscle mass on him. He could squeeze the life out of me with two fingers. But in my office, he was vulnerable for a moment before all hell broke loose, and if any of that vulnerability remains in this patient who kidnapped my ass, I can use that weakness against him and escape.
It’s not exactly an ethical use of what they taught me, but this man pulled out a firearm and emptied bullets into a stranger without hesitation. To protect me. Those bodies must still be on the floor.
We both look at the bed, but I haven’t moved.
“Sit,” he says, in a calmer, more reassuring voice.
I glare at him. I’m too scared to try anything that might work in a therapist’s office without more information, and I’m too much of a smart ass in real life to sit on the edge of the bed like a dog just because Ethan commanded me to do so. He kept me alive so far, which means he won’t kill me now. But that doesn’t mean he’s a suitable protector against whoever just broke into my office. And what about Mallory?
Everything hits me at once. My stomach knots and those uncomfortable physical sensations they teach us to identify in our patients swells up within me.
I need my own time and space to think, so not due to obedience, but lack of other options, I sit on the edge of the bed and watch him pace. This is his fault. He's acting like it's his fault, because he seemed to know exactly what to do.
The man brought a gun into my office. My head swims. Who thought shit like that could happen in Boston? We have an educated population and gun laws. Hooligans like Ethan and those men who broke into the office shouldn’t be in Cambridge. It’s not like Boston has mob activity… does it?
Now that I'm seated and gaining more mental clarity, relevant memories filter into my head. When you learn various therapeutic techniques during your training, you learn to consider problems from all sides. Not to see things in black and white. I steady my breathing and try to put my training over my instincts.
Most of us don’t get into mental health because we had a perfect childhood or a perfect past. I understand what it looks like on the outside to my cousins on my father’s side like Keyshawn or Myra on my mother’s side out west in Los Angeles.
What if they weren't after Ethan? What if they were after me? Still, that doesn’t make sense. Those phone calls were pranks because I’m not involved in any problematic activities. I’m a therapist. I have to report to a licensing board. I could get sued. I can’t think of a reason anyone would blackmail me. And I must be thinking too hard, because Ethan’s expression hardens and he turns his body towards me, ceasing his pacing to stare me down like an angry bison looking at a Yellowstone tourist.
My fascination with the darker parts of the human psyche have finally brought me here – trapped in a room with a dangerous man who has at least one hundred pounds on me. If our conflict turns physical, I don’t stand a chance. Maybe foolishly, I meet his gaze. Although, I never took my eyes off him in case he decided to pounce, so I don’t have to look far to meet those hardened green eyes. His thick black beard needs a comb.
"What are you staring at?" he growls, his big hand moving to that thick black beard. The hair on his head is a shade of brown almost as dark as the beard, but with streaks of grey. There’s a difference between looking and staring. It’s not ‘staring’ when you’re assessing the danger levels of the gigantic bearded man trapped in a motel room with you.
“Nothing,” I answer with a steady tone. “Lost in my thoughts.”
My answer arouses his attention despite my best efforts not to draw him closer to me or provoke him into a worse and even more unpredictable mood.
"Do you know something?" he snarls at me suspiciously. His stare sends a chill straight down my spine. The dynamic between us has been totally turned on its head and I didn't walk into my damn office today prepared to handle this.
And what about Mallory? How do I know that nothing happened to her? I don’t want to bring up my friend’s name in case he kidnaps her too, but I’m worried sick. More of a background worry considering my situation, but those worries count.
"I know what you know," I answer him -- as honestly as possible.
I never got answers about that mysterious, threatening phone call. He scrutinizes my face like he doesn't believe me. My gaze locks with his because I don’t want to give him an opportunity to leap again. Observing his emotions won’t give me control over them, but I still have a chance to get away from him if this doesn’t turn physical.
"I need a list of your clients and anyone with access to that building,” he demands, almost like he expects me to produce a computerized document out of thin air.
"Are you out of your mind? I can't give you a list of my clients."
"Why not?"
"Um. HIPA. I could go to jail. Lose my license."
It’s not just that. He’s crazy, it’s not that simple to produce, and even if he could kill me for the list… I took an oath to do no harm. No one on my client list would bring a legion of gun-wielding criminals into my office. They’re normal. Most of them struggle to quit cigarettes, marijuana and prescription pills. They're regular folks who can afford to live in Cambridge and would piss themselves if they were trapped in a room with this... beast.
Then again, I thought he was normal too. A little rough, maybe. But most addicts look a little rough at various points in the cycle of addiction. His gambling must be pretty bad to bring a brute like that into a therapist’s office.
"What about losing your life?" he snarls. "Does that scare you?"
My thighs clench together unconsciously as every part of my body activates a fear response. Much more painful and difficult to manage in real life than when you’re sitting in the chair suggesting “coping mechanisms”. My body isn’t mine and I have to freeze to stop myself initiating a fight with someone so much bigger than me – a fight I’ll definitely lose.
My jaw closes so tightly that my back molars hurt. I stare at him calmly. You have to learn some control in the therapist's office. People lose their shit sometimes. They throw things. They scream and yell once in a while... and I have to stay cool.
"Was that a threat?"
"Did it sound like an invitation?"
This man's attitude pisses me off. I bite down on my lower lip to stop myself from calling him a rude, disgusting pig who belongs in jail for putting his hands on me.
I have to think smart.
"I store all my client documents and information on a secure laptop -- at my apartment."
"Fuck."
He keeps scowling at me. "Have you seen anything suspicious the past week or so?"
"Except for you, nothing."
My sass doesn't go unnoticed. His glare seems to tell me, "be careful." He would be so good looking if he wasn’t hovering over me, threatening me, and interrogating me like I’m the one who did something wrong here. He should have let me go. He should have called the police. We’re in over our heads.
"No emails? Phone calls? You work with crazies, don't you?"
Our eyes meet.
"My patients are not crazy."
He grins. "Well rehearsed."
With two big steps, he closes the distance between us suddenly, gazing down at me from an impressive 6'5". Maybe an inch taller than that, even.
"I need you to think."
"I don't see how it'll help," I reply honestly. "My clients have nothing to do with this."
I sigh. "But..."
"But what?"
"You could wait for me to finish."
Ethan grunts impatiently. But he waits.
"I got a few threatening phone calls over the past three months. No clue why. I assumed they were pranks."
Ethan shrugs off his jacket, revealing a sleeveless black leather motorcycle cut with patches all over it. Why does he look even bigger with the jacket off? His arms bulge through his black t-shirt and contrasted against his pale, flushed skin, I can see blue veins creeping up his forearm and around his biceps.
My pussy does an uncomfortable and totally inappropriate throb. My period of involuntary celibacy has turned me into a harlot. I couldn’t look away from him now if I wanted to. Mostly because I’m collecting evidence, not admiring how his broad, muscular chest tapers into a narrow waist. His abs must be incredible.
I caught a glimpse of the top patch beneath his jacket in my office, but he has more than a single patch on that thing, and I can’t read them all while trying to turn over in my head a way to get out of this situation. I don’t know anything about biker gangs. I fell asleep during the first episode of Sons of Anarchy and always found Jax Teller too skinny for my tastes. I prefer football players with big round butts.
Ethan’s thick, dark brown eyebrows furrow together briefly, then his face relaxes, eyes gleaming. Something happened in that brain of his. You learn how to read your clients and those “aha” moments. He runs his tongue over his lips and chuckles, whispering an unintelligible word that sounds like “Dara.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you know a man named Darragh Murray?” he asks me.
“A man named Dara?”
Ethan shrugs. “So you don’t know him?”
His disappointment threatens to turn into something less manageable. I offer what information I can, but I would definitely remember meeting a man named Darragh.
“My landlord’s last name is Murray. I don’t know if they’re related.”
Ethan’s smirk grows into a smile. I don’t know how my landlord’s last name gets him any closer to the truth about anything. But his smile gives way to more tempered relief.
“This is a Murray problem.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m glad we didn’t go to the cops.”
I can’t say I share his sentiment.
“Great,” I answer calmly. “You solved the case.”
I try to use my calm, peaceful “therapist voice” – the one you use to talk your patient down from a ledge. The ledge is metaphorical for most of my clients. Alcohol provokes them to call their dad and tell him he’s a major asshole. They quit their jobs because of a big gambling win after sending a ‘fuck you’ email to the boss, then the Chiefs crap out and they’re back in the hole. That type of ledge.
The stakes are higher here. I’m trapped in a confined space with this man and his answers haven’t moved him towards the door to let me go. There’s only one bed in this room, with not enough room for me to sleep underneath it. What type of motel doesn’t have a pull out couch? I’m willing to risk the generations of cum stains not to sleep next to this beast.
“No,” he says, then as if reading my mind. “You’re staying here tonight. It’s the safest choice.”
“You get to decide that?”
“Yes.”
The smile disappears. “I have to make a phone call. Wait here. No listening at the door.”
My face must say “or what?” Because he scowls and follows up with, “Or… you will seriously regret your disobedience.” The man even points his finger at me like an angry school teacher. If I weren’t under physical threat, I would never let that slide.
Ethan lets the threat linger, touches the front pocket of his faded black jeans with his cellphone and walks out of the motel room, shutting the door aggressively and then thudding against it. How can he expect me not to listen in? I’m a therapist, of course I’m nosy.
My job is minding other people’s business and helping them to solve their problems. I made nosiness a profession, so when he slides his back down to the ground and sits against the door to trap me inside and make his phone call, I get up from my seat on the bed and tiptoe towards the door.
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