CHAPTER EIGHT
Jenna Fritz paced anxiously back and forth in the small storage room at Dr. Patricia Hammond’s practice in the Miami River Health Center.
She’d been in the ten-by-eight room for fifteen minutes already.
At any second, she expected to hear the click of Dr. Hammond’s heels on the ceramic tile floors as she headed for the front door, believing Jenna had gone home already.
Jenna had never quit a job before. She’d been fired once, three years ago, when she was caught lifting a candy bar on her lunch break at the Publix she worked at during high school, but she’d never quit. The prospect was far more nerve-wracking than she anticipated it would be.
It didn't help that Dr. Hammond was actually a nice boss. She paid Jenna well for the job of receptionist, and she kept her hours light enough that she could attend her classes at St. Thomas University and study enough to keep her grades high. That was pretty much impossible to find.
And she was nice make out. She would chat with Jenna, tell her about her day, listen to Jenna's day, and laugh at her dumb jokes.
Last month for Jenna's birthday, she'd bought Jenna tickets to the Chappell Roan show at the Fillmore.
Chappell Roan was one of the biggest pop stars in the world right now, and those were not cheap tickets. Good seats too.
Jenna sighed and grabbed twin clumps of frizzy red hair that no amount of straightening and relaxer would loosen. “God damn it.”
The hands gripping her hair flew to her mouth, not before a soft squeak escaped her lips. Jenna wasn’t exactly a devout Catholic, but she still heard her grandmother’s reedy voice bark every time she took the Lord’s name in vain.
She dropped her hands with a heavy sigh. You just have to get this over with, Jenna. It’s not a big deal.
Still, she couldn’t stop imagining Dr. Hammond’s blue eyes dancing above her bright smile, couldn’t stop seeing the light and dance fade when Jenna delivered her news, couldn’t stop hearing the hurt in Dr. Hammond’s voice when she learned that her secretary believed her methods were immoral and the lifestyle, she advocated harmful to her patients.
So don’t tell her that. It’s not like she’d believe you anyway. She’s got two degrees and seventeen years of experience. You’re not even old enough to drink.
Jenna really wished she was old enough to drink right then. A double shot of Captain Morgan would loosen her up enough to have this conversation.
The longer you wait, the harder it gets, and the more it hurts.
That was Dr. Hammond’s advice, given to a couple who knew they needed to separate but were afraid to. It applied to this scenario, though. All Jenna was going to do was imagine the worst without giving it a chance to happen.
“Oh, God, I hate this!”
And that wasn’t taking His name in vain either. That was an honest cry for help.
And help came. Jenna’s feet moved before she was aware of them, pushing open the door, clicking on the tile (softly since she wore flats not heels), positioning Jenna in front of Dr. Hammond’s office door.
Her hand didn’t come so easily, but she was here now, so she might as well get it done. She lifted it and knocked firmly.
No reply.
Jenna rolled her eyes. Lovely. She’d spent so long staring at reams of copy paper that she hadn’t heard Dr. Hammond leave.
If she had set the alarm behind her, Jenna would set it off, which meant Dr. Hammond would have to come back to deal with that, and she definitely wasn’t going to put in her notice right after making her boss drive back to work to let her dumb, cowardly ass out of the building before the police arrested her thinking she was a burglar.
She turned toward the front door, reaching for her cell phone, but she could see from here that the alarm hadn’t been set, and the door hadn’t been locked.
Another alarm flashed in her mind, but there was a perfectly reasonable explanation to why Dr. Hammond didn't answer. She probably had her headphones in, reviewing recordings of her sessions for the day.
Jenna turned toward the door and knocked again, moving furtively, almost desperately. God, just let this be done already!
No answer.
Before the fear bubbling in her stomach could rise to her throat, Jenna called, “Dr. Hammond! It’s Jenna! I’m coming in!”
She turned the handle and pushed the door open, only at the last second keeping a grip on the handle so she didn’t fling it.
Then she stood, frozen. Her first thought was that her eyes didn’t refuse to see what she was seeing.
She’d always thought they would in a circumstance like this, but no, they gathered every ounce of information in front of them with fastidious clarity.
The dull sheen of the oiled leather chair and matching chase lounge.
The darker but deeper shine of the polished walnut of the desk and coffee table.
The perfectly symmetrical organization of the items on Dr. Hammond’s desk.
The other thing in the middle of the chaise lounge.
Her ears followed, noting the barely audible whisper of the ventilation system which kept the room at a cool but pleasant sixty-eight degrees at all times.
The louder burble of the water filter that kept Dr. Hammond’s cichlid tank crystal clear.
A slow, harsh drip as the other thing fell from the chaise lounge to the floor.
So, it wasn’t her senses that refused to cooperate but her mind. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She had just seen Dr. Hammond an hour ago. And she’d only been inside the closet for twenty minutes. How could this have happened within twenty minutes without any noise?
Simple. The killer cut her voice box out first.
Then she smelled the fruity-metallic scent of the other thing, and her mind acknowledged the blood with a sharp click just like the snick of heels on ceramic tile.
The night watchman for the medical center heard her screaming, and when she wouldn't answer the door, he called the police. When the officers arrived, Jenna only managed to say, "Oh my God, he cut it out of her!"
When the responding officer realized she was talking about more than Dr. Hammond’s voice box, he called his supervisor, who called a dispatcher at the FBI’s Miami Field Office, who paged Special Agent Rivera.