Chapter 19 #2
“I’ll let you in,” Keisha interjected, “just come up to the front door.”
He was there within a few minutes. As Richard walked into Kelly’s bedroom, he stopped and winced. “Okay, this isn’t even a healthy environment.”
Keisha sighed. “I know, and you’re making me feel even worse about it.”
He turned to her and asked, “You work full-time?”
“Yeah, I work full-time. I run my own business, a veterinary practice. I hadn’t realized that her mental state was …
No.” She stopped and looked around the room.
“That’s not true. I did realize her mental state was an issue, but I didn’t realize that she had let her room go like this.
I had no idea she was ordering in food, since I cook literally every night.
She’s been refusing dinner, but then sometimes the leftovers are gone the next day, and I’m happy because I’ve been thinking that at least she’s eating.
Yet apparently this is what she’s eating.
” Keisha stared in shock at all the take-out containers.
“And even that is not an issue, providing she has the money to pay her bills, and it’s not adding to your credit card debts,” Richard suggested, turning to look at her.
She frowned at that. “I’ll have to check that out a little further.”
He nodded. “Maybe you should do that now.” She winced and hunched over a little bit. Richard added, “I’ll need some time in here right now.”
She nodded and stepped away, realizing that she was essentially being told to leave. When she looked over at Jaxon, he nodded.
“Come on. Let’s go make some tea or something.”
She let him lead her away, and, as they made it to the kitchen, she asked, “Did somebody really want her to commit suicide?”
“It’s not even that they necessarily wanted her to commit suicide, but it’s giving them a sense of …
power, of being able to manipulate people,” he explained.
“She’s a vulnerable young woman, and, while I don’t know all of what’s been going on, once you get in with a crowd like that, it’s basically bullies and mean girls and cults, which are all hard to be free and clear of to make your own decisions.
I know that this isn’t the time to bring it up, but look how easily influenced you were by her, once she started browbeating you. ”
She stared at him, closed her eyes briefly, then nodded. “Yeah. … I really was, wasn’t I?”
“And that’s not why I brought it up, except to show you that it can happen and can definitely be an issue.”
“Right, … it is. You’re right, 100 percent.” She stared off in the distance. “How am I supposed to help her?”
“At this point, she needs professional help,” he stated, “and I’m not just saying that. You’ve known it yourself, and she’s declined, but now she will be forced to get it.”
“I guess.” Keisha brushed back her hair. “Do you think Richard wants coffee?”
“I think he would appreciate the gesture, if nothing else. It’s late for coffee, but I don’t know what his work schedule looks like anyway.”
She snorted. “The field that he’s in, it probably never ends.”
When they brought him a cup of coffee a little bit later, he mumbled something, then paused, looked up, and realized what she’d done. He smiled. “Thank you.”
She looked at him and asked, “Did you find anything?”
“I found all kinds of things,” he replied, “and none of them good. We’ve been after a group of people, an online Chat group.
They’re all over the world, and this isn’t the first instance we’ve heard about.
We’ve certainly been aware that some people are heavily involved in this thing,” he shared, taking a sip of his coffee.
“So, having access to the Chat right now is a huge boon, and I’m hoping it will give us an opportunity to do something about it.
” He looked over at her and stated, “I’ll need to take her computer in. ”
She frowned at him.
He nodded. “It’s necessary. Plus, we don’t want her to come back to this, and we don’t want anybody else in this Chat group to do what she did.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay. Can she get it back later?”
“Yes, absolutely, but not for a little while. We’ll need to go over everything that we’ve got here, the whole works.”
She sighed. “Okay fine, it’s just …”
“No,” Richard declared, “it’s not an option. This is important.”
She nodded. “Fine. … Take it. Just take it. I’ll deal with Kelly when I get her home again.”
He shook his head. “You need to let the professionals help her from here out.”
“I’m not the one stopping them,” she said, looking at him in shock. “Detective, I’ve tried really hard to get her help.”
“This attempt will trigger quite a few automatic processes now,” he stated, giving her a sideways look, “and you need to let that process happen.”
She swallowed hard. “Are you telling me that she’s not coming home anytime soon?”
“No, not likely,” he said. “At least not for a few days or weeks.” She stepped aside as he quickly packed up everything. “I’m taking it all in, and I’ll get you a receipt.”
She nodded, not sure what the process was, but it was done very quickly. “Where will you take this?”
“To forensics right now.” When he loaded everything in his car, he turned back, smiled at her, and added, “We’ll get to the bottom of this.” And, with that, he was gone.
She looked over at Jaxon. “Not exactly how I thought my night would go.”
“Of course not,” he muttered, as he put his arms around her, pulling her in for a hug. “Not an easy evening for anybody regardless.”
“No, and somehow it just seems worse when I realize I let her get this bad right under my nose.”
“Stop that right now,” he snapped.
“I know that it’s not my fault … and yet—”
“It’s simply not your fault,” he declared. “It’s just not. Kelly is twenty-two.”
She smiled. “You’re always so supportive.”
“I’m supposed to be. In one sense of the word, it’s because I am your husband.
I’m supposed to be helping you deal with any trauma or trouble.
At the same time, I’m also a human being and recognize that you trashing yourself, or blaming yourself for this in any way, won’t accomplish anything.
You need to understand and to accept that it’s not your fault, that Kelly is an adult, even if not as mature as most twenty-two year-olds. ”
She groaned. “I don’t even know how to think about some of this. I still can’t really even begin to believe that groups of people are out there encouraging others to hurt themselves. Why would they do that?”
“Possibly because they don’t have the self-control, the means, or the willpower to do it themselves,” he suggested. “People are using this to empower themselves, which usually means they feel powerless for some reason.”
“It’s just so terrible.”
“It is, and it’s also common in a way. People push and try to coerce other people to do all kinds of stuff,” he noted. “This is just one of the extreme cases.”
“And it’s BS,” she said immediately.
He smiled. “At least we’re in the process of getting Kelly some help, and that is a good thing.”
“She won’t appreciate it.”
“No, but we can’t let her make the decisions right now—”
“She brought it on herself. And I do think it’s a cry for help, whether she wants to acknowledge it or not. Doing something like this is exactly what that was.” Keisha wandered around the house, not even sure what to do or say.
Jaxon asked, “Do you want me to stay here for the night, so you’re not alone?”
She hesitated and then looked at him. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all. We did have a relationship, remember?”
“We still do,” she said. “I just can’t quite define what it is right now.”
“Nobody needs to define it,” he replied.
She looked over at him. “I was trying to figure it out earlier because, at the bottom of it all, if I truly loved you,” she shared, “I would never have done that to you.”
He winced. “There is that. Yet you were also dealing with Kelly, who we know now was on a downward spiral, and I wasn’t helping.”
She snorted. “No, you weren’t, but then again, Kelly wasn’t helping either. I don’t know what I expected,” she muttered, with a shrug. “The whole thing is just messed up.”
“And again, it’s nothing that needs to be resolved today.”
She smiled. “Maybe not, maybe not today, but it sure feels as if it’s got to be coming soon.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he countered, with a smile. “We don’t have to make any major decisions right away about our marriage.”
She looked up at him. “You’re just afraid I’ll make the wrong one.”
“You’re right. I am,” he admitted. “I’m afraid you’ll make the decision that terminates what we have.
We had to go back to the beginning, not quite the beginning, but we obviously needed to get to know who we are again.
Letting go of some of the hurt, letting go of some of the trauma,” he stated, with a chuckle, “and figuring out just who and what we are and what we want. That doesn’t have to be a quick process. ”
She smiled. “It would be nice if I had time to sort it out.”
“You do have time,” he declared. “Nobody is pushing you—but you.”
She laughed. “I think that’s the story of my life, honestly, but thank you. I don’t have much space, but—”
“Is the spare room still here?”
“It is and it isn’t,” she said, with a cringe. “It’s just been for storage.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
And as he walked her upstairs to the spare room, he opened the door, took a look inside, and nodded. “Doesn’t look as if anybody’s been in here since I was here last.”
“It’s not like you stayed here long.”
“No, but I think I mentioned something about moving in and doing something with the spare room, and it caused Kelly to lose it.”
“That’s because this was my mother’s special room,” she noted, with a smile. “It was her sewing room, her craft room. Her space, you know?”
“And I had no way of knowing that, so I didn’t realize I would be triggering her.”
“I don’t know that anybody would have known,” Keisha added, “so again, you’re not to blame.”
“Right.” Then he laughed. “Does it seem as if excusing each other from blame is all we’re doing lately?”
She smiled. “Sort of. Maybe you are right, and we just need time.”
“That’s exactly what we need,” he declared. He wrapped her up in a hug and gave her a gentle kiss.
Even though she wanted so much more, if she went down that pathway, it would send a signal that would be almost impossible to change at this point. Yet they’d already gotten to that point years ago, so why was she even hesitating? Except that she was still an emotional wreck.
“Go to sleep,” he suggested. “Everything will look brighter in the morning.”
She looked up at him and winced. “Are you sure? Things are looking pretty-damn gloomy right now.” And, with that, she left him in the spare bedroom and walked away. As she got to her room, she looked back at him and added, “I don’t even know what I’m doing right now.”
He frowned, walked closer, and asked, “What do you mean?”
“I want to be in there with you,” she shared, “but I feel as if it would change things completely, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that change.”
“Nobody has to make any changes right now,” he said, a smile on his face. “And coming in here with me, or me coming in there with you, it doesn’t need to be a statement of change. It’s just a natural progression of who we are.”
She smiled and shook her head. “That sounds like cajoling.”
He burst out laughing and grinned. “My door is always open, so, if you want to come in, come on in.”
And he stepped into the hallway and walked to his room and left his door open.