Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
Ruth sighed and leaned back in her chair as she rubbed her temples. She hated Thursdays, the one day a week she took appointments until eight p.m. to accommodate those who couldn’t make it to a daytime session.
Only one more person to see, and then she could relax with a book and a bowl of leftover corn chowder. She perused the information on her next patient, a new one named Leo. No last name or date of birth, which brought a frown. Not unheard of. Some people preferred complete anonymity and could achieve that if they chose to pay for their sessions by e-transferring funds or using a prepaid credit card.
The intake form displayed little information other than the reason for the visit: Difficulty in dealing with grief after the loss of his wife and child.
That would be a tough one. Often those who survived suffered not just from the anguish of losing their loved ones, but also from the guilt that they’d survived.
A light on her desk blinked, showing her patient had arrived and pressed the buzzer in the waiting room to notify her. To preserve her client’s privacy, she didn’t invest in cameras for her office, although that might change given the recent break-ins in the neighborhood.
She buzzed the door, the audible click as it unlocked her cue to sit poised and ready to greet. In walked a giant of a man, and she didn’t say that lightly.
The breadth of his shoulders almost had him turning sideways to enter. While thick all over, it appeared to be muscle, not fat, the kind built over years of exercise or strenuous work. His file didn’t mention his occupation. Slightly intimidating, but despite his bloodshot eyes, he seemed calm.
Ruth stood and kept her tone firm and professional as she said, “Evening. You must be Leo. I’m Doctor Warmstone.”
His unshaven jaw tensed as he eyed her and then the office. “You’re a woman.”
“Yes, I am. Is that a problem?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” he grumbled.
“If you don’t feel I’ll be the right fit for you, I can refer you to a male colleague.”
He shook his head. “Nah. It’s fine. I was told to come see you, so here I am.”
A curious choice of words. “Someone recommended me?”
“Of sorts.” He rocked on his heels as if uncomfortable. “Feel like I should warn you I’ve never talked to a head shrink before.”
She’d heard the disparaging term too many times to count. “I’m glad you found the courage to try, then.”
“Courage,” he snorted. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Did someone force you to come?” The tactic didn’t always work, as those bullied into therapy could prove reluctant to give it a try. But sometimes someone struggling with mental health need tough love to direct them to therapy so they could move past whatever held them back.
“Boss says I need to get my shit together. My liver could use a break, too,” spoken with a rueful smile.
She made note of the detail suggesting he’d been using alcohol to cope. It explained the strong scent of cologne, most likely used to mask the odor that would linger as it oozed from the pores. “Let’s see what we can do, then. If you’ll take a seat…”
He eyed the club chair in front of her desk and then the leather-clad chaise. Before she could mention he could sit wherever he felt most comfortable, he flopped onto the armless couch, causing it to groan ominously.
He exhaled. “More comfy than it looks. Here’s to hoping I don’t fall asleep on you.”
“Sometimes sleep can be beneficial,” she murmured, rising with her tablet, which she used to take notes.
“Not when you have nightmares each time you close your eyes.”
She angled the club chair to face him before she sat down. “Hopefully our sessions will help with that. Let’s start with the basics. Your name is Leo, and you are how old?”
“Older than you’d think.”
A useless reply and probably an indication of how things would go: Difficult.
She pegged him to be in his late thirties, but he could be fit forties, or even fifties. “What is your occupation?”
“I worked as a cop.”
She noticed the late tense. “It sounds as if you no longer do?” Not unusual for law enforcement officials to change jobs before retirement age, given what they experienced. Dealing with the worst of society on an almost daily basis took a toll.
“I’m still working to serve and protect,” he muttered. “I just don’t have the same motivation as before, which makes me a liability to the guys I’m partnered with.”
She made a notation in her tablet about his concern over job performance. “How long have you been in law enforcement?”
“Long time.”
Vague replies, but not unusual for a first session. She didn’t need an exact date. “Have you thought about changing careers?”
“Can’t.” He uttered a short barking laugh. “This is what I am.”
“It’s never too late. If you’re feeling burned out, sometimes a change of occupation can be beneficial.”
“I like what I do.” A begrudging admission. “I just don’t have the same drive as before.”
“Your intake sheet indicated you suffered a tragedy.”
His expression went blank. “Yeah.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“Not really.” He huffed out a breath. “Guess I don’t have a choice.”
“If you’re not ready to discuss it, then we can save it for our next meeting.”
“Seems kind of dumb to avoid it since it’s the reason I’m here.” He went silent for a moment before saying. “My wife and daughter were killed.”
Killed, so not natural causes. “What happened?” Given he was in her office and not jail, she assumed he hadn’t been the one to end their lives.
Agitation tensed his body and Leo rolled from the couch to pace as the story emerged in short terse sentences. “A killer I was hunting took them.”
“They were targeted because of your investigation.” Stated, not asked.
“Yeah.” He stood still, and his shoulders slumped. “I don’t even know how it found them.”
She noticed the use of “it.” Depersonalizing the one who caused his grief. “That must have been devastating.”
“That’s putting it mildly;” his dry retort. “More like soul-crushing. Especially since it’s my fault.”
“You couldn’t have known your investigation would result in your family being targeted.”
“No, but I should have done more to protect them. I tried to get Kylie to leave until the situation was handled, but she refused. Maybe if I’d not been distracted, I would have found the fucker sooner.”
“Distracted by what?”
He grimaced, and for a second, she thought he wouldn’t reply. The reason emerged in a low tone. “My wife and I weren’t in a great place when she died. Hadn’t been in a while.”
He went quiet, forcing her to prod. “When you say not in a great place, were you fighting?”
“It might have helped if we were. About a month after we got married, Kylie just kind of went cold on me. Distant. Like, I’d come home, and she’d pretend I wasn’t there. Kind of impressive, given our small apartment and the size of me.” He offered a self-deprecating smile.
“Given your comment about never having met with a psychologist, I’m going to assume you didn’t attempt couples therapy.”
“No. Seeing as how we were both unhappy, I asked her if she wanted a divorce. It was the weirdest thing, because the moment I said, it suddenly it was like a switch flipped, and for a little while, she was the Kylie I’d met. I’d come home to romantic dinners. We’d snuggle on the couch, sleep in the same bed. But then she got pregnant, and suddenly, it was like she hated me and wanted nothing to do with me.”
“Hormones can be hard on some women, which isn’t making excuses for her behavior,” Ruth hastened to add.
“I know about the whole hormone thing, which was why I did my best to ignore it. Wasn’t easy. If she wasn’t giving me the cold shoulder, she was insulting me. Acting as if she wanted me gone. When the baby was born, I thought maybe things would get better.”
No need to ask. They obviously didn’t. “How old was your daughter when she was taken from you?”
“Two weeks old,” he whispered. “Just a tiny thing. I could hold her in my palm.” He held out the hand in question and stared at it blankly.
“You loved your daughter.”
“More than anything, and I let her down.”
“There is no predicting the mind of a killer. You had no way of knowing they would come after your family.”
“Logically, I know that, but in here…” He thumped his chest. “A part of me insists I should have done more. I should have ignored Kylie’s refusal to leave and just packed them up and secured them in Tower.”
She frowned. “How would bringing them to an apartment tower have helped if this person was targeting you?”
His lips flattened. “Better security. It would have never found them.”
“It is common after experiencing a tragedy to indulge in would have, could have, should have,” she replied. “In hindsight, there are many actions taken over the course of our lives that we would change, but the sad reality is, the past is the past. When something traumatic occurs, dwelling on it won’t change the outcome.”
“No shit, but how am I supposed to stop?” His harsh rebuttal. “It’s with me every single second of every fucking day.”
“Obviously work hasn’t provided a distraction.”
“Nope.”
“I assume you’ve not tried dating, either.”
He uttered a harsh chuckle. “Who wants to be with a miserable fuck? And before you think I am hung up on Kylie, I’m not. Like I said before, we were on the verge of divorce. Probably would have split and shared custody if not for what happened. My problem now is, I’m just not interested. Not in dating, or even living.”
Before she could ask if he’d been having suicidal thoughts, she heard a thump from overhead. She glanced at the ceiling with a frown.
“Noisy neighbors?” he stated, having noticed her distraction.
“Not likely, since I own the floor above,” she murmured as another thud occurred.
“Sounds like a cat or dog jumped off something.”
“I don’t have pets.” She rose from her seat. “Would you excuse me for a moment while I go see?”
His lips pursed. “Shouldn’t you be calling the cops if you have an intruder?”
“I wouldn’t want to waste their time if it turns out to be nothing. Could be I left something too close to an edge and it fell.” She didn’t believe that for one moment. Ruth hated clutter, and her home reflected it. She owned no knick-knacks, ergo nothing that would have fallen.
“I’ll come with you,” he offered, rising, his height and width dwarfing her. While not a petite woman at five seven and very curvy, beside him she felt practically dainty—and a bit daunted.
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Then it will only take a minute and we can go back to me feeling like a piece of shit while you try to convince me I’m not the asshole.”
Internally, she debated the wisdom of taking a patient up to her private residence. On the one hand, she didn’t know him and, as a woman, she knew better than to trust a stranger, especially one that could easily overpower her. On the other, he had the bulk and professional experience that made him more than capable of handling an intruder in her home.
Another thump decided it for her. “If you don’t mind, then yes, it would be reassuring to have someone with me.”
“Lead the way.”
Ruth exited her office and punched in a code on the keypad for the door that led from her waiting room to the vestibule of her home, rather than go outside and through her main entrance.
The entryway showed her front door still deadbolted. The stairs leading upward ended in a tight landing where she felt slightly intimidated by the large man at her back. A quick punch of her code gave them entry to her residence, and she wondered if the intruder heard the beeping as it unlocked.
The moment she entered, Leo brushed past, murmuring, “Stay here while I look around.”
He could move quite stealthily for a man his size, his steps making not even the slightest whisper as he trod from her hall into the living room where the noise originated.
Waiting grated, especially since she could hear nothing. After a minute, she dared to peek her head around the corner and couldn’t restrain a gasp. Her living room had been ransacked, the cabinet doors in her entertainment center wide open, movies and albums dumped on the floor. Her lamps had been knocked from the side table. The television lay shattered on the floor.
Still hearing and seeing nothing, she moved past her living area to the dining room, which appeared untouched. Same for the kitchen.
No intruder, but also no Leo.
He must have gone to check upstairs. She trotted up the steps and immediately saw the open window. A window that led to the fire escape, which explained how the intruder got in. Before she could call out for Leo, a bright flash from outside had her blinking. What was that?
She ran to see, but there was nothing there. Not on the fire escape or in any of her rooms. Whoever had entered her home had disappeared, as had her patient.