“Come in.”
It was Belinda, and behind her was a tall man whose face was in shadow.
“Dr. Snow, there is someone here to see you.” Her voice was tight.
“I don’t have any sessions scheduled and I was just getting ready to leave. Is someone giving you a hard time?”
In the background I heard a male voice. “I don’t have an appointment, but I’d appreciate you just giving me a few minutes.” He had an accent that I couldn’t place, except that I knew it was Southern. Then he stepped into the doorway. He was tall and lanky, wearing blue jeans, a white shirt and a dark jacket.
“I’m sorry to barge in, Dr. Snow.” He stepped over the threshold. “I’m Detective Noah Jordain. And yes, this is official business.”
“Is my daughter all right?” My heart jolted and started pounding, adrenaline released in a nanosecond. The pain in my head stabbed me between the eyes.
He was fast. He knew. “This isn’t about your family. I’m here to see you in your professional capacity.”
I’ll see you as soon I recover from this fucking heart attack you just gave me, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. Instead, my response was polite and professional. “Come in.”
I wanted to put my head down on my desk and close my eyes. Instead, I did one quick round of square breathing. Shit. Why was my panic always so close to the surface? It was as if I was always waiting for the phone call, the knock on the door, the explosion. Expecting it. Anticipating the awful call that something was wrong, that Dulcie was in danger. In my head her safety was at risk every minute of every day. I fought it and I blocked it and I lived with it, but sometimes it morphed into the fear I’d had about my mother’s safety when I was a child. She hadn’t been safe and I hadn’t been able to save her.
I was no wimpette. I was no victim. Yet I suffered anxiety along with most of the rest of the world. To cope I’d learned exercises, did visualizations. Had worked on my issues in therapy. And most of the time I mastered my weakness. But if it caught me off guard the way it just had when this detective walked into my office and introduced himself, I lost the ability to control my feelings.
I gulped the air.
It didn’t matter that this man I’d never met before was standing there watching me trying to come up from under. He just waited and smiled at me with eyes that were surprisingly kind, and then walked across the floor toward my desk.
“Can I sit?” he asked, with his hand on the back of the chair facing me.
And as I nodded, I realized why he was here. Of course. It had been the leitmotiv of my whole day. This detective was here about Cleo. Something had happened to her. They’d found her.
The words were already forming in the back of my throat. Has something happened to Cleo Thane? Is it connected to the other prostitutes who were killed? Is she the most recent victim of the Magdalene Murderer? Is that why she missed her appointments and hasn’t been in touch?
After my call to Gil Howard and Elias Beecher’s plea, I was primed to hear the solution to the mystery. And who else would have it other than a detective? This detective.
He was watching me, and I wondered how much of what I was thinking he could glean from the expression on my face.
All I wanted to do was find out if Cleo was all right, but I couldn’t just come out and ask when I didn’t know for sure that she was the reason he was here. Besides, even if she was why he was here, I couldn’t reveal that Cleo had been coming to see me.
Not until I knew she was dead. If she was alive there was nothing I could say. I would have to wait to hear what the detective wanted before I could ask about a patient who had come to symbolize a tight ball of anxiety that I could not dissolve.
“I should let you catch your breath. Do you want me to get you some water?” He looked around and spotted the water carafe. I shook my head and picked up the glass already on my desk.
“I do apologize, Doctor. I hate that about what I do-show up unannounced and have people look at me like I’m the grim reaper. Just once, I want to introduce myself to someone and have them throw their arms around me and hug me tight and say, Oh, I am so damn happy you are here.”
I smiled.
How easily he’d brought me around. Expertly, I’d have to say. The man had to have had some psychological training.
“I’m Detective Noah Jordain.”
“Hello. I’m Morgan Snow.”
In the past few years, I’d been asked to work on several cases with the NYPD. I’d appeared in court to give testimony dozens of times. I’d met dozens of policemen, some of whom fit the stereotype of a law-enforcement officer, and others who eschewed the role and just cared about doing their jobs the best they could.
Noah Jordain, on first impression, was one of the latter.
Some people inhabit their skin with comfort, others are never at ease. He was. His clothes-a blazer, jeans, a white shirt and tie-fit him. Elbows, knees, stomach that didn’t push at the seams, creases where they should be. Even from a distance, I was sure he smelled clean. Like lemons, I guessed.
But when he leaned in to shake my hand, I was surprised to find his scent was rosemary and mint. Not as expected, but just as sharp and invigorating. He looked as if he was in his late thirties-early forties at the most-but there was something aged and ragged in his voice. You could hear all that he had seen behind his words. And you could see all that he had heard in his eyes. Sorry blue eyes that analyzed as they searched. And they always searched.
He squinted, stared, looked from me to the windows, behind me, to the right, to the left, back to me, to my face, then my hands, then he looked right into my eyes. Dared me to look away. A police trick-did he even know he was doing it? I dared him to look away first. A therapist’s trick. We were evenly matched. Involuntarily I smiled just a little at the thought. He held out his hand and I shook it, aware of it being large, pleasantly dry, but not too rough. I could tell that he had enormous strength in his fingers but that he was aware of it and was being careful.
“Dr. Snow, right?”
I nodded. “Now. Do you want to sit down or are you going to stand over me and talk down to me?”
“Whoa. I know I upset and scared you. But that much sarcasm? I don’t talk down to women. Especially pretty ones who have more degrees than I do.”
With a smile, he sat opposite me at the desk, leaned back and gave me some more time. He was so completely at ease, and so few people were in my office that it was a pleasure to watch him.
How people acted when they first met you and then came into your space told you something about them. Especially this space. Some people needed to give themselves time, were nervous or intimidated; others had too much bravado, needed to own the area even though it wasn’t theirs. He didn’t do any of those things. His actions were not informed by any neurosis. At least not yet.
I offered him coffee and he accepted.
I was glad for a few minutes of busy work to observe him and get a beat on him.
My curiosity was like the pain in my head, insistent and determined. And as much as I wanted to just ask him to tell me why he was here and find out what was going on, I would be better served this way. Knowledge, even subtle knowledge and intuitive information, was a weapon. And since I was sure he had his gun in a holster under his arm or strapped around his ankle, it seemed only fair for me to have some ammunition of my own.
“Milk? Sugar?” I asked as I poured the still-steaming Italian roast from the thermos into one of the four mugs that Dulcie had made for me in school. The one I picked for him read: Was Freud Wearing a Slip?
I turned for his answer.
“Light and sweet.”
I knew he hadn’t meant there to be anything even slightly lascivious about his answer. I knew he was being straightforward-I could see it in his face. And I almost laughed at the way his eyes widened slightly when he realized his words had sounded suggestive.