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lobby shared between the police department and the fire department was nearly empty, and her voice echoed in the huge atrium. “You’ve been so kind and so generous with your time. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me and for Taylor.”
    A stab of guilt hit Aimee. She was beginning to feel like she hadn’t done much for the girl at all. It was hard to feel successful when your patient’s main form of communication was scrawling cryptic symbols in her own blood and then rocking herself. “I wish I could do more.”
    “All the driving back and forth, and getting us settled at Whispering Pines? I don’t know what more anyone could do. Nothing will bring my sister back to me. Or my brother-in-law. I wish you could have known them.” She stopped sniffing and looked up. “Then again, I suppose you did.”
    “Not in any real way,” Aimee said, patting Marian’s hand. As a therapist she was privy to things that people wouldn’t tell their closest relative or their most trusted friends, sometimes in much more graphic and lurid detail than she wanted or needed to know—but that didn’t mean she really knew those people. She didn’t know what it was like to sit and watch a movie with them or share a meal. She didn’t know what books they liked to read or how they liked their coffee. Mostly she knew what they were afraid to let anyone else know, even themselves.
    Marian threw her arms around Aimee. “You’re a sweet girl.”
    Aimee smiled into Marian’s hair. “It’s been nice to meet you, too,” she said, thankful that someone with this much compassion would now be looking after Taylor. “I wish it had been under different circumstances.”
    Marian released Aimee from her hug and blew her nose. “You’ll come and visit Taylor, won’t you?”
    “Her new doctor may not want that, Marian. I’ll do what I can, but I don’t want to antagonize her new doctor. That’s not in Taylor’s best interests.”
    “Why would your visiting antagonize anyone?” Marian’s brow furrowed.
    “The new doctors will want to draw their own conclusions about Taylor’s behavior and draw up their own treatment plan. They won’t want anything to interfere with that, and visits from a previous therapist could be viewed as interference,” Aimee explained. It galled her, though. It was hard to let Taylor out of her protective hands.
    Marian nodded slowly. “I suppose I can see their point. I don’t necessarily agree with it, though.”
    “I’d like to keep in touch,” Aimee said, pulling one of her cards from her purse. She wrote her home phone on the back. “Here are all my numbers. Call me anytime you want, and please keep me informed of Taylor’s progress.”
    “Of course I will,” Marian said, and gave Aimee a last hug good-bye.
    Aimee walked past the glassed-in booth where the desk sergeant sat and out to the parking lot, feeling like she was leaving an awful lot of unfinished business behind.
     

    “But I promised not to tell,” Jenna Norchester whispered.
    Josh rubbed his hand over his face, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. Again. Another teenaged girl that he’d like to shake until her teeth rattled. Did this one have a hot shrink who could distract him, too? That would make it all into just the most perfect clusterfuck ever.
    “I’m sure that Taylor would understand if you broke your promise to her,” he said. “Things have changed a lot since you made that promise to her. A whole lot.”
    Jenna’s lower lip quivered, and she let her straight brown hair fall in front of her slightly horsey face. “I know that. My dad told me. All the kids at school are talking about it and it’s been on the news and everything. It’s so awful.”
    “That’s right,” Elise said softly. “Everyone’s talking about it anyway, so it’ll be okay if you tell us what really happened. Jenna, if you know anything that might help us catch who did this, you know it’s right to tell us.”
    Josh