Read Online Leave Me Love by Alex Lux - Free Book Online Page B

arrived at Lauren's office just in time. Cavin waited outside while she offered me tea and my choice of seats in her comfortable office. I chose a chair, unwilling to lie down as I unloaded all my problems to a stranger. She took the chair across from me as I looked around her office. "It's nice here. I like the artwork on the wall." She had an eclectic selection of classic prints from the impressionist and expressionist eras.
    "Thank you. I try to make it a comfortable place for my patients."
    "Professor Cavin said you knew my mother, Alice Travis?"
    She nodded and smiled, her green eyes bright and happy, contrasting dramatically with her dark hair and clear skin. "I did. She was a remarkable woman."
    I shifted in my seat. "I went to a counselor once, when I was a teenager. After the murders. I didn't much like it, though, and my foster parents stopped making me go. So I'm not sure what we're supposed to do here."
    "There's no 'supposed to' here. We just talk and I see if I can help you handle some of the incredible difficulties you've been faced with lately."
    "So, where do we begin?" I asked, picking invisible lint off my jeans.
    "Why don't you tell me how you've been feeling since you were attacked and kidnapped?"
    She clicked on a recorder and my throat went dry. I sipped on the tea she'd given me and began to tell her about the headaches, the anxiety attacks, the colors and sounds and overwhelming anger I'd been feeling.
    She nodded, making appropriately comforting sounds as I spoke, her voice and demeanor professional and calm. At one point, she got out a bottle of perfume and sprayed it in the air. The sweet smell ticked my nose. I began to relax and share more, until I'd told her everything.
    "It sounds to me," she said, "like you're suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which isn't uncommon after what you've gone through. That, combined with what's just happened with your best friend, can be very hard to handle. I know your doctor has you on medication for your head injury, but I'd like to prescribe an anti-anxiety medication as well, to be taken only as needed when things start to feel too overwhelming."
    I agreed and she put away her notebook and stood. "Our time is up, but I hope you'll continue to come see me so we can work through this together. I liked your mother and it would be an honor to help her daughter."
    "I'd love to come back," I said, "but unless my campus insurance covers this, I can't afford it."
    She smiled. "Your sessions are on me. Pro bono. You can pay it forward when you're an attorney and find a client who needs your help but may not have the means for it."
    "Thank you."
    I felt a small measure of hope blossom in my chest as I left her office, only to have it quashed when I found myself face-to-face with Detective Gray. "Miss Travis, I need you to come to the precinct with me and answer a few questions."
    The temporary calm disappeared and I looked to Professor Cavin, who stood behind him helplessly, and then to Lauren, who placed herself between me and the detective despite relatively little room. "What's this about?" she asked.
    "This doesn't concern you, Lauren," Detective Gray said in a way that made it seem he knew her personally. "Catelyn has some explaining to do about her relationship with Bridgette Beaumont and her role in the young lady's disappearance.”

Chapter Fourteen
Alternate Theory
     
     
     
    THEY MADE ME wait in the interrogation room for three hours with no contact or interaction before Detective Gray and his potbellied partner came in. I wondered if they'd fall into the good cop/bad cop role and, if so, who would be what. From my vantage point, they were both bad cops.
    Detective Gray sat across from me and dropped Bridgette's journal in front of me. "This tells an interesting tale, Miss Travis. One of escalating anger and out-of-control outbursts toward Bridgette and others. One of a young woman who began to fear for her safety around her best friend. One that