Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [47]
“What does she look like?”
“She’s, uh…kind of short, with curly dark hair.”
“Like your sister.”
“Oh, come on—does everything have to be about Laura?”
“No. I’m just pointing it out. It’s interesting that you became so immediately defensive about it.”
“All right, all right!”
“You know, it isn’t unusual for someone to try to construct a surrogate family when their family of origin is inadequate—or, in this case, torn away from you.”
“Okay, okay,” Lee said impatiently. “And John Nelson is my substitute father figure, who doesn’t abandon me, but chooses me from among all the others.”
“Why does that make you so angry?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out, isn’t it?”
“Okay.” Dr. Williams rarely took bait, even when it was dangled in front of her. It was one of the things Lee liked about her—she had that kind of confidence as a therapist.
There was a pause, and then Lee said, “You know, my mother doesn’t really approve of what I do for a living.”
“You think not?”
“It’s too messy, too involved with things she’d rather not think about.”
“The dark side of human nature?”
“She was all right with my being a psychologist, but this ‘profiling thing,’ as she calls it, takes me to places she doesn’t want to admit even exist.”
“So you think she finds it threatening?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“And you? Do you find it threatening?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“This woman you’ve met—do you think she finds it threatening?”
“Well, that’s the thing: she seems fascinated by it. I don’t know how I feel about that. Part of me is glad, and part of me wonders…”
“What’s wrong with her?”
He thought about it. “Yeah, maybe.”
“So you think you should marry a girl just like dear old Mom?”
“Well, now, which is it, Dr. Williams—my mother or my sister? Make up your mind.”
They both laughed, but Lee had a sticky feeling of discomfort. It was one thing to read about these things in a textbook, or even to go through it with a patient, but it was another thing to experience it yourself.
Lee left Dr. Williams’s office feeling a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It was such a relief to be able to say “I’m afraid.” In his family, those were forbidden words. No one was ever afraid—not strong, worthy people, at any rate. Fear was for the rest of humanity, those inferior beings who had not the good fortune to be born Campbells. As Lee turned the corner onto University Place, past the University Coffee Shop, the smell of grilled beef assailed his nostrils, and he was suddenly ravenous.
His cell phone beeped inside his jacket, indicating that he had a message. He dug it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. NEW TEXT MESSAGE. He scrolled over to the message and read it. It was a single sentence.
What about the red dress?
He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, stunned. No one knew about the red dress, the one his sister was last seen wearing before she disappeared. That detail had never been released to the public—only the police knew about the red dress.
Except that now someone else knew too.
Chapter Twenty
Later that afternoon Lee sat in the overstuffed brown leather armchair by the window, his feet propped up on the windowsill, a cup of strong coffee on the round rosewood table by his side. He opened the yellow file folder on his lap. The red tab marking said simply Kelleher, Marie, followed by the case number. This young girl, who once had a life ahead of her, was now reduced to a manila folder, a few horrific photos, and a case number. A good girl, a practicing Catholic, pious and churchgoing, without an enemy in the world. His sister hadn’t had an enemy either, and yet someday someone would be sitting with a file like this one on his lap, and the tab would read Campbell, Laura…if her body was ever found.
What about the red dress?
Lee rubbed his forehead. There was no way to trace who might have left the text message—you