Beyond the Moonlit Sea: A Novel by Julianne MacLean

Author:Julianne MacLean [MacLean, Julianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2022-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

DEAN

New York, 1986

The next few days passed in a blinding haze of shock and fear and guilt and night terrors. I woke up in a sweat on numerous occasions and wanted to call the police. Surely, turning myself in would be better than this—better than the painful, debilitating fear of being discovered. At night, alone in my apartment, I sobbed and cried for poor Melanie. What had I done? I felt nothing but bleakness and doom.

Later that week, Caroline knocked on my office door. She looked concerned. “Two detectives are downstairs,” she said. “They want to ask you some questions.”

I broke out in a sweat. “What about?”

“A former patient of yours,” she replied. “They’re coming up now.”

She met them in the hallway and escorted them into my office. There were two of them. A man and a woman. Caroline left me alone with them, but as she closed the door behind her, she looked displeased, and I suspected she didn’t want other clients to see a crime squad in the building and not feel safe.

I set aside the file I was working on and took a few slow, deep breaths before I stood up to face whatever they had to say.

“You’re Dr. Robinson?” the male detective asked, while the woman glanced around my office as if she were taking an inventory with her eyes.

“Yes.” My heart pummeled the inside of my rib cage, and I felt certain that my face had gone stark white. “What’s this about?”

“I’m Detective Smith, and this is Detective Mason. We’re investigating a missing person, and we were told that she was seeing you for therapy?”

“That’s possible. What’s her name?”

“Melanie Brown.”

I tried to look surprised, then frowned with concern. “Yes. Melanie was a patient of mine, but she stopped coming months ago.”

“Why was that?”

I shrugged, because it happened all the time. “She felt that she’d gotten what she needed out of her treatment, and maybe she was tired of coming. She was busy with school, as I recall.”

“Yes, that’s why it was discovered that she was missing. She was supposed to present a physics dissertation a few days ago, but she didn’t show up. People are concerned.”

Detective Smith watched me intently for a moment, and I was certain he knew everything. Any second now, he was going to tell me I had the right to remain silent.

“Did you feel she was ready to stop treatment?” Detective Mason asked.

I turned to her, then let out a heavy sigh. “Honestly? No. She was under a lot of pressure with school, and she had quite a few personal issues we were working on.”

“Like what?”

I hesitated. “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

Detective Smith nodded, as if he had expected me to say that. “Is there anything you can tell us that might help us locate her? Did she ever talk about a boyfriend, or did she mention a reason she might want to leave town?”

I folded my arms and rocked back on my heels. “I know that she was nervous about presenting her research project.

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