A Necessary Evil by Alex Kava Read Free Book Online Page B

plastic-encased notes, reading the carefully chosen block-lettered words that gave basic instructions, and then almost as an afterthought came the subtle threat. The first one reminded her of something you'd find in a fortune cookie: DO AS YOU'RE TOLD OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE WILL SUFFER. It wasn't until this third note that she decided the killer had to be someone she knew. But how could she be certain? The warning simply read: IF YOU LOVE YOUR FATHER YOU WON'T SAY A WORD.
    Gwen wondered if perhaps even this warning could still be seen as ambiguous and empty. Anyone could easily find out who her father was, and when they discovered that he also was a leading psychologist, might presume that the two of them were very close. Besides, Dr. John Patterson was over five hundred miles away in New York City, living in a high-security apartment complex and working at a research facility that required government clearance. In fact, if she were to tell him later about the threat, he would laugh and shrug it off, quick to excuse it as his little girl being overly cautious.
    "His little girl." Just the phrase still infuriated her. All of her accomplishments, ail of her prestigious degrees and certificates, a bestselling book and dozens of published articles in respected journals and he still didn't take her seriously. He thought she was wasting her brilliant mind and her time with what he referred to as her fascination and obsession with criminal behavior.
    She picked up one of the articles she had clipped from the Washington Post, although she knew she wouldn't find anything new. She had read it so many times she could recite the twelve paragraphs by heart. The article was worthless with only the basic information. Gwen tossed the clipping aside. Now she grabbed the stack of patient file folders she had brought home with her. It didn't take long for her to choose one. She started flipping through her notes. Could there be something here? Something she may have noticed or written down from one of her sessions with Rubin Nash?
    Ordinarily she kept her notes brief, jotting down single words and abbreviations, her own archaic form of shorthand. It was best to keep it brief or else the patient became anxious, too focused on what she was writing. Gwen had learned to do it in such a nonchalant manner that even scratching out things like "ERRATIC," "11" and "DAD GONE" attracted neither attention nor alarm. To anyone else the notes might be meaningless, but one look and Gwen remembered that Rubin Nash's behavior became erratic whenever he talked about the summer of his eleventh birthday when his mother told his father to leave and he did.
    This set of notes included disturbing words and phrases her patient had used during their fifty-minute session. She didn't need to rely on her awful handwriting. She remembered him explaining, or rather telling __ there was too much confidence for him to feel he needed to explain __ how he had the urge to strangle someone, a woman, any woman. It didn't matter whether or not he knew her. A total stranger would do. Women had taken so much away from him that he wanted to make them pay. It would be a symbolic gesture, he had said later, laughing, when he calmed himself. And yet at the same time he added, and this she had written down word for word, that he wondered what it would "feel like to twist someone's neck and hear it snap."
    Gwen reminded herself that just because he said it it didn't mean Rubin Nash was capable of doing it. She had heard plenty of strange rantings from patients. Most of the time, the threats were simply part of the process, a verbal exercise to blow off steam. It wasn't necessarily a sign of destructive or dangerous behavior when patients shared their darkest secrets, urges, or even their desire for vengeance. More often it was a sign that they felt comfortable enough and trusted her enough that they could share such things. However, Gwen had spent too many years profiling and assessing the