Forgotten Place by LS Sygnet Read Free Book Online Page B

was
vulnerable –"
    "After her mother was diagnosed with
dementia?"
    Evans nodded.  "That was when she
decided to become a clinical psychologist.  Her mom was very
young when she was diagnosed."
    "But you've known Journey for years,
yes?"
    "Since middle school," Evans nodded. 
"Her dad was already gone, and Journey's mom was…I wouldn't say
paranoid, but she was certainly over protective.  I guess she
had plenty of good reasons after her husband was
assassinated.  We were freshmen in college when her mom was
diagnosed, so that's been gosh eight or nine years ago. 
Journey wanted to teach English literature until that
happened.  Everything changed for her."
    "Understandable.  Were you dating at
the time?"
    He nodded.  "But she didn't think it
was fair to me, you know, putting me through everything that she
was facing with her mom.  She moved back home and stayed with
her mom until it got to the point where she started wandering
off.  Isabella got pretty paranoid, kept talking about men
outside the house trying to break in.  Journey got the doctors
to put her on all kinds of medication for the delusions and
paranoia, but she just kept getting worse."
    "So she put her mom in the convalescent
home."
    "Right, that would've been during grad
school I guess.  Three years ago maybe?"
    "And Linder came into the picture after
that."
    "Maybe a year later.  We figured that
the attraction, creepy as it sounds, was in part because Journey
lost her dad when she was about ten years old, so Linder kinda was
like a father figure.  We tried to get to know him, detective,
but it seemed like he was more interested in keeping her away from
her old friends."
    "Was that why the relationship ended?"
    "I'm not sure.  Journey, for as kind
and caring as she is, she's so private.  If anybody would know
the details, it would be Sam Wine."
    "The reporter."
    "Editor," Tim said.  "But she started
out as a reporter, and she's got a way of getting people to open up
to her, detective.  Nobody hates Jim Linder more than Sam
does.  I know Journey had to have told Sam something about why
they stopped seeing each other."
    Devlin pondered the likelihood of prying
something private out of a close friend versus using a resource he
might have to get the same information from the victim.  Helen
Eriksson.  Hadn't the papers intimated that she almost
singlehandedly trapped Jerry Lowe into his web of guilt?  And
what about the meth guy and his militia kook cousin?  Surely
she'd be able to convince Ireland to explain why Jim Linder was
looking like a good candidate for attempted murder.
    Devlin thanked Evans.
    "Would it be all right if we check on
Journey at the hospital?"
    "Last I heard, she wasn't out of surgery
yet."
    "Can you tell me what happened to her? 
Was she shot?"
    "Some son of a bitch slit her throat,"
Devlin said.  "She's lucky one of our detectives was around
the corner in the parking garage when she was attacked."

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
     
    One of the side effects of drugs in the
class of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors is bizarre
dreams.  I know this.  I know a lot of things about drug
therapy, even though I've never actually treated patients with
emotional disorders.  Sometimes it's the odd information about
mental illness and its treatment that sticks in my brain. 
    If my subconscious was projecting the
freakish garbage of my mind onto the backs of my eyelids before I
added Prozac to the cocktail in my blood, its addition certainly
didn't help.  At least the cognitive dissonance was absent
this time.  No way was a hot fudge sundae capable of chasing
me around the house.
    I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and tried
to reconcile that the luscious maraschino cherry transforming into
a red fire alarm clanging probably wasn't an accident.  All
the phone ringers were off but one – the iPhone on the stand beside
my bed.  My fingers crawled across the surface and grabbed
it.  One of them smeared