The Good Listener (29 page)

I was sure that he’d felt horrible and probably guilty.

But everything still didn’t make sense.

Things still weren’t adding up.

Joel just seemed guilty.

The way that some of the evidence magically appeared.

The lying, the affair, and Summer being pregnant.

I was just so sure that he was guilty.

He was a liar.

He was a cheater.

But I guess he wasn’t a killer after all.

I tapped him, but he didn’t move.

I shook him a little harder, but he didn’t move.

“Joel? Joel?”

Studying his face, I touched it, and…

It was cold.

Joel was dead.

“No!”

I continued to shake him, but he was already gone.

How could this be?

I started to panic as I looked around for his phone.

What happened to him?

Before I could call for help, his phone started to ring.

I recognized the name.

“Hello?”

“Hannah? Is that you?”

It was Tori.

Tori was one of my old colleagues.

She was one of the folks that had cut me off after knowing me for years and assumed that I was guilty of such a horrible crime.

“I thought you were convicted yesterday? What are you doing there?”

“Had you been to the trial to show your support, you would have known.”

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to get involved.”

“Yet I was involved when you needed me, every single time. If you needed me I was there, including when you needed me to help you dig up dirt on your husband.”

“That’s different. It didn’t involve a personal murder. I’m sorry Hannah. I really am.”

“No. You’re not. You’re just like every other person in this world. You can’t be counted on. You only love, support, give to a person when it’s beneficial to you. You are that person and so was I.”

“I need to speak to Joel, Hannah.”

“Why do you possibly need to speak to my husband?”

Nobody but God in Heaven was speaking to him at the moment but I was curious.

“Because he’s my patient.”

“What?”

“He felt extremely responsible for everything that was going on with you. He’s been coming to see me for a while now. He felt so horrible for putting you in such a situation. He was stressed. He felt guilty. And he knew that sleeping with Summer was a huge mistake that ruined his life and yours. He’s in pretty bad shape, mentally Hannah and I need to talk to him.”

What?

And she had definitely just violated all of the rules of practicing and patient confidentially.

“I need to speak to him Hannah. The voicemail that he left for me last night has me concerned. I think he might be about to do something to himself.”

“You’re too late Tori. Joel is already dead.”

*******************************************

Chapter ELEVEN

They found so much alcohol in Joel’s system plus what they assumed to be about twenty of the depression pills that Tori had prescribed him during therapy.

He’d gone into cardiac arrest, and his heart gave up on him.

Joel was gone.

He felt guilty, and he tried to right his wrongs by taking his own life because he’d thought that he had taken mine…in a way.

He’d written a long letter and left it for someone to find.

He asked that whoever found it, that they made sure that I received it so that I could hear the things that I would never allow him to say, without telling him that it was either a lie or that I didn’t want to hear it.

He expressed everything that he’d felt about what I was going through. He talked about the guilt in his heart.

He told said that he loved me and that he didn’t deserve to live.

He apologized for ruining my life and my career, and he stated that he wished that he could change the past and make things right. He said that he couldn’t come and see me in prison. He wouldn’t be able to handle looking at what he had done to me, but he promised that one of his siblings would always make sure that I was taken care of. He said that he would be looking down at me and watching over me from Heaven and that whenever I felt like I was alone, he would be right there.

And then he said goodbye.

He said that he loved me and signed his name and just like that.

He was gone.

I was so angry at him for taking his life.

He really would have left me to go through my prison years all alone.

Checking the log on his phone, that day at the hotel, he had been talking to Tori.

He didn’t want me to know that he was going to therapy, so he lied to hide that he’d turned to the very thing that he’d always hated.

He’d turned to the one thing that he despised, so I was sure that whatever he was going through and feeling was pretty darn bad.

I guess he didn’t want me to know how bad it was affecting him because I was already going through so much and he didn’t want to make the situation about himself.

He was trying to be strong for me, but I really wished that he had told me.

Then again, I was so angry he must have known that I wouldn’t have listened. I wouldn’t have wanted to know what was going on with him.

I probably wouldn’t even have cared because I’d blamed him for what was going on.

Now he was gone, and I really was all alone.

The funeral was over, and I didn’t bother to go back and to his parent’s house to mingle with the family.

I headed home.

At least it was home for now.

There was no way that I was going to be able to stay there.

There was no way that I was going to be able to stay in this town, in this city, or even the state.

I didn’t belong here anymore.

Though the news played the story over and over again and a public apology was issued, it still wasn’t enough.

My name was tarnished, and everywhere that I went, I could tell that people were whispering about me.

I just couldn’t stay here.

There is nothing left for me here anymore anyway.

I’d made up in my mind that I was never going to ever practice or counsel people again.

I would never counsel a single patient as long as I live.

The psychologist in me had died and had been buried along with my husband.

Life for me would never be the same.

After the civil suit against the police department and after selling the house, I was going to hit the road and never look back.

I didn’t care about Summer or her motives anymore.

I didn’t care where she was nor did I have the desires to get an explanation or to see her pay for what she’d done.

I just didn’t care anymore.

In due time she would get what was due to her.

I didn’t care if Blake had ever made it out of town or if he’d ever killed his next victim.

So what if he had?

It was no longer my concern.

I just wanted to go away.

This time, I was going to take my money and live a normal life.

No more working myself to death.

No more putting everyone and everything else first.

I was sure that I was going to walk away with a good bit of money, on top of what I already had and I was looking forward to having a completely different life than my old one.

With plenty of time to think, Joel had been right.

I’d worked way too much, and I missed out on so much of my life from trying to be the best.

Maybe a new husband, whoever that was going to be, maybe he would be happy with me because I wouldn’t have a job to put in front of him.

Maybe there wouldn’t be a repeat of the infidelity issue in my new life, because I would have plenty of time to dedicate to making sure that I had a solid marriage.

Maybe I would try to sneak a baby or two into the mix before I was too old.

And maybe it was too soon after the death of my husband to even think about those things, but those were my plans.

Joel would want me to be happy.

If he was watching me from Heaven, like he said that he would, he was probably disappointed that he was going to miss out on the new and improved me.

I could see him now with a frown on his face thinking how unfair it was, but he would definitely want me to be happy.

I finally got out of the car and headed inside.

After cleaning, I found my blanket and curled up on my favorite couch, just like I always did.

I didn’t feel like crying or dwelling on the past, I just wanted to lay there.

I just wanted to enjoy the silence.

But before I could get comfortable, the alarm sounded, and I took my time heading for the monitor.

I saw that a small cat was right in front of the motion detector, and I headed to turn off the alarm.

Instead of putting in my code, I turned it completely off.

If someone wanted me, they could have me.

I’d been through hell and back and by taking my life they would probably be doing me a favor.

I was all alone now anyway.

~***~

I threw the paper in the trash before heading into the grocery store.

My story and the search for Summer was still making the front page.

Everyone wanted to know where she was and why she did what she did.

Why did she let everyone assume that she was dead?

Was she really pregnant?

One thing was for sure, she didn’t have a belly at the courthouse.

I saw her, and I didn’t see any kind of belly whatsoever.

Maybe she’d gotten rid of it.

It hadn't been long enough for her to have the baby yet so she still should have been pregnant according to the information that they’d gotten from the doctors on her.

It hadn't taken them long to charge me, and send me to trial. It hadn't even taken them long to decide my fate; though it hadn't been my destiny.

I walked around the grocery store.

I was learning to enjoy some of the simple things that I’d once taken for granted like cooking.

I pushed the cart, but my gut started to do something familiar.

It was trying to tell me something.

My gut and my sixth sense had always been reliable, so I trusted the feeling and looked behind me.

He moved swiftly, but I saw him.

Blake.

He was still here.

He was still in town.

Why?

For some reason, I thought about the anonymous phone call to 911 that had saved my life.

Was it him?

He was probably somewhere watching.

He was crazy, so I couldn’t exactly rule out any possibilities with him.

But since he was still there, was it possible that he had been the one to call for help?

But that would bring up another question of course.

How did he know?

How would he know that I was trying to kill myself?

Did he have a camera in our house or something?

How did he get the front door open?

I left the cart and headed towards the aisle over but it seemed as though I only caught his shoulder.

“Excuse me. Excuse me,” I said trying to get to around the people with their carts and their children.

Finally, on the last aisle, I saw the back of him as he made his way to the door.

I called out to him, but he kept walking and by the time I made it outside, he was gone.

He was gone.

I looked all around me, but he was nowhere in sight.

He was following me but why?

He was still around but why?

So, was there a possibility that his victim was still alive?

Had the sessions worked?

Whatever the reason was, I wanted to talk to him.

“Hey, aren’t you that doctor? The therapist woman? The one that they were blaming for her husband’s mistress disappearance? Only to find that she was alive and well.”

I didn’t respond.

Without going back to get my groceries, I headed back to my car as others started to ask questions.

I sped off as people started to surround my car.

I took a deep breath as I turned down a side street.

I looked in my rearview mirror…

“Ahhhh!” I screamed.

Blake.

He’d been hiding in the back of my car the whole time.

I turned to look at him but swerved so I turned my head back towards the street.

I felt something touch the back of my head so I looked again into the rearview mirror.

It was a gun.             

I hit the brakes.

“You almost made me shoot you.”

I looked at him through the mirror again, and he smiled.

“Drive.”

He gave me directions for what seemed like forever.

We turned down a road that I had never even been down.

One that was off of the street and just driving by it, one was sure to miss it.

We drove down the rocky road, and we came to a small little house.

It was abandoned and looked as though no one had lived there for years.

Keeping the gun pointed at me, Blake got out.

“Get out.”

I got out of the car with my hands up.

“Blake what are you doing?”

He didn’t comment.

“Blake what is this? What are you doing?”

“Turn around.”

With the gun pointing at me, I didn’t have a choice but to obey him, so I turned around.

I asked him another question, but he didn’t answer that one either.

Instead, he hit me in the back of the head with the gun.

Lights out…

~***~

I opened my eyes and looked around me.

I was tied to a chair, and something was covering up my mouth.

I could tell that I was inside the shack and even though it looked awful on the outside, the inside was fixed up quite nicely.

I started to panic and tried to get my arms and legs free.

My screams were muffled, and I tried to hop towards the door.

“Where are you going, Hannah?”

Blake came out of nowhere.

He was still holding the gun.

He approached me and I squeezed my eyes closed, but he took the cloth off of my mouth.

“Help! Somebody, please help!”

“No one can hear you, Hannah.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why not?”

I started to scream, but Blake continued to talk.

“You were her all along Hannah. You were my next victim; the woman who I wanted to kill. I told you it was a woman.”

What?

What kind of sick game was this?

“What?”

“You were her.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you come to me to help save myself?”

“I personally thought it was a brilliant idea. Don’t you?”

I wanted to scream all kinds of curse words at him, but I didn’t want to provoke him to shoot me, which he was probably going to do anyway.

“I wanted to see what you were made of. I wanted to see if you could truly convince me not to kill you. No one else would have been fit to do the job. Some days I felt like there might be hope but nope. You failed Hannah.”

What?