Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft Read Online Free PDF Page A

isn’t totally stupid. She’s about five-five when she stands and is still
rail-thin, though she has gained a couple dress sizes in the years I’ve known
her. She usually wears her shoulder-length light brown hair layered and down,
though today it was up. She has brown eyes and wears square-framed glasses. She
was dressed in a brown knee-length pencil skirt and brown striped button-down
blouse.
    But no shrink is
without his or her own issues, and I’ve long suspected for Hobbs it’s a milder
form of OCD. She’s overly particular and detail oriented. A perfectionist, but
to an extreme. This hasn’t necessarily affected my therapy, but it is evident.
Her hair, done up in a French twist, was absolutely perfect, straight and even,
not a single hair out of place. Her glasses never had streaks or smudges, her
clothes were never wrinkled or misaligned, her desk and office were tidy to the
point of Spartan. She had a thing about coasters, and everything was at right
angles. Also, she liked to conduct business in a particular sequence. At
various points in our history, I’d made attempts to alter that sequence, and
the results had not been favorable.
    She sat now in the
same chair she always occupied while I was in the one she always indicated for
me. A yellow legal pad was propped on her crossed legs, and she was reviewing
notes from past sessions while occasionally making new notes. I was back in the
sling, less out of compliance and more out of function. I’d filled an ice pack
before leaving the bonds office, and the sling held it in place perfectly.
    “What about the
nightmares?”
    “I’ve still got them,”
I said, wondering if she thought they’d simply go away.
    “Are you still seeing
the same thing? Are you seeing your father?”
    With all the attempts
on my life had come incidents of self-defense. Not unexpectedly, I had some
post-traumatic stress stuff after killing my father. Not surprisingly,
defending my life again several weeks ago had triggered it all. Back on the
surface, I was experiencing horrible nightmares.
    Scenes from the recent
shootings and the car chase would replay themselves in my head. Somehow my mind
had inserted the night my father died into some of those dreams, and I’d see
him coming after me in different settings, in place of or in conjunction with
my latest would-be killers. I hadn’t really had a good night’s sleep since.
    “Yes.”
    “I know you’d been
sleeping alone last time we spoke. Is that still the case?”
    “Yes, for the most
part.”
    Because of the dreams,
I sometimes woke up screaming or crying or both. Not only did I find this
embarrassing and unsettling, but it kept Ellmann from sleeping. I was sure he
was sincere when he said he wanted to be there for me, but I thought it unfair
for us both to be awake and miserable all night. Plus, we’ve only been dating a
short time. I thought it was probably too soon for us to spend every night
together.
    “How does Alex feel
about this?”
    I shrugged my good
shoulder. “I don’t know. I think he gets frustrated with me sometimes, but he
understands. I also think a part of him is relieved, because he really wasn’t
getting any sleep. He needs to be rested to do his job.”
    “Do you feel like
you’re letting him in?”
    I shrugged again.
    “Yes. Why? Is that not
coming across?”
    “Has Alex said
anything about you being distant, or wanting you to open up to him?”
    “Sometimes he says I
don’t lean on him, but I don’t think that’s the same as keeping him out. I
mean, the only person who knows more about me than Ellmann is Amy. That’s
saying something.”
    Amy Wells has been my
best friend since before our first birthdays, and we literally grew up
together; we are more like sisters. We know everything about each other—all the
dark and dirty secrets, of which there are plenty. Amy is the only person on
the planet who knows every detail of my life, every skeleton, every sin, and
loves me anyway.
    “Ever