The Good Listener Read online

  What?

  No.

  I wouldn’t believe it.

  “You’re lying Blake.”

  “Believe me. I’m not. She knew Hannah. She knew the whole time. At the end of the day, what’s that saying, blood is thicker than water is it? That’s why I asked you if they were blood relatives. She and Joel. China knew about their affair, Hannah. I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. I have no reason to lie to you. Her loyalty belonged to Joel. Not you Hannah.”

  I was crushed.

  This couldn’t be true.

  There was no way that what he was saying was true.

  “And you are right, I can’t stand adultery. Cheating spouses disgust me. But everyone cheats. I was smart enough to stay alone. That’s why I slipped him a little poison here and there. It made me feel better. But at least I didn’t kill him. And I didn’t kill China either. I really didn’t. But she got what she deserved. So okay, save Summer. Save your husband’s mistress. Convince me to spare her life. Or would me killing her be a good thing for you too?”

  I didn’t know what to think.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I covered my face so that Blake couldn’t see my tears.

  Everyone around me had deceived me.

  I felt like such a fool!

  Summer, China, and Joel had all lied to me, day in and day out and they’d done it as though it were easy.

  As though they never loved me.

  Joel said that it was one time.

  He had been caught and instead of being truthful, he still lied to my face.

  If Blake was telling the truth, which I’m sure that he was that changed everything.

  One time was completely different from plenty of times, and though one time was too many, plenty was unforgivable.

  My marriage was over.

  “Think about it. Let’s call today short. If she is indeed the one that I want to kill, could you, would you save her? Would you help her?”

  Blake smiled and walked out of my office.

  Crying, I didn’t hesitate to leave either.

  I grabbed my things and headed to Joel’s new job.

  He had might as well consider himself unemployed, again, because I was on my way to give them all a show that they would never forget.

  I was there in less than five minutes, and I went in to ask for him.

  “It’s an emergency,” I said to them and soon I saw him.

  He looked confused.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You lied! You slept with Summer more than once! You had a full blown affair with her! And China? China was involved too?”

  He looked at me.

  I could see the disbelief in his eyes as to the fact that I was actually at his job causing a scene.

  “Can we talk about this later?”

  “No! We’re going to talk about this now! After ten years this is the thank you that I get? My husband has a friendly penis who seems to be everyone’s friend but mine! Who’s next? Who wants to be next?” I bellowed as people started to stare.

  Joel reached for my arm, but I jerked it away from him.

  “Don’t touch me! Don’t you ever touch me again! And just so we are clear, this marriage is over! I want a divorce!”

  I turned and stormed out of the building.

  Joel didn’t bother to follow me.

  I assumed that he needed some time to take in what had just happened, but I wasn’t done yet.

  I was headed to Summer’s house next.

  I was on a rampage.

  I didn’t care about my image or the way that I might be perceived by my actions at the moment.

  I’d done nothing to deserve this from either of them.

  I arrived at Summer’s house, and she appeared to be about to leave.

  I parked behind her and got out before she could get into her car.

  I screamed and yelled and caused such a scene that neighbors came out, and cars slowed down to see what was going to happen next.

  “How many times?”

  She looked at me.

  She looked frightened at first, but then she became hard to read.

  “How many?”

  “How many times did you have sex with my husband?”

  She looked at me and closed her car door.

  She now had a look of sympathy on her face.

  “I asked you a question, and I want an answer!”

  “Do you want the truth or a lie?”

  I folded my arms across my chest.

  She mocked me and did the same.

  She started to laugh, and I mean she laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes.

  She laughed as though she hadn't laughed in years.

  Confused, disturbed and about ready for a brawl, she finally pulled herself together and spoke.

  “Too many times to count. And I enjoyed every minute of it,” she said.

  That was the wrong answer!

  But just before all hell broke loose, someone screamed my name and grabbed me from behind.

  Blake.

  He must have followed me.

  I guess this time his stalking tendencies were a good thing because I was unsure of what would have happened if I had gotten ahold of her.

  He held on to me as Summer looked on.

  All of this time I had someone like her working for me!

  All of this time I’d actually been calling her my friend!

  How could I have not seen her for who she really was?

  How did I miss it?

  She looked at me for a while longer and then she got into her car, drove through the grass, and headed down the street.

  I struggled to catch my breath as Blake took his hands off of me.

  He didn’t say anything and for a while neither did I.

  But that didn’t last long.

  “If she is the one, your next victim, go ahead. Just go ahead and kill her,” I said to Blake, hurried to my car and drove away.

  ~***~

  “You didn’t kill her did you?”

  Blake looked at me.

  “No.”

  I took a deep breath.

  I couldn’t believe that I’d said the words.

  I was just so angry.

  I hadn't meant them.

  But after a night of crying and thinking about it, I knew that saying that to a serial killer was the wrong thing to do.

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  “I know.”

  “But is she the one?”

  “You tell me. Are you going to save her?”

  I frowned.

  Oh, how I didn’t want to.

  Oh, how I just wanted to let him have his way with her, but I couldn’t.

  I just couldn’t.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? After all of that? After what she did to you and your marriage, you would still try to convince me to spare her life? If in fact she was the one that I was planning to kill?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. This should be good.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “This isn’t a game.”

  “I didn’t say that it was.”

  “Okay, so let’s figure out how to make you better.”

  He just looked at me.

  “Is it really her?”

  He shrugged.

  “I need to know.”

  “Whether it is or it isn’t, I still want you to fix me. So, assume that it is.”

  “You followed me to her house?”

  “Actually, I had a feeling that you would go there, and I went there first. I’d just pulled off when you flew past me, and I turned around.”

  “So you knew where she lived?”

  “Of course. I told you that already. I know a lot of things.”

  It seemed as though he knew everything.

  “So, what is your relationship with Summer? Friends? You hate that you love her? You want to right her wrongs? She�
��s an enemy and doesn’t know it?”

  He just looked at me.

  “You want her to pay for being a slut? You poisoned my husband because you knew that he was cheating on me. Is that why you want to kill her? I’m trying to understand the relationship so I can figure out where and what to focus on. It would be nice if you at least nod if I’m close.”

  “The first foster family I went to,” he started.

  “The one with the basement?”

  “No. The very first. I was young, but I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be touched there. The mother was obsessed with bathing me. She would scrub me over and over again. I’m talking about three to four times a day. The father never came to check to see what she was doing to me. He never came to see what or why she always wanted to get me naked. She would purposely get me dirty just to undress me and wash me and touch me. Once she threw flour all over me and then scowled me as though I had done it myself. She then gave me the longest bath ever. That was the last bath she gave me.”

  I looked at him as he stared off into space.

  “What happened then?”

  “I told my teacher, and I never saw her again. I was back in the system until the next family picked me up.”

  “Did that experience as well as the others, make you uncomfortable with sex or being touched?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So are you sexually interested Summer?”

  “Ask me something important.”

  Think Hannah. Think

  “Have you ever killed a woman that you’ve had sex with?”

  He looked at me.

  “Yes.”

  Another murder confession…but there was no point in keeping count.

  “Why?”

  “We were fooling around, and it just happened. She told me that she liked it rough. So, I gave it to her just how she wanted it. She said spank her. I spanked her. She said choke her. And I choked her. Apparently, I choked the life out of her. I didn’t notice that she was dead until…I finished.”

  Disgusting!

  I breathed heavily and so did he.

  “So, you didn’t really mean to kill her?”

  “I don’t know, but I didn’t feel bad about it. My mind told me that she’d asked for it. In more ways than one. She’d flagged me down, literally, and threw herself at me. She didn’t know me. She didn’t know that I was a murderer, but she didn’t think about that. She was only thinking with her hormones. So see, she chose me.”

  “And what did you do with the body?”

  “They will never find it if that’s what you want to know.”

  “What if she was a mother?”

  “She didn’t care, so why should I?”

  The rest of the session, I asked questions that were in depth and somewhat painful for him to talk about.

  But he didn’t hold back.

  He talked carefully, and I listened to him with limited interruptions.

  Finally, things were looking as though I had a real chance at saving him.

  Blake was letting me in, and I got the feeling that he was going to work with me and make things easier from now on.

  I finished with Blake, and I headed home.

  I just wanted to be alone.

  I just wanted to sit in complete silence and think.

  I cried as I thought about my life and my marriage.

  I cried as I wondered how we had ended up here.

  All I’d ever wanted was to be happy, but I guess that was too much to ask.

  I completely undressed and got into the bed and under the covers although it was barely three in the afternoon.

  I laid there as I soaked the pillow underneath my head with my tears.

  I didn’t have anyone to talk to so I started to talk to myself.

  I felt like I was losing it and I had no one around to tell me that everything was going to be okay.

  I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, or the thoughts from crowding my head.

  I had the worst headache of my life, and I had started to get nauseous.

  My phone started to ring, and I saw that it was Joel but there was nothing to say.

  It started to ring again and glancing at it, I saw that it was Blake.

  “Hello,” I answered concerned.

  “I have some other things that I want to say.”

  I sat up, dried my eyes and pulled myself together.

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

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

  Chapter SEVEN

  The alarm wailed once again and first I headed to look at the monitor, to see if I saw anyone there.

  I didn’t.

  I headed to turn off the alarm and lingered for a second.

  I was staring at the front door.

  I hadn't seen anyone on the monitor but someone was definitely there.

  The door knob turned cautiously as though they were hoping that they would get lucky, and it would be unlocked.

  “Who’s there?”

  I tiptoed towards the window to see if I could get a glimpse of who it was but it was as though they knew that I would be somewhere watching.

  They never moved off of the porch.

  I didn’t see a car or anything out of place and slowly I backed away from the window and headed back to the monitor.

  But I was too late.

  No one was there.

  The porch was empty, but I knew for a fact that someone had been twisting the door knob.

  I headed to get my phone to call my husband.

  Just because I didn’t want Joel home, didn’t mean that I didn’t need him there.

  And after calling him three times, he answered, listened to me babble, and he said that he was on his way.

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No. But they were jiggling the door knob. I was standing right there.”

  He went back outside to look around but of course, whoever it was is long gone.

  “Maybe you could stay here. We could be like roommates, until we divorce and figure out what we are going to do with the house,” I suggested.

  “Hannah.”

  “Please. Spare me the bull crap that you are about to say. Could you at least stay here? So that I feel safe until it’s done? It’s the least that you can do,” I growled.

  He looked at me as though he knew that I was serious and as though he knew that it was his fault.

  “Okay.”

  He headed towards the spare bedroom, and I headed towards the master.

  I climbed into bed and snuggled under the covers.

  I noticed that the light was flashing on my phone, signaling that I had an alert.

  I checked it, and I saw that it was a message from Blake,

  My heart dropped, and I sat up in the bed to read what the message said.

  “It was him. It was Joel at the door,” the message said.

  ~***~

  “So you were sitting outside my house again? I thought that we discussed that you should call and not come by or watch my house Blake.”

  “It was late. I went for a drive, and that’s where I ended up. I saw him. He parked even further down the street than I had. He walked to the house and right up to the front door. I saw the lights come on, and he just stood there. After a while, he took off running. I left shortly after that,” Blake said.

  “He has a key. Why wouldn’t he just use the key?”

  “I don’t know Hannah. You’re the therapist. And he’s your husband.”

  Why would Joel set off the alarm on purpose?

  Was he hoping that I would call him to come over?

  He had to have known that wiggling the door knob would have scared me half to death.

  But he would have known exactly where to be and stand so that he didn’t show up when I checked the monitor.

  Was this his twisted way of trying to come back home?

  “I won’t come by your house again. I don’t want to scare you off and make you not want to help me.”
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  “I would appreciate if you wouldn’t. And besides, I’m not going to give up on you. As long as you continue to come, so will I. But if I catch you watching my house Blake, there will be consequences.”

  “Why aren’t you afraid of me? After all that I have told you, why aren’t you scared of me? Why do you still want to help me?”

  Who said that I wasn’t afraid of him?

  I was definitely scared of what he was capable of.

  I just didn’t show it.

  “You’re not the first patient that I have had with similar issues,” I lied.

  He was the first.

  And the last.

  “Besides, I’m not sure that I would be safe after everything that you have told me if I tried to walk away.”

  “I never said that I would hurt you, Hannah. I only said that if you tried to go to the police with my confessions there would be a problem. But if you chose not to help me, I would carry on and deal with life the way that I always have. Urge after urge. Victim after victim. Identity after Identity. It’s really just that simple. But I knew you were the one for the job. What are you going to do about your husband?”

  “What are you going to do about Summer?”

  Blake smirked.

  A knock came to the door and in walked the police and Blake and I both looked at them with curiously.

  “Hello. How can I help you?”

  “Dr. Lewis, we need to ask you some questions.”

  I looked at him confused.

  “Blake, can you excuse me for a moment.”

  “Blake Griffin? We need to talk to you too,” the officer said.

  I looked at his face as he was escorted out of the room and another officer sat in front of me.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a few questions to ask you about Ms. Summer Waters.”

  My heart started to beat fast, but I didn’t say anything.

  “She has been reported missing. For a couple of days now and we want to know if you have seen her.”