The Good Listener Read online

  He was gone.

  He was really gone.

  I’d searched every hotel in the area.

  I’d gone to the park a thousand times.

  But Blake was nowhere to be found.

  He’d done his dirty deed, and he was gone.

  By now I assumed that he was off living a brand new life as though he hadn't done anything at all.

  Joel was still alive and well, I guess it was safe to say that it wasn’t “him” that Blake may have wanted to kill.

  I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman, but the fact that I hadn't been able to save them had me wishing that I’d died right along with them.

  The first few days I couldn’t even get out of bed from sulking in guilt, shame, and disappointment.

  But Heaven knows that I tried my best.

  That was all that I could do.

  Now I had to try to figure out how to save myself.

  And that didn’t seem to be going in my favor either.

  My situation seemed to be getting worse and worse every day.

  They were finding new little things that could potentially become big things, left and right.

  From the looks of it, eventually I would be facing a jury and they were going to create some kind of possible homicide, murder trial out of it all.

  I couldn’t believe that this was happening, but I just didn’t see how they were going to convict me.

  Not only because I was innocent but because they just didn’t have any big, hard evidence that I felt was needed to sway a jury.

  But what do I know?

  I was looking every day, everywhere that I went, hoping that I would spot Blake or even Summer.

  I’d revisited Summer’s emails and the call logs from the office to see if there was someone that she might have been talking to or emailing, but there was nothing suspicious.

  I’d even guessed her personal email password, but she didn’t have anything there either.

  I was trying to think outside of the box.

  Although I didn’t know if she was dead, simply because she was presumed to be, I was trying to think like a killer.

  What would a killer do?

  Where would they hide a body?

  If they killed her in her house, how did they get the body out?

  I was trying my best to think like Blake would think in this situation, although I didn’t really think that he was responsible for Summer’s disappearance, maybe his mindset could help me figure out what had happened to her.

  If I had his mind, I would know what to look for or where her body might be that would make her hard to find.

  I’d been studying my notes about Blake over and over again even though he was gone.

  I was trying to take some of his sayings and words and apply them to my own situation, in hopes of giving a new mindset to look at things different.

  Funny, a psychologist was taking the advice of a psychopath.

  That was definitely something that you don’t see every day.

  But that’s what my life had come to.

  Joel was being helpful I guess you could say.

  He would do anything that I asked him to do.

  He was constantly trying to make sure that I was okay and doing everything that he could to make everything less stressful.

  He had to be the one to do pretty much everything as far as going out and getting things that we needed because I could barely leave the house unless it were late at night.

  Everyone had something to say.

  Everyone had so many questions.

  They wanted to know what was going on, and some of them that managed to know bits and pieces of the story actually wanted to know if I’d did it.

  But I hadn't done anything.

  Seeing Calvin call me wasn’t a good thing.

  It seemed as though every time that he called it was bad news.

  “They have found something else,” lawyer “bad news,” said.

  “She was pregnant.”

  “Who?”

  “Summer.”

  “By who? At least we know that it wasn’t Joel’s. He couldn’t have kids; well make them I should say. So there you have it. She was dealing with someone else and maybe they got into a disagreement gone wrong or something.”

  “Says who? Who says that Joel can’t make kids?”

  “He went to the doctor, years ago, and he was told that he was never going to be able to make children.”

  “Did you go with him?”

  “No. He told me as soon as he left the doctor.”

  “Well, according to the health records seized on you, Summer and Joel, Summer was about six weeks pregnant at the time she’d gone to the doctor; which she went on the same day that was the last day she was seen. She must have been on her way to the doctor when she left the altercation between you and her at her house. Reportedly she was saying that Joel Lewis was the father. They checked his files and medical records also. A few years ago he had a vasectomy. But months ago, he had it reversed.”

  “What?”

  “What a minute, I would know if my husband had a vasectomy.”

  “He had it done before you were married. But when he had it reversed, maybe he didn’t want to have sex for a while if sex is something done on the regular.”

  Well, nope. I definitely wouldn’t have known. Since things between us had been on and off, mostly months at a time, for the last two years of our marriage, so I surely wouldn’t have known if that was the case.

  “What about money? It’s expensive. Any unanswered money?”

  “For a while, he didn’t have a job so I don’t think so. I’ll have to check our savings.”

  I just couldn’t believe it.

  This was just too much happening all at once.

  “So, Joel had a vasectomy? Without telling me? And then had it reversed and got Summer pregnant?”

  “That’s what it looks like. They’d missed the trash can in her room, went through it and found a pregnancy test which caused them to dig deeper and get the records. Now they are saying that you could have possibly killed her because she was not only having an affair with your husband but also pregnant with his first child.”

  I shook my head.

  I just couldn’t believe it.

  All of these years Joel had been lying to me.

  He had been going along with the adoption ideas and was even willing to let me get inseminated, just to keep his lie under wraps.

  Who was this man?

  Apparently, I didn’t know a thing about the man that I was married to.

  It seemed as though I was married to one big, fat lie.

  But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  Joel used money from somewhere and had it reversed…and still didn’t tell me.

  And now his missing mistress had been pregnant?

  He had gotten another woman pregnant?

  This was enough to make even the sanest person go crazy.

  It was so much going on at once, and I just didn’t feel like I could take much more.

  “Of course, since we don’t know where she or her body is, if she is deceased, there’s no way to tell if she was still pregnant, or if the baby was Joel’s. But they are definitely going to use this to their advantage.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “I know. But we have some time. We just have to hope something comes up. By the way, don’t tell Joel what we just discussed. Considering the discovery and the fact that he has been lying to you for years, let’s not trust him for now. Don’t mention the vasectomy Hannah. Let’s just be quiet for now,” and we said our goodbyes.

  I felt like I was going to be sick.

  All of this time.

  Our whole marriage he had been lying to me.

  But why?

  I’d never pressured him about having kids because of course I wanted to do my own thing and tackle my career first. But before we were married, we had discussed them and agreed that one day we would have them; on
e way or the other.

  Why wouldn’t Joel tell me that he got a vasectomy?

  And he got it reversed? When? How?

  I checked our savings account.

  We had a good bit of money there and the only way to figure out if something was missing was to check the transaction history, but there hadn't been any withdrawals from it in a while.

  We had separate personal accounts, but of course I had the information to check his, but there hadn't been any large amounts unaccounted for.

  Where had he gotten the money from for the reversal?

  But it all made sense now.

  Since Joel had the reversal and since Summer was pregnant, that’s why he’d gone over there that same night that I’d gone to his job and over to her house.

  If she’d gone to the doctor to find out that she was pregnant that same day, she must’ve invited Joel over so that she could break the news to him.

  And the conversation must have not gone as well as she’d planned.

  So is that why Joel killed her?

  Because she was pregnant?

  There was no doubt in my mind that after the discovery that Joel was responsible for whatever happened to her.

  I would say that he panicked and maybe she didn’t want to cooperate with his suggestions or plan.

  He went to talk to her, she told him the news and something happened.

  Something terrible happened in that house, and now he was trying to frame me.

  Right?

  I still didn’t know for sure, but I just had to be on to something.

  But after the discovery, I would think that the police would at least now consider him as a suspect or a person with a possible motive.

  He had everything to lose.

  He had even more of a reason to have done something to her than I did.

  Especially if he was hoping that we somehow worked through our problems and saved our marriage.

  Maybe he wanted her to have an abortion, and she said no.

  Whatever happened, whether Summer was dead or alive, I was sure that Joel had the answers.

  But I knew that getting them or the truth out of him just wouldn’t be easy.

  Joel walked into the house and I jumped.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “What’s wrong? I can see it all over your face. Did you talk to Calvin today? Any good news? What did he say?”

  “Yes, he called. No good news as of yet. He just wanted to touch base and let me know the plans on going to court. He wants me to take the plea, but I won’t do it.”

  Joel rubbed my back, and I felt like I wanted to stab him.

  At least then I would be going down for a murder or crime that I actually did commit.

  Maybe I could claim temporary insanity.

  Because I truly felt like I was losing it.

  Trying to refrain from asking Joel about the pregnancy and the vasectomy, I steadied my breaths.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  I just wanted to erase him from the face of the earth, and although I told Blake that normal people didn’t think about killing others, that was the only thing on my mind at the time.

  Killing my husband for causing all of this mess in the first place.

  Maybe I wasn’t all that normal after all.

  Maybe that was something that Blake had wanted me to see.

  I asked Joel to go back out to get me something to eat, and as soon as he was out of the house, I headed to the spare bedroom.

  I looked everywhere.

  I was looking for anything that didn’t belong.

  There had to be something there.

  Something he forgot.

  Something that he didn’t do.

  There was something that I wasn’t seeing, and I was willing to bet that Blake had known what I was missing all along.

  I looked until I heard his car pull back up in the driveway.

  I didn’t find anything, but I needed more time.

  Joel hadn't even bothered to find work.

  He’d been around, as though he was trying to be there for me, but he might have just been around to keep a watch on me.

  To make sure that no roads were leading to him.

  It made me wonder and question everything that had been happening.

  What about the time that Blake said that he’d set off the alarm on purpose just to come back home?

  It was just before all of this mess started.

  Maybe he wanted to be close enough to see to it that his name stayed in the clear.

  But why?

  Why would he want to do this to me?

  I didn’t have all of the answers, but I knew that they were somewhere.

  I just had to find them.

  ~***~

  Every single time I saw a murder or heard about a killing on the news, I wondered if it was one that Blake had done; especially if there were no leads or suspects or if it involved being strangled or something of that nature.

  I found myself looking to see if he was parked in a distance everywhere that I went.

  For some strange reason, I felt like if anyone could help me, Blake could.

  He had the mind of a killer; an actual killer.

  So he would be able to see what I couldn’t see about Joel, and he could help me determine if Joel had done something to Summer or not.

  He was the only one that I was sure that could help me find what I needed.

  But he was gone.

  The phone was still disconnected, and he still hadn't been back to that hotel.

  I didn’t doubt that he hadn't followed through on his words, but I was hoping that somehow he’d stayed around.

  Even though I hadn't been able to help him, he could definitely help me.

  Though I’m not even sure that he would.

  My head was throbbing as I focused on trying not to scream. I didn’t have anyone to talk to which made it all harder to deal with.

  The only one that pretended to be there if I needed to talk was Joel and I sure as hell wasn’t telling him anything.

  He often asked about my thoughts, plans or next moves and I figured that it was so he could figure out his.

  Though I planned to do everything that I could, my destiny may still be the same, but at least I was going to try.

  I thought about going to visit one of my colleagues just to get a few things off of my chest, but they all acted as though they were afraid of me.

  If I called any of them, they never answered.

  It was amazing how people were willing to shut you out when you needed them the most.

  But that’s just the way that it was.

  I guess that was something that Blake had been trying to teach me.

  “Did you and Summer always use protection?”

  Joel nodded.

  “Yes.”

  He was lying!

  If that were the case, how did she end up pregnant?

  We had been friends, and I hadn't heard her mention any other man. She was single; except for the days that she was sleeping with my husband.

  “Was she better?”

  “What?”

  “Was she better in bed than me?”

  Joel exhaled loudly.

  “Yes.”

  What a fine time it was for him to start being honest!

  My feelings were crushed, but I didn’t show it.

  “Well, maybe that came out wrong. You always had rules. There were times or ways that we had to have sex. Unless I caught you off guard and took it. There were things that you wouldn’t do and those things that I had better not even think about asking you to do. All of those things, she did. And I didn’t have to ask her to do them. She just did them.”

  So she was some kind of behind closed doors freak or something?

  I could be freaky.

  “You worked so hard, so most of the time you were too tired. And then when you seemed to want it, I wouldn’t be in the mood.”

 
; “Because you had had sex with Summer.”

  “Sometimes. It wasn’t as often or as many times as you think. It was a few. Just a handful of times.”

  “One time was too many.”

  He didn’t reply.

  Just then, it hit me

  Maybe my approach was all wrong.

  I’d always been told that you catch more bees with honey, so it was time to get a little sweet.

  Court dates were rapidly approaching, and I had to use all of my skills, tricks, and teaching in order to try to get some kind of results.

  I had to make Joel feel like we were a team.

  If in fact, I could play with his mind and what little emotions that he might have left for me, I might be able to get him to confess or let me in on whatever it is that he’d done.

  “If I could turn back the hands of time, I would have been a better wife. I wouldn’t have worked so much. All of those things that you wanted in the bedroom, I would have said yes.”

  His face immediately softened, and he walked closer to me.

  “It’s not just your fault. We both played a part with messing up our marriage. But I’m here. I have always been here. And if you don’t have anyone else, you have me. If I could take the charges for you and convince them that I was responsible for whatever it is that they think happened to her, I would. I swear to you that I would.”

  I’d been trying to think of a way to call his bluff on that one but my lawyer made it clear that with all the evidence pointing towards me, he was going to have a hell of a time convincing them otherwise; with Summer still missing.

  But I was reminded of what Blake said to me.

  I had everything I needed to fix my situation.

  The mind.

  The teachings.

  The skills.

  I just had to have the eyes to see what wasn’t there and the ears to hear what wasn’t being said.

  And that’s exactly what I was going to do.

  “I want to say, thank you. Despite what we have been going through, you have been here.” I said as affectionate as I could.

  I knew that he would hear that she had been pregnant in court, and I needed to have something out of him before then.

  “Can you hold me?”

  I couldn’t remember the last time that we’d embraced each other.

  But I had to go for something.

  My hopes were that he would eventually trust me enough, fall back in love with me, and possibly come clean about what he’d done.

  At least that’s what I hoped.