Page 5 of Beautiful Deception
“She’s not under arrest.” Remo returns the same interruption after closing the folder.
“Guess we’ll be going now,” Junnie says, slipping her hands into the coat’s front pockets.
I follow Junnie out and catch Remo turning toward me with the rapt attention of a serpent’s stealthy hunting instinct. His lure is serene, maybe even contemplative, like the heat of Sunday morning. But it turns into a bruising grip of haunting fingers when his gaze hardens under the blinding white lights.
He reminds me a little of Dr. Kian. Undeniably disturbing.
Chapter Two
__________
Maya
“Are you still seeing them?”
I turn to Junnie when the car rolls over a clump of iced snow; the stretch of gray across the sky drives the air colder and denser as snow builds on the side mirrors. When we make another turn down a rocky trail with impenetrable trees closing in on us, the GPS malfunctions and lags.
“The doctors,” she alludes, kicking up the window wipers faster. “I’ve been thinking of seeing them.”
“I only see Dr. Kian,” I say as my finger hovers gently over the window button.
The thought of him, even by the mention of his name, weaves a bleak and lethargic web of discomfort between my ribs. It’s irksome and painful like layers of coiling rose thorns breaching the oxygen’s path to my heart.
“How is he?” she asks, and there seems to be a resisting thought in the back of my mind that there’s more to it than her curiosity.
“He does his job better than others.” I look squarely into my own eyes through the fogged, blotted mirror.
“Ma said I can’t travel on our Europe trip unless I receive a clean bill from a therapist.”
I tug the seatbelt away from my neck and adjust my back on the leather seat of her gorgeously red car.
“What does your mom consider normal?”
“Probably when I talk to someone about that.” She shrugs, the gold ring around her middle finger shining as she tightens her grip on the steering wheel.
The stillness lasts only a few seconds, but the weak moments of surrender and drowning in the nightmare’s capitulation last twice as long.
“I don’t really like him,” I admit, my words drifting in the breeze like a fragrance. “He makes me uncomfortable at times.”
“Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do?” she prompts, pressing on the brakes gradually as we see the lit villa through flurries of snow. “Ask hard questions and make you face your crime?”
She laughs and rectifies impishly, “I forgot you’re not his usual type of client.”
“I don’t know what it is,” I concede, frustrated and conflicted. “I feel like he knows me better than I know myself.”
“Your parents hired him for a reason, so I’d trust them on it.” Junnie parks the car a bit farther from the others and lets the engine run as she unbuckles the seatbelt.
The lovely villa's intricately illuminated windows seem out of place in the middle of nowhere, with no reception or even a soul among the rustling trees.
“You say that now,” I grumble huffily, “but wait until you meet him.”
Dr. Kian is the embodiment of tranquil ocean water, quiet and calm, but beneath lurks an infinite terror.
Junnie’s delicate features crumple disgracefully. “He’s been doing this for what, seven years? And without going crazy? What if he’s one hiding in plain sight?”
“You said that about your gardener, and it turns out he’s just a gardener,” I argue with a hand over my mouth as I chuckle at her scrunched nose.
She rolls her eyes and switches off the engine, the key ring dangling from her green nail as darkness covers the gaps in the car’s lighting.