The Widow's Watcher Read online

  “Not enough,” Cassie said, pushing in the knife.

  A vision of Beckett’s face the last time she’d seen him rose in Jenna’s mind.

  “I love dogs,” she told Diane truthfully.

  “Really?” Cassie asked. “I wonder what Beck would say to that?”

  “I . . . I had a golden retriever. His name was Beckett.” She didn’t want to talk about Beckett, but Cassie would never leave her be if she didn’t acknowledge him.

  “Oh dear,” Diane said. “I know how hard it is when a pet passes.”

  “Don’t you dare lie, Mom,” Cassie warned.

  Jenna exhaled a long breath.

  “He’s not dead,” she admitted. “When I came here, things for me were a little . . . up in the air. My neighbors took him in. I didn’t know when I’d be back home and, well . . .”

  Cassie was listening to every word, judging it for truth and finding it lacking.

  “I miss him,” Jenna confessed. There, Cass. I admit it. “I miss him terribly. He’s a good dog. The best.”

  With Owen studying her so astutely and Cassie implanted in her head, pressure pushed in from every direction.

  Jenna stood and took her plate to the sink.

  “Well, if Mrs. Johnson has a litter, I don’t see why you can’t get one for Hannah, too, Owen,” she heard Diane say at her back.

  Jenna closed her eyes, thankful the housekeeper had turned the subject away from Beckett.

  She couldn’t erase the image of those soulful brown eyes watching her go.

  She’d read somewhere that dogs don’t have any real sense of the future. That every time you leave them, to go to work, or run to the grocery store, or just walk around the block, all they know is now. They believe, each time you leave, that it’s forever.

  Beckett, sweet, trusting Beckett, straining at the leash to go with her.

  Sometimes, it is forever.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said quietly, “Owen, thank you for lunch. It was lovely.”

  Grabbing her coat, Jenna decided to take a walk. The winter was still bruising for someone used to warmer places, but the cold had an impressive ability to cleanse.

  So she walked. And in the days after, she walked and she read borrowed novels and she played solitaire, with actual cards instead of an electronic device.

  What Jenna didn’t do, though she couldn’t bring herself to examine her reasons, was check on the state of her minivan.

  “Good news,” Lars said a few days later as he hung up the phone. “The judge who presided over the original case is still on the bench, believe it or not. The man must be eighty if he’s a day.”

  Jenna didn’t care how old he was, only what he had to say.

  “Given the change in Audrey’s state, he agreed to allow the police to take an . . . unconventional approach in the new investigation.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” She barely dared to hope.

  “It means as long as Audrey remains under police supervision, the judge will allow her to be put under hypnosis in an attempt to retrace her steps.”

  His eyes were large, unblinking. He wasn’t smiling. Jenna felt a but coming.

  “If the hospital administrator is willing to sign off on it.”

  And there it was.

  One more hurdle to cross.

  40

  Dr. Reid Taylor’s office could have been lifted from a movie set, with its warm wood and deep, expensive chairs upholstered in hunter green, its bookcases lined with leather-bound texts, and its walls filled with framed diplomas polished to a shine. Jenna wondered if the fancy degrees were forgeries.

  Dr. Taylor was trying very hard to look like a psychiatrist should.

  Jenna chided herself for judging the man based on his decor, then the doctor leaned back in his office chair and touched the tips of his fingers together to form a steeple while he contemplated his response.

  She bit her lip in an effort not to roll her eyes.

  Next to her sat Lars, looking more like the aging sailor he was than someone comfortable in a psychiatrist’s office.

  “Believe me, Doctor, I know how irregular this is, but I think it’s important to explore any memories Audrey may have coming to the surface,” Lars said.

  Dr. Taylor pursed his lips and turned his chair to face them.

  “Mr. Jorgensen, I appreciate your desire to delve further, but I must admit I have some serious reservations. I can’t help but feel, considering the patient’s recent history, it would be safer for all involved if these issues were explored within the confines of the hospital.”

  Lars met Jenna’s eyes for the briefest of moments, and she saw him struggle to hold on to his temper.

  “So you’ve said, Doctor.”

  “I’m thinking of the patient’s well-being. It seems an unnecessary risk, in my professional opinion.”

  Lars pulled in a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but whatever words he’d been about to spill out he managed to pull back, visibly wrestling for control.

  “Dr. Taylor,” Jenna broke in, before Lars said something he’d regret. “In all the time Audrey Jorgensen’s been confined in your facility, has there ever been any indication she was regaining her memories?”

  The doctor flipped open the manila file on his desk, presumably containing information about Audrey. She was certain the man had already read what was in there cover to cover. It was a nice prop to have.

  “No, Ms. Shaw,” he said. “There doesn’t appear to be any indication of that, but—”

  “And she’s been a patient here for how long?” Jenna continued.

  “Twenty-nine years, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  “So for nearly thirty years, your staff has had unlimited access to Mrs. Jorgensen, and she’s presumably seen numerous doctors and undergone a battery of traditional types of therapy.”

  “Ms. Shaw, I can see the point you’re getting to, but my decision is made. I simply cannot see the advantage to—”

  “Do you have children?” Lars asked in a deceptively even voice.

  A cloud passed over Dr. Taylor’s face before he managed to school his expression back into a professional guise.

  “I do,” he said, “but that’s hardly—”

  “Do you know where they are?” Lars continued. “Right now, at this very minute?”

  “Well, no, obviously, not at this moment.”

  “Do you know where they’ll lay their heads down to sleep tonight?”

  Dr. Taylor shifted uncomfortably in his impressive leather chair.

  “Mr. Jorgensen, I appreciate what you’re—”

  “Do you know, right now, at this very minute, if your children are alive or dead?”

  The doctor’s hands stilled and he slowly closed his mouth.

  “I know, in my heart, Dr. Taylor, my two youngest children are dead.”

  Jenna turned to stare at Lars.

  “I’ve known it for a long time,” he continued in his low, resonant way. “What I don’t know, what I haven’t known for over three decades, is where they lie when the sun goes out at night. I don’t know if it’s cold where they are. If it’s safe, if the darkness is too deep for light to shine in.”

  Lars rose from his chair.

  “Please consider that while you deliberate on the . . . appropriateness of your decision.”

  He turned and walked out of the psychiatrist’s perfect office. Jenna hurried to catch up, leaving the doctor alone with Lars’s words.

  41

  Jenna gathered her clothing to once again drop into the ancient washing machine.

  “You could just buy a change of clothes, you know,” Cass said. Jenna refused to take the bait. The days she’d spent at this out-of-the-way cabin, with nothing but a surly old man for company, were piling up, one thin layer on top of the next.

  It doesn’t matter, she thought. A strong gust of wind and it will all scatter and blow away.

  She pressed “Start” on the washer and h
oped Cassie would leave it alone. The time was coming when she’d have to face leaving this place. This was nothing more than an unexpected detour.

  Jenna heard the front door open and close.

  “Next time you’re in town, I should catch a ride. I’ve used nearly the last of your laundry detergent and—”

  She broke off when she rounded the corner and saw not Lars, but Owen.

  “Your dad’s not here,” she told him. “He’s driven over to the hospital again, I think.”

  “That’s all right. It’s you I’ve come to talk to.”

  “Still here, then, living a life of leisure, I see.”

  Jenna turned to find Hannah sitting in judgment on the couch. She glanced down at her pajamas and squelched the urge to explain she’d put them on to wash her single set of clothing.

  “The only rule when dealing with negative reviews: do not engage,” Cassie said. Jenna was heartened that, for once, Cassie was on her side.

  “Hannah,” Owen said with a warning.

  The girl opened her eyes wide in mock innocence and placed a pair of headphones over her ears.

  Owen looked like he was about to apologize for her, but Jenna waved it off.

  If he spent all his time apologizing for his daughter being a teenager, he’d have time for nothing else.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “This.” He held up a ring of keys.

  For a split second, she didn’t recognize them. Then, after a pause like the one that comes between seeing lightning flash and hearing the boom of thunder trailing behind, Jenna’s old life and current life came together with a crash.

  She felt blindly for a chair and dropped down at the kitchen table.

  “The van is fixed,” she said in a hushed voice.

  Owen’s face was serious as he studied hers.

  “Yes.” He pulled out a chair and sat down across from her.

  “I have a confession.” He set the ring of keys on the table between them. “It’s been fixed for a while.”

  “What?” she asked. “But why . . . ?”

  “Dad asked me to stall.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Jenna slowly picked up the keys, their weight cold and metallic in her hand.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured, though she did.

  “He said it was for your sake. That you were in no state to be . . . Well, it doesn’t matter what he said. Regardless of his motives, the decision needs to be yours. It’s parked at the garage, when . . . and if . . . you need it.”

  Owen gave her a sad smile.

  “For the record, Jenna, it’s been a long time since Dad had a friend.”

  Her brow furrowed at the word. “Is that what I am?”

  The notion simultaneously warmed her heart and chilled her bones.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Is he this high-handed with all his friends?”

  The question had less heat than it might if Jenna weren’t so keenly aware of how many days had passed since she’d bothered to ask after the state of the van.

  “Mostly, yes.” Owen squeezed her hand, then rose and called to his daughter.

  When they’d left, Jenna was alone with nothing but her thoughts, her keys, and her box of ashes.

  42

  “Jenna,” Lars called. “Come give me a hand.”

  She was staring at the crack in the ceiling again, but her thoughts had started to feel like a prison, so she rose and walked toward the kitchen.

  There was a spring in Lars’s step as he unloaded the groceries from the brown paper bag.

  “I need a sous chef.” He placed something green and leafy into the sink to rinse.

  “Crispy roasted duck and fingerling potatoes,” he told her, pulling two bottles of red wine from the bag. “Open that and pour us a glass, will you?”

  “You’re not planning to get me drunk and take advantage of me, are you?”

  He snorted.

  “We’re celebrating,” he said as he placed potatoes in the sink to rinse as well.

  Her head came up, and she watched his back until he glanced over his shoulder.

  “Dr. Taylor’s agreed,” he said. “He had some stipulations. He wants a police presence and Audrey’s current psychotherapist there at all times—just to cover his own ass in case something goes wrong, if you ask me—but he’s agreed.”

  “Lars, that’s . . .” Jenna’s misgivings about her eventual departure could wait. “That’s fantastic!”

  “I’ve been telling myself not to go and get my hopes up.” He shook his head and turned to stare out the window at the lake, the one constant that had witnessed it all from the beginning. “It’s hard not to wonder, though. Maybe this time.”

  “All you can do is try,” she said.

  “And celebrate the small steps along the way. Which is why I need you to dry those potatoes and pour us both a glass of that fancy nine-dollar wine.”

  Her keys were in the dresser drawer, next to the carved box. They’d be there when she needed them. It wouldn’t do any harm to raise a glass . . . with a friend.

  She didn’t notice then that these thoughts were wholly her own, not wrapped in her daughter’s persistent voice.

  And her subconscious wisely refrained from pointing that out.

  A bottle and a half of Pinot Noir and one stellar meal later, Jenna’s thoughts were pleasantly fuzzy and she found herself chuckling at stories of Lars’s navy escapades.

  He’d pulled the well-worn deck of cards from the cabinet and given her a few quick lessons on how to play poker.

  “How does any self-respecting thirtysomething not know how to play poker, Jenna Shaw?”

  She shrugged as he dealt her another two cards.

  “Not a high priority between soccer practices and dance recitals.”

  He glanced at her and took another drink from the bourbon glass filled with red wine.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  She tilted her head. “It’s okay,” she said, surprising herself. “I don’t talk about them, but it makes no difference. They’re always there anyway.”

  He said nothing. The language of grief was one he was familiar with.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t want to bring you down.” Jenna stood to fill her glass with water from the faucet.

  “I’ve been down here for thirty years,” Lars said. “You had nothing to do with it.”

  The enormity of his words hit her. A lifetime he’d spent, subject to the whims of his memories. The good, the bad, and everything in between.

  The sound of Ethan crying filled her.

  “Mama, you’re not coming?”

  His little voice trembled, and she knelt to hug him tightly, selfishly, to her, this little person who loved her best of all.

  “Not this time, bud.” She wiped his tears tenderly away with the base of her thumb. “You’re going to have an amazing time, though. You’ve got your dad, and your sisters, and the cousins. It’ll be so much fun, Ethan. An adventure for the ages!”

  The girls had already piled into the car for the drive to the airport. There’d been hugs from Sarah, and a grudging “See ya” from Cass, who was still mad at her. Only Ethan was having trouble saying goodbye.

  Another sniffle, and his big eyes blinked up at her.

  “Promise?” he asked.

  Jenna met Matt’s eyes. He was patiently leaning against the side of the car. He sent her an indulgent wink.

  “Pinkie promise.” She held out her smallest finger for her son to hook with his own.

  “Okay, if you say so,” he whispered.

  She hugged him to her, hard and fierce, so she didn’t have to see the look of abandonment on his face while he tried so hard to be brave.

  Even that she wasn’t spared. She could still picture him through the window of the car, and the look in his eyes when he placed his hand on the glass, watching her watching him as they drove away.

  “Thank you for dinner, Lars,” Jenna murmured. “I think I�
��ll call it a night.”

  She didn’t see his face as he watched her go, shuffling the deck of cards in his hands over and over.

  43

  Given the heightened emotions of the small crowd gathered in Lars Jorgensen’s kitchen, an observer who knew only that one of the people in the room was under psychiatric treatment would be hard pressed to say which one of them it was.

  Audrey was seated on the sofa next to her mother. Her eyes were angled downward, though she occasionally raised them to glance around before dropping them to the worn rug at her feet. She didn’t speak and had no interest in the hushed argument taking place across the room.

  “Dr. Nordquist, regardless of how you personally feel about hypnosis as an accepted form of therapy, I can assure you I am a board-certified clinical psychologist with years of expertise in its application. I’m not some quack standing on the side of the road in a sandwich board, and I resent your implication,” hissed Dr. Nancy Young.

  “Hosting a therapy session outside the confines of the hospital is absolutely unprecedented, not to mention dangerous,” Dr. Nordquist replied.

  “We’ve been over this. I strongly feel the inclusion of a relevant environment in Mrs. Jorgensen’s hypnotherapy could be beneficial in triggering the memories she’s repressed, which, if I might remind you, is the entire reason we’re here.”

  “I have only the best interests of my patient in mind, madam. I assure you that if I feel you’re—”

  “Can we get on with this please?” interrupted the police sergeant.

  Lars broke away from the group to stand beside Jenna and Owen.

  “I’m a hair’s breadth from tossing them all out on their ears,” he muttered.

  Jenna frowned. She couldn’t blame him. The dueling doctors, as she’d come to think of them, had been at each other’s throats from the moment Dr. Nordquist, the psychiatrist sent by the Minnesota State Secure Psychiatric Hospital, had made a denigrating remark about “so-called doctors hawking snake oil as therapy.”

  Dr. Young had bristled—understandably, Jenna felt—but the time for sniping was over. Apparently, Sergeant Allred had reached the same conclusion.