I SEE YOU an unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist by PATRICIA MACDONALD (bookstand for reading txt) 📗

head. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Every detail had been in the papers. ‘She meets with the attorney all the time. She doesn’t really want to dwell on it. We get our information from the internet or the paper, just like everybody else.’

‘But she must tell you what the attorney said.’

‘Honestly,’ said Hannah, ‘she doesn’t really talk about it.’

Dr Fleischer shook her head. ‘I’d have to insist on knowing if I were you.’

‘I want to. But I try not to lean on her too much.’ Hannah frowned, thinking of their arguments from the night before. ‘I mean, sometimes I forget because she has such a demanding profession, and a child, and she’s still just a young girl.’

‘You seem to have the weight of the world on you,’ Dr Fleischer observed.

‘Well, she’s my daughter. I can’t even bear the thought that somehow, by some judicial error, she might be . . .’ Hannah couldn’t even bring herself to say the word ‘convicted’.

‘No, of course not.’ Dr Fleischer tapped her chin with her slender fingers. ‘It’s got to be weighing Lisa down too.’

Of course, Hannah started to say. And then, for a split second Hannah thought of the photo on the iPad. Lisa’s unbuttoned shirt, and that wink as she slugged the Jack Daniel’s. Hannah’s stomach seemed to shrivel inside of her, and she felt the coffee sloshing acidly in her gut. Then she shook her head, as if to shake the image out of her mind and shake off its effects. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course it is. She’s only human.’

The phone rang in Hannah’s pocket and she fished it out. She looked at the name on the caller ID, and then she looked at the psychologist.

‘I have to take this,’ she said, setting down her coffee cup. ‘Will you excuse me?’

The psychologist nodded, and Hannah gathered up her things and answered the phone at the same time, stepping out into the hallway.

‘Yes?’ Hannah expected to hear a voice telling her to wait for Ms Fox, but instead it was the defense attorney herself.

Marjorie Fox skipped the pleasantries. ‘You need to get down here to the courthouse right now. Lisa’s already here with me.’

‘Why?’ Hannah asked, with a sickening feeling in her stomach.

‘There’s a problem. A photograph on the internet. Meet us there in twenty minutes.’

Oh God, no, Hannah thought. ‘I will,’ she said.

NINE

Hannah was able to reach Adam on the phone when his plane landed. He grabbed a cab and slid into the seat beside her in the courtroom as Judge Endicott, seated on the bench, came straight to the point. ‘Young lady, you were told at the time that bail was granted that there were conditions to your remaining free on bond, were you not?’

Lisa, who stood beside her attorney, looked almost like a child playing doctor. She was still wearing her white lab coat that she wore on rounds. Never much of a clothes horse, that coat seemed to be Lisa’s favorite item of clothing. Hannah suspected that her daughter enjoyed the status that it conferred.

Lisa looked gravely at the judge. ‘Yessir, I was.’ Marjorie whispered something in her client’s ear and Lisa nodded. ‘Your honor, I meant to say.’

‘Did you think I was joking about those conditions?’ he asked.

‘Nossir. No, your honor. Of course not.’ Lisa sounded sincere. Contrite.

Hannah could feel Adam’s fingers gripping hers. Having her hand in his was soothing, as ever. They sat quietly, following every word. The judge’s expression was cool.

‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ the judge asked.

Lisa fidgeted and looked pained. ‘Well, I realize I should never have been out in that bar. I certainly should not have let someone take my picture like that. I should have known better. My friend just took me by surprise.’

The judge’s eyes narrowed. He gazed unsympathetically from the photo to Lisa, who stood, hands demurely clasped, in front of him. ‘Some friend,’ he said.

‘I didn’t realize it until it was too late,’ Lisa admitted.

‘If you hadn’t had your picture taken, you wouldn’t be here, would you?’

‘Well, probably not,’ said Lisa. ‘In all honesty.’

‘Your evening out at a bar would have gone undetected,’ he observed.

Adam grimaced and raised a hand as if to stop Lisa from speaking, but Lisa had decided to try being coy. She gave an embarrassed shrug and pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose. ‘I really wasn’t there that long. Honest. It’s not as if I closed the place down,’ she said.

‘Is that a joke?’ the judge asked.

Lisa looked annoyed. ‘Well, maybe not a funny one,’ she said.

The judge shook his head. ‘Perhaps you think these conditions of bail are unreasonable.’

Lisa straightened up at his tone. Coyness was not going to work. She resumed her cool demeanor. ‘Not so much unreasonable,’ she retorted, ‘as disproportionate.’

‘To the crime?’ the judge asked, raising his eyebrows.

‘To the situation,’ Lisa corrected him. ‘Your honor, despite my youth, I am involved in a very demanding course of study. I’m able to do work that is normally done by a much older person. All my colleagues are much older than me. When it’s time to relax, they don’t go out for an ice-cream soda.’

‘Indeed,’ said the judge, his face betraying no expression.

‘And let’s not forget that my work is about helping people. About saving lives,’ Lisa reminded him piously.

Marjorie Fox sighed but Lisa looked quite satisfied with her own response.

‘Right,’ said the judge. ‘One could argue that you shouldn’t even be subjected to the same sort of restrictions that ordinary defendants are subject to.’

Hannah grimaced. She could hear the sarcasm in the judge’s voice. Belatedly, Lisa seemed to notice the disapproval in his tone. Even though Marjorie put a warning hand on her arm, Lisa shook her head and spoke