Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (free romance novels .TXT) 📗

other PTs wore because they were on their feet all day – Melinda always wore black flats. Lori had no idea how Melinda’s feet weren’t killing her all the time. Maybe she regularly visited the foot spa next door.

“Yes?” Lori said, her tone wary.

She’d never gotten along great with Melinda. Get Moving! was Melinda’s practice, and all the other PTs who worked there, Lori included, were her employees. The woman was a good PT, and she ran the practice well. She had a doctorate in physical therapy, while the other PTs – including Lori – only had master’s degrees. Melinda had never come out and said she thought she was better qualified than her employees, but she didn’t have to. The way she treated them made her feelings very clear.

“How did your session with Ms. Foster go today?”

The PTs wrote client reports that they submitted electronically to Melinda. Everything Lori had to say about Debra was in today’s report on their session. She knew that Melinda read each and every report at the end of the day. If she spotted any typos or grammatical errors in a report, she returned it to the writer for revision. Lori wanted to tell Melinda that she had an extremely important appointment to get to, and she should go read her report about today’s session with Debra if she was so damn interested in knowing what they’d done. But she knew that Melinda wouldn’t react well to being snapped at. Who would? Besides, she was the boss, and she did have that bright shiny doctorate of hers….

“I’d say Debra took a couple steps backward today. She’s still not doing the exercises I gave her to do at home, and her shoulder is really stiffening up. Her range of motion was more limited today than it was last week, and she was in considerably more pain.”

Melinda nodded. “I watched the two of you working for a bit, and that’s what it looked like to me.”

Melinda was one of those people who it was impossible to read from facial expression or vocal tone. She could be ecstatic or royally pissed, but outside she came across as an emotionless robot disguised by a covering of human flesh.

“Did Debra complain to you about me?” Lori asked. Such behavior would be completely in character for her.

Melinda looked surprised. “Not at all. I noticed you were very low energy all morning, and at times it seemed as if you were merely going through the motions. I was wondering if there’s something bothering you.”

Lori’s eyes caught a flash of movement, and her gaze was drawn to Melinda’s shoulder. She’d thought she’d seen…. But she couldn’t have. For an instant it had appeared that Melinda’s braid had flicked to the side, as if she’d jerked her head to make it move. But Melinda’s head had remained steady the entire time. Was she seeing things? If this had happened yesterday, she’d have said yes. But after everything that had happened since FoodSaver? She wasn’t so sure.

“I appreciate your concern, Melinda, I really do. But I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Good job, she thought. That sounded really convincing.

Melinda’s eyes narrowed, and Lori had the sense the woman was scrutinizing her, trying to peer into her brain to determine if she was lying. Melinda must’ve been satisfied with what she saw, for her eyes relaxed and she gave a thin-lipped smile.

“I’m glad to hear it. If you were unhappy, as your boss, I’d be required to do something about it.”

Now it was Lori’s turn to frown. “Such as?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Tear off one of your tits with my teeth, or press a hot steam iron against your cunt and hold it there until the flesh has melted into a solid, charred mass. Something along those lines. I’m glad neither of those things will be necessary, though.” She smiled. “Have a good lunch.”

Without another word, Melinda walked past her and entered the billing office to speak to Dennis, the practice’s business manager, her braid swaying as she walked.

Lori stared after Melinda. What the actual fuck?

She walked to the reception area, unable to believe what had just happened. She and Melinda might not exactly have been best friends, but the woman had never come close to speaking to her like that. What the hell had – and then it came to her. They had gotten to Melinda somehow. The Cabal. They’d done something to her, something that had made her say those vile, disgusting things.

All she wanted to do now was get the hell out of there and talk to Reeny. Her little sister was clear-headed and pragmatic. Being a wife and mother teaches you to cut through a lot of bullshit, Reeny had once told her. She hoped Reeny would be able to lend her some of that clarity. She sure as shit could use it right now.

She was so intent on leaving that she barely noticed Katie still working at the reception counter, typing away at her computer. She would’ve walked right past her and dashed out into the parking lot if the woman hadn’t suddenly spoken.

“Do you want to hear the rest of my story or not?”

She sounded irritated, almost angry, and it was so unlike the Katie Lori knew that, despite her near frantic desire to be out of this place, she stopped. Katie took this as a sign to continue speaking, picking up the thread of her story exactly where she’d left off several hours ago.

“Like I said, I thought the guy in the sunglasses was going to pass me, pull in front of me, and hit his brakes. But when his car was even with mine, he rolled down the passenger-side window and threw something out. It hit the hood of my car with a loud thump, and I was so startled I slammed on my own brakes and swerved to a stop along the side of the road. I was damn lucky nobody rear-ended me, though I got a lot of