Hush Little Girl by Lisa Regan (first e reader .txt) 📗

“What else do you remember about Lorelei?”

“Not much other than that. As I said, we went our separate ways after the PhD program. I went into private practice here. I had no idea she was even in Denton. When did you say her license was revoked?”

“Twenty years ago.”

“How strange,” said Paige. “That must have been devastating for her. She was extremely passionate about her work.”

“Do you remember if she had any family or friends she was close with?”

“No, I don’t, I’m sorry.”

“Have you ever heard of a Dr. Vincent Buckley?”

Paige shook her head. “That name doesn’t sound familiar.”

Josie thanked her for her time. Paige agreed to return in the morning to speak with Emily directly. Josie returned to the dimly lit room where Emily’s snoring continued unabated. She was grateful that the girl was getting some rest. Soon enough, she would wake again to a world that was completely shattered.

Fourteen

It took a couple of hours of searching, and Josie had to subscribe to the Philadelphia Inquirer, but she found an article about Lorelei from twenty years earlier. The headline read: Pennsylvania Psychologist Loses License After Preventable Murder–Suicide. Josie gasped and sat up straighter in the guest chair. She glanced over at Emily to make sure she was still asleep, and read on.

The Pennsylvania Board of Psychology has revoked the license of Dr. Lorelei Mitchell after a long-time adolescent patient killed his mother in her home and then later attacked Dr. Mitchell at her office before killing himself. The patient had a history of oppositional defiant disorder and schizoaffective disorder with paranoid delusions. He was also being evaluated for bipolar disorder at the time of this tragedy. The patient’s estranged father had filed a complaint with the disciplinary board following the incident. After a review of Dr. Mitchell’s chart, the board deemed the tragedy “foreseeable and preventable”, given Dr. Mitchell’s credentials and experience with adolescent patients dealing with these and other similar disorders.

“It’s unthinkable that something like this could happen,” said the patient’s father. “Dr. Mitchell holds herself out as an expert in ODD, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and yet she failed my son. She treated him for years. She knew him well enough that she should have seen this coming and had him locked up so he couldn’t hurt anyone.”

Dr. Mitchell, who is still recovering from her extensive injuries, had no comment.

“Good lord,” Josie muttered under her breath.

That could explain the thirty-four stab wounds. Josie thought about the trajectory of Lorelei’s life: losing her mother at nine; managing to become a successful psychologist only to be nearly killed by a patient; losing her license, and now, she and her daughter had been savagely murdered, leaving her other daughter alone, just like she had been. Sometime during her life, Lorelei had met someone and had his children. Had he abused Holly? Josie thought of the antipsychotics in the kitchen cabinet. Or had it been Lorelei?

“Angel lady,” whispered Emily from the bed.

Josie set her laptop aside and leaned in toward Emily, offering her hand, which she took. “You can call me Josie.”

“Josie. Are we still alive?”

Josie squeezed her hand. “Yes, we’re still alive. I’ll be right here until morning. You go back to sleep.”

Emily nodded and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, she relinquished Josie’s hand and turned onto her other side. Josie returned to her laptop, focusing her attention on Lorelei’s property instead. It took an hour of digging through the Alcott County Recorder of Deeds and Tax Assessment records before she found what she was looking for—and that led her to an extensive search through the County Court records.

“Son of a bitch,” she mumbled.

She looked at the clock in the bottom right-hand corner of her laptop. It was nearly five a.m. For a moment, she considered calling and waking Noah, but they couldn’t do anything with this information for at least three hours. Shutting the laptop, she tried to go to sleep. She would need at least a few hours if she was going to function during the day. It seemed like an eternity since she’d stood before the mirror at her private suite at Harper’s Peak, barely recognizable in her wedding dress and expertly done make-up. Soon she would return, this time in her capacity as a detective.

Fifteen

Josie sipped coffee from a paper cup and watched the vibrant scenery pass by the car window as Noah drove them out of central Denton toward Harper’s Peak. He had arrived at the hospital with coffee and a cheese Danish—one of the many reasons she had planned to marry him—and served the warrant for Lorelei’s and Holly’s medical charts on the hospital. They made one stop at the stationhouse so that Josie could print out some documents. Then they headed toward Reed Bryan’s Farm Fresh Produce Market and after that, Harper’s Peak.

“Mett found birth certificates for both Holly and Emily Mitchell,” Noah said. “It took a while, since all we had were their approximate ages and no birthdates. Anyway, no father listed on either one.”

Josie sighed. “That’s a dead end then. Still, it’s strange. The birth certificates are a matter of public record. I’m sure there were copies at Lorelei’s house, and yet, the killer destroyed every document in that house—and every photo.”

“Makes you wonder what he was trying to hide,” Noah said.

“Exactly. Oh, and I found some information for a Dr. Vincent Buckley in one of the counties outside of Philadelphia. He’s a psychiatrist. I left him a voicemail.”

As they pulled onto the road that led past Lorelei’s home and on to Harper’s Peak, the produce market came into view on the left. It was an old barn that had been converted to a market. The words “Farm Fresh Produce” were stenciled on the side of it in large green letters. Crude wooden tables and crates lined one side of the parking lot, filled with various fruits and vegetables. A tall, sturdily built teenage boy wearing a green apron over the top of a long-sleeved black