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

that she was loved. Was she, in fact, the same as she had always been? How was it possible that they had lived with Lisa, loved her all these years, and seen no flashing lights, no warning bells of danger dead ahead? Hannah had felt only a tremor of unease now and then, and told herself it was because her daughter was smarter than other children. And therefore unpredictable, and sometimes lonely. Hannah thought of her as special. Unique. ‘Believe it or not, I still love you. I still do.’

Lisa snorted. ‘You’ve got a strange way of showing it.’

‘You’re our daughter, our only child, and we’ll always love you.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Adam. ‘I’m so disgusted, I don’t think I ever want to see you again, Lisa.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘Adam, don’t say that. Your father and I are angry. Furious. But we are not doing this to try to hurt you. We just can’t let you go near Sydney ever again. Not alone. Not ever.’

‘And I’m supposed to do whatever you say? Just accept that you know what’s best for Sydney?’ Lisa demanded sarcastically. ‘Like you did for me?’

Hannah exchanged a bewildered glance with Adam, both of them shocked by Lisa’s accusation. Is this lack of a conscience in Lisa the result of our parenting? Hannah wondered. We raised her the best way we could, with all the love and attention we could muster, and now, here she sits, in jail, defending her perverted desires. ‘Lisa, it’s common sense,’ Hannah said, almost gently. ‘Common decency.’

Lisa curled her lip scornfully. ‘You’re right about the common part,’ she said. ‘You are both so . . . dull. So . . . middle of the road. Well, for your information, Sydney is my child. She doesn’t have to share your values. Did it ever occur to you that she might share mine? She might actually benefit from the choices I make for her?’

Hannah looked at her daughter as if she were seeing her for the very first time. As if she were a total stranger. ‘When you took up with Troy, Lisa, you knew that he’d been accused of . . . interfering with a child. You knew that when you went out with him, didn’t you?’

Lisa rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. ‘Wow, you’ve got a lot on your mind today.’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I knew. Some nurse out where Grandma lives told me about him. She told me what he had been accused of. I found that interesting. I thought he and I might have some interests in common. But it turned out that he wasn’t into children after all,’ said Lisa. ‘In fact, he was just like you two. Very indignant about the whole idea.’

Hannah stared at her. ‘You offered Sydney to Troy?’

Lisa shook her head. ‘I suggested some things we all might enjoy. He went ballistic. He threatened to tell them at the medical school. He said they would kick me out if they knew. You know, you’d think, after what happened to him at that camp, that he wouldn’t be so free to go around accusing people. Besides, it was ridiculous. That was between us. It was our private business.’

‘You killed him, didn’t you?’ Adam said flatly.

Lisa looked at him defiantly. ‘The gas heater exploded. I wasn’t even there. Remember?’

Adam shook his head. ‘I don’t believe a word you say.’

‘All right. That’s enough,’ said Hannah. ‘Stop.’

‘You’re the ones who came over here accusing me,’ Lisa protested petulantly.

‘All right, look,’ said Adam. ‘We are going to tell you what is going to happen now and you are going to agree to it. End of story.’

Lisa turned on him. ‘And what is that?’

‘We are going to hire an attorney to draw up an agreement that can’t be broken, giving us full and permanent custody of Sydney. And you are going to sign it. If you want visitation, you’re going to have to see Sydney with one of us always present. Or a social worker. Take your pick. If you want to hire an attorney to fight this you can. But we won’t pay for it this time. So, good luck with that.’

Lisa studied her father with a cold gaze. ‘You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Adam, pointing a finger at her. ‘But I’ll tell you one thing. You will do this. You can’t get around us because we have these letters. It will be an easy matter to trace your communications with these perverts. If you try to fight this you, and they, are going to find yourselves all over the news and probably back in jail. Because I will not hesitate to use these disgusting letters against you in court if I have to.’

‘You know,’ said Lisa languidly, ‘if you had been reasonable I might have been willing to consider some kind of arrangement. But instead, you barged in here and threatened me. That makes me not want to cooperate.’

‘You have no choice,’ he said bitterly.

A smile played around Lisa’s lips, and Hannah felt a sudden fear, like a gust of cold wind, blow up in her chest. ‘That’s what you think,’ said Lisa.

Hannah glanced at Adam, and saw the momentary hesitancy, the uncertainty in his eyes. She realized, with a sickening certainty, that he was afraid, too.

‘For your information, I have done my research,’ said Lisa, ‘both in medicine and in psychology. And even an ignorant layman can tell you what I learned. When I first noticed these . . . interests I had, and I realized that other people didn’t necessarily share them, I read about their etiology.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Adam asked wearily. ‘I’m not here to discuss your sick sexual desires.’

‘Do you know where those predilections come from, in most cases?’ she asked.

Adam glared at her, and did not response.

‘Most pedophiles