right at them. She had on a loose-fitting hospital gown that exposed her pale, white arms and lower legs. Her light blond, curly hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was painfully thin for her size. Jessie guessed that she was about five foot seven and barely over one hundred pounds. She had dark shadows under her light blue eyes. Freckles dotted her cheeks. She was smiling and Jessie could tell that she didn’t brush as often as she should. Her teeth were stained and looked like they had the remnants of breakfast in them. She looked to be in her late twenties.
“Ready?” Lenore asked as she unlocked the door to the safe room.
Jessie and Trembley nodded and stepped inside. Jessie was just glancing back to make sure that Lenore wouldn’t be joining them when she heard a grunt and a rustle of papery fabric. She turned quickly back around to see that Beth was charging toward her with a maniacal gleam in her eyes.
Jessie had only a fraction of a second to decide how to respond. Taking a deep breath, she squared her body toward the girl and then, against the protestations of her hands and heart, did absolutely nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Beth’s arms wrapped around her as she squealed with joy. Jessie glanced over at Trembley, who had been about to rip the girl away, and shook her head slightly. He dropped his hands.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Beth squeaked in what sounded like the voice of a ten-year-old. “It’s not a dream.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Beth,” Jessie said, fighting the strong urge to extricate herself from the girl’s clammy embrace. “I’m Jessie. This is Alan.”
“Beth, let the woman breathe a little,” Lenore said gently over the intercom from the other room.
Beth released her grip and stepped back, looking embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I don’t get any visitors other than my parents. And that’s only when they fly in every few weeks. So I’m a little out of practice on my manners.”
“That’s okay,” Jessie assured her. “We appreciate you meeting with us. Should we sit down and talk?”
Beth nodded and led them over to a plastic table with plastic chairs. It looked like an oversized kids’ play table at a preschool playground. Jessie glanced up at Lenore, who remained just outside the door.
“Would you like Lenore to join us?” she asked.
“No. I don’t need supervision. I can have an adult conversation without assistance.”
Her tone indicated that she wasn’t offended by the question, but rather proudly stating a fact about herself.
“Okay,” Jessie said. “But if you change your mind, you just let us know. I want to be honest with you, Beth. What we want to discuss might be a little uncomfortable. So whatever makes you feel safe as we talk—that’s what Alan and I want too.”
“I’m okay,” Beth said emphatically.
“All right then, let’s dive in. Do you remember an actress named Corinne Weatherly?”
The excited smile on Beth’s face disappeared immediately. She gulped hard and nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “She sent me down the road that ended up here.”
“You believe she’s responsible for you being here?” Trembley asked, talking for the first time.
Beth looked at him as if she was startled that he could speak. But after a moment, she replied.
“No,” she said with a cold flatness. “She’s not responsible. I’ve had a lot of therapy since I came here and the doctors and I came up with an analogy that I think works. I picture myself, prior to all this, as having been walking on the edge of a steep hill. Sometimes I’d slip a little and struggle to regain my footing. Then Corinne came along and shoved me off the edge. I tumbled a fair ways down. But it was a hill, not a cliff. If I had reached out for some trees or bushes to slow down, I might have been able to stop my momentum and climb back up. But I just let myself tumble, didn’t even extend my hands for help. I fell a long way, almost to the bottom of that hill. That’s on me. Just because you get shoved doesn’t mean you don’t get back up. But I didn’t really know how to reach out for help back then. Now I do. So, to answer your question, no, Corinne wasn’t responsible. But shoving me sure didn’t help.”
Jessie took all that in, marveling at the girl’s ability to describe her own psychological journey, even as she maintained some doubt that