Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,83
phone or on their Instagram accounts.
Except for people who want other people to find a certain picture.
Some gravity draws Charlotte over to the photos.
And there on the top of the pile is a picture of her therapist.
Ted.
He’s sitting at a restaurant. He has a glass of wine in his hands. He’s toasting the person taking the picture. He looks besotted; his mouth is slack with desire. Charlotte has never seen that expression on his face. She has to look hard to be sure it’s him.
How did Ruth find out his name? Then Charlotte remembers. That very first time, when Ruth showed up at the shop and they went out for coffee. Ruth claimed she used to date a therapist named Ted. She just had the tenses wrong. She was going to sleep with a therapist named Ted. She would hunt him down and seduce him to find out about Charlotte and Rocco.
Charlotte feels as if she’s been punched.
She runs back into the living room and thrusts the picture at Rocco, like an accusation.
“Who’s that?”
He scrutinizes the photo.
“Oh, that guy. He’s a friend of her grandma and grandpa’s. I think she slept with him a couple of times. She used to do kinky stuff like that. Sleep with old guys. Before we met.”
“After you met,” says Charlotte. “While she was with you. That’s Ted. My therapist. That’s why she sought him out and fucked him. Because he’s my therapist. Because he knows things about us that she wanted to know.”
“That Ted?”
How did Ruth get to Ted? Seduce him, is how it looks. Plied him with wine and sex. How could Ted be so unprofessional? He’s been Charlotte’s therapist for nearly a decade. She trusted him more than anyone in the world. What did Ruth have? Some way to make an older man feel that he was still young and hot.
Trust no one, Charlotte thinks now.
She stole Ruth’s passport. Which means that she isn’t exactly trustworthy herself. Why should she expect it from others?
Rocco sinks onto the couch. “That’s the thing with Ruth. Every second with her is like falling down the rabbit hole.”
Charlotte thinks of those last phone conversations with Ted. Why did he bother telling her that a woman had called asking for information about her childhood? Was he trying to warn her about Ruth? Why did he say her name was Naomi? Was that the name Ruth gave him? Why did he tell Charlotte to be careful? Because he’d already slept with Ruth or Naomi or whoever she is and revealed Charlotte’s secret? How did Ruth get it out of him? Charlotte may never know. Doctors can be sued for doing things like this.
First things first. She needs to find Daisy.
She phones Ted. The calls goes to voice mail. Of course.
“Call Andrew John,” she tells Rocco.
“Why?”
“Just because. Call him!”
Rocco calls Andrew John’s office number and after a brief conversation tells Charlotte, “Actually, he’s in Argentina.”
“Do you have his number there?”
“Yes . . . but I’m only supposed to use it in case of an extreme emergency.”
“This is an extreme emergency. Call him.” The big sister’s giving an order, and she half expects Rocco to rebel. But it’s too late for that. He’s too guilty.
“I never call him at home,” says Rocco. “I’ve never done anything like that. I wouldn’t—”
“Now you are,” says Charlotte. “Your niece is missing, and the kidnapper has been calling him.”
Rocco goes into the bedroom. Charlotte can hear him through the open door.
“I’m sorry . . . I know . . . I wouldn’t. I don’t, except I need to ask you one question. Do you know a woman named Ruth Seagram? Yes, that’s right. My girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend. Have you ever met her?
“Okay,” Rocco says at last. “I thought so.”
He notices Charlotte watching from the doorway, and he shakes his head.
Charlotte says, “Ask him if he knows a Naomi.”
Rocco listens. Then he says, “He says that he’s heard that a woman named Naomi has been calling his office and saying it’s urgent. He gets a lot of trolls and cranks and stalkers. His staff assumed it was one of those, though they always report the calls to him, so he can be on guard, just in case.”
24
Ruth
In Catholic school we learned about the seven deadly sins. The nuns said the worst is pride. But I think it’s envy. Envy hurts the most. I used to envy kids with nicer houses, better clothes, more money. I envied every kid whose mother didn’t leave them with their