Now that Nate has moved onto another therapist and I've confirmed with them that he has attended a session, I focus my attention on Sean Sanders.
He’s been a hard nut to crack. The problem with men like Sean is that lying is second nature. They lie, not out of necessity but because they can. They see no issues in creating false narratives for fun because they see others as playthings, toys they can discard once they’re bored with them. I’m reluctant to diagnose someone quickly of being a sociopath, but for Sean, I’m almost convinced.
I wonder what following him would lead me to find. He hasn’t given me any cause for alarm in our sessions, but someone like him, a master manipulator and liar, wouldn’t give up his secrets easily. I wish I could discuss him with Mia now.Having never met him, she wouldn’t be able to give me her opinion, but she has read his file.
As part of her mentorship, she would type up my notes and then add her own thoughts at the bottom for me to review. Possible treatment or next steps to take. Despite never having met him, she has a good grasp of the kind of man he is.
Highly dangerous, likely to re-offend, controlling, narcissistic, pathological liar.
It’s just a few notes on a page, and yet she’s got his character down to a tee. Even when he overheard my conversation with Nate, he was downright gleeful to catch me off guard. At the very least, he has an antisocial personality disorder. In myunprofessionalopinion, he is an utter dickweed. Scum of the Earth that therapy will unlikely help. He’s a man who deserves to be in prison, and despite my best efforts, it won’t be long until he re-offends and lands himself in jail. The public will be better off for it.
I sigh, my fingers pushing up my glasses as I squeeze the bridge of my nose. I put the glasses back in place as I tidy my notes for the night. As I’m putting my things away, locking them into my safe, my phone rings.
“Lottie, how are you?” I say, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder.
“Alfie, have you heard from Mia today?”
“She messaged me a few hours ago to ask to meet tomorrow,” I say quickly, the edge in Lottie’s tone ringing my internal alarm bell.
“What time?” Her voice is high, sounding slightly frantic, laced with an edge of concern.
“Let me check my messages, but is something going on?”
She pauses for a moment. “I’m sure she just got caught up. But she was meant to meet me at my house an hour ago. She hasn’t turned up.”
“Okay, she messaged me at six thirty.” My fingers shake as I check the message.
“Just as she would have been leaving to meet me.”
The silence grows between us as my mind tries to find a logical explanation for why Mia wouldn’t turn up at Lottie’s house after arranging it herself.
“I'll pop by the house to see if she’s there.”
“Okay. Call me. I’m going to call Caleb…just to see if he’s around to help,” she adds, although really I know she means she’s going to check to see if Mia has been admitted to Seattle General.
“Good plan,” I say, my voice raising an octave. “I’ll call you as soon as possible.”
“Same.”
She hangs up as I’m slipping my coat on. I pocket my phone and pull on my boots.
I jog the few hundred yards it takes for me to reach Mia’s house. Her car is still on the drive; the house is dark. I head to the front door, and it’s locked. I swore I wouldn’t do this, but I use the key I have for the house and unlock it. I push through; it’s cold, like someone hasn’t put the heating on today. Maybe she’d been out all day. Maybe she took a cab to Lottie’s with the intention of drinking alcohol and not wanting to leave her car there. There are so many possibilities it’s hard to think.
The flowers I left on the porch are on the side table, the pink ribbon hanging down to the side. I rub it between my fingers, grounding myself as I breathe in Mia’s lavender perfume.
I move quickly, checking each room, calling her name out as I do. But there’s no noise except the heavy thud of my boots on the floorboards. My pulse begins to race and my breathing quickens as I ridiculously check behind doorways and under the bed. I can’t work out what I’m looking for. What am I hoping to find? What am Iexpectingto find?
My instincts are off. I can’t trust them now, not after what happened with Helen, where I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion, and it cost me my relationship with Mia. I’m assuming the worst. I’m assuming that something terrible has happened, but this could all be a misunderstanding. She could be fine, just stuck in traffic in a cab. Maybe her phone ran out of battery.
I lock up the house, and pull my phone out. I try to call even though I expect Lottie has already tried her, but I hear a ringing. My head snaps around, looking for the cause, and that’s where I see the light of her phone on the ground. It’s right by the driver door of her car. I pick it up, looking at the photo of us that’s lighting up the screen. We’re smiling goofily. How rarely I look like that. It seems only with her I’m so uninhibited. Despite the circumstances, hope springs in my chest that she hasn’t removed our picture from her background. She really was going to give me another chance. And now she’s gone, disappeared.
I try the driver door and it’s unlocked. Mia would never be so careless.
The realization that something terrible has happened hits me like a sucker punch. I can’t breathe. I fight the urge to keel over and catch my breath; I don’t have time. I need to find her. I need to dosomething.
That’s when I call the police.
???
