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But something in the way she looked at him now was different. She was older, wiser. The sunny smile that Dayton had loved was missing, hidden by her inexpressive taupe lips.
“Ha pasado mucho tiempo, Señorita Guerrero.”
Kenna did a double take upon hearing the polished Spanish rolling off his tongue.
Crossing her arms, Alex clipped, “No es lo suficientemente largo.” She gestured to Kenna. “¿Qué es esto? No pudiste arruinar mi vida la primera vez, ¿ahora vas tras mi compañero de cuarto? Ella es una buena niña. Estás pidiendo problemas.”
His head spun at her unmistakable words: they were roommates. How had he missed this? How had he not spotted Alex a single time in his frequent stakeouts of the complex?
Perhaps she had passed by, but his focus was so hardwired on Kenna, he had overlooked Alex entirely.
Either way, he was fucked.
11
CAUGHT
‘Problemas.’
The word stuck with Kenna as if it had been branded in her memory. She didn’t need to know Spanish to understand what had been said. Nothing spoke louder than body language. Alex’s mood had changed on a dime, confusion whipping into volatile fury within a nanosecond.
They had bad blood.
This is where her frenetic mind drifted during a Friday morning patient meeting. For the first time, someone had been kind enough to let Kenna observe their session. Sydney Chambers, a junior music theory major, was prattling on about a series of intense nightmares she’d had for months.
Her first observation. She should have been over the moon about what was transpiring in the office.
Instead, she found it near impossible to focus on the plight of the Chambers woman amid her own internal disarray.
“Every dream is the same setup,” Sydney said. “I’ve been practicing for months. Something crucial to the progression of my studies or career is coming up.”
She occupied Kenna’s usual seat, relegating her to a borrowed fold-up chair next to Dr. Merino. An unbearable cold radiated from its metal, seeping through the material of her pants and further freezing her in the frigid room. The sparse distance separating them reminded Kenna of that bizarre car ride, which she had somehow survived sans chloroform. She chided herself. The chances of Dr. Merino being a murderer were slim, and she fought to dismiss the idea altogether.
Fear made her mind sink to the darkest places.
He scribbled notes on his 6x9 yellow pad. Kenna tried to catch a glimpse of the writing, but it was illegible. A graphologist would’ve had a field day with Dr. Merino’s amalgam of print and cursive. She regarded her own blank pad.
How could either one of them have reached any conclusion when the patient had uttered three sentences?
“The day of the showcase, audition, musical, whatever it is, arrives.” Sydney’s features tensed as she exhausted her recall. “I take the stage but when it’s my turn to sing, I can’t. I open my mouth and strain to make any kind of sound. Nothing comes out. I can’t even hear myself breathing. Not a sound. And then I wake up.”
He deposited the pen atop the pad, folding his hands on the desk. “And what happens when you wake up?”
Kenna was bored with the issue being presented but she knew it was an unrealistic expectation to hope for something beyond a basic, guided question scenario for her first sit-in. A girl could dream.
“I’m covered in cold sweat. My heart’s beating out of my chest and I don’t calm down until I hear my breathing, until I feel the vibration of my vocal chords.”
Dr. Merino didn’t seem much more enthusiastic about the session. Kenna supposed after so many years of working for the university, he could deduce when a student was pining for medication, bearing no interest in any other avenue of treatment. He tugged the top right-hand drawer of the desk, retrieved a prescription pad and addressed Sydney as he filled out the sheet.
“I’m going to prescribe you a low, low dosage of sertraline. As low as you can go, 25 milligrams. I’d recommend taking it 30 to 45 minutes before you go to bed. It should help you sleep through the night, but no guarantee.”
Ripping the paper from its binding, he handed it off to Kenna who delivered it to Sydney.
“This medication sometimes prevents people from sleeping, but that’s pretty uncommon. Just know it’s a possibility. If that happens to be the case for you, come back to see me and we’ll find an alternative.”
Sydney thanked Dr. Merino and ducked out of the office. As soon as she left, Kenna’s need to return to her seat amplified. That plan fell to pieces when her mentor rotated his entire body toward her, as if he were settling in for a cozy chat with a colleague.
“Well, that was riveting,” he said.
