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“What exactly does that mean—set something up?” Jessie asked.
Matthew sighed deeply before reluctantly continuing.
“Well, there’s an elaborate screening process. First, I put down a deposit—a thousand dollars—to cover all the costs and pay for her time if I backed out for some reason. Then the agency did identity verification and a background check. Once those were complete, I got tested for STDs and provided the results. She did the same.”
“What about you, Mrs. Zellers?” Jessie wanted to know.
Helen looked taken aback.
“Oh, I didn’t participate. That was just between them.”
“I see,” Jessie said, trying to hide her surprise. “So what happened next?”
“She came over and we talked for a while. Once she felt comfortable, we got down to the business she was there for.”
“Can you be more specific?”
Matthew blushed for the first time since he’d come downstairs.
“I’d rather not,” he said. “Let’s just say that she was willing to role play some of my fantasies. If you know the general scenarios in her films, you can probably draw accurate conclusions about what we did.”
Jessie looked over at Helen, who seemed less uncomfortable than she would have guessed.
“And there was no jealousy?” Jessie asked her.
Helen shrugged.
“We were honest with each other before we got married,” she said. “Matt was upfront about certain things he was into that I wasn’t, so we came to this accommodation. It works for us. Besides, Meliss…er, Michaela and I did other things together.”
“What kind of things?”
“Nothing like what you’re thinking, Ms. Hunt,” Helen said firmly.
“Clear it up then.”
“It’s going to sound weird.”
“Believe me,” Jessie said. “I’m up to date on weird.”
“Okay,” Helen said with a shrug. “We kind of became friends. We’d go shopping together. I’d buy her outfits. We even baked a few times, right in this kitchen.”
“You did these things with the person playing fantasy sex games with your husband?” Jessie confirmed.
Helen didn’t respond at first. She looked like she was struggling to come up with the right words.
“Look, Melissa—I’m just going to call her that since that’s how I knew her—Melissa’s mom died when she was young and she told me her dad wasn’t really around. I can’t have kids. I know it sounds crazy but we developed kind of a bond, maybe not mother-daughter, but something close to it. We liked hanging out. I never thought about that other stuff when it was just the two of us.”
As unusual as the situation sounded, Jessie didn’t find it unbelievable. As someone who lost her own mother young, she knew the power of any maternal figure willing to offer emotional support and companionship. It was the reason she felt so drawn to Dr. Lemmon.
“Can you explain something else to me?” she said. “I found both your initials on a piece of paper at her apartment but they were crossed off. Why would that be?”
Matthew looked away but Helen stared straight at Jessie.
“I don’t know for sure but I think I can guess,” she said softly before pausing.
“You’ve come this far, Mrs. Zellers,” Jessie pressed. “You may as well go all the way.”
Helen nodded, sighed deeply, and continued.
