Face of Murder

Zoe sighed. She sat back down in her chair, realizing that this was more than just a quick chat. “That was my fault. I wanted to have dinner with your family. In other circumstances, it might have been good.”

“So, what was it?” Shelley asked, sitting next to her again.

“With Dr. Applewhite… I felt that I had done a great wrong. I have no one else, just her. And when I saw your perfect, beautiful family—your life—everything that you have, I…” Zoe took a deep breath before admitting t out loud. “I got jealous.”

“You don’t need to be jealous of me,” Shelley half-laughed. “I mean, god, my life isn’t perfect. Amelia is a kid like any other. She pees the bed sometimes and drops food all over the floor and draws on the walls. And me and Harry, we argue. All the time, about silly little things.”

“At least you have a husband and a child,” Zoe pointed out. “But it does not matter. I know now. I do not need to be jealous of you anymore.”

“Because you know it’s not perfect?”

Zoe shook her head. “Because I can have that for myself. I can work hard and strive for the life that I want.” She took a breath again, realizing that what she was about to say was true. “The life I now finally know that I deserve.”

Shelley squeezed Zoe’s hand silently, a gesture of support and togetherness. There was peace for a moment, neither of them stirring or saying a word.

“Damn,” Zoe said then, getting up from her chair to resume where they had left off. “I guess that therapist I have been seeing is pretty good, after all.”

EPILOGUE

Zoe settled down opposite Dr. Monk. She had never really appreciated before how comfortable the chairs in her therapy room were. The leather armchair was perfectly worn and used, not yet to the point of losing the softness of its cushions and yet molded into the right shape for a human body.

Just like Dr. Monk itself, it had learned how to embrace each of the patients who came in and sat down, and make them feel right at home.

“I’ll be with you in one moment,” Dr. Monk said, from her desk at the other end of the room. “I’ll just finish this memo and then we can begin our session.”

Zoe dug her cell out of her pocket, thinking that now was a good time to set it on silent. Then she hesitated, looking at the screen.

It could be a good time to do something else, too.

Before she could lose her nerve, she wrote up a new message and sent it, only reading it over once to check for errors. Not the dozens of times she might otherwise have wasted, proofreading and redrafting to try to make it sound more like something a normal person would say.

Are you free this Saturday? I’d love to go on our next date.

There was only a brief pause before John sent a message in response.

YES! 7pm? I’ll pick you up?

Zoe smiled to herself. She could do a whole lot worse than John. And, for the first time in a long time, she did not add an old habitual thought: that he could do so much better than her.

“All right, I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Dr. Monk said, sitting opposite Zoe and shuffling the pages of her notebook to find the right session. “How are we doing today, then?”

Zoe cleared her throat and looked up to meet her therapist’s eyes. “Actually, Dr. Monk, I have something to tell you,” she said.

“Is it something to do with that message you just received that had you lighting up like a Christmas tree?” Dr. Monk smiled conspiratorially.

“No,” Zoe said. “Well, yes. I will tell you about that later. But there is something else first.”

“I’m listening.” Dr. Monk nodded.

Zoe took a deep breath. It was time. There was no more putting it off now. “I have synesthesia,” she said. “I see numbers everywhere. I understand them intuitively. It’s how I’m able to solve many of our cases. It’s a special ability I have.”

Dr. Monk nodded again, her pen poised above the page. There was no flicker of revulsion across her face. There was no recoiling in horror. In fact, she barely gave any sign of a reaction at all, as if what Zoe had told her was perfectly normal. “I see. Can you tell me more about that?”

And Zoe did—and, for something that she had feared for such a long time, it turned out to be not so awful at all.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

FACE OF FEAR

(A Zoe Prime Mystery—Book 3)

“A MASTERPIECE OF THRILLER AND MYSTERY. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.”

–-Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)