Hush

Nine

Note: There are 17 numbered chapters in my outline at the moment, so we are officially more than halfway through with this story. My favorite bits that I've written so far are still in the chapters ahead, so please hang in there!

The weekend didn't have any better news on any of the ghosts we were looking into. First of all, we hadn't gone for another long drive on Sunday, so there was no telling where Elena's body was. Second and third of all, we hadn't been able to get in touch with Daniel's mother, Francesca Powell. I didn't think there was any chance she'd move on, but Jesse had confirmed that he couldn't feel her out there anywhere.

I didn't think our conversation the other day was enough to make me move on, but I suppose it must have been. She got what she needed off of her chest and trusted me to handle the rest of it. Whatever satisfaction Francesca apparently felt was ruining our investigation though.

In fact, the investigation was going about as well as today's counseling session with Daniel. Which was to say, both were going horribly.

I'd handed Daniel paper and crayons what felt like ages ago, but he was only making idle marks on the page. He didn't look like he was in deep concentration and searching for his next muse. No. He just looked bored.

"You could write if you want," I suggested.

Daniel looked at me as idly as he had his paper and continued to trace lightly along it with a different color crayon, a blue one this time.

"Or I could teach you how to make a paper airplane," I said. "And then we could race them."

Daniel looked away from me and pressed the blue crayon harder into the paper. The message was clear: he did not want to listen to my suggestions anymore.

I wasn't sure exactly what my next move would be. I didn't think just sitting here in silence was going to be a good use of anyone's time. But before I could say anything else, I saw a shimmer of light appear at the door next to where Daniel and I were sitting.

"I'm going to make a quick bathroom trip," I said abruptly.

Aside from a small and nearly imperceptible nod, Daniel looked at me with indifference as I crossed from my chair quickly and opened the door. His expression probably would not have been so indifferent if he could see that I was being followed by the ghost of Elena Cho.

The break room was thankfully empty when I walked in. Most people did not respond well when they saw someone talking to what appeared to be thin air.

I stood with my back against the door to prevent someone from walking in without me knowing and said, in a low voice, "What's going on?"

"I found it," Elena said proudly.

"Found what?"

"You know, my body. The car."

"That's great," I said. "But I'm kind of at work right now, so I can't exactly do anything about it now."

"Oh," Elena said, and her voice sounded more than a bit dejected. "I mean, it's just… You always seem so busy, I didn't know now was worse than any other time. And especially since I've found my body now... I thought that would mean the end of things."

I winced. Elena's mediation had come as a casualty to Alexa's, and, if I were in her situation, I'd probably be upset if I felt I was being neglected, too.

"But your body and the car are still underwater somewhere. And pretty deep, too, right?"

Elena shook her head. "They were, but I moved them."

"You...moved them? Yourself?"

Elena was not the type of ghost who had the kinetic ability to go around moving cars and cadavers. She didn't have the anger for it, righteous or otherwise, and she hadn't been dead long enough to have the experience necessary.

"Is that not normal?" she asked. "I mean, everyone has latent psychokinetic abilities, right? If you just know how to tap into them. I think being a ghost helped."

Of course. Elena was one of those new age types. She had probably called her road trip a "vision quest" and planned on stopping off at a sweat lodge or something eventually. I wasn't opposed to the idea of finding oneself, but, as a Brooklyn native, the whole thing reeked of California.

"It's impressive," I said finally. "And I really am sorry about not being able to find your car earlier."

"It's fine. It's just… Well, I didn't think I'd still be here. I mean, I found myself and got my memory back and everything. Is this just what the rest of my life, well, existence, is going to look like?"

"No," I said. "Do you have family, Elena? Or anyone else you care about?"

She nodded.

"Well, I'm betting they want to know that you're not just taking a road trip. If you can get me a mile marker near your car, I can call in to the police station and say I saw an abandoned car on the shoulder."

"I can do that," Elena said.

And she dematerialized shortly thereafter.

As I exited the break room and re-entered my own office, I hoped she didn't come back for at least another fifteen minutes.

The reason why I was hoping she wouldn't come back, Daniel, was still seated with nothing but blank paper in front of him. His eyes met mine as I took my own chair again.

And then something unexpected happened.

"You see them, too," Daniel said.

His voice was so soft I almost hadn't heard him at first. Not to mention the fact that, even though I'd been working with him for exactly a week thus far, I had never once heard him speak. But once I got past the fact that Daniel had spoken to me, I replayed what he said in my mind several times.

"Ghosts," I said the word aloud, just so we could both be clear what the subject matter was. My voice was nearly as quiet as his was when I continued speaking. "Yeah. I see them, too."

Daniel didn't respond in words, but he was looking at me with rapt attention.

I said, "The first time I remember seeing a ghost I was about three. I didn't know what ghosts were, and I didn't know they were even different from regular people then. I tried to tell my mom, but of course she didn't listen to me. She can't see them. So I figured that ghosts just weren't something adults could see at all. Do you want to talk about the first time you saw a ghost, Daniel?"

Daniel shook his head. I was impressed enough with what he'd said already, so I didn't have a problem with humoring him and keeping up the conversation by myself. Except before I could tell him something else, about my dad or maybe even about how my mom had stuck me in therapy when I was younger, Daniel spoke.

"No one would believe me if I said anything."

"I believe you. But I can't say you're wrong about other people. What we are, most people don't understand it. Even though about half of the country believes that ghosts might exist, almost nobody would be cool with us just admitting we see them all the time."

Daniel was silent for a few moments. He opened and closed his mouth several times without saying anything at all, and I had to wonder if the words he'd already said were all the progress he'd made today.

"You can tell me anything, Daniel," I said soothingly. "Whatever it is, trust me when I say I'll understand and believe you. I've seen it all."

There was nothing Daniel could tell me that would be more difficult to swallow than resurrecting your ghostly one true love via time travel, but I didn't tell him that. But the longer he struggled to say whatever it is that he clearly wanted to say, the more I started to wonder if maybe I should have mentioned more of my own mediator tribulations.

Until he spoke again, that was.

"That night at the jewelry store," Daniel said. "I saw that, too."

I almost couldn't breathe. Here I was, standing on the precipice to what would solve this case, and I felt like I was seconds from falling. "The woman you drew the picture of the other day. That's where you knew her from."

Daniel nodded.

"She saw me. She saw me see her," Daniel whispered. And before I knew it, there were tears in his eyes. There was only paper and crayons between us though, not tissues, and I didn't want to leave where we were sitting to get up and get some. I was scared that if I moved, that if I changed anything about this moment at all, that Daniel would clam up again.

"It's alright," I said, as comfortingly as I could while not actually closing any of the space between us. Even though it looked like Daniel could use a hug, I couldn't actually give him one. Not as a professional counselor, at least.

Daniel shook his head. "She's the one who," he began, and he trailed off to look at the cast on his arm. It was no accident then. Alexa must have been what broke it. How had I not realized it before? The drawing he'd made of Alexa should have been a dead giveaway. There were no coincidences in a murder investigation, I'd said it myself, and yet I'd brushed it off and thought maybe he knew her from somewhere else.

"And she said she'd kill me if… If…"

"If you told? Daniel, you're safe. Nothing is going to happen to you. I'm going to handle her myself, and she won't be able to hurt anyone again."

"Don't be by yourself," Daniel whispered. "She's not by herself."

I wasn't going to be alone. I'd have Jesse there with me. But I didn't tell him that. Instead, I said, "What do you mean she's not by herself?"

Daniel didn't answer me-not with words, at least. He picked up a piece of paper from the table and a black crayon. And then a brown crayon. And then a gray one.

I watched him use and exchange at least a dozen different colors for at least ten minutes in silence. Typically, the silence that filled the room during our sessions was so languid it made me feel more like napping than doing my job. But the silence today felt as restless as I was.

Daniel slid the piece of paper across the table at me like he always did, and no further explanation was necessary for me to know exactly who I was looking out.

Patrick Harrison.

I swore before I could catch myself, and Daniel winced.

"Sorry about my language," I said quickly. "I'm not mad. I'm just surprised. I've been looking into this, and I spoke to him on Saturday. But I decided that he didn't have anything to do with it."

Daniel shifted uncomfortably.

"I believe you," I said, and then I said it two more times in an attempt to make him really believe it.

He didn't look convinced.

"I'm going to handle everything, Daniel. That's part of being a mediator when you're grown up. I've handled people a lot scarier than the woman you saw and her boyfriend. You've got nothing to worry about."

And I didn't know it then, although Daniel must have suspected it, but there really was a lot to be worried about.

I wanted to console him a little more, and, moreover, I didn't want to end our conversation here. It felt like I was halfway through climbing a mountain, and I wanted to keep going until I reached the summit. But there was less than a minute to go until 4:30, and I knew better than to keep Daniel's aunt waiting. She didn't exactly strike me as the patient type.

"We'll talk more next time, right?" I asked.

Daniel's response was non-verbal, but it was still a nod.

I led Daniel out front shortly after giving him some tissues, and his aunt was waiting for him in the lobby.

"Well?" she asked. "Has he said anything?"

Whether or not he said anything was between me and Daniel, as part of counselor-client confidentiality. If I told his aunt he'd talked to me, she'd either want to know what he talked to her about, which I absolutely could not tell her if I wanted to keep my counseling certification, or she'd start punishing him at home for not talking to her, which I didn't want Daniel to go through.

"Daniel has other ways of expressing himself," I offered.

Pauline looked at Daniel in a clear mix of disapproval and disappointment before she guided him by the shoulder from the clinic to the parking lot.

Once the door to the clinic had come to a close, I turned to Felipa.

"Do you know if Jesse has an appointment right now?" I asked.

Felipa minimized the browser window she had open, and opened up the appointment scheduling software instead. "Booked solid through to five thirty," she said.

I swore quietly under my breath, but not quietly enough for Felipa not to overhear me and point at the swear jar she kept on her desk.

After depositing a dollar into the jar, I made my way back to my office. I could wait until Jesse finished, an hour from now, or I could get to handling the Patrick problem now.

There was no question in my mind about what I should do.

I grabbed my cell phone to give Patrick a courtesy call.

I slowed down in my quest briefly though to glance at a couple of texts from CeeCee.

The first read:

So when are you going to start asking for the fine furniture related favors? Because the police are saying that this robbery is probably connected to the jewelry store ones.

Of course there were more robberies. He probably needed new furniture for his shoebox of an office.

The next couple of text messages from CeeCee were prefaced with:

What does this mean?!

And they were followed by an assortment of screenshots of conversations between herself and Adam. I didn't make time to read them though. I didn't even make time to look at the police beat for what had been said about the furniture store robbery. The only thing I did before dialing the number to Patrick's business was go into my settings and mask my phone number.

"Harrison Designs," Patrick said.

I began speaking in a tone that was much brighter than how I actually felt. "Hi, this is Maggie Seaver. We met on Saturday, with the…"

"Psychiatric clinic website," he said quickly. "I remember. Are you calling to lock in?"

"Actually I'm calling to make an inquiry about the watch you were wearing."

"The watch I was…? Oh. I mean, it's not for sale or anything."

"Really? Wasn't it for sale before your fiance stole it?"

To his credit, he didn't hang up the phone immediately.

"Who the hell are you?" Patrick said. If talking about his passions made him more confident, then anger certainly suited him as well. "I Googled you guys, and unless there's another Dr. Jason Seaver in psychiatry other than the guy off of Growing Pains, you lied to me when you came in."

"And you lied to me about that watch being a gift. Where'd you guys get it from? One of the stores off of Ocean Avenue? Or was it the one where your fiance bashed an innocent woman's face in and killed her?"

"I didn't do anything, and my fiance is dead. Do you think her ghost went and knocked off a jewelry store?"

"That's exactly what we both know happened."

And that was finally what did it. Patrick hung up the phone on me.