JENNIE

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My phone rang and I snatched it up off the comforter. It was Cassie. For the twentieth time in the past four days.

"Hi," I whispered.

"Is now a good time to talk?"

I rolled off the bed. "Hold on."

The water was running, but that didn't necessarily mean Lisa was still standing under it. Before I tiptoed to the bathroom I ran a hand over the comforter, smoothing out the wrinkles. It was pointless. Lisa was likely to remake the bed once she was done with the shower. She'd be able to tell I had lain on it, waiting for her.

Lisa was far from okay. Ever since she turned over the painting to Officer Miller, things had gotten worse. She called yesterday to inform Lisa several sets of prints had been identified, and they had a few promising leads. They also confirmed blood spatter on the painting. Lisa had been asked to provide a blood sample to check if the spatter belonged to her parents, but we hadn't heard anything about the results yet. I thought the progress would be a turning point for her. It was, but not a good one.

I hid the phone in my back pocket and peeked through the gap in the door. I didn't want her to know I was talking to Cassie again. She'd grown suspicious of the number of calls I received from Cassie. I told her she was worried, which wasn't a lie. We all were. Rosé and Jackson called almost as often, but no one could do anything to help.

Lisa's back was to the spray, hands at her sides, head hanging low. She'd stay there until the water ran cold, sometimes longer. I'd had to forcibly remove her more than once over the past few days when her lips went blue from standing under the frigid water. After she was finished, she'd clean the bathroom. Again. She'd been like that with everything since we'd come home from the police station—cleaning and reorganizing to the point of obsession.

Nothing was good enough. Not the hospital corners on the sheets, not the line of pillows on the bed, or the shoes in the front hall closet. Yesterday she sat cross-legged on the floor for a good half hour, spacing and respacing the shoes until there was an inch between every pair and the heels lined up perfectly with each other. Her compulsive tendencies had ratcheted up to frightening heights. I was reluctant to admit how severe it had become, for fear of what it meant.

"Lisa?"

Her head snapped up and the glass door slid open. Water sluiced down her back and over her chest. My eyes followed the path. Her hand went to cover herself. She hadn't had an erection since the morning we went to the storage unit. I met her exhausted, anxious gaze. Her eyes were bloodshot with dark circles under them.

"Is everything okay?" It came out a hoarse croak.

"Everything's fine. I'm going to the kitchen to get a drink. I'll only be a minute or two."

After a long pause she replied, "Okay."

I couldn't leave the room without telling her. If she got out of the shower and I wasn't there, she was liable to have a meltdown. It had happened yesterday.

"She's in the shower," I said once I was in the hall.

"Again? How many times is that today?"

"This is number three."

She'd been taking upward of four showers a day. I didn't know what to make of it.

"This isn't good," Cassie said.

"It's getting worse."

"You sound like you're on the verge of tears."

I had to put my hand over the receiver so I could clear my throat. "I'm okay. I'm just worried."

Cassie sighed. "Jennie, this reminds me of what happened when her parents first died. I'm afraid it isn't going to get better if we don't intervene."

It wasn't what I wanted to hear, though I suspected she was right. I dropped onto the couch. "I don't know what to do."

"Nate and I have been talking. He's called in a favor and set up an appointment for Lisa this afternoon. It's a little short notice, but we can come over and persuade her to go."

"When's the appointment?"

"Four."

"That soon?" That was less than three hours from now. It didn't give us much time for acts of persuasion.

"Do you think you can keep this up much longer?" Her tone was gentle but prompting.

I surveyed the living room. It was spotless. I was terrified to touch anything because Lisa knew immediately when I had. Her quest for order was draining. I understood the reason behind it. Her world and her mind were in utter chaos; she could control her environment.

"Let me see if I can convince her first. I don't want her to feel ambushed."

"Okay. But if you haven't called back within the hour, Nate and I will come."

I took down the details and hung up, shoving the paper in my back pocket. I wasn't sure how I was going to broach the subject with Lisa, but she needed more help than I could give her.

TK jumped up on the couch and head-butted my hand. She'd been as jumpy as me over the past few days, unsure of Lisa's unpredictable moods. One minute she was fixated on a task; the next she exploded out of frustration because she couldn't get it right. I picked TK up and pressed my nose into her fur, listening to her motor run.

"Jennie?" The high tenor reflected Lisa's anxiety, as did the heavy thud of her feet coming down the hall.

"I'm in the living room," I called out.

"I thought you were just getting something to drink—" She stopped short when she entered the room.

She had on boxer briefs and sports bra. Her hair wet, and her hands sank into it and tugged hard, the concern switching to irritation.

"This place is a sty. There's shit everywhere," she barked, her accusatory glare on me.

My phone and the pen were on the coffee table. Nothing else was out of place as far as I could see. But based on Lisa's current rigid standards, those two items constituted a mess.

"I'll put it away—"

"I've got it."

She grabbed the pen and put it back in the drawer, slamming it shut. I pocketed my phone and stayed put. Waiting. Her hands went to her hips as her eyes traveled the room in search of misplaced items. The tension in her shoulders didn't ease in the slightest.

"Where's your glass?"

"I got distracted by TK."

It was a partial truth. If I told her I put it in the dishwasher, she would check and know I was lying. She zoned in on TK, nuzzling my chin. Her paranoia was painful to witness. Cassie was right.

"Why don't you get dressed and I'll make you something to eat," I said gently, hoping if I did something nice I could smooth the transition to a conversation I didn't want to have.

"I'm not hungry."

"But you haven't eaten today."

"Because I'm not hungry," she snapped.

Her volume startled TK. She launched out of my lap and bolted down the hall, likely seeking refuge under the bed. I wished I could join her.

"Well, I am." I gave her a wide berth when I passed her on my way to the fridge.

I collected the items necessary to make a sandwich and dumped them on the counter. My method of sandwich assembly was likely going to give her an aneurysm, but I needed to stay occupied while I figured out how to approach the topic. Her hand went back to her hair as she watched me.

I took four slices of bread out of the bag. Even if she wasn't planning to eat, I was going to make her something.

"You should let me do that." Lisa moved in, prepared to take over.

"I can manage."

"It's my kitchen."

I bit back a comment about going back to my place to make food. She would freak out over the possibility of my being more than ten feet away from her.

"I think I can handle making a sandwich."

"But you'll make a mess."

"Which I'll clean up."

She snorted with derision.

I slapped the Black Forest ham down on the cutting board and turned to face her. "Lisa, I love you, and I know you're particular, but this is too much. Do you even realize what you're doing?"

"It's not my fault you can't remember where to put things when you're done with them."

"Excuse me?"

"We both know you're not very tidy." She made it sound like a felony.

My cool slipped a little. "For Christ sake, Lisa, compared to you, Martha Stewart is a slob! I can deal with your compulsive organization. Most of the time I like that about you. But I can't even make a sandwich without you crawling up my ass now!"

She blinked, taken aback that I'd raised my voice. "I'm not that bad."

I clenched my fists to keep my hands from flailing. "You've been two steps behind me fixing my so-called mistakes for the last few days. It's giving me a complex."

Her rigid stance deflated. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the counter, eyes on the floor. She bit down on the spot where the viper bites used to be.

"I can't keep waiting for the bomb to drop, Lisa. You're on edge all the time," I said softly.

When she stalked across the kitchen, I put my hands up to fend her off. She walked right into my palms. She brushed my hair over my shoulders, fingers skimming my collarbone. "I don't want to be up your ass like this. I'm sorry for being a dick."

"You're under a lot of stress."

"I'd like to apologize."

"Apology accepted. This week has been hard on you." I wasn't sure if I should trust her sudden shift in mood.

"I could do a better job, though." Her hand came around my backside. She pulled my phone out of my pocket and dropped it on the counter so she could grab my ass and squeezed.

Gone was the dissonant hostility, replaced with something altogether needy. Apparently, Lisa responded better to frustration than coddling.

"Sex isn't going to make this go away," I said.

"But it will make me feel better."

I grabbed her forearms. Her fingers were perilously close to places they shouldn't be if I was to have any hope of finishing this conversation. "We need to talk first."

"We can talk after." Her hands went down the back of my jeans.

"You're evading."

"I know. And you're going to let me." Her lips parted against my neck, her tongue swept out, and her teeth followed. I closed my eyes and reveled in the sensation for a fleeting moment.

"You need to talk to someone," I said, amazed my voice stayed steady considering her wandering hands and mouth.

"I'll talk to you, after I'm done using my tongue for other things."

"I mean a professional."

She retracted her hands. Her lips left my skin. I'd definitely gotten her attention.

"I can handle my own shit," she bit out.

"Lisa, I love you more than anything, and I know this is bringing up a lot of things you'd rather not deal with—but I feel like a target, not an anchor. You're not acting like yourself, and it's frightening me." Pretending everything was fine wasn't an option anymore. "I can't stay here if things don't change."

"You can't— What do you mean?"

"I can't walk on eggshells all the time."

Her eyes flared with panic. "So you'd fucking leave me?"

"No, Lisa—I won't leave you. But I can't stay here when you're like this. It's not good for either of us."

"You'd go back to your apartment?"

"If this continues, I'll have to." My chest ached at the possibility, but I needed her to see what this was doing to us.

With more lip biting she mulled it over. "I don't want to screw up this relationship. Not when I've just gotten you back."

"So you'll talk to someone?" I smoothed my hands over her shoulders.

"What if I don't like it?"

If she agreed, she was going to sit down with a perfect stranger and talk about her past and her perceived shortcomings. She was not going to like it. But if I could get her to go once, I wasn't above bribing her for subsequent visits.

"If you don't like it, you don't have to go back." I didn't say anything about finding a potential alternative. I'd worry about that later, if I needed to.

She sighed. "Fine."

"You'll go?"

"Yeah. I'm only committing to one session. We'll see what happens after that."

"That's all I'm asking for. I'll call Nate to confirm the appointment."

"Wait. What?" Her expression hardened.

The room suddenly felt small, and she was way too close. "Nate scheduled a tentative appointment. He said he had someone he thought you might like."

"You talked to Nate about this?"

"I talked to Cassie. She talked to Nate. He suggested it and I agreed—for the reason we've just talked about."

I was fully prepared for her to lose it on me, and for a moment I worried that was exactly what would happen. She glared at me, teeth grinding as her nostrils flared. I could sense her panic. I was sure she was mentally searching for a way to get out of this. The idea of confronting her past terrified her for obvious reasons.

"Please, Lisa. I love you. I want to stay, but it can't be like this." I put my hand on her chest.

She looked down to where my palm rested over her heart. She was silent for a minute. I started to drop my hand, but hers came up to cover mine. "What time's the appointment?"

"Four this afternoon."

She was silent again. Her fingers wrapped around mine and squeezed. Then, finally: "Okay. I'll go."

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