Hey, Golden!
I hope you’re doing well with this crazy pandemic thing! I wanted to give you a head start on my new book. It will be the last in the series. It hasn’t sold very well. But I do have a few fans out there and I can’t disappoint them by not wrapping things up.
It’s called Missy’s Child. That’s right, Missy and Prince Holden are married, so of course, they must produce an heir to the throne! I haven’t settled on a name yet, but it will be a baby boy. I’d like the cover to have Missy holding him when he’s about two, which is when the story will pick up.
For inspiration, attached please find a photo of the most adorable towheaded little boy you’ve ever seen! He’s my nephew.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Helen
Romy held her breath, an ominous foreshadowing in her gut, and opened the attachment.
The photo was a bit faded. The boy was, indeed, towheaded and adorable enough to be a child model. But he was no “nephew.” It was obviously a picture of Heath as a toddler, with those same sublime china-blue eyes with the barest flickers of golden-green embroidered in over-large irises.
In the photo, Heath was platinum blond and pale as soap. His hair had, like most blond children, darkened over time. Thanks to long, lifeguarding summers in the glaring sunshine, his skin was almost permanently tanned, not this alabaster color.
Toddler Heath and the little girl in the window could easily pass for siblings. Even fraternal twins.
The implication of this made Romy clench her teeth, hold her breath—the little girl looked like she could be Heath’s daughter.
“Hello, Romy, I’m Loretta Hale. It’s so nice to meet you. Heath said you’d like to talk. I need to inform you that to comply with patient confidentiality and HIPAA law, we can’t discuss Heath’s therapy at all.”
On Romy’s laptop was a woman of about sixty, with long reddish hair and large, half-dollar-shaped eyes. She was wearing a bright, multicolored dress in a zigzag pattern, and gave off a hippy vibe.
“That’s fine,” Romy said.
“What would you like to speak about today?”
“Okay. So.” Romy began spilling out, rat-a-tat-tat style. “You probably know that Heath and I came here because of the pandemic. I have a house. Shortly after we moved in, I was woken up by this… whispering or low talking. I saw this… it was a little girl. Staring into my window.”
Romy was gesticulating so animatedly she knew she must look sort of crazed but couldn’t help it. “She was very blonde and really pale. She ran off and I couldn’t find her. When I saw her a second time, her eyes were strangely blue, almost glowing. But again, I couldn’t find her in the yard. The third time, Heath and I were… um… doing what adults do… and there she was again! In the window! Heath went out with the dog but neither could find her.”
The woman was studiously blank-faced as if she heard such tales on the regular. Finally, she said in a very smooth, reassuring voice, “Does Heath see her?”
“No. She always runs off.”
“Have you called the police?”
“No. She’s gone so fast. What would be the point of calling them?” She didn’t mention she had a fear that the police would bring up bad memories for Heath. Or maybe, recognizing him, they’d start poking around in the death of Misty again.
“Can you describe the girl to me, was she transparent… or…?”
“Transparent? No. But very pale.”
“What was she wearing?”
“It’s hard to say. I only see her for a few seconds, and her face comes up to the windowsill. She seems about ten or eleven years old.”
Romy felt her nose tingling harshly as if she was about to cry, so she pretended to be jotting notes on a nearby notepad.
“What I want to know is, could this be in my head?” she asked, trying to sound clinically detached and not hysterical.
“It’s certainly a possibility,” Loretta answered, without hesitation. “You said she’s speaking to you? What does she say?”
“Ahhh… she says…” Romy’s voice went very quiet. “Bad lady. And… um... Leave this place.”
“By ‘bad lady’—she means you?”
Romy nodded.
“Does the little girl remind you of anyone?”
Romy paused for a long time, staring off at the opposite wall and its framed pictures of her grandmother, mother, and herself when she was younger. She’d told Heath he had to leave the house during her session, and he’d given her no arguments, loping off into the backyard, where they’d started a garden. But she turned and checked to make sure the door was closed.
“Yeah, she does.” She kept her voice low. “She reminds me of… Heath. When he was a little boy.”
Loretta was silent for several moments, then got to the crux of the matter. “Romy, did anything happen to you when you were little? Something involving Heath?”
Romy was absently kneading the muscle of her thigh, over and over, with the knuckles of her fist. “Is this confidential?”
“Of course.”
Romy nodded tightly and sighed out, “Something happened. Yes.”
“So… you did something you feel responsible for? When you and Heath were little?”
“Something like that,” she mumbled.
She had to stop looking so damn guilty. Heath must have told Loretta about Misty. If Romy continued to ooze guilt, continued to hint around about a bad thing she’d done that involved Heath—how long would it take for Loretta to piece together that Romy had something to do with Misty’s death?
But Loretta’s expression was the very picture of kindly nonjudgment. “Would you like to share what happened?” she pressed.
“No. I don’t.” Then, startled, she gasped, “You won’t tell Heath this, right?”
“Absolutely not.” Loretta paused, then smiled benignly. “It sounds as if this little girl is a manifestation of your conscience. I think when you resolve this issue, she’ll go away.”
“But how do I resolve it?” Romy asked hoarsely.
“What about sharing what happened with Heath? He’s been your friend for a long time. The two of you are basically living together now.”
“I—I can’t.”
“Romy… if you made a mistake, or a misjudgment, that had consequences that, at the time, you didn’t understand, you need to forgive yourself. You wouldn’t be worried about this if you weren’t a good person, and good people make mistakes.” She paused ominously. “However, if the consequence was the death of somebody, you would need to go to the police as there is no statute of limitations on death.”
The counselor smiled benignly again, and Romy couldn’t tell if the woman did think she’d killed somebody or was only saying that because it was in her repertoire of counselor-type things she was required to say.
“Romy, we aren’t going to talk about Heath,” she continued, “but since I know you know about his sleepwalking, I’ll make a small exception. It sounds like the two of you have deep issues from your past that you’re grappling with. Do you think now is a healthy time to start a relationship?”
“Maybe not. It just happened. We’re sort of stuck together.”
“I understand.”
As the woman nodded, her big, round eyes pulsing with maternal concern, Romy had the oddest flash of intuition that the woman was in love with Heath.
Something about the way she said his name, drawing it out slightly, Heeeathhh, as if she enjoyed rolling his name around her mouth. Something about the way she’d asked if they should be starting a relationship—the way the question had gone up at the end with a slight inflection of disapproval. More than disapproval, a smidgen of irritation.
“What I suggest,” Loretta went on, “is try talking to this little girl. Tell her she’s a figment of your imagination, of your subconscious.” Her voice was so tranquil, it was hypnotic. “Tell her that you forgive her. Because you’re really telling yourself.”