Hold Back the Dark by Eileen Carr Page B

callous and insensitive? He might be tall and hot, but that didn’t mean he was on the side of the angels.
    How could she have forgotten everything she’d learned about dealing with cops? Their goals were not her goals. Their methods weren’t hers, either.
    Aimee distracted Marian by asking questions about the framed photographs lining the hallway that led to the bedrooms. There were several of Orrin Dawkin and a handsome taller man with thick, sandy blond hair. In one photo, they were wearing jumpsuits and parachutes. In a second one, they wore scuba gear. A third showed the two men halfway up a cliff face.
    “Who is the man with Orrin in these photos? Is it his brother?” Aimee asked.
    Marian shook her head and smiled a little, although fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “No. Not his brother. Although he might as well have been, as close as those two were. That’s Carl Walter, Orrin’s business partner.”
    “Quite the adventurers, aren’t they?” Aimee said, then winced. Orrin would no longer be an adventurer. His opportunities had been crushed along with the back of his skull.
    “That’s how they met,” Marian said. “On some desert adventure trip. Orrin used to take them alone. Stacey was never one for much risk-taking, but Orrin got a real thrill from it. That whole opposites attract thing really worked for them. Anyway, he met Carl and the two hit it off. They came up with a way to go into business together about a year after that.”
    “How old was Taylor in this photo?” A grinning pigtailed Taylor stood on top of a picnic bench, mugging for the camera. It was hard to imagine her little black cloud of a client in the denim shorts and tie-dyed T-shirt she wore in the photo.
    “Let’s see. That was the summer we all went up to Lassen together.” Marian closed her eyes for a moment. “They had just moved here. Taylor was maybe seven? Eight?”
    There was a light in little Taylor’s eyes that Aimee had never seen while she’d been treating her. “She looks happy.”
    Marian smiled. “She was then. Things didn’t change until later.”
    “How much later?”
    It was always interesting to get another perspective. People lied to their therapists, as counterproductive as that seemed. More often, they lied to themselves. Even if they didn’t lie outright, they reframed things in different contexts to make them more palatable; to make themselves seem better, truer, more heroic. One more person’s viewpoint meant one more possibility of seeing the truth—or as close to the truth as anyone could ever come.
    “Not all that long,” Marian murmured, a crease furrowing her forehead. “Maybe a year later.”
    Aimee’s head snapped up. She’d expected to hear about recent problems, not a behavior change at seven or eight. None of the Dawkins had mentioned that. “Really. What happened then?”
    Marian shook her head. “I never did figure that out. Maybe it was the move. That can be hard on a kid.”
    “But it sounds like it didn’t start until well after the move.” Aimee turned back to the picture, the wheels turning in her head. “How exactly did she change?”
    Marian chewed her lip. “It was like she turned inward. Suddenly she went all clingy. Never wanted to let go of Stacey’s legs. Even wet the bed a few times.” Marian blushed, clearly feeling that she was violating a confidence. “Stacey didn’t like to talk about it too much. She worried, but I think she thought if she acted like everything was okay, it would be okay. Orrin wasn’t too sympathetic about people being weak. He was such a strong man. So definite. He didn’t always understand when other people couldn’t be the same way.”
    The hairs on the back of Aimee’s neck rose a little. There weren’t many clearer signs that a child had been traumatized than that. Regressing to the behavior of a younger child was a classic symptom. She’d have to go back to her notes and see if there was anything else that would point to