Last Run by Hilary Norman

killer. The thought made Sam feel no better.
    Gregory Hoffman came for another session on Wednesday afternoon, half an hour after Lucia had left for the day.
    When he had first been brought to Grace, he had come burdened by undiagnosed dyslexia and an accompanying lack of self-confidence, all his problems magnified – though it had taken him
months to admit to that – by his marijuana habit.
    ‘But he’s just a
child
,’ Annie Hoffman had protested when Grace had, with Gregory’s agreement, broken the news to her.
    Gregory and thousands of others, Grace had told the distraught mother, tens of thousands, probably more. Maybe in big cities, Annie had argued – meaning not in Sunny Isles Beach, not in an
affluent, loving, Jewish home from which a twelve-year-old boy got driven to school by his dad and collected by his mom and taken to temple Sunday mornings so he could study for his bar
mitzvah.
    Grace had never found out when Greg’s habit had begun or who had sold him his marijuana; she was his psychologist, not a police officer, and all she had cared about was getting through to
him,
helping
him, and she had helped, they all had.
    But here he was again, back down in the dark. Yet it was not, she felt, the same.
    This was different, seriously so. Annie thought so, and Greg had said as much himself at the weekend.
    He looked a little less freaked out, less haunted, this afternoon, but he was still patently disturbed and also physically worn, indefinably
damaged.
It would be easy, Grace realized, to
pin this sudden downturn on some new chemical being pumped into his system, and she knew that a bad acid trip, for instance, might still be affecting him long after the stuff was out of his
bloodstream – but still, all her instincts warned her that something else was at work here.
    She had wondered, ever since Gregory had left on Saturday, what he had meant when he had said that he could cope with his nightmares, but that it was the ‘waking stuff’ he
couldn’t take.
    ‘What did you mean by that, Greg?’ she asked him now, out on the deck again.
    He closed his eyes, and shuddered.
    ‘Take your time,’ Grace said.
    The eyes remained shut, and his mouth worked for a moment.
    ‘Saw me,’ he said, so softly she had to strain to hear.
    ‘Who saw you, Gregory?’ Grace leaned forward as far as the baby would allow.
    He said it again, the same two words.
    ‘Saw me.’
    He opened his eyes, and seemed, for a second, startled, disoriented.
    ‘Greg?’ Grace was gentle. ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘I can’t do this.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, doc’
    ‘You said someone saw you,’ Grace persevered. ‘Did someone see you doing something, Greg? Is that what you’ve been dreaming about?’
    ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said.
    ‘I just want to help,’ Grace said. ‘You know it would be in confidence.’
    He shook his head again. ‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘Sorry, doc’
    There was an air of regretful finality about those last words, a sense of giving up.
    The thought made Grace shiver.
    She had just watched him climb into his mother’s car, having agreed to speak with Annie and Jay later that evening, when Cathy’s Mazda pulled up.
    Grace guessed, the instant she saw the stranger climbing out of the passenger seat, that this was Kez Flanagan. Not just because of the short, vibrantly red hair that Cathy had described to her,
but because of the way she moved.
    An athlete, definitely, a runner like Cathy, but tougher, leaner, less feminine.
    ‘Hi, there,’ she said to them both from the doorway.
    ‘Hi, Grace.’ Cathy’s cheeks were flushed. ‘This is Kez Flanagan.’ She smiled at the young woman. ‘Kez, this is my mom, Grace.’
    ‘Hello, Dr Becket.’ Kez put out her hand.
    ‘It’s Dr Lucca,’ Cathy said a little awkwardly.
    ‘Grace is fine,’ her mother said easily, and looked down at Kez’s hands. ‘Love the nails,’ she said.
    They all came inside and Cathy shut the door. ‘She