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She wiped at the tears on her face. "I saw things. I need to get away from it."
I didn't hesitate. I scooped her up and carried her out of the office. She pressed her head against my chest as we waited for the elevator. "It's okay now, Wren." Man, it tore me up when she cried. She was going through too much all at once.
The elevator took us up to my floor, and I set her on her feet in the entry.
"Where are we?" she asked as she peered around the mostly empty place.
"This is my apartment." I closed the blinds and secured the alarms. "Listen to me. You are safe here. You got it? There is no weapon that can shoot through that glass. There is not a person who can breach that door. The entire building is secure. No one can hurt you."
She nodded slowly. "Okay."
I walked her over to the black leather couch in front of the window and a coffee table in the sunken living room. "Have a seat. Take a minute. I'll get you some water."
She stared at the closed blinds as I poured a tall glass of water for her. Her hands shook as she tried to sip it.
"What the hell did Fiona do to you?"
"It's not her fault."
"Start from the beginning." I took the glass from her and set it on the coffee table.
"She offered to help me with my nerves. She put me in a trance." She still seemed dazed and unfocused.
"What the fuck?"
"She does hypnotherapy, and it was all going fine." She stopped talking and started pushing her fingernails into herskin. God, I hated this setback for her. I never should've left her. I should've been here. Not that I could do much to help. Last time, massaging her arms calmed her.
"Hold on." In my bathroom, I retrieved a bottle of unscented moisturizing cream similar to the one I'd used last time. I returned to the couch and sat next to her. I squeezed a dab on her wrists and started rubbing it in with my thumbs.
She was quiet for a long time while I massaged the lotion into her arms, and her breathing started to even out.
"So, you were in Fiona's office trying some hypnotherapy crap?"
"It's not crap. It's a real thing. It works for a lot of people," she quipped.
"Sure." I rolled my eyes. Hypnotherapy was definitely not a real thing, but I was already not saying the right words to help her calm down, so I kept that to myself.
"Anyway, she coaxed me into an extremely relaxed state. I imagined I was a dragon, and I burned the magic box. It was working, but then the image shifted, and I lost control. Tommy was there. He was younger, but he had the same tattoo. It was fresher then. More red. My mom and dad were there." She spoke without emotion at first, but when she looked up at me, her face crumbled. "Tommy killed my parents." A tear dropped from her eye, and all I could do was stare at it in frustration. I brushed it from her cheek with my thumb, but I knew more were coming.
What the hell? "You saw this?"
"I think I saw it as a child. When it came back to me, it was crystal clear. It was Tommy. He shot my parents in the bakery. Four shots.Pop-pop-pop-pop. Just like I'd heard during the explosion. My grandfather told me it didn't happen. He said they died of an illness. He told me there were no gunshots, just like you did." She looked at me like I'd betrayed her.
I took her hands in mine and held them tight. "There weren't any real shots, Wren. I did not lie to you. It sounds like some kind of flashback." Now I felt like shit for not asking her more details earlier than this.
She pulled her hands away and stood up. "But he's gone now, and they're gone. Everyone is gone, and Tommy killed them." She paced away from me with her hands on her hips. "I'm sure it's a memory, not a nightmare. It feels too real. Do you believe me?" She spun and we locked gazes.
"I do." Her tears were too genuine, her terror too palpable to be a lie.
"What hurts the most is knowing my grandfather deceived me. I must've blocked it out because I didn't want to believe he would lie to me." She covered her face. "This is so screwed up."
"It is." I walked over to her and wrapped her in a hug. I didn't know what else to do anymore. "We can look into it. Try to prove it and get him for double homicide."
She shook her head. "It was so long ago. I doubt there's any evidence left. All we have is my repressed childhood memory. That's it."
"We can make sure he goes down with Kenny."
She pushed me away and pulled her shoulders back. "I want to kill him."
