Nights With Him(104)

“He’s right,” Jack said, weighing in. “Someone has it out to get you. Is there any chance it could be one of your patients?”

“No,” she said emphatically. She wanted to believe they wouldn’t skewer her like this. But she knew it would be foolish not to consider the possibility.

“Wait,” Jack said, snapping his fingers. “You mentioned something in Paris—”

The phone rang, stopping him and she flinched all over. “Let me answer,” Davis said firmly.

She shook her head. “It might be a client.” She put the phone to her ear. “Michelle here.”

“On the couch? Is that true?” It was Shayla.

“Hi. And no,” she said, because the time in her office was on the chair.

“Oh, thank God,” she said with a relieved sigh. “Anyway, I’m so glad you’re back. Because my husband is freaking out. When can I see you?”

Michelle was amazed that Shayla was completely focused on herself when the world around her was cratering. But then, at least one client was interested in someone other than Michelle, and she vastly preferred not being the center of other people’s attention.

“I just landed. We can set something up for tomorrow. Is that soon enough?”

Shayla agreed, but when the call ended, Michelle latched onto something. My husband is freaking out. Could it have been Shayla’s husband who did this? Was Clark Shayla’s husband after all using a fake name? Was this his way of driving some sort of wedge between his wife, and the shrink he thought was encouraging her to leave him?

“Michelle,” Jack said, and she flipped over and looked at him, amazed that mere hours ago she’d been flying home, blissfully unaware that her career was being tanked. “You said in Paris that you had a new client. You thought he was checking you out during a session, and then in the next one he knew too much about you,” he said, repeating her words back to her. He’d remembered every single one. “Standard businessman, you said. He had dark hair, dark glasses. He looked like someone you bumped into outside your office.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Could it have been him? Did he take your phone? Did he have access to your phone at all?”

“No,” she said, but then she swallowed back the word as the memory unfolded before her eyes. Clark coughing. Michelle leaving him to get water. Was that enough time? “Well, there was this one time right before we went to Paris,” she said, and explained what happened during Clark’s last session. “But he didn’t take the phone. At the end of the session, it was still there in my drawer where I keep it.”

Jack shook his head, ran a hand through his hair. “He doesn’t have to take it. There’s software that can clone a phone like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “All he had to do was have access to your phone for a minute, maybe two. Were you gone long enough?”

Down the hallway. Opened the fridge. Didn’t see bottled water. Grabbed a mug. Filled it from the tap. Walked back to the office.

“Yes,” she said as the chill seeped from her bones into her skin.

“He had to have done it. He took your personal phone while you were getting water and dropped an app on it that clones it. I bet that’s what he did. Then, when he was on his computer watching the cloned phone, he was able to steal your password to your email.”

Her brain pounded against her skull. Her mind was swimming, slipping further under water, gulping for air.

“But my personal phone has a screenlock. My work phone does too. How would he have gotten past it that quickly?”

“It’s easy to break screenlocks,” he said, grabbing his own phone, and showing her the screen. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be looking for until he tilted it in the light next to her couch. When he had it angled just right, she gasped. The streaks from his fingerprints revealed his own screen lock. “The oils from your fingers. All he had to do was hold it just so to see the pattern you make.”

“But why?” Davis asked, pressing once more. “What does someone have against my sister?”

Something caught her eye on his phone. An incoming email flashed across his notifications, and she swore it was from Michelle with two Ls. Her veins filled with ice. Before he could answer, Michelle pointed to his phone. “You have a new email from me,” she said, in a dead voice.

from: michellewithtwols@gmail.com

to: justjack@gmail.com

date: Oct 1, 6:32 PM

subject: You like it dirty?

Try this for dirty. There’s more with this came from. Back off now or else we’ll really hit below the belt.