A Wrongful Death Read Free

at his files?"
    "Not at the office. While she looked here, I found it at the office. See, cooperation."
    Sarah Kurtz's face became noticeably more mottled as she stared at her son. Wordlessly she turned and hurried to the home office. Terry got up and followed her. The key was still in the lock. Sarah yanked open the file drawer and riffled through the folders.
    "I told you, I found it, down at the office. She didn't find anything."
    Abruptly Sarah swung around, and her hand flashed out in a sharp slap across his face. "You bloody, blithering idiot! Go get her and bring her back here! Now!"
    "She won't come. I told her I had the assignment. No reason for her to come back." He rubbed his cheek and stepped out of his mother's reach.
    "Bring Jason! She'll come! Go get her now!"
    Chapter 2
    The first time Barbara Holloway entered the office of Dr. Marjorie Sanger, she had been restless and wary, and spent minutes prowling about the office, examining books on shelves, a series of miniature paintings in a frame, a globe. She had not expected to see the doctor. Being given the time because there had been a cancellation had taken her by surprise, but driving from Eugene to San Francisco she had promised herself to make the call, to seek help in untying the tangle of messy knots she had made of her life. Her own attempts to unravel the knots only succeeded in drawing them tighter.
    "Are you going to tell me why you're here?" the psychologist had asked after a few minutes.
    "I'm trying to decide where to begin," Barbara said. "It's difficult." In her mind she was trying to decide not where to begin, but if she would begin, or say it was all a mistake, excuse herself and leave.
    "Yes, it often is. But let me start you. You're a professional woman facing a crisis of some sort. You've never consulted a therapist in the past and you rarely talk about personal difficulties."
    Barbara paused her restless wandering and looked hard at her.
    "No, I didn't look you up. Hardly time for that, was there? But you're guarding your reputation. You asked my receptionist for the charge in order to bring enough cash. No insurance record or credit card. No paper trail. Outsiders often seize any opportunity to paint us all as unstable, don't they?"
    She was a wizened little woman, hardly more than five feet tall, and she couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds. Her hair was gray and frizzy, natural, Barbara assumed, since no one would get a perm like that and live with it. Indeterminate age, fifty-five, seventy?
    The doctor smiled. "People who are garrulous have no trouble at all in starting to talk. Often about inconsequential matters, but they can no more resist talking than they can stop breathing. Many others seek out a neutral figure, one who knows nothing about them, another form of guarding the self, and quite often they find they don't know if they want to talk at all. And it's a crisis for you, or you wouldn't be here. See? Simple."
    She laughed, and Barbara sat down opposite her desk.
    On her next visit the doctor had said, "Every professional person faces the crisis of faith, crisis of belief, of personal integrity, something, and each one of us has to decide. No one can do it for us. You understand that you're suddenly on the tipping point of a life, your own or someone else's, that what you decide will determine someone's fate. It isn't just a minor nuisance, but a life-altering fate, and how you tip the scale is irreversible. It's a heavy weight to bear."
    The next time Barbara had come, she again moved restlessly about the office, unable to sit still.
    "What happened, Barbara?" Dr. Sanger asked. "Something has changed for you, hasn't it?"
    Tiredly, Barbara sank into a chair and nodded. "It seemed simple. He would accept that I'm not the right one for him and get on with things, and I would get over it. People do."
    "And now?"
    "He wants to marry me. I got an e-mail with a proposal." She jerked to her feet and went to the globe, gave