Mind Games Read Free

their own twin palms and fiery bottle brush tree and, best of all, the deck.
    Grace had known right away that the house would work out well, too, as a professional environment, and it had. The parents who brought their children to her and left them in her care
appreciated, for the most part, the fact that it looked and felt safe and clean. From her standpoint Grace set great store by comfort and ease, which was why when the weather was fine – as it
almost always was in south-east Florida – and unless a patient had some kind of problem with being outdoors, they could sit out in the fresh air on the deck or inside the screening on the
lanai – and having Harry around tended to help relax most of the children Grace spent time with. Lord only knew many of them needed all the relaxation she could offer.
    The phone message, from a detective of the Miami Beach Police Department, sounded urgent enough for her to return the call right away. The number was for a cellular phone, and
Detective Sam Becket picked up after just two rings.
    ‘Detective, this is Grace Lucca. I just got your message.’
    ‘I appreciate your calling back so fast, doctor.’ His voice was rich and gentle. He sounded, Grace thought, quite illogically, very unlike a policeman.
    ‘No problem. What can I do for you?’
    ‘My father tells me you have a talent for breaking through to badly traumatized kids.’
    ‘Your father?’ Grace tried ransacking her memory.
    ‘Dr David Becket. I believe you’ve worked together.’
    ‘We sure have.’ The craggy face of one of the gentlest paediatricians she knew sprang into Grace’s mind, and she smiled into the receiver. ‘It’s kind of him to have
said that about me.’ She paused. ‘So what’s the story, detective?’
    Becket filled her in on the Cathy Robbins tragedy.
    ‘Cathy’s out of the hospital now,’ he told her, rounding off, ‘staying with her aunt – her mother’s sister – but she still won’t talk about what
happened.’
    ‘Not surprising, under the circumstances.’
    Becket explained that his father, Frances Dean – the aunt – two counsellors from the Child Assessment Centre and a psychologist resident at Miami General had all failed to elicit any
response from the young teenager.
    ‘You realize there’s no guarantee she’ll talk to me either,’ Grace pointed out.
    ‘Of course not,’ Becket agreed, ‘but my father thinks she just might.’ He paused. ‘We have to find out what she knows.’
    ‘It might not be much,’ Grace said.
    ‘Whatever it is, however small, we need to know,’ he persisted, sounding more like a cop.
    Grace took a moment, glanced down at Harry, on his back on the floor near her feet. Harry liked staying close as much as possible. She wondered, fleetingly, if Cathy Robbins liked dogs.
    ‘Is her aunt okay with this?’ she asked the detective.
    ‘She says so.’
    ‘This afternoon too soon?’
    ‘Sooner the better,’ Becket answered.
    ‘Any rules about what she tells me?’
    Becket took a moment before answering again. ‘No rules. This is an unofficial request, Dr Lucca, and I’m making it because no one else has made any headway.’
    ‘You realize that my concern will be for Cathy, not your investigation?’
    ‘I do. But I’m hoping whatever you learn may help us all.’
    ‘So Cathy Robbins is not a suspect?’
    ‘Not at this time,’ the detective answered, and Grace knew he was being careful. ‘Right now, so far as you’re concerned, she’s strictly a victim.’
    She grabbed a pen from the Donald Duck mug on her desk.
    ‘I’ll need an address.’
    Becket gave it together with Frances Dean’s phone number, and thanked her. Grace wrote down the details, replaced the phone on her desk and looked out of the window. Outside it was still
sunny, but the warmth and ease had drained out of her afternoon. She had dealt with victims of rapes and violence and all kinds of terrors, both real and imagined, but this was her first