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In Confidence
Karen Young
The irony of life is not lost on high school guidance counselor Rachel Forrester: while she is educating teens about good choices, her own life is spiraling out of control. First, she learns her husband is having an affair. Second, her aging mother collapses. And third, Cameron Ford is back in her life–again.As Rachel struggles to get her life in order, her fifteen-year-old son, Nick, forges a bond with the taciturn Cameron. Oddly, it is this bond that opens new doors of healing and promise for them all.And it's Cameron whom Nick trusts with a dangerous secret–a secret that may be connected to the death of Cameron's son, Jack, five years ago…a secret that could endanger them all.
“Ted tells me I’m prissy and uptight, and that I should get over the incident between Francine and our daughter. He actually said he's nuts about Francine because, even though my IQ is higher, she’s fun to be with, she has big boobs and a nice butt and—get this—when they have sex, he feels he's died and gone to heaven.” She threw up her hands, then dropped them to her sides in bafflement. “All vestiges of sanity have disappeared from my life.”
“C’mere.” Before she realized his intent, Cam had his arms around her, enveloping her in sympathy and warm masculine strength. Instinct made her resist…but only for a heartbeat. She was still all worked up over the sheer unfairness of life at the moment, and the appeal of a friendly hug was simply too much to resist. Tears started in her eyes and she blinked furiously to hold them back. She sniffed.
“Without a doubt you have the higher IQ,” he told her softly.
She heard the smile in his voice and, turning her nose into his nice clean shirt, gave a shaky chuckle. “Ted said that, I didn't.”
“Because you would never boast about your IQ.”
“No, never.” Then, in a bewildered voice, she added, “But what good does having a high IQ do if you can’t keep a husband?”
“You would keep a decent one without even trying.”
Also by KAREN YOUNG
PRIVATE LIVES
FULL CIRCLE
GOOD GIRLS
In Confidence
Karen Young
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
If you have read any of my previous books, you’ll know that I invariably come up with stories of women just like you and me, women who are dealing with the problems of contemporary life.
My heroines face the ups and downs of courtship or marriage, the stresses of parenting and family crises, divorce…and just about anything else you can think of. And all the while, of course, they’re usually pursuing a career with its thorny challenges.
I almost always throw in something more to complicate my heroine’s already complicated life. Rachel Forrester, the woman I write about in In Confidence, is certainly besieged by a host of unexpected—and painful—changes in her life. Her marriage of seventeen years ends when she discovers her husband’s infidelity. As a high school guidance counselor, she isn't supposed to fail at this most basic relationship, so it is a struggle to handle such a deep personal betrayal and at the same time maintain a loving and secure environment for her children.
She is also conflicted by her attraction to a true-crime writer who lives next door, but he blames her for failing to anticipate his teenage son’s suicide five years earlier. But much worse is her growing suspicion that something evil exists in her world, something that threatens the very fabric of her life, something that has already taken one young victim.
So settle back and prepare yourself for a story I’ve written about a shocking secret in a small Texas town…but it could happen anywhere.
Karen Young
I love to hear from readers. Please write me at P. O. Box 450947, Houston, Texas 77245. Or visit my Web site at authorkarenyoung.com.
Contents
Prologue (#u7b5aadc1-b581-5ac5-835b-bc4aa3762ae0)
Chapter One (#udac759a3-8160-5151-b354-5f96146faf2a)
Chapter Two (#udcc14277-08d2-5802-9e6f-4429e2942415)
Chapter Three (#u05836f26-fa34-5aac-8ab9-895d23cb2d7f)
Chapter Four (#ua2b44bef-1b42-5483-97ab-3de06196b1d3)
Chapter Five (#u8024bde9-2e85-5fce-a4f7-faa80fe4b4bf)
Chapter Six (#u9f6af601-8d11-5391-a5d1-85c7d3a62512)
Chapter Seven (#u36638c45-1638-59fb-9643-c0ac44a881a7)
Chapter Eight (#u5a85721d-26f1-5d4a-87a5-3c01dd505b15)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Rose Hill, Texas
April 1998
Right on time, the door opened and the interview Rachel Forrester had dreaded all morning was at hand. She often faced trying situations, but this was surely the worst in her experience.
“Mr. Ford?” Rachel Forrester stood behind her desk, extending her hand in formal greeting to the father of the boy. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I liked Jack so much, everyone who knew him did. He was a fine boy and a gifted athlete. He will be sorely missed here at Rose Hill High.”
Cameron Ford grunted a reply and barely touched her palm before saying abruptly, “I have a few questions.”
“Won’t you please have a seat?” She gestured to the chair in front of her desk.
“I’ll stand.”
She nodded, bracing for a difficult interview. As she eased down on her chair, he swiped a hand over a face ravaged with grief, fatigue and sleep deprivation. He was a tall man of rangy build with dark brown hair and gray eyes hooded at the moment. He seemed to vibrate with energy, which probably explained how he carried not a spare ounce of flesh on him. His clothes were rumpled, as if he’d thrown them on without giving much thought to the way he’d look, or to any first impression he made. He wouldn’t have recalled seeing her at Jack’s funeral. In his shoes, she certainly wouldn’t, she thought.
“I’ll be glad to answer your questions as best I can,” she told him.
He looked directly at her then from eyes that burned with accusation. “Why didn’t you do your job with Jack?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m telling you right up front that I think you dropped the ball with Jack. You’re a shrink, right? I was told by Preston Ramsey that, as his guidance counselor, you saw my son no less than six times this semester. What’s your job if it’s not to spot troubled kids and step in before they wind up—” He turned away and paced to the window, keeping his back to her. “I want to know what went on in those six sessions that you didn’t guess he was suicidal.”
“Mr. Ford, won’t you please take a seat so we can talk calmly.”
He turned and took a step toward her desk. “I am calm. But I’m mad as hell and I intend to get answers, if not from you, then I’ll go beyond you and Ramsey. You were privy to his confidences and Ramsey was his principal. Are you honestly telling me you didn’t have a clue—either one of you—that Jack was contemplating suicide?”
Wary of his rage, Rachel felt her heartbeat up a bit, but she kept her tone even. “Yes, I’m telling you exactly that,” she said, folding her hands in front of her. “I didn’t think—”
“Yeah, what the hell were you thinking!” The sound of his hand slapped on her desktop was like a shot in the small office. “Do you people only notice when a kid winds up dead?”
“Please, Mr. Ford.” Rachel rose from her chair on shaky legs. “If you want to talk about this, I’m more than willing, but it’s not helpful to scream at me.”
“It seems to me the time for talking is about a week late,” he told her in a grim tone. “You had plenty of opportunities to get a fix on Jack in six sessions. Weren’t you listening? Isn’t that what shrinks do? Or did you hear what he said and just ignored it?”
“Nobody ignored Jack, Mr. Ford,” she said patiently, watching him pace. “His grades were slipping. I noticed he was withdrawing from his peers. He was skipping classes. His teachers were concerned. I was concerned. And I saw him for those sessions only because I dragged him in in an attempt to reach him. It wasn’t his choice.”
He stopped momentarily. “So what did the two of you talk about, the weather?” he asked sarcastically.
He was hurting, she knew that. Rightfully. He was entitled. He needed someone, something on which to focus his rage and pain. In that, he was no different from the other parents she saw who were bewildered and frustrated over their kids’ behavior. How much worse must it be to suffer the ultimate loss as Cameron Ford had? She drew a deep breath. “Something was going on, but he wasn’t willing to share it. At least, not with me.”
His eyes were icy with disdain. “And didn’t that tell you something?”
“What should it have told me, Mr. Ford?”
“Maybe you’re in the wrong business. Maybe these kids need someone who’s more skillful in connecting with them.”
She answered him coolly. “I can’t force a teenage boy to share his deepest thoughts.” Even knowing he needed to lash out, there was a limit to what she’d tolerate. “We can only do our best,” she said.
“Yeah, well, your best wasn’t enough to keep my son alive, was it?”
Out of compassion and professional restraint, Rachel bit back a sharp response. As the boy’s guidance counselor, she knew she’d done her best. She could have asked if Ford had done his best as a father. Where was he in Jack’s time of need? “I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by continuing our discussion just now, Mr. Ford,” she said quietly. “Maybe you need to give yourself some time to adjust to your loss, and then, if you’d like to talk, you know where to reach me.” Even before she’d finished, he was stalking to the door. “Just call the school to make an appointment.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” he said. Then, with his hand on the catch, he suddenly turned back. “Instead of answers, all I got from you today was a lot of evasion and bullshit. If this session is an example of your expertise, I think I understand why, when Jack was in trouble, you failed him. God help other kids in your care.”
One
Rose Hill, Texas
Five years later
Nothing about the start of the day hinted at the way it would end. Rachel Forrester’s routine didn’t vary from the moment she got out of bed at six in the morning. She showered first, as always, then she headed downstairs to get the coffee started and fix breakfast for the kids. When that was done, she took two steaming mugs back to the bedroom, timing it just as Ted was toweling off. Her husband was slow to get going unless he had an early surgery scheduled. Neither made much conversation. Ted didn’t like early-morning chatter.
“Is my black suit—the Armani—back from the cleaners?” he asked from the depths of the walk-in closet.
Rachel pulled the suit from half a dozen plastic-shrouded items hanging on her side of the closet. “It’s here with all this stuff that was delivered yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to separate it.”
Ted took it after she stripped away the plastic, then chose two dress shirts from the twenty-or-so hanging in his closet and walked to the large sliding glass doors where the light was better. “What looks best?” he asked, critically studying the effects of both shirts with the Armani jacket.
“Depends on the tie.”
He held up a smart black-and-gray tie. “This one.”
“Okay, the white French cuffs.” She paused in the act of buttoning her denim skirt and watched him put the shirt on. “Something special going on today?”
“I’ll be in Dallas. Walter finally convinced me that we should interview that internist out of Baylor. Fat chance persuading him to leave Houston to come to a town the size of Rose Hill.”
Rachel smiled. “Well, you’ll make a terrific impression.” Ted was an attractive man, still trim at forty-two, with just enough silver at the temples in his dark hair to add a distinguished touch. She walked over and took the cuff link he was fumbling with in his left hand and deftly fastened it.
“Thanks,” he said, then picked up his jacket.
“Will you be back in time to have dinner with us?”
