that. I’m too close to this, I get that now. But it’s really difficult for me to back off. I can’t take feeling this helpless. There’s gotta be something I can do.” He rubbed his head. “Maybe I should call Sheila’s therapist. She’s not supposed to tell me anything, but I never did ask her about Ethan Wolfe. I’m sure Sheila’s talked about him-”
“It’s late. You have her home number?”
“No.” Morris’s frustration swelled again.
Jerry sighed and pulled out his notepad. “What’s her name? I’m sure I can find it for you. Don’t get your hopes up, though, because these people take doctor-patient confidentiality very seriously. I doubt she’ll give you anything.”
“It’s worth a shot.” Morris reached for his BlackBerry. “Her name is Chang. Marianne Chang. I have her office number here in case you need to cross-reference-” Morris stopped when he saw the PI staring at him, his pen poised over his notebook. “C-H-A-N-G. What, you want me to spell out Marianne, too?”
Jerry tucked his notebook back into his breast pocket, his face the picture of amusement, even with the swelling eye. “It’s your lucky night. I know the lady. Personally.”
“You do?” Morris grinned with relief. “Finally, something’s going our way. Maybe you can get something out of her.”
“If anyone has a shot, it’s me.” The private investigator gave Morris a sideways glance and cleared his throat. “Of all the therapists in all the towns in all the world… craziest thing, Morris. Dr. Marianne Chang? She’s my wife, Annie.”
CHAPTER 36
T he house was dark when Jerry let himself in, but he knew Annie might still be up. In a hurry, he kicked off his shoes and raced up the staircase, his leather jacket still on.
He was glad to see his wife wide-awake when he entered their bedroom, but was dismayed at the pissed-off look on her face. He moved in to kiss her but she turned her head at the last second. Instead of her lips, he got a freshly scrubbed cheek.
“Are you nuts?” Annie had a book in her lap and her dark eyes glared at him behind thin reading glasses. “Keisha’s sleeping. You sounded like a gorilla coming up those stairs.” His niece and part-time receptionist often slept over.
“Sorry,” Jerry whispered. He shrugged off his coat and flopped next to her on the bed. “We gotta talk.”
“I figured.” She wasn’t amused. She bookmarked her page by folding in one corner, a trait he’d always found strange since she loved books and otherwise took good care of them. She took in his face. “What happened to you?”
“Tell you later. Right now I want to talk about Sheila Tao. She’s your patient, yes?”
Annie removed her glasses. “Yes,” she said warily. “And how, exactly, would you know that?”
“Because her fiance, Morris Gardener, is my client. He’s hired me to find her.”
Annie’s jaw didn’t quite drop, but her mouth did open slightly. “You’re shitting me.”
Jerry couldn’t help but grin. His wife didn’t swear often.
“I had no idea he was going to hire a PI.” Annie’s voice grew faint as she processed this information. “Since he hadn’t called me, I assumed he’d let it go and was moving on. He said Sheila had made it very clear…” Her face clouded over.
Jerry put a comforting hand on her thigh. “You’re not a babysitter, honey. If a patient wants to take off, what are you supposed to do? Assume the worst every time? You deal with adults who need therapy, not children who aren’t allowed to run away. And by the way,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “when did you start treating sex addiction? That’s news to me.”
His wife gave him a look. “And when did you start handling missing persons again? I thought all you’d been doing since you went civilian is catch cheating spouses.”
She didn’t know about the deal Jerry had going with Torrance, so he quickly changed the subject. “What can you tell me about Sheila?”
Annie frowned at him. “You know I can’t tell you anything about our sessions.”
“Give me a break.” Jerry stifled a sigh. “You’re not on trial here. I’m not going to do anything to make you lose your license. I’m your husband. I just need some information.”
“About?” Her tone was careful.
“Ethan Wolfe.”
She exhaled slowly. “You think he had something to do with her leaving?”
“So he is the one she cheated on him with. I can tell by the look on your face.”
His wife didn’t respond.
“You’re seriously going to play this game?” Jerry said, exasperated.
Annie’s frown deepened. “This is my job we’re talking about. What I do is confidential. Just like what you do is confidential.”
“Yeah, and how’s that working out for us?” Jerry didn’t bother to rein in his sarcasm. “Sheila Tao is missing, her fiance’s going crazy wondering if she’s okay, I’m discovering all kinds of skeletons in her closet like sex addiction, online cheating, an affair with her teaching assistant, and you, my wife, might have been able to provide answers to this whole thing days ago if we were the kind of couple who actually talked to each other about our goddamned jobs. She’s your patient. You care what happens to her, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Annie’s eyes misted. “I also consider her a friend.”
“And she was my teacher.”
“What are you…” Annie’s face showed confusion, then she blinked. “Oh, right. You took that night class at PSSU way back, when she was teaching under her married name. I can’t believe I never put that together. Mind you, in the past couple of years, we talked a lot more about her personal life than we did mine.”
His wife was quiet for a long moment. Then her mouth twitched. He had her.
“You used the word missing, ” she finally said. “Is she missing missing or did she leave?”
Jerry told her about the tape he’d gotten from the Briar Woods security guard. “She looked fine, like she was sleeping, but the driver wasn’t Wolfe. Her phone message to Morris when she canceled the wedding-”
“You heard it? How did she sound?”
“Like a woman breaking up with her fiance. Upset, crying. Said she was leaving town to go to rehab. Didn’t want Morris to follow her. Apologized a bunch of times.”
“Shit,” Annie said again, thinking hard. Finally she looked at Jerry. “All right, I don’t care. I need to know Sheila’s okay, and right now I don’t know that she is. So screw confidentiality. Ask me whatever you want and I’ll tell you what I can.”
Jerry kissed her hand. “I would never let this jeopardize your career, you know that.”
Her smile was anxious. “I know.”
It was his turn to think for a moment. “Okay, so I’ve met Ethan Wolfe. I didn’t like him-something about him seemed off. He was twitchy. He maintained eye contact but he was trying too hard to convince me they weren’t having an affair. Were they getting it on?”
Annie’s nod was firm. “The affair lasted about three months, but he pursued her long before that. It ended when Sheila got engaged to Morris. Ethan flipped out when she suggested he work with a new adviser. Threatened to release a sex video they’d made. It would have ruined her career.”
Jerry felt a flutter in his stomach, something that always happened when his instincts were right on the money. “Release it how?”
“Internet.”
“So he is an asshole.” Jerry grinned, triumphant. “I knew it. What’d she do then?”
In contrast, Annie’s face was grim. “At first she played along, gave him what he wanted. Didn’t transfer him.” Annie looked as if she were about to add something more, but then stopped. “He dangled that video over her head. After a while, she became convinced he didn’t really have it, because they did quarrel a couple of times. If he had it, he’d have used it.”
“But what about her job?”
