I SEE YOU an unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist by PATRICIA MACDONALD (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📕

at Verizon. She must have known that he could access her information if he wanted to. No, if she had a secret life, the evidence would be somewhere else.

Hannah took a deep breath, preparatory to entering the room. And if there was no secret life, if Jamie had been lying, if this ugly, lurking suspicion which was now weighing on Hannah’s heart had nothing to it, then no one would ever have to know that she had searched through Lisa’s things. She would tell everyone, including Adam and Lisa, that she had come home from work early, feeling ill, and lay down, and that was the end of it. She said a brief prayer that this was exactly what these next hours would bring. She would find nothing. There would be nothing. Nothing but innocence and evidence of Lisa’s hard work. Nothing to make a mother anything but proud. Please God, she thought.

She stepped into the room and looked around. She would start with the desk. The desk, she figured, would not yield any obvious clues. Lisa was too smart for that. But it was the logical place to start. Hannah sat down in the desk chair, and began to search.

The afternoon sun poured through the window, and then began to fade as Hannah went through all of Lisa’s belongings. She looked in every drawer, in every plastic box, on every shelf. She searched relentlessly. It didn’t help that she wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Some evidence of perversion. Some proof that Lisa indulged in evil, callous behavior. Instead, she found medical texts, underlined and annotated, photos of high-school friends acting crazy, and adorable photos of Sydney wearing cute hats and sundresses and Halloween costumes. After several hours, Hannah sat down on Lisa’s bed and looked around the room.

She had tried to put everything back but she knew that there would inevitably be things out of place. When Lisa returned, she would complain bitterly that her mother had been in her room, and how dare she? And, Hannah thought, with a relief bordering on bliss, she would gladly admit her guilt. Say that she was looking for something. She would make something up. What did it matter? It didn’t. This was not the room of a psychopath. A child molester. This room was exactly what it appeared to be — the room of a young mother, a hard-working medical student, her own, wonderful daughter.

Hannah was exhausted but felt better than she had in twenty-four hours. She had not tried to avoid the worst. She had confronted it. And found nothing. I’m sorry, Lisa, she thought. I shouldn’t have doubted you.

She looked at her watch. It was four-thirty. Soon she would need to go and pick up Sydney. She could hardly wait to hold her granddaughter in her arms and cover her with happy kisses. She decided to stop at the cupcake shop which had opened on Briley Parkway before she went. She would buy each of them a cupcake to celebrate, and one for Lisa too. Perhaps she could take it to the county jail and ask them if Lisa could have a little treat.

Hannah closed the door of Lisa’s room, went down the hall to the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. She misted her hair with the hair product Lisa used, and then she crushed bunches of her hair with her hands, crunching waves into the chin-length haircut. She gave herself an apprehensive glance in the mirror, and then went down the hall to the kitchen where her car and house keys rested in a bowl on the counter by the door. She pulled up a jingling set, and then realized that she had grabbled Lisa’s by mistake. She set them back down in the bowl, and rummaged for her own keychain. And then she stopped. With a sinking feeling, she picked up the first set that she had handled and looked at them again.

There was a car key, a house key and a key for her locker at work. They had all been here in the bowl, ever since Lisa lost her freedom on bail. But dangling them before her troubled gaze now, Hannah saw that there was another key on the chain. A new key which she had never noticed before.

Hannah pressed the unfamiliar key into her own palm and stared at it. It looked familiar, and she struggled to place it. She frowned at it, willing herself to recall where she had seen a key like this before. Stop it, she told herself. What difference does it make? It’s just a key. It could be for anything. But somehow she knew better. And then she remembered. Before she moved to the Veranda, but after she was starting to lose her strength and her balance, Pamela used to have a post-office box, and Hannah would often fetch her mother’s mail for her. This was the kind of key that opened her P.O. box.

The key seemed to weigh down her palm. She took a deep breath, trying to decide. She had gone this far. She might as well satisfy her curiosity. She passed their local branch of the P.O. on her way to the cupcake shop. She could stop in on her way, ask to see the box and settle the matter, for once and for all. She slipped the keys into her pocket, grabbed her own set from the bowl and let herself out.

Rayanne was out in the backyard watering the flowers. She gave Hannah a cheery wave, and Hannah realized immediately that Jamie had been as good as his word. He had not mentioned that story about Lisa and his young cousins to his mother. Rayanne did not blush or shrink from Hannah, or act any differently at all, as she surely would have had she heard that story. He had kept it to himself, like he said.

Hannah waved