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

and picked up Sydney. They watered the garden after they arrived home and had their cupcakes in the backyard. Hannah tried not to let the child see how distracted she was. After they came inside, Sydney, who was tired from daycare, sat quietly in the living room, playing with her stuffed animals while her grandmother started supper. Then the phone rang. Hannah rushed to answer it.

‘What happened to you?’ Lisa demanded when she heard her mother’s voice. ‘You haven’t come to visit. Are you gonna leave me all alone here for the next two months?’

‘I’m sorry, Lisa. I’ve been so . . . busy.’

‘You sound . . . strange,’ said Lisa accusingly.

‘Do I? I’m sorry. How are things going for you there?’

‘Oh, terrific, Mom. I got elected social chairman of cell-block ten.’

Hannah did not reply. She was thinking about Jamie’s accusations, and the mysterious key to the post-office box.

‘That was a joke, Mother.’

‘I know it was, darling. Forgive me.’

‘What’s going on? You’re as faithful as a St Bernard. How come you didn’t come by? Don’t say you’re too busy. I don’t believe you.’

A St Bernard? Hannah thought. Is that how I seem to her? We’ll see about that. ‘I’m too tired, all right,’ said Hannah in a snappish tone. ‘Just too tired.’

Lisa was quiet for a moment, and Hannah felt like she could sense her daughter calculating what to say next. Finally Lisa said ruefully, ‘I thought I could always count on my mother, no matter what.’

‘Have I ever let you down?’ Hannah asked coldly.

Lisa was silent. Then she said, in an equally cold voice, ‘I have to go. Sorry I bothered you.’

Instantly, automatically, Hannah felt guilty, felt regretful. ‘I’ll try to come tomorrow,’ she said.

‘Don’t go out of your way,’ said Lisa, hanging up.

After a few moments of sitting, staring at her cheerful granddaughter, Hannah got up with a heavy heart and finished making dinner. Adam came in just as she was putting it on the table, and kissed her on her forehead. ‘Smells good,’ he said. ‘Can’t wait.’

Hannah said little during dinner, despite his questions. Afterwards, he offered to clean up while Hannah bathed Sydney and put her to bed. When she came back into the living room, he was sitting in the corner of the sofa, waiting for her. He had not turned on the television.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Are you just tired from work?’

Hannah shook her head, and sat down opposite him.

‘What then?’

‘I came home from work early,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘I had lunch with my friend Jackie, and while we were talking, I had this brainstorm. Very casually, I offered her a hypothetical situation. I said that I had a female client who was accused of sexually abusing her children. I asked Jackie if she had ever heard of that. Jackie said that she had, but only when the woman in question was a psychopath.’

Adam frowned at her. ‘Psychopath? You mean like a serial killer.’

‘No,’ Hannah insisted. ‘That’s just it. People think that’s what it means. Actually a psychopath is someone whose internal gyroscope doesn’t work when it comes to choosing right from wrong. They have — what were her exact words — a lack of moral restraint.’

Adam and Hannah stared at one another for a moment without speaking. ‘And you think . . .’ he said.

‘It struck a chord in me . . . what Jackie said.’

Adam did not protest, or contradict her. Hannah felt, with a sickening certainty, that he too recognized these symptoms. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I came home and I searched through all of Lisa’s things.’

‘What were you looking for?’

‘I didn’t even know. Something, anything that would give us proof, one way or the other.’

‘And you found . . . ?’

‘In her room, I found nothing. Everything was in order. I was telling myself that I had become hysterical for no reason. I was actually full of hope. And then I found this,’ said Hannah, holding up the key.

Adam frowned. ‘What is it?’

Hannah turned the key over in her palm and studied it. ‘It’s a key to a post-office box. I finally recognized it ’cause I used one when I went to get Mother’s mail for her. So, I took the key, and went down to our branch and had a talk with Darren. He said it wasn’t from a box there. It’s a key to a box at the Vanderbilt branch. He said that they could not open it for us unless we were authorized.’

‘Of course not,’ said Adam. ‘This is why post-office boxes still exist in this internet age. It’s privacy, guaranteed. People carry on clandestine affairs, or run illegal businesses out of them.’

‘We have to know what’s in that box.’

Adam stared at her, not replying.

‘If she has something to hide she’s too smart to leave it on her computer. She knows how computer literate you are. She wouldn’t do that.’

‘I suppose not,’ Adam admitted. ‘But what exactly do you expect to find?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hannah admitted, feeling suddenly exhausted. ‘I just know that I have to find out.’

‘So how can we do that?’ he asked calmly.

She gave him a grateful glance. He understood. ‘I asked Darren. He said if someone had legal papers that had to be served on Lisa, they could get the box number so that the papers could be delivered.’

‘Legal papers,’ Adam asked. ‘You mean, like, her lawyer.’

‘Anyone with legal papers,’ said Hannah. ‘They don’t have to know what the papers are.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Adam. ‘How would that help us?’

‘One of us goes in and gets the number, thanks to the legal paperwork. Then we have the box number. The other one goes in and opens the box. With this key.’

Adam looked at her, almost admiringly. ‘You have a devious mind.’

‘I got it from