“You know where to find me.”
“Why’d I even bother?” Brynn hung up her office phone and rubbed her forehead, a piercing headache hatching behind her eyes. Two days with hardly any sleep, and her body was no longer responding to caffeine.
A light tap on her open door made her lift her gaze. Mel stepped into her office, lines of concern creasing her forehead. “Still no word from your sister?”
Brynn shook her head. “I just keep calling her like all of a sudden she’s going to come to her senses and answer her phone.”
Mel plopped into the chair across from Brynn’s desk. “So what now?”
Brynn sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I have no idea. I’ve talked to everyone I can think of, and I can’t even officially report her missing to the police until tonight.”
“What about Reid’s friend? Have you given any more thought to trying to get into that resort? Sounds like a good lead.”
Her stomach flipped over. “Mel, I don’t know if I could pull that off. I thought I was past all this crap. I did the therapy, took the self-defense classes, but the minute that guy put his hands on me the other night, the panic sucked me in. I was completely useless.”
Mel eyed her for a long moment, and Brynn could almost hear the gears grinding in her friend’s head.
Brynn pursed her lips. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What if…” Mel said, then waved her hand. “Never mind.”
“Oh, no,” Brynn said, shaking her head. “Just say whatever it is you’re thinking. It’s not like you’ve ever held back before.”
She leaned forward and straightened the papers in Brynn’s outbox, adeptly avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know, it’s just, maybe this is exactly what you need, you know? Exposure therapy.”
Brynn stared at Mel as if her friend had sprouted antlers. “Are you being serious? Exposure therapy?”
She shrugged, but still didn’t raise her eyes.
“Don’t you think turning myself over to some stranger’s sexual demands is a bit of an extreme prescription? I was raped, Mel. It’s not like I’m trying to kick a fear of spiders or something.”
She cringed. “I’m sorry, B. I’m not trying to minimize what you’ve been through. I just wish I could help you get past it. Exposure therapy is brutal, but you know it can be effective.”
Brynn waved a dismissive hand. “I already did the protocol with a therapist where I went through a retelling. The exposure stuff hasn’t worked. It didn’t even get the nightmares to stop.”
“Experiencing the memory in the counselor’s office isn’t the same as putting yourself in your most feared situation. And it wouldn’t be like getting raped again. They have rules at places like that. You could make the person stop at any time.”
Brynn pinched the bridge of her nose, the pounding in her head getting worse. “Mel, I love you, but you’re talking crazy. Not only does the whole idea make me feel like I’m going to puke, but I’m not going to hand my body over to some stranger who gets off on hitting women. I spend all day working with my clients trying to get them away from men like that.”
She sighed. “Dominance and abuse are two totally different things. You and I both know that.”
Brynn quirked an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
She shrugged, and then focused on picking invisible lint off her black pants. “I may have gone to one of those kink clubs once during grad school.”
“And you didn’t tell me? What sort of roommate leaves that kind of choice information out? I told you everything that was going on with me.”
“Oh, like that was so scandalous,” she said, looking up and smirking. “You were dating an accounting major for God’s sake. I didn’t want to freak you out. And anyway, I just went for research purposes. I didn’t actually participate in anything.”
Brynn propped her elbows on her desk and placed her chin in her hands. “So what exactly did you do if you didn’t join in?”
Melody rolled her eyes. “Duh. Watched.”
Brynn leaned back in her chair. “Oh, hell, I hadn’t even thought about that part. Even if I had the guts to try to get in the club, I forgot about the fact that others could see me.”
“Hey, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” Mel’s voice took on a saucy tone. “Some people find it exciting to be watched. You never know, you may be an exhibitionist under that good-girl facade.”
A long-dormant memory tickled the back of Brynn’s mind, making her cheeks heat. Her best friend had no idea how, once upon at time, she’d been far from angelic. She cleared her throat. “Sounds like my personal nightmare, not a fantasy.”
Mel gave her a sympathetic smile. “Fair enough. Just know I’m not trying to tell you what to do, hon. You need to figure out what feels right for you.” She stood and gave Brynn’s hand a quick squeeze. “But either way, Kelsey is lucky to have a sister who still cares enough to worry about her. A lot of people would’ve given up on her a long time ago.”
Mel’s words hung in the air long after her friend stepped out, wracking Brynn with guilt. Mel was wrong. Her sister was far from lucky. The only person in the world who cared about her was sitting on her ass in her office too scared of her own demons to try to help. A useless coward.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, turning Mel’s suggestion over in her mind again. Exposure therapy. Full immersion in her fear. The idea sounded padded-cell crazy, but what if her friend was right? What if the only way she was ever going to get past this was to jump off the proverbial cliff and plunge into her nightmare?
She was so tired. Tired of being scared. Tired of waking up in a cold sweat. Tired of letting what some monster did dictate so much of her life.
Maybe this was the answer. God knows nothing else had worked.
Her phone rang, startling her from her thoughts. She fumbled for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Brynn, it’s Tony Flores.”
Her contact with the police department. Thank God. “Hey, Tony.”
“Sorry I’m just getting back to you, but I had to check on a few things before I talked to you. Do you have a minute?”
She sat up straighter at the cop’s grim tone. She worked with Tony regularly for her clients’ domestic violence cases, and knew he only reserved that tone for bad news. “Of course, what’s going on?”
“I didn’t get your message until last night, but I ran your sister’s name through the system to make sure she hadn’t been arrested or hadn’t gotten in an accident or something. And I didn’t find either of those to be the case, but her name did pop up under something else.”
Her grip on the phone tightened. “What do you mean?”
“Saturday night we got called out to work an assault. Guy by the name of Nick Camden got himself beat up pretty bad.”
Kelsey’s on-again-off-again boyfriend. The knot of anxiety in her stomach grew larger.
“According to the report, the paramedics said your sister showed up a few minutes after the attack, running late to meet Nick. They asked her to wait for us to get there so we could talk to her, but she bailed before our officers arrived. Nick didn’t see his attacker, but he’s convinced it’s Raymond