The Good Daughter: A gripping, suspenseful, page-turning thriller. Alexandra Burt

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       Chapter 11

       Dahlia

      When this latest episode is over, I’m famished. I pop a TV dinner in the microwave. I’ve been living off microwaved and prepackaged food all my life. I haven’t developed an aversion to it—its American ingenuity comforts me: the divided trays, the thin plastic covering, and the eventual sliding of the empty tray into the box. Even now I stick with the foods I ate in my childhood: meat loaf and mashed potatoes, chicken-fried steak and corn.

      While I eat, I stare at the papers I thumbtacked to the wall the previous day: composite woman, my Jane. I refer to them as my missing people as if it is up to me to tape a red LOCATED sign over their pictures.

      After I eat, exhaustion takes over. I want nothing more than to close my eyes and stay on the couch for the rest of the day, but it’s Wednesday and I have to pick up my mother at Dr. Wagner’s office.

      My hair is still wet from the shower when I pull into the parking lot of the clinic located next to the Metroplex compound famous for same-day lap band surgery.

      Minutes later, a middle-aged woman in pink scrubs shows me into an office. I’ve barely had time to look around when Dr. Wagner enters the room. The first fragrance I notice is the minty scent of hand sanitizer as he furiously rubs his hands together. When he’s satisfied, he extends his right hand toward me.

      “Dahlia Waller. I’ve heard so much about you.”

      I manage a cheerful smile and shake his cold hand. He sits and inserts some sort of ID card in a slot of his laptop. With his posture straight and his coat as white as snow, he hits the keyboard, his every movement precise and purposeful.

      “How’s my mother doing?” I ask and the image of the finely arranged crickets pops into my head. I imagine her with her packed bag on her lap staring at mauve-colored plastic cups on the tray of her bedside table, her hair styled, her eyes staring straight ahead, impatiently looking toward the door.

      “She’s ready to go home.”

      “Good,” I say and clear my throat.

      “Did you ever find her purse?”

      “Not yet, I don’t know the exact location the police picked her up,” I lie. My mother’s purse had completely slipped my mind until last night. “I’ll track it down after I drop her off at home.”

      Dr. Wagner takes a deep breath in. He seems annoyed by my inefficiency, and I feel the need for him to like me. I want him to know that I’m here for her, that I love my mother. Despite her craziness. Despite everything. And that I need her to be okay, but I also need her to answer my questions.