Her Detective's Secret Intent. Tara Taylor Quinn

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      * * *

      Miranda saw Danny again on Monday. She’d removed his stitches on Friday and Marie was worried about a puffy redness on one end of the incision that had been made during the surgery, which was done to repair the muscle tear he’d sustained during his fall.

      “I’m fine,” Danny said, when Miranda asked him how he was doing.

      As soon as she had a look at the incision site she knew what the problem was.

      Fear. Marie’s fear.

      Not infection. Or further physical damage. The scar area was pink, not red. A healthy pink.

      Asking a nurse to come and stay with Danny in the exam room, and giving the boy a handheld learning-game device with the permission of his mother, Miranda led Marie down the hall to her office, closing the door behind them.

      “What’s wrong? Is it infected or is the injury worse than we thought? Does he need more surgery? Should Dr. Bennet take a look at him?”

      Max Bennet, the pediatrician who’d hired Miranda as his PA even before she’d completed her training, would be a good person for Marie to talk to. But not about her son’s leg.

      “Danny’s incision is fine, Marie.”

      “But shouldn’t Dr. Bennet take a look, just in case?”

      Picking up her phone, Miranda sent a quick text to Max, who responded immediately.

      “He’s going in now, if you’d like to meet him down there,” she said to the worried mom.

      Her furrowed brow smoothing out, Marie shook her head. “He’ll let you know if there’s a problem, right?”

      “He’ll text either way.”

      “You called me in here to talk to you—separate from Danny—and since there’s nothing wrong with his incision...” The other woman’s words trailed off.

      Miranda nodded, words tripping over themselves as they fought for release, while, for the most part, she was forced to remain silent.

      For the most part.

      “Danny’s leg hurting...we know it’s going to.” She started slowly. “Surgery let us put the fibers back together, but there’ll still be scars. We talked about how the nervous system sends messages when muscles have been compromised, inflaming the area to protect weak fibers, shortening the fibers...”

      Marie gave a quick nod. “Rehabilitation is all scheduled, and we’ll be there on time, every time,” she said.

      “Good.”

      “I just... I’m so scared, you know? Danny—he’s all I have. I should’ve gotten him out sooner and now he’s hurt, and Devon might try to take him from me and... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have wasted your time today.”

      Marie was in daily counseling through The Lemonade Stand. She didn’t need Miranda to work through all the issues with her. Nor was Miranda professionally qualified to do that.

      “I know,” she said now, making a silent choice that she prayed she wouldn’t regret. But what was the value of her life if she couldn’t use her experiences to help others? She’d needed to speak to Marie since she’d first heard her story. “And that’s why I called you in here. Fear is insidious. The thoughts it drives can consume you to the point of interrupting your ability to cope with daily life. The stronger those thoughts get, the more real they seem...”

      Danny was only a year older than Ethan.

      If Miranda hadn’t left when she did, her son could so easily have been that little boy sitting down the hall. Or worse.

      Her father had been after Ethan, just as Devon was after Danny.

      “I know I’m being paranoid, and I’m sorry...”

      “No, no, don’t apologize,” Miranda said, leaning forward with both hands on her small desk, in her small office, as she looked at the woman in the folding chair across from her. “What I wanted to tell you, still want to tell you, is that I understand. And that...anytime you have a concern, even if you pretty much know that it’s just fear, you’re welcome to call me. At home.”

      Taking a card from the holder on the front of her desk, she wrote her cell number on it. “Anytime,” she said, handing Marie the card. “Sometimes you have to hear a professional opinion to stop the fear,” she added. “You couldn’t trust your own mind because you knew that someone else had manipulated it, that it played with you.

      “I don’t want you to put off calling the doctor, or to have to wait for the office to open, nor do I want you to run up medical expenses with urgent care and emergency room visits. Of course, if it’s an emergency, go! But if you’re not sure, even if it’s the middle of the night—call me.”

      Staring at the card, looking like she was fighting tears, Marie didn’t reach for it. “I can’t do that,” she said instead. “I can’t bother you like that.”

      “I want you to.” To communicate how intensely she meant those words, she laid her hand on Marie’s, then turned both hands over and placed the card in Marie’s exposed palm, closing her fingers around it.

      “I have to do this on my own...” Marie’s words were a trembling whisper.

      “Some of it, yes.” Miranda knew she might be overstepping a line between professional and personal, but she wasn’t sure that mattered.

      Not in this case.

      “But you also have to know when to accept help,” she said, realizing that she was speaking to herself, as well.

      “Why?” Marie’s eyes were moist as she looked at her. “Why would you do this? You’ve got your own life. You don’t need patients, or mothers of patients, waking you up in the middle of the night because they’re afraid...”

      Miranda told herself to come up with some platitude. Quickly.

      She couldn’t break the promise she’d made to herself never to screw up again.

      Couldn’t speak of the past she’d left, ever. Doing so could expose her to someone talking to someone else who happened to be talking to someone who’d once known a woman named Dana and was looking for her...

      “Just please...if your mind starts to play tricks with you, if you start getting paranoid that something’s wrong with you or Danny, if he sneezes and you worry that he could be getting pneumonia, don’t get scared. Don’t let fear take over your senses. Call me instead.”

      “I don’t...”

      “Think of me as your weapon in that particular battle,” Miranda said, finding strength out of nowhere. “Fear seems all-powerful, but the truth is, it buckles and evaporates when you stand up to it. Calling me is the way you look that particular fear right in the eye.”

      Marie needed an arsenal. She’d collect it one weapon at a time, to face down one fear at a time.

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