15. A Brief Session

________________

After the initial first seconds I figured no one was home. Maybe that would turn out to be a good thing. Like always, I had no idea what I was doing.

I'd talked myself into chickening out right as a voice came through the speaker on the box.

"Who is it?" Asked the female voice.

I froze. What the hell was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to respond?

I can't believe I didn't think this through more. I'd been so desperate about finally getting a lead, that I had no clue how to go about following it.

After a few seconds, she asked again. This time her voice grew more peculiar. "Hello? Who is it?"

"Um," I faltered, grasping at things to say from my head. "I'm looking for Shawna."

"This is she," came the response. "Who wants to know?"

"Well, my name's Ricardo."

"I don't know any Ricardo's."

"Raymond is my uncle."

There was no response for a few moments and then the voice came back:

"Come on up."

The door made a clicking sound and I was able to open it and head up the stairs. The building wasn't hard to navigate at all.

When I got to the door marked "7" I was preparing to knock, informing her that I was at the door, but it had already swung open before I could.

The woman revealed in the door was nothing short of breath-taking.

She was mid-thirties, a person of color with dark, smooth skin. Her black hair was down to her shoulders and her dark brown eyes assessed me as I stood there trying my best not to let my own eyes explore the rest of her body.

"Hello there," she said politely.

"Hi," I said, faltering once again, having nothing else to add in that moment.

She gave me an awkward smile. "So uh, you're Raymond's nephew?"

I nodded.

"What brings you by?"

"Well," I began. "It's complicated, to tell you the truth. But I was hoping you could just help me figure something out."

"Figure what out?" She raised an eyebrow.

Good question. I wish I knew exactly what it was I was trying to figure out.

I shrugged. "I guess  not really sure."

She gave me a peculiar expression and I feared she would turn me away. Who would want some random kid at their door without a proper explanation as to why they were there?

Finally she nodded and stepped aside. "Wanna come in?"

"Yeah, sure," I replied before stepping inside.

The apartment was nice enough, but I wasn't really there to ogle at decorations and furniture.

"Have a seat on the couch. Can I get you a drink?"

"No, I'm fine," I politely declined. "Thanks."

She sat on a couch opposite me, a table in between us.

"Okay," she said. "Go ahead."

I took a breath before starting. "I just... My uncle's been acting weird."

"Weird?"

"Yeah. I'm going to be honest with you," I said. "I kinda went through his phone without him knowing to find you."

"Oh?"

"I also may or may not have followed him here a little while ago."

"Why would you do that?"

"He's hiding things," I said blatantly. "You're one of them. The day I followed him here, he'd told me he was going to see a friend to help with motor trouble. Obviously that wasn't the case."

"I see."

"Right. So if you don't mind me asking... Who are you?"

Shawna gave me a small smile before answering. "Raymond and I are, well... intimate."

My eyes widened. "Oh."

She just laughed.

I shook my head. That couldn't be all. He'd have no reason to lie about that. There was more. There had to be.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be invasive," I apologized.

"It's quite alright," she said reassuringly. "But if that's all—"

"No," I interjected. "There's more, I just—I don't know how to ask without..."

What was the use? There was no way I was going to get a real answer here. Not unless I was willing to risk exposing Kevin.

Did she even know Kevin? How much did she actually know? It was such a gamble. Then I realized that I was on a mission here.

I took a vow.

I had to do any and everything.

"Listen, that day he and you were speaking on the phone, he brought up my family. He said that soon we'd all know about something, whether we liked it or not. Do you remember a conversation like that?"

That's when I noticed her gaze on me hardened and moments later she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

She did know something.

"I'm sorry, I don't recall," she said.

"Please," I said.

"I'm sorry, Ricardo, but I—"

"My brother was kidnapped!" I blurted causing her to flinch. "Or lost, or ran away, whatever the case was the day he disappeared, but whatever happened to him, he never came back home."

She noticeably swallowed, a look crossed her face that I couldn't exactly read.

"I'm losing my mind here," I continued. "I just want to know who was involved and how much. The list of people I feel I can trust continues to grow shorter and shorter and you are my last hope of getting somewhere. My friends know things that they were never supposed to find out and have lied about it. My ex-girlfriend wants nothing to do with me, and my mother and Raymond are hiding something too—"

"Your mother and Raymond?" She interrupted me.

I nodded. "Yes. It feels like everyone is keeping something from me. All I want to do is get closure for my brother."

A look of sympathy was plastered on the woman's face, but still she remained silent.

"Please," I begged again. "Tell me something—anything!"

Shawna sighed and stood up from her seat. She began pacing slowly, seemingly deep in thought.

"I was afraid something like this would happen," she said.

"Like what?" I inquired. "Tell me."

She looked at me and then came over to the same couch, sitting down next to me.

"Look, it's really not my place to tell you any of this, but..." she paused. "You're Kevin's brother, right?"

"Yes," I replied, almost surprised that she knew Kevin's name, considering she hadn't known mine.

"Your uncle has spoken about you, but he's never mentioned your name before... Neither did Kevin."

"How do you know Kevin?"

A conflicted look came over her face as it appeared she was debating on whether or not to actually tell me. Ultimately she gave in:

"I was his therapist."

I narrowed my eyes at her and shook my head. "Therapist? Kevin didn't need therapy. Since when?"

"He'd only gotten into it a few weeks before his disappearance. He was... anxious during a couple of sessions."

"Wait, what? Anxious? Why?"

"Legally, I'm not at liberty to share what he said during our sessions, even though it wasn't much."

"Please. Tell me what you can, I'm begging you. More people can get hurt!"

"Okay, well... what I will say is that Kevin was concerned. Extremely concerned. He'd found out some information... about your family."

"What information?"

"He hadn't told me," Shawna admitted. "He didn't get the chance. The last session we had he'd said that he would tell me what was going on the next time we met up, but obviously that couldn't happen. He went missing soon after that and the whole town knew."

"How does Raymond connect to all of this?"

"The secret that Kevin had found out; it involved Raymond somehow. I hadn't known Raymond at the time, but he'd managed to figure out that Kevin was spilling the beans to a therapist and he came to my office one day to confront me. See how much I knew and if I was advising Kevin to do things that would look bad on him. But I'd only known as much as Kevin was willing to tell me, so I didn't know what Raymond's big secret was."

"And you ended up dating the guy?" I raised a brow.

Shawna smiled. "Well after the initial abrasiveness he apologized and things just happened from there. And since he lives in another town for business reasons, I never bothered him about this huge secret, considering we're more like friends with benefits anyway. It was never my place to pry. But it's always been in the back of my mind. That day you overheard him, yes, he told me that you all would know soon cause he was done hiding it. He was planning on telling me too."

"Did he?"

"Not yet."

"I overhear he and my mom arguing," I said. "They've done it twice now, and each time they seem to be arguing over a person. Someone who apparently can ruin the family if revealed according to my mom."

"If you're asking me if I know who this person could be, then I can't help you."

"Dammit," I muttered.

It felt like I was so close at figuring this out, yet still so far away.

"But there's another thing," Shawna told me.

"What?" I perked up.

"Kevin was working on something," she said. "For you."

"For me?"

"Video diaries," she recalled. "He was documenting everything."

Suddenly I was the anxious one. "Are you telling me that there's something out there from Kevin that can explain all of this?"

"It's a possibility," she said. "In fact, I'm quite certain. He wanted you to know."

"If he wanted me to know, why not just tell me?!"

"It was insurance. That was the word he used... insurance. He'd been investigating on his own. And he said if he found out the truth, the whole truth, he'd tell his brother—you—and scrap the video diary documents. I didn't exactly know what he had meant at the time, but I think... I think he knew something was maybe going to happen to him. And in case something did happen, you would have the option of finding the things he documented and find out for yourself."

"Where are these video diaries?" I pushed.

"I don't know. He never told me."

I ran a hand through my hair and breathed.
"Why are you being so helpful?" I asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"Why are you willing to talk to me about this? Risk your career? All to help me?"

I know I had begged her to tell me, but it still felt easier than it should have been to get info from her. I kinda assumed that she wouldn't tell me anything no matter how much I pressed, especially after learning she was a therapist.

"It was no secret that foul play was involved when Kevin disappeared two years ago," she responded. "And based on what Kevin had told me, with Raymond being involved with his secret and now you showing up here pleading your case... it would be criminal for me not to help you. Something very wrong is going on. Moreover, Raymond's been getting weirder. I want to know the truth too."

"You've never told any of this to the police?"

"They never came to me. Kevin was eighteen when he went missing, and he was legally able to attend sessions without parental permission. It was low key. And for a long time I convinced myself that maybe the things that Kevin said and did weren't correlated to his disappearance. How naive of me. Especially being in the profession I'm in. Maybe I was so into Raymond that I deluded myself."

"So then that's it," I said standing up. "Find the video diaries... Find answers."

"Maybe," Shawna said standing to look me eye-to-eye. "But be careful... Whatever you find; be smart about the actions that follow. Get police help if you need to."

"Of course," I said.

"I'm serious," Shawna's voice was stern. "Because whatever Kevin discovered may have been the thing that had gotten him killed."

The thought sent goosebumps up my arms and chills down my spine. Kevin wasn't dead, but someone tried to kill him. I was getting more and more nervous at the possibility that I could discover something that could put me in immediate danger. I tried my best not to show it though.

"I understand," I said. "And since you've helped me, I'll help you. If I figure this whole Raymond thing out, I'll be back."

"Good," said Shawna. "Find those video diaries, Ricardo. They may be the key to this entire thing."

______________