LITMIR.BIZ

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himself and about Laurel. All that mattered was the boy in the prison of his own making.

       Chapter Three

      It was time to get started. Trent shifted his eyes toward Laurel, who was about to sit down on the sofa.

      “Laurel, would you mind taking a seat outside in the reception area?” Laurel stopped and eyed him quizzically. “Rita looks formidable, but we have it on good authority that she doesn’t bite. At least, we’ve never seen her do it,” he deadpanned.

      He tried to use humor to ease her out of the room, but it didn’t work. The concern on her face intensified.

      She glanced toward Cody uncertainly. The boy remained oblivious.

      “I can’t stay?” It wasn’t a question as much as a request.

      Unless he specifically called for a group family session, he found that parents, however unwittingly, tended to interfere with their child’s progress far more than they helped.

      “It’s usually better if patients don’t feel someone is looking over their shoulder during a session.” Trent lowered his voice. “They tend to open up more.”

      Distress entered her eyes. “But I’m his mother. I only want to help him.” Realizing that her voice was close to cracking, Laurel stopped for a second to collect herself. Even so, there was a plea in her voice as she said to Trent, “I want to understand what’s wrong.”

      He sympathized with her, he really did. But it was far too early to bend the rules. He needed to see what he was up against and how deeply entrenched Cody was in this silent world. For all he knew, the boy might be reacting to his mother. He needed time alone with the boy to assess a few things for himself.

      Very gently, Trent took her arm and steered her toward the door.

      The brief, almost sterile contact awoke distant memories of other times, happier times. Times when he had believed that the world was at their feet. Before he’d learned differently.

      But that was then and this was now, Trent reminded himself. And she had sought him out in a professional capacity. As a licensed clinical psychologist, he had both an oath and a duty to live up to and they both revolved around doing the best for his patient. In this case, her son.

      “So do I,” he told Laurel quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Cody. Usually, when an adult’s voice dropped, a child did his or her best to listen more closely. Cody didn’t appear to have even noticed that anyone was speaking. “And so does Cody.” He saw hope flicker in her eyes. “Progress in cases like this is very slow and I need to do everything possible to make Cody feel more comfortable.”

      Whatever that might be, he added silently.

      “He’s not comfortable with me?” It was one thing to feel it, another to hear it said out loud. She felt as if her heart were being squeezed in half.

      “He’s not comfortable with himself,” Trent told her.

      The revelation took her aback. She searched for something to cling to, however small.

      “You’ve had cases like this?” she asked, recalling what he’d just said.

      If Trent had had cases like this, then maybe he really could cure Cody. A shaft of hope shot through her. She knew she’d been right in coming to him, even though she’d been hesitant at first, afraid of the ghosts that might crop up between them. The ghosts of things that hadn’t been and the things that had. She felt far too vulnerable to cross that terrain again.

      And far too guilty.

      “Not personally, no,” Trent admitted. He hadn’t been practicing long enough to have encountered a wide sampling of the afflictions that affected a child’s behavior. He saw Laurel’s face fall. “But I read a lot,” he said, offering her an encouraging smile.

      His hand still on her arm, he opened the door and looked out into the reception area. Rita’s small brown eyes darted in their direction the second the door was opened. It was, he thought, as if her eyes were magnetically predisposed toward movement, no matter how quietly executed.

      Gently, he ushered Laurel out of the room. “Rita, would you please get Mrs. Greer some coffee?”

      Laurel shook her head, declining. “No, I’m not thirsty.” At the moment, with her stomach knotting, coffee would only make her nauseous.

      “Good,” Rita pronounced. Her tiny, marblelike eyes slid up and down like the needle on a scale. With a minute jerk of her head, she indicated the leather chair against the wall. “You can take a seat over there.” It was more a royal command than a suggestion.

      Laurel nodded, then looked at Trent. A shaky breath preceded her words. “If you need me—”

      He gave her his most reassuring look, even as he tried not to recognize that her mere presence slowly unraveled something within him, something that had been neatly stowed almost seven years ago. He’d thought it would never see the light of day again.

       Wrong.

      “I know where to find you,” he responded, his mouth curved in a kind smile.

      Walking back into his office, he noted that Cody still stood stiffly. Trent closed the door and focused on his challenge.

      “You can sit down if you like, Cody,” he said in an easy, affable tone. “The sofa’s pretty comfortable if you’d like to try that out.”

      Rather than sit down on the sofa, Cody sank down on the floor right in front of it, his back against the leather, his legs crossed before him as if he were assuming a basic yoga position.

      Or preparing to play a video game seated in front of a television set, Trent realized. He made a mental note to explore a few video games that he might substitute later for the ones that dominated Cody’s attention.

      If he continued with the case.

      “Floor’s not bad, either,” Trent allowed, never skipping a beat as the boy sank down. “Mind if I join you?” he asked.

      He’d found that keeping a desk between himself and his small patients only served to delineate territory, making him out to be an unapproachable father figure. He liked being close to his patients physically to help breach the mental chasm that could exist—as it obviously did in this case.

      Cody made no indication that he had heard the question. His expression remained immobile as he stared off into space.

      The boy’s line of vision seemed to be the middle shelves of his bookcase, the ones that contained children’s books he sometimes found useful, but Trent decided not to comment on that at this time.

      “I’ll take that as a yes,” Trent said, lowering himself down beside the boy, careful to leave Cody enough personal space to not feel threatened. He looked around and smiled. “Looks like a pretty big office from down here,” he commented amiably, then glanced down where he was sitting. “Also looks like the rug might stand to have a cleaning.”

      Neither comment, meant to begin to create a sense of camaraderie, drew any reaction from Cody. It was as if his voice, his presence, were as invisible to him as the air.

      “You know,” Trent continued in the same tone, “your mom’s pretty worried about you.” He noticed just the slightest tensing of Cody’s shoulders when he mentioned Laurel. It heartened him that there might be a crack, however minute, in the six-year-old’s armor plating.

      Trent turned his attention to the elephant in the room, watching Cody intently beneath hooded lids. “She told me that you lost your father a year ago.”

      Still not acknowledging Trent’s presence, Cody abruptly rose to his feet and walked over to the large window. Tilting his head down ever so slightly, he appeared to look down at the parking lot four stories below.

      For the moment, Trent

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