Unhoppy: The Case Files of Dr. Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist #3

  UNHOPPY

  The Case Files of Dr. Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist

  By

  Cynthia St. Aubin

  UNHOPPY

  Copyright © 2014 Cynthia St. Aubin

  All Rights Reserved

  The book contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Cover designed by Scarlett Rugers Design, www.scarlettrugers.com

  Illustration by Stephen Richards

  Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

  http://facebook.com/eBookFormatting/info

  Other Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist Novellas:

  Unlovable

  Unlucky

  Unbearable

  Unassailable

  Dysfunctional

  Coming soon:

  Undeadly

  Dedication

  For my dad, who once wrote a beautiful book, and helped me believe I could do the same. Thank you for reading my stories, even if you have to dodge a minefield of ‘F’ words to get to The End.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my friends and fellow authors: Kerrigan Byrne, Tiffinie Helmer, and Cindy Stark, with whom plotting even a tax return would be a laugh riot.

  To the Writers of Imminent Death—long may we share lattes with an extra shot of murder.

  Thanks to Stephen Richards, for listening to my ideas with a patient ear and an equally twisted mind. PS. The cream cheese crab Rangoon you stole from my plate has not been forgotten. Vengeance will be swift and terrible—and may or may not involve sweet and sour sauce.

  At some point, the careful notes on my pad morphed into ratty little mustaches. Mustaches like the one scrambling across the thin upper lip of the ferretlike man seated on the leather couch across from me. Dark hair slicked back, bowling shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest, eyes shining like oiled ball bearings, he seemed mostly interested in spending his forty-five minute therapy session stealing glances at my cleavage.

  Even with eyes glued to my blouse, he was far and away an improvement over the last couple clients who had occupied my couch. Between Cupid and a leprechaun who had as many personalities as he did gold hordes, it had been a pretty busy couple of weeks.

  Not to mention the hit man and the demigod who were both determined to occupy my head as well as my bed.

  “When you say that your mother didn’t support your goals and ambitions, what exactly do you mean?” I asked idly, finishing a curling flourish on an impressive porn ‘stache.

  More words came. Floating by me like leaves on a stream.

  The demigod.

  Only ten hours ago, Crixus, the aforementioned demigod, had been leaning over my bed like a great feral cat, the muscles of his arms cast in bronze by the dim light of my bedside lamp.

  Hands planted on either side of my hips, desire haunting the deep pools of his sapphire eyes, lips close enough to mine to send heat through the scrim of air separating our mouths.

  The black T-shirt he had discarded lay in a heap next to the tawdry romance novel I flung into the air when he had materialized only moments earlier. Now, he wore only jeans, motorcycle boots, and a predatory grin.

  “Afraid?” he whispered in that deep, smoky baritone I had come to know and dread. Requests made in this voice proved difficult to refuse, as was demonstrated by his presence in my room.

  Days earlier, I promised him one night in exchange for looking into a death threat I had received. He had come through on his end of the bargain. Now it was time to pony up mine.

  “No,” I breathed.

  “What was that, Doctor?”

  The question poked through the warm haze of recollection, the remnants of the scene falling away like a stage backdrop. I glanced at the clock above the bookshelf packed with heavy tomes on everything from aberrant sexual behavior to early psychological development in toddlers. Fifteen minutes to go.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, catching his grabby peek at my black-stocking-clad leg where it disappeared into my pencil skirt. “Let’s delve a little deeper into your early professional aspirations. Your mother didn’t feel it was realistic for you to pursue a career as a private detective?”

  He seemed to accept this, the calm passing over his face an indication that his thoughts had once again turned inward. “That’s right,” he agreed. “See, I’ve always been good at finding things out about people. Even in grade school I…”

  But his words were sieved away by some mental filter, replaced by those of another. My bedroom once again rose around me.

  “Don’t tell me Dr. Matilda Schmidt, Psy.D, Ph.D is scared of a one-on-one consultation?” Crixus’s question resounded in my brain.

  “I’m a therapist, Crixus” I had replied. “You can hardly compare this to the consultations I have with my usual clients.”

  Crixus. A fitting name for the former Roman gladiator and current demigod giving me bedroom eyes capable of corrupting the most zealous of saints.

  “On the contrary,” he had said, grazing my jaw and finding his way to the sensitive skin below my ear. “I find fucking to be very therapeutic.”

  “Then you must require a significant amount of therapy.” A barb I hoped might hamper the progress of his ardor. In the short span of time I had known Crixus, he had screwed at least as many women as I had fingers on both hands—one of these being my golden-haired college girl of an assistant, Julie.

  Twice.

  “And who better to give it than a therapist?” Crixus replied. He hooked a finger through the slim strap of my nightgown and eased it off my shoulder. “You can’t tell me you’re not even just a little curious.”

  Denying this would be fruitless. In addition to materializing beyond walls, Crixus could also read my thoughts. A considerable liability in situations such as this.

  “Curiosity doesn’t rule me,” I said, sliding the strap back up over my shoulder.

  “Then what does?” The sudden shift from spirited to serious had me considering my answer more carefully than I had intended.

  “Method,” I said. “Process.”

  “Lucky for you, I have both.” His lips came down upon mine, searing me with a heat rooted in the part of his body straining against the fabric of his jeans. His tongue traced the seam of my lips, and I knew it for the warning it was. Strong fingers threaded into the still-damp chestnut hair brushing my collarbone as he searched my mouth in strong, hungry strokes.

  My hand floated up of its own accord, curious fingers pushing against a long, thick shape still foreign to me. He groaned, filling me with a draught headier than the aged scotch that nightly scorched warmth through my middle. Power-drunk, my fingers had freed the button on his jeans and were seeking the zipper when my wrists were caught in a vice grip and pinned against the headboard.

  “Yes,” I sighed.

  “So you agree with me, then?”

  I looked up from the pad where the mustaches had multiplied into a herd and spread out
to graze. The Ferret’s greasy glare slid over the outline of my scarlet-painted lips. I pushed the black rims of my cat-eye glasses up my nose and studied the mustaches for the insight they would surely fail to provide.

  What had he said? Deliverance came in the form of an addendum on the Ferret’s part.

  “I mean, what else was a man of my talents supposed to do? You have to follow your passion, am I right?”

  “Oh, I quite agree.” The words swiveled from my lips like smoke, the perfect screen for flashes of memory to play across.

  “Don’t,” Crixus had growled. “You’re not ready for me. Not yet.”

  “And what does ready look like?” I had asked, with far more brazenness than I felt.

  “Wetter.” His tongue traced my ear by way of illustration. “Much wetter.”

  “This isn’t my first time, you—” This last word was stolen by a gasp as his teeth nipped at my earlobe.

  “Might as well be. Two times with a hit man doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of preparing you for what I’m going to do.”

  “He has a…name,” I panted. “It’s Liam. Liam—”

  “But it’s not the one you’re going to be screaming tonight.” His lips teased my nipple through the thin fabric of my nightgown, unwilling to release my hands to move the garment out of his way. The silk was wet and warm against my sensitive skin as he closed his mouth over the aching bud and flicked it with his tongue.

  “Oh God,” I moaned.

  “Am I boring you, Doctor?” The flinty edge of irritation in the Ferret’s voice sliced through the recollection with a scalpel’s precision.

  This time, a graceful recovery danced just out of reach. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Would you mind repeating that last sentence?”

  He stroked the patch of dryer lint posing as goatee on his chin. “I said, given your total lack of professional courtesy, it’s a good thing I didn’t actually come for therapy.”

  Millions of needles prickled over my face and scalp. Embarrassment and fear arm-wrestled for control of my tightening chest. Having been framed for a gambling debt to a Mafioso and a gold heist that won me my very own assassin in the recent past, all the ideas I was able to conjure about the Ferret’s motivation ended with my body parts being strewn along the Adirondack Northway. At last, I managed to pry a few words from my frozen throat. “Why did you come?”

  The patchy caterpillar on his lip inched toward an ugly smile as a he tossed a manila folder onto the coffee table separating us. “To blackmail you.”

  *****

  The photo stared up at me like a glossy accusation.

  That was me, all right—handcuffed to a cheap motel bed, sandwiched between a half-naked Liam and Cupid. Only Cupid’s wings were pinned behind his back, and the fraction of his body visible beneath me looked like that of a chubby, diapered toddler.

  Liam’s long, lean body—clothed in only a towel—dominated the composition, his sinewy muscles carved in low relief by shifting shadows of the black and white photo. Dark hair stuck to his forehead, coal-black eyes burning, his face the very rendering of uncontrolled passion.

  In this case, that passion had been aimed at the mouthy, cigar-stealing cherub beneath me on the floral print bedspread. And I, trapped between them, handcuffed against escape, and trying to prevent them from killing each other. But that mattered not at all.

  All that mattered was what it looked like.

  Worse, the photo was right about what had transpired in that hotel room, but wrong about the timing. Only after he had gotten rid of Cupid by giving him weed money did Liam give me my first lesson in pleasure. A subject largely absent in my first thirty years of living.

  I recognized the hideous floral print curtains framing the seemingly illicit scene as belonging to the hotel room where I had learned that very lesson.

  Whoever had taken this photo had been lurking outside the window. Had followed as I was kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to Las Vegas against my will.

  Could it be the same specter that had run up a million dollar debt to Stefano the Fathead in Las Vegas? Who had stolen gold from the Westies in my name?

  “Where did you get this?” The question sounded lame and predictable even as it left my mouth but was no better than any of the others that shot through my brain. My gaze stayed frozen to the image, unable to find its way back to the Ferret’s beady eyes.

  “If those degrees on your wall are real, you’re far too smart to expect an answer to that. Think of something more useful to ask me.”

  “What exactly do you want from me?” I ventured.

  “You’re getting the hang of this.” His voice took on the sing-song quality of a schoolyard bully. “Money, to begin with.”

  Unseen gears in my mind hung on these last three words. If money was only the beginning, what would be the end?

  I took a deep breath and set the photo face down on the coffee table. “Look, I’m not sure what you think a therapist makes, but the stereotype just isn’t true. I have to bill insurance for most of the clients I see. Getting paid takes time, and even then I have more overhead than you think.”

  His teeth were small within a mouth too wide for his thin face when he grinned. “Much as I would love to offer you other means of payment, I wasn’t authorized to make any deals.”

  Fear and disgust rolled through my stomach, turning my mouth sour. “Authorized by whom?”

  “You’re getting stupid again, Doctor. Let’s not waste each other’s time.” He glanced at the clock. “Five minutes left. I’ll bet your next client is parked in those cheap chairs in front of Goldilocks’s desk. You have your checkbook?”

  I kept my eyes trained on him, not wanting to reveal myself with a telltale glance at the laptop bag hanging on its usual peg by the door. What would tough, street-smart Liam tell me to do if he were here any form other than the photo on the table?

  So imprinted was he upon my body and mind that his deep voice smoldered through my head without effort. This is happening, lady. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can react.

  “I’m not in the habit of indulging ultimatums,” I said, standing. “Plattsburgh is a small town. If you leave now, you might be able to reach the edge of it before the police arrive.”

  The chair rose up to meet me as I was knocked back into it with enough force to steal my breath. The Ferret’s face was a hair’s breadth from mine, near enough for me to notice the involuntary twitch in his eyelids and dilation of his pupils.

  Addiction to prescription medication, likely barbiturates of some kind. About due for his next fix.

  “The police,” he hissed. “I had almost forgotten. Odd you never called them and filed a report after your little trip to Las Vegas. Is it because you didn’t want them to know about your little gambling debt?”

  “That wasn’t my debt,” I said, trying to infuse my voice with the calm cultured during summer internships at violent psychotics wards during grad school.

  “I know that,” he said. “But they don’t. And right now, they don’t know that you fucked your kidnapper within twenty-four hours of meeting him. But they will. And so will a lot of other people if you don’t cooperate.”

  I swallowed the defenses my brain spun off as quickly as they came. I had just learned that everything I believed to be real was a crock of shit. I was coming off of animal tranquilizers I had been shot with. I was alone and terrified. I was a virgin.

  “What’s it going to be, Doctor?” Breath scented like stomach acid burned my nostrils. “You want the world to find out you’re just as batshit crazy as your mother?”

  My face stung as if it had been slapped. Where lungs had once lived in my chest, now there were only airless bricks.

  “Oh, yes,” the Ferret said. “I know all about her. Know how she got hauled to an institution when you were twelve. Know about your foster families. Hell, I even know about you and your foster brothe—”

  “Stop!” The word ripped through me with a sudden rage
that rattled my ribs.

  “Touchy subject, I see.” He chuckled. “Actually, touchy is just the word, isn’t it, Doctor?”

  “How much?” The voice speaking these words was flat, dead, and sounded nothing like my own.

  “Ten thousand ought to be a good start.”

  “All right.”

  He unfolded at the waist and released his white-knuckled grip on the arms of my chair. “Good girl.”

  On wooden legs I stumped over to my laptop bag and withdrew my checkbook. Numb fingers scrawled numbers and a signature across the paper.

  “You can just leave the to field blank,” the Ferret offered helpfully.

  The sound of perforations tearing felt like a curtain falling down on a stage I hadn’t known I occupied.

  The scrap floated away from me and into a hand nearly as slim as my own. “I hope I don’t have to describe to you what would happen if you were to call your bank to cancel this check. Or if you did anything else I found irritating.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Good.” He cast a sidelong glance at the coffee table where the photo still lay face down. “Consider that a souvenir,” he said, winking at me. “Plenty more where that came from. We’ll talk again soon.”

  I stood motionless long after the door closing announced his departure.

  My office was precisely as it had ever been. The books did not fly off the shelves. The walls failed to crumble to rubble around me. The rug did not pull itself out from under my feet. The diplomas did not leap from their walls and shatter to the ground. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.

  The knock was enough to send my heart slamming against my ribs even though I knew the gentle rhythm.

  This was my cue to come and welcome the next client. The five feet to the door might as well have been five miles, so rooted was I to the floor. “Come in,” I called.

  Julie’s comforting heart-shaped face and halo of curls poked through the opened crack. “Dr. Schmi—er Matilda, your next client is—”