Page 32 of Stripping Bare

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Six hoursafter Tessa walked away from Jonah in the rec center parking lot, the last of the women waiting to talk left the “counseling office” the shelter director had set up in a utility closet. The scent of bleach and industrial strength cleaner had likely been blanketing Tessa the entire time, but now she noticed the sharp fragrance. It, combined with an empty stomach and the tension headache she’d been fighting off since Jonah called her, made nausea creep up onher.

She averted her gaze from the mop bucket in the corner because she would not allow herself to get sick here. It was unprofessional. Mental health professionals were trusted to remain calm and unruffled. Detachedeven.

But after hearing the terror the women felt when two children were snatched from the fenced backyard by their abusive father, there was no way she could be unaffected. She knew all too well how it felt to have your world destroyed by someone else’sactions.

A knock came at the door, and Tessa breathed, willing her rocky stomach to cooperate. “Comein.”

The shelter’s director, a woman in her thirties with short red hair, poked her head inside. “Could you talk with one moreperson?”

Could she? She was so drained from today’s emotional black hole that she was trembling. Or maybe her reaction stemmed from something even closer to home. “Well…”

At that, Dianne slid inside and quietly shut the door. “It’sDoris.”

The mother whose children had been abducted. It had taken the Asheville police over three hours to locate the kids and their dad, and during that time, Doris had been inconsolable. So overwrought that the shelter’s regular counselor discussed having a doctor administer a sedative. But the mother had refused it, saying she needed to be on the lookout. After all, that was what had caused this in the first place—that she hadn’t been watching her kids everysecond.

When the counselor had pushed the sedative idea, Tessa had stepped in to support the mother because she knew how terrifying it was not to be in control. “I…I thought she talked with the shelter’s counselorearlier.”

“She did, but she wants to talk withyou.”

Tessa uncapped the water bottle sitting beside her chair and took a quick swallow, hoping it would fill her rocky stomach. This wasn’t her area. Yes, she’d been through trauma counseling herself, but there was a reason she’d chosen to focus on organizational psychology and corporate coaching. As with Davey and the others, she sometimes talked about people’s deeper issues, but for the most part her work life was filled with team dynamics and helping people adjust to theworkplace.

But she would not turn away a woman who was in pain. “Have her come onin.”

When the woman shuffled inside, wearing the same ill-fitting jeans and oversized T-shirt she’d worn earlier, her face and eyes were puffy from tears. Her gaze flitted from Tessa to the mop bucket to the tall shelves of cleaning supplies and finally back toTessa.

“Please be comfortable.” Tessa gestured to the chair near her. “Well, as comfortable as you can be in a cleaningcloset.”

Doris rewarded her with a wan smile and slumped into the cafeteria-style chair. “You seem like a nicelady.”

“Thank you. I’d like to help you any way Ican.”

“You tired, ain’tyou?”

Normally in control of her body language, Tessa jerked back as if she could dodge the woman’s words. But she shouldn’t pretend. Doris had likely heard enough lies, enough platitudes in her life. “Yes. I want to help people, but it takes a great deal ofenergy.”

Was that the reason she’d steered herself toward the safety of corporatework?

Doris waved a hand toward Tessa’s clothes. “A man buy youthose?”

Tessa blinked. She wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, but for now she was willing to let it play out. “I have my own work that allows me to supportmyself.”

“So you ain’t ever been under no man’sthumb?”

“As a child, I lived with both my mom and dad, if that’s what youmean.”

“He ever hityou?”

The concept of Robert Martin ever laying a violent hand on her was so foreign she couldn’t even comprehend it. Her father had sobbed when he’d seen her bruised and broken and torn. “Why don’t we talk about what’s happening withyou?”

Doris’s puffy eyes narrowed until her pupils were barely visible. “You didn’t say yes orno.”

“No,but—”

“What about yo’ husband or boyfriend? He ever beat youup?”

Now they were entering boggy territory. Empathy was important here, but she never shared details of her past. “No, but I have been a victim of violence.” She reached out and took Doris’s work-roughened hand into her own. “Why do you want toknow?”