Possess

these.”
    “Um, okay.” Bridget bit the inside of her cheek as she grabbed Undermeyer’s patient file from the box.
    She’d been half joking, bringing up Alexa, but only half. The rest of her still wondered how a guy like Matt, cute and popular and clearly not a total douchebag, would go for a bitch like Alexa Darlington. Sure she was hot and dripping with money, but was that what he was looking for?
    She stole a glance at Matt while he pushed a CD into his MacBook and pulled a set of headphones over his ears. He’d sounded so weird last night when he talked about Alexa, like he’d tried to forget those months of his life. And the look on his face when she spoke to him, like he was biting through nails. Maybe he’d really loved her and she’d broken his heart? The thought made Bridget want to hurl.
    Bridget sighed and turned to the stack of file folders. As she opened the first file, she grimaced. What exactly was she looking for? She knew her dad’s record keeping pretty well: audio recordings of each session, which he would burn onto a CD; notes on topics and comments of interest during the session; postsession impressions of each client, along with medications prescribed and suggestions for the next session. All completely, one hundred percent straightforward. No codes, no gimmicks, no secret shorthand. There was no reason to believe she’d find anything that had been missed the first bazillion times these notes had been examined.
    Still, this was her dad, and after her mom, Bridget knew him best. Maybe she’d see something everyone else missed.
    Undermeyer’s file started out normal enough. The first session was mainly for initial reactions, stating that the patient arrived heavily sedated, and that acute schizophrenia and possible multiple personality disorder were the most likely culprits for his condition. Not a word, not a hint of anything out of the ordinary.
    But there wouldn’t have been, right? Her dad couldn’t very well have said, “Undermeyer is possessed by several demonic entities that only I can communicate with.” It wouldn’t exactly fly with Sergeant Quinn and the assistant district attorney. The session ended with the request that he see Undermeyer again, this time without any drugs in his system.
    The next session was a week later and was, apparently, a complete disaster. At the end of the session Dr. Liu had to call in the accompanying officers from the other room and have Undermeyer restrained after he attempted to throw himself through the fourth-story window of Dr. Liu’s office. Not much there, other than that her dad requested another interview.
    This was a bust. They weren’t going to find anything here that the police missed. She’d hit a dead end.
    Matt sat bolt upright in his chair. “Whoa.”
    “What?”
    He held up a hand. “Hold on. Let me check something.” Matt scrolled the recording ahead two, three times, then cupped his hands over his ears, listening acutely. After a few seconds his hand flew to the space bar and he paused the recording. “Whoa.”
    “What?”
    “I think I found something.”
    Bridget sucked in a breath. “Really?”
    “Yeah.” Matt moved quickly. He reset the recording back near the beginning and handed the headphones to Bridget. “So that CD has Undermeyer’s first and second sessions with your dad. They’re each thirty minutes long, and pretty much what you’d expect. But this CD, with the third and fourth sessions, they’re shorter. The third session is only twenty-two minutes, the fourth only fifteen.”
    Bridget felt a ripple of excitement race through her body. “That doesn’t sound like my dad.”
    “Right? So I went through them again and . . . well, listen for yourself.”
    Bridget slipped the headphones on while Matt started the recording.
    “And have you been taking your medication, Mr. Undermeyer?” Dr. Liu asked.
    A lump welled up in Bridget’s throat at her dad’s voice. He sounded infinitely calm, totally professional, not an ounce of emotion reflected through the even cadence of his words. God, she missed him.
    “Yes. Yes, yes, yes.” It was Undermeyer’s voice, with that taunting style of the demoniac that Bridget had come to know so well.
    “Excellent. And do you care to tell me why you broke into the Church of St. Michael?”
    “No. No, no, no.” Bridget could almost see the taunting grin on Undermeyer’s face.
    “I see.”
    Matt held up a finger. On the recording, Bridget heard a faint