Melissa stayed with Nanette and her husband and was able to visit with her out-of-town friend as well. She was grateful as hell for Nanette and Ryland, but things had now gotten to the point where she was ready to cave and sell the house. It might be the only way to stop the harassment—at least on the home front—as long as she made sure she wasn’t followed to wherever she moved. At this point, she might even consider moving into a gated, secure condo or apartment building.
All she knew was that she refused to spend another night in the house. She took what she could fit into Nanette’s spare bedroom and then rented a storage space to move most of her valuables into. Once the house was empty and clean, she would put it on the market.
When Nanette—unafraid of rodents—went to gather some of her things that first night, she saw a few rats in varying colors scurrying about. After her husband bombed the place and went through it later, he uncovered over a dozen rats. Each weighed around a pound, and their colors ranged from white to gray, brown to black. Some even had interesting markings. Their size and markings clearly showed they were not wild rats. Someone had raised them and fed them well before turning them loose in Melissa’s home.
Melissa had just seen a patient right before lunch. Her stomach rumbled with hunger, and she was looking forward to grabbing a bite to eat. But then a young, stocky Hispanic male with a dirty shirt and sagging jeans suddenly appeared in the open door of her tiny office, curbing her appetite.
“Melissa Goldstein?”
“Yes?” Melissa said, her pulse quickening in a way it never would have before Katie. How the hell had this guy gotten back here, and how did he know her name?
“Katie wants to talk to you.”
Melissa gasped in surprise. This was new. “Yeah? So do I. Where is she?”
“Why?”
Melissa rose from her chair, anger slowly replacing her fear. “Because she’s in an awful lot of trouble, and the police would like to talk to her as much as I would. That’s why. So how about you be a good Samaritan and tell me where she is? Anything would be great. An address, a phone number…”
Melissa’s words were abruptly cut off when the man shot forward and slugged her. Stunned by the blow to the head, her knees buckled, and she dropped to the floor. The guy turned and ran. Melissa pushed herself up onto her knees, fumbled for the phone, and called the police, alerting security and the front desk.
In just minutes, a very tall, large-boned—but not heavy—female security guard was in her office. ‘E. Crawford’ was the name stitched onto her uniform.
“Are you okay, Dr. Goldstein?”
Melissa looked up and saw the office assistant gazing in from the hallway with concern. She hiked herself into her chair. “I-I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I just need the police to finally catch this psychopath and everyone she’s employed to harm me.”
A moment later, two uniformed policemen arrived along with a female detective. Melissa expected their first question to be whether she was okay and assessing her immediate safety. Instead, the woman curtly asked,
“Dr. Melissa Goldstein?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“You’re under arrest for suspicion of the attempted murder of Katie Nyland,” the detective said.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Shock and disbelief overwhelmed Melissa. She had not heard what she thought she had—she couldn’t have. She must be dreaming.
“What?” she slowly heard herself say, her voice sounding underwater. “What!” she shouted louder.
“Please stand up and turn around,” said the detective.
“This can’t be. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m the victim! The Katie Nyland that your fellow officers say doesn’t exist has been enlisting people to assault and harass me for months, and now you want to arrest me?”
“Turn around, Dr. Goldstein,” said one of the male officers.
The detective turned her so she could slip on a pair of cold, heavy handcuffs.
“I absolutely don’t believe this. I just don’t. This is like arresting a rape victim for her own rape.”
The detective spoke again, nudging Melissa toward the door. “We can discuss everything at the station.”
“We couldn’t do it right here? Instead, you have to embarrass the shit out of me in front of my staff and patients?”
The detective and the officers said nothing. Melissa was led down the long hallway. She felt like she was moving as if in a nightmare—but this was real life. One she couldn’t wrap her head around or wake up from.
Once at the station, she was questioned and then thrown into a holding cell to await arraignment. Bail had been set far too high for her to afford. She called Nanette and got her voicemail, leaving a brief message asking that she contact a lawyer.
She sat on the built-in cement bench, staring at the gray cement wall, still feeling as if she were dreaming.
There were three other women in the cell: a couple of Black women chatting about their drug charges, and another white woman sitting at the other end of the bench. She sat with her head down, hair covering her face. Melissa couldn’t see much of her because one of the other women, much bigger, blocked most of her from view.
Minutes turned into hours, and Melissa eventually dozed off despite the loud chatter and the TV blasting just outside in the dayroom.
When she awoke, the only other inmate in the cell was the strangely shy woman who continued to look down at her lap, hair covering her face.
“Hey,” said Melissa. “Would you happen to know what time it is?”
The woman turned to face her.
Melissa’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
It was Katie.
Melissa’s mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out.
Katie smiled—and it wasn’t a friendly smile at all. “Does it really matter what time it is, Doctor?”
ns216.73.216.54da2
and then Add to home screen.