It was obvious that Becky did not want to give the name, but she did so without much hesitation all the same. Ronald Welch.

And you said its been five or six months since youve seen him?

Yes, give a week or two.

Do you by any chance have a phone number or address?

No.

Can you guess his age, perhaps?

He was forty-five. I know because he complained about how he thought his life would have been this picture of success and wealth by the time he was forty and now that he was five years past it, everything seemed to be getting worse. He

Becky paused here as a buzzing noise interrupted her. She took her phone out of her pocket, checked the display, and looked to them with a sense of urgency. This is my next call. I have to take it. I work for a telehealth firm dealing with mental health and my clients are

Its quite all right, Rachel said. Youve been more than accommodating. We can see ourselves out.

Jack thought they could have gotten a bit more from the conversation and maybe Becky could have put the call off for another few minutes. Rather than argue this, he simply followed Rachel out of the kitchen as Becky hurried back to the large room shed disappeared into earlierpresumably her office.

When they were back out on the porch, Jack finally said something. You really think we got all we could out of her?

I do. She hated giving us that name, but she did. So she had no reason to keep anything else from us. I think she told us all she could.

Jack supposed this made sense, but still…there was something about the abruptness of the decision that seemed very un-Rachel. Shed done a few things here and there over the last few weeks that had been similar to this and he chalked it up to whatever was going on in her life that she was choosing not to tell him about.

Besides, she said as they neared the car. We learned the most important thing.

Yeah, we did get a name.

No, not the name. I mean the fact that I guessed it perfectly. Shes doing mental health through a telehealth system.

With a snarky and playful smile that was very much in line with Rachels typical personality, she got into the car. As Jack did the same, he could not shake the feeling that despite the occasional flash of normalcy, there was something truly wrong with his partner.

And he was going to find out what it was.

CHAPTER NINE