I spend the next ninety minutes answering emails in my office. I’m dying to go out there and check up on how Luke is faring with the setup, but I don’t want to hover over him. So I wait patiently for him to come to me. With every minute, my guilt escalates at how long he’s spending helping me.

Finally, when I’m contemplating getting up to check on him, a fist raps on the door to my office. “Adrienne?”

“Just a moment!”

I quickly finish up the email I’m working on, then get back on my feet. When I come out of my office, Luke is near the door, standing by my bookcase. He’s holding one of my books, and it takes a second to realize it’s my newest one—soon to hit bookstores all over the nation. The Anatomy of Fear.

“Oh, hey.” His cheeks color. “Sorry, didn’t mean to snoop. I saw the book with your name on it and I got curious.”

“It’s just a proof copy.”

“It looks really interesting.” Again, that sheepish smile. “I read your other one. It was great. Intelligent, but down to earth. The sort of thing that would appeal to anyone.”

“Thank you.”

“You probably hear that all the time though.”

“Not that much.” I look down at the copy in his hands. “This one is coming out in a few months. I’m really proud of it.”

“It’s about… fear?”

I nod, eager to talk about it. When the book releases, there will be book tours and interviews and perhaps television appearances. But as of now, there’s been nothing. And I’m dying to talk about my book. “Basically, it’s about people who have survived terrifying situations and how they have coped in the aftermath.”

“Heavy stuff.”

“The most striking case study is a patient PL I’ve been seeing for a few years now,” I say. “She was staying at a cabin for the weekend with her fiancé and two of her best friends. Out in the wilderness, no cell phone service, yada yada yada.”

He smiles crookedly. “Oh, you mean like here?”

“Nothing like here.” I shoot him a look. “Anyway, they were drinking quite a lot and smoking pot, so their guard was down when a crazy man with a butcher knife burst into the cabin.” I lick my lips, recalling the description I wrote in the book. “He slashed their tires so they couldn’t get away. Then he stabbed all four of them, leaving them for dead. My patient survived by pretending to be unconscious—after the assailant left the cabin, she stumbled through the woods until she came across the main road and flagged down a car for help.”

“Jesus,” Luke breathes. “That’s… awful.”