Free Unbreakable Bond by Rita Herron Page A

Slade removed the bagged doll and knife.
    â€œAnd just last night someone left this for Nina. Doesn’t it seem coincidental to you that someone would leave this on her porch only hours after she reopened the investigation?”
    â€œOh, hell.” Nash gave Nina a worried look, and paced back to his desk. Frowning, he opened a drawer, removed a folder and walked back toward them. Then he shoved the file toward Slade.
    â€œThis is the report from the psychiatrist who treated Nina after she lost Peyton. Take a look at it and tell me if you really think there’s a case here, or if Nina is just unable to accept the truth.”
    â€œDad, you can’t show him my medical records.” Nina looked appalled. “They’re private.”
    Nina’s father stroked her shoulder. “I just don’t want to see you put yourself through this kind of pain again.” His voice dropped a decibel. “And I certainly don’t want you to have another breakdown, Nina. I want to see you happy and building a new life.”
    Slade’s hands tightened around the folder at the sincerity in Nash’s voice. For a moment he debated looking at the file, but he’d vowed to find out the truth, and he’d told Nina she had to be completely honest with him.
    So he flipped open the folder and skimmed the report. It corroborated Hood’s story. According to the psychiatrist’s notes, Nina had been in denial, depressed and delusional. The episode with the doll and the knife through its heart symbolized her guilt and grief over not saving her child, and the anguish in her own heart.
    Slade’s stomach knotted. Had he been a fool to believe her? Was Hood right—had he fallen for her big, anguished eyes because he wanted to be her hero?
    A hero for someone because he’d failed time after time after time…
    Â 
    â€œI AM NOT DELUSIONAL ,” Nina said emphatically. “Yes, I was grieving, sad, even depressed but not delusional.”
    â€œAre you taking antidepressants again?” her father asked.
    â€œNo,” Nina said. “I didn’t want to take them years ago, and I don’t intend to ever again.” She jutted up her chin, forcing conviction into her voice. “I’m perfectly rational, and I did not stab that doll and put it on my porch. I heard a noise in the night, then got up and saw a shadow outside.” Her voice grew stronger. “Don’t you care that someone is tormenting me, Dad?”
    â€œThis is the way it all started.” Her father gave Slade a disgruntled look, then lowered himself into the chair opposite her and pulled her hands into his. “Please go see the therapist again, Nina.”
    She cast a sideways look at Slade, but his dark eyes probed hers as if she were a bug he was trying to dissect.
    Anger fueled her temper. She could handle whatever she discovered about her daughter, but she didn’t know if she could tolerate the pitying or condescending looks again. “I should have known that you wouldn’t help me, that you wouldn’t believe me. You don’t want anything to mess up your perfect world, do you, Dad?” She jerked her hands away and stood. “You didn’t want a pregnant daughter, or an illegitimate child, and you certainly wouldn’t have wanted a preemie who might have been handicapped.”
    â€œThat’s enough, Nina.” Her father’s eyes glittered with rage. “I love you. Everything I’ve ever done has been with your best interests in mind.”
    Nina gripped her shoulder bag, and faced her father. “If you wanted what was best for me, you’d believeme. You would have helped me search for my baby instead of abandoning me and making me feel like I was crazy.”
    Grief swelled inside her at the realization that she and her father would never get along. Never be close.
    She had disappointed him.
    But he had disappointed her, too.
    He was the one