Free A Desperate Silence (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 3) by Sarah Lovett

drawn professional criticism and praise. Her publishers hoped a second book would increase her visibility. Sylvia just prayed she wouldn't end up on some talk show with a hyperactive confrontational host. She knew her publishers prayed she would. And they kept threatening to trash her subtitles.
          It was no mystery to Sylvia why she wrote about attachment or bonding disorders. Most children who experienced the loss of a parent spent some portion of their life trying to fill the void. It was one of those wounds that never quite healed. Sylvia turned thirteen the year Daniel Strange walked out of her life. Bonnie, Sylvia's mother, had always insisted her husband was dead: "Why else would he stay silent, hurt us this way?" Sylvia felt in her heart he was still alive . . . somewhere in the world. Even as a young child, she had sensed a fundamental change in her father after his return from military duty in Southeast Asia. Years before his physical disappearance, he had abandoned his family emotionally.
          She tried to focus on the revision, but she lacked concentration. Emotionally drained from the day's events, she found herself at half-mast in her swivel chair. Serena's file and the accident report were on a shelf next to her desk; she scanned the few pages again. And when she picked up the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV to verify a term, the pages of the tome just happened to fall open to the categories of disorders usually diagnosed in childhood: mental retardation, autistic disorder, learning disorders, expressive language disorder.
          Sylvia scrawled notes on scratch paper: cognitive disorders? definite vocal capacity! lack of language skills? stuttering? selective mutism? silence intermittent? for days, weeks, months? years?
          "God, let's hope not years."
          Rocko, who was stretched out on the floor of the office near Sylvia's feet, opened one eye at the sound of a human voice and yawned. His mistress absentmindedly scratched the terrier's tummy with her bare toe.
          Since, at the moment, Serena was minus almost all history, there was no way to know if her family dynamics matched the selective-mutism profile. On one hand, she wasn't a "frozen child," completely withdrawn from all social contacts. On the other hand, she wasn't your average kid. The image remained in Sylvia's mind—the child's luminous features raised skyward.
          Sylvia poked Rocko's belly. "Whaddaya think, big guy? Is Serena a wee bit tetched?"
          The terrier raised his head attentively as if he were about to answer the question. Sylvia was reaching forward to pat the animal when someone grabbed her from behind.
          She let out a short yell and thrust her elbow backward.
          "Hey! It's me ."
          She recognized the voice, turned, and saw a familiar face gazing at her from under the brim of a baseball cap. His skin was weathered and tanned, his gray-green eyes fringed by dark lashes, his nose had encountered obstacles, and his mouth was wide and expressive. Tall and solid at forty-three, Matt England had a cop's seen-the-world face.
          "It's you ," she said, breathless.
          "Who'd you think it was? You almost injured my manhood." He gave her a speculative glance before he disappeared from the study. She followed him to the living room—he wasn't there—and stepped out the open sliding glass door onto the deck. When Matt reappeared through the backyard gate, his arms were weighed down by something black and heavy and wrapped in plastic. He let the load fall to the wooden deck.
          Sylvia bent close to read the label. "Pond liner?"
          "Ummmm." Matt grazed one hand along Sylvia's bare arm. He pushed his cap off his forehead and smiled. "This one's going to be big."
          Sylvia set her hands on her hips. "Bigger than the two ponds you've already made?"
          "This'll be the best. We can stock it with spadefoot