Over the Borderline Read online

  Over the Borderline

  Leanna Floyd

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Over the Borderline

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Copyright Information

  Acknowledgement

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  About the Author

  Photo Credit: Stacey Woods

  Leanna Floyd has a doctorate in clinical psychology and has worked firsthand with murderers, psychopaths, narcissists, and borderlines while working in a Florida prison. In this setting, she explored the minds of notorious killers and obtained an insider’s view of their secrets as they recounted their darkest hours. Leanna lives in the Sunshine State, Florida, with her husband, a retired major league baseball player, and their two young boys.

  About the Book

  Brooke Douger has a knack for helping others with their broken lives, which explains her interest in criminal psychology and profiling. She convinces her childhood friend, Jacob, to move to Tampa after his latest fiasco, where he finds a job at a legal firm, which is defending Zach Barton, a rich, young entrepreneur who is accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend. When Brooke has to provide expert testimony in Barton’s trial, Jacob and Brooke end up on opposite sides of the courtroom. As Brooke prepares to testify, she discovers a pattern of violent, impulsive behavior in Barton’s past, eerily similar to those of the Surfside Killer, the case she has been asked to help profile for the FBI. Brooke is swirling in dangerous waters with the killer lurking on the fringe of her life. Who will be his next victim? Will Brooke’s knack for profiling be enough to keep her safe?

  Dedication

  To my loving boys, who have inspired me to reach for

  the stars.

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © Leanna Floyd (2019)

  The right of Leanna Floyd to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781528917797 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781528917803 (Hardback)

  ISBN 9781528962063 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2019)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  This novel, inspired by life events, contains characters, incidents, and dialogue which have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The characters depicted herein should not be confused with any real persons.

  Acknowledgement

  To my husband, Gavin, I am so grateful that you encouraged me to achieve my dreams. To my boys, Jax and Hunter, you have inspired me to be the best that I can be and to never give up on a dream. To my parents, Robert and Julie, thank you for your support and for all the prayers throughout my life. To my writing mentor, Dudley Delffs, I am so grateful for your wisdom and guidance throughout my writing career.

  The first one was by accident—it really was, I swear.

  Yes, my fingers were around that girl’s neck, but the throbbing of her pulse electrified me like a shock. I couldn’t let go, not even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. She thrashed and instinctively arched her back to break my grip, but she couldn’t.

  After picking her up in some seedy little bar off Highway 295, we’d both had a few drinks, and she made it clear she liked to play rough. So, we left and drove down to the beach and sat in my car, rolled the windows down even though it was late September. She wanted to hear some music, so I started the car again and let her push ‘SEEK’ on the digital console until she settled on Amy Winehouse singing about how tears dry on their own. I pulled out a pint of Jack from the back floorboard, and we drank straight from the bottle. Before the song was over, my belt was undone and her hand dipped below my waistband. She chewed my ear and guided my hands to help unzip her.

  I’ll never forget the feel of that dress, as blue as the sky and flimsy as a cloud, and how easily it ripped in my hands. Bless her heart, she laughed about it, actually giggled like we were school kids on the playground and she’d accidentally torn her skirt. That’s when I put my hands around her neck, at first to stop her laughing, but then that surge of lifeblood thrummed through my fingers like the tide coming in.

  I don’t know how long we sat there like that, locked together. After a few moments, she could tell something had changed—and I was as surprised as she was. The warm, moist feel of her neck in my hands reminded me of holding a puppy or a kitten, strong yet vulnerable at the same time. Then I couldn’t stop, and the more she resisted, the more excited I became to see her squirm. I held the power of life and death in my hands, literally.

  My fingers clamped like steel vices until something gurgled in her throat and her eyes rolled back. Only then did I realize she wasn’t pretending. One minute she was a live wire sizzling in my hands, and the next, nothing, gone. That throbbing pulse that had captivated me with its surging rhythm just stopped. Her neck and spine flexed in one last spasm before relaxing, a balloon being deflated, as I cradled her in my hands.

  I couldn’t believe I’d done it, nor could I deny how good it felt. It was like discovering a taste for single-malt scotch or basking in that first mellow wave of pleasure the first time you smoked really great weed. And once you find something you like, you know what they say, "Once is never enough."

  Chapter 1

  “Hey, it’s me. Things are not good. Please call me!”

  Brooke sighed and listened to the two messages that followed, the deep masculine voice more panicked with each one. With anxiety rising in her chest, she forced herself to take a slow, deep breath. Okay, Jacob, what is it this time? I’m not your personal therapist, but I might as well be.

  Only a few minutes earlier, she had known exactly how she would spend her evening. Late afternoon sunshine had reached through the oversized library windows, and a quick swim on the beach before heading home sounded like the perfect reward for researching psychopathology for the past five hours. Swimming remained her outlet, the one
time in her hectic day when she was free—unplugged and unreachable to her students, other faculty, and even to her best friend, Jacob. She thought of her body rolling with the soft waves, the surf muffling all sounds except for the rhythm of the tide, and the weightlessness of her body in her underwater sanctuary. One of the benefits of living in Florida, the Gulf of Mexico remained warm well into the fall.

  Watching specks of dust orbit in the fading light, Brooke considered calling Jacob right then but knew she couldn’t do it in the library—its ‘no cell’ policy strictly enforced and the reason she’d missed his messages. Not that she minded trying to eliminate as many distractions, including texts and emails, as possible. Besides, most messages weren’t urgent: queries from undergrads in the study group she led or the community clients she counseled as part of her program, or pleas to visit more often from her mother. So, she had been surprised to turn on her phone and see three voice messages from Jacob.

  Yes, she’d call him on her way home—there went her swim—but she couldn’t leave her workspace in such a mess. Scanning the small cubicle that had become home since starting her dissertation, Brooke stacked books on similar topics together and began returning dozens of articles she’d printed to their color-coded file folders. She saved the various open documents on her laptop and put it in her leather satchel. She knew she was lucky to have a research cubby on the same floor where most of the hard copies of her sources were located. Online research certainly produced more comprehensive results quickly, but she still liked marking up paper copies of articles by hand. Dr. Gregory, her advisor and academic mentor, even teased her about having OCD, ‘obsessive color disorder’, because of her bright highlighters and colored pens. Despite being only twenty-eight, maybe she was old school and a bit of a book nerd. But it had gotten her this far.

  Brooke gathered her purse, book bag, and satchel and headed toward the elevators. The air smelled of musty books and stale carpet, and she passed only a handful of other students, pretty typical for a Saturday afternoon. Able to access most sources online, many of her undergrads had probably never even been in the place, which made her sad. She loved how the worn discolored paths in the faded carpet created a labyrinth where other students had tread decades before her; she loved libraries and considered herself one of the many fortunate pilgrims visiting its sacred shrines.

  If she remained on schedule, she would finish her dissertation by the end of the semester, defend it in the spring, and have her Ph.D. in hand by May. It was hard to believe she’d been at the University of South Florida for over three years now. The program had been exhausting, but it had exceeded her expectations.

  Helping others made her feel content, satisfied that she was doing something significant with the intellect and intuitive emotional intelligence she seemed to possess. Even when helping others pushed her to her limits mentally, emotionally, and physically, she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do with her life. Even when her clients’ problems encroached upon her own personal life. If she could alleviate some of the pain of other human beings and equip them with coping strategies, then it was worth it. She seemed to have a certain knack for finding a pattern for healing within the messy, broken, distorted pieces of others’ lives.

  Curiously enough, this knack had led her to criminal psychology and profiling as her primary areas of interest. This was also Dr. Gregory’s expertise, of course, but even before she heard his stories about famous cases on which he’d worked or research he’d conducted, Brooke had always been intrigued by the complexities of the human mind and the way moral values influence choices, motivations, and actions. Dr. Gregory sometimes worried about her being naïve and idealistic, but she believed in the possibility of disrupting evil before it could take root in the human heart.

  Once outside, Brooke paused and closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the fresh wind on her face with its faint scent of seawater. She weaved through the student parking lot, spotted her little, blue Prius, nicknamed ‘Carl’ for both Jung as well as Rogers, and dumped her stuff in the backseat. Pulling out her phone, she listened once again as Jacob’s voice escalated with each subsequent message. Maybe she would wait a few more minutes before calling. Wasn’t Dr. G always telling her to work on boundaries? And she knew he was right.

  As much as she loved her work, there were limits to her patience and empathy when it came to what others took from her. She grew tired of reading about other people’s phobias and neuroses, weary from listening to her clients’ issues, and exhausted from her best friend’s frequent ups and downs. The first two came with the territory, but why did she keep letting Jacob use her as his one-woman crisis-counseling center? He knew she had an intense caseload this term, the final deadline for her dissertation was approaching, and she had her own issues related to a past eating disorder—not to mention her mother’s impending fourth marriage.

  Brooke was growing tired of his need to share every detail from his dead-end job or to update her on the latest drama with his old girlfriend. That’s what social media was for, right? She felt proud of herself for waiting until she had pulled into her apartment complex before hitting ‘call back’ on her phone.

  “Brookie?” Jacob’s voice sounded disoriented, and she wondered if he’d been drinking.

  “Hey, it’s me. Sorry, I didn’t call you back right away. I was in the library,” she said.

  Silence—which was not like him.

  She let five seconds pass before asking, “Jacob, what’s wrong?”

  He swallowed hard and said, “Summer’s been in an accident. Her…her mom called and said Summer’s in a coma and probably won’t recover. She…swallowed a handful of Xanax, washed it down with a fifth of vodka, and went for a drive late last night down A1-A. Miracle no one else was hurt.” His tone remained detached, as if he were merely reporting a news story.

  “Oh my god, Jacob,” Brooke said. “I’m so sorry, honey. How long’s it been now since you last heard from her?”

  He paused and then said, “Almost six months. She drunk-dialed me, crying about how sorry she was, how I was the best thing that ever happened to her. Same old bullshit. Same old Summer.”

  “Right,” said Brooke, “I remember now.” She swallowed hard and closed her eyes, searching for what to say that would sound like a friend and not a counselor. “You know what Summer did is not your fault—it’s really sad, but she chose to do that. This was clearly a suicide attempt.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Still…you should hear these two messages her mom left begging me to come to the hospital. How much good it would do Summer to wake up and see me there. That if anyone could make a miracle happen, I could. But it sounds like she’s not going to wake up, doesn’t it?”

  Brooke released a long sigh, her heart aching for him. “Jacob, do not second guess yourself. You and Summer were on-again off-again for how many years? And she only got worse. She leaped on the hood of your car while it was moving, for god’s sake! And that whole crazy episode with the faked pregnancy…no one could have stayed in a healthy relationship with her.”

  “I tried, Brooke,” he said and began to cry. “I really…tried. I thought if you loved somebody enough, you could change them.”

  “No, babe,” she said, “you can love someone all you want, but it’s not enough by itself. They have to want to get well. You did what you had to do to take care of yourself.” She felt a twinge of guilt because she had been the one frequently encouraging Jacob to break up with Summer, whom Brooke suspected of having borderline personality disorder along with substance abuse issues. “Listen to me. You did the right thing—you couldn’t stay in a relationship with someone so unstable. She’s an addict, Jacob, and a user. I know you once cared for her, but you have moved on. You have gotten on with your life.”

  “But I could’ve done things differently maybe,” he said, “I could’ve saved her.”

  “You can’t save someone from themselves,” she said forcefully, “you can’t save someone who
doesn’t want to be saved.”

  “I know you’re right,” Jacob said, “It’s just…hard.”

  “I can’t tell you what to do, but you don’t have to talk to Summer’s mom, and you certainly don’t have to go to the hospital. And choosing not to engage with them does not make you a bad person. It makes you a strong, courageous person doing what he has to do for himself. Boundaries, remember?”

  He sniffled and then got quiet. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s just…you know what’s crazy, Brooke? I listened to those messages from Cheryl, Summer’s mom, a couple of times and did something I haven’t done in forever. I actually got on my knees and prayed for her. I prayed for God to heal her and make her whole or to take her and give her peace.”

  “You’re a good man, Jacob,” she said. “Your willingness to pray for her shows how much you care. That was a very kind prayer. A loving prayer. It’s out of your hands now. Summer’s life is beyond your control. I think praying is a great way to acknowledge that.”

  “Right,” he said, “as if praying does any good. You know how I feel about God.”

  “Yes. I do. Listen, you’re going to be okay, but you want me to come up tonight? I could drive up; we could have brunch in the morning at that place you like with the fancy crepes. What do you say?” She twirled a strand of honey-blonde hair with her free hand before pushing it behind her ear, a habit since childhood.

  “You’d really do that?”

  “Of course, I would,” she said, “you know that.”

  “Yeah, I do. No, I’m okay—I think I want to be alone, probably just hang here.”

  She wondered if she should insist but knew it was healthier to respect the answer he gave. “Call me if you need me. Keep the faith, okay? Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Thanks for being there, Brooke.”

  Chapter 2

  Maybe he should have let Brooke come up. Being alone might not be so good for him after all. Talking to Brooke had helped, but not enough. The call from Summer’s mom had unlocked the vault of memories he kept buried deep inside, and it was going to be difficult to close it again.