Sinister Tales

Aftermath

Aftermath (Part three to Stalked)

2015 © All Rights Reserved

Jane and Belle have survived their horrifying ordeal without too much physical damage, but what about mental damage? Only time will tell..

"I would like to put your daughter through a psych evaluation," the detective, Lane spoke to Jane. The distraught mother gave him a look of confusion and rage, "now before you go off on me ma'am, listen to what I have to say. Please?" He gave her a look and it told her that he wasn't in the mood to pick a fight.

"Okay, go on." Jane listened with an open mind about the situation, not letting her frustration get the best of her.

The detective gave a look of sympathy before he continued on, "Just because I asked for her to be put through an evaluation does not mean I think she's crazy. In fact, I think she's quite brave for what she did. But events like these can leave an impact on young children whether you know it or not. She could grow up with post traumatic stress disorder or extreme anxiety. I just want to make sure she'll be okay mentally. It's just a procedure."

There was a moment of silent as Jane sat in the room with the man. It had only been a week after being freed from the capture of her stalker Abel. She looked out the office window and seen her little six year old daughter playing in the hallway with a doll she brought along. "How will you know if she'll be okay?"

"That's the thing," he started off, "we will not know a hundred percent sure that she will be okay but this evaluation can give us a bit of a heads up in case there is something that we will need to work on with her."

Belle stared intently at her doll. After a few, seemingly long seconds of the stare down, she brought the plastic girl's ear to her lips and whispered something. Jane watched, wondering what she could have whispered to the doll, but knew it was probably best not to dwell on it. Belle's eyes snapped up and stared at her mother. Something about her expression seemed off to Jane, but with her emotions riled up as much as it already was from the topic she was having with the detective, she blamed the odd feeling on the stress.

"Ma'am?" His cautious tone brought Jane back to the conversation they were having, "So what do you say? Can we do an evaluation on Belle?"

Jane carefully thought on it, "It can't hurt, right?"

"Right," he agreed, "better to be prepared than not."

The use of his word brought a question to Jane's mind, "Prepared? Prepared for what?"

"I guess that's not the best word for it, but I'm talking about it being better to make sure your daughter is alright. All we'll be doing is asking her some questions and just getting her to open up." He explained a small portion of the process, "It's been a week and I don't expect you two to be perfectly fine, but your daughter hasn't said a word to me or anyone else. She just stares."

"She's always been a bit of recluse to people she doesn't know. Belle is just a shy kid." Jane wrapped her arms around herself, standing up and looking out the glass window at her daughter still playing with her doll.

"And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's still something we'd want to make sure we can get under control if there is a problem. No one comes out of a situation like this without scars, physical and emotional. I'm not sure if you guys will ever be perfectly okay without worries, but if there is something going on with your daughter then we want to see if we can help." Lane explained.

"And if there is something wrong?" Jane looked away from the window and sat back into the chair, finding herself unable to sit still through a conversation like the one she was having.