CHAPTER 36: The Therapist’s Notes
The nursing home had a way of swallowing sound. Even the hum of the air conditioning seemed muted, the footsteps of nurses barely more than whispers across polished linoleum. Noah sat in the visitor’s lounge, staring at the closed door to his father’s room.
James was napping. At least, that’s what the nurse had said. Noah had no interest in waking him—not yet. He was here for something else.
In his jacket pocket, he could feel the slim, worn metal of James’s old key ring pressing against his palm.
James Keene had been in therapy for years after the explosion. Officially, it was “trauma counseling,” but Noah knew better. His father had never believed the sessions were just about helping him heal; they were about controlling the narrative. Keeping him contained.
The therapist’s office was on the second floor of the nursing home’s administrative wing, just behind a keypad-locked door that staff used for filing. Noah had noticed it on his last visit.
It was a gamble, but luck—or maybe desperation—was on his side. The keypad beeped as he punched in the code he’d seen a nurse enter two days earlier.
The door opened.
The room smelled faintly of paper and stale coffee. File cabinets lined one wall, each labeled with patient names in alphabetical order. Noah’s hands moved quickly, scanning labels until he found the right drawer: Keene, James M.
Inside were manila folders, stacked so tightly they bowed the metal. The one he wanted was thick, its tab marked with a date range: 2009–2018.
Noah sat at the small desk in the corner and opened it.
The first entries were routine. Notes about “adjustment difficulty” and “persistent paranoia following property damage incident.” His father’s words filtered through the therapist’s tidy handwriting: They think I’m lying. They think I imagined it.
But then, in a session dated October 14, 2009, there was a change. The handwriting underlined three words: The boy in red.
Patient insists the fire was not an accident. Describes a ‘boy in red’ standing across the street before the explosion. No one else reportedly saw him. Patient believes this boy is a ‘messenger’ or ‘warning.’ Continues to link him to unrelated incidents.
Noah’s pulse quickened as he turned the pages.
February 2010: Patient became agitated when I questioned the boy’s existence. States: “You’ll see him too, when it’s your turn.” Reports sightings near the courthouse, the high school, and outside his own home.
August 2012: Patient claims boy in red has aged. “He’s taller now. Same eyes. Same smile.” Reports that boy has been present at multiple crime scenes, but ‘no one else notices.’
The more Noah read, the less it sounded like pure delusion. The sightings lined up eerily with unsolved cases in Bellview—arson in 2009, a missing girl in 2010, the murder of a shopkeeper in 2012. And now, a house fire in the present day.
He flipped to the last few entries.
April 2018: Patient refuses to speak about boy in red in front of others. States: “They’ll use him to get to you too.” When asked who ‘they’ are, patient replied: “You already know.”
August 2018: Patient presented with photograph lineup (unrelated case). Refused to participate. Later asked privately: “If I pick him, what happens next?”
Noah closed the folder, his chest tight.
The sound of footsteps in the hallway snapped him back. He shoved the file into his bag and stood, forcing himself to walk casually toward the door.
A nurse appeared around the corner, clipboard in hand. “Oh—Mr. Keene. You’re still here?”
“Yeah, just needed to talk to Dad’s case manager. She around?”
The nurse shook her head. “Not today. She’s at the downtown office.”
“Right. I’ll catch her another time.”
Noah slipped past her, heart pounding all the way to the parking lot.
Back in his car, he pulled the file out again. One phrase from 2012 kept replaying in his head: Same eyes. Same smile.
He thought about Isaiah Reed, trembling as the sheriff shoved him into the cruiser. About Jordan Langston, blood on his sleeve, his expression unreadable. About Ava, now missing.
And he thought about the flash drive from the motel—Isaiah with the masked figure.
The boy in red.
What if his father hadn’t been seeing visions? What if the boy was real, just skilled enough—or protected enough—to vanish from the official record?
By the time Noah reached his apartment, it was dark. He spread the therapy notes across his table, arranging them chronologically.
2009: Fire. Boy in red sighted.
2010: Missing girl. Boy in red sighted.
2012: Murder. Boy in red sighted.
2015: Carter Mayfield disappears. No mention in the notes—but James was working with Claire Wren by then. Had the boy appeared to her too?
It was a pattern, just like his father had tried to tell anyone who would listen. The boy wasn’t random—he was a thread running through Bellview’s worst tragedies.
Noah poured a drink, the burn of whiskey grounding him just enough to think. If the boy was still around now, that meant he’d either be an adult or close to it. Maybe even someone Noah had already seen without realizing.
The phone buzzed. A withheld number.
He answered. “Keene.”
A pause. Then a voice—young, male, almost amused. “Looking in the wrong files, counselor.”
The line went dead.
Noah sat frozen, the receiver still against his ear.
It wasn’t the sheriff. It wasn’t anyone he recognized.
But somewhere deep in his gut, he knew.
He’d just heard the boy in red.