text: Logline: A man, feeling guilty about a crime he's just committed, goes to see his therapist to confess, will it help, or will he just make it worse? \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ The receptionist called Stan Foster into his appointment with his therapist; he's more nervous than he usually is. He sits directly across from his therapist, Doctor Ciara Ortega. They're sitting in silence for a minute, "All I say in this session is protected by patient-doctor confidentiality, right?" Stan asks. "Sure, everything you say in these sessions just remains with us," says Dr. Ortega. "Even if it's illegal?" Stan says. "Yes, even if it's illegal. Why don't you start by telling me what happened," Dr. Ortega says. "As you know, I work for Freeman Brothers Movers, so essentially, when we get a new job, I go in, and they give me the new assignment, I have no choice about who I work with, they just place us as we come in," Stan says. "I'm with you," Dr. Ortega says. "So, on a job last week, I'm put with two guys, Adam and Freddy. I've worked with Freddy before but never Adam. We head out to the location, and it's this huge mansion, some old rich lady is moving to a smaller town-house, she's downsizing, I guess, the closet in her bedroom is bigger than my whole apartment. So, we start to move her things; there are antiques, big bureaus, and all sorts of other heavy junk. We get to this back room that has about 80 boxes in it. Now, these boxes are sealed up pretty tight, triple taped with duck tape. They're heavy, each one is a dense package, but we start to load them up and bring them out to the truck. We're about halfway through when Freddy and I accidentally dropped one, and it tears open a bit. We see inside, and the box is jam-packed with stacks of cash, mixed denomination. Adam comes out to join us, and he figures there are about 100 million dollars in all these boxes," Stan says. "Just so I'm following along, you're moving a whole bunch of boxes, like 80 of them, and about halfway through you find out that the boxes are jam-packed with millions of dollars?" Dr. Ortega says. "That's right, well, anyway, as I was saying, Adam has this idea; he doesn't believe anyone knows that the money is here except the three of us and the old lady. There's no manifest for this move; she just put the money in a box and taped it. Adam makes a suggestion, what if we were to steal the money, make the old lady have an accident, and then split the cash," Adam says. "How did that make you feel?" Dr. Ortega asks. "At first, Freddy and I were skeptical of the idea; we're going to kill some old lady and steal her cash? It didn't feel right. However, as we're getting close to the end of the job, the old lady shows up and starts yelling at us for taking too long. She leaned into us; she said if we didn't speed it up, she was going to report us to our boss, gave us a whole bunch of guff. We were angry; it was at that point that Freddy and I got on board with Adam's plan. So we told the old lady that we would be there, with her stuff, later that night once we had packed everything up," Stan says. "How were you going to kill the old lady?" Dr. Ortega asks. "It was Adam's idea; he had an answer for everything. So we do finish packing the truck, but we put the boxes with the money in first so that they're at the back. The three of us drive to the new house, unload the front of the truck, so the old lady isn't suspicious. It was at that point, Adam took over, he was like a crazed maniac. He forced the old lady into her bedroom and smothered her with a pillow. I couldn't even watch; he was deranged," Stan says. "Oh my goodness, and what did you do from there?" Dr. Ortega asks. "We cleaned up, making sure not to leave any fingerprints, DNA where it shouldn't be, finish the job exactly how the old lady wanted. Then we drove the cash out to a storage facility. Adam had the whole thing worked out, his cousin owns the storage facility, he gave us a good deal on a unit and put it in some generic name. We spent the rest of the night loading those heavy boxes into the storage unit, locked it up, and went back," Stan says. "Okay, walk me through the next day," Dr. Ortega requests. "Freddy and I were starting to feel a little guilty on the drive back to the moving company, but we were in it now. It took about two days for someone to discover the body, but when I say this lady was old, it surprised no one that she passed away in her sleep. Adam told us that we had to wait to spend the money, any unusual spending would send up some red flags. We were paying close attention to the coverage of the woman's death, there was nothing suspicious reported, no mention of the money, and her family thought the stress of the move had killed her. We thought we were free and clear until the police called all three of us in for some questioning," Stan says. "The police, so they did suspect foul play?" Dr. Ortega asks. "They made our meetings at the police station, an hour apart from one another, I don't know whether that was to get us to turn on each other, but it kind of worked. Freddy was a wreck; he had the first meeting. We had our story straight, but we were worried Freddy was going to crack. We met for breakfast before the police questioning, Freddy could hardly keep it together, he couldn't remember basic facts from the story, Adam and I were concerned that we had liability on our hands. Adam walked Freddy back to his car, wished him good luck at the police interview, and then stabbed him in the abdomen. Adam killed Freddy, and that made me nervous," Stan says. "So, Freddy didn't show up to his police interview?" Dr. Ortega asks. "No, he didn't, Adam had set his car on fire out in the woods, slamming into a tree first, making it seem like an accident. As I said, Adam is a messed up guy. We still went through with the police interviews; I thought the questions were kind of easy; I didn't think the police suspected foul play. But, something had Adam spooked after the police interview," Stan says. "What do you mean, Adam was spooked?" Dr. Ortega asked. "He was acting weird; in fact, he wants to meet in the middle of an abandoned construction site, tonight. I'm a little nervous; I'm worried that he thinks I'm a liability and that he's going to kill me. I don't know what to do. If I don't show up, he's going to think I turned on him and he's going to come after me. If I show up, maybe he was going to kill me anyway," Stan says. "What's the name of the construction site?" Dr. Ortega asked. "It's the one down by Philomena Boulevard; the one shut down like three months ago," Stan says. "That's very secluded, not a good sign. Do you have some protection for yourself?" Dr. Ortega asks. "A gun? No, I don't have anything like that," Stan says. "Here's what you can do, when you get to the construction site tonight, tell Adam that you've told me about this meeting. That if you were to disappear for whatever reason, you instructed me to go to the police. That way, the two of you can have a conversation about what to do next," Dr. Ortega says. "Okay, I guess that makes sense, thanks, doc," Stan says. "Be careful, Stan, and don't forget to make an appointment with Roberta on your way out," Dr. Ortega says. It's a pitch-black, moonless night, Stan arrives at the construction site a little early, parks in the middle of the lot and waits for Adam. He comes and pulls up beside Stan and gets out of the car. "I think the police are onto us, something about the way they were asking their questions this morning," Adam says. Just as Adam finished the sentence, a gunshot rings out from across the lot, hitting Adam directly in the head. Out of the darkness comes Dr. Ortega. She holds the gun firmly on Stan. "I'm sorry Stan, but Adam was right, the police are totally on to you, you know they can tell when a pillow smothering is used in a murder, right?" Dr. Ortega asks. "How could you, what are you going to shoot me?" Stan asks. "Not quite yet, I need one little bit of information first, where's the storage facility?" Dr. Ortega asks. "I'm not going to tell you, you're going to have to shoot me," Stan says. "Wrong answer, Stan," Dr. Ortega says as she shoots Stan in the leg. "Alright, the money's at the storage facility on Grayson Avenue, the one with the inflatable security guard standing in the window," Stan says. "Unit number?" Dr. Ortega demands. Stan is in pain and holding his leg, Dr. Ortega fires a shot into the ground near his other leg, "unit number, Stan?" "35, the money is in storage container 35," Stan says. Dr. Ortega starts walking away from the construction site, turns around and shoots Stan in the head. Dr. Ortega went down to the storage facility, picked the lock on unit 35, and put the boxes into her truck. Dr. Ortega did not factor in that Adam had decided to work with the police, that he was wearing a wire to incriminate Stan at their meeting, that he captured the whole conversation and the murder at the construction site. A few days later, the police promptly arrested Dr. Ortega, attempting to get to Mexico.