If only it was that simple. Say no, and save herself the horrors those who had lost their loved ones would never put to rest. Or say yes, and hope that closing the case would allow her to do the same.
She looked up at Kell. “If I were to agree, who would do it? Hypnotize me?”
“The Department of Public Safety has officers licensed by the state and trained to use hypnosis in the investigation of crimes. Not a lot. Last I heard, out of sixty thousand officers, only three hundred were certified.”
“Would I go to a police station somewhere?”
“You could, or the team would bring the equipment to you.”
“Team?” Kate asked.
“The hypnotist, a technician to man the recording equipment and an officer to witness the questioning.”
Jamie frowned. “An officer? Not you?”
“I’ll be observing, yes, but not in the same room.”
Her heart was racing. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know him well enough to want him there; wouldn’t any officer do? “Why wouldn’t you be in the same room?”
“I’m working the case—I’m invested in a way the officer witnessing wouldn’t be. A neutral witness is best so there’s no reaction to what you might reveal.”
“And you might react.”
He nodded, and she watched his pulse jump at his temple.
Her own jumped in response, then jumped again for reasons that had nothing to do with the case, and everything to do with the look in his eyes. “So it’s videotaped, and I can do it anywhere I’m comfortable, and you’ll be nearby even if you’re not in the room.”
“I’ll be there, too,” Kate said.
“You can observe,” Kell was quick to say. “But no family members or anyone connected to the case can be in the room during the session. The rules are set up to make sure the memories recalled are clean, not influenced by observers or by suggestion, that sort of thing. Otherwise, anything recalled is considered tainted, and anything turned up during a follow-up investigation questionable.”
“But as long as the rules aren’t broken…” Was she that strong? That brave? Would she be able to live with the memories if they came flooding back? Would she be able to live with herself if she didn’t give Kell’s suggestion a try? She wanted so badly to help; she always had.
All these years, she’d felt so impotent, unable to remember details with enough significance to break the case. Because of her own frustration, it wasn’t hard for her to understand that felt by the victims’ families. Their accusations had stung, yes, but she’d never taken them to heart. And now she had a chance to give them the one thing they most needed.
How could she not at least try?
Kell had been holding her gaze all this time, and he finally spoke. “As long as we follow the rules, this is our best shot to shut down this nightmare for good.”
We. He’d said we.
Jamie knew her mother was as torn as she was, and that Kate’s vote would most likely be no. She didn’t want her daughter to have to suffer the horror the refreshed memories could bring. As a mother, that was her right. Kate didn’t care that her baby was an adult.
But Jamie was an adult. She was the one who had to make this decision, weighing her mother’s worries and Kell’s assurances against her own counsel.
Really, though, there was only one course of action her conscience would allow her to take—and it would be as much for the other victims as for herself.
“I’ll do it.”
4
WHILE JAMIE AND HER mother talked privately in the air-conditioned cab of Kate’s idling Suburban, Kell walked to the far end of the covered porch where the air stirred by the overhead fan had more room to move.
It was hot, but it was August, and it was Texas, the Chihuahuan Desert swath of West Texas to be precise.He’d lived in Texas all his life. He’d grown up in Austin where his parents and younger brother still lived. His youngest brother had moved to Houston to work after graduation, exchanging the landlocked central Texas heat for the Gulf Coast humidity. Complaining about the state’s weather was as much a part of being a Texan as waving the Lone Star flag.
But the heat sweating its way through Kell now was of a different sort. A heat wrapped up in pink scrub bottoms and long nimble fingers and an intelligence that wouldn’t quit. Jamie Danby was an amazing woman, and his gut knotted up thinking of what she’d been through.
Even more gut-wrenching were the questions he kept asking himself. What if the hypnosis backfired and Jamie got burned? What if he got his man, brought him to justice, yet Jamie spent the rest of her life scarred worse than she was now?
He adjusted his sunglasses, staring at the haze fogging his view of the Davis Mountains dipping and rolling in the distance. He owned property on the other side of those hills, in the Guadalupe range, to be exact, a hefty number of acres that were home to coyotes and white-tailed deer and javelinas.
He had a cabin there, a simple log structure where he spent long weekends when he needed to escape the horrors he dredged up and the pain his dredging caused the victims of the original crimes. The sort of hell Jamie would be going through once her mind released its hold on her memories.
She was a cute one, Jamie Danby. Tall and willowy, the scrubs she wore hiding the curves she did have, except for her very fine ass. Her hair was long enough for her to pull up into a ponytail, and though he supposed she’d call it brown, it held a whole lot of dark red. The color probably accounted for the smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks.
What he liked about her was a combination of things—all of them speaking to the depth of who she was. The way she considered Kate’s feelings about the hypnosis; it couldn’t be easy to peel back the protective layers her mother had wrapped her in, not knowing what waited on the outside of the cocoon. The way she had chosen to do what was right, though she’d had to fight herself to get there.
He had a feeling she was strong enough to get through whatever happened, but he would damn sure stick around to make sure that she did. That sort of follow-up might not be in his job-description manual, but Kell didn’t need a book of rules and regs to tell him how to be human.
Neither did he need a shrink to tell him that his history with the officer who’d fought to keep the case from going cold made his involvement as much personal as professional. He was going to have to toe a fine line, and not cross over into the kind of emotional territory that led to costly mistakes. But that was between Kell and his conscience.
Behind him, one of the SUV’s doors slammed closed. He didn’t turn, but continued to stare at the rocky mountainside, the trees and scrub growing on the face, their roots finding and clinging to meager patches of soil that neither time nor Mother Nature had eroded away.
Soon enough he heard—and felt—footsteps on the deck as Jamie returned, heard the crunch of ground gravel and the squeal of burning rubber as Kate Danby left her daughter alone with him. Still, he didn’t turn. He waited for Jamie to make the first move.
Her agreeing to the hypnosis was huge. He wasn’t about to rush or press or insist they had no time to waste. Giving her the time she needed was the best way for Kell to accomplish his goal, and accomplishing his goal was paramount.
Her steps brought her closer. He sensed her at his side, her body heat, her tension, the sound of her sigh. When he caught her scent, his body tightened, and his conscience told him not to be a fool. “It’s a rough one. I know.”
He didn’t, of course. At least not what she was going through now. Or even what was to come. But he’d made his own share of tough calls, decisions he would rather have not come to. So in that regard…yeah. He knew.
“About that,” she said, stepping on the tail end of his thoughts. “What do you know?”
He shifted enough that his elbow grazed hers. “What do you mean?”
She stayed there, brushing his shirtsleeve, and followed the direction of his gaze. “Some of the things you said. I get the feeling this case is more than just another left unsolved.”
What had he said? What had he let slip? It had to have been something in his tone of voice. He knew he hadn’t given anything away with words. She was his reason for being here, and he didn’t want her to think otherwise should she discover his connection to the original officer on the case.
“Unsolved cases take a toll. Not that fresh ones don’t. They do. I know that.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck, wiping at both the stress and the sweat that it—more than the day’s temperature—had caused. “But cold cases require the people involved, the victims, the bystanders, the witnesses…they all have to open closed doors, turn keys in locks they thought were keeping them safe.”
He kept it at that. Hoped she’d leave it at that. She didn’t need to know his professional interest came with a personal bent. The man who’d convinced Kell of his calling, the man who’d been a lifelong friend of his father, deserved better than to have this case go unsolved. But that was Kell’s cross to bear. And it was his responsibility to make sure it didn’t get in the way of his doing his job.
She didn’t respond except to return to their table where she’d left her purse. Kell watched her sling the strap over her shoulder, her expression thoughtful, her eyes beneath frowning brows full of so many things she obviously wanted to know.