One Good Man (3 page)

“Too bad I couldn’t do the same for anyone else.”

Her voice was flat, almost unfeeling. It didn’t break with sadness over the loss of life, or sting with survivor’s guilt. Though she’d walked out of that diner covered in blood, she spoke of the experience as would an outsider.

Locking away her emotions with her memories was a coping mechanism. Kell reached for the key. “What if you could do something now? For those who are left?”

Her eyes snapped, her breathing quickened. He’d hit the nerve he’d hoped for. “I told you. I told the cops and shrinks who questioned me then. I told the counselors I saw for months after. I can see splatters of color, and fractals of light and shadows as he moved through the diner. But I don’t remember him. The last thing I see clearly is parking in the lot behind the diner before work. I barely remember opening the door and going inside.”

She had gone inside. She had punched the time clock at 5:52 p.m.—eight minutes before her shift began. She had completed her six hours and—this was where Kell’s imagination kicked in—had been joking around, maybe blowing off steam with her coworkers when the killer had slammed through the front door and opened fire.

Behind the register, Jamie—she’d been Stephanie then—had fallen to the floor. The killer had kicked her body out of the way to get to the cash register. Her ribs had been bruised so badly, the impression of his shoe’s heel was visible in the blues and purples marring her skin.

She hadn’t even moved when the killer had dragged away her boss. When the authorities arrived, she’d been lying exactly where she’d fallen, covered in her own blood and that of the others, her wounds fortunately no threat to her life.

What the crime scene photos and mock-up staging revealed, however, was that Jamie’s position had her facing the front windows and the parking lot. If she’d opened her eyes even once, she might have seen…something. Car color, make or model. Numbers on the license plate. Killer’s clothing, height or build. Age or ethnicity.

She might not have seen anything, but there was a very good chance that she had—and that she knew she had. Not consciously; the Jamie she was now wouldn’t know anything about it. That’s why Kell needed to ask Stephanie.

But he had to tread carefully to get from here to there. “I know you don’t remember. Your mind is doing what it’s supposed to do.”

She gave a sharp snort. “It’s supposed to fritz out? Really?”

“Not fritz out. Protect you. Amnesia is a coping mechanism.” Just like her sarcasm.

“So it’s all there. I’m just not thinking hard enough, or trying often enough to find it? Is that what you’re saying? Because if you’ve come all this way for that—”

He cut her off before her accusations grew more strident, and got in the way of her listening to him. “That’s not what I’m saying. Not at all. The memories are there, yes. But thinking hard or trying often is not how you’ll find them.”

She didn’t believe him; he knew she was humoring him at best. “And I suppose you have the magic touch to make that happen?”

“Not me,” he said softly, “but I know who might.”

She waited, silent, expectant, as if bracing against him throwing a bucket of cold water in her face.

He got it over with as quickly as he could. “I’d like you to see a forensic hypnotist.”

“Call me Kell,” he said with too much twinkle in his green eyes for the subject at hand.

Murder needed to be looked at with serious intent. And if he was hoping to soften her up, to win her to his side with that sparkle, well, it was time he had his hopes dashed.

She started to do just that, but was stopped by the squeal of tires as her mother’s Suburban took the turn into the Cantus’ at a speed that would have scared a stunt driver straight. Jamie flinched, bracing for the SUV to ram the front of the store.

But the vehicle skidded to a stop, fishtailing to the left and throwing gravel, causing the Texas Ranger to surge to his feet with a deep “Holy hell.”

“It’s my mother,” Jamie told him, enjoying the way his eyes went wide as much as she appreciated the width of his shoulders beneath his sharp white shirt. He was, in a word, hot. Disturbingly so. Big and intoxicating and lusty. Okay, more than a word, she thought, and cleared her throat. “I forgot to call her back.”

Kate jumped out of the cab and came at them, waving her arms and yelling the very same thing. “You were supposed to call me back. Jamie. What’s going on?”

On her feet now, too, Jamie made the introductions. “Mom, this is Sergeant Kell Harding with the Texas Rangers. Kell, my mother, Kate Danby. Dr. Kate.”

Jamie’s mother looked at the man in the Western-cut dress shirt, white hat, boots and jeans, then turned an inquiring gaze back on her daughter to wait for more than an exchange of names—a gaze filled with as many fears as questions.

Her own heart aching over the worry her mother had suffered all these years, Jamie took her hand and pulled Kate to sit on the bench beside her. “Kell came the moment he was given the case files. He came in person. He wanted to make sure we were okay. To answer our questions.”

Jamie turned then to look at Kell. He again sat on the other side of the table, but rather than sit directly across from either her or her mother, he had positioned himself in between, giving them equal consideration. She liked that as much as she liked the creases fanning out from the corners of his eyes. They seasoned him with wisdom, not age, and spoke of experience Jamie knew was needed.

His attention on Kate, Kell inclined his head. “Your daughter’s right, Dr. Danby. Any questions you have, ask—”

Kate cut him off. “You being given the files—does that mean the case has finally been brought out of cold storage to thaw? That maybe we can put an end to this once and for all? Or are we going to have to spend the rest of our lives the way we’ve spent the last ten, fearful and looking over our shoulders, searching for whatever it is that’s spooked us?”

Kell didn’t look away. He pressed his lips together, and Jamie watched the muscles in his neck tighten as his jaw held taut. Around his coffee cup, his hands also tightened. She heard the plastic squeak. But he kept his frustration in check. And she knew it was frustration, not anger, not insult, and frustration with the case, not with her mother’s accusation that he wasn’t doing his job.

Finally, he found his words and spoke. “What Jamie didn’t mention is that I work with the UCIT, the Unsolved Crimes Investigation Team. Cold cases are what I do, where I pour one-hundred percent of my energies. Right now, this case, Jamie’s case, is my top priority.”

“But only because of Kass Duren. Not because of Jamie,” Kate said, and Jamie stiffened.

“Mom—”

“No, it’s okay. She’s right. Anytime there’s activity on a case, it gets moved to the top of the list. That doesn’t mean without movement it lies dormant. We’re always looking for a break, a lead, new clues and witnesses.”

“Looking?” Kate asked, her mouth grim and turned down, her Danby Veterinary Clinic ball cap pulled low. “Or waiting for them to fall into your lap? Because I don’t see how you can give one hundred percent to any single case when you’ve got dozens of others still unsolved and demanding your time.”

“He didn’t say he gave one hundred percent to any single case. He said he prioritized.” Jamie didn’t know why she was defending the Texas Ranger.

She should be siding with her mother. They were the ones living this hell, the ones forgotten by law enforcement and left to their own devices, starting over, creating new identities, protecting themselves however they could because if they didn’t, who would?

She decided it was because of Kell that her loyalties were wobbling. His sincerity. The pit-bull determination that had brought him all this way. He could’ve written a letter. He could’ve picked up the phone. He hadn’t done either one. He’d driven the three hours between his office and hers.

Since the initial investigators had packed up and moved on, he was the first officer from any law enforcement agency to involve himself with Jamie and her mother directly. Now that she’d had a few minutes to cool down, she wanted to hear what he had to say.

If she’d learned anything over the last ten years it was to keep her eyes, mind and ears open. She told herself that she owed him that much. She told herself, too, that it wasn’t because of his eyes. Or his shoulders. Or the size of his hands.

The fan whirring overhead stirred the hot dry air into a semblance of a breeze, pushing loose strands of her hair into her face. She plucked them away, ignored the heat stirring low in her belly and said, “Sergeant Harding—Kell—was about to explain forensic hypnosis to me.”

Kate squeezed Jamie’s wrist. “What?”

“I’m pretty sure he wants to jog my memory.”

“The same memory you’ve told everyone repeatedly is blank? Does no one believe you?” Kate shifted on the bench, closer to Jamie and away from Kell. “Or since they’re at a loss to solve this thing, are they now putting the onus on you?”

Kell had been sitting silent all this time, absorbing the exchange between mother and daughter as if searching for the best tack to take, or as if waiting his turn because, law enforcement or not, he knew he was the outsider.

But Kate’s accusation obviously riled him. His pulse throbbed in his temples, and he had barely swallowed the rest of his coffee before he crushed the cup.

“The onus is on us, Dr. Danby. On me. Completely. Coming to Jamie is not a shifting of responsibility—”

Her skin pale, Kate pulled her hand from Jamie’s and waved it to cut him off. “Then why are you talking to my daughter about hypnosis? Why—”

“Let him talk, Mom. Please.” Jamie so understood what her mother was feeling.

It had been Kate’s job to protect her daughter, to see Jamie from traumatized teen to a woman standing on her own, recovered, able to view the past from the distance she’d come in ten years. And she’d done it alone, while building a new life as a divorcée, coping with all of it at once because she’d had no choice. As much as Jamie did not want to return her to where this whole nightmare had started…

She tamped down the fear rising in a dark cloud around her and turned her attention on Kell. “Let him talk.”

His gaze captured hers, held, a potent thank-you for not writing off his proposal before he’d had a chance to explain. A brief nod, then he looked at her mother, as if her permission was as important to him as was Jamie’s.

She liked that. Found she was liking many things about him when the only thing that mattered was whether or not he would be the one to put an end to her hell.

Kate hadn’t objected, so Kell cleared his throat. “Before you arrived, I was explaining to Jamie that the memories she thinks she’s lost, well, she hasn’t. Not really. Selective amnesia is a coping mechanism—”

“Selective amnesia? Are you saying she’s forgotten on purpose?”

He shook his head. “Her subconscious won’t let her remember. Her mind is protecting her from reliving the trauma of that night’s events.”

“And yet knowing that, you want to hypnotize her and have her suffer them again?” Kate shook her head vehemently. “No. No. It’s not going to happen. Absolutely not.”

“Mom—”

“Jamie, no.” Kate’s voice grew shrill. “I won’t let you go through that again. You can’t—”

It was time for Jamie to take charge. “I can, but I haven’t said that I will. I want to know more before I agree to going back there.”

Kell’s expression changed, growing accommodating, respectful yet urgent, as if he was at her disposal for any little thing. “What do you want to know?”

Jamie wasn’t even sure where to begin. “What makes you think this will work? This forensic hypnosis?”

“I’m not sure that it will,” he told her, and she appreciated his honesty. “You may not recall anything we can use in our investigation. On the other hand, you might remember the very thing we need to track down this bastard and put him behind bars.”

“Such as?” Jamie couldn’t help but fear, what was for her, the unknown.

Her mother spoke before Kell could answer. “A license-plate number? Isn’t that what that bus driver in California remembered under hypnosis?”

“You’re talking about Chowchilla,” Kell said, and nodded.

“What’s Chowchilla?” Jamie asked.

“A town in California,” Kell explained. “In 1976, three men kidnapped a busload of students and their driver, and held them hostage in a moving van buried in a quarry. A ransom note was found in the house of the quarry’s owner. His son and two others were eventually charged.”

Bury? A van? For a kidnapping? In the movies, sure, but for real? “You’re kidding,” she said, and when he shook his head, asked, “Were they rescued?”

“They were,” Kell answered. “They dug themselves out, but by then, the kidnappers were long gone. The driver eventually underwent forensic hypnosis to see if he could remember anything helpful.”

Bizarre. “And it worked?”

“He remembered enough of a license-plate number on one of the vehicles involved, that authorities were able to track the men down through the registration, I think it was. Hypnosis was also used in Ted Bundy’s case. In the Boston Strangler’s. In Sam Sheppard’s. His was made into a movie.
The Fugitive.”
Kell’s expression fell into a goofy smile. “With Harrison Ford.”

Kate had been listening, and asked, “Are the memories refreshed during hypnosis even admissible in court?”

“Not everywhere, no. In Texas, they are, but we use them in conjunction with other investigative tools.”

Meaning a conviction or acquittal wouldn’t rest solely on what Jamie might manage to recall. “So if I remember seeing a license plate through the diner’s window…”

“Then we’ll track down what car those plates were on at the time and who it was registered to.”

And to play devil’s advocate. “Someone other than the owner could’ve been driving it.”

Kell nodded. “Which is why we don’t stop with the refreshed memory. We use it as we would any new lead. To help us find the irrefutable evidence that will put the perpetrator away.”

He was making this sound simple, logical. Making it sound like the right thing. Making it sound as if she would be smart to let him do his job. “If I remembered something that helped, would I have to testify at a trial?”

“You might be asked to, yes.”

“Would she
have
to?” Kate asked.

“Compelling her to do so wouldn’t be my call.” Kell turned his attention from her mother to Jamie. “Going into this you should think worst-case scenario to make sure all bases are covered.”

Yeah. This was the part she’d been afraid of, what she’d been waiting to hear. She reached for the antacids, stared at the strips of torn wrapper and said, “Worst case being the killer comes after me before he goes to trial.”

“That is my bailiwick. And that won’t happen.”

How could he know? How could he be sure? Things could go so wrong…“And if I go insane reliving that night, does the court pay my asylum costs? Because as much as I want this bastard behind bars, I’m not sure I won’t need bars of my own if those memories come back.”

Kate slapped her hand against the table, and dust bloomed in tiny clouds. “Then you’re not going to do it. I won’t have you spending the rest of your life suffering.”

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.”