Liza checked the clock. Four a.m. She’d worked the late shift at the vet clinic and had her applied microbiology review in another four hours. She should try to get some more sleep.
But she was wide awake in the middle of the night. She had no family to call, no arms to turn to for comfort. She was isolated by the very nightmare she desperately needed to share with someone who could help her complete the memories and then get them out of her head. But the KCPD and a restraining order from the D.A.’s office—to keep her identity out of the press—prevented her from talking to anyone but the police and her therapist about the gruesome crime she’d witnessed. She was alone, with no one but her three dogs for company.
She glanced over at Yukon, who was resting his muzzle on his outstretched paws again. He understood isolation. “But you like it better than I do, big guy.”
With sleep out of the question and class still hours away, Liza shoved Cruiser aside and kicked off the covers. “Move it, princess.”
Knowing she’d have extra fur and body heat to keep her warm, Liza kept the house cool at night. The October chill that hung in the air shivered across her skin as her bare feet touched the wood floor beside her bed. Instead of complaining, she let the coolness rouse her even further. After a few deep breaths, she stepped into her slippers and pulled on her robe as she walked past Yukon and headed for the kitchen.
The usual parade followed, with Bruiser right on her heels and Cruiser padding behind at a more leisurely pace. Yukon deigned to rise and come out of the bedroom, only to lie down outside the kitchen doorway. Liza brewed a pot of green tea, ignored her fatigue and pulled out her pharmacology text. She read her next assignment until the first rays of sunlight peeked through the curtains above the kitchen sink.
It was 7 a.m. Late enough to politely make the call she’d been ready to make since the nightmare woke her.
The male voice on the other end of the line cleared the sleep from his throat before answering. “This is Dr. Jameson.”
Great. She’d still gotten him out of bed. Now her therapist would think she’d had some kind of breakthrough. But all she had was the same familiar nightmare she wished would go away.
Combing her fingers through the boyish wisps of her copper-red hair, Liza apologized. “I’m sorry to wake you, Doctor. This is Liza Parrish. I think I’m…” She swallowed the hesitation. There was no thinking about this. Just say it and get on with it, already. “I want to try the hypnotherapy you suggested. I need to get the memory of that cop’s murder out of my head.”
“CAN SHE TELL ME ANYTHING NEW or not?” The burly blond detective named Kevin Grove addressed the question across his desk to Dr. Trent Jameson rather than to her.
The gray-haired psychologist answered for her as well. “Possibly. Though she seems to be juxtaposing her parents’ deaths with your crime scene, there were certainly a few more details in the account she shared with me this morning. She’s certain there were two gunshots now. And that the victim’s body had been arranged in a way that indicates the killer—or someone who was on the scene with the killer—cared about him.”
“Uh-huh.” Grove frowned, looking as skeptical as Liza felt.
Dr. Jameson continued. “I realize those are clues your forensic team can piece together as well. But I tell you, the clarity of her memory is improving. I believe we’ve reached the point where I can put her under and guide her memories toward a particular fact.”
“You can do that? You can pick a specific memory out of her head?” Grove asked.
“It’s a new technique I’ve been working on for several months with some success.” Jameson blew out a long sigh, as though defending his expertise was a tedious subject. “I believe questioning Liza while she’s in a suggestive state could tap into those memories she’s either blocked or forgotten.”
“You want to hypnotize her here.” Detective Grove still wasn’t up to speed on the idea of hypnotherapy. Or else, that doubt in his tone meant he understood just fine what Dr. Jameson was proposing—he just didn’t think it was a worthwhile idea.
Liza squirmed in her chair. Surrendering her thoughts and memories to a professional therapist was risky enough. To do it in front of an audience felt a whole lot like standing up on a firing range and letting the entire world take a potshot at her.
But she had to try. This was about more than clearing her head of the nightmares that plagued what little sleep she did get and left her exhausted. She owed something to John Kincaid, the dead man she’d found in the warehouse. Six years ago, witnesses had come forward to help convict the thieves who’d murdered her family in a home invasion. Liza had been away at college, working on her undergraduate degree, the night her parents and pet were murdered. She hadn’t been there to fight to protect her family. Or to see anything useful she could testify to at their killers’ trial.
But she could testify for John Kincaid. If she could remember.
Helping another victim find justice was the only way she could help her late parents.
Twisting her gloves in her hands, Liza distracted herself from the uneasy task that lay ahead of her by counting the dog hairs clinging to the sleeves of her blue fleece jacket.
“The setting isn’t ideal.” Dr. Jameson gestured around the busy precinct office with an artistic swirl of his fingers. “But I’m skilled enough to perform my work anywhere I’m needed. A little privacy would be nice, though.”
Detective Grove pushed his chair back and stood. “A little privacy sounds good. We can use one of the interview rooms.”
Divided up into a maze of desks and cubicle walls, the detectives’ division of the Fourth Precinct building was buzzing with indecipherable conversations among uniformed and plain-clothes investigators and the technicians and support staff who worked with them. Liza felt a bit like a rat in a maze herself as she got up and followed Dr. Jameson’s fatherly figure and Grove—the bulldog-faced detective who’d interviewed her before in conjunction with the Kincaid murder case.
Liza tucked her gloves into her pockets as they zigzagged between desks. While Dr. Jameson discussed their late morning session with the detective, she couldn’t help but compare the two men. Both were eager to tap into the secrets locked inside her brain. But while Detective Grove wasn’t concerned with how her memories got tangled up, her therapist seemed to think he could use the painful experience of her parents’ deaths to tap into her hazy memory of John Kincaid’s murder, and draw out the information that he believed was hiding in a well-protected corner of her mind.
It felt odd to be discussed as though she were a walking, talking clinical experiment instead of a human being with ears and feelings.
About as odd as it felt to be watched by the tall, tawny-haired hotshot standing beside a black-haired man with glasses at the farthest desk.
Liza’s first instinct was to politely look away. The two men were obviously sharing a conversation, and the parade through the desks had probably just caught his attention for a moment. But