Kill Her Again (A Thriller) (5 page)

As she sang the last bar, Anna noticed that the boy, Evan, had grown quiet. Was lost in his own moment, his own memory.

She hoped it was a good one.

“
YOU QUESTION HIM
?” Royer asked.

“As much as I could.”

“And?”

Royer and Worthington were huddled in the front yard, several feet from the Explorer, as Anna approached. The boy was asleep on the backseat.

“He’s in shock. He doesn’t remember anything.”

“Nothing at all?” Worthington asked.

“He knows his mother is dead, but can’t or won’t tell me what he saw. And he has no idea where his sister is. He’s a complete blank as far as I can tell.”

“As far as
you
can tell.” Royer didn’t bother to hide his contempt. Despite this turn of events, his anger had obviously not dissipated. “Maybe somebody else needs to take a shot at him. Somebody qualified.”

Anna looked at him. She’d never been the type to flaunt credentials, but she’d had about enough of this jerk. “You’re probably right, but just for the record, I have a Master’s Degree in applied psychology. I was working on my Ph.D. when the bureau recruited me.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

“I’m merely stating a fact. And it seems to me the only thing you’re qualified to do is bitch and moan.”

Royer said nothing for a moment, cycling through three or four different facial expressions before finally settling on what Anna could only describe as a murderous glare. “That’s it, McBride. You’re done. As soon as we get back to Victorville, your ass is—”

“Hold on, now,” Worthington said, throwing his hands up. “As entertaining as this little squabble may be, I’d appreciate it if you two would stow the bullshit and get back to the matter at hand. I’ve got my men scouring that junkyard, but there’s still no sign of the girl.” He looked at Anna. “You think if we bring an expert in here, we might be able to get Evan to open up?”

Before she could respond, Royer said, “If you have any questions about how to proceed, Deputy Worthington, direct them to me.”

Worthington frowned. “Nobody’s given you the keys to the car just yet.”

“The Ludlow County Undersheriff might disagree.”

“The Ludlow County Undersheriff is one of my best friends and he called you people because I asked him to. And until we establish that there’s actually been a federal crime committed here, let’s consider this a cooperative effort and keep the drama to a minimum.”

Royer cycled through another set of facial expressions, and was still looking for a suitable response when Worthington turned again to Anna. “I assume the bureau has somebody they can call for this?”

“Down in Victorville. But it’ll take a while to get him out of bed and bring him out here.”

“We don’t have the luxury of time.”

“You have somebody local in mind?”

“Unfortunately, the only head doctor we’ve got within spitting distance is currently out of the county. Around here, most people’s idea of therapy is shooting at junkyard rats.”

“Do I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”

Worthington nodded. “The thing you said about the boy being a complete blank brought something to mind. There’s a guy I know, lives just over the state line, maybe a twenty-minute drive. He hasn’t worked with the police in a couple years, but when he did, he was considered one of the best. He might just be able to help Evan remember.”

“A psychologist?” Anna asked.

Worthington shook his head. “A hypnotherapist. Specializes in forensic hypnosis. Or at least he used to.”

“Used to? What’s he doing now?”

For the first time, Worthington’s confidence faltered a bit. He seemed almost embarrassed. “He has a lounge show at one of the state-line casinos.”

Royer broke his silence with a loud snort. “You gotta be fucking kidding me. You want to bring in some sideshow psychic?”

“Hypnotist,” Worthington said. “Not psychic. This guy has all the right credentials, is fully trained. Even has a DCH.”

“What’s a DCH?”

“Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy.”

Royer snorted again. “Sounds like a complete load of crap to me.”

Anna had to admit she shared Royer’s skepticism. The bureau was no stranger to clinical and forensic hypnosis, but the hypnotherapists they utilized were either psychologists or highly trained agents.

Bringing in some Vegas phony to work with Evan seemed like a complete waste of time. But then who was she to judge anyone at this juncture in her life?

Worthington must have read her expression. “Look,” he said. “I know it sounds iffy, but the stage gig is only a recent development. He’s had some tough breaks the last couple years.”

Anna shook her head. “We’re talking about a child who’s extremely fragile right now. There are specific guidelines we have to—”

“I don’t give a damn about guidelines,” Worthington said. “We’ve got three people dead and a missing girl and time is our enemy. I know this sounds unconventional, but like I said, we’re talking about somebody who was once the go-to guy in Nevada law enforcement circles.”

“So why did he stop?”

“You more than likely already know.”

Royer’s eyebrows raised. “What’s that supposed to mean? Who the hell is this guy?”

Worthington hesitated, and Anna was suddenly struck by the notion that there was something more going on here, something deeper. That the man Worthington was recommending might be more than just a colleague. They were connected somehow.

“His name is Pope. Daniel Pope.”

Anna felt a sudden prickle on the back of her neck. Had she heard him right?

“
The
Daniel Pope? The same Daniel Pope whose wife—”

“That’s the one,” Worthington said. “But when you meet him, you might not want to bring that up.”

6

I
T WAS STILL
dark when Pope got back to his room.

The crisis with Anderson Troy, as petty as it was, had been artfully averted. While most practitioners of his craft were loath to admit it, it’s often possible for a skilled hypnotist to manipulate a subject’s thought processes through visualization and guided imagery.

After putting Troy under again, Pope managed to feed him just enough details to get him to believe that the Nigel Fromme he’d Googled was an entirely different person. That
Troy’s
Nigel Fromme—whom Troy himself had eagerly conjured up—was a bad-ass London gangster whose untimely death had been the result of a hail of bullets fired almost point-blank as he was bedding a beautiful blond Sunday School teacher.

With very large breasts. And no surprises, dangling or otherwise.

Recall and imagination. A 10/90 mix.

Pope walked away from this adolescent fantasy session feeling like a fraud, knowing he had broken nearly every tenet of his profession, but secure in the belief that Arturo wouldn’t be shoving a knife into his rib cage anytime soon, thus maintaining the sanctity of Troy’s plush white carpet.

The things we do to stay alive.

Not that Pope really had much of a life these days. But he did like
being
alive.

Standing at his window now, he looked out at the desert darkness and at the distant cluster of squat gray buildings that had kept him company nearly every morning in recent memory:

The Nevada Women’s Correctional Facility.

Who in his right mind, he wondered, would think to build a hotel-casino so close to a prison compound?

Then again, he couldn’t be sure which had come first. And it was almost as if the marriage had been arranged just for him, so that he could stand here on dark mornings, stare at those distant buildings, and wallow in his misery.

He wondered if Susan was awake in her cell, thinking about what she’d become and how she’d gotten there.

Thinking about Ben.

Thinking about Pope.

H
E WAS JUST
coming out of the shower, finally ready to crawl into bed, when his cell phone rang again.

Hoping to Christ it wasn’t Sharkey, he snatched it up off his nightstand and checked the screen, surprised by the name he saw.

J. T. Worthington.

Cousin Jake.

The two hadn’t spoken in months. Pope had halfheartedly invited Jake and Veronica out to the casino when the show first opened, but they’d never been able to make it. And in that last call, Pope had sensed a trace of disappointment in Jake’s voice. As if he thought Pope could do better. That the show was a frivolous enterprise. A waste of Pope’s time and talent.

All of which were probably true.

But then Pope wasn’t much interested in Jake’s opinion. He had little use for friends and family these days.

After the tragedy hit the news, followed by the trial, the sentence, and all the nastiness that accompanied them, the people in his life had slowly begun to drift away.

Thanks to the skewed logic of the many graceless TV pundits who chimed in, uninvited, with an opinion about Pope’s life (not to mention the lurid sensationalism of the tabloid press), some of his so-called friends had actually blamed
him
for the events that had started it all.

And, who knows, maybe they were right.

But he suspected that for those who really knew him, there was no ill will behind this gradual abandonment. After a while, trying to console the inconsolable simply becomes too much of a burden. And in the aftermath of that terrible ordeal, Pope had not exactly been the easiest guy to get along with.

He was scarred. Tainted. A man addicted to distrust and personal failure.

And as much as he’d like to blame it all on Susan, on what she’d done, he knew that a better man would have faced up to this particular challenge rather than to try to bury it with dope and cards and women.

He was as much a prisoner as Susan was. A prisoner by choice, who had turned this room, this hotel, into his own private cell.

He hadn’t been outside its doors in over a year.

T
HE PHONE KEPT
ringing, reminding Pope that he had a call to answer.

He clicked it on, said, “This must be serious; you’re calling me at three in the morning. Is Ronnie okay?”

“She’s fine. How are you, Danny?”

“You know how many times I’ve been asked that question in the last two years? The answer never changes.”

“You staying sober?”

“I don’t drink.”

“You know what I mean,” Jake said.

The two of them had spent half their childhood in Ludlow County, California, smoking dope and experimenting with various recreational drugs. There’s not much else to do in the desert. But both had eventually lost interest in the stuff as life became more complicated. Careers and family will do that to you.

When Pope lost both, however, the first woman whose company he sought was the blessed White Widow.

“Are you asking me as an officer of the law, or a concerned relative? Although I’m not sure it really matters at this point.”

“Come on, Daniel, knock it off. It’s me.”

He and Jake had once been closer than brothers, but time and distance—whether it’s physical or emotional—has a way of eroding even the tightest relationships.

Jake, however, was one of the few people who hadn’t given up on him.

Pope sank to the bed, hearing the springs groan, letting himself relax a little. “Sorry, man. Being an asshole is a tough habit to break.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

Pope shrugged. “Use it or lose it, I always say. What can I do for you?”

“I wasn’t just asking before. I need to know if you’re straight.”

“Why?”

“You won’t like this, but I’ve got a case here I need some help with.”

Pope sighed. He should have known. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard such a request, and he hated it whenever Jake tried to drag him back into his old life. That had been its own kind of prison.

After the murder, he’d tried to fit in, to resume his work at the clinic and with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, but had felt like a man who had gained too much weight and was still trying to wear his old clothes.

“I’m not interested,” he said.

“Come on, Danny. It’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t.”

“Sure you would. You’ve been trying to save me from myself since I was twelve years old.”

“Obviously I’ve failed.”

Pope smiled. “Now look who’s the asshole.”

“You need to snap out of this, my friend. Start circulating again. Use that big brain of yours.”

“I do, twice a night, starting at nine p.m. Not that you’d know.”