Daniel filled them in on the details and Mary moved to join the group.
“So you think this Gary Fulmore might be innocent?” Mary asked.
“I don’t know, but things don’t add up. And Alex seems more panicked at the thought of Fulmore not being guilty than she was about her own sister’s assault.”
“It’s the only closure she got out of all this, Daniel,” Ed said sympathetically.
“Maybe.” Daniel looked at Mary. “All the time Fulmore was talking about that ring he’d left on Alicia’s finger, Alex was staring at her hands. She was almost in a trance.”
“Did Alex tell you her cousin and I talked about hypnosis?”
Daniel nodded. “Yeah. I think it’s a good idea, if it doesn’t make things worse.”
“All hypnosis will do is relax her enough so that her defenses don’t come up. I think we should try it as soon as possible.”
“How about tonight?” Daniel asked.
“Her cousin is broaching the subject as we speak.”
“All right. So after we’re done here, we drive to Bailey’s house. But first,” Daniel said, “let’s start lining up possible members of this rape posse. We suspect Wade, Rhett, and Simon. They graduated the same year. They would have been in the eleventh grade the spring Alicia was murdered.”
“But Gretchen’s rape happened almost a full year earlier,” Talia reminded him.
Daniel sighed. “The year Simon was expelled from Bryson Academy and sent to Jefferson High. It fits. He would have been sixteen himself then.”
Chase produced a stack of paper from one of the boxes on the table. “Leigh made copies of the yearbook pictures of every boy who went to Simon’s public high school. These”-he produced a thicker stack-“are the boys who went to the other high schools, including the fancy private school you went to, Daniel.” Chase lifted an amused brow. “You were voted most likely to become the president of the United States.”
Daniel huffed a tired laugh. “There are too many files to even know where to start.”
“Leigh’s been entering them in spreadsheets so we can sort them better and she’s running last knowns on them all. We can already cross out a few who’ve died. All the perps in Simon’s pictures were white boys, so I eliminated all minorities, too.”
Daniel stared at the stack, half dazed at the thought of the man-hours it would require to comb through. He blinked hard and put the stack out of his mind for the moment. “Chase, what about the rich girls?”
“I got a list of all the girls who graduated from Bryson Academy the same years as Claudia, Janet, and Gemma, plus a year on either side. Leigh and I called as many as we could reach, to tell them to be careful. Most of them had already heard the news and figured it out. Some of them can afford bodyguards and a few have hired one. We’ll try to get in touch with the others tomorrow.”
Mary leaned over to squeeze Daniel’s forearm. “Dr. Fallon and Hope should be done eating supper by now. Are you ready to see if Alex wants to try hypnosis tonight?”
He nodded grimly. “Yeah. Let’s get this done.”
Dutton, Wednesday, January 31, 9:00 p.m.
“Hope’s asleep in the car with Agent Shannon,” Meredith said, climbing up into the surveillance van. Meredith had refused to let Alex go through hypnosis alone, and Hope had become agitated when Agent Shannon tried to take her to the safe house alone, so they’d brought Hope along. “Luckily Hope fell asleep on the way. I don’t know how she’d react to seeing her house again. Have you ever done this before?”
Meredith sat in one of the folding chairs next to Daniel. Ed was manning the video controls and Mary McCrady stood on Bailey’s front porch with Alex, who looked eerily calm. Meredith, in contrast, was a bundle of nerves.
“Relax, Meredith,” Daniel said. “She’ll be fine.”
“I know. I just wish I could be in there with her.” She clenched her hands in her lap. “I’m supposed to be the calm one, Daniel. I have done this before.”
Procedure was that only the therapist and the subject were to be present during forensic hypnosis. It was the way it was done. But Daniel understood how Meredith felt. “I wanted to be with her, too. We’ll both do the next best thing and stay here.”
With his characteristic expression of sympathy, Ed twisted the monitor so that Meredith had a better view. “Can you see?”
She nodded. “I feel like a voyeur,” she said glumly.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Daniel muttered.
After a beat of shocked silence, she snickered. “Thank you, Daniel. I needed that.”
Ed cleared his throat. “Looks like they’re ready to go.”
Mary and Alex appeared on the monitor, walking into the living room. For more than a minute Alex stood rigid and trembling and Daniel had to force himself to stay where he sat. Mary’s voice came through the speaker, low and soothing, and eventually Alex moved to the leather reclining chair Mary had brought into the room an hour before.
“She might need to bring Alex in and out of it a few times,” Meredith murmured. “If she’s going to get her under enough to move around.”
In the living room, Alex was sitting in the chair, her feet up and her eyes closed. But she was still rigid and Daniel’s chest tightened. She was scared. But he sat and watched as Mary, in a soothing voice, told Alex to find a peaceful place and to go there.
“What if I can’t?” Alex asked, panicked. “What if I can’t find a peaceful place?”
“Then think of a place you felt safe,” Mary said. “Happy.”
Alex nodded and sighed and Daniel wondered where she’d finally gone.
Mary continued her slow, soothing routine, taking Alex deeper into a relaxing state.
“So, do you use hypnosis often with your homicide cases?” Meredith asked.
Daniel knew she needed to talk and the distraction would be a good thing for them both. “From time to time, mainly to generate leads. I’ve never gone with a case solely on a retrieved memory, though. Not unless I could independently verify it. Memories are fragile things, so easily manipulated.”
“That’s wise,” Meredith returned. Both of them had their eyes on the screen where Mary had progressed to determining how deeply under Alex had gone. Alex was watching as her arm lifted and stayed lifted. “Alex was already a believer in hypnosis from her work. That’s making Mary’s job easier.”
“Daniel.” Ed was pointing to the monitor. “I think Mary’s got her under.”
Alex had both arms in the air and was looking from arm to arm with detached curiosity. Mary told her to lower them and she obeyed.
“Now let’s walk to the stairs,” Mary said, taking Alex by the hand. “I want you to think back, go back to the day Alicia died.”
“The next day,” Alex said quietly. “It’s the next day.”
“All right,” Mary said. “It’s the next day. So tell me what you see, Alex.”
Alex made it to the fourth stair and stopped, her hand gripping the banister so hard Daniel could see her white knuckles on the video.
“That’s how far she went yesterday,” he murmured. “I thought she’d have a heart attack, her pulse went so high.”
“Alex,” Mary said with quiet authority. “Keep going.”
“No.” Panic had edged into Alex’s voice. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“All right. So tell me what you see.”
“Nothing. It’s dark.”
“Where are you?”
“Here. Right here.”
“Were you coming up? Or down?”
“Down. Oh, God.” Alex’s breath began to hitch rapidly and Mary gently pressed her down until she sat on the stair. Mary then brought her out, then took her under again.
When Alex returned to a hypnotic state, Mary began again. “Where are you?”
“Here. That stair creaks.”
“All right. Is it still dark?”
“Yes. I haven’t turned on the hall light.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want them to see me.”