Edge of Midnight (7 page)

6

T
he team meeting scheduled for Friday morning at the Florida Bureau offices in Baymeadows had been moved to the sandy riverbank of the St. Johns. Five hours later, however, neither the water nor land search had turned up anything of relevance. Eric watched as the deputies who had helped with the grid-by-grid walk-through began loading into their cars.

“The divers will be out here another two to three hours.” Cameron approached from his car, a bottled water in hand. He’d been upstream overseeing the dragging efforts while Eric supervised activities in the more immediate area where the body had been found. Like the other agents, both men wore chinos and T-shirts in the humid conditions. Eric felt perspiration roll down his back, the sun hot on his shoulders. The team had been taking breaks under a tarp that provided shade, or by briefly ducking into their air-conditioned vehicles.

“Any word from the psychiatrist at the NAS?” Cameron asked. Eric had told him about the experimental therapy.

“Dr. Wilhelm can see Ms. Hale at three today.”

“She’s a trouper to go along with it.”

Eric thought of the anguish he’d witnessed in Mia’s eyes the previous night. He had been worried she might change her mind, but when he’d called her earlier that day about the scheduled appointment, to her credit she hadn’t tried to back out.

“You’re going with her?”

“I want to hear anything she might recall firsthand.” He paused as a noisy group of sandhill cranes flew overhead. Several of the large, storklike birds were already fishing at the water’s shallow edge. “Besides, I’m the one who asked her to do this and I don’t want her to go through it alone.”

Cameron checked his wristwatch. “You should get going, then. You’ll probably want to shower and change first. I’ll stay out here with the team to finish up the water search, at least for today. I figured a larger exploration out here was a long shot, but we’d be remiss not to do it. The problem is the river’s just too damn big.”

“Has anyone spoken to Pauline Berger’s family?”

“We’re withholding official notification pending the M.E. report. But unofficially we’ve already been in touch with next of kin and prepared them on the likelihood. I wanted to let them know before they turned on the news, heard about the female floater and put two and two together. Not to mention, the press are already speculating the body is one of the abducted women. No acknowledgment from us or the JSO, of course.”

Eric had caught part of the local morning news prior to heading out to the river. He thought of the waiting families and it gave him a dull ache. “What about Cissy Cox’s relatives?”

“We contacted her family as well and told them the body wasn’t a match. It gave them some relief, at least for a little while.”

He figured Cam was thinking about the same thing he was—the possibility that her remains were also out here, somewhere.

Cameron wore a baseball cap with the FBI logo emblazoned on it, and he lifted it from his hair to wipe his perspiring forehead. He moved to a lighter topic. “You still coming to dinner tonight?”

“Unless something changes with the investigation, I’ll be there.”

“Come around eight o’clock—I told Lanie we’d have to eat late. She’s in a major nesting phase so be prepared for something extravagant.” He smiled and shook his head. “She had issues of
Martha Stewart
spread out all over the kitchen when I got home last night.”

“Agent Vartran? Agent Macfarlane?” A uniformed deputy strode toward them across the gravel lot. The man was heavily tanned, his already blond hair bleached nearly white by the sun. “I’m Deputy Hammond. Detective Boyet wanted me to let you know something that might be of interest.”

They all shook hands. He pointed out to the two-lane road. “Last night, one of our men assigned to keep cars from stopping and gawking ran a few license plates, just for the hell of it. You never know when someone with an outstanding warrant might show up in the database, right?”

Cameron shifted his weight. “Anything come up?”

“Not last night. They were all clean.” He placed his hands on his gun belt. “But one of the vehicles that came through here
was
reported stolen as of this morning. The owner’s staying at one of the golf resorts in Ponte Vedra and hadn’t used his car since yesterday afternoon. He only noticed it missing at around 11:00 a.m. today when he got ready to check out of the hotel.”

“Which means someone else drove it through here last night.” Eric understood why Boyet thought the information important. Along with the car Mia had been driving the night she escaped, it increased the possibility the unsub was using stolen vehicles for the abductions—eliminating any chance of being identified through license plates. Still, riding around in a hot car was a risk in itself. So was driving it past the dump site. But some perpetrators got off on seeing the turmoil they’d caused. Arsonists as well as murderers had been known to stand in crowds of onlookers, reliving their experience. If that were the case, however, Eric doubted the unsub had stolen another vehicle just to have a look. He probably had done it for a dual purpose. Like abducting another woman.

“What’s the car’s make?”

The deputy’s silvered sunglass lenses reflected like mirrors. He swatted at a pesky fly. “Black Audi A4, turbo charge. We’ve got an APB issued for the model and tags.”

Cameron’s cell phone went off. He answered it, said a few words and then closed its cover. “That was Agent Olkarski upstream. The divers recovered plastic sheeting tangled around the leg of a dock. It has indentations consistent with the binding found on the body.”

“Anything nearby on the river floor that might have been the anchor?” Eric asked.

“Two standard-grade cinder blocks with frayed ropes on them. Nothing distinctive. The ropes and sheeting could’ve come from any home improvement store in the area.”

Eric stared out over the murky water. It wasn’t the break he’d been hoping for.

Mia had expected a high-rise building comprised of steel and glass. Sterile, isolated corridors. High-tech fingerprint scans required to open solid metal doors. But Dr. Günter Wilhelm’s office was located in an unassuming, one-story brick office complex inside the Jacksonville Naval Air Station base. She sat on a hunter-green-striped couch across from the psychiatrist’s desk while Eric had taken the matching side chair. To her right, a large picture window provided a view of the adjacent naval hospital. The room was tastefully decorated and held the faint scent of pipe tobacco and citrus potpourri.

“Agent Macfarlane has apprised me of the investigation as well as your role in it, Mia,” Dr. Wilhelm stated in a slight German accent. He was a fatherly looking man, with graying hair and a starched white lab coat. “You must understand there are no guarantees. The therapy has worked for only about thirty percent of the participants, and to varying degrees. A few of those have remembered large amounts of detail, but for most others it is far less.”

Mia tried to wrench any anxiety from her voice. “If it’s successful, what kind of things might I remember?”

“Possibly a visual image—a face or a location, a shred of dialog. It’s difficult to say since every case is different. You’d also be the first patient I’ve worked with whose memory loss was induced by a chemical substance. I’m unsure of how it will affect the outcomes.”

Nervous butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She tried to imagine what it might be like to actually see or hear something from those lost hours.

“What about the risks?” Eric asked. He was dressed in dark suit pants, a white shirt and tie, his suit jacket left behind in the car in deference to the heat.

“There can be physical side effects, although they’re typically short-term. Some patients have reported a headache or dizziness for an hour or two after our sessions. In a few extreme cases, an elevation in blood pressure.”

Mia toyed with her bandaged fingers. “What kind of drug is it, exactly?”

“In layman’s terms, it’s known as a
mental catalyst.
When used in combination with the right hypnotherapy, it makes it more possible to delve into untapped channels within the mind.” Dr. Wilhelm smiled, a benevolent look on his face as he explained. “These channels hold memories we may not even be aware of. For example, a repressed childhood memory or something that might have happened when one was injured and unconscious, supposedly unable to hear or process thought. We’ve been able to prove the mind is capable of capturing event fragments even in such situations. The memories
are
there. Tapping into them and bringing them to the surface is the real feat.”

Mia said half-jokingly, “I’m guessing this catalyst
isn’t
FDA-approved.”

“You needn’t worry overly—the drug is nonaddictive and has been tested in military clinical trials.” He paused, clearing his throat. “However, its effect when used with hypnotherapy has proved to be potent, when it works. The memory captures can be quite vivid, which may be unsettling considering your circumstances, Mia. Not to mention, even once the drug has left your system there is a possibility of memory flashes.”

“Memory flashes?” Eric asked.

“She may recall certain things outside of the session itself.” The psychiatrist tapped his right temple. “Once the window is opened…”

There’s no closing it.
Mia looked at Eric and found his gaze on her. She hoped the tightness she felt in her lungs wasn’t communicated on her features. It would be so easy to change her mind and retreat. But she thought of the rotting corpse that had been pulled from the water. She also thought of Rebecca Macfarlane. Whatever she remembered couldn’t be worse than what those poor women had gone through. Sounding much braver than she felt, she asked, “How do we start?”

Dr. Wilhelm indicated a folder on his desk. “I received your medical records from your physician. You had a recent examination while you were hospitalized earlier this week and appear to be in excellent health. You’ve also signed the necessary waivers. Considering the urgency of Agent Macfarlane’s investigation, there’s no reason we can’t start now.”

“Let’s do it,” Mia said firmly, tamping down her anxiety.

He stood from behind his desk. “I’ll go prepare the syringe. I’m going to try a relatively light dosage today and gauge its effect.”

Once the psychiatrist had left the office, Mia stood and wandered over to the picture window. Jets taking off from the naval base were visible in the hazy afternoon sky, and she could hear their thunderlike roar. She felt Eric’s presence behind her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She turned to face him, her heart skipping a beat as she realized his closeness. Mia smiled weakly up at him. “I guess I hadn’t anticipated needles.”

Despite her attempt at humor, he remained serious. “You don’t have to do this—”

“I do,”
she replied. “And you need me to.”

He stared at her, his intense, moss-green eyes searching hers.

“Thank you,” he said, touching her upper arm. His fingers on her bare skin sent a tingle racing through her. He dropped his hand as they heard Dr. Wilhelm return.

“Once the drug is administered, we’ll give it a little time to take effect and then we’ll begin with some mind relaxation techniques,” he said as he indicated the couch. Mia blanched at the small hypodermic needle he held. She’d never quite gotten past her childish fear of them.