Chapter 42

I thought it might be divine intervention, but then Theresa opened the door and peeked in. I saw her pull her head back before anyone else had seen her. I knew she must have set this up.

Theresa was right. The therapist had come into my room. She sat down, and took a notebook out of her white lab coat. With a predatory grin, she looked at me for almost a full minute. I knew she wanted to make me feel uncomfortable.

She didn't know my father.

"Do you know what they do to young men like you?" she asked, still grinning.

That was as far as she got before Special Agent Downs walked in.

"Who are you?" she said. Then, before an answer could be given, she added, "I'm in a therapy session and need complete privacy."

The way she toned the words, it was easy to see she was used to getting what she wanted. I tried hard to suppress a smile.

Downs reached out quickly, grabbed the nametag that was hanging around her neck, and gave it a hard jerk, ripping it off of her neck. This caused her to grab the chair she was sitting on, and drop the notebook on the floor. He looked at the name.

"Cathy Reynolds," he said and then rubbed his chin.

"You have no right!" she said jumping from the chair. "I'm calling security."

It was then, with the therapist moving to the panic button, that the door opened. Theresa looked in. Downs picked the notebook up off of the floor. Between the sound of the door and Downs sudden movement, Cathy stopped.

"Give that to me."

"Hold on," Downs said calmly, thumbing through the pages. "I'm trying to decide if I need to read you your rights now, or if the police should do that."

"What are you talking about? If you had any idea what was going on, you'd be taking this ... this pervert into custody. Who are you, anyway?"

"FBI. I'm Special Agent Downs, and this alleged 'pervert' is under my protection. Anything that involves him, involves me. You talked with a girl, Jessica. She was under sedation when you interviewed her. Do you have any idea what laws you violated when you did that? I'm sure you are not incompetent, so you do know. She, unfortunately for you, also was being watched by the FBI. Now, Cathy, we can go two ways with this. You can cooperate, and tell us everything that we need to know, or we can play hardball. What would you like?"

Jessica was in a nice, quiet room. There was a lady beside her. She was just sitting in a chair, next to the bed. Jessica knew there had been another lady there, before. There had been questions, or at least she thought so. It was all very fuzzy, still.

Taking a sip from the plastic cup, Jessica felt a little better and drank the rest of the water.

"Why am I here?" Jessica asked.

The woman turned and asked, "Are you feeling better?"

"I've seen you before ... Wait..." Jessica said trying to collect her thoughts. "You were at my Aunt's house." Then her face clouded. "Is it all burnt?"

"I believe so. The memories can't be replaced, but the house can."

"You're an FBI agent, right?"

"Yes."

"Sorry. I probably got introduced, but everything is still ... It's like a haze."

"I know, and yes, we met before. I'm Agent Ling."

"Agent Ling, will you tell me the truth, if I ask you a question?"

"If I can."

"Is John alive?"

Ling smiled. She was glad to hear that question.

"Yes, Jessica, he is. I know he wants to see you, but his cast..."

"Oh!" she said with a frown. Then her face brightened, "I'll bet that thing didn't like the water."

"No, I don't think it did."

"I have another question."

"Ok."

"Why am I having trouble remembering things?"

"I'm not the expert, Jessica. We do have someone, who will be seeing you, who is. He will help you. My guess is that you couldn't deal with everything that you saw. You went into overload and shut down. Does that make sense?"

"Like when you plug too many things into the outlets and it pops the circuit breaker?"

"Same idea. You saw too many bad things that went on, too quickly, and you couldn't handle it any more."

"I don't like that idea."

"Jessica, most people don't get so much thrown at them, like you have, at any age. You are still young and don't have the skills to know how to deal with all of it. There is nothing to be ashamed of. I've seen grown men do worse than you."

"You have not!"

"Yes, I have, and it's not a pretty sight." Ling said. She wanted to steer the conversation away from this. "Now, I have a question for you."

"Ok," Jessica said hesitantly.