Page 12 of Saving Meadow (The Next Generation #1)

Red

T hat easily had to have been the worst hour of my life.

Hearing a victim relive an attack is always hard, but Meadow?

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to barge into the conference room and scoop her up into my arms and hold her.

I hated she was having to remember. I couldn’t bear to hear her pain as she relived the attack.

“Damn, that was rough,” Ben said. He’d gotten to the office in time to watch Mandy’s session with Meadow.

“Seems Nick was correct. We’re dealing with a female offender. I’ll admit, I had my doubts but damn if he wasn’t right.” Joel looked up from his tablet. “I forwarded the session to Kilby. He’ll be back in an hour. He wants to sit down to revise the profile. Officer Lance is coming in with him.”

One step closer. Meadow’s pain wasn’t in vain. We were one step closer. Hopefully, the police could make an arrest before the twentieth.

“How is she?” I asked Mandy when she joined us.

“She’s… okay. She actually would like to talk to you before she leaves.”

I didn’t bother answering Mandy. I hadn’t realized how tense I had been until she told me that Meadow wanted to see me. I didn’t know why, but the thought of Meadow leaving without saying goodbye sat in my gut like a rock.

Meadow sat slumped forward in the chair, scratching Sally’s ears. Seeing her with Sally made me want to talk to Alexandra about getting a dog for Meadow. Homefront usually only paired comfort animals with vets, but if anyone ever needed one of their dogs, it was Meadow.

“Hey.”

“Hi. Thanks for letting me borrow Sally. She’s a really good dog, you’ve done a great job with her.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna be sad when she has to go. But then, I always am. I’m glad she helped.”

“Did…umm… you watch too?”

“I did. Mandy explained that the session was going to be recorded, right?” Meadow’s face drained of all color, and she immediately looked away from me. “Hey. Don’t do that. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did great. I know how difficult that was for you. How are you feeling?”

“Foolish. I can’t believe I blocked out a woman had attacked me. Did you know?”

“No. Only recently, when the case reopened, did we consider the unsub could be a woman. However, it wasn’t until you confirmed it that we knew for sure.”

“How did you figure out I was the first… you know,” she asked.

“I ran a search for women who had similar wounds to the victims, crossing that with assaults that took place on the seventh.”

“Why didn’t she kill me?”

Meadow’s tears were my undoing. I couldn’t stand to see them fall down her pretty cheeks.

“Sally, up.” When Sally stood I knelt in front of Meadow, grabbing her hands in mine, I squeezed until she lifted her eyes to mine. “She was interrupted by one of the bar staff.”

“Some days I wish…”

“Don’t say it,” I interrupted. “Don’t even think it. We’re gonna catch her, Red, and she’s gonna pay for what she did to you.”

“I better get to work. I only took half a day off. ”

Work? Was she crazy? She needed to go home and relax.

“Any way you can take the rest of the day?” I asked.

“No. I’m hourly. If I want to continue to buy five-dollar coffees and pay my rent I need the hours.”

That was going to change. In the very near future, she wouldn’t have to worry about her five-dollar coffees; I’d be buying them for her.

“What time are you done with work?” I asked.

“Five.”

“Perfect. How about I pick you up at five-thirty and we go grab some dinner?”

If her cheeks had not been stained with tears, I might’ve laughed at how wide her green eyes got before she squinted and shook her head.

“What? Why?”

“I could tell you that I want to take you to dinner because I want to make sure you are okay. But that’d mostly be a lie.”

“So, you don’t care if I’m okay?” Her lip twitched, and I was relieved.

“I’m quite sure you’ll be more than okay after dinner.”

“What makes you think I want to have dinner with you?” Fuck. I overplayed my hand. “I’m kidding.” And for the first time since I’d met her, Meadow Holiday graced me with a smile. A real one that hit her eyes and made the green shine.

Goddamn, she was beautiful.

“All joking aside. I’m fine. You don’t have to waste your night having dinner with me.”

“Red, not a moment would be wasted; I get to spend time with you.”

I hoped the poor girl didn’t play poker; she couldn’t hide a single expression.

“Okay. Dinner would be nice.”

By the time Officer Lance and Kilby made their way to the office, it was a quarter to four. Meadow lived at least thirty minutes away, and I still had to take Sally home before I picked her up. Of all fucking days to be running late.

The men watched Mandy’s session with Meadow, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Watching the first time had been bad enough, but the second time was torture.

“Dr. Brown, can you walk me through your interview?” Officer Lance asked. The skepticism was hard to miss.

“I see you’re not a believer.” Mandy smiled at the man.

“As you saw on the recording, I explained to Meadow hypnosis is a psychological state of focused relaxation - an altered state of awareness where your mental process works differently. It’s called top-down processing.

The brain processes top-level information first – memories and expectations.

Those memories have a big impact on the bottom – and how your brain senses or perceives those expectations.

When Meadow relaxed and focused on the details of her attack while she was in an altered state, she was able to remember what she saw, felt, and heard, not what she thought she was supposed to see.

“Top-down processing explains the placebo effect. A doctor gives a patient a pill, real or fake, and tells him he’ll feel great after he takes it. He feels better. His brain expects it. He has an involuntary reaction to the pill,” Mandy finished.

“Hypnosis opens your mind to suggestion,” Officer Lance countered.

“Of course, it can. But as you saw, I didn’t offer suggestions.”

“I’m not sure I’m sold on the woman serial killer. Women don’t kill with such extreme aggression.”

“They don’t, or they can’t?” I asked.

“What do you mean, SA Clark?”

“You said they don’t kill with such extreme aggression. That’s not true. Women kill with the same brutality as a man. However, they typically don’t become serial, but that doesn’t mean they can’t.”

“What makes this woman different? If we had fourteen dead men on our hands, I might be apt to believe a woman was the offender,” the officer continued.

“When a woman is wronged, say her husband or boyfriend cheats on her, she blames the woman. It’s the woman’s fault her man stepped out of the relationship.

What does she have that I don’t? Why her?

Women obsess; they fixate on what they think are their own inadequacies.

It consumes them and eats at their self-worth until they turn vengeful and indignant.

The offender cannot kill the object of her obsession, so she kills substitutes, beautiful women that remind her of all the things she is not.

She defaces her victims, taking their beauty and turning it into something unattractive and grotesque,” Mandy explained.

“Why the stab to the stomach?” Officer Lance’s tone had turned slightly less argumentative. “The overkill to the face is enough to kill them.

“Symbolic. The trauma is always to the lower abdomen, pelvic region,” Ben answered.

“Goddamn. That’s one pissed off woman,” the officer agreed. “Why the change in dates?”

“Trauma. The first trigger happened on the seventh. Four years later a second trigger happened on the twentieth,” Joel told him .

“It’s no secret I don’t put a lot of stock into profiling.

It’s a crapshoot. But we can use all the help we can get, so I’d appreciate a new report I can present to my guys.

We already have more patrols set for the twentieth, but I can’t cover every bar in the city.

My tech specialist has tried to recover the last crime scene’s security hard drive with no luck.

I’ve asked SSA Kilby to let your girl take a crack at it.

I hope we catch this bitch before I have another dead woman with her face mutilated. ”

“We’ll have something for you in the morning, and Kristy is already working on the hard drive.” Kilby stood, signaling the meet was over. The rest of us followed suit and waited for Kilby to escort the officer to the lobby.

“Has he always been a dick?” Mike asked.

“He’s not a dick,” Mandy started. “I’ve known Officer Lance a long time. He’s an old school, by the book type of guy. If you cannot see it or touch it, it’s not real. But he’s a good homicide detective. Believe me, he wants to catch this guy…umm… woman just as bad as we do.”

I checked my watch and saw I wouldn’t have time to drop off Sally or change before I had to be at Meadow’s.

“I’m done for the day. See you all tomorrow.”

I turned to call for Sally, who was patiently waiting for me at my desk when I heard the laughter .

“Damn, hot date?” That was from Ben.

“I’ve never seen him try to run out of here so fast,” Mandy added.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Mike said, causing the rest of the group to roar with amusement.

“Careful Mike. Your age is showing. No one says that anymore.” I didn’t bother turning around when I flipped the group off over my shoulder. They could laugh all they wanted. I had a date with pretty Miss Holiday. They could all suck it.