Page 2

“It was a nightmare,” Jessie said, and she was only slightly exaggerating.

“Really, a nightmare?” Dr. Janice Lemmon asked skeptically, her eyebrows raised.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be my psychiatrist,” Jessie objected. “Where’s the understanding and support?”

“And you’re supposed to be the celebrated LAPD criminal profiler, Jessie Hunt—not easily prone to hyperbole,” Lemmon countered.

“Actually, my ‘celebrity’ status was what caused the problem in the first place,” Jessie explained. “That’s why I had to leave that place almost as soon as I got there.”

The “place” that Jessie was referring to was Beachside Harmony, located a full hour and a half north of Los Angeles, up near Santa Barbara. Despite the touchy-feely name, Beachside Harmony was an actually an intensive rehabilitation and treatment facility, designed not just for folks dealing with addiction, but also with myriad mental health issues. It was also supposed to be highly secure, which is why a variety of high-profile celebrities went there.

“What do you mean?” Lemmon wanted to know. She was the one who’d recommended Beachside Harmony, and despite her unquestioned professionalism, she sounded slightly defensive at the criticism.

“I mean that I went there with Ryan, using an assumed name, under the guise of possibly finding a place to help our imaginary teenage daughter, who we said was struggling with all manner of issues.” Jessie explained. “And within five minutes of walking through the halls, two people recognized me. One mistakenly thought I was an actress because she’d seen me on TV. The other knew who I was and wanted to know if I was working a case. So the joint obviously isn’t as concerned with protecting privacy as one might have hoped.”

"I'm sorry, Jessie," Lemmon said sincerely. "I thought that with their reputation and being so far north of the city, it would be an ideal option."

"Well, I was always on the fence about a facility anyway," Jessie said. "It's not like I can speak up in group therapy and say, 'Hi, I'm Jessie and I've got an uncontrollable desire to brutally kill the suspects I'm hunting down. I know that's not super-professional, considering I'm supposed to fight for justice, not vengeance. But my father was a serial killer, and somehow, whatever sickness was in him got passed down to me. Help, please.'"

“Maybe group therapy isn’t the best venue for that kind of admission,” Lemmon noted drily.

"Probably not," Jessie agreed. "But you and I have been working on this together for months now, and that doesn't seem to be helping either. No offense."

“None taken,” Lemmon said and seemed to mean it.

Janice Lemmon didn't take offense too much at this stage in her career. Prior to her work as a psychiatrist in private practice, the 70-year-old with a tiny body, thick glasses and tight, little gray ringlets was a highly decorated LAPD and FBI criminal profiler. Very little fazed her.

“You know that I think a facility isn’t really workable anyway,” Jessie added. “The only places where I might have some anonymity are going to be halfway across the country, maybe even international. And I’m not confident that I could take a leave of absence from the police department without sharing some details about where and why I was going.”

“Does it have to be paid leave?” Lemmon asked. “You are independently wealthy.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Jessie cracked. “But paid or unpaid, Captain Parker is going to want to know why the criminal profiler for her most prized investigative unit has just checked out for a few weeks. And even if I hold firm about not saying anything, these are cops. They know how to find stuff out. And once someone learns that I’m on leave for ‘general bloodthirstiness,’ it might impact my employment status.”

“Okay,” Lemmon replied, unfazed by Jessie’s sarcasm. “Perhaps it’s time that we reconsider the idea of medication.”

Jessie shook her head.

“I was under the impression that any medication that could curb those kinds of desires would mess with my brain chemistry,” she said. “I kind of need to be firing on all cylinders to do my job.”

"That depends," Lemmon said. "Some people do have reactions. They can be extreme in rare cases. Most of the time, the side effects are a bit of temporary fuzziness, like you've had a bad night's sleep and need a nap. For you, we would try a low dose of something mild and see how that worked. If it wasn't effective, we could change things up. And, of course, I'd recommend that you first try it out during a stretch when you're not on duty."

“Not on duty?” Jessie chuckled. “I don’t think that kind of stretch exists.”

Lemmon shrugged.

"Well, it's the next step," she said. "I can give you a sample dose and fill a prescription for you. It's your call. But if you want something to change, then something has to change."

“That’s some deep stuff, Doc,” Jessie quipped, before relenting. “I’ll take the sample, but I can’t promise when I’ll take it.”

“Excellent. I’ll give it to you at the end of the session,” Lemmon said. “But we still have a little time left, so why don’t you update me on anything else that you think is relevant.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, how are things with Ryan?”

Ryan was Ryan Hernandez, her husband and sometime work partner. He ran the LAPD unit they both worked for, Homicide Special Section—or HSS—which specialized in cases with high profiles or intense media scrutiny—typically involving multiple victims or serial killers. But Ryan was currently on desk duty.

"He's getting there," Jessie said. "That dustup with the killer we caught who poisoned him set him back more than he expected. He's on desk duty for the rest of this week. Assuming all goes well, Captain Parker said he can return to the field on Monday."

“That’s great news,” Lemmon said, “but I was thinking more about how things were going between you two, especially in light of the adoption situation.”

Jessie sighed as she tried to think of the best way to explain things. “The adoption situation,” as Lemmon described it, was complicated. A while back, Ryan had expressed his desire to have kids. Jessie had balked, worried about her career, about how her battered body would handle childbirth, and whether she might pass down whatever vengeful gene she seemed to have inherited from her father.

She floated adoption as an alternative, hoping that taking in a child of toddler age or older would still meet Ryan’s needs while not upending her life quite as much as an infant might. But after she’d recently missed an important meeting with an adoption counselor because of a case, he’d put a halt to the process.

“We’re not really discussing it much these days,” she admitted to Lemmon.

“Why is that?”

“He thinks I’m not serious about kids,” Jessie conceded. “And truthfully, I’m not entirely sure that sure I am either. So we’ve set it aside for a while.”

“How’s he taking that?” Lemmon asked.

“Mostly by being quietly resentful.”

“And how are you reacting to that?”

“Mostly by trying not to think about it.”

“That sounds healthy,” Lemmon noted wryly.

“Hannah’s doing really well,” Jessie said, suddenly and quite awkwardly changing the subject to her nineteen-year-old half-sister, Hannah Dorsey, who she’d become the guardian of after the murder of her parents three years ago.

“Okay,” Lemmon replied. “That’s wasn’t the smoothest transition, but clearly you no longer want to talk about your marriage, so I’ll let it go for now. Tell me more about Hannah.”

“There’s not much to tell, which I consider a good thing,” Jessie said. “She’s in her spring quarter at UC Irvine after rocking the fall and winter. She gets along with her roommate. She was kind of, sort of, maybe dating a guy there for a while, but I think she put a pause on that. She’s pretty tight-lipped about it.”

“No recurrences with her?” Lemmon asked.

“Recurrences” was a diplomatic reference to how Hannah, who shared the same serial killer father as Jessie, had gone through her own bout with bloodthirsty desire. In her case, it had escalated to the point where she actually killed a man. Her action had been officially deemed self-defense, but those who’d been there, including Jessie, knew different.

And yet Hannah had managed to get a grip on her urges. She had gone to a treatment facility for several months, where no one recognized her, and had found tools that allowed her to stay in control. Of course, unlike Jessie, she wasn’t exposed to the worst of humanity on a regular basis, which probably helped. Still, it was an impressive achievement.

“No recurrences,” Jessie answered flatly.

“And Kat is doing well?” Lemmon wondered.

“You would know better than me,” Jessie said of her best friend, private detective Katherine Gentry. “You’re the one treating her.”

“I see her twice a week in a structured environment,” Lemmon pointed out. “You see her every day, in your own home. It’s a slightly more revealing environment.”

It was true. Kat had temporarily moved into Jessie and Ryan’s Mid-Wilshire neighborhood house. They had taken her in after she’d suffered a mini-breakdown, which was lucky to be “mini.” Kat had fallen apart after the hired killer who had kidnapped, tortured, and nearly murdered her escaped from custody right before she was to go on trial.

The killer, a former government assassin named Ash Pierce, was supposedly on the lam in Mexico or points further south. But that was no comfort to Kat, who feared Pierce would sneak back into the country to finish the job she’d started. Jessie didn’t think it was a completely outlandish concern and invited her to stay in Hannah’s old room for a while.

It wasn’t just a gesture. Jessie had dealt with multiple folks—fans, stalkers, and even a few killers—who tried to make things personal. As a result, she had used some of her independent wealth to turn her home into a veritable fortress.

“I can’t speak to how she’s doing emotionally,” Jessie said. “She doesn’t talk a ton about her feelings. I think she feels like she’s putting us out already by living with us and doesn’t want to burden us with the state of her psyche too. I’ve tried to tell her that I’ll talk anytime, but so far she hasn’t taken me up on it.”

“Do you know if she at least feels safe?” Lemmon asked.

“I know that she is safe,” Jessie answered. “As to whether she feels safe, that’s a question you’d have to ask her, Doc.”