Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
She chewed at her lip again, obviously troubled. But he also saw the glint of curiosity, or maybe understanding, in her expression and also in her silence, and it caused a seed of hope to begin to grow. “He’s eloquent and passionate when he speaks about it,” she murmured.
He moved just a little closer, and she met his eyes, but she didn’t move away. “Lennon, please. Don’t put this project in jeopardy. I’m begging you. It’s making the world a better place. It’s saving lives. It’s freeing people. And that freedom—that goodness—doubles and triples and quadruples and on and on, because the people Dr. Sweeton treats go on to help others in so many ways, and to raise children who are emotionally healthy instead of broken, like them.”
She sighed. She seemed somewhat depleted all of a sudden, and he didn’t know if that was good for his cause or not. “You’re not God, Ambrose. Dr. Sweeton isn’t God.”
“No one’s trying to be God. Is a doctor who performs open-heart surgery trying to be God? He or she is simply trying to save a life and repair a broken body.”
She shook her head but brought her hand up and massaged her forehead for a moment, as if the conversation was hurting her brain. “That’s different and you know it.”
“What I know is that ethics laws haven’t caught up to the state of mental illness and PTSD in this world.”
“That’s what the doctors who performed ice pick lobotomies told themselves too.”
“The results of that spoke for itself. We’re not monsters, Lennon. There are over five hundred people who would happily stand in testimony of what Dr. Sweeton gave to them. Their lives. And he risked his own to do so.”
“Maybe he’s just planting pleasant memories in your minds. How do you even know what he did to you was real?”
Ambrose let out a soft breath. “Because I know. It’s been seventeen years, and I’ve watched the process hundreds of times now. The goal is not to distort or erase memories. He uses what he can gather from a patient’s past to help them remember and process their own stories. Then he lets them guide the journey. What I revisited was far from pleasant. Under any other circumstances, reliving it, mentally or otherwise, would have broken me. But I’ll tell you this: even if he had ‘implanted’ pleasant memories into my head, I’d be grateful. My mind was a war zone. And Dr. Sweeton walked through the battlefield and dragged me out.”
She met his eyes then, and again, he saw the empathy there. But he also saw her struggle. And in her expression, he knew that she wouldn’t expose them—at least not yet. But she also wasn’t ready to allow it to continue. “Dr. Sweeton isn’t young. He won’t live forever. What happens when he dies?”
“We have plans for that eventuality. He’s training others who are now in the medical field. They’ll step into his place one day.” Dr. Clayton Contiss, who’d gone through the treatment himself only a year before Ambrose, was already in charge of some of the sessions, with Doc only there as backup.
“Well,” she said. “Maybe you can go international too. An underground therapy, changing the world one drug addict at a time.” When he said nothing, she stared at him for a moment, then murmured, “Oh my God.” She set her mouth, but then sighed and used two fingers to squeeze the bridge of her nose. “Tell me why you infiltrated the department. Who are you really, Ambrose?” she asked after a moment.
He lowered his shoulders. “I work as a bounty hunter. I track down fugitives, but I also locate missing people and bring them home or bring them to justice. I work with the government sometimes, but I prefer to work for myself.”
“Let me guess. You’ve done enough shady business for the feds that you banked on them not pursuing legal action against you for infiltrating our department.”
She looked away. She obviously didn’t need him to confirm her assessment. But he did anyway. “In a nutshell, yes. But any so-called shady business I did was for what I considered a noble purpose.”
“You seem to like to make your own rules.”
“Sometimes I deem it necessary, and justified, yes.”
“What if everyone deemed rule breaking necessary and justified? What if everyone thought their purpose was noble?”
“Then society would break down.”
“Exactly.” She massaged her temples again. “How did you hear about the crime I was investigating?”
“Like I said, there are over five hundred people who’ve successfully gone through Project Bluebird, dating back over twenty years.”
Her mouth formed a small O. “You have a mole in the department.”
“I wouldn’t call the person a mole. They didn’t join the department for any nefarious reason, nor did it have to do with the project. They joined because they wanted to work in law enforcement. But when this case became known to them, they saw the links to the project and called Dr. Sweeton, who then contacted me. I learned what I could but needed to get closer. Specifically, I wanted to see those pills.”