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)
What else is there?
Not a lot. But that didn’t mean it was right.
She thought back to Dr. Sweeton’s talk and the man who had asked whether those who’ve experienced chronic trauma are brain damaged. Yes, the doctor had answered. The first step in healing must target the brain itself.
But even if that type of treatment were legal, who was going to pay for it? She supposed that right now, San Francisco’s elite, who sought out Dr. Sweeton for psychiatry, were funding it. But on a massive scale? Would it even be possible?
You don’t have to turn us in, Lennon. You can help.
Surprisingly, her fingers began moving on the steering wheel, tapping out a melody she’d thought she’d long ago forgotten, on invisible piano keys. Her mind had held on to it, and for whatever reason, in a moment of deep confusion and overwhelming upset, it’d sprung from the recesses of her memories.
Lennon remembered when she’d first begun learning to play, and even later, when lessons became more complicated. The way she’d dream about her fingers on the keys, the way her brain would go over and over the movements without her permission. Maybe that’s what brains did: learned through intense cerebral repetition. But what if the thing it was learning was a horror being engraved inside? Etched so deep you could never forget. Wouldn’t such a thing drive you mad? How could it not?
How could it not?
The decision not to report Project Bluebird could have serious repercussions on her life and her career. It would mean she’d made the conscious choice not to report illegal activity involving victims.
But are they victims? Or are they being saved? That’s really what this all boiled down to. And if these traumatized human beings were being saved, as Ambrose said they were, then this was far bigger than her, personal repercussions or not.
She needed to get herself back on track. And God, she was desperate to be sure about something once more. Her whole world had been toppled—again—and she had this vague sense that though she wanted order, it shouldn’t be put back the way it was before.
Lennon took out her phone and searched Google for Ambrose DeMarce. The only hits came from seventeen years before. She opened the article from a small-town online newspaper in Kentucky. “Kentucky?” she murmured. He’d told her he was born and raised in San Francisco. Then again, he’d been lying about almost every other personal detail, so why not that one too?
She quickly read through the article and then sat back, tapping that tune again. Ambrose DeMarce had been part of an investigation in Kentucky where he helped solve a cold crime that his grandfather had committed. His grandfather, Waylon DeMarce, had raped and murdered nine-year-old Milo Taft and buried his body on his property. Her fingers faltered. Ambrose had been a child, too, when he witnessed the murder. The traumatic event had been dredged up during a therapy session, and he’d returned to Kentucky to tell authorities what he remembered and give Milo’s family the peace they’d been denied for over a decade. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t see justice delivered to Milo’s killer, as Waylon DeMarce had died years earlier. Ambrose DeMarce had been a twenty-one-year-old young man when Milo’s body was exhumed.
Is that what fueled your desire to hunt down criminals who’d gotten away with murder? And others who are lost? She pictured Ambrose’s intense expression. He’d spent the last seventeen years tracking down killers and victims, but as what? Amends for the trauma he’d locked away in his brain? Secrets that Dr. Sweeton had exposed?
Who did the treatment ultimately benefit? Dr. Sweeton or the patients?
Was it only those with “brain damage” that could undergo the treatment? She didn’t think so. Ambrose had mentioned something about those with less-ingrained trauma going through a shorter protocol. So even if Dr. Sweeton’s focus was on those with debilitating PTSD, he’d obviously treated much less severe cases. She certainly didn’t consider herself to be traumatized, but she’d lived through a traumatizing event. If she was to truly understand Project Bluebird to decide for herself if she felt it was ethical, shouldn’t she . . . be treated? Could it actually be of value to society? Help bridge the gap between those tossed back onto the streets and those put in jail?
She had to understand it fully to know.
With one more glance up at the tinted windows of the psych ward, she pulled up the text from Ambrose and used the number he’d sent it from to call him.
“Lennon.”
She pulled in a deep breath and then let it out. “I want to experience it.”
He was silent for a beat as though he was questioning what she was referring to. “No,” he finally said.
“Why? If it’s safe, then why? I can’t agree not to expose what I know is part of an ongoing multiple-murder investigation involving a serial killer unless I understand what I’m protecting.”