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CHAPTER TWENTY
“Is she okay?”Jessie demanded.
“I’m trying todetermine that right now,” Parker said. “There’s a lot of confusion.”
“What officer areyou talking to?” Ryan asked, wrapping a protective arm around Jessie’sshoulder. “Can you conference them in with us?”
Before Parkercould reply, Jessie got a call on her cell. The screen read simply: Lemmon.She answered it immediately, hoping that the psychiatrist would be on the otherend of the line and not some officer bearing bad news.
“Dr. Lemmon?”
“Jessie,” thefamiliar voice of Janice Lemmon said, “I’m okay, mostly.”
“What do youmean?” Jessie asked, feeling like a child talking to a parent.
"There was anintruder," Lemmon said. "He attacked me. I was able to fend him off,but not before I got a few bruises and a nasty cut on my forehead. The EMTs arecleaning it up now, but they want to take me to the hospital to suture itproperly and do a more thorough work-up on me."
“But you’re goingto be okay?” Jessie appealed.
“I’m going to beokay,” Lemmon assured her.
Jessie was amazedat the woman’s calm, almost clinical tone. Admittedly, before she left lawenforcement to focus on psychiatry, Janice Lemmon had been a profiler whoworked with the FBI and LAPD. She’d seen more awful stuff than most. But to beso composed in the face of an imminent threat to her own safety was remarkable.
“What happened?”Ryan asked.
“It appears thatJessie’s old friend, Mark Haddonfield, has long tentacles. Another one of hisdevotees, who apparently also read his manifesto, decided that as long aspeople were trying to take out her friends and family, an old lady with a canemight make a good target. I don’t know how he found out I was your therapist,Jessie, but he did. Anyway, he waited until Amy went on her lunch break and Iwas eating alone in the office.”
“I thought youincreased your security lately?” Ryan said.
“I did,” Lemmontold him, “with additional locks and a security guard hired by thebuilding who patrols our floor regularly. But apparently this young man waiteduntil the guard went to the restroom to make his move. He broke into the outeroffice and then my inner one. Then he charged at me with a hatchet. Luckily,when I heard all the hubbub in the outer office, I had to time to get out thetaser I now keep in my top drawer. I fired it at him, and he collapsed.Unfortunately, his momentum led him to collapse into me too, knocking me out ofmy chair and slashing my head on a cabinet. Thus, the bruises and theimpressive gash. The guard heard me calling for help and secured the youngman—who was still convulsing from the taser—until the police arrived."
“But the EMTsdon’t think you have any life-threatening injuries,” Jessie said, as ifspeaking the words forcefully would make it so.
"We'll knowfor sure in a bit, but I think it will turn out to be just bumps, bruises, andcuts," Lemmon said, before adding, "They're telling me that I have tohang up. They're going to take me down to the ambulance in a stretcher, and we'reabout to get moving."
“Okay,” Ryan said.“Please give us an update when you’re able.”
“Will do,” Lemmonsaid before hanging up.
In the briefsilence that followed, one thought came into Jessie’s head. This had to end.How many of the people she cared about would continue to be put at risk in hername? Mitch was dead. Kat had almost met the same fate. And now Dr. Lemmon hadbarely escaped a hatchet attack in her own office.
Jessie could thinkof only one way to make this stop. She had to go to the source. Despiteeveryone’s recommendation that she not feed the beast—that it would only makethings worse—she had to meet with Mark Haddonfield.
“Are we all stillon the line?” Captain Parker asked after what she apparently deemed arespectful pause.
"Weare," Ryan told her. "Dr. Lemmon is gone, but Jessie and I are stillhere."
“I didn’t want tointerrupt your conversation, but I was glad to hear the doctor seems to bedoing okay,” Parker said. “I’d certainly understand if you wanted to go to thehospital to see her, Ms. Hunt.”
“No,” Jessie saidquickly. “We all heard her. She sounds like she’s in good hands. I’ll go checkon her when I get a chance. But right now, I want to finish out this case.”
“All right,” Pakersaid, her tone softer than it was prior to the call from Lemmon. “Here’s what Ican offer you: two hours. You have until 4:30 to disprove Mitchell Vaughn asour killer. No later. I’m going to tell Chief Decker he can schedule his news conferencefor that time. If you don’t have anything conclusive by then, he names Vaughn.Fair?”
Jessie didn’t knowif Parker was making the concession because she had some doubt about Vaughn’sguilt or merely out of pity because her psychiatrist had nearly been killed.Either way, she’d take it.
“Fair,” she said.
“Thanks, Captain,”Ryan added.
