Read Online Deja Who by MaryJanice Davidson - Free Book Online Page B

with resurfaced memories—even if it’s not yet in place to allow for job protection.”
    â€œYou have to make it stop.”
    â€œ
You
have to make it stop.” Leah couldn’t see his dreams, but she could imagine. Even now, historians weren’t sure how many blond, blue-eyed boys Gilles de Rais tortured, raped, and killed. Conservative estimates put it at sixty; some maintain the number is closer to six hundred. Charlie Reynolds knew, but Leah doubted he was interested in being forthcoming. Even one little boy murdered so horrifically would have been too many and she wasn’t without sympathy for his plight. But compassion warred with irritation. She had explained these things. He said he understood. She had warned him. He said it was fine. When he hadn’t returned for follow-up, she’d left messages that were never returned, sent letters which were returned unopened, finally sent one by registered mail to be sure he was getting them. He was, and chose to do nothing.
    â€œIt’s all the time now, don’t you understand?”
    â€œI do understand. And as I told you, your ‘batten down the hatches and wait for it to go away’ plan will not work. You have to face what you did. And then you have to—”
    â€œIt wasn’t me!”
    She just looked at him.
    â€œIt wasn’t.” He took a breath and visibly calmed himself. “And now it never stops. Not just when I’m asleep and not when I’m daydreaming. I close my eyes and I see all those little boys, all those blond, blue-eyed . . .”
    She nodded, wondering what it said about a man who killed small, helpless versions of himself over and over.
    â€œ. . . and they’re screaming and bleeding and the rooms stink of blood,
reek
of it, and it never never stops.” He had steppedup to her desk and was leaning over it and nibbling on his hat rim and his face had flushed to the color of a brick. “You made it worse. Everything’s worse.”
    â€œMr. Reynolds, please step back and calm down.” She’d pressed the white button (
stand by outside office
) at his “you just made everything worse.” If she hit the red button (
swarm!
) security would pile in. “No one here wants to hurt you.”
    â€œI don’t want to hurt
you
.” Deep breath. “But I probably will.”
    Hmm. That could be interesting. Was this man her destined killer? She knew she should have been tense, scared; instead she felt equal parts pity and irritation for the man who knew what he was but still wouldn’t face it.
    No
, she decided, looking him over.
He’s not my killer. Though it’d be a rich irony if he were, if I were slashed because in my arrogance I didn’t see him as a threat. It’d serve me right, and then some.
    â€œI don’t—” He took another breath, straightened, put his hat on. “I don’t understand how you can
do
this to people.”
    He left without another word—and that happened sometimes, too. There’d be this big blowout scene and Leah would be prepared to defend herself, or unleash the forces of good (or at least the security detail), and then they’d just sort of deflate and wander off.
    Regardless, Deb made sure he was off the property, security confirmed, and Leah flagged his chart and updated her clinic notes. It was unfortunate, and not uncommon. Just as car salesmen didn’t always advocate a new car for everyone, Leah didn’t think Insighting solved everyone’s problems every time. It was an unfortunate truth she’d been facing since she was old enough to understand it.
    Her ten o’clock was a woman who had been a vestal virginin 114 BC and again in 19 AD. Both times she had been wrongfully accused of having sex with a Roman citizen, which was considered treason, both times the accusations were false but she’d been found guilty due to the enormous