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Dr. Emanuel Hicks, FBI psychologist and huge Beatles fan, stood when Savich and Sherlock walked into his office behind a pale-faced young man. He had dark smudges beneath pale blue eyes that held no hope. He looked ready to climb in a coffin and pull the lid down. Dr. Hicks had seen the same look in the terminally ill. He wore jeans, a white shirt, and an old dark-brown hoodie. So this was Saxon Hainny, the twenty-four-year-old brilliant young grad student in computer science at George Washington and the son of the eminent Eric Hainny, the president’s chief of staff. Dr. Hicks thought the young man would have looked quite handsome if the life hadn’t been leached out of him.
“Mr. Hainny,” Dr. Hicks said and shook the young man’s limp hand. It felt nearly boneless. “Thank you for coming.”
Saxon slowly nodded. “Agent Savich told me you could help me remember.” He looked down at his sneakers. “I don’t understand how, since everything is a blank.”
Dr. Hicks waved to a comfortable armchair. “Please sit down, Mr. Hainny, and I’ll explain to you what we’re going to do.”
Saxon Hainny shot a look at Savich, who smiled and said easily, “Saxon, I would trust Dr. Hicks with my life. You told us you wanted to know the truth. None of us believes what happened to you the night of Mia Prevost’s murder has been simply wiped out of your memory.” He lightly laid his hand on Saxon’s arm. “It’s time to have some faith.”
Saxon studied Dr. Hicks, a man his father’s age, but unlike his father, Dr. Hicks was thin as a pole, his wire-rimmed glasses set over intense dark eyes. “I can’t see how that’s possible, sir. I mean, I told the police and I told Agent Savich I’ve tried to remember, but there’s nothing at all. I don’t think your waving a silver coin in front of my eyes will make any difference.” His voice caught; his eyes went blank. Savich knew he was thinking about Mia Prevost.
Dr. Hicks gently pushed him down onto the chair. “Mr. Hainny, have you ever been hypnotized before?”
“No, sir. I’ve always thought it was fake.”
Dr. Hicks smiled. “We’ll see.” He pulled an old-fashioned round gold watch from his pocket. “This was my father’s watch, given to him by his father. It’s an old friend, nothing more really than something for you to look at. All I ask you to do is sit back and relax.”
A slight smile lit up that haggard face for a moment. “If you’re going to try to dig into my subconscious, you can call me Saxon.”
“Thank you. I want you to relax, Saxon, simply look at the watch, focus on it. Very good. Now empty your active mind as much as you can, and pay attention only to the watch. Think about how many daylight savings times this old watch has seen, never knew when we lost an hour, not like the new ones that do it all for you. Look at the shine on that old gold finish, how it picks up the light. You can see yourself in the gold, if you try. That’s right, Saxon, look at it and think about time melting away, an hour here, an hour there, until time means nothing.”
He continued speaking, more nonsense than not, then lowered the watch and slipped it back into his pocket. He nodded to Savich and Sherlock, rose. “He’s a very intelligent young man, focused enough to go under like a dream. He’s ready for you to question him now.”
Savich sat down in a chair, pulled it closer, and lightly laid his hand on Saxon’s arm. “Saxon, tell me about Mia Prevost. How did you meet?”
A real smile appeared at a memory all of them knew would stay with the young man until he died. “I was in a graduate seminar when a beautiful girl wandered into the room. There were six of us guys in the class and every eye was fastened on her. She blushed, apologized, and left. After class, she was sitting outside in the hallway reading. I’ll never forget what she said, ‘Here I thought that was a class on deviant behavior. To me gigabytes sound like a vampire with huge teeth. Who knew?’ She laughed and asked me if she could buy me a cup of coffee. She was so pretty, so kind, she made everything easy for me. I didn’t feel clumsy around her, and when I couldn’t think of anything to say or stumbled around, she’d laugh and pat my hand and tell me I was so good-looking I didn’t have to talk, girls wouldn’t care. My mom always called me her beautiful boy, but who believes their mom?” He paused, then his face lit up again. “Our first dinner together was at McDonald’s. We had so much fun. We talked and talked. She told me one night she couldn’t believe how she felt that first time she saw me. She told me she was falling in love with me.” His voice caught. A tear slowly slid down his cheek.
“And you, Saxon?”
“I told her it was the first time in my life I knew what it was like to have another person make me so happy my skin felt too tight. I told her I loved her from the start, the way she laughed and teased me about my white socks, the way she listened to me. I told her I wanted to give her the world.” He paused, said with such sadness it broke your heart, “I had so little time with her, and then some monster killed her.”
“Saxon, what did your father think of Mia?”
“He told me she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and he wanted my secret.” Saxon gave a small smile before his face went slack. “My dad and I have had dinner together twice a week since I was thirteen and my mom left. He’s used to people fawning all over him because of who he is, but Mia didn’t fawn. She was herself, showed interest in him like she did with everybody.” Again, he paused. “I don’t know what my father really thought of her. I guess I was afraid to ask him. More than that, I really didn’t care, Mia was all that was important to me, no matter what anyone else thought.”
“Did you ever me
et her parents?”
“Mia said they lived in Oregon, but she was planning on seeing them in the fall. We were planning to go together.”
“Did you sleep together?”
Saxon nodded, gulped. “I was sort of scared in the beginning. I didn’t want to be a klutz, but again, she made it so easy, so natural, told me to relax and we’d learn everything together. And we did.”
“Did she ask you questions about your dad?”
“Well, yes, everybody does. And Mia was interested in him, sure.”
“Do you remember telling her anything your dad had told you, say about policy issues the president had discussed with him, how he felt about it, things like that?”
“Yes, of course. My dad is President Gilbert’s right hand, but he’s still my dad. We exchange opinions; he likes that. But he has an ironclad rule: if I ask him about anything classified or maybe embarrassing to the president, he laughs it off, shakes his head. That means I shouldn’t go there.
“I remember that happened with Mia once. She asked my dad what he thought of Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine. He smiled, said he couldn’t talk about it. She took no offense. I remember she apologized.”
“Mia told you she was raised in Oregon?”
“A small town near Ashland. Something like Bolton. Her dad was a Baptist preacher, her mom a housewife. She was an only child.” His throat seemed to clog and he swallowed, tears sheened his eyes. “She said her folks were great, that they always encouraged her, paid attention to her. Maybe that’s why she was so sweet and such a beautiful person.”
