Page 50 of The Perfect Poise

“We didn’t talk for that long, less than a half hour,” Lemmon said, “so I don’t feel comfortable offering a full-fledged professional assessment. It wasn’t a formal session or interview.”

“She wouldn’t allow that?” Kat assumed.

“Actually, she was receptive to my visit,” Lemmon told her. “She overruled her attorneys’ objections to letting me in.”

“Then why didn’t you stay long enough to make a formal assessment?” Kat wanted to know.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lemmon said. “Because it wasn’t an official visit, I can assert, if asked, that I can’t fully evaluate whether Pierce’s claim of amnesia is credible.”

Kat felt a lump develop in her gut. She didn’t like where this was going.

“Why did you feel like you needed that ‘out?’” she asked.

“Because, Kat,” Lemmon answered, looking her directly in the eyes, “I think there’s a substantial likelihood that she’s telling the truth.”

Kat slumped back on the couch, dumbfounded.

“Really?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” Lemmon said, “and if I had stayed the length of a full session, I worried that her lawyers might be able to get a court to compel me to provide my analysis. I don’t want to do that because I worry that, despite the horrific crimes that Pierce has committed, my professional opinion might provide some sway that could be counterproductive to her conviction. But by cutting the interview short, I can legitimately assert that I didn’t have the time to do a full and proper evaluation.”

Kat shook her head ferociously.

“Listen,” she said, “when I first met Ash Pierce last summer, she was posing as an abused wife trying to escape from her husband. She was totally convincing. Neither Hannah nor I doubted her for a second, she was so good. I don’t want to insult you, but is it possible that she snowed you?”

“Look, I’ll never say never,” Lemmon said. “it’s happened to me before. But not in a long time, and certainly not when I was on guard like this. I know about her deception with you and Hannah. I had access to all her files, even ones that the average doctor doesn’t get to see because they require a security clearance. I was alert to all her tricks. And I still came away convinced that she, more likely than not, has real memory loss about her time as a hitwoman. I wish that wasn’t my conclusion, but it is.”

Kat sat with that for a moment, allowing the reality of it to filter through her brain. She trusted Dr. Janice Lemmon implicitly. The woman was a legend in the psychiatric community, and a person who had her best interests at heart. She wouldn’t admit this unless she really believed it to be true. And she wasn’t alone.

Hannah, too, after her visit with Pierce two weeks ago, had left uncertain that the woman was lying. And this was a person who had also been tricked by Pierce and later, nearly killed by her on multiple occasions. The fact that even she had doubts was telling.

“Do you mind if I run to the bathroom for a sec?” she asked Lemmon.

“It’s your apartment,” Lemmon reminded her with a smile.

She got up and went to the one just off the bedroom. After turning on the water at the sink, she threw some on her face and stared at herself in the mirror.

She reminded herself that this wasn’t as bad as it might seem. Ash Pierce was still scheduled to go on trial for her many crimes, including multiple murders. Memory loss or not, there was ample evidence to convict her. Maybe she could somehow weasel her way into a lesser sentence because of her “condition,” but she’d still be spending decades behind bars. That should be enough.

And yet it wasn’t. As Kat toweled her face off, she felt a rising resentment grow inside her. If not for her own actions—stemming the blood flowing from Pierce’s knife wound to the neck in the hospital boiler room and giving her CPR—the woman would be dead now and Kat wouldn’t be torturing herself like this.

Instead the cold-blooded assassin was not just alive, but being catered to in a hospital bed, and very possibly going to live for many years to come. Yes, she’d be in prison, but Ash Pierce was the kind of woman who could mold a place like that to her will. She’d find a way to make it hers.

That was something Kat simply couldn’t abide. She didn’t know exactly what she intended to do about it. But she couldn’t just let it happen. She couldn’t just do nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Hannah did her best to act casual.

It was a challenge, considering that she was essentially surveilling another student.

She wasn’t psyched about how this was all playing out. Despite some additional research, she still hadn’t found anything definitive that proved that Dana Douglas was stalking Clayton. As a result, she didn’t feel she had enough to legally justify recording their study group conversation.

So now she was in the uncomfortable position of trying to get physically close enough to the study room where Clayton was currently waiting for Dana, while seeming to be there to do her own work.

It was a bit of a stretch. The soundproofed study room was on the fourth floor of Langson Library, at the very back of the building, behind endless rows of stacks. Unless one was making use of the study rooms, it was an odd place to go just to work on a paper or prep for a test.

Other than in the study rooms, there were no desks or couches back here, just a few hard-backed chairs interspersed occasionally along walls. She definitely looked suspicious sitting in one just yards from the only occupied study room on the floor. And that was reinforced by the fact that right now, there was no one else up here at all besides her and Clayton.

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