Page 43 of Power of the Mind

I propped my hands on my hips. “So you never sent Amber to see her?”

“I can’t discuss my patients.” He paused, his lips vibrating, then added, “But no.”

“So it’s a coincidence that you both treated the same woman before she died?”

“Yes.” Panic laced the doctor’s features as he shifted his attention between Diem and me.

“Amber’s dead, doc. Dead, and her family is convinced someone manipulated her into committing suicide. Same scenario as eighty-six. The same two people involved. I wonder what the police would think of that.”

Hilty’s face and balding head turned red. “I will not stand here and be accused of such nonsense. You call the cops if you have to, and I’ll press charges for harassment.”

We were going in circles, and my ability to squeeze information out of a suspect was not proving successful.

Defeated and unsure of what else to say, I sighed. “Fuck it. Come on, D. This is a dead end.”

But Diem didn’tcome on. He leaned over Dr. Hilty’s desk, making the man back up a step. Lowering his voice, Diemsaid, “I’m going to dig deeper into that long-dead murder investigation, Bill, and if I findanythingI don’t like,anythingthat suggests differently than what you told us here today, Iwillexpose you. I will turn this ugly. You’ll wish you were more cooperative.”

Diem glared at the doctor for another beat with a dead-eyed gaze before standing upright, displaying his full six and a half feet of height. “Have a nice day, asshole.”

10

Diem

The descending sun, still atrociously hot that time of year, assaulted us the minute we stepped outside. My skin blistered under the confines of the suit. My mood and temper steadily worsened, and I didn’t want to be an asshole, but what an utter and complete waste of time. I knew talking to the hypnotist would be a dead end. I knew I should have made Tallus wait until I heard back from my guy at the forensic pathology lab. We could have saved ourselves the trouble of driving halfway across the city because there was no fucking case.

“Well, that was a letdown.” Tallus sulked as he buckled himself into the Jeep. “What now?”

Without responding, I took out my phone and pulled up my contact’s number. When I’d talked to Kelly earlier, I’d gotten his personal cell. He’d told me he might need a couple of days, but I crossed my fingers he’d gotten answers that afternoon and hadn’t found time to report back.

I removed the strangling tie as the phone rang and unbuttoned the top three buttons of my shirt. I was melting. Sweat trickled down my spine.

Tallus played with the dials on the console, cranking the air to maximum and angling the vents so they blew toward me. It wasn’t helping.

When Kelly answered, I cut right to the chase, doing away with congenial small talk and barking, “For the love of god, tell me you found something.”

“Hello, Diem. This is why I didn’t want to give you my phone number.”

“I need answers.”

“And I told you I needed a few days.”

“It can’t wait. Did you look her up?”

“Yes, but I didn’t call you back because I don’t have a full report. The toxicology is incomplete at this time, and I wanted to poke around and see if we were expecting the rest of it soon.”

“Incomplete? It’s been fucking weeks since she died. What the hell have they been doing?” I growled under my breath. “Christ. Can you tell me anything?”

Kelly spoke to someone who wasn’t me, his voice muffled as though he was covering the phone. Then he was back. “There was a preliminary report in her file, but that’s it.”

“That’s all I need. What did it say?” Preliminary reports tested for illegal or overly abused drugs.

Kelly sighed. “You know, I don’t appreciate you harassing me after hours.”

“I paid you, didn’t I?”

Another sigh. “Hang on. I wrote it down. You realize I’ve got my girlfriend over right now, and we’re trying to have a nice dinner.”

“Did you use my fifty bucks to organize that nice dinner?”

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