Christmas Kidnapping

That explained those impressive shoulders and biceps. “That kind of relaxation is a little too active. What about vacations? Do you like to go to the beach? Or to a lake in the mountains.”

“The last vacation I took, Gus and I and some other guys went hiking. We climbed a mountain.”

She could imagine—all macho competitiveness: heavy packs, miles logged, not bathing or shaving for days, eating food out of cans. She shuddered. “I don’t think this is going to work,” she said.

He sat up. “Let’s try again. Do the thing with the pendulum. I think I would do better if I had something to focus on.”

She hesitated, but if he left here, she would feel she had failed him. She reached up and unclasped the necklace she wore—a gold chain with a gold heart-shaped locket. An anniversary gift from Preston a few months before he died. “Sit back and relax as much as you can,” she said.

Jack settled back against the sofa, his gaze fixed on the necklace. “Focus on the heart,” she said, and began to gently swing the locket from side to side. “As you focus, count back slowly, from ninety-nine.”

“Ninety-nine,” he said. “Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven.”

She shifted her own gaze from the locket to Jack and found herself staring directly into his gold-green eyes. The naked pain and vulnerability revealed in his gaze startled her so much she almost dropped the necklace. He took her hand. “Please. You have to help me.”

His grip was strong and warm but not painful. Far from it. His touch sent warmth coursing through her, as if someone had injected heated platelets into her bloodstream. The heat settled in her lower abdomen, reminding her in a way she hadn’t been reminded in many months that she was a woman with a very attractive, virile man touching her. She carefully extricated her hand, which still tingled from the contact. “I want to help you, Agent Prescott,” she said. “But the mind is the most complicated machine imaginable. There isn’t a formula or solution to solve every problem.”

The clock on her desk chimed and she glanced at it. “I’m afraid our session today is over, but I hope you will make an appointment to see me again.”

He looked away, frustration clear in the tension along his jaw and the defensive set of his shoulders. “Do you really think it would help me remember Gus’s killer?”

“I can’t promise you will ever remember what you saw the day your friend was killed,” she said. “But I can help you come to terms with what happened.”

“Maybe I’ll come back,” he said.

“I really do think it would help you to talk to someone,” she said. “Not only about Gus, but about your own injuries. Being forced into medical leave must be difficult for you.”

He looked startled, his eyes locked to hers once more. “The other team members kidded me, said I should enjoy the paid vacation. But it’s driving me crazy knowing Gus’s killer is out there and I’m not doing anything to help stop him.”

“That’s something we can talk about the next time you’re in.” She stood, and he rose also and followed her to the door.

“Do you have another client now?” he asked.

“No, it’s time for my lunch break.”

He checked his watch, a heavy stainless model she recognized as designed for mountaineers and other outdoorsmen. “Let me take you to lunch. I want to make up for wasting your time this morning.”

Her heart sped up at the prospect of being alone with him in a nonclinical setting. “Agent Prescott, I don’t think—”

“Call me Jack. And I just want to talk. Not therapy talk, just, you know, conversation. I’m bored out of my skull not working, and I don’t know many people in Durango. Not outside of work, anyway. You seem like you’d be good company, that’s all.”

She should say no. Professional ethics aside—and really, there was nothing unethical about having lunch with a client—spending more time with Jack was dangerous to her equilibrium. He was exactly the type of man who attracted her most—powerful, dedicated, intelligent and virile. And all those traits made him the worst sort of man for her to be with.

But the temptation to sit across from him and learn more of his story, to have his attention fixed on her for a little while longer, won out over common sense. “All right,” she said. “I can have lunch with you.”

* * *

SITTING ACROSS FROM Dr. Andrea McNeil in a café down the street from her office, Jack felt better than he had since the shoot-out. Maybe it was being with a pretty woman. He hadn’t dated in a while and she was definitely a looker—her businesslike blue suit did nothing to hide her shapely figure, and her high-heeled boots showed her gorgeous legs to advantage. Her sleek brown hair was piled up on top of her head, drawing attention to the smooth white column of her throat, and she had lively brown eyes above a shapely nose and slightly pouty lips.

But though he could appreciate her beauty, he attributed most of his good mood to the way she focused on him. As if anything he had to say were the most interesting thing she had heard today. That was probably just her therapist’s training, but it was doing him a lot of good, so he wasn’t going to complain.

“How did you hear about me?” she asked when they had ordered—a salad for her, a chicken sandwich for him.

“I have a friend—Carson Allen, with the Bureau’s resident agency here in Durango. He and I have done some hiking and stuff. Anyway, he said you’re the counselor for the police department and the sheriff’s office. How did you end up with that job?”

“My husband was a police officer.” She focused on buttering a roll from the basket the waitress had brought.

“Was?”

“He was killed three years ago, by a drug dealer who was fleeing the scene of a burglary.”

The news that she was a widow—a cop’s widow—hit him like a punch in the gut. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must have been tough.”

She met his gaze, serene, not a hint of tears. “It was. But I lived through it. I have a son, Ian.” She smiled, a look that transformed her face from pretty to breathtaking. “He’s five. I had to be strong for him.”

“Sounds like he’s a pretty lucky little boy.” And her husband had been a lucky man. Jack envied his coworkers who had found women who could put up with the demands of a law enforcement job. He had never been that fortunate.

“Tell me more about this talent of yours for remembering faces,” she said. “What did you call it?”

He recognized the shift away from any more personal conversation about her, and he accepted it. “I’m a super-recognizer. I think it’s one of those made-up government descriptors the bureaucrats love so much.”

“I’ll admit I’m unfamiliar with the concept. It must be pretty rare.”

He shrugged. “It’s not something that comes up in casual conversation. Scientists are just beginning to study facial-recognition abilities. More people may be super-recognizers than we realize. They just don’t admit it.”

“Why not admit it?” she asked.

“It makes for awkward social situations. You learn pretty quickly not to admit you recognize people you haven’t been introduced to. I mean, if I tell someone I remember seeing them at a football game last fall or on the bus last week, they think I’m a spy or a stalker or something.”

“I guess that would be strange.” She speared a tomato wedge with her fork. “How old were you when you realized you had this talent?”

“Pretty young.” For a long time, he had thought that was the way everyone saw the world, as populated by hundreds of individual, distinct people who stayed in his head. “In school it was kind of a neat parlor trick to play on people—go into a store to buy a soda and come out three minutes later and be able to describe everyone who was in there. But as I got older, I stopped telling people about it or showing off.”

“Because of the social awkwardness.”

“Because it made me different, and if there’s anything teenagers don’t want to be, it’s different.”

She laughed, and they waited while the waitress refilled their glasses. “Did your ability get you the job with the Bureau?” she asked. “Or did that come later?”

He shrugged and crunched a chip. “You know the government—they test you for everything. I was doing a different job—one that used my electrical and robotics background—when someone in the Bureau decided to put together a whole unit of people like me and I got tapped for it. Gus was a recognizer, too.” A familiar pain gripped his chest at the mention of Gus. Jack didn’t have any brothers, but he had felt as close to Gus as he would have any brother. They had been through so much together.

“Is that what brought you two together?” she asked.

“Not at first. We were in the same class at Quantico and we hit it off there. We had probably known each other a year or so before I found out he had the same knack I had for remembering faces. We used to joke about it some, but we never thought anything of it. Not until both of us were recruited for this special project.”

“That’s really fascinating.” She took a bite of her salad and he dug into the chicken sandwich. The silence between them as they ate was comfortable, as if they had known each other a long time, instead of only a few hours.

But after a few more minutes he began to feel uneasy. Not because of anything she was doing. He glanced around them, noting the group of women who sat at a table to their left, shopping bags piled around them. A trio of businessmen occupied a booth near the front window, deep in conversation. A family of tourists, an older couple and two clerks he recognized from the hotel where he had stayed his first two nights in town months ago filled the other tables. Nothing suspicious about any of them. He swiveled his head to take in the bar and gooseflesh rose along his arms when his gaze rested on a guy occupying a stool front and center, directly beneath the flat-screen television that was broadcasting a bowling tournament. Average height, short brown hair, flannel shirt and jeans. Nothing at all remarkable about him, yet Jack was positive he had seen the guy before. Probably only once—repeat exposure strengthened the association. But he had definitely been around this guy at least once before.