PsyCop 5: Camp Hell by Jordan Castillo Price Page B

plainclothes dress shoes. So was I.
    “…you awaken totally refreshed, and you remember everything you’ve seen.” He watched me. I blinked. Was I really there with him? I could have sworn we were in the kitchen. I could have sworn I was twenty-three. It all seemed so real.
    “You feel calm,” he said, in his regular voice. Not his hypnosis voice.
    “Yeah. I do.”
    “You went deep, fast. I was worried you might not be a good candidate for hypnosis. Good thing I didn’t mention that and bias you against it. So—want to talk about it?”
    His eyes were the same. Hazel. Shrewd. He’d stopped plucking his eyebrows and penciling them into sharp peaks, but they still looked groomed. My guess was that he still combed them into shape. His nose was… oh, there was a tiny dot, the size of a pore, where he’d used to have a silver nose ring. His mouth was the same.
    I’d loved him so much.
    “Or maybe you need to process it.”
    I nodded. I’d never told him. Not once. And then I just left him in that fucking…place.
    “What’s wrong?”
    I shook my head. I wasn’t up for waterworks.
    He watched me for a moment, and then stood up. “Sit for a few minutes. Or lie down if you want. It’s a decent couch. I’ve got to make some notes.”
    There was a clock within view of the couch. It was almost five. He’d knocked out his last two appointments for me. I hoped they weren’t suicidal or anything. I tried to ground myself in the present. Beige wall. Berber carpets. Textured ceiling. I let my breath out slowly.
    Stefan had to have heard it, but he continued to write without looking up. Just like he’d heard me ralph in the sink, but had kept right on pilfering brownie crumbs. “I remembered one of the times we raided the kitchen,” I said.
    “Thought so. You wanted me to huff your glove.”
    “Oh God. I was talking and moving and stuff?”
    He dismissed my embarrassment with a flick of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse.”
     

    -SEVEN-
    I hung my coat in the hall and followed the smell of something better than I deserved for dinner into the kitchen. Sloppy joes, or spaghetti sauce, or…I lifted the lid and peeked. Chili.
    Jacob came up out the basement in a T-shirt and jeans. There were cobwebs in his hair. He opened his mouth to say something, I’m guessing something a normal person might say, like hello. And I blurted out, “I just saw Stefan. And he hypnotized me, and I remembered something about Camp Hell.”
    He came over and stood in front of me, reading my body language. He was probably trying to see if I wanted to be touched, or if he should leave me alone. I hoped he’d figure right. I couldn’t tell, myself.
    My elbow twinged when he ran his hands up my arms, but I ignored it. I leaned toward him, and he clasped me against his chest. He was so big. And maybe I’d been wrong, when I figured he wasn’t really my type, that I was into flashy guys. Because Stefan was all about the rock-star look, but he was also big and solid, and patient and smart. I settled my cheek against Jacob’s shoulder, and focused on the places our bodies touched. They were all solid muscle. “You feel amazing.”
    “Are you okay?”
    I nodded. “Yeah. I, uh….” Actually, realizing that I’d left Stefan at Camp Hell to rot was bothering me a hell of a lot more than the scene he’d helped me dredge up. “I realized that they tested Neurozamine on me. Back before it was on the market. Way back. Before it was even called that.”
    Jacob turned his face toward me and kissed the side of my head. He slid both hands up my back and wove his fingers through my hair. “Neurozamine’s side effects are a lot milder than Auracel’s.”
    That was true. “It metabolizes faster, too. Just a couple of hours.”
    He stroked my scalp with his fingertips. I closed my eyes. The smell. I’d smelled it plenty, since I’d worked homicide. But those first few times really stick with you.
    “They figured that out