Holdin' On for a Hero (42 page)

Senna had not planned on being a teacher. Until the previous spring she had been working at the Fermi National Acceleratory Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, where the highest energy accelerators in the world, the Teyatron, were housed, along with the world’s largest production and storage facility of antiprotons.

She had taken the job with Fermilab right after receiving her doctorate in physics. She had worked there a little over three years. During that time she went back to college to study archaeology, her father’s passion.

She would never have moved to Charlotte and taken a teaching position if it hadn’t been for Minora. Minora had been like a mother to Senna since she was eighteen. In fact, Minora was all the family she had left.

When Minora was injured in an automobile accident and paralyzed from the waist down, the doctors were unsure if she would ever regain the use of her legs. Senna felt she had to come to Charlotte to be close to her and support her through the long rehabilitation process.

She could not say that she regretted the decision. Even though she hadn’t planned on teaching, she wasn’t really unhappy with it. She had made new friends and had no major complaints about her life.
At least no new ones,
she thought, and then reminded herself that in the greater scheme of things, she had a pretty good life.

Her phone rang and she snapped to attention. “Dr. Laserian,” she said as she answered. Her eyebrows drew together slightly then relaxed. “Thank you,” she said and hung up the phone. She grabbed her keys and left the office, making sure it was locked before she headed down the hall to Dr. Aldridge’s office.

The door was open so she didn’t knock. His secretary’s office was empty but there was a light on in his private office. She walked to the door and tapped lightly.

“Come in.”

He was sitting at his desk with a pile of papers in front of him. He stood as he gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Please have a seat.”

“Thank you.” She sat and waited as he came around the desk to take the seat next to her.

“Scuttlebutt has it that thanks to you, enrollment in our department is up substantially.” His smile was warm and sincere.

“I don’t think I can take credit for that, sir.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure. It’s amazing what an attractive woman can do without even realizing it. But that’s not why I wanted to see you. I understand you are acquainted with Dr. Van Dorne?”

“Walter? Yes, he was a close friend of my parents before they died. After their deaths he became almost a part of my family. He was one of my mentors.”

“I see.” He looked away for a moment. “I don’t quite know how to say this, but Dr. Van Dorne has apparently been murdered.”

“Murdered? Are you sure? Why would anyone want to kill Walter?”

“I don’t know, but I’m afraid it’s true. I received a call from the authorities earlier. Obviously the lecture for tonight was canceled and the authorities have asked to speak with me about the matter.”

Senna had ceased paying attention. She could not believe that Walter was dead. As long as she could remember he had been part of her life. There was a time, some years ago after his wife died, that she thought maybe he and Minora might get together. Nothing had happened, but they had remained close friends.

He had been almost like a favorite uncle to Senna. In fact, it was Walter who had changed her mind about her major in college.

Originally, Senna wanted to major in archaeology like her father and continue his work. Walter had persuaded her otherwise, by convincing her that it would be a waste not to put her mind to the area where her talents lay. He claimed she was a natural, and told her that her father would have wanted her to stake her claim in a field where her abilities would shine.

She listened, and majored in physics. She could not say that she regretted it. While most people thought of physics as something mysterious and impossible to comprehend, drawing the interest of only intellectual giants and social misfits, she found a certain beauty in the concepts that allowed her mind to be set free.

“Senna?”

“Oh, forgive me. It’s just that it’s such a shock. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt Walter.”

“I can understand what a shock this must be,” he took her hand in a fatherly fashion, “and believe me, I hate being the one to tell you. I’m very sorry.”

“So am I.” She gave his hand a grateful squeeze then extricated herself from his grasp and stood. “Kenneth, if you don’t have anything else we need to discuss, I think I should go. I realty need to check on my aunt. She’s going to be devastated by the news. I should be with her.”

“Of course. If there’s anything I can do, all you need do is ask.”

“I appreciate that, Kenneth, but I don’t know anything anyone can do at this point. I suppose it’s something we’re all just going to have to try and accept.”

“Yes, that’s true. But the offer stands, Senna. Now don’t let me hold you up. Go see about Minora. She’s been so generous to all of us here at the university. She’s a very lovely and gracious woman.”

“Yes, she is. I’ll tell her you asked about her. Goodnight.”

Senna ran down the hall to her office. She grabbed her purse, not even thinking about her jacket. She managed to hold it together until she was safely in her car, then the tears came. When she had cried herself out, she started the car and headed for Minora’s.

Chapter Two

Downtown Charlotte

Ian Drake rose from his desk chair and paced around the room with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his expensive slacks. He had been thinking about his session with Senna Laserian ever since she left. To say that she was the most challenging case he’d ever had was an understatement.

He had first seen her when she was eighteen. That was twelve years ago and in all that time he had been unable to make any real progress.

Running his hands back through his hair, he returned to his seat and opened her file on his laptop. Maybe there was something he should have picked up on in the beginning that inexperience made him miss, some key he could use to unlock her memory.

His phone rang and he punched the intercom button without taking his eyes off the screen. “Will you need me for anything else, Doctor?” his secretary Kendal asked.

“No thanks, Kendal. I appreciate you staying late. Go on home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sure, good night, Dr. Drake.”

Ian’s eyes moved over the words on the screen, but his mind was traveling back in time to the day he met Senna Laserian.

It was warm and sunny that late May morning when Minora Laserian and her niece, Senna, walked into Ian’s reception room. He had been expecting them. In fact, he was eager to meet them. He had only been in practice for a little over a year and to be recommended to take over such a case was the most exciting thing that had happened to him.

The week before he had received a call from a private clinic in Pennsylvania, run by a doctor Ian had interned with, Dr. Edward Michaels. Dr. Michaels was looking for a psychiatrist specializing in disassociative personalities and amnesia in the Charlotte area, and came across Ian’s name.

Ian had gladly accepted the recommendation and Dr. Michaels had forwarded Senna’s files to him. Her history immediately intrigued him.

According to the official reports, Senna’s parents died in March of 1992 while in Iraq doing research on Sumerian artifacts. They were among the victims of a terrorist attack. At the time of the Laserians’ deaths, Senna was assumed to have been killed as well, even though her body, like that of her father’s, was never recovered.

Almost two years to the day, Senna showed up in the United States. An old colleague of the Laserians, a professor of ancient history, Dr. Harlan Pierce-Warner, found her, literally, on his doorstep. Her memory was intact up until the point she claimed her mother and she were attacked en route to the airport in Al Basrah, Iraq. She had no memory of the two years that followed.

Dr. Pierce-Warner had her hospitalized and notified her only surviving relative, Minora Laserian. Having heard of Dr. Michaels, she requested he see her niece. After three weeks Dr. Michaels had made no progress in unlocking the memories. Minora decided it would be best for her to take Senna home with her to Charlotte, and she requested that Dr. Michaels recommend a competent psychiatrist to work with Senna.

Ian had been nervous and excited that day. Nothing had prepared him for what he encountered. He had expected a disoriented, frightened girl who could not cope with the loss of her memory. Senna was none of those things. She was beautiful and vibrant and didn’t seem traumatized by the loss of her memory.

They had begun therapy immediately. That spring she underwent scholastic testing. The results of the tests showed that not only did she possess the equivalent of a high-school education, she was able to exempt over thirty hours of undergraduate classes in college. That was both interesting and puzzling. If she had been educated in her absence, then there had to be a record of it somewhere.

Minora hired a private investigator to find the answers. By the time summer was winding to a close, the answers were still as much a mystery as they had been from the outset. Senna left Charlotte that August to attend college in Pennsylvania. Ian recommended a colleague he knew there and only saw her during her summer vacations for the next few years.

By the time she finished undergraduate school they were still in the dark about what had happened to her during those missing years. Ian had ruled out disassociative personality as the cause of the memory loss, and there was no indication of any brain trauma or disease that would have caused the amnesia. He had been training in advanced hypnotherapy during the last few years and was interested in trying some of the new techniques on her. Her acceptance into the graduate program in physics at MIT prevented that.

Ian snapped back to the present and looked back at the notes on his computer screen. He had seen Senna since she left to go the graduate school. When she had contacted him upon her move to Charlotte, it was a surprise. He had not expected to ever see her again.

She was interested in undergoing hypnotherapy to try and unlock the mystery of what had happened to her. She would not give him a concrete reason why she wanted to, only that she wanted to know what had happened during those missing years.

Ian began with conventional therapy in order to regain her confidence. It wasn’t long before he was ready to begin hypnotherapy. They started and had progressed from her childhood to age fifteen without any difficulty. The first block occurred when she tried to remember past the point in time that she and her mother were attacked in Iraq. At that point time seemed to stop for her. The last recall she had was her mother lying on the floor reaching for her and someone grabbing her and pulling her away.

Ian suspected that someone had deliberately made her forget. His problem was that he had no idea what methods were used. There seemed to be a block in her mind that suggested a deep mental control. The center of the problem, therefore, was how to circumvent the control. So far everything he had tried had met with failure. Tonight Senna told him she thought it was time to admit defeat and that she had accepted she would never remember.

Ian had tried to dissuade her from terminating their sessions and she promised to consider it. He hoped she would change her mind. He knew it was not for entirely selfless reasons. He wanted to help her recover her memory, but it would also be a feather in his cap to achieve success in this case. He had already gotten four well-received papers from it and if he was successful in unlocking her memory it would be a major boon for his career.

He rose and walked over to the window. There was nothing more he could do until Senna made up her mind whether she would continue the therapy. The best thing he could do was go home, have a drink and relax. Yet, even as he told himself that, he knew it wouldn’t happen.

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Ryan and Paige walked to their car without speaking. As she unlocked the door, he looked over the car’s roof at her. “I think we might as well call it a night. There’s no point trying to talk to any of the people now on the list Aldridge gave us. We’ll start fresh in the morning.”

She didn’t comment but got in the car and started it. “So where to?” she asked as he got in and fastened his seatbelt.

“Home.”

“So early?” She cut her eyes over at him. “It’s not even ten. Why don’t we stop somewhere and have a drink?”

“Thanks but no. Maybe some other time.”

“You really are getting to be an old man,” she complained. “You used to be fun until you started dating Doctor Dull.”

Ryan didn’t want to get into another discussion about Senna. He didn’t understand what Paige had against her. The times they had all been together in social situations Senna had been friendly and polite toward Paige. Why Paige disliked her was a mystery to him.

“Ryan, I’m just trying to point out, as a friend, that you’re letting this woman turn you old before your time.” Paige’s voice didn’t carry the same rough edge as before. “Why let yourself get bogged down in a boring relationship so soon after your divorce? Live it up a little. Get out there and find out what kind of woman’s right for you. Don’t just settle on the first one who comes along.”

“Thanks for the advice,” he said as she came to a stop in front of the courthouse. “See you in the morning.”

“Sure you won’t change your mind about that drink,” she leaned over to ask as he got out.

“No, thanks anyway. See you tomorrow.” He closed the door.

She shrugged, waved and drove off. Ryan walked to the parking deck to get his car. He called Senna as he walked. She still was not home.

“Hi, it’s Ryan again. Just thought I’d see if you were interested in having a drink or something. It’s about ten and I’m in the car.

He headed home, which was on the southeast side of the city. He had to pass by the karate school where he had been taking lessons for the past year. The lights were on. He pulled in, parked and went to the door.

He could see the owner of the school inside, working out alone. Ryan watched for a few seconds, impressed again at the way the man moved, then tapped on the door. The man turned and walked over to open the door.

“Sorry to bother you,” Ryan said. “I was headed home and saw the lights and thought I’d stop and see if you wanted to go have a beer.”

Konnor Chase wiped his face on the sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘”Sure, but I need to shower first.”

“Take your time.”

Ryan took a seat in the reception area while Konnor headed to the shower. He had met Konnor the previous year when he was giving a lecture at the police academy on crime scene investigations. Konnor was teaching self-defense at the academy.

When Ryan found out Konnor had a school in Charlotte, he signed up. He had been through self-defense training at the academy, but that was a while back and he felt he could use some shaping up.

Konnor turned out to be a demanding teacher. He didn’t tolerate laziness and was not one of those instructors who passed out rank belts quickly. He made his students work hard and insisted that each one put as much effort into learning as he did into teaching. Ryan had been studying for eleven months and had just started to realize how much he had to learn.

Konnor didn’t talk about himself except to say that he had studied various systems. Ryan knew from talking with people at the police academy that Konnor was considered one of the best in the country. He didn’t require his students to address him by any particular title—they could either call him Mr. Chase, or simply Chase.

Ryan had been trying to talk Senna into taking classes. He hadn’t known her to be an extremely athletic woman, but she ran, played racquetball, and worked out with weights. He thought she would enjoy it and it would give them something to do together. She had been completely uninterested, and had told him that fighting was the last thing she wanted to be involved in.

Konnor returned and Ryan studied him as he walked across the room. He wished he looked more like Konnor. Ryan was six feet tall and weighed one-hundred-seventy-five. Ryan wasn’t fat or skinny, and could honestly look at himself and admit that he wasn’t bad to look at. His medium-brown hair was thick and untouched by gray, his hazel eyes were clear and his body was still fit and firm. But Konnor had what most men secretly wished for.

Standing a good three inches over six feet, he was built like one of the men you’d see in a kickboxing movie—muscular yet lean, strong yet agile. He seemed to exude some kind of inner power. His hair was thick and black, hanging down past his shoulders, but he always wore it pulled back at the nape of his neck. His skin was burnished, as if he had Native American blood, his features somewhat chiseled with a strong jaw, square chin and slightly full lips.

But it was his eyes that were so notable. At first glance they appeared to be black—distinguishing between the iris and pupil was almost impossible until you got close. Then you discovered that his eye color was actually a deep indigo blue, so dark it was almost black. Ryan had to admit that Konnor’s eyes were definitely an advantage in a confrontation. They were cold as steel and you could detect no emotion in them whatsoever.

“You hungry?” he asked as Konnor hoisted his gym bag over his shoulder and activated the alarm system.

“I could eat.”

“How about the Grille? They have decent food and stock a lot of imported beer.”

“Sounds good. I’ll follow you.”

They headed out. Just as Ryan was pulling into the parking lot of the restaurant he remembered the message he’d left Senna. He checked his watch—half past ten. He dialed his home phone to check his messages. There was one from Paige, telling him to meet her at the diner for breakfast. Another message was from Justin Baldwin, a fellow police officer and friend, reminding him about the party he and Senna were invited to on Saturday night.

He deleted the messages, parked and waited for Konnor to park. He would catch up with Senna first thing in the morning.