Free The Murder of Janessa Hennley by Victor Methos Page B

That old familiar feeling was back. Akin to running a race.
    The prey had revealed itself. It was a hunt , and he was the hunter.
    M aybe one of the men he’d talked to today, Jason or Nathan, attacked him. It wouldn’t take long to find out which. But discovering enough evidence to make an arrest seemed remote at this point.
    He’d been in this spot seve ral times in the past, and it never bothered him. Some investigations panned out, while others led to dead ends. But that this man had been brazen enough to show up to the funeral, to attack him… Mickey didn’t think a man like that was afraid of getting caught.
    In the past he’d had help. The brilliant chief of Behavioral Science, Gillian Hanks, added much needed objectivity to investigations. He turned to her frequently, and her insights led to some breakthroughs in cases he thought were dead.
    But there was someone else.
    Jon Stanton, a former homicide detective with the San Diego Police Department, was similar to Gillian in that they both held PhD’s in psychology, though Stanton focused on personality theory and psychoanalysis, while Gillian had been a pure neuroscience researcher in graduate school.  But the similarities ended there.
    Gillian ’s cold detachment led her to see cases as puzzles to be solved. The end game was the completion of the puzzle, not the impact on communities or families. This brought her a certain gravitas and laser-focus that enabled her to look at the most horrific actions of men and view them as pieces to put together.
    Stanton, on the other hand, at least to Mickey, took every case personally. He tried not to. He tried desperately to detach himself, but he never could pull himself out of the mire. No doubt, the dead haunted him in those lonely moments at night, when he woke up in an empty room. Mickey felt sorry for him in a lot of ways. Even some in the Behavioral Science Unit felt Stanton’s gift might have had supernatural, rather than analytic, origins. Several articles written about Stanton having extrasensory perception and remote viewing capabilities were quickly dismissed as eccentric media outlets began exploring connections to CIA experiments and the KGB.
    But Mickey had seen him work, seen the leaps he took when no one else saw anything. He could fit into the minds of the most disturbed individuals and find his way back out again like a maze. Mickey’s fear was that Stanton would get lost in there one day. As far as the supernatural stuff, it was unverifiable and therefore not worthy of consideration.
    Mickey dialed Stanton’s cell phone and got voicemail.
    “Jon, this is Mickey Parsons. I have a case I’m stuck on and could really use your help. I heard you retired, and I’m sorry to bother you with this. Please call me back.”
    Mickey hung up and placed the phone back on the table. Though his nose was throbbing, he didn’t want to ask for any more meds. He closed his eyes. Focusing on his place of serenity, a trick taught in the Yoga for Healing classes he attended, he emptied his mind and concentrated on the one place in the world where he felt most safe, most at ease. For him, it was his home of twenty years in Arizona, sold after his wife passed away. He could still hear his daughter’s footsteps on the hardwood floors as she crossed on Christmas morning to try sneaking open some of her presents.
    As he drifted off to sleep, he smiled.

20
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Mickey opened his eyes slowly, listening to ensure he’d actually heard noise and that it wasn’t just a dream. Moonlight reached through the only window in the room, and a breeze blew the curtains open. Though cold, it felt good on his skin, which burned with fever.
    The doctors and nurses had apparently let him sleep. He had no experience in small town courtesies. Back in DC, they would have kicked him out the second they reset his nose.
    He heard the sound again. Almost like a voice but not quite. Taking a deep brea th, he swung his legs