Title: Trance.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of DM. I do own the ones that I created.
Rating: T for violence in later chapters.
Summary: An old adversary plots the perfect murder.
Author's notes: Doctor Gavin Reed appeared in the Season Four episode "Delusions of Murder" (spoilers). Also references to "Alienated" and "Misdiagnosis Murder". Feedback is always appreciated. Thank you for the reviews so far.
TRANCE.
Part Ten.
"Did I hear the phone?"
Steve glanced up as his father ambled down the stairs. There was no longer any hint of the frailty that had lingered immediately following his heart attack. The rest and recuperation prescribed by Jesse had done him the world of good.
"Yeah," Steve answered, trying not to let his curiosity over the content of that phone call show in his voice. "It was just Amanda checking in."
"Ah."
Steve's eyes narrowed fractionally. His father could put a wealth of meaning into such a simple response – and that one word told the detective that his ploy to pretend that everything was perfectly fine had failed miserably. There was, he knew, no point in playing games. Mark knew that something was amiss and no amount of play-acting or denial would stop him from finding out what that something was. Steve briefly wondered if he had been listening in on the upstairs extension – but then instantly rejected the idea. His father had no need to resort to such duplicity; his instinct was more than enough. And right now he was looking at Steve expectantly, so the detective decided to save them both some time and dove straight in.
"Okay, so she was a little worried about Jesse," he admitted. "She thinks he's been working too hard."
"I've been wondering about that, too," Mark answered, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. "Jesse hasn't been here since the day after I was discharged from hospital and that's just not like him." He aimed a speculative look towards his son. "You didn't tell him to stay away, did you?"
"Of course not!" Steve retorted, his outrage evident in his voice.
Mark chuckled softly. "I just thought you might have taken his 'no excitement whatsoever' directive to heart," he explained, his grin indicating that he had never seriously considered that to be a possibility.
"You'd think he'd at least have called, though," Steve grumbled, mostly to himself.
"You mean you haven't even spoken to him?" His father sounded shocked and Steve cursed himself for letting that piece of information slip. Jesse working too hard was not a cause for concern – the young man was totally dedicated to his profession – but Jesse having no contact with them whatsoever was a different matter entirely.
"Well no, not personally," he temporised – starting to squirm a little under Mark's penetrating gaze and regretting him having overheard the telephone.
"Why don't you tell me exactly what Amanda said?" The older man suggested, his eyes narrowing even further.
Reluctantly, Steve recounted the conversation he had had with the pathologist – and her concerns as to why Jesse was so tired when he seemed to have been doing nothing more than his shifts at the hospital. Then – because he knew it would be futile to try and hide anything – he added his own information about Jesse not having been seen at their restaurant either.
"So you think he's in some kind of trouble?" Mark asked, after mulling things over for a few minutes.
"I don't know, dad." Steve no longer tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice. This was exactly what he had feared would happen. "But Jesse's a big boy – he can take care of himself. You don't need to get yourself worked up over it."
"I'm not getting worked up over anything," his father answered, with infuriating calmness. "But I am more likely to get worked up if I think that something's wrong and we don't try and do anything about it."
Steve merely glowered at him, in light of his irrefutable logic.
"I know," Mark continued, in that same smug tone. "Why don't you invite him over for dinner tonight? And, if something is bothering him, then a friendly chat between friends might be all that he needs."
Steve didn't answer for the longest of moments. If he was honest with himself – which was something that he could be, when needed – then he had to admit that he was irritated with Jesse. More than that, his irritation was rapidly turning to anger.
Their young friend was a doctor – in fact, he was Mark's doctor – and he, of all people, should have known better than to put him under undue stress. As his doctor, he had even specifically forbidden him from getting involved in any murders, mysteries, or any other situation that might increase his stress levels.
Now Jesse, with his strange – almost clandestine – behaviour, was forcing him into one of those exact situations.
Steve gnawed on his lower lip – trying to keep his temper in check until he, at least, had something definite to be angry about. He rolled his shoulders, trying to rid himself of some of the tension there. There was no point in getting wound up – not yet anyway – and his own sombre mood would hardly be conducive to keeping his father calm.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. No, there was no point in going in at the deep end. But he did allow one stray, dark thought to surface: You'd better have a good reason, Jesse, he silently threatened. Or, so help me, I might never forgive you for putting him through this.
Aware that his dad was still watching him, Steve summoned a smile. "I'll do that," he said – and was surprised by just how normal his voice sounded.
However, he didn't immediately call Jesse with his dad's invitation. After all, he had already tried once that morning and received no answer. He put it to the back of his mind and concentrated on trying to enjoy the day – and on trying to keep his dad distracted from worrying too much.
It was mid-afternoon before he finally got around to making the call – and could then only listen in frustration as he was instantly diverted to Jesse's voicemail service. Muttering dourly to himself, he hung up and dialled the hospital directly, asking to be put through to Amanda. Unlike their other friend, the pathologist answered almost instantly. Steve's fresh irritation was quickly soothed when she explained that there was nothing sinister behind Jesse not answering his phone on this occasion. He was in the OR.
Somewhat appeased, Steve explained the reason for his call – and extended the dinner invitation to Amanda as well. He asked her to pass the message on to Jesse should she see him and, while she readily agreed to do that, she had to reluctantly decline the offer to join them. She had already planned to be working late – to catch up on her own backlog of work – and if she could get through most of it, she would be able to take the weekend off.
She caught up with Jesse some two hours later, predictably finding him in the doctors' lounge once his stint in theatre was over. He still looked like hell – but that was hardly surprising considering how he had spent his afternoon. The operating theatre could have that effect on any man.
He did offer her a genuine and warm smile he saw her – but that quickly faded when she mentioned the invitation to the beach house for dinner. He was suddenly unable to meet her gaze and he shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
"Jess?" she prompted, perturbed by his response. She'd have thought that he would have jumped at the offer.
"Are you, um..? Are you sure that Steve didn't just say that because he'd invited you?" he asked, glancing up at her, hopefully.
"Jesse, the invitation was offered specifically to you," she assured him – then added, jokingly: "If anyone was an afterthought, it was me." When this failed to provoke a reaction, she frowned. "Why would you think such a thing?"
The young man had the good grace to look embarrassed. "It's just that… Well, I haven't been round… I haven't even called…" He looked away, sheepishly. "I kinda figured they'd be mad."
At another time Amanda might have laughed at such an absurd notion – Mark and Steve would never get mad over something so trivial – but her friend was looking so forlorn that she found herself sighing instead. "Oh, honey, they're not mad at you," she strove to convince him. "They just want to see you. That's what friends do, right?"
"I guess…"
Amanda saw guilt flash across his features and realised how – to someone in his fragile emotional state – her words might have been taken as censure.
"Jesse, we're just a little worried about you." She sat down next to him and took his hands in hers. "You really haven't been yourself for the past couple of days. Maybe you are coming down with something." She resisted the urge to put her hand on his forehead to check his temperature – knowing how he would pull away if she even tried. "Maybe you've just been working too hard. I think they just want to see that you're okay – and that's not too much to ask, is it?"
She was rewarded with a much more genuine looking smile.
"So you'll go round for dinner tonight?" she prompted.
"I will," he answered. "I just need to go home and get changed first." When her slight frown returned, he hastened to add: "But I will call Steve first and tell him." It wasn't until he reached towards his pocket that he realised his cellphone was safely in his jacket pocket. He smiled, sheepishly. "Um… I'll do it just as soon as I get to my locker."
As Jesse ambled down the hospital corridors following Amanda's 'pep talk' he found himself in better spirits than he had been in for days. And he was definitely looking forward to dinner at the beach house. Just the thought of Mark's superb cuisine was enough to set his stomach rumbling and to remind him that his appetite had also been affected by whatever it was that had been afflicting him.
His exhaustion hadn't left him completely, but he was able to push it to one side in anticipation of a nice, relaxing evening in the company of good friends. He was feeling mildly foolish about having admitted to Amanda that he'd thought the Sloans might be mad at him – and he fervently hoped that she wouldn't mention it to either of them. Steve might rib him about it, but that was something he could easily live with. His main concern was that they would know he had demonstrated such a complete – and totally unjustified – lack of faith in their friendship.
He still felt some residual guilt at having caused his friends to worry about him. They had enough on their plates without being concerned about his welfare – when there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. But, as with the exhaustion, he was able to ignore that guilt and focus instead on putting the last few days behind him.
Jesse reached his locker and grabbed his jacket, wallet and keys. No sooner had he slipped his coat on, when the cellphone in his pocket burst into life. He quickly retrieved it and then stared uncomprehendingly at the unfamiliar number on the display. With a mental shrug, he answered the call.
Liddell couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that his agenda had changed – but it most definitely had. His current job was no longer about money – he'd been paid the majority of his fee in advance anyway – and nor was it about professional pride. In the space of a mere three days, his focus had shifted until now all he could think about was Jesse Travis.
He had never been employed to terrorise the same person on two separate occasions before and his current assignment had turned out to be the mother of all coincidences. Now it had become a fixation – almost an obsession.
Travis had been the perfect victim. Drugged and destined never to remember anything that happened to him, Liddell had allowed his imagination to run riot when they had held him prisoner in Utah. He had enjoyed making the doctor scream.
Then, when their paths had unwittingly crossed for a second time, it had been a different kind of torture – mental instead of physical. But Liddell had been given free reign when it came to getting their subject to their chosen destination – and that had been a lot of fun. Because, even if Travis wouldn't remember, he knew full well what was happening at the time. And his terror had been joyous to behold.
Now it was no longer enough.
Liddell could sense that his work was almost done. Three nights of the drug and the hypnosis and he would be ready to kill. This night was to be their third – the final night that he would work with this particular young man whom he had come to know so well.
Deep down, Liddell sensed that all was not well. The plan – brilliant though it seemed – didn't feel right to him. He had a gut instinct that it was destined to failure. And Richard Liddell always trusted his gut instincts. Part of the problem, he knew, was that both of his employers had underestimated their adversary. Not Travis – the doctor was playing the role of victim to perfection – but Mark Sloan and his son, Steve.
The henchman had seen them in action. He'd watched them thwart Perris Pharmaceuticals' even more brilliantly conceived plan and bring their young friend out the other side – not entirely unscathed, but more or less intact. And Perris Pharmaceuticals had had some serious money – and muscle – behind them. They had killed to achieve their ends and the stakes had been much higher than mere revenge. Though Quentin Trask had never answered to the authorities for his actions, Liddell had a strong feeling that he had not gone unpunished.
But, no matter how things played out on this occasion, Liddell had the feeling that he would be seeing the last of Jesse Travis. If the plan succeeded then his victim would be faced with spending the rest of his life in jail – if he escaped the death sentence for committing murder. Either that or he'd be locked up in a psyche-ward somewhere, unable to remember anything, but quickly going insane when faced with the irrefutable proof that he had killed his mentor.
And if the plan failed – then it would be up to Liddell to disappear. He didn't know much about hypnosis, but he did have a strong feeling that the process could be reversed somehow. And, if that were the case, then LA wouldn't be a good place for him to be. So he had resigned himself to the fact that his acquaintance with Travis would soon be over – and that thought filled him with regret. He wasn't a man who liked regrets and he had vowed to make the most of the time that they had left.
His plan was risky – but then what fun was life without a few risks? He had memorised the doctor's shift patterns for the entire week and knew exactly what time he was due to be leaving the hospital. The moment that time arrived, he punched a now-familiar number into his cell. Hearing a hesitant voice respond to his call, a malicious smile lit his face.
"I want you to listen very carefully, Jesse," he snarled, injecting as much menace as possible into his voice. "Do exactly as I say and nobody will get hurt."
Jesse almost dropped the phone in surprise when the strange and threatening voice answered his hesitant greeting. Instinctively, his eyes darted around the locker room, but he appeared to be alone.
"Who is this?" he blurted, unthinkingly.
Soft, malicious laughter sounded in his ear. "Rule number one, Doctor Travis," the voice said. "You don't speak. Not unless I ask you a direct question. Do you understand?"
Jesse fleetingly wondered whether that was a trick of some kind – but a response did seem appropriate. "Y… Yes…" he stammered, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. Any threat had, thus far, been vague and indirect – but something about the very voice filled him with nameless terror. He couldn't comprehend where the feeling was coming from, but it was almost overwhelming in its intensity. He held the phone in a white-knuckled grip and had it pressed so close to his face that it soon felt clammy against his sweat soaked cheek. Then the dreaded voice spoke again.
"Rule number two is that you don't hang up – and that you follow my every instruction. I'm not going too fast for you, am I, Travis?"
Again Jesse hesitated before answering. He didn't understand what was happening and his eyes were constantly moving, looking for whoever it was that was tormenting him. An impatient sigh sounded in his ear, reminding him that he'd been asked a direct question and was expected to answer. "No…" he mumbled, uncertainly.
"Good. Now, there's an emergency exit at the back of the room that you're in. Go through it."
Moving almost as if in a daze, Jesse did as he was instructed. He was bursting with questions that he wanted to ask, but he was too afraid of the vague threat that hung over him. If he spoke out of turn, then somebody would get hurt.
TBC…