Sheldon came to pick Mac up at 2 pm. "You ready?" Sheldon asked as Mac opened the door.

"Yes," Mac replied. He put his coat on and they went out to the Avalanche.

"Your blood test came back, Mac," Sheldon said. "There was a trace of something but it was not enough to tell if it was caffeine or something else."

"Well, you tried."

"Doctor Mitchum is a great doctor and he will try everything he can to find out what's bothering you."

They soon arrived at the doctor's office and went inside. "Do you want me to stay?" Sheldon asked.

Mac considered that. He knew he could trust Sheldon. "Yes," he said. "I want you to be there when he analyzes me."

Sheldon nodded. "Then I will be."

Mac sat in the waiting room getting more nervous by the minute. The receptionist gave him a questionnaire to fill out. He hated having to tell his whole life's history to someone but he supposed the doctor had to know something about him if he was going to help him. What is the reason for your visit today?

Mac stared at that question. He did not want to write this on paper. How could he explain it anyway? He did not even remember everything that happened. He just left that question blank and went on to the next. He supposed doing this kept his mind off his situation.

Sheldon's phone rang while they were waiting. "Hello," he answered.

"Sheldon," Jo said. "Are you with Mac?"

"Yes, I am."

"We finished the inventory for Doris Mason's costume shop. We didn't find anything missing. But get this…Doris Mason is Cecilia Brimmer's sister."

Sheldon absorbed that for a moment. "Is that the connection?" he asked.

"It must have something to do with it?"

"Then why was she killed? Would Cecilia kill her own sister?"

"Maybe she would," Jo said.

Mac scowled at Sheldon when he heard what he said. "What?" he asked.

Sheldon looked at Mac. "Doris Mason, the shop owner, was Cecilia Brimmer's sister," he said.

Mac considered that. "This is getting worse all the time," he said. "What has this got to do with me?"

"We're trying to figure that out," Jo said, hearing what Mac said. "Just hang in there."

Mac felt helpless and worried. He had strained his brain trying to remember who Cecilia Brimmer was but he could not remember anything about a case that involved her. He wondered if she had changed her name or something. She did not look familiar either. However, she might change her appearance or her name, she could not change her fingerprints. "What about the fingerprints from my apartment?" he asked.

Sheldon relayed the question to Jo. "Mac's fingerprints mostly," Jo said. "There were the prints of an unknown doner."

Sheldon told Mac. Mac sighed. "So, she's not in the system," he said. "How can she not be in the system if this has something to do with me?"

"Another thing," Jo said. "Have you seen today's paper?"

Mac frowned. "What about it?" he asked.

"It seems that Cecilia Brimmer has a new story in her column."

"I can imagine."

"She tells all about how you think you're being visited by a vampire and that she wonders if you're really fit to lead the crime lab and maybe you're not mentally capable. She also says that you claimed that she was in on it just because she came to your apartment to ask for an interview and then came to your office for an interview. She says that you party so hard after hours on your job that you can't even remember what happened the night before and accused her of drugging you." Jo paused a moment. "Mac, what did you tell this woman?"

"Not much," Mac said. "I told her that I knew she had something to do with this."

"You know reporters can take anything you say and twist it into what they want it to say."

"I know that, Jo. She knows what's going on here. That's why she can write all that."

"I'm going to talk to that woman myself and I'm going to find out who she is and what she has against you."

"Good."

Jo ended the call. Yes, she would find out who this woman was. She had to and she had to do it fast. She had a feeling that Mac did not have much time with this. She was afraid they were planning to eventually kill him.

Mac was finally called to his appointment. He was nervous as he walked into the doctor's office. "Good afternoon," Dr. Mitchum said and offered to shake Mac's hand.

Mac shook his hand. "Afternoon," he replied.

"Have a seat."

Mac sat down on the couch and tried to get comfortable. "You didn't answer the question that asked why you're here today," the doctor said.

"I didn't want to write all this down," Mac declared. "I didn't know how to write it anyway."

"Well, why don't you just lie down there and tell me then?"

Mac sighed and lay down on the couch. He thought he might fall asleep if he lay here long. He started with the case they got at the old house and told the doctor what had happened as much as he could remember. "I can't pull the memories out," Mac said.

Doctor Mitchum was writing in his notepad. "Have you ever had experiences like this?" he asked.

"No," Mac said. "This is the strangest thing I have ever been through. My team has already done blood tests and urine tests. They did not find any drugs."

"Could have been something that did not show up. Some drugs mix with enzymes in the blood and can't be detected. Do you think you were hypnotized?"

"I don't remember what happened," Mac said.

"But you think you had sex with this woman?"

Mac sighed. "Yes."

"Well, there are tests that I can do to see if you have been hypnotized. If you have, there could be key words or something you see that could trigger certain thoughts and cause you to think something's happening when it's not."

Mac frowned. "Even whispering?"

"Yes, even whispering."

Mac thought that would explain some of this stuff that had been happening to him. Maybe he was not going crazy after all. "Well, what can you do to help me?" he asked.

"I want you to come back tomorrow and I will hypnotize you myself and we'll find out what's going on."

"Why can't you do it now?"

"I have other patients. I am not set up for that."

Mac frowned. He felt a sense of urgency. "What should I do till then?"

Dr. Mitchum looked at Mac a moment and then looked at his watch. "Just wait here for a moment," he said.

The doctor left the room. Mac sat there alone wondering if he had been programmed by someone…and if so, who? Why? Maybe they programmed him not to remember Cecilia Brimmer or Victoria…whatever her last name was. He supposed if they could program him to think he was paralyzed and to think he was hearing voices, they could program him not to remember them from his past. Mac lay back down on the couch and stared at the ceiling. He was still tired. He figured that doctor would not have any trouble getting him to go to sleep.

Soon, Dr. Mitchum came back. "We will go ahead with this today," he said. "I moved some of my appointments up and there is room now."

"Thank you, Doctor," Mac said. "Is it okay if Sheldon sits in?"

"I don't see any problem with that if that will make you more comfortable."

"It would."

"My assistant will get everything set up and then we will get this underway." The doctor sat down in a chair beside the couch. "Is there anything else you want to tell me before we proceed?"

Mac thought a moment. "When I look at my partner, I feel like I can feel her heart beating and I feel hungry," Mac said and looked at the doctor to see his reaction.

Dr. Mitchum was simply writing. There was not much he had not heard. He did not consider anyone strange or over the top…unless they were strange or over the top. "Anything else?" he asked.

"I went to breakfast yesterday morning and I ate a rare steak. I don't like rare steak."

"That could just be another suggestion."

Mac frowned. "How did they do this to me?" he asked.

"We're going to figure that out. It must have happened that first night you were visited."

Visited. Mac thought that sounded like some sort of weird experience from outerspace or something. He just knew there had to be an explanation for all this. Why would they kill the shop owner though? She was Cecilia Brimmer's sister. Mac could not understand all that.

Soon, everything was ready and Doctor Mitchum led Mac to another room where there was a chair that looked a lot like a dentist's chair but it looked much more comfortable although it had a contraption strapped to it. Mac swallowed hard. Was he going to be hooked up to that? He was starting to feel nervous. "Just relax," Doctor Mitchum said as he was picking up on Mac's nervousness. "Everything will be okay."

"Where is Sheldon?" Mac asked.

"I'm right here," Sheldon said as he entered the room.

Mac was a little relieved that Sheldon was there. "So, what do I have to do?" Mac asked.

"You just have to follow my instructions," Doctor Mitchum said. "This is going to be easy and painless."

"And when it's over, I won't remember anything about it…right?"

"I supposed."

"I don't like not knowing what happens to me."

"This is the only way to find out if someone planted suggestions in your mind."

Mac sighed and nodded. "Just have a seat here," Doctor Mitchum said gesturing to the chair.

Mac took his coat off and sat down in the chair. "Are you comfortable?" the doctor asked.

Mac nodded. He shifted slightly as he lay his head back. Sheldon and the doctor sat down on the couch beside the chair. Mac looked at them. "Don't be nervous," Sheldon said.

Mac was soon hypnotized and the doctor told him to remember two nights earlier. Mac thought back to that night. He thought it was very clear. "What happened after you arrived home?" Dr. Mitchum asked.

"I went into the kitchen and got a bottle of water," Mac said.

"Was it sealed?"

Mac seemed to consider that. "No, I think it was one that I had drunk from and put it back in the fridge," he said.

Sheldon wrote that down in his notepad. "What did you do after that?" Dr. Mitchum asked.

"I took a shower," Mac said.

"Keep going."

"After I got out, the doorbell rang and I put on my sweats and t-shirt and went to the door."

"Who was at the door?"

Mac was quiet for a moment. "I don't know."

"Look at the person. Who is it? Is it a woman?"

"Yes, it was a woman."

"Who?"

Mac seemed to get nervous with that question. "I…I don't know."

"Yes, you do. Who is it?"

"No, I can't remember."

"Just relax."

Mac calmed back down then. Doctor Mitchum wrote in his notepad and then looked at Sheldon. "There's definitely something blocking him from his memories," he whispered.

"Like what?" Sheldon asked.

"I don't know. It would take me some time to get through it."

"Try to get more."

Doctor Mitchum looked at Mac. "Are you still with me, Detective Taylor?" he asked.

"Yes," Mac answered.

"Good. Can you tell me anything that happened after this woman arrived?"

Mac considered that. "Something happened to my hand," he said.

"What was it?"

"I'm not sure. I had to go to the bathroom to get the first aid kit and she followed me."

"And what did she do?"

"She raised the window and then she left."

Sheldon wrote that down. He knew someone was really playing a game with Mac. He could remember this part but he could not remember who the woman was. He wondered when they did all this to him.

"What happened next?" Doctor Mitchum asked.

Mac thought a moment. "Someone else was there," he said. "It was the woman from the crime scene."

"Victoria Wallace?"

Mac frowned. "I don't know," he said.

"You said the woman from the crime scene. Was it her?"

Mac shifted on the chair. "I don't know," he said. "I…"

"Did she tell you her name?"

Mac thought a moment. "Yes, she did," he said.

"What did she say?"

"I don't know. I can't think about that."

"What happened after she arrived?"

"I don't remember."

"You have to remember. Tell me what happened."

Sheldon was just staring at Mac. He had never heard Mac sound so helpless. "I was paralyzed," Mac said. "I couldn't move."

"Why?" Doctor Mitchum asked. "What did she do to you?"

"She…she licked my hand. She licked the blood off."

Sheldon thought that sounded strange. "What else?" Dr. Mitchum asked.

"I don't remember anymore," Mac said. "It's too hard to remember."

"No, it's not. You can remember."

"No, I can't tell you," Mac almost whimpered.

"What will happen if you tell me?"

Mac gasped. "I don't know. Stop!"

"Okay, relax. You're safe."

Mac relaxed again. Doctor Mitchum wrote in his notepad again and then looked at Sheldon. "He's got some problems," he whispered. "They've told him that he will die or something if he tells."

Sheldon looked at Mac. "How can we help him?" he asked.

"I can try to figure out what will snap him out of it. It's buried deep."

"So, this is all that he's been hypnotized."

Doctor Mitchum nodded. "I would say so, Sheldon."

"How long will it take?"

"I don't know, but I will give him another appointment and we'll start working on this next time when I have time to study this."

Sheldon nodded. Doctor Mitchum woke Mac up. Mac took a deep breath and looked at them. "What happened?" he asked.

"You're going to be fine," Doctor Mitchum said. "We're going to have a few more sessions and then we'll figure this out."

"What did I say?" Mac asked. "Don't lie to me."

"Mac, there are some things that you don't need to know," Sheldon said. "You have definitely been planted with suggestions but the doctor will work with you to reverse them."

Mac absorbed that. "What am I supposed to do till then?" he asked.

"We'll watch you."

Mac blew out a long breath. "I'll be glad when this is over."

"How did they do this to him without drugs?" Sheldon asked.

"That's a good question," the doctor said. "It's something very powerful. Could have been inhaled."

Mac and Sheldon set up another appointment and then went out to the Avalanche. Mac felt nervous. When would his 'suggestions' kick in again? How could they help him if he was being driven by some weird phrase in his mind? He hoped they could figure this out before too long…