The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [537]
“I haven’t had another vision.” She sat, poured tea for herself. “I kept some of my appointments today. Thought I should try. But I ended up cancelling the rest after taking the first two. I just can’t concentrate.”
“Tough on business.”
“I can afford the time off. The regulars understand, and as for new clients . . .” She moved her shoulders, elegantly. “It adds to the mystique. But that’s not the point.”
“And the point is?”
“I’m getting to it.” Celina tilted her head. “Not much on small talk, are you?”
“I figure there’s a reason it’s called small.”
“Suppose you’re right. To begin, I watched your media conference. I wasn’t going to, but I felt, I thought, I should.”
She curled up her legs. “And it made me think.”
“It made you think what?”
“I can do more. I should do more. There’s a reason I’m getting these visions. I don’t know what it is, not specifically, but I know there’s a purpose. And while I’m doing the minimum I feel is required of me, I could do more.”
She sipped tea, then set the cup down. “I want to discuss going under hypnosis.”
Eve lifted her eyebrows. Just when you’re ready to bail, she thought, something interesting comes along. “How would that help?”
“There’s a part of me that’s blocking.” Celina touched her hands to either side of her head, then her heart. “Call it a survival mechanism, which I like better than yellow-bellied cowardice. Something in me that doesn’t want to know, to see, to remember, so I don’t.”
“Blocking the way you block picking up impressions or whatever you call them from people without their consent?”
“Not really. That’s a conscious act, though it becomes as elemental as breathing. This is subconscious. The human mind is a powerful and efficient tool. We don’t use it to its capacity. I don’t think we dare.”
She picked up one of the little golden cookies she’d set out with the tea, and nibbled. “We are able to block. Trauma victims often do. They’re unable or unwilling to remember the trauma, or details of it, because they can’t or won’t face it. You must see this sort of thing in your work.”
And in herself, Eve thought. In all the years she’d blocked out what had happened in that room in Dallas. “Yes.”
“Under hypnosis, those blocks can be removed or lowered. I may see more. I know there’s more, and I may see it. With the right practitioner . . . I’d need someone—I’d insist on someone very skilled not only in hypnosis, but in dealing with sensitives. I’d want a medical doctor present as well. I’d want Dr. Mira to do it.”
“Mira.”
“After you gave me her name, I did some research. She’s very qualified in all the areas I’d need. She’s also a criminologist, so it seems to me she’d be more cognizant of what to ask me, where to guide me while I was under. You trust her.”
“Absolutely.”
Celina gestured with the cookie. “And I trust you. I don’t put myself in just any hands, Dallas. To be honest, I’m afraid of this. But I’m more afraid of doing nothing. And you know what’s worse?”
“No.”
“I’m terrified I’ve been pushed into a new arena. That what I have, what I am, is moving down a path I never wanted for myself.” She hugged her right arm, rubbing it gently as if to soothe a spasm. “That I’m going to spend the next phase of my life seeing murder and violence, linking with victims. I liked my life the way it was. It makes it harder to realize it may never be just that way again.”
“And still you want me to contact Dr. Mira?”
She nodded. “The sooner the better. If I stall, I might lose the courage to follow it through.”
“Give me a minute,” Eve said as she pulled out her ’link.
“Oh. Right.” Celina rose, picked up the tea tray. She carried it into the kitchen.
With slow, deliberate moves, she put the clean cup and saucer away, set her own in the sink.
Then she laid her hands on her face, pressed her fingers to her closed lids. And hoped, with everything she was, that she was ready for what was coming.
“Celina?”
“Yes.” On a quick jerk,