Thrill Kill (Matt Sinclair #2) - Brian Thiem Page 0,13

it’s a tradeoff between the info he provides and his menace to society. He was all coked up last year and nearly beat some tweaker to death. It wasn’t a strong case, but everyone knew Jimmy needed to do some time, so they let him plead to a bullet in Santa Rita.”

“One year with no good time?”

“That’s what it was supposed to be, but it sounds like he got out early.”

“Do you believe what Tanya said about him being Dawn’s pimp when she first arrived in Oakland?”

“Jimmy was different before he started shooting heroin and smoking crack. He was smooth and quite the charmer, even when high, so I guess it’s possible.”

Sinclair pulled into the parking lot of the Palms Motel. The Palms had been around before the 580 Freeway existed, when MacArthur Boulevard was the main thoroughfare from the San Francisco Bay Bridge through Oakland and to cities beyond. It was among a dozen motels where travelers stayed back then, but for the last forty years, the Palms and other motels along West MacArthur mostly catered to prostitutes, drug dealers, and occasional out-of-towners who didn’t know any better.

Sinclair flashed his badge to the elderly Indian man on the other side of the bulletproof partition that separated the tiny lobby from the office. He handed Sinclair the registration cards. Sinclair shuffled through them but didn’t see Jimmy or Sheila’s name. “Do you know who Jimmy Davis is?” Sinclair asked.

“Yes, I know Jimmy. He’s not registered here now.”

“I see that,” said Sinclair. “But has he been around?”

“I haven’t seen him. And if he’s not registered here, he’s not staying here.”

“Of course not.”

Sinclair and Braddock walked through the parking lot and up and down the sidewalk in front of the motel, asking people about Jimmy and passing out their cards. A few admitted to knowing him, but no one said they’d seen him recently, which didn’t surprise Sinclair. He knew no one would call, but the word would get back to Jimmy that Sinclair was looking for him.

Chapter 5

Sinclair leaned back in the recliner, adjusted his earphones, and closed his eyes. The memory came slowly at first, bits and pieces. Then he was there.

“What do you see?” Dr. Jeanne Elliott asked.

He screeched to a stop in the middle of the street seconds after the gunshots. Rolled out of his patrol car, gun in hand. Screams, people running, smoke, the smell of burning gunpowder hanging in the air. The Sig Sauer .45 caliber pistol heavy and slippery in his sweaty hand.

“Bodies,” Sinclair replied. “Three of them. Blood.”

“Any sounds or smells?”

“People yelling: That way—he went that way. I smell the blood. And sweat—my sweat. I smell my fear.”

The words poured from Sinclair’s mouth, uncensored, as if someone else were speaking. He felt as if he were in two places at once, part of him sitting in the plush chair in the therapist’s office, the other on Telegraph Avenue twelve years earlier. The tones sounded in his ears at one-second intervals. Beep, beep, left, right, left, right. The beeps acted like a sort of audible pendulum.

“What’s happening now?” Jeanne asked.

“I’m running. People point into the theater. I run into the theater.”

Sinclair’s breathing was ragged, his heart ready to leap out of his chest.

“Slow down,” she said. “What are you feeling?”

He didn’t need to search for the words; they rolled off his tongue. “Anger. Sadness. Fear.”

“Should we stop?”

“I need to go on.”

“Okay, but slowly,” Jeanne whispered.

At the theater door, he rushes inside. It’s pitch dark. His left hand reaches for his belt, feeling for his flashlight. He touches the leather holder. Empty. He freezes.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“My flashlight . . . I left it in the car. He’s there. In the dark. Waiting. I have to get him.” Sinclair’s voice quaked as tears squeezed through his closed eyes and down his face. He tasted the salt as they rolled over his lip. “But I can’t move. I’m too scared. I’m a coward.”

“That’s enough,” Jeanne said. “I want you to return to your safe place.” She described the mountain lake, the birds singing, and the smell of pine trees.

Sinclair felt his breathing level out. The image of the dark X-rated-movie theater where the murderer had fled slowly dissolved.

“When you’re ready,” she said, “I want you to open your eyes.”

Sinclair opened his eyes and removed the headphones.

Jeanne leaned back in her chair. “You did very well today. I can tell you’re beginning to trust the process.”

The process she referred to was called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. When