"Actually, Doctor Klein," Jessica Bainbridge said, "I'm not here for help in quitting smoking at all. I just said that to get an appointment to see you." She kept her voice level. She could do this. "I'm actually here to discuss one of your other patients, Roslyn Cole." She couldn't do this. This was a terrible idea. She should just leave now, take everything she had brought here today and walk out of the office with it, take it all to Dinah like she was supposed to and get this case out of her mind.
Doctor Thomas Klein fixed her with a level gaze. "Yes, I'm familiar with her," he said evenly. He wasn't going to crack easily, that was for sure. "She's been a patient of mine for several months. Although I'm not entirely sure what business it is of yours, Ms. Bainbridge...if that is, in fact, your real name. Do you have some reason for wasting my time?"
Jessica steeled herself. It was too late to go back now. This was the point of no return. "My real name is Jessica Bainbridge, yes. I'm a private investigator. Miss Cole's mother hired me to look into her recent activities."
It wasn't the point of no return yet, and she damned well knew it. The back of her mind was screaming at her, telling her to stop fucking around with this crazy, stupid, hare-brained scheme that could wreck her professional reputation, earn her some jail time, and lead to all sorts of disasters she wasn't even imagining yet. "Roslyn's mother, Dinah, has been worried about Roslyn for several weeks now. She claims that her daughter's behavior has changed since she began seeing you. That she pays less attention to her family, that she breaks off arranged social events on very little notice."
Doctor Klein didn't even blink. "As it happens, Roslyn has serious familial issues, stemming from a domineering and controlling mother who insists on attempting to run her daughter's life. Didn't you think it was more than a little odd that she hired a private detective to keep tabs on her daughter's whereabouts?"
OK, this was definitely the point of no return now. Well, almost the point of no return. Jessica wished she'd never come up with this idea. Klein was a tough customer. She had no idea how he was going to jump when she dropped the bomb on him. Jessica knew she was thinking in private eye cliches, but she needed to be the hard-boiled detective right now. She needed to be tougher than Klein to pull this off. And oh, God, did she want to pull this off.
"Let's cut the bullshit, shall we?" Jessica said, putting an edge in her voice. Good. Think 'tough as nails private eye'. Make him sweat. Don't think of him as a person, think of him as a means to an end. She pulled out a manilla folder from her handbag. "I've been watching you for the past several weeks. I've taken some pictures. Those are copies, you can keep them. I've also got some copies of audio surveillance of your office that make for interesting listening as well."
She handed the folder across the desk to Klein. He opened it up and looked at the photos. To his credit, he didn't crack even then. "I see," he said.
"Those would certainly make an interesting presentation to the AMA, or the ASCH," Jessica said relentlessly. "I wonder what they'd say if they found out that you'd been using your hypnotherapy practice to take sexual advantage of one of your patients. Or that you've been convincing her to transfer funds from her bank account to yours." She saw it there, just the little flicker of an eyelid. She had him, she knew it. "Oh yes, Doctor Klein, I've been doing my homework. You've turned Miss Cole into quite a good patient indeed."
Doctor Klein looked up at her. Jessica's blood ran cold at the expression on his face. He wasn't angry, or frightened, or even concerned. His professional life was on the line, and he looked like she'd just shown him the weather reports for Kuala Lumpur. "I presume you're interested in blackmail," he said, "or you wouldn't have bothered coming to me before showing this to the AMA."
OK, now this was officially the point of no return. This was the point where the stupid idea she'd had while watching Doctor Klein hypnotize Roslyn turned into a reality. This was the point where she made the deal with the devil. She took a deep breath. "That's right, Doctor Klein. I'm willing to turn a blind eye to your... relationship to Miss Cole. I'm even willing to let you continue fucking her, if that's what you want. I'll tell her mother that I haven't found anything conclusive, and I'll keep the evidence to myself. In exchange..." Jessica's mind was a chaotic jumble of panic and jangling nerves, but she didn't let any of it show. "I want you to hypnotize me."
Doctor Klein raised an eyebrow. "I'll admit, that wasn't exactly what I was expecting to hear. You want me to..."
"Do to me what you did to Roslyn Cole. Not the financial aspects, of course. Just the sex. I want you to hypnotize me, put me under and have sex with me. You can do whatever you want with me while I'm in this office, just like you have been with Miss Cole. But unlike her, I expect to have my mind to myself when I leave.
"I realize that's not exactly the kind of hypnosis you were thinking of doing when I walked into this office, but I've been watching you with Miss Cole for some time now. It looked..." Fucking hell. It looked unbelievable. Jessica had never really considered herself a voyeur, not even when she was doing a job that involved taking photos of cheating spouses mid-coitus. It was just business. After a while, she stopped even noticing that they were having sex.
But when she was spying on Doctor Klein and Roslyn Cole, when she looked through the telephoto lens at the woman's face as she slipped into a hypnotic trance, when she listened to them through the directional mike as Roslyn gasped out mantras of obedience and rapturous bliss... Jessica had been masturbating herself stupid after every night she'd spent watching the two of them. It had become the centerpiece of her every sexual fantasy, it had seeped into her dreams. She had to find out what it was like. No matter how unethical, how dangerous this turned out to be. She wasn't at the point of no return right now. She'd been at the point of no return from the moment she took this case, from the moment she watched Roslyn Cole get hypnotized. "It looked nice," she finished lamely.
"And you're not worried that once I've put you into a hypnotic trance, I'll simply make you give me all the evidence against me and do whatever I want with you anyway?" The tone of his voice made it clear that Doctor Klein knew perfectly well that a little part of Jessica quivered at exactly that notion, that something of Jessica wanted to surrender herself to him as completely as Roslyn had.
Fortunately, that wasn't the part that had been planning this for weeks. "Not a bit. The evidence is in a safe deposit box at my local bank--and before you ask, I don't actually have a key to it. A friend of mine who works at the bank is keeping it for me. I've asked her to keep an eye on my financial transactions, as well. If I ask for the key to the box, if I start behaving strangely, if my bank account starts doing anything funny, or if you even so much as say hello to her, she knows what to do." She didn't know why, of course. But Cassie trusted her well enough not to ask. "We play this game on my terms, or the evidence goes straight to the AMA."
Doctor Klein sucked in his breath through his teeth. "So let me see if I understand this correctly. My choices are as follows. I can either face professional ruination, civil and criminal charges, the end of my practice and indeed my life as I know it...or I can continue to use Roslyn Cole as my personal sex slave, and also enjoy regular sex with you as well?" He shook his head slightly. "It's a tough choice. But seeing as my back's against the wall, here, I suppose I'll have to do as you say. Would you like to start now?"