He shrugged.
“You could feel it, couldn’t you? I saw you tapping your fingers and moving your feet.”
He thought for a moment. “I felt it all over.”
“I know. And I thought to myself, this guy has rhythm. You know what that means, don’t you? It means you can feel the beat. You can feel it in your bones…and in your soul.”
He looked away again. “I want to sing. I always sing.”
“And you’re a really good singer. And you can keep singing, but I want you to do something else.”
She turned and walked across her small studio. It was a carpeted, octagonal-shaped room with a whiteboard, a piano, several colorful music-themed posters, and a large mirrored panel at the far end. “Come here, I want to show you something.”
Jimmy hesitated.
She smiled luminously at him. “I promise that you’re going to like this, honey. Don’t you trust me?”
He didn’t answer, then nodded jerkily. “I…trust you.”
Her heart melted. Another victory.
“That means a lot to me, Jimmy.” She gripped the corner of a white tarp and pulled it away to reveal a percussion kit.
His eyes widened. “Drums!”
“Do you like it?”
He bit his lip. “Why should I like it? I don’t know how to play drums.”
“Anybody can play drums. Whether they can play them well, that’s another matter.” She picked up a pair of drumsticks and placed them in Jimmy’s hands, curling the fingers around in a matched grip. She pulled him around to the other side of the drum set. “Now sit down. This will be fun.”
Jimmy slowly sat, holding the drumsticks in front of him as if they were sticks of unstable dynamite.
“You don’t have to hold them so tightly. Loosen up, feel the beat like you did last time.”
He looked at the various surfaces around him. “But what do I do?”
She strummed the guitar. “Whatever you feel like doing. Whatever sounds and feels good to you.” She played George Harrison’s “Got My Mind Set on You,” accenting the song’s strong and clean rhythms.
Jimmy held the sticks over the snare drum.
“Anytime.”
He struck the drum’s surface tentatively.
“Both sticks, Jimmy…Come on, it’s fun!”
He used both sticks to accompany her on the snare, striking with a not-entirely-unrhythmic beat.
“That’s fantastic!”
He closed his eyes and nodded. He branched out to the tom-tom on his left, accenting his stylings with the lower-pitched drum.
“Good!” She pointed down the pedal on the floor. “That’s for the bass drum. Want to try it?”
He pressed the pedal and reacted with a start as the kicker struck the drum surface. He stepped on it again and again, repeating the motion until he found the rhythm she had set.
He continued on the bass drum as he struck the snare and tom-tom with increased vigor.
Kendra studied him. Could it be?
Ever so slightly, a faint smile was pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Yes.
KENDRA MICHAELS DIDN’T appear to be the bitch he’d thought she’d be, Adam Lynch thought, as he watched her through the one-way glass in the observation room as she interacted with the child. What he’d heard about her had been far from complimentary, but that could be due to jealousy. Her work had completely overshadowed that of the FBI agents from whom he’d received reports. Evidently, she had not done it diplomatically.
Yet every move, every expression, was warm and gentle as she taught that troubled boy. A puzzle. If he was going to use her, he had to know which buttons to push to do it. He had no doubt he’d find a way to do it. It was a skill that had earned him both applause and hatred over the years. But it was annoying that he’d been given the wrong information with which to develop a method to do it. He studied her, looking for an answer to the paradox.
Though she was of middle height and slim, she did not appear fragile at all. When she walked or moved, she had a litheness that spoke of strength and suppleness earned by frequent exercise. Her shoulder-length, pale brown hair was sun-streaked in places. Her face…Strength there, too. A strong chin, well-formed lips that still spoke of control and discipline, large hazel eyes that were set far apart and seemed to hold intelligence as well as humor. Not a pretty face, but for an instant, when she smiled at the boy, he had seen a flash, a beauty. It was the most dangerous form of allure, which could challenge a man to try to make that elusive beauty reappear again and again. She wouldn’t appeal to everyone. She was too strong, too confident, but Lynch was drawn to that challenge.
He felt a rush of sudden eagerness at the thought of dealing with Kendra Michaels. She was interesting. He had grown so accustomed to successfully manipulating his targets that any change, any stretch, was welcome.
What was the key that he could use to make her go in the direction he wanted? Sympathy? She obviously had a warm attachment to children. But would that extend to adults? Anger? Fear? Sex? No, that last choice had popped up out of nowhere and probably had nothing to do with logical reasoning and everything to do with his physical response. The other two were possibilities, but he would have to see if they were necessary tools.
Oh well, it would come to him. He leaned back against the wall, his gaze intent on Kendra Michaels. In the meantime, he would enjoy watching her. She was like a kaleidoscope, with different shadings and settings shifting before his eyes.
Yes, Kendra Michaels was going to be an interesting project.
THE HOUR-LONG SESSION with Jimmy stretched to an hour and fifteen minutes, violating Kendra’s own rule about her enforced stopping times. She wanted to leave her clients wanting more, eagerly anticipating their next session together. It was always tempting to keep going when she saw them enjoying themselves, but Jimmy had hit such a joyful groove in his drum playing that she knew he wouldn’t tire of an extra quarter hour.
Kendra opened the door to the waiting room, where Jimmy’s mother, Tina, had watched from behind the large one-way glass.
Jimmy rushed toward her. “Mom, I played the drums!” He pounded his drumsticks into the air.
Tina laughed and hugged him. “I saw! You were amazing!” She glanced at Kendra. “I can’t believe the way he lit up!”
“Yes, he did.”
“I actually think…he’s getting better.”
“He could be.” Kendra managed a smile. She knew that Tina wanted more confirmation than that. All the parents did. They spent their lives searching for some sign—any sign—that their children might finally be turning the corner in their affictions, but it was rarely that clear-cut. It was a marathon, not a sprint, she liked to say, and this race could go on for the rest of their lives.
But once in a while, there could be an exception. And who was to say that exception couldn’t be Jimmy?
“It was a good day,” Kendra said. She gently took the drumsticks from Jimmy. “I’ll see you Friday?”
“Yes!” He pounded the air again, still playing to the song in his head as his mother escorted him out.
It had been a good day, Kendra thought. Maybe she should have been more—
“So this is what you do for a living.”
The voice came from behind her. She spun around to see a man strolling toward her from the waiting room. “How did you get in here?”