The Princess of the Desert -- Chapter 2

By Melodie Thomas

Edited by Holly Hart

Thursday August 21, 2008

Nothing had changed over the first week as far as our victim was concern. Though the body’s vital signs were improving and it was healing due to the intravenous feeding and medications, there was no indication yet when our victim would rejoin the rest of the world. What we believed to the be the red pickup involved in the dump was found on a used car lot in Houston Texas after being sold to the dealer in an auto auction in New Mexico. The tire treads matched those found at the crime scene, but the pickup and been thoroughly detailed twice and, as a result, no other trace evidence was found. With no new leads to follow, Tina and I went back to work on some of the other things on our desk, mostly related to drug activity.

Returning from lunch I grabbed a bottle of water out of the machine at the entrance and headed to my office. My office door creates kind of a blind corner from the building entrance, so with no warning I stepped into my office.

“It’s about time you got back.” I heard a voice from the guest chair at the back of the room.

The man sitting in the chair was a 55 year old, slightly balding, salt and peppered hair gentleman that I knew too well.

“Mike, what the hell are you doing here?”

Mike Holiday, FBI Regional Director was about 6 foot, 225 and carried a little extra around the middle, which I suppose came naturally as one gracefully aged. Having Mike as my boss was one thing, but about 8 months ago Mike started being seen regularly with a lovely 52 year old socialite in Phoenix that I knew quite well as ‘Mother’.

“Your mother sent me to see if you were still alive. Seems you forget to call every once in a while.”

“Dear Mom, I am sorry, I will call more often. Now why are you really here?”

“Where’s Tina?”

Just on cue, Tina walked through the office door with just about as much surprise on her face as I had.

Mike smiled and shook his head “You know, I should move down here. Lunch hours in Tucson seem to be much better than in Phoenix.”

Tina walked to her desk “I will take the shorter lunch hours if you will take my teenage daughter.”

“Oh, no way!” Mike laughed “Okay, you win. Anyway, I decided to personally deliver the finger print results on your unknown victim.” Mike waved a folder in the air.

Okay, this was quite unusual. I was puzzled. Sitting at my desk I said, “That is wee bit unusual, Mike. What gives? Did we get a hit?”

“Oh, we got more than a hit. I know who your Jane Doe is, and that piece of knowledge comes with a very, very interesting story, and I just had to bring this one to you myself.”

“This must be good,” Tina said, “to bring you all the way down here.”

“It is, it is, and ‘that’ is really an understatement.”

Mike opened the folder “Your victim’s name is Steven Jay Atkins, born September 14, 1984 in Boulder Colorado, which is where he lived until he disappeared in July of 2005. However, his name did not make the missing person’s list until August of 2006, because prior to that he was considered a suicide victim.

“In July of 2005 Mr. Atkins was assumed to have committed suicide after his wife, his wife’s parents and his own parents caught him at a party, dressed as a woman, having sex with men. The day after this very embarrassing discovery, the police found Mr. Atkins’ jeep parked by a bridge over a deep gorge of a river with a note stating he could not live with the shame and hurt that he’d brought on his family, so he’d decided to throw himself off of the bridge.”

“So, he faked his suicide and ran off to live the life of sin he enjoyed,” I commented as I looked at Tina. Her face showed a little hurt in it.

“Oh, nothing is going to be quite that simple in this story.” Mike continued with a smile “In a seemingly unrelated case, about a year later, after some very difficult investigative work, our brothers in arms at the DEA executed a search warrant on the home of a Mr. Frank Grayson, who was thought to be the head of a major drug distribution network in the area. Not only did they catch Mr. Grayson with some dirty fingers, but they also got his #2 man, a Mr. John Lamberton, with very dirty fingers and Mr. Lamberton’s wife, a Mrs. Cathy Lamberton.”

“I don’t get it,” Tina interrupted. “Where do these tie in?”

“Have patience my little FBI agent, I will get to that. After celebrating their amazing work, our bothers in arms contacted the local police to collect as much background information on their three suspects as possible. During this background work the local police discovered that Mrs. Cathy Lamberton had been married once before, and her previous husband was none other than our Mr. Steven Atkins. The local police, thinking this was a little strange, did a little more digging and found that the place that Mr. Atkins had been having his big embarrassing moment before throwing himself off of the bridge, was at the house of Mr. Frank Grayson, and that the former Mrs. Atkins had become the new Mrs. Lamberton only one week after her crossdressing husband was declared dead.”

Mike paused for a sip of water “Any questions yet?”

“Oh, hell yeah.” I responded. “But I don’t want to interrupt a good story.”

“Your Mother said you were a smart boy. Anyway, the local police boys started getting it in their head that perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Lamberton and possibly Mr. Grayson may have played a little more of a role than they originally thought in helping our Mr. Atkins throw himself off of the bridge. Armed with a little better list of questions the local boys went back to both sets of parents and discovered that they had been informed that something was going on with Mr. Atkins, and they need to go to a certain address at a certain time to help him. The person that informed them of this was none other than the former Mrs. Atkins, who claimed she got that information from a ‘friend’. At this point the local boys were beginning to think they had a case that might take precedence over the drugs. They were starting to think that our Mr. Atkins may have had a little help throwing himself off of that bridge.

“As a new round of questioning started, Mr. Grayson, who appeared to be smarter than the other two, probably why he was the leader …” Mike glanced up at us, “a point you two might want to remember every once in a while …“ (Both Tina and I rolled our eyes slightly as we were never allowed to forget who the boss was, but not in a bad way either.) “… started negotiating with the DEA and the local boys that he had a whole lot of interesting information to share that would not only give them the drug operation but also a human trafficking network that was operating throughout the US.

“Needless to say, everyone was pretty interested in this newest piece of information and were more than willing to ‘flip’ Mr. Grayson. At the end of the negotiations Mr. Grayson agreed to plead guilty to a reduced drug charge and accept a 4 to 7 stay in our nice Federal Penitentiary in return for immunity on anything he might tell them about the human trafficking operation. As it turns out, that was the best deal he probably made in his life, and as they say, Mr. Grayson sang like a birdie.”

Mike shuffled some pages around looking for something specific.

“I don’t think we are too interested in the drug stuff so, ah, here it is. Mr. Grayson told a story about an organized network that looked for transsexuals, or guys that could be turned into shemales, had the right body type, stuff like that. Those selected were to be used for a worldwide prostitution ring that catered to a select audience with very selective tastes. According to Mr. Grayson, this was not volunteer recruiting, as the clientele tended to be mostly interested in S&M, bondage, rape and other hideous activities. He admitted that he had done some recruiting for this organization and had been paid handsomely for three prospects that he had been able to ‘recruit’.

“Mr. Grayson was asked specifically about Steven Atkins, and he gleefully told a very interesting story. Now, I think to fully understand this you need a little more background on Atkins. He was 20 years old at the time, with a wife and a 1 year old daughter. The Atkins’ had to struggle to get two nickels to rub together, as our Mr. Atkins was working nights in a convenience store while he attended Law school during the day. All of the information collected by the police seemed to indicate that Atkins’ family was very important to him, and he would do just about anything to take care of them. According to Grayson, Atkins’ wife was being overcome with the stress in their lives and started buying recreational medication from Lamberton, Grayson’s partner.

“Since money was in short supply, in the Atkins household, Mrs. Atkins negotiated another way to pay for her recreational medication. Mr. Lamberton so much enjoyed that form of payment that he would regularly visit Mrs. Atkins at night when Mr. Atkins was at work. Soon Mrs. Atkins and Mr. Lamberton decided they wanted to make their arrangement more permanent, but there was this problem, called a husband.”

“I am afraid I know where this is going.” I sighed.

“Now, don’t be a spoiler.” Mike grinned “Tina may not have seen the movie yet. Since our Mr. Atkins was not considered to be a super masculine man, Lamberton thought there may be a solution to their problem. After Lamberton, Grayson and Mrs. Atkins discussed for a while, a plan was hatched.

“Based on the stories collected by the police, Mr. Atkins was always very sensitive about his lack of masculine traits. As such, he ate a steady diet of those multiple pill and vitamin packs that promised to build muscle and create a lean, mean body. Grayson had been given some drugs by the trafficking organization that he could use to ‘recruit’ possible candidates. Mrs. Atkins started slipping various combinations of these drugs into Mr. Atkins vitamins on a daily basis. Soon, our Mr. Atkins was experiencing blackouts in which long periods of time would elapse, of which, he had no memory.

“During these blackout periods, Mr. Atkins’ loving wife, along with Mr. Lamberton, were dressing him as a woman and arranging sexually compromising scenes for him that were photographed and videotaped.

“How could that happen?” I asked, unbelieving.

“Easy” Tina responded “My husband says there are drugs out there that will make you forget which planet you are on, and anyone can reprogram you to think whatever they want you to think”

“Especially, if you don’t know you are taking them.” Mike added. “Our experts say this story so far is quite plausible, as someone that did not know they were being drugged and given the messages would actually start believing that these were their own thoughts. Anyway, back to our story.

“Grayson was sending these pictures and tapes to his contact in the trafficking organization to see if they had any interest in his newest ‘recruit’. Grayson’s contact, Anne, responded they did have an interest, so Grayson arranged to have Atkins experience another blackout and be delivered to Grayson’s house for a ‘party’, and also arranged for Atkins parents to see him there.”

“Oh, this is starting to sound pretty sick,” Tina commented.

“Grayson said Anne offered him $75,000 for Atkins, and an additional $50,000 for another transsexual named Vicky Wilson. The next day, Mr. Atkins jumped off the bridge and disappeared forever, or at least until we found him.”

“Oh God,” I sighed. “So this poor bastard never knew what hit him.”

“So it seems.” Mike continued. “Grayson gave the cops Anne’s cell phone number and they had Grayson call her and set up a meet. Something went wrong and she never showed. When they tried to have Grayson call her back the number had been disconnected. An attempted trace on the first call showed she was out of the country. Mr. Grayson was serving out his time when someone cut off his gonads and stuffed them down his throat. The coroner was not sure if he bled out before he choked to death or not. Either way, it seemed this Anne was not too happy with being sold out. Mr. Lamberton is serving 10 to 15 for narcotics distribution, and Mrs. Lamberton is currently serving 5 to 10 for the same thing.”

“What happened to the daughter?” Tina asked

“She was given to Atkin’s parents. I need to tell you two,” Mike continued, “this has become a much hotter case. Once our fingerprints hit the system I started getting calls from Colorado and Justice in D.C.. Colorado had never been able to prove the Lambertons were part of the trafficking activity. There was no evidence to back up Grayson’s story. They would very much like to talk to Atkins, and hear his story. Justice is very hot on this slavery ring that Grayson talk about. In either case I don’t think we are going to be able to keep your victim’s secret for much longer.”

Mike closed the folder and set in on my desk. “Both of you read all the details. As of today I am pulling everything else off of your plate, and our ‘Desert Princess’ is your only job. I will be assigning two junior agents to you for protection detail and other activities that you need. You are to stay close to Atkins and get everything you can get.”

Mike leaned back in his chair and paused for a moment “Before I go much further, I need to ask you a question Dan.”

“OK, shoot.”

“I have no idea what Atkins is going to be if he wakes up, a boy, a girl or somewhere in between. I need to know if you can deal with this and keep your personal issues out of it.”

I was taken aback by the question and started to get angry, but quickly understood the concern. This was important, and I couldn’t let my personal issues interfere. The bigger question was could I do it? “I can handle this Mike.” At least I hoped so.

Mike looked at me for a few minutes as if trying to read my mind. “Okay, I will take your word for it. I have run this case by our Psychiatric people and they think this is going to be a slow process. If the same methods were used on Atkins after he was taken, when he wakes up he will probably not know who or where he is. He may still believe whatever garbage has been fed to him over the past 3 years. There is also a strong chance of memory loss.

“Opinion is this Dr. Rienfelt here in Tucson is probably one of the best available, and the folks in Washington have made a special request to have her assigned to the case. We have sent a copy of the case file to her this afternoon. You will work with her, and understand there will be some doctor/patient issues, but I have been told Rienfelt is smart enough to work around them without compromising either side. Again, the Desert Princess is your responsibility. Any questions?”

Yeah, I had a ton of them but none that could really be answered here. I looked at Tina and she shook her head.

“Good,” Mike said standing up. “Then I am heading home, as I have a dinner date tonight. Please keep me in the loop.”

“Say hi to Mom for me,” I said as Mike left the room.

“That I can do.” And he was gone.

“You really think you can do this?” Tina asked.

I did not get upset with Tina. She had listened to me more than enough to have the right to question me. “I may need you to check me once in a while, but yea, I can do this.”

Sunday August 24, 2008
After Mike left on Thursday, the balance of Thursday afternoon and Friday morning turned into a political circus. None of the Tucson law enforcement community was thrilled that the FBI was stepping in and managing the case, and they would, for the most part, be out of the picture. There were a number of pretty high level phone calls between Tucson and Phoenix along with Washington and Virginia. In the end, an agreement was reached that we, Tina and I, would hold a weekly conference with the leaders of the various local agencies and keep them abreast of what we learned and what actions were planned.

The majority of the day was spent passing off cases to other people and playing phone tag with the hospital. Tina and I wanted to meet with Dr. Rienfelt, and it looked like it would have to be the next week. A little after noon two new agents from the Phoenix office arrived as part of our small protection team. Agent Dale Zimmer was a 23 year old, fresh from the academy, 6’ 190, brown haired newbie. Stacy Stanton was a 24 year old, 5’7” blond who had a couple of years support experience, but no field time. The four of us spent most of the afternoon in Tina’s and my office discussing how we were going to stay with Atkins 24/7 and other facts of the case. Dale said he would prefer to work nights, because the hospital would be at a slower pace and it would be easier for him to keep track of who was coming and going. Besides, he argued that if Atkins was to wake up it would probably be better for Stacy to be with her during the day. I was not sure I agreed with all of that, but figured we could start there and adjust as necessary.

Later that afternoon Dale headed off to his hotel to get some sleep. He would relieve Stacy at 9:00 that night. Since they had not been on the case for long they volunteered to work the weekend and then we could make other arrangements for relief over the next week. Tina and I decided to call it an early week and headed home.

Around 8:30 in the morning I was sitting on my back patio having my second cup of coffee and pondering what to do with the day. With Dale and Stacy on hospital duty there was not much for me to do. I needed to get out to the police range and complete my annual qualification with my service weapon, but was not all that sure today was the day. I had just taken a sip of my coffee with my cell phone rang. The caller ID was Tina.

“Yes my Queen.” I answered.

“Haul your ass to the Hospital,” came the response. “Our Princess woke up this morning.”

I was already moving before I realized it. “When? Any issues?”

“Don’t know the exactly when. Dale did a bed check at 3am with the night nurse and she was still out. Stacy relieved him this morning at 8:00 and when she checked on Atkins, she was awake.”

I had my phone pinched between my shoulder and my ear as I stripped my shorts and jumped into a pair of jeans. “Anything said?”

“According to Stacy, she didn’t say anything, even when addressed by the nurse. If she woke up during the night she did not move or call out, just lay there.”

“Okay, I will be there in 30 minutes.” I hung up the phone.

Fortunately I had already showered for the morning so I grabbed a polo shirt, boots, weapon and badge and headed for the door. Tina had taken our service car home for the weekend, so I went to the garage and fired up the Corvette and headed out.

By time I had reached the ICU Tina had already arrived. Entering the outer isolation room I found Tina talking with a fairly tall, very good looking blonde either in her late 30’s or early 40’s. The blonde was about 5’9” with hair just reaching her shoulders. She was very shapely, wearing blue jeans and a yellow and blue striped blouse with low heeled dress shoes. Force of habit, but I also noticed she was not wearing rings, either.

Tina saw me enter and motioned to the Blonde.

“Agent Dan McNeil, Dr. Paula Rienfelt.”

The blonde turned toward me, “Dr. Rienfelt,” I greeted, extending my hand.

“Paula, please,” Dr. Reinfelt responded, taking my hand. “May I call you Dan?”

“Of course. What is happening?” I released her hand and moved to look in the window.

“Actually,” Paula continued “nothing yet. Our Patient apparently woke up somewhere between 3:00am and 8:00am this morning. “

As Paula was talking I was looking at the center of all this attention. Sitting in a mostly upright position was the face I had seen a picture of almost 2 weeks ago. What I saw looked so feminine that I had a hard time picturing the victim as anything but a girl. The Atkins had long wave of reddish brown hair pulled over the left shoulder which reached just below the bust line. Let me tell you it was an impressive bust line as well. The face was definitely feminine, with slightly enlarged lips. I could not see the Atkins’s eyes, that appeared to be focusing on his hands. Atkins body was completely unmoving.

“According to Stacy,” Tina picked up, “she hasn’t said a word since we found her awake. The nurse raised her bed slightly and offered her some water, but received no response. They have tried speaking to her and asking her name, but she just sits in that position like neither of them were there.”

“Okay.” I could not take my eyes off of him just sitting there. “So what is the battle plan?”

“As Tina and I were discussing, I would like to do all the questioning this morning,” Paula explained.

That got my attention and I turned to face them. “I am not sure that will work.”

“Dan,” Tina cut in, “I think the Paula makes a lot of sense here. We don’t know what her mental state will be, and we need to be careful we don’t push too far until we understand that. You and I are not trained to deal with these types of situations, and Paula is.”

“We don’t know a lot more than we do now,” Paula picked up right behind Tina. “We don’t know if she identifies and as ‘she’ or a ‘he’. We don’t know how much mental damage has been done. We don’t know if we are going to fight any trust issues or residual programming. I have read your files, I have spoken to your experts and we are all in agreement that we need to make these first steps very slow to avoid further damage.”

As I listen to them I remember Mike telling us that this could be a slow process, and the FBI experts agreed there was risk in pushing too fast. Not being an expert here, and with people afraid I will have problems with this case; I figured the best thing for me to do would be to take a back seat and observe. I could step in later if necessary.

“Alright, I think I understand. What do you want to do?”

“All three of us will go in there, and I would like you and Tina to stay against the far wall. If possible, sit down. I don’t want any kind of threatening atmosphere to develop. I will go sit on the bed and try to talk to her. I already have a set of questions that I would like to try, and if possible get a clearer picture on how much she remembers, how much she knows and what kind of damage we are dealing with.”

“Has Gibson been in this morning?” I asked.

“Yes.” Paula answered “He prescribed a course of Methadone, as she is already showing signs of withdrawals.”

Looking first at Paula and then Tina, I could not think of anything to add. “Okay, let’s do it.”

I opened the door to the inner room and held it for Tina and Paula. Tina and I walked over to a couple of chairs, while Dr. Rienfelt went straight to the bed. Stacy was sitting in a chair next to the bed. I watch Atkins through this entire maneuver, and never saw an eye movement or body movement that what would indicate he even knew we were there. Paula walked up to the right hand side of the bed, smoothed the blanket on the edge and sat down of the edge of the bed.

“Hi.” Paula started. “My name is Paula. Can I ask your name?”

Atkins just sat there looking down at his hands, making no movements or sounds.

Paula reached her hand out and laid on Atkins’s hands, very gently “Can you hear me? Can I have your name?”

The room was completely silent as everyone waited. Then I heard a soft, feminine voice.

“Where am I?”

That voice was a surprise. I don’t think I was expecting the bass singer from the ‘Statler Brothers,’ but I wasn’t expecting that, either. Atkins could hear us, understand us and speak. He was also shaking very badly. After seeing his hand move I studied the rest of his body and could easily see the shoulders shaking as well.

“You are at the University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona,” Paula answered.

“How did I get here?”

“You were found in the desert and brought here for medical care,” Paula continued. “Do you know who you are?”

Atkins sat quietly for a few moments “I’m called Stephanie.”

“Hi Stephanie, it is good to meet you,” Paula greeted with a light pat on her hands.

“Are you going to send me back to Mistress Anne?”

“No, Honey, you will be staying here where you are safe,” Paula answered.

Atkins lifted his head and looked at the rest of us. I saw a pair of blue-green eyes that would look pretty if they were not so red.

“Who are they?” Atkins asked

“They are with the FBI. The lady sitting closest to you is Stacy, and over there,” pointing at us, “Is Dan and Tina. They are here to make sure you are safe.”

“Hi, Stephanie” Stacy said, leaning forward in her chair.

“Stephanie,” Paula started “Do you know a Steve Atkins?”

Atkins lowered his head looking back at his hands and slowly shook his head.

“What is the last thing you do remember?” Stacy asked, and earned a not so nice, glance from Paula.

“Miguel came to get me from the room,” Atkins answered. “He said I had work to do this morning, but I couldn’t walk, my leg hurt too much. Miguel pulled me out of my bed and pushed me out the door. I felt dizzy and if fell. I don’t remember anything after that.”

“You had a heart attack,” Stacy explained, “The doctors have fixed your leg and you will be okay”

Atkins lifted his head and looked right at Stacy “Is it really over?”

Stacy stood up and walked over to the bed and laid a hand on Atkins shoulder. “Yes, Stephanie, it is over. You are with us now, and you are safe.”

Atkins laid his head back on the pillows looking at the ceiling “Oh God, oh God.”

I could see tears rolling down his cheeks as he lay there. I was having a real hard time fathoming what he had gone through. From the information that we had, none of this was of his own free will. Something inside of me was hurting for him. I have always had sympathy for the victims, but something was different here, and so was what I was feeling.

Both Stacy and Paula tried asking more simple questions over the next half hour without much success. Atkins’s memory was pretty much limited to his last 3 days in captivity. Stacy stayed with Atkins while Paula, Tina and I had a conference with Doctor Gibson.

Monday, September 1, 2008
Not much has changed in our investigation of the past week since Atkins woke up. The doctors have been playing a tap dance with Atkins’ medication while trying to treat the injuries but also work through the heroin withdrawal. Atkins has good days and bad days but there was some level of relationship growing between Atkins and Stacy that seems to be helping. Having Stacy there gave Atkins someone to lean on during the bad days, and to celebrate with during the good days. The hospital decided that we could move Atkins out of ICU, but wanted him to stay in the hospital for now. There were no private rooms available, so the FBI negotiated one of the extended stay convalescent rooms the hospital maintains.

We did have a problem with Dale Zimmer on the night shift. Atkins was having a bad day and woke during the night to find another man in his room. Atkins threw a fit, saying that he did not want a man around him and we had to pull Zimmer off of the detail. With Atkins’ move to the extended stay room, Stacy volunteered to stay with him until other arrangements could be made. I didn’t think this was a good idea having a female agent stay in a man’s room. Tina, Paula and Stacy keep pointing out to me that Atkins was not a man, okay, whatever. That was still not a theory I was subscribing to but I was overruled, so Stacy was staying with Atkins.

One good thing that has come out of Stacy’s and Atkins’ building relationship is some better pictures. Stacy’s relationship with Atkins seems to be centered on hairstyles and makeup. Of course, my opinion of this was overruled, as Paula argued that anything we could do to improve the trust that we had with Atkins would pay longer term benefits. Stacy brought some makeup and stuff to Atkins’ room this past week and the two of them spent a day making themselves ‘look beautiful’. Then Stacy took pictures of Atkins with brushed hair and full makeup. The new pictures increased my confusion even more. There was no way the subject of these pictures was male. I just could not get my mind around that. Without anyone knowing it, I emailed a couple of the pictures to my personal account.

Today, Tina and I were heading to the hospital for a conference with Gibson and Reinfelt. We had just left the weekly update meeting with the Mayor and the rest of the law enforcement heads, but wanted to talk to the doctors about any way to speed up Atkins’ memory recovery. We went directly to Paula’s office and Dr. Gibson was already there.

“Tina, Dan, come on in.” Paula greeted us. “How did the meeting go?”

“Same political crap.” Tina responded.

“Yeah,” I added, “it is hard to convince our beloved Mayor that he can’t have a photo op with a dead person.”

Both Gibson and Reinfelt smiled while I took a chair. Tina stopped at the empty chair next to me, picked it up and moved it across the room before setting it down and sitting.

“Is there a problem here?” Paula asked with a puzzled look.

“We had a little disagreement on the way here,” I said, trying to wave off the discussion.

“Yeah,” Tina exclaimed “My tenderhearted partner there wants to pump Stephanie full of ‘truth serum’ drugs or something to get to her memories. I can’t believe you Dan.”

I raised my hands in defense. “I was just throwing out some ideas is all.”

Tina slapped her notebook into her lap. “She has suffered enough from drugs. That is the last thing we should do.”

“Take it easy, you two.” Paula interjected. “Let’s talk about our options here.”

Everyone was quite for a moment then Tina addressed Gibson “Doctor Gibson, do you mind if I ask for an update on Stephanie’s medical condition?”

“Sure,” Gibson responded while shuffling some papers in his lap. “First, let’s talk about the heroin addiction. We appear to be past the worst of it and she seems to be having an easier time each day. There will be some latency effects. but I think the worst is behind us. We are already starting to lower the rest of her medication so we don’t create any new problems to replace the old.

“Her leg seems to be healing quite well and she has increased mobility on it each day. We plan to start increasing the physical therapy sessions this week.”

It was true, Atkins had been up and walking. Where they found a pair of 3” heeled slippers I will never know, but they did.

“All in all,” Gibson continued “I think she is doing remarkably well.”

“So, what can we do to improve his memory?” I asked.

Gibson looked at me for a moment “Agent McNeil, I can’t help but notice that you continue to refer to Stephanie as a ‘he’, while everyone else refers to her as a ‘she’. Do you have an issue with that?”

“Everyone has their own opinion, Doctor,” I responded.

“Okay,” Paula interrupted, “let’s move on and talk about what our options are that don’t involve drugs.”

Tina gave me a smug look. I stuck my tongue out at her, which earned me a small smile and a shake of her head.

The four of us debated the options for about an hour. Just letting things go their natural course was not an approach I agreed with. If our theories were correct, there were still victims out there that we needed to think about, along with Atkins. Some level of risk needed to be taken. The meeting closed with an agreement, though with some hesitation, that Paula would try hypnosis on Atkins to see if any memories could be unlocked. Everyone agreed that we would wait until Thursday to give Atkins a little more recovery time and maximize his strength.

Thursday, September 4, 2008
Tina and I were sitting in Dr. Paula Rienfelt’s office discussing the coming hypnosis session. Paula informed us that we could not be present during the session as we would cause a distraction. Tina, Stacy and I would have to wait across the hall in the waiting room, and for patient confidentiality reasons; we couldn’t have a microphone in the room, either.

We had been waiting about a half of an hour when there was a soft knock at the door and Stacy led Atkins into the room. Atkins was still wearing a hospital gown, but it was covered in a terry cloth bath robe. Atkins was wearing makeup and his hair was brushed out nicely. That would be one good looking woman if I didn’t know it wasn’t a man.

Stacy led Atkins to a chair and then sat beside him.

“Stephanie,” Paula started “Today we would like to try a little hypnosis to see if we can help you with your memories. Is that alright with you?”

We had discussed this. and Paula was firm that we need to get Atkins’ cooperation for this to be successful. I really didn’t care if we had his cooperation or not, I needed information.

Atkins looked at Stacy, who nodded to her. “I guess, Paula, if you think it would help.”

Paula smiled “We think it will help, and we would like to try it now.”

Atkins nodded his head. Tina, Stacy and I started to get up to leave the room. Atkins reached out for Stacy’s arm.

“Can’t Stacy stay?” Atkins asked.

“Stephanie,” Stacy answered, “You need to be alone with Paula. I will be right across the hall with Tina and Dan.”

Atkins considered for a moment and let go of Stacy’s arm. The three of us left the room, closing the door behind us. I was surprised to find a gurney and three hospital orderlies standing in the hall. When questioned, they said that Dr. Rienfelt had requested they be present just in case they were needed. I was puzzled by that as I thought this would be a pretty mellow session. I was wrong.

While we were waiting, Stacy was explaining to us what she had learned about Atkins and what her opinions were. According to her, Atkins was really struggling with the memory loss, and really wanted to know who he was. Atkins and Stacy had spent hours talking about it and trying to jog memories to no avail. The only thing that we really got out of him over the past couple of weeks was he, as well as the other ‘girls’ were used to make various kinds of videos. That piece of information was forwarded to our cybercrime division to see if there could find anything on the web. In my mind, I was picturing a bunch of guys sitting is a dark room watching porn videos all day, and getting paid for it.

We had been waiting for a little less than an hour when the quiet of the hospital wing was shattered with the blood curling scream of a woman. All three of us jumped to our feet. Tina and I drew our service weapons, but we were not sure where the scream came from. At that instant Dr. Rienfelt opened her office door and frantically signaled to the orderlies that were waiting outside. The orderlies entered the office just seconds before Tina and I got there. Once we entered, we saw Atkins curled up in a fetal position on the floor sobbing uncontrollably. One of the orderlies, along with Paula, was trying to console Atkins, but not appearing to have any effect. Stacy rushed past us, pushed the orderly out of the way and pulled Atkins into her arms. Atkins appeared to recognize Stacy and instantly wrapped his arms around her. Stacy told the orderlies to bring the gurney in. One of the orderlies came back with a hypodermic that he said was a sedative, ordered by Gibson in advance.

The sedative was administered; Atkins was loaded on the gurney and was taken back to her room, accompanied by Stacy. Tina and I stayed to talk to Paula.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded, maybe too forcefully.

Paula dropped exhaustedly into her chair. “I really don’t know.”

“What can you tell us?” Tina asked

“Well,” Paula started, “I got her under, and thought I would start off by taking her back to before all of this started. I asked her what her name was and she told me Steven Jay Atkins. We proceeded forward with her telling me about their daughter being born and going to school. When we got up to the timeframe where things would have started happening, she started to get very anxious. We started talking about the blackouts that she’d had and that is where things went to hell and you saw the after affects. I will have to take some time to think through this.”

Paula was pretty shaken, and was not interested in talking to us anymore. She said she needed to get home and have some quiet time. Tina and I stopped by Atkins room on the way out and Stacy met us in the hallway.

“She is sleeping right now,” Stacy said. “She really didn’t say anything to me on the way or after we got here. She did keep mumbling ‘this can’t be real, this can’t be real’, but that is all I got.”

We discussed it for a while longer and realized nothing else was going to happen today. Tina and I headed back to the office and called Mike Holiday and gave him an update on what had happened. Mike kind of jumped my case for pushing things too fast. I got defensive with him and told him that even if the hypnosis thing was my idea, there were three other people that could have vetoed it and didn’t. I lay awake that night wondering if it was all my fault.