His absence sent her mind racing with possibilities, a strange yet grim anticipation taking ahold of her. Her last memory before waking up in the bean field had been of a house party, one like so many others before it. Could Gavin have been at that party too? She always assumed that her attackers had been boys from her school, boys at the party that night, and Gavin was far removed from that crowd. Still, something had happened up in court. There had to be a reason.

She hadn’t realized that she was holding her breath until she noticed the attribution beneath the pictures on the website: Photos courtesy of Gavin Spencer. Lila closed her eyes, breathed, and cursed to herself. Of course he wouldn’t be in any of the pictures. He was the photographer. She moved from optimism to despair in the span of a single heartbeat.

She pulled up another link where some of those same graduation pictures had been published in the local newspaper, and each carried the same attribution. Yet another link took her to the school’s yearbook, where she found Gavin in a group photo of the yearbook staff, a camera strapped around his neck.

Lila wanted to cry for letting hope bloom so easily.

But if Gavin hadn’t triggered her panic attack, then what had? He’d used GHB on Sadie, the same drug that had been used on her. Had that been what sent Lila reeling? She dismissed that notion out of hand. GHB was a popular drug among the date-rape ilk. If that was all it took to throw Lila for a loop, then she might as well hang up her prosecutorial spurs now.

Then she remembered that the panic attack didn’t start until she heard Gavin speak. Could she have been triggered by something as simple as a lisp?

She started a new query on her computer, one focused on PTSD triggers rooted where the victim had no memory. In time, she found an article that talked about triggers causing a reaction even when the person had no recollection of the original instance. If one of her attackers had had a lisp, could she have buried the memory that deeply? But as she read on, she started tripping over terms like autonoetic awareness and intrusive traumatic memories. She was out of her depth—but she knew someone who could walk her through that labyrinth.

She paused to consider whether she could go down that path.

Dr. Roberts was the best person to make sense of what was happening to her, but seeing him again would take Lila back to that year, the one that nearly killed her. Those channels in her soul that once roared with fury and pain had dried up in the eight years of his absence—or so Lila believed. Just the thought of seeing him again brought back the heaviness that she had carried to every one of those early sessions.