The Consultant

I don't shake hands.

People take it personally until I explain. Then they take it worse.

My office is designed for distance. Desk pushed against the far wall. Client chair bolted to the floor twelve feet away. Video screen for the consultations I prefer, the ones where no one can accidentally brush my arm while reaching for their coffee.

The Bureau pays me to see what they can't. They just don't know the real cost.

"Dr. Ashby." SAC Preston's face fills my monitor. Gray hair, gray suit, the kind of face that had never once delivered good news. "We have a situation."

We always have a situation. That's why they call.

"I'm listening."

"Agent Weston Everett. Fifteen-year veteran, exemplary record. Five days ago, his partner was found dead in a warehouse off the docks. Everett was discovered unconscious at the scene."

I pull up the case file he's sending. Crime scene photos. Blood spray patterns. A woman's body, blonde hair matted with red.

Sarah Chen, 34. Agent. Mother of one.

"What do you need from me?"

"Everett has no memory of the attack. Claims complete amnesia from approximately 8 PM until he woke in the hospital."

"Useful amnesia."

"That's the problem." Preston's mouth flattens into a line. "Either he's guilty and blocking, or he's innocent and someone attacked them both. We can't determine which without knowing what happened."

I scroll through the photos. The partner's wounds are defensive. She fought back against someone she knew, the angles suggest close range, personal. Everett was found with blood on his hands, but no wounds except a bruise on his temple.

"You want me to read him."

"He's requested it. Volunteered for psychic evaluation."

That's unusual. Guilty people avoid me. They've heard what I can do, how I pull memories through skin like pulling thread from a spool. They know there's no hiding from a touch.

"He volunteered?"

"Demanded, actually. Says he needs to know what happened. Either to clear his name or..." Preston pauses. "Or to confirm he killed his partner."

I study Sarah Chen's face in the crime scene photos. She looks surprised. Whatever happened, she didn't expect it.

"Video conference isn't sufficient for this."

"I know. He's on his way to you now."

A cold weight settles behind my ribs. I have protocols for in-person meetings. Careful choreography of space and distance. But willing subjects are rare, most people don't want their secrets examined.

"How long?"

"He should be arriving..." A knock at my door. "Now."

I close the video feed. Back to my desk. Position myself behind the barrier of wood and technology.

"Come in."

The door opens.

Weston Everett is taller than his file photos suggested. Dark hair with silver threading through the temples. The kind of face that carries weight, not handsome exactly, but the kind of face you kept returning to. Weathered in a way that suggested experience rather than age. He moves like former military, controlled but coiled.

His hands are bruised.

"Dr. Ashby." He doesn't step inside. Waits at the threshold like he's asking permission. "Thank you for seeing me."

"Agent Everett. Take the chair."

He walks the twelve feet without comment. Sits where I've positioned him. Keeps his hands visible on his knees.

Smart. He's been briefed on what I do.

"You know why you're here."

"I know what you can do." His voice is steady but rough. The voice of a man who hasn't slept in days. "I need you to look."

"At what, specifically?"

"The night Sarah died." He doesn't flinch from the words. "I don't remember anything after dinner. I need to know what happened. What I did."

"You're certain you want this? Most subjects prefer uncertainty to truth."

"I found my partner dead. I was holding her hand." His throat works. "I need to know if I killed her."

I stand. Walk around the desk. Each step closer is a risk, one accidental brush and I'll be drowning in his worst moments before I'm ready.

But this is what they pay me for. Reading the unreadable. Finding truth in the darkness of human memory.

"Give me your hand."

He extends it without hesitation. Palm up. Vulnerable.

I brace for impact. And reach out to touch him.

Contact.

I wait for the flood. The rush of images, sounds, sensations that always comes when I touch someone. Their memories crashing over me like waves, dragging me under into their worst moments.

Nothing.

I press harder. Focus. Reach with my gift toward the memories that should be right there, waiting to be pulled into the light.

Static. Silence. Dead air.

I pull back like I've been burned.

"What is it?" His voice is sharp. "What did you see?"

I look at him. At this impossible man. In twelve years of reading memories, I've never touched someone and seen nothing.

Either someone erased his memories, which means there's another psychic involved, one I've never heard of.

Or he's learned to block me. Which means he knows about people like me. Knows what we can do.

Either way, the answer is locked inside his head.

And I can't get in.