Jenn saw that he was getting wound up by the memory of the voice. Gently, she laid a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back to the present. "It's okay. Calm down. Just take it easy," she said soothingly. Ray had already given her critical information. The killer was confirmed to be a guy.

"I'm sorry. I'm not helping much here, am I?" He laughed weakly.

"Actually, you did quite a good job." She smiled gently. "You're finding it so hard to recall his voice because the killer had already suppressed your memories of him when he put you in trance. It's quite impressive that you're able to break through the barrier inside your mind, but don't push yourself too hard. Let it come to you naturally."

"What if it doesn't?" Ray asked, plainly unconvinced.

"Ray, your memory of him has been suppressed for more than three years." Jenn stressed the last two words. "Being able to break through such thick barriers is already a miracle. Take it easy, okay?"

He nodded, wearing a resigned look on his face. "I suppose you can't break the trance, then?"

"I'm still trying." She gave him a tight-lipped smile. "A trance can be triggered by a touch, pressure point, or word. The trigger could also be a specific view or sound." She shrugged. "It could also be a mixture of physical, visual, and auditory factors. So it really isn't that simple to break a deep trance like yours."

"You make it sound so complicated," he muttered, seeming to be lost.

"It is complicated," she said in a lighter tone, laughing at his confused expression.

He sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "Why am I born with such a slow brain?" he said with mock anger. Then he laughed along with her, dropping the subject.

"Having a slow brain isn't that bad sometimes."

He made a weird face at her. "You think so?"

"I know so," she stated, feigning seriousness. "It's entertaining to me. That's good, isn't it?"

His eyes twinkled with amusement. "So I'm an amusement to you, huh?"

"Sure, if you prefer to interpret it in that way." She wore a playful grin, deciding to put her task aside for now. Her being Catherine around Ray wasn't really going well anyway. After all, she would always be Jenn to him, even though he knew of her new identity now, so she might as well enjoy playing Jenn around him.

Ray had his trademark goofy grin on his face as he responded, "How else would you interpret it?"

She pretended to think for a moment before saying, "Well, that's for me to know and for you to find out." She put on a smug look, knowing that he would be speechless at her reply.

Ray pursed his lips, suppressing a smile. Cocking his head to one side, he studied her closely, his blue eyes filled with curiosity. "You know, I sometimes wonder if you'll ever be truly honest with me."

"What makes you doubt my honesty?" she asked smoothly, adjusting to the sudden change in their topic.

"For starters, you are now a special agent, so I suppose that you're not allowed to give out too much info about yourself," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Next, I've noticed the way you evade my questions when it comes to talking about your life now or your thoughts and feelings about something." He wore a knowing look.

She raised an eyebrow at his reasoning, showing that she was impressed with his scrutiny. "Indeed, I have been evading some of your questions," she admitted calmly. "But I have not told you anything false about myself."

"So you do admit that you're hiding things from me," Ray stated, keeping the conversation casual.

"There's a difference between protecting one's privacy and hiding things from you," she remarked. "Some things are better left unsaid."

"True," he agreed with a nod. "Yet there's no harm in sharing some of your thoughts with me."

"True," she mimicked him. "Yet there's no point in doing so either."

He made an impatient sound, dropping his calm exterior. "Come on. I'm just being curious about you," Ray whined, pouting at her.

Something fluttered inside her. She ignored the unsettling feeling and kept calm. "What exactly are you curious about?" She could already guess his question.

He fired his question right away. "What's going on between you and Agent Warner?"

Jenn was expecting that he would ask if she and Ben were a couple, but it was close enough. She debated whether she should tell him the truth or not. In the end, she decided that a short version of the truth would be enough.

"We used to be together." She kept her tone nonchalant. "But it didn't really work out between us, so we ended it. The breaking up part got quite ugly. That's why we couldn't really get along after that." She had given him the simplest version of the truth without much detail, but she still felt a pang in her chest when she talked about it.

"Oh, sorry about that," Ray muttered with a hint of regret.

She laughed half-heartedly. "Well, don't be. I certainly don't feel sorry at all." Now that was a lie, a big fat lie. But how else was she supposed to respond to such a comment? Say that she was sorry that she had lost Ben? No way.

Just then, the front door slammed open. Jenn turned around to see Ben stalking into the kitchen with bags of groceries in his hands, his face dark. Her eyes then went to J. Lee, who stood at the doorway with a blank expression, staring after Ben and muttering, "I suggest that the briefing tonight be postponed till tomorrow morning. Give him some time to cool off first." Then J. Lee shut the door behind her and proceeded to the kitchen too.

"They heard everything, didn't they?" Ray said in a small voice.

Jenn simply groaned in response. And she'd thought that today couldn't get any worse.

~

The next morning was rather uneventful. Ben was up before anyone else was, and he went out quietly, leaving a note saying that he was out for a morning run. Jenn and J. Lee woke up next to find the note he had left on the coffee table in the living area.

"Do you think he'll be back for the briefing?" J. Lee asked after she had read Ben's note.

Jenn scrunched the paper into a ball and threw it into the bin near the couch. "Don't worry. He's not one who skips important meetings, especially when it comes to a case," she answered in an indifferent tone.

Her friend nodded and went into the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"Yes, please," Jenn said as she took out her cell phone to inform Ben when the briefing would start. She saw that she had two voice mail from the night before and one unread text message from earlier this morning. The voice mails were from Agent Turner, while the text message was from Ben.

She decided to listen to the voice mails first.

"Hi. I've just finished talking to Nick Jefferson. He said that he didn't notice that the victim was missing at the party because he was drinking with a bunch of his guy friends at the courtyard almost throughout the whole party. Talked to the friends he mentioned and his alibi checks out. I'll come back to you with more updates. Bye."

She moved on to the second one:

"Hi. So we've talked to all the people who attended the party. According to them, Nick Jefferson and Jack Giller held the party spontaneously. Most said that it wasn't a big event. It was more of a gathering than anything else. Apparently, none of them had seen the victim at the party. Possibly the killer got his hands on her before she reached the party. A few of the people who were there early said that they had seen a strange guy leaving Nick Jefferson's backyard just before the party started. Looking into the new suspect now. That's all. Goodnight."

It seemed she was right about Nick, then. A thought occurred to her suddenly, and she quickly replied with a text message:

"Give me a quick description of the new suspect. Do not speak to the suspect first. I'll be at the department in the afternoon for further discussion."

She hit the SEND button. After that, she reluctantly opened the last text message:

"You won't talk to me about what happened between us. You won't even listen to my explanation. And yet you're willing to talk to a stranger about us. All I want from you is to give me a chance to clear things up between us. Is that too much to ask?"

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. Had he not made things clear six months ago? Insulting her on the phone wasn't enough for him? Must he say it to her face to make it clear that it was over between them?

She balled her hands into fists, gripping her cell phone tightly. Did he have to be so particular about this? She had already gotten his message when he decided to cheat on her. Man, she had even heard the girl laughing at her while he repeatedly insulted her. Wasn't that obvious enough?

Uh-uh, there was no way she would let herself be humiliated again by allowing him to toy with her emotions like this. Furiously, she typed a reply:

"Ray is not a stranger. He is my friend – a good friend. As for your explanation, I don't see any point in listening to it. You already made things clear six months ago. There's no need to complicate things now. Let's just keep things the way they are right now and stop bugging me about this. Stop wasting our time and move on."

After hitting the SEND button, she threw herself on the couch and sighed exasperatedly, staring at her cell phone in annoyance.

"Your coffee."

Jenn snapped her head up from her cell phone to her friend's sudden appearance beside her. "Oh, thanks." She took the cup of coffee from J. Lee and smiled at her gratefully, putting her cell phone aside.

"You want to talk about it?" J. Lee asked as she sat down beside Jenn.

Jenn turned to give her a funny look, surprised at her friend's question. "You want to hear about it?"

"No ..." J. Lee replied, staring at the cup of tea in her hands. She turned to Jenn and made a weird face. "Not really."

Jenn chuckled lightly. "Thought so. But thanks for asking anyway." She took a sip of her coffee. Mmm, it was heavenly. "You always make the best coffee." She took another sip from her cup.

J. Lee mumbled thanks in reply before taking out her book and starting to read. The next hour went by slowly. Jenn simply sat there, drinking her coffee and enjoying the comfortable silence in the room. For once, her mind was free of disturbing thoughts about her messed-up relationship.

When it was almost seven thirty, J. Lee automatically got up from the couch and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Jenn offered to help, but her friend turned down her offer, saying that she liked to cook alone. But of course, Jenn knew that the real reason was because she wasn't much of a cook. So she went to wake Ray up instead.

Jenn knocked on the door softly before letting herself into his room. Ray slept soundly, oblivious to her presence in the room. She walked over to his bed, watching the serene expression on his face as he continued to snore lightly in his sleep.

He looked so innocent, so vulnerable. A strong wave of emotions flowed through her as she thought of his words yesterday. It must have been quite hard for him during the past few days – having to be confined to this hotel and to cope with the idea that his mind had been tinkered with.

He wouldn't even be here if it weren't for the killer. She exhaled deeply through her nose, her eyes never leaving him. She vowed to herself that she would find the trigger to break his trance. Considering the fact that his mind had been in a trance for more than three years, he would most likely experience a large magnitude of post-hypnotic amnesia when the trance was broken. He would lose most of his memories that took place while he was under hypnosis, but that would probably be the best for him.

Putting those thoughts aside, she touched his shoulder and shook him gently. "Time to wake up, Ray," she said in a hushed tone.

Ray stirred slightly, mumbling incoherent words before his breathing evened out as he slipped back into sleep.

She shook him again, inserting more force into it this time. "Come on, Ray. Get up."

He moaned sleepily. "Five more minutes."

"Uh-uh," she uttered sternly, placing her hands on her hips. "No sleeping in today. Wake up."

Ray opened his eyes blearily. "You sound like my mum," he muttered, rubbing his eyes as he sat up. Then he glanced around the room. "Where's Warner?" he asked, his voice sounding groggy.

"Morning run," she replied, trying to pat his unruly hair down. "Go wash yourself up. You look like a mess."

Groaning, he got out of bed and trudged into the bathroom. Jenn shook her head at his wobbly state and went out of the room.

In the living area, Jenn saw that Ben was already back from his morning run. He was sitting on the couch, wiping off the sweat on his face with a small towel. She was debating whether or not she should greet him when he turned and saw her standing by the doorway staring at him.

"Hey," he greeted with a hint of smile on his lips.

Jenn blinked at the absence of awkwardness between them and averted her gaze from him as she moved towards the other couch. "Hey," she replied softly, sitting down and meeting his gaze again. She searched for any sign of bitterness in his emerald-green eyes, but there was none.

"This town is really something," he said. His eyes were soft, thoughtful as they stared straight into hers. "Especially the park in the centre of the town."

"Eiry's Garden." The words came out naturally. "That's what the people in town named the park," she explained, slowly lowering her guard.

"Eiry's Garden," he mused, repeating the name. "Beautiful." There was an undercurrent of emotion in his stolid voice.

The sound of plates clattering onto the table broke the peaceful atmosphere in the living area. Blinking, Jenn broke eye contact with Ben and released a shaky breath, wondering what had caused the change in his attitude.

"Breakfast is ready," J. Lee called out from the kitchen.

Ben's eyes stayed on her for a few more moments before he stood up and went into the kitchen to help J. Lee set the table. Jenn's eyes swung to her cell phone, which she had left on the couch. She had a strong feeling that the reason to his amiable demeanour was inside her phone.

Taking her time, she reached for her cell phone. Sure enough, there was a new message from Ben. It was sent half an hour ago – long after her last reply. She bit her lower lip as she opened the text message.

"If this is what you really want, then I promise that I won't bring up anything about the past unless you broach the topic first. But I won't let it go this easily. I will wait until you're ready to hear me out."

The moment she finished reading the message, her cell phone buzzed, signalling a new text message. Jenn frowned and pushed aside the jumble of emotions inside her. Then she checked her phone and saw that it was from Agent Turner.

"We've identified the guy who was seen leaving Nick Jefferson's backyard. His name is Tom Gallner. Jefferson said that Tom had gone to his house to borrow a book, not to attend the party. According to Nick Jefferson, he also belatedly remembered that two of the colleagues he had invited didn't attend the party, Paul Tanner and James Hendricks. Looking into that now."