Chapter 17
At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went out to play with each other for the last time.
—Things that make me want to cry
QUAID
The day had been long, and technically my shift had just started.
I was in the room with a woman who’d survived a serial killer, and my stomach was in knots, centered wholly on the woman who should be arriving at any second.
Just the thought of her having to deal with the same thing this current victim had to experience was debilitatingly scary.
The woman, SageSolomon, currently lying in the hospital bed across from me was… broken.
There were no other words for what she was.
She was going to be scarred for life, and even worse, the killer was still out there, likely already making plans to get her back.
Because people like the man doing these hideous things didn’t just give up. They were persistent, and they would finish what they started.
Our only hope at this point was that he’d make a mistake when he tried again.
“And did you see, or hear, or maybe smell…” Tobin was questioning the girl.
I’d tried to intervene with him twenty minutes ago, noticing the woman flagging, but he’d shot me down and pulled rank.
Which had pissed me off enough that I was now in the corner watching, silently stewing.
Luckily, Tobin hadn’t tried to kick Atlas out of the room again.
The last time he’d tried, saying that he shouldn’t be here since he didn’t have enough clearance, the girl had freaked the fuck out and hadn’t been able to answer questions for a solid twenty minutes while everyone got her calmed back down.
“I don’t know,” the girl rasped in her broken, probably permanently screwed up, voice.
She’d screamed so much that she had nothing left. The doctors thought she might’ve possibly damaged her vocal cords, but only time would tell.
I saw Ellodie come into the room, and my attention was immediately caught.
She took everything in, and her shoulders stiffened.
I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.
“Everyone out. Now.”
All focus turned to her, even mine.
My eyes trailed down the length of her blue scrubs, taking in all of her many curves.
Especially when she crossed her arms over her torso, pushing her chest up.
“Sorry, but we have more questions.” Tobin turned, ready to slam Ellodie.
“I realize that.” She walked farther into the room, taking in the girl’s vital signs. “But she’s just gone through a very traumatic experience. She needs rest right now. She’ll answer your questions later, after she’s accomplished that.”
Tobin grumbled, looking like he was about to put up a protest, so I chose that moment to step in and remind him that we needed the doctors and nurses to continue to like us if we were going to continue this investigation.
“Let’s head out,” I urged my oldest friend. “We can give them an hour or so.”
Tobin crossed his arms over his chest, and then nodded, his eyes taking on this look that took years of me being in his presence to know that he respected the hell out of Ellodie’s authority.
“There’s a conference room just to the left once you leave out of the ER doors,” she suggested. “Feel free to hole up there. Once she’s recovered a bit, she might want to talk to you again.”
Everyone filed out, but Atlas only moved enough so he could hook his foot into the chair beside the bed and bring it closer to him.
He took a seat, kept the girl’s hand in his, and nodded at me, letting me know he’d bring me any information that popped up.
I left, not looking back, even though I wanted to talk to my girl.
There was a magnetic pull that had my body reaching for her despite the fact that we were both still working, and it would be inappropriate.
Goddammit, I hated being an adult sometimes.
“…though he has six plastic horses up his ass, his condition is stable.”
I paused, wondering if I’d heard the words correctly.
Turning, I looked to see if Tobin had caught it, too, and sure enough, he had.
His mouth was twitching hard.
As a police officer, I heard and saw a lot. I mean, I dealt with the dregs of life. It was inevitable that I’d have to deal with shit that was fantastical.
But the ER? The nurses and the doctors of the ER had to deal with so much worse.
Then, the doctor, I think his name was Dr. Brewn but for the life of me I couldn’t be sure, paused as he thought about what he’d just said. “I… can’t believe I just said that.”
The nurse who was staring at him with wide eyes started to snicker.
Then they were both full on laughing.
Tobin and I walked into the conference room off of the ER seconds later, taking a seat at the table as we waited for more officers and FBI to arrive.
We had a lead.
It wasn’t a very good one yet, but it was a lead, nonetheless.
“She’s something,” Tobin said as we leaned back in our chairs.
He was likely as exhausted as I was.
Probably more so since he had to deal with the type of wife that he had.
Speaking of the devil, Tobin’s phone rang, and he answered it on speakerphone without thinking.
Crissa skipped pleasantries and went right into bitching.
“You haven’t called me back! Did you leave your phone at the hospital so I would think you were there when you really went…” she began, but Tobin interrupted her. “I wouldn’t be talking to you right now if I wasn’t with my phone, Crissa.”
Crissa paused for a few long breaths before starting right in again.
“Well, that’s just convenient, isn’t it?” Crissa snarled.
I raised a brow at Tobin, and he shook his head. “I gotta go. I’m in the middle of a case. There are women out here dying, and I don’t have time to deal with your shit, or your insecurities. Grow up.”
Then he hung up, causing me to burst out laughing. “You know she’s going to never forget that, right?”
“I know.” He blew out a breath. “Maybe it’s time, man. Maybe what I need is to break it off.”
“I don’t know why you didn’t break it off years ago when she first got jealous of you being friends with me, because Ande was my sister.”
He scrubbed angrily at his face before dropping his hands and leaning his head back against the cushioned seat.
“This case…” He shook his head. “It’s really hit it home for me.”
“Why?” I asked.
He’d worked these cases before.
Nothing was new there.
“She’s been up my ass about being in Ande’s vicinity since I came here. ThenI see you talk about your girl, and I start to think about the last time I felt like that about Crissa, and I couldn’t come up with one. You’re sitting here freaking out about your girl’s safety, and all I can think about is how, if Crissa was taken by this fucked up guy, I would care about her as much as I care about that girl who just came in today. I’d be mad that shit was happening to women. I’d be upset that I couldn’t protect her. But beyond that… I would feel like she was just a duty. Just a part of my job. And then I think about how you would feel if anything happened to Ellodie, and I think you’d be well and truly fucked up.”
“I would,” I confirmed.
He looked away, composed himself, then stood up and walked to the white board.
He pulled out a marker, and then the two of us got to work brainstorming.
A few other FBI agents came in, followed by the FBI profiler.
A half hour later, the profiler said, “This man is going to be pissed. He’s going to be unable to see or think of anything else besides this girl.”
“What about Ellodie?” I questioned.
“There are two very likely scenarios,” he said. “One, he focuses on the girl who got away today. Or he decides to hyper fixate on Ellodie. Either way, he’s going to be gunning for one of them.”
“What do you think will happen, man?” Tobin asked. “Give us your best guess. I have security all over this place, but we need to catch him. Our boss is giving us four days. He says that’s all the time we can spare the men.”
The profiler studied the board for a long moment before he said, “My gut is saying he’s going to go after Ellodie first. He spent time and effort trying to get her to go out with him. They talked. He got to know her. He’s contacted her multiple times now, right?” At my nod, he continued. “According to the messages, and Sage’s account, she was with him when those latest messages came in. That signals to me that he wasn’t all in with Sage, because his focus was split.”
My stomach flipped.
“So, what do we do?” I asked, suddenly incredibly scared.
“We hope that Sage can help us,” the profiler said. “Because otherwise, we still have nothing to go on.”
Sadly, we went past the four days allotted by Tobin’s boss.
We went well past it, actually.
Weeks passed, and the only thing that changed was Sage was allowed out of the hospital, and she retreated into her apartment and didn’t come back out.
It left Ellodie the sole focus, and still, nothing happened.