“You can remain at home for your sick leave, instead of showing up here,” Mancuso said, her dark eyes focusing on Zoe. “After this meeting, I want you to get straight home. If I see you here before next week, I’ll fire you.”
Zoe’s eyes narrowed. The threat was supposed to scare her into submission, but instead, it just made her angry. “Chief, Rod Glover is—”
“I don’t want to hear it right now,” Mancuso said. She sat down wearily, spent. “Get out of here, both of you.”
Tatum stood up and left.
Zoe hesitated, then said, “Agent Gray didn’t—”
“I’m not blind, Zoe,” Mancuso said, her voice low. “I know what just happened here, and I know what Gray did and didn’t do. Now get out.”
She left, closing the door behind her. She ran after Tatum, her stitches screaming in protest as she did so. “Tatum.”
He turned around and smiled weakly at her. “Well, that wasn’t so bad.”
“Why did you tell her it was your fault?” Zoe asked, furious. “I’m the one who went to the crime scene alone, and I’m the one who didn’t tell Martinez anything. It was my fault.”
“Yeah, it was,” Tatum said, folding his hands. “So what?”
Zoe stared at him. She had actually expected him to argue a bit. Still, it really was her fault. “You’re already known as a problematic agent. What if—”
“I’m a problematic agent with some nice commendations in his file,” he said. “You’re a civilian consultant, taking a position many think should be given to an agent. Who do you think has a better chance of being fired?”
“Mancuso wouldn’t—”
“Mancuso is under a huge amount of pressure,” Tatum said. “I don’t know what she would or wouldn’t do. Anyway, you tried to tell me. I should have listened. Though, damn it, I wish you’d tried harder.”
“Yeah,” Zoe said. Her head was beginning to hurt. Her shoulders slumped. “I think I’ll go home.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“No, thanks. I’ll just get a cab.”
An invisible weight dragged Zoe down as she walked into her apartment. She closed the door behind her and then simply gazed at it for several seconds, her mind blank. She wasn’t sure what she planned to do for the rest of the day or even for the next ten minutes. In fact, the last seventy-two hours had been mostly made up of small actions, one following the next. It had been easy, since most of the time she’d had doctors or nurses to tell her where to go, when to eat, and when to sleep. Later, it was Tatum who had gently guided her to the airport and the plane. And that morning, she’d gone back to work because . . . what else was there to do?
But Mancuso had made things clear. She didn’t want Zoe in the office that week. Zoe didn’t know if it was really because she had sick leave or because Mancuso hoped people would forget about the Chicago debacle. Was Tatum right? Would Mancuso really fire her? There would be a certain closure to it. Rod Glover was the one who’d made Zoe turn to forensic psychology, and he would be the one to terminate her short-lived career at it. It made her sick to think how much control the twisted bastard had over her life.
Come to think of it, it literally made her sick. She stumbled to the bathroom and threw up what little food she had in her stomach. Then, seeing as she was already in the bathroom, she figured she might as well shower. She had showered when she’d gotten home in the middle of the night, then again in the morning before work, but another shower wouldn’t hurt.
She took off her clothes, discarding them in the corner of the room, and turned on the water, setting the temperature to something just below boiling lava. The current felt good as it washed over her back and neck, though it stung as it hit her cut shoulder. She grabbed the soap and began a thorough cleansing of her body.
After a minute, she realized she was scrubbing the same areas over and over again. Her lower stomach, her upper left thigh.
She could still feel Glover’s fingers pawing there, struggling with her zipper, his palm sliding for a second into her pants, scraping her thigh. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her rushing pulse. She was a psychologist, and she knew the symptoms as they hit her. Just a brief moment of anxiety. There was no need to lose her cool over this. She put the soap away. Shampooed her hair, wincing as her hand brushed against the bruise on her forehead. Then, after washing her hair, she stared at the tiles in the shower, taking deep breaths.
When Andrea swung the bathroom door open half an hour later, Zoe was still in the shower, sitting on the floor sobbing, the water running. Andrea rushed to her side, turned off the water. Then she wavered helplessly, finally getting Zoe’s towel.
“Come on,” she said, helping Zoe get up. She wrapped Zoe in the towel and began rubbing it against her.
“I can dry myself,” Zoe spat angrily. Andrea took a step back and waited.
“Would you mind waiting outside?” Zoe asked. It irked her that her sister had that worried look on her face.
“Tell you what,” Andrea said. “Why don’t you go lie down while I make some lunch?”
“Fine.”
She wiped her feet on the shower rug, then walked to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. She was furious at herself, letting Andrea find her like that. She finished toweling her body and then lay on the bed, dragging the blanket over her. She’d get dressed in a minute.
The bed slowly warmed up, and there was a comforting feeling to it. Bedsheets from her apartment in Boston, a place that felt like home. Not like this apartment, in which she had barely spent any time. She had been happy in Boston. Well, maybe not happy exactly, but content. Why had she moved here? She knew no one here, most of the people she worked with resented her, and Andrea hated Dale City, no matter what she claimed. Maybe they could just go back to Boston. She could try to open a private clinic or work in a school.
The bedroom door opened.
“Where do you keep your eggs?” Andrea asked.
“In the fridge.”
“There are no eggs there.”
“I guess I’m out of eggs, then.”
Andrea sighed and closed the door.
Zoe shut her eyes. She could probably just sleep. She hadn’t slept during the flight, had had only two or three hours of sleep before going to work. Wasn’t that what she was supposed to do? Rest?
Instead she got up, rummaged in her closet, and found a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of sweatpants. The shirt had once been white, but Zoe hadn’t been careful when she’d washed it with a red dress, and now it was a washed-out pink. A pair of underwear, no bra, because the hell with that. Then she put on the pants and the shirt and padded out. Andrea was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a small salad, an omelet frying on the gas stove.
“I thought I was out of eggs,” Zoe muttered.
“You are. I borrowed four eggs from your neighbor. She’s really nice.”
“I’m not even sure what she looks like,” Zoe said, sitting down. “I think I only met her twice.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Andrea said. She took the frying pan off the gas and distributed the omelet onto two plates. She handed one to Zoe and put the other across the table for herself.
“Thanks,” Zoe said. It looked amazing. Andrea had fried the omelet with basil and sprinkled some cheddar in it. She put a dollop of cream cheese next to it, as well as a nice portion of the salad.
“You should buy olive oil,” Andrea said. “It would really improve the salad.”
Zoe cut a piece of omelet and speared it on the fork. She added some cream cheese and ate it, closing her eyes and breathing through her nose. The hot egg and the cool cheese rolled across her tongue, feeling sublime.
“Hahtishsho good,” she said, her mouth full.
“When did you last eat a normal meal?” Andrea asked.
She’d hardly eaten anything for breakfast and had had something tasteless in the airport, and before that, it had been two days of hospital food. “A long time ago.”
“Next time you feel like crying in the shower, maybe grab a bite first,” Andrea suggested.
Zoe teared up.