“Apologize?” Jordan raised a curious eyebrow at her ex-girlfriend. This wasn’t something that came easily to Bethany Roberts, FBI profiler and usually the one who thought she had everyone figured out. Bethany had wanted them to do couples counseling after the abduction. When Jordan dropped out, she continued to see the therapist. They sat down at the bar where Jordan ordered a Long Island Ice Tea, waiting for a comment that didn’t come. Bethany chose a Corona.
“Yeah, about that,” she said. “Some shrink I am. Doc made me realize something, and it really hurt.”
What do you know about hurt? You weren’t strung up by your wrists in a sadistic killer’s basement. Jordan took a sip of her drink, grateful for having enough presence of mind to keep in the retort. Whenever they tried to tackle difficult subjects, Bethany would make it all about herself, nothing new there. She had to acknowledge though that Bethany was likely to talk about a different kind of hurt.
“I’m sorry about that,” Jordan offered.
“Well…I am sorry too. I was so scared of losing you that I lost sight of what I was doing. You never talked a lot about your family, but it was enough I should have bought a clue.”
“Dear God.” This time, Jordan couldn’t hold back the first thought that sprang to mind. “Please, let’s not go there—ever. Whatever it is, you’re forgiven. Moving on.”
“I didn’t realize I was borderline abusive to you.” Bethany’s eyes glistened with tears, and it occurred to Jordan that all the alcohol in the world would not be enough to get her through the confession Bethany thought she needed to make.
“I’m so sorry, Jordan. I didn’t mean to repeat a pattern, I was just…I don’t even know. I was so mad when you had your affairs, right under my eyes, and I need you to know I didn’t mean it. Especially with where we are now.”
“It’s all right. If that was all…”
From an observer’s point of view, it was fascinating how Bethany, on purpose or not, managed to dismantle every process Jordan had made for herself. Okay, she knew that was the alcohol as well as PTSD talking, but it did take a certain level of insensitivity to bring up Jordan’s parents in this context. If familial abuse was in the picture, it often bled into adult relationships. Jordan was well aware of the patterns Bethany was talking about, but they didn’t apply to her, did they? No. Her birthparents had been neglectful to the point Child Protective Services got involved, but they never laid a hand on her. They had nothing to do with the fact that this doomed relationship had finally blown up in their faces, hers and Bethany’s—or had they?
“That’s all you have to say?” Bethany asked incredulously.
“What did you expect me to say? I dealt with all of this a long time ago. As you might remember, I have other things on my mind now.”
“Okay.”
To Jordan’s surprise and relief, Bethany relented quickly. “Okay,” she echoed. “Thank you. I appreciate this, even though the timing is pretty bad.”
“Are you sure you should be working? I heard you’re on the Hobbs case. That’s a tough one.”
Jordan took her time to answer, meanwhile wondering how her glass had gotten empty so fast, or why she felt slightly lightheaded. Most of all, she was afraid Bethany had a point. She couldn’t screw up her first big case since her abduction.
“They’re all tough ones. The shrink—no offense—said it was okay to work. I’m sorry, but frankly, I don’t want to discuss any of this with you. I’m going home now. Please, don’t call me.” Jordan got to her feet before she could change her mind and make decisions she would bitterly regret later, like having another drink, or ending up in Bethany’s bed. She might be flattering herself on the latter. Still. She needed to go home, sleep, clear her mind before dealing with Pratt the next day. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Bethany said in the tone somewhere between hurt and accusatory that was so familiar to Jordan.
She quickly said goodbye to Marcus and Derek and fled before they could ask her any questions, making a detour to the restroom on her way out. At least Bethany didn’t follow her. As she washed her hands, the door of a stall opened, and Ellie stepped outside. For a moment, the world stopped. It wasn’t just because their last interaction had left the future wide open. The last time they’d been in here together, they ended up having sex in one of the stalls.
Ellie finally moved and washed her hands in the sink, a blush to her cheeks. That might have been from the memories, or from having a few drinks with her friends earlier.
“You’re leaving already?” she asked, a hint of disappointment to her voice.
“Yes. It’s been a long day. You guys have fun.”
“Sure.” There was a hesitation on Ellie’s part, as if she intended to say something, or waited for Jordan to change her mind. She wanted to, badly, but here and now was hardly a good place to pick up the pieces. Jordan hoped Ellie would be patient with her a little while longer.
“Okay then,” she said. “I’ll see you at work.” Maybe she was misinterpreting all the signs, and she should let Ellie get on with her life, but Jordan wasn’t ready to give up all hope yet.
“Of course.” They shared a smile, and then Ellie was gone.
Jordan didn’t go home right away, like she knew she should have, and she didn’t stop drinking like she knew she should have. She drew the line at encouraging the blonde with the pixie cut two tables away who gave her the eye. Life was complicated enough at the moment, and sex was another complicated subject. Casual encounters had, in the past, seemed like an acceptable short-term solution, but now she felt uncomfortable at the idea.
Jordan hated Jonathan Darby whom she considered responsible, with a passion. She knew whatever happened during those days were only a few bones of the skeleton in her closet. Jordan had been determined not to let him define the rest of her life or choose for her whom she’d share it with. The more time passed, the harder it was to stick to that plan. She was tired, not just from the workday or a multitude of long days since she’d been back to work. It went bone-deep. Jordan had no idea how to stop it, but she was certain that her separation from Bethany was a good start—for Bethany’s sake and hers. She couldn’t even begin to sort out her growing feelings for Ellie, but as long as her life was a mess like this, she’d do her a favor by staying far, far away.
When she left the second bar of the night, the blonde gave her a half shrug as if to say “Too bad. Your loss.”
You have no idea. Jordan thought. It had to be bad when she continued to have imaginary conversations with people in her head. With a shudder, she remembered a time when that had been her only way of hanging on to her sanity. She managed to keep it together in the cab, until she was home and walked into her bedroom.
Most of the furniture came from the earlier owner who had left her home behind to start a new exciting career in Japan. This was fine with Jordan, since Bethany had bought most for the apartment they had shared together—not because Jordan didn’t want to pay for it, but because Bethany had very strict ideas about the kind of surroundings she needed.
Jordan felt so empty she was perfectly okay with a stranger’s choices, more so over those of a well-meaning and overbearing relationship partner. Ex-partner. She lay face down on the bed and started to cry, huge shuddering sobs that embarrassed the hell out of her even though no one was there to see it.
She didn’t want Bethany back. She needed to be by herself.
The ghosts never asked if their presence was welcome. Even so, Jordan fell asleep at some point, knowing they would follow her into her nightmares.
She woke five minutes before the alarm, toying with the idea of calling in sick, but decided otherwise. A hot shower, a couple of Aspirin and black coffee did patch up her condition enough to be presentable at work. Clothes. Keep it simple. Pratt was the type of guy who’d be leering as soon as a person with a pair of boobs came into his view, and considered any kind of authority, especially held by women, a challenge. She hadn’t seen the man in
a long time, but it was something she remembered.
Jordan went with black jeans and a grey turtleneck sweater. Then she took a good look at herself and cringed. She was already running too late for the kind of elaborate makeup job she would have needed to cover up the dark circles under her eyes. Did they come from yesterday’s binge, or did she not notice before?
Whatever—it was a sunny morning, so sunglasses would not be too suspicious. She just had to make it through the day.
Derek was waiting for her, parked on the curb across from the trailer park where TJ Pratt still lived. If Kathryn and Jim Larson were still around, it wasn’t in the hope of finding their daughter. They had never tried after they signed away their parental rights. It was something to be grateful about, Jordan mused.
“I thought you went home early last night,” he greeted her, his tone a mix of curiosity and concern. In all the years she’d known him, Derek had never been patronizing. Jordan hoped he wouldn’t start.
“TJ Pratt, spent all his life under this address except for when he was convicted for armed robbery and aggravated assault and did time. Shared a cell with Hobbs for about eighteen months, then was released on parole. Hobbs escaped two months later.”
“I see you don’t want me to comment on your fashionable outfit.”
“The sun is hurting my eyes,” she said wryly.
“I bet. Okay, let’s do this.”
Pratt opened the door on the fourth or fifth knock, seeming neither surprised nor fazed to find the police at his doorstep. As she could have easily predicted, he gave Jordan a thorough once over, with just a quick glance at Derek.
“I expected you earlier,” he said. “Come on in. I have nothing to hide.”
Jordan wrinkled her nose at the smell of cigarettes and booze, her stomach doing a slight flip. She noticed today’s newspaper on a stained folding table. Next to it sat a can of beer and an overflowing ashtray. Just a few minutes, she reminded herself. They’d be out of here in no time.
“I suppose you heard about your former cell mate?” Jordan asked, still looking around the confined space. Pratt didn’t offer them a seat, but she wouldn’t have sat on any surface in here anyway.
“Hobbs made a run for it,” he said matter-of-factly. “Sure. I watch the news, you know. Next you’re going to ask me if I’ve seen him.”
“Have you?” Derek cut in.
Hobbs shrugged. “You can imagine my P.O. wouldn’t be too happy about it, and I really want him to be happy. If Hobbs showed up here, I’d tell him to get the fuck away from me. I believe he’s on his way to Mexico.”
“Did he ever mention that to you while your were cell mates? Mexico, or his escape plans?” She finally made herself meet his gaze.
“Lady, I don’t know what you think it’s like on the inside, but everyone has those plans. Most of us just sit it out. I guess he wasn’t that patient.”
“So did he or didn’t he?”
Whatever he deducted from her impatient tone, it made him grin. Pratt was a far cry from the charming, intelligent predator Darby, but they had something in common all the same. The realization triggered a flight response. Jordan had enough therapy sessions under her belt to recognize it as such and not give in to the impulse to shrink away and run, but she had already shown too much.
“He might have mentioned Mexico a couple of times. See, this is the reason why you don’t listen to stuff like that. The police think you’re a witness. Guys like him think you told on them, and they come back to slit your throat. I don’t know anything, so you can just as well stop wasting your time, and mine.”
“You’re busy with what?” Derek asked.
“Didn’t you listen? I’m a good guy these days, looking for a job.” He picked up the newspaper and opened it. Indeed, there were some ads circled in the job section. Another long look to Jordan. “You better find this guy soon. He’s one sick son of a bitch, gets off on pain.”
“Really? I thought you didn’t listen to him all that much?”
“Just a fair warning, for old times’ sake.” His grin widened. “You watch yourself around Hobbs. He doesn’t like chicks who talk back to him.”
“Yeah well, thanks for that. If he tries to contact you, let us know.”
She put a card on the table, careful not the touch the surface. Pratt had noticed, amused at her behavior. He picked up the card and regarded it.
“Homicide? That’s…something.”
“Hobbs already injured two people during his escape, one of them died. We want to make sure he won’t have the chance to take more lives.” Jordan knew that was not the answer he’d been hoping for. Some things never changed. She wouldn’t let him get to her.
“Hey, I get you, this is bad. I never killed anyone.”
“Good for you,” she said, and to Derek, “Come on, let’s go.”
Derek waited until they were back in the car before he said, “What the hell was that all about?”
“Pratt used to hang out with my parents,” Jordan said with a shrug. She could tell from the baffled look Derek gave her that he didn’t quite follow.
“Somehow I have trouble seeing that.”
“A different set of parents,” she explained, thinking that the end of the day couldn’t come soon enough. “My biological ones, to be correct. When I was twelve, Child Protective Services finally realized they weren’t too great to be around, so I ended up in the system and got lucky eventually. No, Mom and Dad don’t have that kind of friends.” She laughed wryly. Derek was right. The thought that the kind-hearted quiet people that became her foster parents could be in any way associated to Pratt, was absurd. Derek had met them in the hospital in the aftermath of a time Jordan was trying hard to forget. She hadn’t called them in a while either.
However, Derek was suspiciously silent now, probably going over Pratt’s rap sheet in his mind.
“Not today, okay?” she said. “I think I’ve revealed enough for the past few days.”
At first, she thought he wasn’t going to answer to that, but he simply took his time to weigh his words.
“You don’t have to be on this case. In fact, you shouldn’t. Everyone will understand. It’s not your fault that the moment you come back, Hobbs escapes and he turns out to have some sort of connection with someone from your past.”
Jordan snorted. “He’s not from my past. I haven’t spoken to my biological parents in over twenty years, and that’s just fine with me. I’m fine.”
She might not be fine after work, or in the general sense, but Jordan was certain about one thing. She could do her job, and bring Hobbs back behind bars. That was all that counted, in her humble opinion.
* * * *
Jordan took a deep breath, content with the sensations, the scent of a familiar perfume, warm skin against hers, a strand of hair tickling her cheek. Ellie. She had missed her so much. She’d been fooling herself, thinking she could stay away from her. Her noble reasons didn’t stand the test of reality anyway. Ellie was a grown woman, and she knew what she was getting herself into, more than Jordan wished she would. The same man, who had abducted Jordan, had attacked her one night on her way home, with one difference—Ellie had gotten away. Sooner, anyway.
There was an abrupt change, turning the sweet flowery scent to something coppery, her hand touching liquid. When her eyes snapped open, instead of Ellie, she saw him, grinning at her as he shook his head.
“My, Jordan, did you really think it would be this easy?”
Jordan jolted awake, spending a few minutes on the verge of hyperventilating before the paralyzing effect of the nightmare vanished and she could breathe properly again. Certain she wouldn’t get any more sleep, she got up and walked into her kitchen where she switched on the light above the stove. She didn’t mind the silence or relative darkness that came with living outside of the city.
Darkness and silence didn’t scare her. The monsters were lurking in her mind.
You must know you were my favorite. He’d try to
get to her even after his arrest, and obviously, it still worked perfectly. Jordan sighed and turned on the faucet, pouring herself a glass of ice cold water. The smell and taste of blood lingered.
She wasn’t fine.
There was no way in hell she’d call Bethany and rip even more old wounds open. Jordan didn’t mind the games Bethany had played to try and lure Darby out of hiding. Brilliant minds often walked a fine line, and what she had done was risky, but not even completely outside the book. This was something Jordan understood. To get a women-hating creep off the streets, the purpose justified almost every means. It had been bad luck for Jordan that she got caught in the crossfire, and Darby had fooled her too.
Her fingers clenched around the edge of the sink as she struggled to remain in the present, not give in to the real sensations of nausea that came with the memory. Going back to the trailer park and talking to Pratt had shaken her like she knew it would, but she couldn’t afford to let on too much. Her job, even considering the triggers that came with it, kept her sane. She needed sane, because otherwise, she might do something ill-considered, irreversible one day.
Jordan considered going in right this moment, until she remembered that this was the first of her two days off. She had craved time to herself, but all of a sudden, the prospect looked terrifying.
Once upon a time, she’d had a mostly functioning set of coping strategies, not all of them terribly functional, but they worked. At least, they had worked so far, but both intimacy and a few relaxing dreams came with the potential loss of control…She hadn’t lived with a psychiatrist for nothing. She knew her patterns. At this point, all Jordan wanted was for the noise to stop, and that was something she hadn’t achieved even in the stillness of her home.
She didn’t know how.
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