“The officer will come over, look around, and make sure you’re fine, okay? Joanne?”
But Joanne couldn’t answer; her voice was gone. She’d just seen a shadow flit across the window of the kitchen. Just by the back door. The same door she constantly forgot to lock, one more task slipping due to the sleep deprivation that clouded her life.
Had she locked the back door this time?
She distinctly remembered opening it that morning to water the plants in the backyard. But she couldn’t remember locking it.
The doorknob turned while the voice on the phone said, “Joanne? Are you there?”
CHAPTER 35
The door was locked. He rattled the doorknob several times, only half remembering what he was doing there. The baby wailed from inside, and he blinked, startled. He’d been standing in that strange backyard for several minutes, just staring at the door. Had he tried to open it? He rattled the doorknob. It appeared to be locked. Oh yeah, he’d tried it already.
Someone was talking, and he paused to listen, but the voice became quiet, and only the baby kept wailing. Then he realized it was him. He was the one who had been talking, talking to himself.
He tried to piece together the events of the evening. Had he really intended to snatch a baby out of its carriage?
He was letting his control slip.
That scared him more than anything. It had happened before, long ago, and since then he did his best, but tonight, no one drove the train, and it had gone off the rails.
He turned and fled, not to the street—he was afraid someone would see him. Instead, he fled over backyard fences, running through private yards, stomping flower beds, knocking down patio chairs, his pants ripped by a thorny rose patch. He saw the blue light of a police car passing by from the corner of his eye. Were they looking for him? For a moment he got confused, thought he was running away from Catherine’s home after they had left her dead. But then he recalled a day had passed, or maybe two days? Four?
He reached a fence he couldn’t climb over and decided instead to return to the street. It was dark, no sign of the police car, no passersby. Just him and the shadows.
He forced himself to breathe deeply, the cold air clearing his mind. The nights were the worst. During the day, he did fine. Talking to people, doing his job, going through the motions. He was almost certain no one suspected a thing. But at night, it all became so much harder. It had always been that way.
He found his way back home, locked the door, and barred it behind him. Evidence of his control slip was all over the place. Two of the vials discarded on the kitchen tabletop. One had rolled and fallen to the floor, shattering, leaking some leftover blood drops on the floor. The mug he’d used to drink the blood had been left on the counter, and the residue had coagulated. Glancing at the bathroom, he could see the toilet still spattered with his vomit.
He cleaned it all up, then took a long shower, breathing heavily as he did so, trying to clear his head. He was in control. He was in control. He was in control.
CHAPTER 36
Zoe’s breaths were fast and shallow. The walls of the room closed in on her, the space around her shrinking with every heartbeat. She’d tried taking a long walk when she felt the creeping effect of claustrophobia, but as soon as she stepped outside, into the night’s darkness, she could feel the phantom presence of Glover somewhere nearby. Behind her.
And who was to say that he wasn’t? He’d followed her before. What would prevent him from doing it again? Walking alone at night, with him lurking in the shadows, would be foolish.
She backtracked into the room, locked the door, tried to calm down.
But it was impossible to withstand the tidal waves of panic that kept hitting her.
Even in her current state, a detached part of her kept analyzing. She could understand what was happening. The little sleep she’d had lately, combined with her PTSD, had triggered a full-blown panic attack. Her imagination, fueled by emotion, battered her with vivid scenarios that served to fuel the inferno of fear in her mind.
Understanding it didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse.
When she’d called Tatum, she’d hoped for help. But he’d said he was