her bottom lip. She wondered if maybe he was bluffing. Would he really get her pulled off the case? He knew what it would do to her. Opening her eyes, she glanced at him, saw his face.
He wasn’t bluffing.
“It’s something that happens to me,” she finally said guardedly. “I have these moments when I imagine what the victim went through.”
“We all do that. It’s part of the job.”
She shook her head, frustrated. “No. Not like that. It’s . . . more vivid. I lie in bed, and I can see it and feel it all happening. Almost like I’m her . . . the victim.”
“Like a hallucination?”
“No!” That would get her off the BAU for good, not to mention this case. “I know where I am and who I am. I know it’s just my imagination. But it’s very vivid, and I can’t stop it. Maybe that’s why I’m so good at this. I can get into everyone’s head. The victim and the killer. It’s part of the package.”
She huddled in the blanket. Now that she’d started talking, she couldn’t stop. “I can almost feel the fear. And the pain. My body reacts to it all, so I have a bit of trouble breathing, fast pulse. It usually ends after half an hour.”
“How many times did that happen?” Tatum asked.
“I don’t know. Dozens.”
“Jesus, Zoe.”
“If you tell this to anyone, they won’t understand. They’ll kick me out of the BAU.” She already regretted telling him about it. “It’s really not a big deal. I’ve got it under control.”
“You definitely looked under control when I showed up here.”
“This time was different.”
“Why?”
“Part of it is what happened in San Angelo. I still have moments of claustrophobia.” She didn’t go on.
“And part of it is this case?” Tatum said. “If you were putting yourself in Henrietta Fishburne’s place, feeling what you believe she felt . . . you were reliving Glover’s assault of her.”
“Parts of it. Fragments. But I couldn’t make it stop.” She shivered, then forced herself still, clenching her teeth. “I never told anyone about this. You can’t . . . please don’t . . .”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he said heavily. “But you can’t go on like this. You know that, right?”
“It won’t happen again.”
He didn’t respond to that. She knew it was obvious that she couldn’t back that up in any possible way.
“He’s careless now. And he has an unstable partner who’s spiraling out of control. It’s a matter of days until he gets caught.”
“Maybe.”
“And once he’s caught, I will never have to worry about him again. He’s already dying! He has less than a year left. Andrea will be safe. I will be safe. It’ll be over. But I need to see this through.”
The silence stretched between them. Tatum kept looking at her, eyes soft and worried, until Zoe turned away, unable to take it any longer. She should have kept her mouth shut. She should never have called him. She shouldn’t have trusted him with this, it was too much, she should have known she could only trust herself, had always known it, should never have—
“Okay,” Tatum said.
“You won’t ask Mancuso to pull me from the case?”
“I won’t.”
She shut her eyes, blinking away a tear. “Thanks.”
“Good night, Zoe.”
He got up, walked to the door. And she could already feel the darkness, lurking, waiting.
“Do you want me to stay here awhile longer, just to make sure you’re all right?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t care. If you want.”
Tensing up, she listened, her back to him, waiting for the door to open, for him to leave, not sure what she preferred.
“I’ll just stay a bit.”
A wave of relief washed over her, and she winced in embarrassment at her own reaction. “You can lie down here,” she said, shifting over.
The bed creaked as he lay by her side with a sigh.
She stayed awake for what felt like hours. Finally, certain that he wasn’t about to get up and leave, she relaxed and slept.
CHAPTER 37
Thursday, October 20, 2016
The light woke up Tatum, accompanied by the fact that he still wore his socks. And his pants, for that matter. His mind was sluggishly figuring out the WWW of waking up. Not the World Wide Web, but the What? When? Where?
There was gentle snoring beside him. He glanced sideways and saw Zoe. She was curled facing him, her hair a messy veil on her cheek. She was so surprisingly peaceful and gentle in her current state that for a few seconds he just lay