Zoe eyed the tension evidentacross the straight ridge of his shoulders without a word. He was feeling thepressure; that was understandable enough. His first case, and already he’d madea big blunder—basically assaulting a man who turned out to have nothing to dowith the case at all. But at least the guy had actually been a criminal, evenif a very small-fry kind. He was going to see his day in court—and possibly twoof them, because there was still the chance he might try a lawsuit over hishandling by the FBI.
Still, for the moment the man hadbeen released, partly as a way to appease his indignation, without thenecessitation of bail. If Flynn was lucky, he was going to get away with it.But that still left them with a killer on the loose, and despite knowing nowwhere to look, it was still like searching a haystack for—if not a needle—thencertainly a specific piece of straw.
“It is not unusual to makemistakes in your first cases,” Zoe attempted. She didn’t particularly feel likeappeasing him, but then again, he had put himself out for her last night. Andif she was going to stay working the case, she needed him on side.
“Yes, well, I’m probably making amistake right now,” Flynn snapped, fixing her with a cold stare. “For all Iknow, you’re still popping pills every time my back is turned and I’m going tohave to abandon the search to take you to the hospital.”
Zoe bit her lip lightly. Shedeserved that. Her head was still pounding, but she hadn’t dared take anythingfor it. “I have not taken anything. You have my word that I will not. The casecomes first.”
“Likely because you’ve run out,”Flynn scoffed.
Zoe couldn’t tell him he wasright.
“At any rate, you need my help,”she pointed out. “This is a big task.”
“I’m aware of that,” Flynn saidicily. “You help today. As soon as we’ve tracked down the killer, you’re on aflight, and I mean that. No worming your way back in. I’m still furious.”
Zoe nodded meekly, hoping it wouldbe enough to stop him from pressing the matter further. So long as she wasstill here, she could still work on the case. That was as much as she needed.
Zoe refocused on the screen infront of her. As well as the computer that had been left set up for them intheir assigned office at the sheriff’s station, someone had found a laptopsomewhere in a storage cupboard so that Flynn and Zoe could research differentareas at the same time. He was doing more of his beloved cross-checking:looking for the interests that their victims had in common, trying to ascertainif there was any kind of local association that might have their details.
Charitable causes, stores, barsand restaurants with loyalty schemes—there were so very many possibilities inthe local area. Zoe’s head spun when she tried to count them all, and that wassaying something, because counting things was like breathing to her. Worse thanbreathing. She could deliberately hold her breath, slow it down or speed it up.She couldn’t make the numbers stop.
Except, there was that thing Dr.Monk had taught her, wasn’t there? A way of tying the numbers to her ownbreathing. A meditative exercise that had worked before. When she was withShelley. Zoe hadn’t wanted to try it since then. Hadn’t want to try to go backto that calm place, in case she saw Shelley there. In case it didn’t workanymore, because Zoe didn’t deserve that kind of calm.
But she was out of the pills, andthose had barely worked as it was. There was no chance she was going to be ableto get her hands on more alcohol, not with Flynn’s watchful gaze on her—andbesides, Zoe was thinking about swearing off it altogether. She’d never likedthe way it made her brain fuzzy. She needed her mental skills still sharp—butin control. That was the big problem.
She needed to think. And if shewas going to be able to think properly, then maybe she needed to try an oldfavorite—even if it had to be painful to even try.
Zoe closed her eyes, grateful thatFlynn was turned away. She placed her hands flat on either side of the laptop,feeling the smooth wood of the side desk that someone had carted into the smalloffice. She felt the flat surface of the office chair against her spine, thesolid floor underneath her feet. She breathed in deeply, counting one. And out.
A second breath, and out. Three,and out. Calmer, deeper every time.
Five, seven, nine, all the way toten. Zoe could feel herself entering that restful state, something likedreaming but not at all like being asleep, a place where she could let her bodyrelax entirely and try to let go. Let go of the stress, the numbers, all of it,even if only for a second. She wasn’t quite ready. It had been a long time, andshe wasn’t in practice. She started again from one. Deep breath in, then steadyout. Two. Three.
To ten again, and Zoe knew it wasnow or never. Everything else had faded away. She was no longer counting theaudible ticks of the clock on the wall, no longer having to see dimensions andcalculations everywhere she looked, the links between numerical yetinconsequential values in the lists that she was trying to see. The onlynumbers were those attached to her breaths, one to ten over and over in arepeating cycle that was never faster, never slower.
Zoe opened the eyes inside herhead and she was there. Floating peacefully on the gently rocking current ofthe sea, her spine supported by the flat surface of an air mattress, the sunbeaming down ahead. Gentle calls of tropical birds rang out overhead. She wasthere.
The sand looked so soft andwonderful. Zoe could imagine standing on it, how it would feel when her feetsank a little, the sand between her toes. Her own footprints preserved clearlyin the part of the shore lapped by the gentle waves. And what was important wasthat she could feel it, and she had no compulsion to count every grain of sand,and when she looked down at
