“I’ll have a deputy drop the car and keys at the hotel this morning.”
Darcy glances over and mulls over the petulant responses popping into her head.
“I could have driven myself and saved you the trouble.”
“Doubtful.” Reinhold glances at Darcy as she navigates the dark roadway, and her eyes hold the cold, interrogatory stare Darcy witnessed during the briefing. “You’re not fooling anybody, you know?”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, Darcy. The constant drowsiness—”
“Try to sleep when your daughter is missing.”
“—memory loss, questionable decision making, hostility.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Don’t fucking profile me.”
Reinhold bites her tongue, considering.
“You clutch that bag against your hip like you’re afraid it might vanish, and every few minutes, you touch the zipper. If I weren’t here, you’d go the next step and plunge your hand inside the bag. What’s in the bag that you can’t live without? You’re on a sedative.”
Darcy nudges the bag away and folds her arms, keeping her searching fingers pinned beneath her elbows.
“I’m not a junkie, Agent Reinhold. It’s a prescription. I’ll be happy to show you the bottle, if you’ll get off my back.”
“Regardless of what the bottle says, you’re taking several times the prescribed dosage. You hold prescriptions from multiple physicians and keep a bottle everywhere you go, no different from an alcoholic concealing bottles in a desk drawer at work. Now you’re running low, and you’ve constructed a list of area doctors so you can get another script filled.”
“It must feel like a game to you to tear into my character flaws.”
“I’m not judging you, Darcy. Just the opposite. I came here hoping I could pick your brain, snag pointers from the woman Agent Hensel calls the best profiler to come through the BAU in the last decade. You’re angry with him for not letting you contribute, but you’re compromising the investigation. Stop blaming Eric. With the state you’re in, he had no choice.”
Darcy gives Reinhold the cold treatment until they pull into the drop-off lane at the Hampton Inn. As Darcy gathers her bag, Reinhold rests her hands on the wheel.
“Don’t hate me, Darcy. I’m only trying to help. If you want to talk to someone about—”
“Goodnight, Agent Reinhold.”
Darcy slams the door and marches past the front desk. The woman manning the desk cranks her head up as if she’d dozed off and gives Darcy a weary smile. Darcy produces her room key to allay the woman’s suspicions. Inside the hotel room, Darcy swipes her phone on so she can see in the pitch black. Hunter’s head pokes out from under the covers. Letting him rest, she curls onto the cot and falls asleep before her head hits the pillow.
The sun singes Darcy’s eyelids. She awakens to Hunter sitting on the edge of the cot with a tray of breakfast in his lap. Laurie is on the chair, one leg crossed and a Grisham novel open on her lap. Her eyes slide between the pages and Darcy, lips parted as though she has something to say.
“You slept past breakfast,” Hunter says, handing her the tray. “I grabbed you eggs and waffles. Hope that’s all right.”
Though she can’t bear the thought of food, Darcy smiles and cuts into the waffle with the plastic fork and knife.
“This is perfect. Thank you for thinking of me.”
Even with the waffles soaked in syrup, she can’t taste the sweet comfort food.
“Anything new with the search?”
It hurts Darcy that Hunter doesn’t say Jennifer’s name. He’s compartmentalizing, opening doors a sliver so the terrors don’t escape. From the glare Laurie gives her from the tops of her eyes, Darcy knows Hunter hasn’t heard about the attack.
“The FBI has a few leads. We should hear something in the next two days.” Darcy swallows the rest of the waffle and sets the tray aside. “Can you watch my food for me? I need to speak to Laurie next door.”
Hunter carries the plate to the refrigerator and places it inside. Darcy, who fell asleep in her clothes, follows her cousin on unsteady legs into the hallway, the bag glued to her shoulder. Laurie’s room is brightly lit, the shades open to the noon sun. Whereas unlaundered clothes and pillows littered the floor in Darcy’s room, Laurie’s is neat and clean, the bed recently made. Laurie closes the door and throws the bolt. Turning on Darcy, she folds her arms.
“You want to tell me about the stunt you pulled last night?”
Darcy brushes the hair from her eyes and sinks into the chair.
“I’m sorry about the window. Let me pay for the replacement.”
“I don’t care about the window, I care about you. What were you thinking going to the park alone at night?”
“I used to be an FBI agent, Laurie. I can take care of myself, and I carried a weapon.”
“Don’t agents take partners for backup? And I know why you ended up at my house. Hensel says you’re abusing the meds again and couldn’t drive back to the hotel. He wants you in rehab, and I agree.”
A hundred curse words poise behind Darcy’s lips. But Laurie is right. Darcy is spinning out of control, a train that clattered off the tracks three years ago.
“I can’t go into rehab. Not with Jennifer missing. But there’s a reason I risked investigating Cass Park last night. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have figured out how the kidnapper took Sandy Young with no one noticing. And when I find out where he took her, I’ll know where he’s keeping my daughter.”
“What does nearly overdosing on anti-anxiety pills have to do with catching a child predator?” Darcy bends over and rests her face in her hands. Laurie grabs the trash basket and sets it at Darcy’s feet. “If you’re going to throw up, aim for the trash. I’m not cleaning up your mess.”
Darcy waves the trash can away.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like to fall asleep seeing the face of a serial killer every night. Or what it’s like to be terrified of the dark, though the only man I need to be afraid of is locked away for life. You think I want to take pills so I can function?”
Pushing the container away, Laurie kneels in front of Darcy and takes her hands.
“I want you to promise me you’ll get help when this is over.” Laurie holds her eyes until Darcy nods. “Until then.”
Laurie opens her hand.
“What?”
“Give me the bottle.”
“Seriously?”
“Do it.”
Darcy groans and digs the pills out of the bag.
“Happy?”
Keeping her eyes locked on Darcy’s face, Laurie turns the bag over and spills the belongings on the carpet.
“Swear to me you aren’t hiding another bottle.”
“Not anymore.” When Laurie glares at Darcy from the corner of her eye, Darcy raises a hand as if taking an oath. “I finished the other bottle. I’m out.”
“Shit.” Laurie twist the cap off and spills a dozen pills onto her palm. “I’m no doctor, but this is a legitimate prescription, and stopping cold turkey might do more harm than good.”
She counts out three pills and drops them into the bottle. The rest she folds into a tissue, which she stuffs into her pocket.
“The prescription says one per day.” Laurie hands Darcy the medication. “In two days, you will produce the bottle, and there’d better be one pill left, or so help me I’ll drag you to rehab myself.”