The perfect look

“Well, hopefully you pay up quick. I hear your methods of collecting late payments can be rough. “

“You have no idea,” Garland said, his mouth breaking into something close to a smile. “Let’s just say there’s forced Metamucil involved.”

“Nice,” Jessie said, gagging slightly. “So how much longer do I have to politely talk about your senior health routine before you fill me in on the situation?”

Garland half-smiled again. It seemed to be turning into a habit.

“Come in,” he said, moving aside.

She took one step into the office before realizing she couldn’t take another without bumping into his desk.

“I thought people were being sarcastic but this really did used to be a closet, didn’t it?”

“I don’t need a lot of room,” he replied, closing the door and squeezing past her to get to the chair on the other side of his small desk. Other than that, a single chair for guests, a desk lamp, and a half-sized file cabinet, the room was empty.

“I guess when you only take on a few cases each year, you don’t get drowned in paperwork.”

“I liked to keep the paperwork to a minimum even back in my busier days. A cluttered desk means a cluttered mind.”

“Confucius?” she asked teasingly.

“No, Moses, but not the bible one,” he said. Before she could reply, he continued. “So on to your case.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got nothing.”

“What?” she asked incredulously.

He seemed untroubled by her reaction.

“The truth is I haven’t even tried yet.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Think about it, Hunt,” he said patiently. “I can’t just walk over to the local FBI office, saunter in, and ask the assigned agents how their investigation is going, especially on the same morning the profiler most connected to Crutchfield returns to work. It will be obvious what I’m doing. They’ll shut down. You’ll get in trouble. And I’ll lose my official status as ‘grandiose emeritus.’ That’s no good.”

“You make it sound impossible,” Jessie protested. “No matter how you approach them, they’ll have their guard up.”

“Not necessarily, especially if I happen to be already enjoying my lunch at a joint I know they frequent. And if they join me because of the whole ‘grandiose emeritus’ thing, maybe they get to talking. Maybe they want to impress the old man and they spill a little more than they should. Maybe I seem disinterested so they tell me even more, to prove their mettle. Folks like to do that around me.”

“Because of your ‘grandiose emeritus’ status,” Jessie repeated.

“Now you’re getting it,” he said. “But no one’s going to tell me a thing if I come out and ask them directly. They’re FBI agents, not second graders.”

“So why aren’t you out having lunch?’ she pressed.

“Because they don’t usually show up at this place until around one. That’s why I called the owner and told him to hold a table waiting for me at twelve forty-five—a booth in the back, with a little privacy and room for three.”

“You’ve already done that?”

“I have.”

“I’m sorry,” Jessie said, impressed. “I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat. It’s just that Hannah’s out there, with God knows what happening to her. I saw you hanging out here and it got me riled up. I shouldn’t have made assumptions.”

“I appreciate that, Hunt. And I don’t blame you. An old guy like me, you’d be forgiven for thinking I completely forgot about our little chat this morning. But can I give you a piece of advice?”

“Of course,” she said.

“You have to loosen your grip a little.”

Jessie nodded.

“That’s been challenging for me,” she admitted.

“I get it,” he replied. “I was the same way for a long time. But the thing is, with what we do, there’s always going to be some bad guy out there. There’s always going to be a victim in danger. There’s always going to be a ticking clock. But if you’ve got the accelerator pressed to a hundred all the time, you’re going to crash. It’s inevitable. And then you’re no good to anyone.”

Jessie nodded. Everything he said resonated. Before she could admit it, he continued.

“I know it’s not easy, and especially not now, when the person at risk is your own half-sister. But you have to hit the brakes sometimes. You have to find some kind of equilibrium in your life. Otherwise you will burn out. And people you could have saved will die. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t care. But you have to find that line where you can do this job and still be a functioning human being. Otherwise you’ll be miserable. You know what I mean?”

Jessie felt like she’d never better understood anything in her life.

“I do,” she said simply.

“Good,” he replied. “Then get the hell out of my office. I need to take a little siesta before lunch.”

And with those words of wisdom still in her ears, she left him to his nap.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hannah Dorsey reminded herself that she wasn’t dead yet.

It might have seemed obvious, but this time a week ago, she couldn’t be so sure. And every minute that she was alive meant she had a chance. At least that’s what she told herself.

She knew it was around midday because of where the glimmer of window light shined on the floor in the basement where she was being held. For a while she thought she’d been moved out of California because she’d never seen a basement here before.

But the man—he had told her to call him Bolton—had explained that the former owner was an East Coast transplant who had demanded one be built in his new Southern California home, even if it didn’t really make geological sense.

Bolton had explained a lot of things to her.

In the first few hours after he’d killed her foster parents and drugged and abducted her, he didn’t do much talking. That was partly because Hannah was too drowsy to understand him at first. After that, her panicked screams made talking impossible.

But after about eighteen hours, she’d shouted herself hoarse. Beyond that, she was so wiped out from fear, adrenaline overload, and confusion that listening to the man’s southern-inflected accent became almost a balm. If he was talking, he wasn’t killing. So she was happy for him to talk away.

She imagined he’d be coming by to chat soon. He always brought her lunch around the time the light from the small window hit the middle of the room, which she estimated to be noon. She’d figured out a few other things in the week she’d been here.

First of all, she knew it had been about a week because she was able to scratch a notch for each day into the wooden post she was chained to with the spoon he left her. In fact, she was pretty sure it was Tuesday. She also knew they were somewhere isolated. Otherwise Bolton would have gagged her or at least boarded up the small window that offered her that shred of sunlight.