Face of Fear

“Well, who needs those, anyway?” John flashed her that bright smile of his again and leaned back as the waiter collected their empty plates.

“So, what are you working on at the moment?” she asked, thinking she should try to take more of an interest in his life. He was always so attentive in asking about hers. Was she messing everything up? She was messing everything up, wasn’t she?

“Like I told you, it’s the ancestral property line row,” John said, giving her a little puzzled frown. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

Zoe looked up at him, meeting his eyes with pupils that were just slightly dilated in the dim light of the restaurant, hearing the four beats of the gentle piano music in the background and how each note moved one up, one down, one up, half a note up, one down. If only she could turn the numbers off, or at least dim their volume. She needed to focus on John and what he was telling her, but nothing in her brain would stop. She just needed it to stop. Everything was spiraling, and she was no longer sure that she could regain control.

“I guess I am a little tired,” she said. As far as excuses went, it seemed like it might be semi-acceptable. If there could ever be any excuse for failing to give him the courtesy of her attention.

He didn’t know about her ability to see the numbers everywhere, in everything, and she wasn’t about to tell him. Not for the fourteen hundred fifty-three dollars and nineteen cents’ worth of dishes and drinks she had seen pass by their table in the hands of the wait staff since they sat down one hour and thirteen minutes ago.

“I have had a wonderful night,” she said. The worst part was that she meant it. When John spent all of their time together being accommodating and making her feel good, why couldn’t she at least listen to him?

“Well, I had an awful time. Shall we do it again next week?” he said, wiping his smile with a napkin. Even though he glimmered at her, his eyes sparking with a mischievousness that match the uneven curves of his mouth, it still took her a moment to realize he was joking. The words cut her to the core at the thought she might have ruined everything

“I would like that,” Zoe said, nodding, holding her emotions inside. “Next week it is.”

She got up to go, knowing by now that he would refuse to allow her to pay the ninety-eight dollars and thirty-two cents they had racked up on the bill, plus the tip.

Though it flashed through her mind, she didn’t say out loud that it would take luck for her to keep their appointment. Being an active agent meant that you never knew when your next case would come in, or where you would be required to go.

By this time next week, who knew where she might be?

Even right at this moment, their next killer was probably doing his work, setting them a puzzle—and there was always a chance that the next one would be the one she couldn’t solve. Zoe fought the uneasy feeling in her gut, somehow convincing her that she knew: this time next week, she would be in deep on a case that would make all the others seem like child’s play.

CHAPTER THREE

Zoe adjusted her position on the seat, settling further into the comfortable old armchair. She was getting used to sitting here, strange as it sounded even to her own ears that she was becoming accustomed to therapy.

Talking to someone week on week about her personal issues had once seemed like Zoe’s own idea of hell, but having Dr. Lauren Monk on her side so far hadn’t turned out so badly. After all, Dr. Monk was the one who had encouraged her to go on more dates with John, and that had, so far at least, been a good decision.

On her part, anyway. She was beginning to wonder whether John could say the same.

“So, tell me about this date. What happened?” Dr. Monk asked, adjusting her notebook on her knee.

Zoe sighed. “I just could not concentrate,” she said. “The numbers were taking over. It was all I could think about. I missed whole sentences of his conversation. I wanted to give him my full attention, but I could not switch it off.”

Dr. Monk nodded seriously, resting her hand on her chin. Since the session when Zoe had come clean about her synesthesia—her ability to see numbers everywhere and in everything, like the fact that Dr. Monk’s pen was heavier than average due to the slight fifteen-degree angle of droop as it rested on the edge of her fingers compared to that of a BIC—she had been finding the therapy even more helpful. It was freeing in many ways, to be able to really admit what was going on and how she was struggling.

There were few people in the world who knew about Zoe’s synesthesia. There was Dr. Monk, and Dr. Francesca Applewhite, who had been Zoe’s mentor since her college days. Then there was her partner at the bureau, Special Agent Shelley Rose.

And that was it. She didn’t even need all of the fingers on her hand to count them. Those were the only people that she had ever trusted enough to tell since her first diagnosis—from a doctor whom she hadn’t seen since that day. Deliberately so. For a long time, she had thought that there might have been some way to run away from or ignore the ability that her mother called the devil’s magic.

But so long as it was helping her to solve crimes, Zoe couldn’t say that she wanted it gone. Not anymore. It just would be useful if it would quiet down when she was trying to forge a romantic relationship, which didn’t require specific measurements of the liquid in each glass or the distance between John’s eyes.

“What might be helpful is if we come up with some ways, together, that could help you turn down the volume—quiet your brain down, so to speak,” Dr. Monk said. “Is that something that you’d like to explore?”

Zoe nodded, startled by the lump that had taken over her throat at the thought of being able to do that. “Yes,” she managed. “That would be great.”

“All right.” Dr. Monk thought for a moment, tapping the pen absentmindedly against her collarbone. Zoe had noticed this habit, always an even number of taps.

“Why do you do that?” she blurted out, only to be embarrassed a second later that she had asked.

Dr. Monk was looking at her in surprise. “You mean, tapping on my collarbone?”

“Sorry. That is your personal business. You do not have to tell me.”

Dr. Monk smiled. “I don’t mind. Actually, it’s something I picked up when I was a student. It’s a calming exercise.”

Zoe frowned. “You do not feel calm?”

“I do. It’s become something of a habit now, even when I’m thinking. It allows me to go down into a more Zen state. I used to get panic attacks when I was younger. Have you ever experienced a panic attack, Zoe?”

Zoe thought back, trying to figure out what would qualify. “I do not think so.”

“Whether it’s a full panic attack or something less severe, what we need is for you to have something that can calm you down, fade out the numbers. We want your mind to stop racing, allowing you to focus on one thing at a time.”

Zoe nodded, tracing her fingers over the cracks in the leather arm of her chair. “That would be nice.”

“Let’s start with a meditative exercise. What I think you should start to do is to undertake meditation practice every night, perhaps just before you go to bed. This is going to be an ongoing aid which will improve your ability to control your mind over time. It’s not an instant fix, but if you stick with it, you will see results. With me so far?”

Zoe nodded mutely.

“Good. Now, listen to my instructions. I want you to give it a try right now, and then you’ll be able to practice it on your own tonight. Start by closing your eyes and counting your breaths. Try to shut everything else out of your mind.”

Zoe closed her eyes obediently and started to breathe deeply. One, she thought to herself. Two.

“All right. As soon as you get up to ten, you just start again from one. Don’t let yourself count any further. You just want to keep counting those breaths, until you start to feel relaxed.”

Zoe tried, attempting to force other thoughts out of her mind. It was hard. Her brain wanted to tell her that there was an itch on her right leg, or that she could faintly smell Dr. Monk’s coffee, or to remind her how strange it was to be sitting in someone’s office with her eyes closed. Then it wanted to tell her that she was doing the exercise wrong and allowing herself to be distracted.

Was she breathing at the right pace, anyway? How quickly was one supposed to breathe? Was she doing it right? What if she had been breathing wrong for this whole time? For her whole life? How would she know?

Despite her doubts, she kept at it in the silence, and eventually started to feel herself relaxing.

“You’re doing great,” Dr. Monk said, her voice quieter and lower now. “Now I want you to picture a sky. You’re sitting, looking up at that sky. Beautiful blue, just one little cloud floating by above, nothing else on the horizon. It stretches out over a calm blue sea. Can you see it?”

Zoe wasn’t the best at imagining things, but she remembered an image she had recently seen, an advertisement for a travel company. A family happily playing in the sand, an impossibly blue paradise behind them. She put herself there, focusing on that. She gave a small nod to let Dr. Monk know she was ready to continue.

“Good. Feel the warmth of the sun on your face and your shoulders. It’s a beautiful day. Just a light breeze, exactly the kind of weather you would ask for. You’re sitting in a small inflatable boat, just off the shore. Feel it rocking gently in the motion of the sea. It’s so peaceful and calm. Isn’t the sun wonderful?”

Zoe would normally have laughed at something like this, but she did as she was told, and she could almost swear that she could feel it. Real sun, beating down on her brow. Not too oppressive: the kind of sun that made you think you were getting a tan, not skin cancer.

Skin cancer. Shouldn’t have thought about skin cancer. Focus, Zoe. Rocking in the current.

“Look over to the side. You’ll see the island behind you. The beach where you just came from, and behind it the rest of this paradise. What do you see?”

Zoe knew exactly what she saw when she looked over there: another image from a travel advertisement. A place she had wanted to go. Except it had been advertised as a honeymoon destination, and she had been single at the time, and it had only made her feel more alone.