Face of Fear

“Golden sand,” she said, the sound of her own voice strangely distant and unfamiliar. “Then lush undergrowth. Behind it, tropical trees reach up to the sky, ten feet and more. The sun is coming down at a harsh angle, shadows only half a foot long. I can’t see beyond them. There’s a tree leaning right out at a forty-five-degree angle over the water, with a seven-foot hammock tied beneath it. It’s empty.”

“Try to focus more on the scene than the numbers. Now, listen. Can you hear the waves gently washing onto the sand? Can you hear bird calls?”

Zoe breathed deeply, letting this new layer of sensation wash over her. “Yes,” she said. “Parrots. I think. The waves come at intervals of three seconds. Bird calls every five.”

“Feel the warm sun on your face. You can close your eyes, stop counting. You’re safe there.”

Zoe breathed, still watching the island in her mind. Her eyes kept straying to the hammock. Who was it for? For herself, or would someone join her one day? John? Did she want him there, on this personal island of hers? It was sized for a man. She was only five foot six herself. The hammock hung two feet above the water.

“That’s great, Zoe. Now, I want you to focus on your breathing again. Count down from ten, just like we did before but in reverse. As you do, I want you to slowly come back from your island. Let it fade out, and let yourself wake up, a little at a time. Gently, now. That’s it.”

Zoe opened her eyes, a little embarrassed to find how much mellower she felt—and now aware of how strange it seemed, to have been away on a little island in her head while her therapist watched her sit straight-backed in an armchair.

“You did really well.” Dr. Monk smiled. “How do you feel now?”

Zoe nodded. “Calmer.” Still, she felt doubt. The numbers had been there. They had followed her, even into that space. What if she could never get rid of them?

“That’s a great start. You’ll find it more peaceful the more you do the exercise. And that’s a great thing, because it can be a calm place that you return to whenever you feel stressed out or overwhelmed.” Dr. Monk dashed out a few notes in her book, her pen making quick and spidery lines that Zoe could not guess at.

“What if I need to shut the numbers out fast? Like, in an emergency situation?” Zoe asked. “Or if I can’t tell the other person why I need to calm down?”

Dr. Monk nodded. “Try just counting your breaths as you did to enter the meditation. We’ll need to test this out in a real scenario, but it’s my belief that counting one thing—your breath—may allow you to stop seeing the numbers elsewhere. It’s a distraction tactic—keeping the numbers side of your brain occupied while you focus on something else.”

Zoe nodded, trying to cement that into her head. “Okay.”

“Now, Zoe, about not wanting to explain to people why you need to shut out the numbers—or the fact that you can see them. Why is it that you’re still determined to hide this gift?” Dr. Monk asked, tilting her head in a way that Zoe had come to recognize as meaning a change of tack.

She struggled to answer that one. Well, no, she didn’t: she knew the reason. There was a fear that had gripped her since she was a young girl, reinforced by screams of devil child and enforced praying sessions that kept her on her knees all night, wishing for the numbers to go away. It was just hard to say that out loud.

“I do not want people to know,” she said, picking a piece of imaginary lint from the knee of her trousers.

“But why is that, Zoe?” Dr. Monk pressed. “You have a wonderful ability. Why don’t you want to share it with others?”

Zoe struggled. “I… do not wish them to think of me differently.”

“You’re afraid that your peers will perceive you differently from how they do now?”

“Yes. Maybe…” Zoe hesitated, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe they might try to—to do something with it. To exploit it in some way. I do not wish to be a puppet for someone else to use. Or the victim of tricks and pranks. Or a performance piece for people to test.”

Dr. Monk nodded. “That’s understandable. Are you certain that’s all you are afraid of?”

Zoe knew the answer. She even whispered it in her head. I am afraid that they will all know—that they will see I am not normal. I am not one of them. I am a freak of nature. I am afraid they will hate me for it. But, “Yes, I am sure,” she said, out loud.

Dr. Monk studied her for a moment, and Zoe was sure that the game was up. Dr. Monk was a therapist—of course, she could tell when someone was lying to her. She would press the point, get Zoe to admit the secret fear she had buried deep inside of herself for so very long.

But all she did was close her notebook and place it carefully on her desk, turning on a brilliant smile. “We made some fantastic progress today, Zoe. We’re at the end of our session, so please put that meditation into your nightly habits and try to stick with it. I’d like to hear if you’ve made any progress when we next meet.”

Zoe stood and thanked her and left, feeling like she was saved by the bell.

And then there was a more literal bell, a ringing coming from her pocket. She dug her cell out as she walked through the waiting room, seeing Shelley’s name on the caller ID.

“Special Agent Zoe Prime,” she said. It felt good to use the proper, official address, even when she knew who was calling.

“Z, it’s me. Chief needs you to come to the airport right away. We’ve got a case in LA. Grab an overnight bag, and I’ll meet you there.”

“How long do I have?” Zoe asked.

“Forty-five minutes, then we fly.”

“See you there,” Zoe said. She hung up the phone and strode more purposefully through the hall, calculating how much time she would have for packing after allowing for travel time to the airport.

Inside, she thrilled, just a little. It had been a while since their last case, all paperwork and court dates and bureaucracy. Even if she wasn’t exactly happy that someone had died, it would be good to get stuck into a nice, easy murder case—and she mentally crossed her fingers that that was what they were going to get.

CHAPTER FOUR

Zoe looked out the window at the clouds, passing by under the plane’s wing. Perhaps there should have been a kind of peace in that for her. There was nothing to count, after all. But she didn’t enjoy the sensation of being so far above the ground, and she never would. She hated the thought that someone else was fully in control of and responsible for her life.

“SAIC Maitland left us these files,” Shelley said, proffering a couple of manila folders to get Zoe’s attention.

Zoe turned back from the window, blinking her eyes to get herself to focus. “All right. What are we looking at that is so urgent we could not wait for a briefing in person?” Shelley’s blonde hair was neatly tucked into a bun behind her head, her makeup as neat and precise as ever. Zoe wondered briefly how she always managed to look so put-together, even with a young child at home—and even when getting on a plane at short notice.

“Two victims,” Shelley said. She spread the files apart. “Evidently the team on the ground felt that they were never going to get anywhere without Bureau help. They turned it over voluntarily.”

“Voluntarily?” Zoe’s eyebrows shot up. “No wonder Maitland wanted us over there as quickly as possible. He probably thought they might change their minds.”

It wasn’t often they got a case that was voluntarily handed over. Law enforcement tended to be territorial, to want to see a case through from beginning to end. Zoe understood that. Still, it usually led to tense atmospheres and only the most begrudging assistance. The officers tended to suspect that the FBI were there to take their jobs and report them as not fit for duty, even though that usually had no grounding in reality. It might be refreshing to actually be welcomed somewhere.

Shelley opened up the first file and started reading from it. “The first victim to be found was a male, Caucasian, early thirties. Name of John Dowling, although it took the locals a good while to ID him.”

Zoe tried to ignore the name and the way it had cut into her heart. John was a common enough name, after all. She shouldn’t need to imagine John bleeding out or shot or strangled in order to get past it. “Why so?”

“The body was heavily burned. Postmortem says that his throat was cut first, and then he was taken elsewhere and burned before discovery.”

“Do we know where the crime was committed?”

Shelley studied the notes. “No location yet on the actual killing. It’s thought it may have happened in a private home, since there would be a lot of blood, and nothing has been reported. The body was taken out to an isolated street and burned in the middle of the night. By the time a local resident noticed and was brave enough to go check it out, a lot of damage had been done.”

Shelley wordlessly handed over a photograph. It showed a blackened and twisted body, almost to the point of being unrecognizable as a human. It looked like a movie prop, not a real person. Zoe had to hand it to whoever had managed to determine cause of death. They must have had a real job on their hands.

There was another photo in the file, a smiling image of a young man. John Dowling in life, probably taken from one of his social media pages. He was in a dark room, with people visible in the background—probably a party. He looked happy.

“Any leads so far on him? Enemies, grudges?”

“Nothing yet. Investigation is ongoing.”

“All right. And the second one?”

Shelley closed the first file and picked up the other, sucking in a breath through her teeth. “Similar story. Throat cut, then burned. A young woman, Callie Everard. Mid-twenties. She was pretty, too.”