She laughed. “Since when did you care about manners?”
“Since I want to know what’s going on with you.”
“Nothing’s going on with me.”
“You lost your job.”
Okay. So, it seemed they were just ripping the bandage off quickly.
“I quit.” She made certain to keep her voice even.
“Why?”
“Maybe I thought it was time for a change.”
Fatigue swamped her. She felt like she’d aged twenty years in the last six months. Working the Latin Lothario case had sucked her dry. A ridiculous name for a man who’d raped and murdered seven women, but the news media had given him the name and it had taken off. That case had taken everything from her. Her energy, her sleep, her ability to feel safe. She’d been so tired she’d somehow missed what had been right under her nose.
The fallout from her failure had been catastrophic. She’d quit her job. She couldn’t stay there. Not anymore. And they’d been more than happy to see her go.
She just couldn’t understand it. She was normally so careful. So meticulous. How had she managed to screw everything up so badly?
Now, she had nothing. Her career was down the toilet, her social life was non-existent, and the nightmares were worse than ever.
“You hated that job. I don’t know how you stayed there as long as you did.”
“I guess I figured quitting would make me a failure.”
“A failure? Honey, you couldn’t fail at anything if you tried. Everything you put your hand to you excel at.”
“I got the profile for the Latin Lothario completely wrong. Maybe they would have caught him earlier if I hadn’t fucked it up. I thought he was older, Caucasian, well-educated. Instead, he turned out to be in his mid-thirties, he hadn’t graduated high school and he was the same guy who jogged by my place every day. He was right under my nose and I never even noticed!”
“Were you the only person working on that profile?”
“No, but—”
“You worked damn hard on that case. When he targeted you, they should have pulled you off the case and put you into protection, instead you let them use you as bait. And don’t think I’m not furious that you didn’t tell me all of this until after he was caught. You know I would have protected you.”
Which is why she hadn’t told him any of this until after the Latin Lothario was caught. If he’d known she was in danger he’d have done whatever he had to in order to protect her. Including going after the Latin Lothario himself. And she wouldn’t have him endangering himself for her. Not that she’d tell him that. He had his ego to protect after all.
“I know, Travis. You guys have always protected me. I thought we could catch him by using me as bait, but he still murdered that last poor girl.” Carlie Jones. Her name still haunted her.
“That wasn’t your fault. You did everything you could to catch him.”
That still didn’t make her feel any better.
“You sleeping?” Travis studied her intently.
She glanced away. “About as much as I normally do.” Which wasn’t much.
Travis snorted. “I know that feeling.”
She guessed he would. If anyone understood having nightmares it would be Travis. She didn’t know much about his time in the Marines, but it had turned him into a different man. Harder. More serious.
“I have to start over.” Somehow, she needed to rebuild a life. Kind of hard to do when she had no job and she couldn’t even spend the night in her apartment.
“Do you know where you’re going to work now?”
No, because what would an ex-FBI profiler who’d fucked up her career do next? She couldn’t go back to what she’d done before. She just couldn’t. Counseling criminals day after day had eaten away at her soul.