“Maybe she doesn’t, on every level,” Laura said. “But you still have to talk to her. If you just ignore the problem, it won’t go away on its own. Or, maybe it will, but a long time from now. If you talk with her about how she’s feeling, what she’s been going through, she might open up and start to realize that she’s safe now.”
“That’s what it is?” Chris asked. “She doesn’t feel safe?” He sounded sad, almost sulky. Like a child himself, being told that his favorite toy wasn’t working anymore because he hadn’t looked after it properly.
“She won’t, at first,” Laura said. “Think of what she’s been through. Kids are resilient, and yes, they do bounce back. But they’re not rubber bands. It takes a while.”
“How am I supposed to talk about that with her?” Chris asked. Laura had a mental image of the handsome doctor running his hands through his thick, brown hair and pulling it out. It didn’t exactly gel with what she’d seen of him, but it was what he sounded like right now. “Isn’t it… too much? To talk through the gory details?”
“You don’t have to go into the gory details,” Laura said. “And, Chris? Remember something. If you think it’s too much of a topic for a child to talk about, think about the fact that she actually experienced it. She was there, in that house, while it was happening to her and around her. No matter how heavy you think it might be, it’s already in her head. And she needs to know a lot of things.”
“Like what?” Chris asked.
Laura took a breath. She was thinking about the survivors of abuse she’d seen in the past. Some who were just starting to cope with it after being saved, usually when she saw them again at the trial. Some who didn’t cope with it at all and went on to become abusers or even killers themselves. “That she’s safe,” she said, starting with the most important thing. “That it wasn’t her fault. That you’re going to look after her and make sure that it never happens again.”
Chris sighed. “I just… I’m…”
“What?” Laura asked, immediately on edge.
“I’m scared,” Chris admitted. “Scared that I’m not going to be enough for her. That what’s happened to her was too awful, and she’s not going to get better.”
“Well, not with that attitude,” Laura said. Only half of it was meant flippantly. “She’ll pick up on that, you know. It’s your job now to believe in her. To show her that there is a way forward.”
“Alright.” Chris said. His voice sounded steadier, more determined. Like he had taken her words on board and decided to follow them. “Thank you, Laura. Can you… I mean, would you mind meeting us again, sometime soon? I know it’s really comforting for her to see you. She thinks you’re her guardian angel, you know.”
Laura chuckled lightly, the sadness and direness of the situation offset by the knowledge that she had at least made some small difference. “I know. And yes, I can. But not right away. I’m on a case right now, and I have custody of my daughter this weekend.”
“Right,” Chris said hastily. “Right, of course. At your own pace, obviously. We can fit to your schedule. I took some time away from the hospital to make sure she settles in fine, so I’m pretty open.”
“Alright,” Laura said, glancing up to see Nate emerging from the store. “Well, I’d better go. But… you can call me again, if you need any more help.”
“I will. Thanks again,” Chris said. “Uh, good luck with your case.”
“Thanks,” Laura said, before hanging up.
“Anything?” she asked Nate, even though she didn’t need to. His face was like thunder.
“Nothing in the records,” he said. “I’ve left Blackford in there, still talking to them. He’s going to get one of his guys to call through all the online suppliers we don’t have records for, one by one. But it’s pointless. There’s no bulk orders from anyone, literally ever, in the system. People buy one clock at a time, and that’s it.”
“He has three of them, though,” Laura pointed out. “So, someone out there bought three of them at some point. He must be somewhere in the data.”
Nate sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and then flexing his shoulders back like his back was aching and he needed relief. “I’m sure he is. It’s just a question of whether we find him or not. He must have spread the purchases out over time, and that means there could have been months between them. If he used fake identities every time as well or got someone else to place the orders for him, then we’ve got no hope of tracking him down.”
Laura chewed her lip. “He’s been very cautious,” she said. “Every step of the way, we can see that. Buying the clocks separately in advance, setting up his kill sites ahead of time, wearing gloves, leaving no forensic evidence. He doesn’t even hang around to make sure the death happens. He just gets out of there.”
“It’s going to make it very hard for us to get any kind of resolution here,” Nate said. “How are we going to track him down if he’s this careful at every turn?”
Laura felt a momentary despair, but behind it was a determination rising fiercely. The same kind of determination she’d just heard Chris bounce back with.
She couldn’t get this case wrong. She just couldn’t. Every wrong step they took, every dead end, was a waste of time. And every day they wasted brought them one step closer
to her own personal deadline: Lacey’s visit.
Laura couldn’t let this case drag on. If it did, she would have to stay here, continue working it. She would have to get the job done. That was what was expected of her. And if she did that, she’d end up having to postpone Lacey’s visit. Not only would it break her own daughter’s heart, but it would give Marcus plenty of ammunition against her.
Her ex-husband could go to the courts. Tell them that Laura had missed her very first mandated weekend with Lacey. Forfeited it. And then where would she stand?
No, it wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. It just wouldn’t be acceptable.
Not to mention that she couldn’t let any more people die.