After she’d calmed down from her crying fit, she and Charlie had talked for hours. She had told him everything. Every single thing that had been going through her head when she realized she was going into labor and that at only twenty-one weeks her baby wouldn’t survive, and everything that had gone through her head since.
For the first time, she had allowed herself to consider the possibility that what Charlie had said was right. That it wasn't her fault that her son had died. That even though she’d had mixed feelings when she’d first found out she was pregnant, that didn't mean she deserved to lose her baby. Chloe knew she would never have gone through with it anyway. She may not have liked the timing, but that wasn't the baby’s fault, and she would never have terminated her pregnancy. Whether she had realized it at the time or not, she had already loved him.
She wasn't quite ready yet to admit that she wasn't responsible for her son’s death, but now she could see that sometime in the future she might be able to believe it.
They had also talked a lot about her relationship with Fin andhow her guilt at losing their baby had made her push him away. How could she look at him when she’d taken such a precious thing from him?
She still loved him, probably always would, and if he had given her even the tiniest indication that there was a chance for them—however slim—then she would have fought for them with every fiber of her being. But he had been very clear that it was over, and she had to respect that. Charlie had told her that things weren’t always as they seemed, but in this instance, she was pretty sure they were. Fin hadn’t been shy about telling her to leave him alone. So, she would.
Emotionally wrung out, she had fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillows and slept a deep and dreamless sleep. And when she woke up this morning, she actually felt better than she had in a long time.
Giving her partner a genuine smile, she pulled the reindeer beanie off her head and said, “I'm doing better. Thanks for yesterday.” When he had found her crying in the office—which she was still embarrassed about. Being found by her partner in tears didn't really help her tough girl image—he had offered to call it quits for the day. She assumed in part it was so he could go home and check on his wife.
“I'm glad to hear that, and of course, you're welcome.”
“Hannah feeling better?”
“She is.” He nodded, and Chloe saw the relief in his face. Tom loved Hannah the way Fin used to love her. The kind of love where he would walk through flames, or search every corner of the globe, or rip to shreds with his bare hands anything that presented itself as a threat to her. Or anything else he had to do to make sure Hannah didn't get hurt.
She couldn’t deny she was a little jealous.
Chloe hoped that one day she would find someone who loved her like that.
“Want me to talk to Fin?” Tom asked. He had that protective look about him, and she fought back a smile.
She liked her partner and had learned a lot from him. When they’d first been paired up, she hadn’t been sure how things would work out. Tom was so meticulous about everything. He noticed everything, and he used every little one of those details to help him decide on what the next and best move was in every case they worked. She just wanted to run in and catch the bad guys. Despite their differences, they got along great, and she hoped they remained partners for many years to come.
“Thanks, Tom, but that’s okay. Fin’s still angry. I get it. And he was very clear last night—it’s over between us. That makes me sad, but I have to accept it. Otherwise I'm just going to wind up getting hurt. Right now, I have enough to focus on with work, friends, and family—there’s plenty to keep me busy. And I think I need to spend some time working on myself; I have lots I have to work through and work out. Speaking of work, we have to figure out who The Breaker is.”
Tom pulled out a few sheets of paper. “Hannah was pretty wiped out last night and went straight to sleep, so I did a little research.”
“What did you find?” Chloe felt a little bad that her partner had been working last night while she had been talking to a shrink, but she had to accept that it was okay to take time out for herself sometimes. Not just okay, but necessary.
“The physical therapist that Fin told us about, Pete Larkin, he was right; there have been dozens of complaints against him by female patients.”
“How does he still have a job, then?”
“Seems he moves around a lot, changes jobs frequently, and he comes from money, has a good lawyer. Although there are complaints, he’s never had any criminal charges filed against him because he never did more than make the women feeluncomfortable with his questions and the way he watched them.”
“So, he’s creepy, but does that make him a killer?” They were looking for someone intelligent, and someone who had the means to be able to purchase equipment to help him with his bone breaking goals and to have a place to keep his victims for long periods of time without them being found. Pete Larkin definitely fulfilled the second, but was he smart enough to pull this off?
“He doesn’t have a criminal record, and colleagues don’t report that he’s ever been anything other than professional, if not a little aloof, with them—which is part of the reason he’s managed to never get fired.”
“Why the obsession with broken bones? It’s what he asks his female patients about, but why that specifically? It’s not like everyone there would be there because of accidents; there would be stroke and seizure victims too.”
“He was in a bad accident when he was a toddler. Fell off a third story balcony. Should have died, but somehow, he didn't. He broke over half the bones in his body, was in the hospital for over a year recovering.”
Chloe nodded, digesting this. That could certainly explain the obsession with broken bones and could be where this idea to see if it was possible to break every bone in someone’s body was possible. “What about Harley Zabkar?”
“I asked around about him before I left yesterday and Fin was right.”
She refused to let herself think about Fin right now. The quicker she forgot about him, the better. “He doesn’t get along with patients or colleagues?”
“No one likes him. He has zero people skills, but he is the best surgeon in the hospital. His IQ is off the charts. He graduated high school at the top of his class at the age of fifteen. He’sperformed surgery on patients no one else would even touch.”
So that ticked the intelligence box. If someone could pull this off, then it would be someone like Harley Zabkar. “He got money?”
“Talk around the hospital is that he’s deep in debt. He has a gambling problem, and apparently, he’s into prostitutes; the real high-class ones.”