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“Thank you.”
Rachel made a quick exitfrom the office, leaving Ms. Clements holding a plastic bottle of water. When she was out, Rachel hurried back down the hallway and out into the lobby again. She felt slightly guilty about what she’d just done, but she also knew she’d managed to grab about fifteen photographs. She knew there was a chance that none of them would help at all, but it would at least give Jack a better idea of what Dr. Matthews’ last few days had looked like.
She made her way back out into the parking lot as quickly as possible. Yes, she felt bad, but the adrenaline rush was rather nice. She nearly calledJack right away but figured she’d wait a while. Besides…she still had to go to the grocery store and the library unless she wanted Grandma Tate to ask any questions.
She exited the lot and, though she knew it was a bit immature, couldn’t help but feel she’d just gotten one over on a system that often caused hold-ups and obstacles during cases. She just hoped Jack would see it the same way.
CHAPTERTEN
He saton the floor of his darkened apartment with his head in his hands. The lights were out, and the curtains were drawn. He'd learned months ago that the sun only made it worse. It was easier to think in the darkness. In the darkness, the pain faded. Sometimes if there was no light at all, the pain seemed to disappear completely.
But he knew that it was important to get out and move around. Sitting in his apartment all by himself, avoiding light and people at all costs, was only going to make things worse. That's what the doctors and the support groups had said, anyway.
At first, he remained in his apartment because he feared what he might do when he went out.It had been a little over seven months since he'd gotten the diagnosis that had changed his life. When the doctor had told him he didn't have much time to live, he knew that his reaction would probably be considered strange by most people. There was nofear, and there was no regret. There were no praying or hopeful diatribes with his doctor, family, or friends. All he had felt, starting roughly five seconds after being told he would die soon, was anger.
When he'd gotten the news and learned he was terminal, the first thing he'd wanted to do was punched the doctor. He excused himself to the restroom almost right away just to prevent himself from doing it. While in the restroom, he kicked over a trash can and dented it terribly and then put his hand through one of the mirrors over the sink.
The anger only worsened when he was told there was nothing that could be done. There were treatments, sure, but his situation was too far gone, and there was no help for him. Anything that could potentially help would only add a few months of misery and hospital beds to his future.
The support groups had helped for a while. It had been refreshing to know that there were other people that had felt anger before anything else... and that they still felt it on a daily basis. During the first few meetings, he had done his best to express just how angry he felt most of the time. There were some days when he thought calling it anger was doing it a disservice. What he was feeling was more like rage. He felt it in the pit of his stomach and in the muscles of his arms and hands as he was constantly wanting to strike out at things. He felt it in his head, two, sometimes so badly that it made him dizzy. Sometimes you would see double, the world becoming a blur that he wanted to attack... to burn down to its very foundation.
He'd woken up one morning with the rage filling his head like angry Hornets. He couldn't form a thought without the anger knitting itself into it. Even when he had placed his feet on the floor that morning, he had done so by stomping his feet down. The buzzing in his head created one of the worst headaches yet, and he knew something needed to be done to release that anger. With tears in his eyes and double vision causing him to walk in a strange way, he'd taken the bus to the downtown YMCA in paid a guest fee for the day. He had found a dusty little room where punching bags had been set up and punched and punched and punched until his knuckles were bleeding inside of the boxing gloves.
It had helped, but not much. He'd woken up the next day with the anger slightly muted and his arms and hands sore from the workout. He'd spent that day as he was spending this current one—sitting in the dark in his apartment. He listened to some music at low volume and tidied up a bit as well as he could.
The following day, he killed Dr. Leery.
He hadn't meant to. He had intended to simply go to Leery's office and have a word with him to maybe push a little harder on solutions to his health. Surely there was something that could be done. Something experimental or a little unconventional. He was willing to try anything. But then Leary had insisted there was nothing they could do. The treatments that were available to him would not cure him but only add a few months.
Then his head started hurting, and the rage came back. The hornets buzzed in his skull, and he felt hot anger in the pit of his stomach. He left Leery's office and waited for his shift to end; he then followed Leery discreetly to the parking garage, and that's where the anger took over. He didn't remember much of what happened. He remembered the cracking noise of the driver's side window of Leery's car and the surprising amounts of blood that had been on his hands when he quickly ran away.
After that, the anger completely disappeared for two entire days. Things had felt so great that he dared to think something had changed… that he may have miraculously been healed. But the pain came back quickly. The speed at which it returned robbed him of sleep and kept him in the bathroom, throwing up. The anger of the situation also returned. It wasn't fair. Why was this happening to him? Why weren't these doctors that were getting paid so much money unable to help him?
He’d seen four doctors in all, and none had been able to help. They'd all told him the same thing. One of them had even recommended he stay in some sort of assisted living facility because none of his family lived locally. That it angered him more than anything else at that time, and that doctor—Dr. Matthews—had been the second he’d killed.
After Dr. Matthews, the pain had disappeared for about half a day, but the anger remained. He could sense it in the same way he could sense the air in his lungs and the tongue in his mouth. It was a part of him now, just as vicious and toxic for him as the diagnosis he’d received seven months ago.
But last night, the pain had come back. And it came back with a vengeance. It started in his head like it usually did and jerked him straight out of sleep. It wasn't the worst he'd ever felt, but damned close to it. As he stumbled to the bathroom to throw up, it felt as if someone had shoved a hot spike directly through the back of his head. The house spun. His vision doubled. Nothing in his body felt like it belonged to him... as if every single organ inside of him was trembling to be somewhere else.
And now he was here, sitting on the rug of his living room floor. He supposed an easy answer would be to take the doctors up on their suggestions of an assisted living facility. There would be easier access to pain medication there. There would be routine visits by medical professionals.
But he didn't want to give up the little bit of control he had left. Right now, his life felt like it was his own, and he didn't think he'd feel that way in a home. So, for now, he only knew of one other thing that seemed to tip the scales toward something resembling normalcy, even if for only a few days at a time.
There were two more doctors he had blamed this entire time, two more doctors that had given him such a miserable prognosis. He knew which one must come next… it was the doctor that sometimes popped up in his dreams, dragging the pain inside of his head along with them. But first, he needed to let his body rest. He needed to get through this pain to make sure he wouldn’t be moments away from his next killing, only to throw up or pass out.
So, for now, it was the darkness and the pain. And as soon as he could stand without tottering and his vision was going fuzzy, it would be time to release some more of his anger.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Rachel went to the grocery store first because she knew if she needed any extra time for her little mission, she could easily blame the length of her trip on getting sidetracked in the library. She ran into the grocery store and grabbed a few things that wouldn’t go bad in the car for an extended period of time and then returned to the car. The entire supermarket expedition took less than ten minutes, and when she got back into the car, she texted Jack.
Where are you?
She didn’t bother waiting for a response. She was suddenly very excited—like a kid that had snuck out after curfew. It was childish, sure, but it was also the most excitement and joy she’d felt since getting her bad news several weeks prior. She headed for the field office, assuming that was where he would be unless he was off trailing a suspect. And based on the state of things when he’d left her house, she found that hard to believe.
Traveling the route to the field office made her feel even more rebellious, though shewasstarting to feel bad for so blatantly lying to Grandma Tate. She didn’t deserve the dishonesty; she’d done nothing but help and show genuine love and concern for Rachel and Paige every step of the way. Rachel decided then and there, now just five minutes from the field office, that she would tell her the truth when she got back home. Considering the minuscule amount of information she’d been able to get from the hospital, she doubted her ill-advised mission would net any helpful results, anyway.
Jack finally texted her back when she was three blocks away from the office. Just got back to field office. Suspect in custody but nothing solid.
