Mike Omer - In the Darkness

“Listen, I see you’re going through a phase here, Harry. Tell you what—you need a vacation.”

“No. I want to write stories.” He shifted the papers on his tables. “I had something here. A vet who adopted a three-legged dog. You’ll really like it.”

“Tell you what,” Daniel blurted. “How about a follow-up with that profiler? Bentley? You’ve been nagging me with it for a while.”

“Bentley?” Harry quirked his eyebrows. “The FBI profiler from last month?”

“You were interested in writing about her at the time.”

“Write about crime? And serial killers? I don’t know, Daniel.”

“Try it. You can make it a positive article. A young profiler trying to make a difference. It’s a nice story, right?”

“I don’t think she’s available for an interview. She just went to San Angelo following a case.”

“Well . . . fantastic!” Daniel brightened. “Fly there. See what she does. Write about that. That’s not exploitation, right? And maybe the change of scenery will do you some good. Get you to see things in a better light.”

Harry sighed heavily again, his shoulders slumping, while in his mind, he was doing a victory lap, the crowd cheering wildly.

Zoe lay on the motel bed, her hair still wet from the shower, wearing a pair of underwear and a long baggy shirt that had the logo of an indie rock band Zoe didn’t know. The shirt belonged to Andrea, and Zoe was pretty sure that she’d actually taken it from one of her boyfriends back in Boston.

But it was comfortable, and comfort was what Zoe needed right now.

They’d left soon after the crime scene technicians had shown up on the scene. Zoe had offered to drive, Tatum seeming tired and unfocused. He’d insisted he should drive, and she hadn’t argued. He’d taken them to a motel that was reasonably close to the police station. They’d both been silent during the car ride. Once she’d closed the motel room’s door behind her, the images and sensations had begun to break through. They were leaning against the wall of detachment that she protected herself with. As soon as she was alone, that wall always became paper thin.

She could walk out of the room, search for distractions, but she knew from experience it would only result in horrific nightmares. Her mind needed to vent, and it would do it one way or another. Best do it now, when she was mentally prepared.

The body had triggered this. Before she’d seen it, there could be numerous theories about what had happened. But once they’d found the body, got a visceral glimpse of its state, those realities had merged into one. Nicole Medina had been kidnapped, placed in a box, and buried alive.

Zoe had a knack. She could crawl into the mind of a killer, think like he did, sometimes even guess what he’d do next. But it was a gift with a price. She’d often find herself trapped in the mind of the victim as well. See their last moments, feel them almost as if they were her own.

And in Nicole’s case, her imagination didn’t even need to try hard. For the first time, she’d actually seen the victim suffering. Sliding into Nicole Medina’s mind at that nightmarish juncture was as natural as breathing.

It would have been dark in that box, pitch black. She’d been lying on her back, and whenever she moved, she’d feel the walls around her. The air would feel stale, dusty, and as time went by, she’d have trouble breathing, which would trigger panic.

The walls closed around her, the horrifying knowledge that she was trapped with nowhere to go.

As a child, Zoe had once gone on a tour with her family to Laurel Caverns. It was a large group of people, and Zoe had been excited, waving her flashlight around. Then, midtour, as she crawled through a tight tunnel, the woman in front of her got stuck. Behind her, the rest of the group kept closing in, not realizing the way forward was blocked, and Zoe could feel the weight of their bodies approaching. Walls all around her, people blocking her way forward and back—she suddenly had trouble breathing. Andrea, who was right behind, pushed her to get her to move, and it had taken all of Zoe’s self-control not to kick back.

She always avoided caves and tunnels after that day, and small elevators made her uncomfortable.

She lay on the bed, imagining the sensation of being trapped in that tiny space, a mountain of dirt all around her, her heart pounding in her ears, her breath coming out in short, panicky bursts.

Tatum stood in the shower, his back aching, palms burning from a dozen bruises and scratches. One of his fingernails was broken, a thin line of blood underneath. He let the hot water wash over him, thinking of Nicole Medina lying in the box. Remembering the girl’s screams on the video.

He observed the water pooling around his feet, gray with dirt. Sighing, he opened the motel’s customary soap bar’s package and began scrubbing.

Once he was clean, he got out of the bathroom, toweling himself, leaving wet footprints behind him on the parquet floor. He shut the blinds, then let the towel drop, considering his very limited wardrobe.

It was almost evening, but murder scenes weren’t generally conducive to a healthy appetite, and he wasn’t prepared to consider dinner. He thought of watching a bit of TV, but the idea of being cooped in the small room wasn’t attractive either.

The motel had a small swimming pool, and Tatum decided a short swim would be perfect, both for his back and his appetite. He hadn’t packed his bathing suit, so he went through his shorts. The white boxer shorts were a big no-no for obvious reasons. The black ones were a bit too tight, and while it wouldn’t be a problem as long as he stayed in the pool, once he left it, they’d cling to his privates like plastic sandwich wrap. The blue ones were probably fine. He put them on, threw a towel over his shoulder, and left the room, locking it behind him. He ignored the panicky voice in his mind telling him he was outside in nothing but his underpants. He wasn’t. He was wearing a bathing suit.

The swimming pool wasn’t large by any standard, and the water sparkled in the setting sun’s light. The surface was still, begging for someone to dive in. Tatum dove headfirst, which almost resulted in a concussion since the bottom was much closer than he’d initially estimated. He swam underwater to the other side of the pool and resurfaced, taking a long breath.

He did some laps. They were ridiculously short, a bit like doing laps in the bathtub, but for a while he concentrated on nothing but his body’s movement in the water, on his breath, on pushing himself away whenever he reached the pool’s edge.

After a few dozen minilaps, he felt someone watching him. He paused and lifted his head. It was Zoe. She stared at him with her piercing eyes, like a bird of prey considering a fish for dinner.

He gave her a cheery wave. “Come for a swim?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like swimming.”

“The water is really nice and cool.” Despite the fact that the sky was already a dark blue, the air was still stifling hot. “You can dip your feet.”

To his surprise, she actually sat down by the pool’s edge and took off her shoes. She put one foot in the water and then the other. Then she let out a long sigh.

He swam to her side. Her face seemed far away and troubled. For a second he almost splashed her with water, recalling from his college days that it was a sure way to get a shrieking laugh from a girl, a playful “Stop it!”

But then, looking at her face, he thought better of it. Zoe didn’t seem like the type to let out a shrieking laugh. She’d probably just give him a withering, chilly stare. Or possibly kill him.