The One That Got Away (13 page)

“And?”

Jarocki was on to her. He knew she wouldn’t have run down there just out of some sense of altruism. He knew as well as she did that she’d gone there for selfish reasons. “And I can see Holli’s killer pay for what he did.”

“And?”

“There aren’t any more ands.”

“Are you sure?”

Zoë’s hands turned to fists. She leaned forward in her seat, her feet bouncing in agitation.

“Zoë?”

“And if they catch this bastard, he can tell them what he did with Holli.”

“You’re in search of answers. To some people, that may seem selfish or self-centered. It doesn’t matter. You need answers to move on with your life. Don’t feel you have to hide your agenda, Zoë.”

She breathed a little easier at his validation.

“Is there any connection between this woman and you?”

“Her name was Laurie Hernandez.” She didn’t like her to be thought of as an anonymous victim. People forgot the anonymous.

“I’m sorry, yes. Laurie Hernandez. Any connection between you and Laurie?”

“I didn’t know her, but she has the same thing carved into her hip as I do. Roman numerals. The press is calling him the Tally Man because he numbers his victims.”

“Yes, I saw that in the
Chronicle
. How do you feel about all this?”

How do you think?
she wanted to say. It was a dumb question, but it was how Jarocki operated. He asked seemingly obtuse questions to provoke a response and give her room to open up.

“Frightened. Nervous. Upset. Angry.” She looked down at her balled hands and unclenched them. “The son of a bitch who tried to kill me is here in the Bay Area. That scares me. He’s always been a bogeyman who existed out there in the ether, but now he’s real, and that upsets me. I’m angry that he did to someone else what he did to Holli and me. I’m angry because he thinks he can keep on killing women. I’m angry because if I’d done more when I had the chance, Laurie Hernandez wouldn’t be dead. And that pisses me off more than anything.”

Jarocki was silent for a moment. “You are not responsible for his actions.”

“Only my own—and those have had consequences.”

“What consequences?”

“I left Holli behind. No one knows whether she’s alive or dead. I couldn’t take the cops to his little killing playground, so they never found him. He’s been free to continue killing since then, and that’s partially my fault. Don’t tell me it’s not.”

“And there’s an airliner that went missing, the new Bay Bridge is cracked, and the national deficit hasn’t decreased. Those are all on you too, I presume.”

“No, of course not.”

“Are you sure? These things happened, and you did nothing to prevent or alleviate them, so you must be responsible for them too, going with your logic.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but I’m illustrating that you are not responsible for the world’s ills. You can’t carry the blame for others or their future consequences. None of us can. That’s the road to self-destruction. Look, we’ve talked about this many times during our sessions, and I know it’s hard, but you have to forgive yourself. People can’t function without forgiveness. It’s why the Catholics have confession and the Jews have Yom Kippur. You recognize your failings, and you move on.”

“Sounds like guilt-free living.”

“It’s sane living.”

“That’s all fine and dandy, but you’re forgetting punishment. If I go to confession, there’s no getting off the hook. I have to do penance by saying Hail Marys or whatever. There’s a punishment to be paid. Where’s my punishment?”

“Haven’t you punished yourself enough?”

It was a low blow, a good one, but still a low one.

Jarocki got to his feet. “I’m going to make myself a cup of coffee. Can I get you any?”

She nodded, and they left his office for a closet masquerading as the staff break room. He made them both coffee, using one of those pod machines.

“I get stuck in that office all day. Do you mind if we walk and talk? Everyone’s gone for the day. No one will overhear us.”

“Sure.”

They walked the quiet, narrow corridors. It reminded her of her rounds at the mall. She resisted the urge to check doors to see if they were locked.

“Despite your unorthodox approach, how did the police treat you?”

“Like cops.”

He smiled and nodded. “I got that from the inspector who came by to see me. He knew I couldn’t share anything, but still he came on a fishing expedition.”

“Actually, if I’m being honest, they were good. Once I got them to listen, it helped calm me down. I won’t say they made me feel like I was helping, but I know I have. Because of me, they know the case isn’t a one-off.”

“Isn’t that great? You said you wanted to help and you have. You’ve put the police on the right course that will help catch this killer.”

“But I can do more.”

“I’m sure you can, but it’s not your job. You’re not the police. You’ve done what you can. Now let them do their job.”

That was easier said than done. It was hard to sit on the sidelines when she was connected to all this. There were still more answers locked inside her head. She needed to dig them out and not just for their benefit. She needed to know what had happened to her and Holli when they left Vegas. She wasn’t willing to let it be lost in the murk anymore.

They reached the end of a corridor and stopped to look out the window. They weren’t high enough to get the full panorama of the city, but she got a decent look at Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and could even make out the top of Pier 25. She sipped her coffee and found it tasted more bitter than it had a moment ago.

She didn’t like it when Jarocki got all parental with her and tried to teach her life lessons, but his genuine concern for her well-being took the sting out of his mild badgering.

“You know I have to take you to task,” Jarocki said. “When you rushed to that crime scene, you were in crisis and you didn’t call me.”

An image of her bursting through the police cordon played across her mind. It had been a long time since she’d been that out of control. She took a breath and exhaled. “There wasn’t time. The police interviewed me for a long time.”

“And that could have been avoided if you hadn’t acted so impulsively. You should have called me first, and I could have been there with you. As we’ve discussed many times, impulsive behavior isn’t good for us. Do you think you could have handled the situation differently and achieved the same results?”

Impulse control was one of Jarocki’s many hobbyhorses, but to Zoë it smacked of emotional repression. She understood that it wasn’t. Feeling fear wasn’t anything to avoid, but letting it overwhelm her behavior was. It had taken a year of hindsight to understand that. In the heat of the moment, she wasn’t always rational.

“I panicked when I saw the news. I was back in that shed with him. I had to know whether it was him again, and I didn’t care how I did it. I didn’t give myself any time to deal with the shock, and I should have.”

“I’m a resource you should never be afraid to use.”

“I’ll make sure I do that next time.”

“Several other aspects of what happened that night concern me. First, you came from a bar.”

“Oh come on, Dr. Jarocki. I’m not a drunk.”

“I never said you were. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional drink, but as I’ve discussed with you before, alcohol doesn’t help PTSD.”

“What else?” Zoë asked.

“You were provocatively dressed.”

She’d told him in the past that she dressed suggestively and went out alone to pick up guys. It was a side effect of her trauma. She had to put herself back in danger by placing herself in the same situation that had gotten her abducted. It was her punishment for escaping when Holli hadn’t. It hadn’t even been a conscious thought until Jarocki had gotten it out of her during one of their sessions. And even though she understood it, she still kept doing it.

“I was just having a night out. It wasn’t planned. It was just something I felt like doing. Are you now telling me that short skirts are no friends to PTSD?”

“No—and you’re being combative, Zoë.”

“What’s the problem, doctor? Look, if you’ve got something to say, then just spit it out.”

“You were out drinking in the middle of the week, dressed for a pickup. You were re-creating the scenario that got you abducted and putting yourself in the firing line again. Putting yourself to the test. Hoping for a confrontation. I thought you’d gotten past that behavior months ago. When did you slip—or have you just gotten better at lying to me?”

Zoë could tell Jarocki was angry, but he still managed to keep his tone to that of a disappointed parent.

“Look, you’re making a lot of assumptions. I could have been celebrating a birthday with a friend, for all you know.”

“Were you? Correct me. Tell me I’m wrong. What was the friend’s name?”

Zoë didn’t answer.

“Zoë, I have been your confidant for over a year. I know you. I understand the situation and the pain you are in, and I’m here for the long haul. It doesn’t matter if it takes a year or a decade to help you, I will be here to support you. You don’t have to lie to me. You’ll never disappoint me, but if you keep making bad choices, you’ll disappoint yourself.”

Yeah, he was a confidant. Confidants were great at listening and providing shoulders to cry on, but that was it. They were never there to offer any concrete help, help that made a change. And therapists were the worst kind of confidant. They tossed you all the materials for making a bridge but never provided the instructions. She was just about to drop this science on her
confidant
when the fight went out of her.

She couldn’t chastise him for what he’d said, because he wasn’t wrong. She was putting herself in harm’s way. She was putting herself to the test. She wanted to see if she could repel someone like the Tally Man. She had skills she didn’t have the last time. If she ran into another Tally Man, would the outcome be the same? She wanted to win, score one for the victims. And if she lost, she was OK with that too. It was the price she had to pay for surviving the abduction when Holli hadn’t. These were crazy thoughts.
What’s wrong with me?
At first, she hadn’t been aware of her actions, hadn’t recognized her dangerous thinking. Now she did. She was aware. Yet still she did the same thing again and again.

She slumped against the wall, slopping coffee onto the tile floor. “I don’t know why I do it,” she conceded.

He took her half-drunk cup of coffee. “We’re complex machines. It takes us a long time to work out why we do the things we do, but once we do, we are better off for it.”

He walked her back toward his office. “With so much that’s happened, how do you think you’re doing in general?”

She wanted to lie and say she was doing fine, but couldn’t. She’d recently assaulted three people because a killer was at the back of her mind. She told Jarocki about lashing out at Monica at her self-defense class and the incidents with Rick Sobona and the journalist.

“Those are unfortunate incidents, but hopefully you recognize your situation. You are in a vulnerable state, and you need to take care of yourself. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Be good to yourself and surround yourself with supportive friends.”

It was all good advice, but advice was rarely that easy to implement. Being good to herself wasn’t going to help her against a killer. Friends might help. But when it came down to it, there was just herself to count on. That was a sad indictment of her life.

“Have the police offered you protection?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t mean to scare you, but if I saw you on the TV, then there’s more than an even chance that this killer did too, and he may have recognized you. That’s not good. Watch out for yourself.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The following day, Zoë sat at the mall information kiosk, thinking. She hadn’t stopped thinking since her session the night before. Many things swirled around in her head. The scariest of them all was that Tally Man could have recognized her. Her impulsiveness may have put a target on her back.

Sometimes, you’re not too smart
, Zoë thought.

When it came to personal space and safety, she’d upped her vigilance. The Tally Man could be anyone. That was the problem. He was a ghost to her. It was exhausting defending herself against a shadow.

The other issue that bugged her was Jarocki’s assertion that she’d helped the police all that she could, and it was time to back off and let them do their work. Jarocki was right but not in one respect. She could help the police more by giving them a concrete account of what had happened to her and Holli. The only way she knew how to do that was to retrace their route home from the Vegas trip.

She’d attempted the trip once, not long after she started seeing Jarocki, but had gotten only as far as Livermore. The moment she’d seen the signs for I-5 south, she’d panicked. She’d broken into a sweat, hyperventilated, and ended up at the side of the road, unable to go forward or go back. She’d finally called a tow truck to take her home.

She wasn’t ready then. She was now. It was important that she do this for Holli, Laurie Hernandez, and all the other victims—and for herself. Jarocki was always professing the need for her to do something constructive and positive. Going back to Vegas was it, for many reasons. In addition to helping the cops, she’d be facing an old demon, and that would help boost her self-confidence. Getting out of town would also put a lot of distance between her and the Tally Man, now that he was in the Bay Area. Retracing her steps was a good idea.

She played with Google Maps on her computer terminal in between shopper inquiries. She wasn’t supposed to use the computer for personal business, but there was a lot of downtime, despite the mall’s dubious reputation. Luckily, she was on shift with Jared and he wouldn’t say anything. He’d seen she was preoccupied and was happy to do patrols while she manned the kiosk.

She examined the possible routes to and from Vegas. Her journey to Vegas was easy to map. She and Holli had followed the freeways—I-580 to I-80, hang a left at Bakersfield, pick up CA 58 for Barstow, then follow I-15 all the way to Vegas. The drive had been dull, the equivalent of motoring elevator music. It had been her idea to shake things up for the return by avoiding the freeways, but she couldn’t remember the convoluted route they’d concocted. She’d been picked up by the Mono County Sheriffs between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes after she escaped, which meant she and Holli had been trying to come home via Yosemite. That narrowed their possible routes to only a couple of options. They’d either followed the roads up to Carson City or through Death Valley.