Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look. At least then Maitland wouldn’t come around again, and maybe her dead partner would stop haunting her dreams. If nothing else, at least she would be able to tell herself that she had tried.
Zoe walked over to the table before her resolve could fail her and grabbed the file. There were four sheets of paper inside it, two each for the two victims. She felt sick just holding them in her hands, and nearly put them down again—but the image of Shelley’s face from her dream lingered in her mind’s eye, and Zoe started to read.
She scanned the information quickly, words and phrases jumping out at her. Bodies found in upstate New York. It would be cold up there at this time of year. It looked as though the methods were different for both women, as well as all of their particulars. Zoe saw no correlation in their ages, their weights and heights, their home addresses, the way that they had been killed.
But there was one thing that connected them, one reason why these two cases had been placed into the same folder and then left for her to see. Each of them had a symbol carved into their stomachs postmortem, with what looked to be the tip of a knife: a flat line that joined two perpendicular legs, coming down from it like supports. Zoe recognized it instantly as resembling the symbol for pi, if with a little stiffness compared to the customary curve.
That was interesting. She understood now why Maitland had left her the file. It was exactly the kind of case she would have worked on before. The kind of case that Shelley would have heard about and put their names in for, if Maitland hadn’t thought of it before. Signs and symbols, equations, strange clues that seemed to elude the understanding of the average agent. It was exactly her kind of thing.
And it was almost refreshing, in a way. Having the numbers work on something that actually mattered—the thing that she had made her life’s work. Looking for connections and clues, solving a murder. It felt good that they were crowding her with information about a case, not just the dimensions of her apartment and everything in it. A relief.
That didn’t mean she was going to work on it—but she was intrigued. Intrigued enough to want to know more, even if that meant going to see Maitland herself. Maybe she could stave off the numbers a little while longer, give them something else to focus on. Maybe just for five minutes she could feel like herself again.
First, there was something even more important she was going to have to do—otherwise she would not be able to make it to the J. Edgar Hoover Building at all.
CHAPTER FOUR
Zoe kept her eyes straight ahead, focused on the back of the car in front of her. The drive had so far been difficult. It was hard to concentrate on keeping the vehicle on the road when you couldn’t stop analyzing license plates, exhaust fumes, keeping track of the number of cars you’d seen of each color, make, and model, getting glimpses of people in the seats with all their different measurements and calculations. Somehow, she’d made it this far, partly by focusing on obsessively maintaining the precise same speed for as much of the journey as possible.
The street she had ended up on was familiar enough. Zoe knew these buildings, knew which one was a floor higher than the others, which had developed a slight five-degree lean as its foundations subsided, and what time it was by the angle of the sun across the sidewalk. She had been here enough times to have made all of those calculations many times before, and as she looked around, seeing them floating in front of her eyes again, she was just about able to push through them to remember why she was here in the first place.
She found a parking space just outside, which was a miracle in itself. Zoe paused to look at herself in the car’s rearview mirror, leaning forward to examine her own face. She was still pale and her eyes were still ringed with black, but at least it was a slight improvement from earlier. A shower and smarter clothing had made a difference, even if it was only on the outside.
The inside was another thing altogether. It couldn’t be scrubbed clean in a shower.
She found the will somehow to push herself up out of her seat, opening the door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. Then she focused her gaze on the office building she was there for, keeping her eyes on the doorway and the dimensions that sprung out of nowhere into her sight, following them inside.
Dr. Lauren Monk’s office was on the third floor. She saw patients there, usually at set times, and though Zoe hadn’t booked an appointment for today, she had called ahead to make sure the doctor would be available.
Dr. Monk was sitting at her desk with the door open on the waiting room, showing that she was free. Zoe stepped through the brightly lit space, decorated in primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, and straight into the therapy room, where a familiar well-worn leather armchair beckoned. Zoe ignored it and remained standing, managing to drag her eyes up to meet Dr. Monk’s face as the doctor looked back.
If she was regarding her with any kind of expression, Zoe could not tell. All she could see was the dimensions: the distance between her eyes, the angle of her brows, the length of each individual hair, crowded throughout her vision so tightly that there was no room for Zoe to see the human face underneath. All she knew was that Dr. Monk had not changed anything about herself in the couple of months since Zoe had seen her last, when she’d been released from her regular appointment because she no longer needed it. She was still the same, with her dark bobbed hair cut in a pleasingly straight edge and the same beauty mark half an inch above the right side of her mouth.
“It’s good to see you again, Zoe,” Dr. Monk said, rising from behind her desk. She habitually sat opposite the leather armchair during sessions, facing the patient with nothing in between them. “It’s been weeks.”
“I did not want to make another appointment,” Zoe said, crossing her arms tightly across her own chest. “You told me I was doing better.”
“You were,” Dr. Monk said softly. She crossed around in front of the desk to stand directly facing Zoe. “But grief can derail even the most successful of rehabilitations. It can make our coping strategies seem ineffective, or that there’s no point in following them anymore. After the death of someone close to you, it’s normal to need a bit more help.”
Zoe tried to see past the numbers to read Dr. Monk’s expression again, but couldn’t. “I thought I had it under control.”
Dr. Monk’s posture softened and relaxed, the angles of her shoulders decreasing and smoothing out. “I want you to make another appointment, Zoe. Sometime very soon. As soon as you’re able to, in fact.”
“Okay.” Zoe took a breath. “That is not why I am here.”
Dr. Monk nodded slowly. “I can see that you’re experiencing something very difficult. Can you tell me how you’ve been sleeping?”
“Not much.” Zoe shrugged. “Late nights, late mornings. Alcohol helps. But then I feel tired. Nap during the day sometimes.”
Dr. Monk nodded again, faster this time. Four times, as if to herself. “I suspect that you are going through a major depressive episode,” she said. Zoe could do nothing but agree with the assessment; Dr. Monk knew her well enough. She didn’t know about depression, about whether you could call it that when the sadness was justifiable, but she trusted her therapist. “We’ll need to get you a prescription for some medication that will help you feel better. I can write you a scrip now, and we’ll discuss it further in our session.”