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Laura headed for her cramped, ramshackle living room, needing to be as far away from the kitchen as her small apartment would allow. The apartment was always supposed to have been temporary; Laura couldn’t bring herself to upgrade it to something more careful, because that would have meant admitting defeat.
Besides, getting a decent apartment on a single wage in this city wasn’t easy. Not even for an FBI agent. Given the way the alcoholism had ravaged through her savings, Laura counted herself lucky to have been able to scrape together the deposit for this place, furnished with cast-offs and donations as it was.
She glanced out the window, taking in the skyline, thinking of all those people out there. All of them managing to have a single drink and then stop. They were crowding in bars and restaurants now, she knew, somewhere out there in the DC evening. She envied them. She wished she could be one of them.
Laura reached into her pocket and pulled out the forty-five-day chip she had received almost two weeks ago. One and a half weeks, to be precise. Just a few more days, and she would be back at the sixty-day mark of her sobriety. Visions like these, like the abuse of Amy at the hands of her own father, always threatened to drag her back under. To drown her. Especially when she couldn’t do anything about them. So many times she had beaten her demons, or thought she had, only to fall back into old habits.
She was trying not to let them. Not this time.
There had been a time, a couple of years ago, when something like this would have sent her into a destructive spiral without end. She would have drunk herself into a stupor for weeks on the back of this, maybe even months. Even half a year ago, she might have fallen off the wagon with such speed and violence that it would have shocked even herself. But now, things were better. She was getting better.
At least, forty-five days’ worth of better.
Laura still wasn’t perfect. She knew that. But this case was so close to her own heart. When she looked at Amy, what she was really seeing was Lacey. And more than anything, she wanted to be with her daughter.
Spurred on by that thought, Laura opened up her laptop and tapped out her password, opening it up to a full-screen image that she used as her background. Herself with Lacey, when Lacey was about three years old. She was so tiny then. Laura remembered that day, when they’d gone to the beach to show Lacey the sea for the first time. They’d had ice creams and built a sandcastle, and laughed. And then Laura had snuck away to get herself a drink, and Marcus had caught her, and they’d had a screaming match that ended with a silent and sullen drive back home.
Laura opened up her browser and logged into Facebook, typing “Marcus Amargo” into the search bar. He came up as the first result, and she clicked on his profile, ready to send him a message.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t sent him hundreds of messages before, but that didn’t mean she was going to give up. She could just tell him that she was almost at sixty days again. She knew he’d said so many times he wouldn’t let her so much as see Lacey from a distance until she got to the ninety-day mark, but maybe he would soften up when he saw that she was trying.
Laura frowned at the screen. Where was the message button? Actually, where was half of Marcus’s profile? She couldn’t see anything. Not even recent posts or pictures. She’d been hoping he had posted something about Lacey recently.
She clicked around, her heart rate steadily speeding up as she search for anything she could grasp onto. No. No, this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be true. He’d…
He’d blocked her.
Laura stood up, throwing her hands to her head, spinning in a circle as she panicked, her breathing coming short and fast. Marcus had blocked her. How was she supposed to talk to him now? How was she supposed to get Lacey back?
She knew she was never going to be granted full custody of Lacey after all of the problems she’d had. Her alcoholism was a matter of court record, and she had to accept that. But she’d hoped that at least visitation might be possible one day—that she might at least be able to see her!
Tears welled up behind her eyes and streamed down her cheeks as Laura buried her face in her hands. No. She was so close. A few more weeks, and she would be there. She would reach the goal that Marcus had set after he’d taken custody of Lacey.
Behind her eyelids, the last time she’d seen her daughter replayed in Laura’s mind. The way Lacey had looked so confused, so upset at her mother’s tears. The way Marcus had lifted her and carried her away, their daughter looking back over his shoulder. That had been the last time she’d been allowed to speak to her daughter.
The last memory that Lacey had of her was of a woman streaked with mascara and tears, crying great sobs that brought her to her knees, her hair a mess, her clothes stained with vomit, an empty vodka bottle still in her hand.
Laura couldn’t let it be that way. She had to fix it. She reached for her phone, intending to call Marcus right away, but she paused and then put it down again. No. If she contacted him some other way, it would only prompt him to block her there, too. She needed to be smart about this. She needed to stay strong. If she proved herself, Marcus might come around. And if he didn’t, the court system would.
Marcus didn’t understand any of this. He didn’t know about her visions; she’d never found the courage to tell him. And when she’d had the vision of him breaking it off with her and taking their daughter away, she’d only been able to drink herself to unconsciousness to block it out. That hadn’t stopped it from becoming reality.
She had never been able to give him an excuse for her behavior. He didn’t know the burdens she was carrying. The only thing she could do was prove to him that she was fighting them—and that would only be achieved by bringing him that ninety-day chip.
Laura needed to distract herself with something else, stay busy. Prevent the devil from getting to her idle hands.
She sat down on the uncomfortable, lumpy sofa and opened up her laptop again, lifting it from the coffee table. She fired up the tabs she’d last opened in her browser, trying to get her head back into the game.
She needed to do something about Amy. Lacey was out of her reach just now, and that hurt like hell, but there was nothing she could do except wait. She might be able to help Amy today. If she could, she was going to have to.
Laura brought up a search on the governor, looking for as much information on him as she could find. He’d been in various political offices for a few years, rising through the ranks. There were plenty of news stories about him, even some vague whiffs of scandal involving a previous secretary of his. But nothing about violence or abuse, no hint of an out-of-control temper.
Laura tucked her blonde hair back behind her ears, trying to think. She worried her long, slim fingers together, twisting and turning them. If she didn’t figure this out, Amy was in for a horrific existence. She needed to do something.
Impulsively, she picked up the phone even though it was late in the evening. Those who worked for the FBI quickly got used to never really being off duty. That was part of the job. The tech department was no different.
“Yeah?”
Laura half-smiled to herself, in spite of the seriousness of the situation. Dean Marsters always answered the phone in the same way. “It’s me. Just wanted to pick your brain on something, if you’re not busy?”
