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Travis sighed. “Christ, what a mess.”
“We’ll send a couple of uniforms to help her feel better,” Derek said, “but they can’t stay for more than a day. She’ll need to make other arrangements.”
“She has a sister in the city,” Faith said. “Maybe you can convince her to say there for a while.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Derek said. “Keep us posted if any more surprises come up.”
Faith’s lips tightened. “Will do, Detective.”
Derek hung up without a response.
Faith sighed and collapsed onto the bed, rubbing her temples.
“You want to rest a while before we go talk to Mr. Porter?”
“Dammit,” Faith said.
She sat up and called the detectives again.
“What is it now?” Travis asked.
“We’re going to investigate a suspect,” Faith said, “would you mind sending a few officers to 251 South Eagle Street?”
“Flight risk?”
“Well, the last one tried to run,” Faith said.
“Lovely. I’ll tell you what. Just to make it easy on you, we’ll head over ourselves.”
Faith overheard Derek exhort Travis to be calm, but the older detective brushed him off. “How soon will you be there?”
“Twenty minutes,” Faith said.
“All right,” Travis replied. “See you soon.”
He hung up without waiting for a response, and Faith pressed the heels of her palms into her temples. Turk, awake from the noise, trotted over and put his head in her lap. It calmed her enough that she was able to endure Michael’s disapproving stare without snapping again.
“I’ll take the lead on this one, all right?” Michael said.
“Sure,” Faith said tersely.
They headed to the car, and Faith looked out the window, pointedly ignoring Michael.
She knew Michael was right. She had exhibited a serious lapse in judgment and lack of sleep wasn’t enough to explain it away.
She thought of the psychologist the Boss assigned to her, Doctor West. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering if maybe she could use his help after all.
No, that wasn’t it. She was tired, that’s all. She wasn’t twenty anymore, and all-nighters impacted her differently now. Michael was just as frustrated as she was, and who was to say he wouldn’t have made the same mistakes she made if he had made the call to Lucinda instead?
Still, as she stared out the passenger window at the slowly waking city, she couldn’t shake the voice in her head that told her she was losing control.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Michael glanced at Faith in the passenger seat. She continued to stare out her window, her lips and shoulders tense with anger. He sighed and turned back to the road.
He had tried to ignore the signs, but he could no longer pretend that Faith was unaffected by the arrival of the copycat killer. For the first time, he wondered if he shouldn’t have told her about him. Then again, it wasn’t as though she wouldn’t find out anyway. The copycat killer was all over the news in Philadelphia, not to mention the talk of the field office.
She would have found out eventually, and it would have affected her just the same. He wasn’t surprised that Faith hadn’t sought counseling for her PTSD. Law enforcement was notorious for refusing counseling. His own memories of counseling after shooting Trammell and saving Faith weren’t the fondest.
