Chapter 1
Stray beams of pink light hit the wall across from Austin Drake’s bed as morning came too quickly. The birds were well into their daily song, but Austin couldn’t hear them in the cocoon of blankets he had piled on top of himself. However, he did hear the buzz of his phone and quickly grabbed it from the edge of the mattress, nearly knocking it to the floor.
He looked at the time on the phone, but it didn’t register in his mind. He recognized the name on the screen despite his sleep-filled eyes and hit the button on the side of his phone to mute the ringing. Whatever it was that Maria wanted, it could wait until later.
Maria was persistent. Seconds later, his phone rang again. Not wanting this to carry on for the rest of his slumber, he dealt with the call in hopes that he could defuse the situation and go back to sleep.
“Hello?” he rasped, the word hardly making it out of his dry throat. The simple act of speaking was too strenuous for his exhausted body. A headache came on like a flashbulb, causing him to rub his brow with his palm.
“Are you not up yet?” Maria’s voice called into the phone, too loudly for his liking.
His stomach started to bubble, and the stale taste in his arid mouth made him want to gag.
“What time is it?”
“Are you kidding me?” she chided. “Dude, of all days, you choose this one to stay in bed? I’m already on my way. I picked up a box of doughnuts and some coffee to celebrate our first day.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” he said, his eyes still closed.
“Seven thirty.”
“We aren’t even unlocking the doors until nine,” he said sternly. “We agreed on that time.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t get work done before that,” she replied. “I know you’re used to working for someone else, but this is a whole new game. If you don’t hustle, you don’t get paid.”
“I know.” Austin sighed. “We don’t have any clients yet. I don’t see why we both need to sit around the office until we have some actual work to do.”
Maria breathed impatiently into the phone. “But how do we get clients if we’re not around to find them? Besides, we can’t start off our new business by coming in late. That’s just a bad precedent to set.”
Austin gritted his teeth. He so desperately wanted to sleep off the hangover he’d stupidly brought on, but he knew Maria was right.
“You can do it,” she said kindly, the way a mother would urge a child out of bed in the morning. “Put two feet on the floor, drink a gallon of water, and get your ass here. I have coffee and doughnuts waiting for you.”
Austin groaned. The idea of ingesting anything was making him feel queasy.
“What if I just slept for another hour?” he asked, trying not to beg.
“Come on,” she urged. “Drink your water and get here before I unlock the doors. It’s not going to be good for business if our lead investigator isn’t here to see clients.”
“But we don’t have any clients,” he complained.
“Eventually, we will. See you soon,” she said shortly before hanging up.
Austin winced as he slid into a seated position. He buried his aching head in his hands and tried to convince himself that he was going to be okay.
He stood on his feet, gravity weighing heavily on his body as he padded across the floor to his kitchen. He filled a large glass from the tap and sipped as much as he could in one breath. Carrying the glass to the bathroom, he stared at himself in the mirror for a moment, taking in the pitiful nature of his situation.
Austin’s face was dull and puffy, as it often was after drinking. However, the shape of his face had permanently shifted in the past few years. He’d once had a youthful visage and a slim build. That was back in the early days of his career when he worked out on a regular basis and ate well. Now, he drank like a fish and ate whatever he could easily get his hands on when he remembered to eat. The booze, salt, and extra calories had caused his figure to expand slightly, and he carried about twenty spare pounds that he had no motivation to lose. On occasion, he’d tell himself that he would get back on track, but then something would come up and he’d sink deeper into his poor habits.
Somehow, he managed to drink the water Maria recommended and hop into the shower. The warm water had a restorative effect on the detective and made him feel as though he were well enough to leave the house. He dried off and put on a crisp white shirt and grey pants. He ditched the tie and left the top buttons loose.
This relaxed look never would have cut it in Baltimore. The Bureau had a strict dress code to abide by. Everyone he had worked with wore dark suits with ties. People on the street knew they were the feds before they even pulled out their badges. He appreciated being newly self-employed so he could wear a relaxed wardrobe, but he still felt out of sorts and wondered how long it would take before he would be used to his new routine.
A lot of things had changed in the past year or so. Something small, like the sight of his old badge on the dresser, would send him back into an earlier time. When this happened, he’d often laugh a wistful chuckle, surprised at how different his life had become. One day, he found an old newspaper clipping his mother had given him after he had successfully completed his first case. Scanning over the details, he scoffed at the mindset he had once held as he worked to make the world a better place.
After all, that kind of hero’s mission was intertwined with his DNA. Austin came from a long line of officials. His entire paternal side of the family consisted of government workers of one kind or another. His mother’s side of the family was filled with public servants, too. It was as if the private sector was seen as a disrespect to their great nation and the people who inhabited it.
There was a time where Austin might have agreed with that sentiment. Upon graduating from high school, he had narrowed his career prospects down to the military or law enforcement. It wasn’t until he took a psychology class that he realized that he had a knack for understanding how people thought. He changed his degree to allow for both criminal justice and psychology and was accepted into a graduate program during his senior year of college. Given his instinct for the science and his background, he was heavily recruited by the FBI. He was thrilled with this courtship, but not nearly as thrilled as his parents were. When he accepted the position as a trainee in the profiling program, his family threw a party to celebrate.
Those were the days that he’d eagerly put on his drab suits and march into the office with a cup of coffee in his hand. He would rise early to work out and stay late to get extra paperwork in. He dove deep into the world of investigation, learning about the sickest minds his great nation had to offer.
Austin opened his pantry and pulled out a nearly-empty box of cereal. He shoved a handful of dry bran into his mouth and forced himself to chew and swallow it. The sugar helped settle the jittery feeling he had, and the solid sustenance calmed his turbulent gut. He wiped the residue from his hand onto his pants as he turned around to search for his empty water cup. In the process, he spotted the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the counter and nearly gagged. Wincing, he picked up the large bottle between two fingers and deposited it into a cupboard. Out of sight, out of mind.
Even dressed and nearly ready to go, Austin dreaded going into work. He had lingering anxieties of going into an office to sit down and deal with desperate people.
At one point in his career, there had been some joy in helping others. He remembered every single case he’d ever worked on and knew that he had done some real good during his tenure with the FBI. For a long time, that good was the driving force behind his career. When it got hard to look at another stack of photos of mutilated bodies, he reminded himself that he could save someone from suffering the same fate.
Eventually, not even that was enough. Austin could hardly peel himself from his bed in the morning, and he struggled to sleep at night. To deal with this, he would pour a few stiff drinks upon returning from the office. He’d eat a carryout dinner, too wiped from work to cook, and drink a few more before bed. On the mornings he knew he’d be faced with a tough reality, he’d pour a little liquor into his paper coffee cup. The booze didn’t fix everything, but it helped considerably.
A lot of the guys he worked with had their own ways of blowing off steam. One woman trained for marathons in her spare time. Austin knew when she was working on a hard case when he’d see her on the office treadmill, dripping with sweat. Another guy smoked like a chimney and chewed his nails down to the nubs when he couldn’t smoke. A couple of others liked to hit the bottle. One did yoga and meditated, but that guy snapped after a couple of years and went to the private sector. The job was rewarding when it went well, but it was hell when it didn’t. Austin had seen so many awful parts of humanity that the average person would become downright catatonic over.
For instance, if he hadn’t had his coping mechanisms in place, no matter how unhealthy they were, profiling a man who liked to take the tongues of his female murder victims before leaving the scene would make it hard to sleep at night. He wouldn’t have been able to put his disgust at the back of his mind as he figured out that the killer was a painfully shy man who struggled to speak to women and had developed anger issues because of it. To be perfectly honest, his mind was on the bottle of vodka in the trunk of his car as he went with cops to pick up the piece of scum who’d killed and mutilated all of those women.
Then, there was the perp who would tie up families in their homes and threaten to kill them if they made eye contact with him. Then, he’d blindfold everyone and torture the kids in front of the parents, all the while promising to kill everyone in the house if anyone moved a muscle. Austin interviewed countless crying parents. That was part of the gig, but there was something heartbreaking about how emasculated all the fathers were when they’d recount their tale. Big, alpha men couldn’t even make eye contact with him as they muttered toward the table. One of the victims was a cop. His gun was in the next room over, but he couldn’t get to it at the risk of losing his life. Luckily, no one was killed, but the psychological scars would stay on those victims and their communities for life.
Austin bore some of those same scars. He was a reasonably capable man, but he wasn’t as strong as some of the people he had interviewed. If he were in their position, he would have had to sit with his hands in his pockets as the people closest to him were tortured within an inch of their lives. Austin could get into the minds of these criminals, but he couldn’t prevent them from hurting people. He could only stop them after they’d killed enough people to get enough information on them.
Constantly living in the minds of the most despicable people on the planet didn’t help, either. For the most part, the forensic psychologists could sit on the surface of their consciousness and examine them from a clinical level. They frequently asked questions about whether the perp had some sort of brain abnormality or abusive past. In that way, they were very much like clinical psychologists. The major difference is that they never worked with the subject to help them change their dangerous thinking. But just as your average therapist often needs their own therapist to vent their patients’ emotions that latch on, many of his coworkers were burdened with the negativity these criminals leeched on.
If Austin hadn’t tried to act so tough, he probably would have gotten a lot out of seeing a therapist. In fact, the Bureau recommended it as long as no identifying details were disclosed. However, he thought that by doing so, he would automatically out himself as too soft for the job, which would lead to his eventual dismissal. Whether that was the case, he feared that there would be repercussions if he ever sought help for the way he dealt with work stress. Besides, no one else was pouring their heart out to a shrink. Why should he?
Feeling woozy, Austin wrenched open the fridge and looked for something to stabilize his blood sugar. He found a shriveled orange and ripped off the peel, sucking on the cold segments. He sat on one of his kitchen barstools and rested the side of his face on the cool countertop as he waited for the fruit to heal his ailment.
This was when he usually swore to himself that he would never drink again. Waking up and feeling terrible was a given, but it killed him to continue to feel ill when he had things he needed to do. Though his physical state said otherwise, he truly wanted to start off his new business venture on a high note. But once the dark thoughts started streaming in, he had to have a little booze to take the edge off. In fact, the whole reason he’d started drinking the night before was in celebration and to work off enough nerves so he could sleep. After all, he was worried about being up all night before his big first day and not getting enough shut-eye. That irony was not completely lost on him.
But no matter how often he repeated to himself that he was done drinking for good, he always eventually felt better enough to give it another try. Then, the cycle would continue for as long as he could find a reason to drink. Every attempt he made to get his life back in order on a personal level was futile. He would fill up his refrigerator with fresh fruits and vegetables, only to have them shrivel and rot as he comforted himself with takeout.
Maybe this time would be different. He was in a new job, doing the thing he did best. The doom and gloom surrounding the subject matter of his work would still be there, but he would be allowed to call the shots. Perhaps being able to work on his own time, in his own style, would help with the crushing stress he felt at the Bureau. There would be no hoops to jump through and no chain of command to deal with. What little paperwork he might have, he could always have Maria do for him. Things really could be different this time.
And when he was being fair, his profession wasn’t all bad. Yes, it was not ideal that he had to stare at pictures of corpses for hours on end to figure out how they got that way, but sometimes, the horror led to peace. More often than not, his cases ended with a criminal behind bars. When the unknown was brought to light, communities could relax and let their guard down. People living in fear could finally begin to heal. Plus, no future victims would fall at the hands of a masked maniac. Austin had shaken the hands of survivors and government officials, knowing that he had done some tangible good in the world. That was always a good feeling that helped to keep the shadows at bay. Of course, the whole department liked to go out for celebratory drinks when someone closed a case, so it didn’t help Austin’s dependence on the stuff.
Just as Austin was able to peel his head from the counter and stand upright, he received another phone call from Maria. Checking the time, he picked it up.
“What’s up?” he asked, his voice still raspy.
“I was just calling to see if you were out of bed,” she said. “I just had this feeling that you had gone back to sleep after I hung up the phone with you. Was I right?”
He smirked. “Actually, I’m dressed and about to head out the door. Did that go the way you planned?”
Maria cackled, her laugh warm and soothing to Austin’s aching head. “I’m glad to hear you’re going to make it into our first day of work. I’m just unlocking the door now. I was hoping we’d both be here so we could cut a ribbon with a giant pair of scissors or something, but I guess that’s not going to happen.”
Austin wanted to laugh, but he didn’t have the energy. Instead, his appreciation for his new partner’s humor came out as a weak sniff.
“I guess we’ll call this the soft opening. We can save the giant scissors for another day. Hurry up, though, because I’ll eat all these doughnuts if you don’t show up soon.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll see you in a bit. Don’t take on too many cases without me,” he said sarcastically.
“Don’t test me,” she said before hanging up the phone.
It took a few minutes, but Austin managed to find his shoes that he had inadvertently kicked underneath his unmade bed. He had to sit down to put them on and tie them, disgusted at himself for how out of breath the simple process of getting dressed made him. For a brief second, he nearly made a promise to start working out again, but he knew better than to even suggest such things to himself. In time, perhaps he could take back control of his health. This would not be the day. His plan was to sit down as much as possible, possibly snag a nap, and eat as many sugary and fatty foods as it took to ease the suffering of his hangover. Today was about survival. Another day, he might try to improve himself.
After cracking the front door open, he immediately regretted not taking his sunglasses from the car to the apartment. For a second, he even considered walking to his car with his eyes closed, but he ultimately decided that he didn’t need an injury to accompany the hangover. Instead, he gripped his keys in his hand and squinted so only a sliver of blinding light could touch his sensitive pupils. Sweat was already forming at his hairline. By the time he got to his new office, he’d be damp and reek of alcohol. He was basically broadcasting his alcoholism at this point—a fantastic way to garner the trust of new clients. Yes, someone with a dire situation on their hands and nowhere else to turn would certainly want to give their case to a thirty-eight-year-old man who was in no better condition than a frat boy in a Friday morning lecture. However, the college kid hardly knows better and is given a pass for such behavior. A grown man and professional is not.
Feeling low on confidence during what was supposed to be an exciting and important time in his professional career, Austin started his car and blasted his air conditioning. The cool air helped considerably with the nausea. A half-empty sports drink sat in his cup holder. He took a swig of the warm, syrupy liquid, wincing at how the warm liquid felt in his mouth. Still, the hydration and sugar helped. By the time he was halfway to the new office, Austin had a morsel of hope that the day wouldn’t be a complete loss, which was much more than anyone could have expected of him when he woke up that morning. He was out of bed, dressed, and hadn’t vomited on himself yet. That was as good as it was going to get for Austin Drake on his first day of his new job.
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