Face of Murder

CHAPTER ONE

Zoe traced cracks across the arm of the leather chair, seeing how their pattern revealed a tale of aging, of so many different hands and arms lying on this exact spot. She couldn’t decide whether that was a comfort, an indication of experience, or just gross. Who knew what kind of germs lurked within this fabric?

“Zoe?” Dr. Lauren Monk prompted her, from a similarly comfortable chair placed opposite her.

Zoe looked up guiltily. “Sorry, was I supposed to answer that?”

Dr. Monk sighed, tapping her pen against a pad of paper in her hand. Despite the recorder sitting on the desk which archived all of their sessions, it seemed that Dr. Monk was still a fan of traditional methods. “Let’s change tack for a moment,” she said. “We’ve had a few sessions together now, haven’t we, Zoe? I’m noticing that you sometimes have trouble with social cues.”

Ah. That. Zoe shrugged, trying to give off an air of indifference. “I do not always understand the ways in which people seem to react.”

“Or the ways in which they expect you to react?”

Zoe shrugged again, her gaze traveling toward the window. Then she mentally slapped herself; she was supposed to be taking an active part in these sessions, not acting like a moody teenager. “My logic is different from their logic.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Zoe knew why she was the way she was, or at least thought she did. The numbers. The numbers that were everywhere she looked, every moment of the day. They told her even now what prescription Dr. Monk wore in her glasses (barely strong enough to require any kind of aid), that there was half a millimeter of dust on the certificate frames on the wall but only a quarter of a millimeter on the psychology degree (indicating a stronger sense of pride in this than her other achievements), and that Dr. Monk had written down exactly seven words during their conversation so far.

She wanted to say it, or at least some parts of her did. She still had not admitted to Dr. Monk that she had an ability that no one else seemed to. No one except for the occasional serial killer, if the case she had worked a month or so ago was anything to go by.

But there was another part of her, still the stronger part, that could not bear to admit anything at all.

“I was just born this way,” Zoe said.

Dr. Monk nodded, but did not write anything down. Apparently, this was not a significant enough answer. “How does it feel when you miss those social cues? Does it bother you?”

Maybe it was the fact that they had done enough sessions together now for the initial awkwardness to fade away. Maybe it was just the freedom of talking to someone with whom she had no real professional or personal connection. Either way, Zoe’s mouth blurted out a truth that her mind had kept hidden from now, without her conscious permission. “Shelley finds it so easy.”

Zoe cursed herself immediately. What kind of thing to say was that? Now they would spend the rest of the session digging into this jealousy she felt toward Shelley, instead of working on real problems. Until this moment she had not even really acknowledged to herself that the envy was there.

“Agent Shelley Rose,” Dr. Monk said, consulting her notes from a previous afternoon in her office. “You feel more comfortable with her than your previous partners, you indicated to me previously. But you feel jealousy towards her. Can you expand on that?”

Zoe took a breath. Of course she could, though she did not want to. Reluctantly, she studied her own fingers, thinking it best to just get it over with. “Shelley has a way with people. She talks them into admitting things. And they like her. Not just suspects. Everyone.”

“Do you feel that people don’t like you, Zoe?”

Zoe shifted uncomfortably. This was all her own fault. She shouldn’t have said something like that. Admitting a weakness was an invitation for someone to dig into it. This was why she had not mentioned the numbers yet. Even if this therapist had been suggested by Dr. Applewhite, her most trusted friend and mentor, that didn’t mean that Zoe could trust her with her deepest and darkest secret. “I do not have many friends. Partners usually request to transfer away from me,” she admitted instead.

“Do you think this is linked to your struggle with social cues?”

The woman was asking an obvious question. “That, and other things.”

“What things?”

The obvious question. Zoe groaned inwardly. She had set herself up for that trap. “My job is difficult. I am gone often. There is not much time to put down roots.”

Dr. Monk nodded thoughtfully. She was smiling encouragingly, as if Zoe was really getting somewhere. The part of her that craved the positive attention and affection she had never received from her mother thrilled at that, even though she did not want it to. Being in therapy was, so far, only serving to highlight all of her flaws. “What about Shelley? Does she have roots?”

Zoe nodded, swallowing down an unbidden lump. “She has a husband and a young daughter. Amelia. She talks about her a lot.”

Dr. Monk put her pen to her lips, tapping it three times meaningfully. “You want a family of your own.”

Zoe looked up sharply, then remembered not to be surprised that a therapist could discern the truest thoughts lurking behind whatever else you said. “Yes,” she said, simply. There was no point in denying it. “But I am very far from that point.”

“When we met for our first session, you told me you’d been on a date.” Dr. Monk did not have to check through her notes for this, Zoe saw. “He contacted you, didn’t he? Did you reply?”

Zoe shook her head no. “He has sent me a few emails, and tried to call. I did not answer.”

“Why is that?”

Zoe shrugged. She couldn’t exactly say. She reached up self-consciously to touch a few strands of her brown hair, kept cropped short for convenience rather than fashion. There were many things about her that were not perhaps conventionally attractive, and she knew that, even if she didn’t exactly understand how other people saw her. “Maybe because the first date was awkward. I was too distracted. I could not focus on what he was saying. I was boring.”

“But he didn’t think so, did he? This…?”

“John.”

“This John, he seems interested. He keeps trying to get in touch. That’s a good sign.”

Zoe nodded. There was nothing else that she could say. Dr. Monk was making sense, even if she hated to admit it.

“Let me tell you what I see,” Dr. Monk continued. “You have expressed to me that Shelley has the kind of life you want. She is happily married with a child, doing well in her career, has skills that you don’t have. We will always be jealous of those who can do things we can’t. That’s human nature. The important thing is not to let it consume you, and to focus on the things that you can achieve.”

She waited for Zoe to nod again, to give an indication that she was listening, before she continued.

“Things don’t happen on their own. Or to put it another way, it’s unlikely that you are going to get married if you never go on any dates. My advice to you is to give John a call, and go out for that second date. Maybe it won’t turn out so well. Maybe it will turn out great. The only way to find out is to give it a try.”

“You think I should marry John?” Zoe frowned.

“I think you should go on a date with him.” Dr. Monk smiled. “And if he doesn’t work out, I think you should go on a date with someone else. That’s how you work towards your goals. One step at a time.”

Zoe was not entirely convinced, but she nodded all the same. Besides, she had something important to take care of now. “I think that is the end of our time.”

Dr. Monk laughed. “That’s my line,” she said, getting up to escort Zoe to the door. “And don’t think I am so easily distracted. Next session, we’ll circle back to this issue of social cues and seeing things differently from how others do. We’ll get to the bottom of it, even if you aren’t ready to be fully honest with me.”

Zoe avoided her therapist’s eyes as she headed out of the office, not wanting to betray the hope she had held that Dr. Monk really would forget.