Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

leaving Daphne alone. His concern at the moment was far more for her emotional state than her physical safety.
    Her mother and Maggie had arrived, bringing Daphne’s dog. Tasha lay directly across Daphne’s door into the hall. Nobody was getting in Daphne’s room without getting past the dog first.
    No, he’d sped through his shower because she’d cried through hers. He didn’t think she knew he could hear her. She’d waited till the water was full blast before letting go. But he’d heard. Her sobs tore at his heart.
    Now she stood at the window, looking down at the street which was steadily being covered by the falling snow. She wore no wig. Someone from CSU had found it, but Beckett had touched it. She hadn’t wanted it anymore. Joseph had to admit he was glad of that small plus. In front of him stood the real Daphne.
    Or as real as she could allow herself to be. She held herself gingerly, as if she’d break if anyone pushed too hard. But Joseph wasn’t fooled. There was nothing weak about this woman.
    But she was . . . softer. The curls that been so tight out of the shower were drying into chaotic peaks, like a wind-tossed sea. Her face was bare, her silk pajamas a soft pink. She looked impossibly young. And so very sad.
    She’d had to tell her son the truth about Kimberly MacGregor and at first he didn’t believe her, certain that she was mistaken. But one look at Joseph’s and Deacon’s faces told the boy it was true. He’d withdrawn, not letting his mother touch him.
    She hadn’t wanted to leave him but Ford commanded her to go. No, not just to go. To ‘leave him the hell alone’. Deacon promised that he’d stand watch and would let no new harm come to her son. It had been the only thing that allowed her to leave.
    Then she’d come back to the hotel to find her mother and Maggie pacing the floor of their room across the hall under Kate Coppola’s watchful eye.
    Kate had texted Joseph of their arrival in Wheeling about a minute before he and Daphne had walked into Rampor’s office. Joseph had told Kate to keep the women in the hotel until further notice. Daphne had been poised to tell her story and he didn’t want anything to disrupt her. Plus, he figured anything that Daphne knew, Simone knew too.
    He’d been very wrong about that, which he hadn’t found out until she’d told her story in Ford’s hospital room. And so after telling her story once, Daphne had to tell it again. Simone hadn’t moved a muscle – until Daphne got to the part about the picture she’d drawn, the one that had caused her father to be accused.
    Simone began to cry, silent tears that had all but ripped Daphne’s heart out.
    Mine too . He hadn’t been much help, though. He’d been strung so tightly while she told her story, it had been all he could do not to break something. Or someone.
    Joseph had dealt with child molesters, kidnappers, murderers. In every case he’d wanted the perpetrators to be punished. He’d wanted to ease the victims’ pain.
    But tonight . . . It had been a long time since he’d battled such a pagan urge to kill. Not since he’d held his dying wife in his arms. It had been Simone’s agony that had brought his rage to a grinding halt. Daphne’s mother had lost so much – her marriage, her daughter’s childhood, her family. But she’d also been denied the opportunity to heal her child because Daphne had been terrorized into silence.
    Simone’s reaction had broken his heart. But Maggie’s . . . Maggie’s reaction had left him puzzled. He’d expected her to be there for Simone, to put her arm around her friend, to cry with her. But she hadn’t. Instead she’d separated herself from the group, almost an observer, her affect flat. Maggie’s ‘reaction’ was to have no reaction at all.
    It might be the way she deals with loss . But Joseph’s instincts told him it was something different. He just didn’t know what. But he’d deal with that later.
    Right now, Daphne stood at the window looking lost. He didn’t know which piece to address first – her son, her mother, her trauma, or his reaction to hearing it. He decided to tackle the easiest one first. Ford.
    ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with you, you know,’ Joseph said softly.
    She didn’t turn to look at him. ‘Which thing? There are so many to choose from.’
    He crossed to her, sliding his arms around her waist from behind. She leaned into him and her quiet sigh was one of