Baltimore [3.5] Broken Silence by Karen Rose Page B

for two weeks, because, like it or not, she was on leave.
    Daphne grimaced. Leave . The very word left a bad taste in her mouth. Her extremely well-meaning boss had called it ‘bereavement leave,’ but she knew the truth. This was mental health leave. Because of what she’d been through.
    Trouble was, being on leave left her brain with nothing to do, so it remembered. Constantly. She suspected this was an intended outcome, to give her time to deal with her grief and shock. But she knew herself. She dealt by keeping busy, even if ‘busy’ only involved doing lunch.
    Drawing a bolstering breath, she pushed open the door to Homicide and found it buzzing with activity. Having said ‘It’s good to be back’ several more times, she came to the corner of the bullpen commandeered by VCET – the Violent Crimes Enforcement Team.
    VCET was a Baltimore PD/FBI task force and she could always tell which team members were the Feds. The severe black suits and ugly shoes gave them away every single time.
    ‘Daphne!’ Special Agent Kate Coppola beamed as Daphne approached her desk. ‘It’s good to have you back.’
    ‘I’d say it’s good to be back, but I’m not really. Not yet. I keep trying to go into the office, but my boss put me on leave.’ She hadn’t explained this to the other well-wishers, but, like JD, Kate knew details nobody else knew.
    Because Kate had been there at the end, when the man who’d terrorized Daphne and her son had been . . . neutralized. A picture flashed in her mind. His brains . . . On my hands . . .
    Breathe. Think of the horses, imagine the barn . Daphne had experienced panic attacks since she was eight years old, spawned by a childhood trauma that had spanned years. As a terrified child, caring for horses had brought her calm. As an adult with a job and a son to raise, she hadn’t always found it possible to be with horses, so she’d learned to picture herself there, to imagine the sounds and the smells . . . She reached into her handbag and pulled out a towel from the barn and brought it to her nose. Drew a breath and felt her pulse gradually slow.
    ‘I was so sorry to hear about your father,’ Kate said. ‘I heard they found his body after I left the scene. Are you okay?’
    Daphne’s throat tightened. ‘If I said yes, would you pretend to believe me?’
    ‘I guess that was a dumb question. I didn’t realize you were still on leave. For how long?’
    ‘Until January 1.’ Daphne glared. ‘I tried to go into the office to do paperwork, but I’m not even allowed to do that. He wants me to rest. Can you believe it?’
    Kate’s brows lifted. ‘What a silly man. It’s not like you had a gun held to your head by a mass murderer or anything. Or that you just found out your father didn’t run out on you and your mom when you were a kid, but was murdered. Oh, right, and by the same killer who kidnapped you as a kid and tortured and killed your cousin. And you found all this out while rescuing your son from being kidnapped by a guy who was in cahoots with the original killer. Why make you rest? Why not make you come back to a high-stress job prosecuting dangerous killers when just the sight of cops triggers a panic attack? I say we throw you right into the fray and let the nervous breakdowns fall where they may. Maybe we can all watch. Hell, maybe I could sell tickets and get rich.’
    Daphne shot her a sour look. ‘If I’d wanted sarcasm, I’d have stayed home. My mother already gave me the same speech, except in a West Virginia twang.’
    ‘And you didn’t listen to her either,’ Kate said tightly.
    Daphne realized the Fed really was upset. Puzzled, she squeezed Kate’s hand. ‘I’m okay, really. The panic attacks are nothing new. I’m used to dealing with them. Look, I’m here because I needed to get out of the house. I was going stir-crazy.’
    Kate forced a smile. ‘Most women would go shopping, but you came in here to slum with us, all dressed up and making the rest