The Soul Catcher - Alex Kava [25]
Maggie knew her friend could sense her vulnerabilities, despite Maggie’s effort to hide them. It was one of the curses of their friendship, a comfort as much as an annoyance. Sometimes she wondered why the hell Gwen put up with her, and at the same time, she didn’t want to know the answer. Instead, she was simply grateful for this wise, loving mentor who could take one look into her eyes, see all the turmoil, sift through the hidden wreckage and somehow manage to inspire strength and good from some reserve Maggie hadn’t even known existed. And tonight Gwen had been able to do all that without a single word. Now, if only Maggie could hold on to that strength.
When she first became a criminal profiler she thought she could learn how to compartmentalize her feelings and emotions, separate the horrors and images she witnessed as part of the job from her personal life. Not that Quantico taught them such a thing. But since she had done it all her life with the unpleasant memories and images of her childhood, why wouldn’t she be able to do it with her career? The only problem was that every time she thought she had the technique down pat, one of those damn compartments sprung a leak. It was annoying as hell. Especially annoying that Gwen could see it no matter how hard Maggie tried to hide it from her.
She picked up the pace. Harvey panted alongside her. The big dog wouldn’t complain. Ever since she had taken him in, he had become her shadow. The pure white Labrador retriever had become a bit overprotective with her, jumping at sounds that Maggie never heard, barking at footsteps whether they belonged to the mailman or the pizza-delivery person. But then Maggie could hardly blame him.
Last spring the dog had witnessed his owner being violently kidnapped from their home, by a serial killer named Albert Stucky, who Maggie had already put in jail once and who had escaped. And though Harvey had put up a good fight, he hadn’t been able to stop the attacker. For months after Maggie had taken him in, he looked out the windows of Maggie’s huge Tudor home, looking, waiting for his owner. When he realized she wouldn’t return, he attached himself to Maggie with such a protectiveness that she wondered if perhaps the dog was determined not to lose a second owner.
What would Harvey think if he knew, if he could possibly understand, that his previous owner had been taken and killed simply because she had met Maggie? It was Maggie’s fault that Albert Stucky had taken Harvey’s owner. It was one of the things she had to live with, one of the things that caused her nightmares. And one of the things that was supposed to have its own little compartment.
Her breathing came in rhythmic gasps, timed to the pounding of her feet and the beat of her heart, which filled her ears. For a few minutes her mind cleared, and she concentrated instead on her body’s basic responses, its natural rhythms, its force. She pushed it to its limit, and when she felt her legs strain, she pushed harder, faster. Then suddenly, she noticed Harvey favoring his front right paw though he didn’t dare slow down, forcing himself to stay alongside her. Maggie came to an abrupt halt, surprising him with a tug of the leash.
“Harvey.” She stopped to catch her breath, and he waited, cocking his head. “What’s wrong with your paw?”
She pointed to it, and he crouched to the ground as if preparing for a scolding. She gently took the big paw in both her hands. Even before she turned it over she felt a prick. Embedded deep between his pads was a clump of sandburs.
“Harvey.” She hadn’t meant for it to sound like a scold, but he cowered closer to the ground.
She