Chapter 19: Two in the Morning

Rhys's POV

The call came in at ten past two on Tuesday morning.

Female, twenty-eight, can't breathe, caller says she's locked in a bathroom.

My partner read me the address, and I knew it before she finished.

It was Amber Lathrop's studio.

"Do we need another unit?" my partner asked.

"No," I said. "I know her."

I had barely slept since Sunday night, when Natalie was in my bed.

Now a scheduled post hung over her head, and I could do nothing about it.

I drove the rig through empty streets with my jaw clamped.

The girl with the clipboard met us at the studio door, pale in her coat.

"She's in the green room," she said. "She locked it. She's been in there an hour."

"Is she hurt?"

"I don't think so. She's breathing wrong."

I knocked on the green room door.

"Amber. It's Rhys Doran. I'm a paramedic. Open the door."

A long quiet.

"Go away."

"I can't. A person called us."

"Then tell them I'm fine."

"You're not," I said. "I can hear it from here."

The lock turned.

She was on the floor with her back against a mirror ringed in bulbs, her knees up, her mascara gone.

Her chest hitched in short, high pulls, and her fingers were curled stiff.

She looked at me and laughed, a thin wheeze.

"Of course it's you," she said. "The neighbor with the camera."

"Sit still."

I knelt and put two fingers against her wrist.

She tried to pull away, and I held on.

"Your pulse is a hundred and forty," I said. "You're having a panic attack. Breathe in through your nose with me."

"I hate you."

"I know. In through your nose."

She did it, badly.

I kept my hand where it was and counted under my breath until the rhythm underneath my fingers slowed.

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