Chapter 10

Back to Normal?

She stayed in the hospital for a week, long enough for the doctors to be sure that she was no longer dehydrated and for a couple of additional pounds to show up on the scale to prove she was gaining her weight back.

Then she was sent home with detailed instructions on how to take care of her back injury and a handful of prescriptions, which Lily promptly took to be filled. There were also a myriad of follow-up doctors appointments that she needed to show up at and a diet that the nutritionist wanted her to follow.

Jordan sighed as she looked in the bag of pills that Lily had shoved in her hand before the grief counselor had to go back to work. Antibiotics. Pain killers. Muscle relaxers. A veritable smorgasbord of drugs. Too bad she wasn't a dealer….she could double her money.

She grinned ruefully at her own personal joke. As a person, Jordan didn't like taking all the medication. But as a doctor, she knew all of the prescriptions were necessary for her body to heal.

Too bad she couldn't say the same thing for her heart and her mind. Jordan had a feeling it was going to take even longer for those two to heal. She had talked to Dr. Stiles…at length…about her terror of John….her experiences…and how they lingered in her mind and her dreams….how they were affecting her. Jordan had a feeling it was going to be an ongoing conversation for a while. And there was no medication to help it along…just dealing with her fears on a day-to-day basis was the best she could do.

Right now, it was all she could hope for….that and get back to work as soon as she was able to. Work was her catharsis, her stress-relief….the wall she could build to hide behind whenever she was afraid…it was a safe place from her fears….of John and Woody.

She knew John had run…escaped … that he had not been captured that night when Woody came to rescue her. That fact had been explained when she discovered a uniformed police officer posted outside her hospital room door. The same guy was now posted outside her apartment door. Under normal circumstances, that kind of attention would have driven her insane.

But now it gave her an oddly unfamiliar feeling of comfort. For as much as she disliked being watched over, the fact that John was still out there, and could come back for her at any time, was a fear that tickled the forefront of her mind more than Jordan let on.

And while she wasn't exactly afraid of Woody Hoyt, his words and attitude towards her before she had tried to leave Boston for St. Thomas stayed with her to the point she was still avoiding him as much as she could…which was difficult with him being the lead detective over this case. But she didn't want her heart broken again on top of everything she was going through now and would be facing in the future.

The future. Something she would now have to deal with while the ghosts of her past kept resurrecting themselves.

For three weeks, she meandered around her apartment, getting caught up on her rest, letting her body heal, venturing out on occasionally to see Dr. Stiles and to shop for things that she needed. There was always that niggling fear in the back of her mind that John was somewhere out there waiting for her, although the police and her forensic insight told her that he was probably hundreds of miles away from Boston. He was more than likely at a remote place, waiting to reinvent himself, and emerge once again.

The next time, hopefully, he would be caught before he hurt, killed, or emotionally maimed another woman.

His women…the "sisters." Jordan thought about them often. Despite her circumstances, she had grown close to several of her fellow captives. Fond of quite a few of them – especially Sarah.

It had been Woody that finally told her that Sarah was John's last victim. Jordan had repeatedly asked about Sarah while hospitalized. Finally after a week of dodging the question, Woody had tenderly taken Jordan's hand and told her as gently as he could about the women – all of them. How John had shot them all in the head, some at point blank range…and then told her about Sarah.

Jordan felt her world drop out beneath her feet. Emotions swirled around her. Grief, certainly. That was insurmountable. The gun shot victims coupled with the women that John had hacked their hearts out brought the death toll to twenty-one.

Sarah had been the last victim. Once Woody's news had sunk in, Jordan had sobbed nearly uncontrollably, a reaction that Dr. Stiles had said was predictable, understandable, and necessary in order to release some of the anguish.

And Jordan knew that. She had worked around the dead, their friends, and families too long not to recognize this side of heartache.

What she didn't expect to feel was the tidal wave of guilt that washed over her, sucking her down into a quagmire of "why me"? Why didn't John kill me, too? Did he have something else he wanted to do to me? Was I supposed to die in that closet? Was he coming back for me?

Why was I the only one to survive?

And most disturbingly, is he coming back to finish what he started with me?

While everyone was assuring Jordan that this would probably not happen…and her own experience backing that assumption up, she still had to deal with that fear along with many others that living with the cult had given her. She sighed as she pulled on her jacket and got ready for yet another talk with Howard. Hopefully this time he would release her to at least go back to work. Sitting in the apartment so much was getting close to driving her insane. Work would be a welcomed diversion, even if she still was somewhat physically limited. Even a few hours a day would be a welcome distraction.

And God knows, her fear-filled mind needed that.

"I need to go back to work, Howard," were the first words out of Jordan's mouth as soon as Dr. Stiles closed the door to his office.

"Good morning to you, too, Jordan. How's my favorite patient?" Dr. Stiles replied, side-stepping her first statement.

"I'm fine….but if I can't go back to work soon, I really will go crazy….or at least crazier than I already am now."

Howard chuckled at her candor. If nothing else, Jordan could be honestly blunt, even when she was being evasive. "Getting a little cabin fever?" he questioned.

"Getting a lot of cabin fever," she replied, moving restlessly around his office. "I need …normalcy again, Howard." She stopped at a window, staring unseeingly outside. "I need things to get back to the way they were…."

"The way they were when, Jordan?"

"Before all this happened…before John…before…before…"

Howard regarded her for a long moment. Then quietly answered, "You know in some aspects, that will never happen…"

"I know…but if feel that if I were at least productive…doing what I'm used to doing instead of moping around my apartment…"

"But you're still frightened to go out by yourself anymore…"

Jordan nodded. "I know. But having to go to work would force me to face that and deal with it."

"Don't you think it might be a little early for that? Are you sure you're ready?"

"I won't know until I try. And I'll be safe between the morgue and the police department. Nothing will happen to me."

"You really want to try this...now?"

Jordan nodded again. "Yes. I won't know if I can deal with my fears until I'm put in a situation where I have to try. I can always take more time off if I need to…I just know that I can't keep on hiding out in my apartment with this whole….event taking over my mind. I need something else to do and something else to think about."

Howard looked her over one more time. "What does the doctor say about you going back to work?"

Jordan sighed and tucked a curl behind her ear. "Half-days are best starting out. I still have some soft tissue injuries on my back. I'm in physical therapy….will be for a while. My weight remains an issue, but I'm slowly gaining it back. I think they're more worried about what's happening up here," she motioned to her head, "than what's going on with my body."

"And you feel going back to work at the morgue right now is the next best step for you mentally?"

"Yeah. It's familiar…it's what I do best."

"How do you feel about working with Detective Hoyt again?"

"Woody?"

Howard nodded.

"I…we…I mean, we worked together before this….this happened."

"But you said after his injury, things haven't been the same between you two. Can you handle the stress of that relationship on top of what you've just been through with this cult?" Howard watched her with veiled eyes. During her sessions with him, Jordan had slipped up when she described her rescue from the house. She had told Howard that while she knew Garret and the rest of her morgue family would have been worried about her and alerted the police, she had been surprised that it had been Woody that had actually freed her from her captor. She didn't think he cared enough anymore to even look for her…and how confused she was now with her feelings for him. She had tried to move on with her life after Woody had rebutted her feelings for him, and assumed he already had.

But his gentleness with her…his concern with her injuries had rattled her. Jordan didn't know exactly what to think about Woody.

"We did work together after his shooting…it was sometimes difficult, but we both were always professional," Jordan softly replied. As a matter of fact, I would rather work with him…I still feel safest around him…

"So you feel that you could handle that without any major issues?"

Jordan nodded.

Silently scanning her face for any further details, Howard finally complied. "Okay…I will fill out the forms that indicate that you are psychologically ready to return to work. But I'd stay away from trying to solve this case, Jordan. While trying to get retribution and justice for the women that John has killed is very noble, and would seem to be a catalyst for healing for you, it could backfire on you horribly. So that case…."

"Is off limits. I know. Believe me, I know. And that's not an issue with me." Jordan shuddered as she thought about it. While she knew if John was ever caught, she'd be called to testify, the idea of seeing him again washed her body in cold chills.

Jordan wanted him caught. She wanted a trial. She wanted justice.

She just never wanted to have to look at his face again.