Panic

It had been one month. One month of pretending, one month of hiding, and one month of trying to figure out why she had to do those other two things.

Ever since the Stephen Lewis case Nicole had been having panic attacks every time she held Zachary. Antonio witnessed the first one—although he didn't know at the time what he was seeing—but he hadn't seen the other ones. She never told him what was going on. In part because she wasn't sure herself.

She never really intended to go out of her way to hide it from her husband, but it came so easy it was more of an effort to tell him. She worked from the time Zachary woke up in the morning until the evening hours. During most of those evening hours Antonio joyfully took care of the baby and when it was her turn to do the middle-of-the-night feedings she was alone with the baby and no one was there to see how uncomfortable she became.

Antonio didn't know exactly what was going on, but he sensed something was wrong with Nicole's maternal bond with his son—it wasn't there anymore. He decided that evening when she got home he would get to the bottom of it.

"Why don't you give him this feeding?" He gave the baby and bottle to Nicole.

Okay you can do this, she thought. Smile, look relaxed. He just wants to see you take care of him. You've managed to go three days without him seeing you hold this baby. Feed him for a while and then you can make an excuse to leave the room…No. Then he'll know something is wrong. Give him a reason to leave the room.

"Honey," Nicole said. "I told Heather we would call her tonight. Could you go call her? I'll be in in a minute."

"All right."

Antonio left and she was able to start her deep breathing to try to calm down.

xxxxx

"Where are we?" Audra cried. She was blind folded and couldn't see where her abductor had taken her.

He wanted her to see what was coming, so he took the blindfold off.

She saw they were at a lake in a remote area. Finally she knew who the man who had held and tortured her for five days was. "You're the serial killer."

"You finally figured it out." He laughed an evil laugh that made her skin crawl. He found the reaction he got when his victims found out who he was hilarious beyond measure.

When he doubled over laughing Audra Hayes took the last chance she would have to get away and ran. She didn't make it far before he pulled out the gun he carried and shot her in the back.

xxxxx

Detective Meryl Redman was the head of the agents in the Maryland office investigating the serial killer.

"The killer has never killed anyone with a gun before," his agent observed as he looked over the information.

"He never put a bag over someone's head to suffocate him before Ernesto Gomez. This guy doesn't exactly follow an M.O. We wouldn't even know any of the deaths were related without these," Redman pointed to the pictures of the bodies. The one thing—and sometimes only thing—they all had in common were stun gun burns on their backs between the shoulder blades.

xxxxx

"Hey, babe," Nathan said.

"Where have you been?" Jess asked from the kitchen. "You were supposed to pick up the kids from Antonio."

"We have company." When they got to the kitchen Jess was able to see Nathan had brought someone home. It was a man she'd never met. "Jess, this is Martin, an old friend of mine."

"Hello, Martin."

"Jess."

"Can you leave us alone for minute?" Jess asked the guest.

"Sure. I'll be in the living room, Nathan."

"Who is that?"

"He's a friend of mine."

"Why didn't you ever mention him before?"

"I don't know. Do you have to know every aspect of my life? Why are acting like this?"

They were not alone in the house, so she couldn't yell the way she wanted to, but she whispered as loud as she could. "Because you left our neighbors stuck caring for our children for three hours until I came to get them and then you bring this guy home who I've not only never met but never heard of, leading me to believe that you know him from something you don't want to tell me about."

"If you're gonna start this up again I'm leaving."

xxxxxx

"If you could just come in tomorrow and look over our files of these killings we would really appreciate it."

"I find missing people, not serial killers, Agent Redman."

"Please, Agent Massey, we are at the end of all our leads. We have nothing, and the public is panicking. There's a maniac out there with no rhyme or reason to his choice of victims. Everyone is in danger and they know it. I heard you found a serial killer before-"

Nathan came through the door and Jess was sick of hearing the S.A.C.'s arguments, so she caved. "Okay. I'll see you in the morning." She hung up.

"Hi."

"Where were you?"

"Just out. I'm sorry for running out like that."

"It didn't surprise me. You do that all the time. Just once I would like to have an argument that gets resolved without me having to wait until you come back."

"I'm here now."

"Who is Martin?"

She knew and it didn't look like it would be something she would be letting go, so he told her. "He's a Capo that works in another county."

"Are you back in the Mafia?"

"No. No. On my way home today I stopped by to see some old friends and me and him decided to start hanging out again. We were really good friends, but I stopped talking to him after I quit. We are just hanging out. I am not back into that stuff again and that is the whole truth, Jess."

"He's going to try to get you back."

"He's not going to. Those days are behind me."

"Why do you have to hang out with him?"

"He's the only friend I have anymore."

"What about Antonio? What's wrong with him?"

Nathan and Antonio had been good friends for a few weeks and went bowling or golfing every Sunday that their wives weren't working—when Nicole and/or Jess were working one or both men had to stay home with their children.

"What's wrong with him is his wife is a bitch."

"Nathan."

"It's true. Every time I go over there I have to talk to her and have her give me that look. I just can't stand her, but I know how close you are to her and I never try to keep you from her. All I'm asking is that same consideration from you for Martin."

"…All right."

"Thank you." He kissed her.

xxxxx

Her grandmother had plans that night, so Heather was spending the night with Nicole and Antonio.

Heather skipped into the nursery while Nicole was giving Zachary his bottle. "What are you doing, Mommy?"

"I'm feeding him."

"Why do you look scared?"

There was that intuitive nature Heather had that Nicole loved and at times didn't. "I'm all right."

"Are you afraid you will hurt him?" She meant hurt him by dropping him accidentally, but what she said made Nicole realize what the problem was.

"Yes I am." She couldn't believe a four-year-old solved her problem.

"Don't worry. If you hold him very tight he won't fall."

xxxxx

"Antonio, I have to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"I have been having these panic attacks every time I hold Zachary."

"And you're…happy about this?" He couldn't understand why she was smiling.

"I'm happy because I finally figured out why. I had this case about a month ago with this five-year-old that was abused by his mother, kidnapped from his group home, and then murdered by some children that knew him from school. I couldn't understand how a child could murder another child. Jess and I concluded that a child who would think up something like that would have had to have been abused. That got me thinking about my own childhood and those statistics about children who are abused are likely to abuse their own kids. That must be what triggered it. I didn't want to be near Zachary because I was afraid I would hurt him."

Antonio put down his paper and leaned forward. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I wanted to, but I couldn't. But now that I know what is causing it it'll probably stop."

"It doesn't always work that way, Nicole. Just knowing what caused the attacks won't make them go away. You have to face this."

"I did."

"You identified it. Now you have to deal with it. First thing's first, have you ever felt frustrated enough that you felt like you were about to hurt him?"

"I don't think so…No."

"How do you think you will feel when he's a year old and starts saying no or he throws something at you?"

"I will put him in his playpen for a timeout."

"That was a logical answer. And you told me what you would do. I asked how you would feel."

"Angry."

xxxxx

"So then he starts telling me about all this stuff he's read about how abused children can overcome what they went through and not repeat the cycle."

"What's wrong with that?" Jess asked as they got to their desks.

"There's nothing wrong with it. It just…hurts me that he never told me he was reading all these things. It's like he knew he would have to protect Zachary from me."

"He's just exercising damage control. I read the same books when I married Nathan and I couldn't trust him more."

"You knew about this."

"Who do you think gave Antonio the books?"

"Great, so nobody trusts me."

"It's not about trust. Antonio has a duty to take whatever steps he needs to take to protect his family. It's not just about Zachary. Now that he's read those books he has the skills to help you help yourself."

"You know what the real scary thing about all this is? I think I need those skills…Enough about me. How-"

"Before you say that let me tell you something. I know you don't want to, but you and Nathan should get together and talk some time. I think if you got to know him you would like him and I think he can help you with this."

"How could he possibly help me?"

"You two have more in common than you think. I talk to Antonio about this kind of thing regularly. It helps to talk to someone who knows how you feel." From the look on Nicole's face Jess wished she hadn't said that.

"You talk to Antonio about me possibly harming Zachary?"

"No. I talk to Antonio about Nathan."

"But Antonio talks about me."

"Yeah. It's more about our fears than you or Nathan. Don't turn this into a giant argument, Nicole."

She was mad, but wasn't in the mood to fight. She decided to let that one go. "I won't."

"Will you talk to Nathan?"

"Fine. Only because I know you won't let it go."

"Good. What were you going to say?"

"How did your meeting in Maryland go?"

"I told them that they could tell me all the information they had on the guy and show me the sketch Sean Knight helped the sketch artist with, and I would see what I could do, but I am not looking into every single missing person case in the areas trying to make myself have a vision about which one the killer has."

xxxxxx

Nathan was walking across the street to get his kids when Nicole got home. She'd hoped to put it off longer, but she didn't.

"Hello, Nathan."

"Hi."

"How are you?"

"…Good. How are you?"

"I'm good."

"Jess didn't leave when you did?"

"No. She had to take care of some last minute paperwork. She'll be home in an hour or so."

"Oh."

"I was thinking…you and I ought to get together sometime and talk."

"…Okay?" He was dumbfounded. What could she want to talk to him about?

"Since you and Antonio are friends and me and Jess are friends we should get to know each other better. We might become friends too. I think Jess and Antonio would like that."

"All right. Tomorrow's Saturday. If you're not working you want to get some coffee or something?"

"Sounds great."