Page 11 of Edging Sanity

She hadn’t seen the woman since her last suicide attempt a couple weeks ago. It was good to see her looking so much livelier. Mariana was—secretly—one of her favorite long-term patients. Rowan had always thought the poor woman was a victim of circumstance more than anything.

With unmedicated and undiagnosed bipolar disorder for most of her life, she hadn’t known or been able to cope with the euphoric highs of her manic episodes or the dreadful lows when she came back down. It was hard enough to handle that even when you knew what was going on. But she’d spent most of her life in the dark, unable to identify the cause of her vicious and sometimes violent mood swings, or the cravings for dangerous behavior because her brain told her she was untouchable.

After a string of poor decisions while manic, and two incomplete suicide attempts, Mariana found herself in front of a judge who gave her little choice: get help or spend ten years in prison. And aside from a few weeks ago, Rowan thought she’d been making fantastic progress. Dr. Bronwin had been working with her once a month while Jax took over her more frequent therapeutic needs. They found a medication that didn’t feel wrong or send her into a spiral. It helped her to understand her brain a bit better.

Mariana’s voice drew Rowan’s attention back to the present, her hands clasped in front of her as she shyly admitted, “You haven’t been around on your usual schedule. Some of us were wonderin’ if something was going on.”

“Your concern is very sweet, Mariana. Everything is fine. I’ve just got something more pressing that I’ve been focusing on. I am sorry I haven’t checked in. You’re looking well, though.”

Mariana looked up at Rowan, smiling with a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Dr. Bronwin thinks I might be able to leave soon, in a couple months. We think the meds are working and I feel… good. Really good. Not, like, manic or anything, but like myself.”

“That’s great!” Rowan’s own smile matched Mariana’s. “I’m happy for you.”

Movement flashed in her periphery and a creeping sensation of being watched tickled the back of her neck. Her attention snapped to the glass wall separating the meeting room from the hallway at the same time Mariana gasped.

“Is that…” Her voice trailed off but Rowan didn’t need her to finish. She knew there were rumors about Delilah among the patients. She didn’t answer, her jaw clenched as she looked at a furious Delilah Watson.

They didn’t lock eyes because Delilah wasn’t looking at Rowan. She was glaring murderously at the small, innocent woman next to her instead. Rowan slowly brought the radio to her mouth.

“You’re on the wrong floor, Brinks,” she said, her voice cold, a warning that should convey the amount of shit he’d just found himself in. Adele had personally seen to briefing him. There was absolutely no need for him to bring Delilah here.

Rowan didn’t even spare Mariana another glance before she shoved her way through the crowd forming to gawk at the infamous serial killer. The surrounding muttering grew louder by the second, and a tall, built man stepped in front of Rowan, cutting off her line of sight as she pushed past him as well. When she finally yanked open the double doors of the room, ignoring the other guard shouting for calm behind her, Delilah was gone.

“Guards on every exit,” Rowan ordered into her radio, already starting down the hallway. “Find Delilah Watson and the officers escorting her, now.”

CHAPTER

NINE

One thing that Delilah did not lie about in Bronwin’s office was that she had no desire to escape. By the time Rowan had gotten news about her whereabouts, she was already in Bronwin’s office for her therapy session. As if nothing had happened. She’d stormed into Adele’s office with termination papers in hand for Brinks only to find out that Adele had already drafted them.

She’d given Rowan a pitying look before reassigning her as Delilah’s primary guard.

You’ll have to search her again. We don’t know what she was able to convince the guards to do or to get for her.

The directive rang through Rowan’s head all night and didn’t leave her alone as she stalked to Delilah’s room only a mere hour after her return from therapy and after another meeting with Adele. That one involved firing Brinks and hearing his concerning reasoning.

How the hell did Delilah find out about his family? About his kid? Rowan almost wasn’t buying it. There was no way she could have gotten that information. No one spoke to her except Rowan and Bronwin, and neither of them had given away information about another employee’s family. It also didn’t strike her as something Delilah would do—threatening a four year old.

Adele suggested Rowan look for a cell phone, for something Delilah could have used to gather information or even plant a follower on Brinks’ family—or whatever the hell serial killers did when they’re essentially behind bars. Whether Rowan believed Brinks or not, Delilah had still somehow managed to get him to disobey direct orders, which meant she still needed to be searched.

Rowan took a deep breath, steadying her thoughts as she threw open the slot in the door. “Hands on the wall,” she ordered. Delilah ignored her, laying on her bed and glaring up at the ceiling instead. “Now, Delilah.”

After what felt like entirely too long, Delilah got up with one final, scathing look at the door and leaned against the wall with her hands pressed to either side of her body. Rowan sucked her teeth in obvious annoyance at the blatant misinterpretation of her order. Delilah knew full well she was supposed to face the other way, but fortunately for her, Rowan wasn’t in the mood to argue with a petulant murderer.

She slipped into the room, quickly closing the door behind her and keeping one hand on her stun gun while she watched Delilah cautiously.

“Turn around,” she ordered, not moving any further into the room.

“Come and make me,” Delilah countered, her voice dripping with seduction. Her lips quirked teasingly as she eyed Rowan up.

Slowly, Rowan took her stun gun and baton from her belt, watching as Delilah’s eyes narrowed in keen interest on the weapons. She set them on the desk and rose to the bait. Delilah didn’t move a muscle as Rowan stalked over to her, but she did let out a small gasp, her eyes widening in surprise, when Rowan roughly grabbed her wrist to cuff it, pulling both hands in front of her.

“So,” Delilah breathed, her pupils blown. “You do have a little fight in you.” Rowan ignored the heat flowing through her, the pulsing at her core. “I like it rough,” she whispered, leaning in, breath tickling over Rowan’s neck.

“I don’t care,” Rowan growled, forcefully turning Delilah so she couldn’t read the plain desire written on Rowan’s face. When the cuffs clicked into the hook on the wall, Rowan stepped back to breathe before striding over to the bed and beginning the tedium of searching all Delilah’s shit.

“What are you doing?” Delilah asked, twisting to see as much as she could.