Page 28 of Controlled Chaos

Chapter 16

Clara

To saythat I didn’t sleep very well would be an understatement. Knowing that somebody had been in my room and stolen all my things had been a wakeup call. Porter had been hard-pressed to fall asleep as well until he moved the gun from its hiding spot to a new place beneath his pillow.

“I can hear you thinking,” Porter said, rolling over on the bed. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and glanced down at me.

“I got a few hours of sleep. That’s all I needed. The first night in a new place always has me on edge,” I said.

Porter sat up in the bed and tossed his legs over the edge onto the floor. He scrubbed his hands over his face. He wasn’t much of a morning person. It was cute in a way that we might have found common ground. “We need coffee.”

“You know me so well.” I sat up with my legs crossed beneath the covers and grinned. “So today we’re going to test our boundaries. We’ll see how far I’m allowed to get away from you without women wanting to get you into bed, and then after that, we can start looking into your dead girl. Someone here has to know something about her.”

“I’m sure they do, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll talk to us. Especially if they know that I’m FBI.”

“When a new patient arrives on the island, what is the first thing that they would do?”

“They’d start a paper trail from however they got to the island, and then they would fill out new patient paperwork.”

“The kind of paperwork and consent that says you’ll agree to hand over weapons even twenty years later?” I asked.

He grinned. “Yeah, that paperwork, and then they’d be given physicals and passed off to the barracks manager where they’d be assigned bunks and all their belongings would be checked and if need be, then locked up. After that, it’s a detox, and once they get through that, then they start classes for the rehabilitation.”

“That sounds kind of painful.”

Porter rose from the bed and walked to the bathroom. Resting his hand on the door, he turned. “The entire process is painful, not just getting the alcohol and drugs out of the system but learning to have a life and live again without giving in to the addictive substance. It’s a craving that never goes away. You just learn how to live with it, without giving in.” A muscle in Porter’s jaw ticked “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes for us to go get some coffee.” He closed the bathroom door effectively ending the conversation that was still a raw topic. My heart ached at the thought of him as a kid and having to go through this program. Had they had to use handcuffs on him?

I slid out of the bed and glanced at my empty suitcase. My stomach lurched as I narrowed my eyes, thinking about the missing contents. I walked to the closet and pulled out one of the frumpy beige dresses and changed. I made my way into the kitchen. I spied the coffee maker on the counter and proceeded to open each and every cabinet in search of the ground beans, only to find empty cabinets.

I was sitting on the couch when he came out of the bedroom dressed in the regulation tan clothes the island guests were supposed to wear.

“I guess some rules are hard to break?” I asked, gesturing to his attire.

“These are actually comfortable. During my time here, I wore nothing else for a year straight. It’s nostalgic,” he said holding out his hand to pull me from my spot on the chair.

I slipped my fingers into his and rose to my feet. “So, I was thinking while you were in the shower. At breakfast, we’ll test the proximity meter, and then you can walk me through the process of a new person coming onto the island.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” He guided me to the door with his hand on my back.

I slowed my steps and glanced back at the hallway. “Did you hide your toy?”

“These flimsy locks aren’t going to keep anyone out.” Porter lifted his shirt to show me he’d stashed the gun at his back.”

“Aren’t you worried about it being seen?”

“I picked a larger shirt than normal to cover the bulge at my back. I don’t think we should go anywhere without a weapon today. It's best to keep it close, just in case.”

Knowing he had a weapon made me feel safer, still, my stomach was a bundle of knots as we walked into the dining area. I couldn’t pinpoint what was driving my nerves to high alert, but I was determined to figure it out before we left.

There was a buffet line across the room. People were filling their plates with an assortment of breakfast food. Porter rested his hand on my lower back and leaned in to whisper. “First come, first serve for breakfast. It’s less formal. People are coming at different times in the morning because of therapy or class schedules, and some are working in the vegetable garden.”

“Now is as good a time as any to test our theory.” I took him by the hand and led him across the room to the buffet line. I grabbed a plate with him picking up one behind me and started to fill it full of the items that looked appetizing. We made our way to a table. He was about to sit beside me when I nodded toward the line again. “Let’s see how far we can get. Why don’t you go back up there and grab a biscuit for both of us?”

“Are you sure about this? I know I can fend off anybody who comes up, but if somebody were to be paying attention right now, would they be able to find you?”

“I’m not even sure how Carlos has been hunting me. I guess he’s smart enough to figure out how to track my watch. I’ll be sure to ask him next time I see him.”

“I’m serious, Clara.” Porter’s face clouded with unease as his gaze searched my eyes for any sign that I was nervous.

---