Chapter 16: Lost Time (Lauren POV)

Chapter 16: Lost Time (Lauren POV)

"I should go before your sister gets back," Alex said, glancing at his watch as he stood from Sarah's couch.
He paused at the threshold, turning back to face me. For just a moment, his expression seemed almost sad, as if he was struggling with something internal. Then his usual confident smile returned.
"You're not losing your mind, Lauren. You're seeing things other people can't see, and that scares them. But it doesn't make you crazy."
After he left, I sat alone in Sarah's living room, staring at the envelope full of crime scene photos. The house felt different without the girls' voices echoing through the hallways, without Sarah's presence anchoring everything to normalcy. It felt hollow, like a stage set waiting for actors to bring it to life.
I needed air. I needed to think. I needed to get away from the suffocating weight of everyone's expectations and fears.
I grabbed my jacket and car keys, leaving a quick note for Sarah: "Went for a drive to clear my head. Back soon. —L"
The last thing I clearly remembered was pulling out of Sarah's driveway, the radio playing some forgettable pop song as I headed toward the lake. I'd thought maybe I'd walk along the shore, let the rhythm of the waves help organize my scattered thoughts.
But the next thing I knew, I was sitting in my car in downtown Chicago, my head pounding and my mouth dry. The dashboard clock read 4:17 PM.
I blinked hard, trying to shake off the disorientation. The last time I'd looked at a clock, it had been just after 2:00 PM when I'd left Sarah's house. Where had the last two hours gone?
I looked around, trying to get my bearings. I was parked on a side street I didn't recognize, somewhere in the Loop based on the towering buildings surrounding me. My car was legally parked, the meter showing I had forty minutes left.
But I had no memory of driving here. No memory of finding this parking spot, of feeding quarters into the meter.
Panic started as a flutter in my chest and quickly escalated to a full-blown surge of adrenaline. I checked my phone for clues; no calls, no texts, no indication of what I'd been doing for the past two hours.
That's when I noticed the blood.
A dark stain about the size of a quarter decorated the right sleeve of my jacket, just above the wrist. I pulled back the sleeve and checked my arm—no cuts, no scratches. The blood wasn't mine.
"What the hell?" I whispered to the empty car.
I examined the stain more closely. The blood was dry but not completely set, which suggested it was relatively fresh. But where had it come from? And more importantly, what had I been doing while my mind was apparently offline?
My hands shaking, I called Alex.
"Lauren? I thought you were going to rest before tonight."
"Alex, I need you. Something's wrong."
"What kind of wrong?"
"I lost time. Two hours. I'm downtown and I don't remember driving here, and there's blood on my jacket."
Silence on the other end of the line. Then: "Blood? Are you hurt?"
"It's not mine. Alex, I think something happened, something bad, but I can't remember any of it."
"Okay, stay calm. Where are you exactly?"
I looked around for street signs. "Madison and Wells, I think. Near that big gray building with the revolving door."
"I know where that is. Don't move, don't talk to anyone. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
While I waited, I searched my car for any other clues about my missing hours. The gas tank showed slightly less fuel than I remembered, confirming that I'd driven somewhere. There was a parking receipt on the passenger seat from a lot I didn't recognize, timestamped at 2:43 PM.
But beyond those small pieces of evidence, it was as if those two hours had been erased from my life entirely.
Alex's car pulled up behind mine exactly fourteen minutes later. He climbed out and approached my driver's side window, his face tight with concern.
"Let me see the blood," he said without preamble.
I showed him the stain on my sleeve. He studied it carefully, even leaning in to smell it, which struck me as odd.
"Definitely blood," he confirmed. "But not much. Maybe from a small cut or scrape."
"But whose blood, Alex? And what was I doing that got it on me?"
"I don't know. But I think we should get you out of here."
I looked around the busy street, suddenly hyperaware of every passing pedestrian. "What if I hurt someone? What if I did something terrible during those missing hours?"
"Lauren, look at me." Alex's voice was firm but gentle. "If you had hurt someone, if something terrible had happened, it would be all over the news by now. Police sirens, ambulances, reporters. Downtown Chicago isn't the kind of place where violent crimes go unnoticed."
He was right.
"Follow me to my place," Alex said. "We'll get you cleaned up, get some coffee in you. Maybe being in a calm environment will help you remember."
Alex's apartment was in a converted warehouse on North State Street, all exposed brick and industrial fixtures. It was stylishly masculine, the kind of place that belonged in an architectural magazine. But something about it felt off, though I couldn't put my finger on what.
"Nice place," I said, settling onto his leather couch while he made coffee in the open kitchen.
"Thanks. It's been in my family for a while. We've renovated it over the years."
I looked around more carefully, noting the expensive-looking artwork on the walls, the high-end furniture, the kind of interior design that cost serious money. "Detective work pays better than I thought."
Alex laughed, but it sounded forced. "Family money. Old European family, lots of inherited assets."
He brought me a mug of coffee, and I wrapped my hands around it gratefully. The warmth helped ground me, made the world feel slightly more solid.
"Talk me through what you remember," Alex said, settling into the chair across from me.
"I left Sarah's around two. I was feeling overwhelmed, needed to clear my head. I thought I'd drive to the lake, maybe walk along the shore." I took a sip of coffee, trying to push past the fog in my memory. "I remember getting in the car, turning on the radio. And then... nothing. Next thing I knew, I was parked downtown with no idea how I got there."
"No flashes of memory? No fragments of images or sounds? Stress can do strange things to memory," Alex said carefully. "You've been under enormous pressure, barely sleeping, probably not eating enough. Sometimes the mind just... shuts down for a while to protect itself."
"Is that what you think this was? Some kind of stress-induced blackout?"
"I think it's more likely than the alternatives your imagination is probably conjuring up."
Before I could respond, my phone rang. Captain Rodriguez's name appeared on the screen, and my stomach dropped.
"I should take this," I said, stepping into Alex's kitchen for privacy.
"Detective James."
"Lauren." Rodriguez's voice was clipped, professional. "I have some news about the Valdez case."
"What kind of news?"
"His defense attorney filed another motion for dismissal this afternoon. And this time, the DA is considering it seriously."
The coffee mug slipped from my hands, shattering on the kitchen floor. Alex looked up from the couch with concern.
"Considering it? Captain, we can't let Valdez walk."
"Without the physical evidence, our case is falling apart. The DA doesn't think the witness testimony will be enough to secure a conviction, especially after the defense's attack on their credibility."
"How long do we have?"
"The hearing is moved up to Friday morning. Same day as your psychiatric evaluation." Rodriguez paused. "Lauren, I need you to understand something. If the case gets dismissed, if Valdez walks free because of the evidence that disappeared on your watch, it's going to be very difficult to argue that your supernatural theories weren't a contributing factor to this failure."
The implication was clear: lose the Valdez case, lose my credibility entirely. Dr. Voss would have all the ammunition she needed to declare me mentally unfit.
"There has to be something we can do."
"There is. Find me new evidence. Something solid that directly links Valdez to Amanda Skrill's murder. You have forty-eight hours."
"Captain, I'm suspended. I can't exactly..."
"I'm not asking you to do anything official. But if new evidence happens to surface, if an anonymous tip leads us to something we missed, well, sometimes these things happen."
He was asking me to investigate off the books, to find evidence through unofficial channels. It was risky, potentially career-ending if I got caught. But it was also my only chance.
"I understand."
"Good. And Lauren? You're on your own on this."
After he hung up, I stood in Alex's kitchen staring at the broken coffee mug at my feet. Forty-eight hours to find new evidence against Valdez. 
"Bad news?" Alex asked, appearing in the kitchen doorway.
"The worst. Valdez's case is falling apart. If I can't find new evidence by Friday, he walks free and I get declared mentally incompetent."
"So we find new evidence."
"How? We don't even know where to start looking."
Alex knelt down and started picking up the broken ceramic pieces. "Actually, I think we do..."