Blind Faith by CJ Lyons Page B

screamed, she never would have heard it.
    Finally the key turned and she shoved the door open. Rushing inside, dropping her bag, kicking the door shut, she ran to bathroom, barely made it before she vomited. Hugging the cool, smooth porcelain, she wretched her guts out. The stench of burning flesh overwhelmed her—a sure sign that this migraine was going to be a bad one. As if she needed more proof.
    Her best laid plans ruined. After spending the afternoon reviewing the Hopewell case, she'd thought she could outsmart the headache by using some Imitrex at her office. The powerful, injected medicine never failed her. Never.
    Until now. She slid to the floor, her cheek resting on the tiles beside the foot of the toilet, one arm still draped over the seat, and surrendered. The pain overtook her like HRT storming a building: shok-rounds powerful enough to blow steel doors apart, stun grenades with blinding explosions of light so intense they shook your body, the thunder of shotgun fire.
    Unlike a quick-response raid, the migraine continued its close-quarter combat, taking its time as it stampeded through her brain, her body, her mind.
    Caitlyn lay there, her body shuddering, twitching, out of her control. Nausea twisted in her gut, acid burned her throat. She opened her mouth, certain she would vomit again, but nothing came. The arm resting on the toilet screamed with pins and needles. She let it slip to the ground. That small movement was like pulling the pin from a grenade, setting off another explosion of pain.
    Her Imitrex and Fiorcet were in the medicine cabinet above the sink. Light years away. Alongside it was the Phenergan the doctor prescribed for when the nausea got really bad—too late for that as well.
    Her arsenal. All out of reach and useless to her now.
    She cried out, the sound echoing from the tile walls, reverberating through her mind. In the darkness, she inched her hand forward along the floor. She closed her eyes against the pain and the vision of her hand holding her Glock, squeezing the trigger, the bullet spiraling in slow motion towards her head.
    Not even the migraine from hell would survive a forty-caliber round at point blank range, she thought with satisfaction, glad to have devised a strategy to outwit her opponent. Like father, like daughter.
    Why not? The doctors had told her if the headaches grew worse it meant one of two things. Rarely, it meant the brain was healing, the headaches escalating before burning themselves out. But more commonly it meant the scar tissue in her brain was causing more destruction, permanent damage, and things would only get worse. If the scarring weakened a blood vessel and it burst, she could die.
    No. She wasn't giving up. It was only one headache. One did not a pattern make. Another strangled cry forced its way past her clenched jaws as her fingers found their target.
    Not her Glock—that was in the living room in her bag, thankfully out of reach. Instead her fingers closed on the still damp washcloth she'd left on the tub's edge. Greedily she raked it in, mopping her face, inhaling the scent of lavender—anything was better than the acid stench of her vomit.
    The headache pulled back, momentarily, then hit again with a sucker punch of pain. Caitlyn wadded the cloth in her mouth and bit down against her scream.
    She was helpless, at its mercy, nothing to fight back with except her own stubborn will. Caitlyn concentrated on her breathing, forced herself to block out everything.
    Think, focus, concentrate. Drive it back.
    A woman's face appeared in her mind. Sarah Durandt, an expression of outraged disbelief twisting her features. Denial, anger that no one was searching for her lost boy and husband, and finally whimpers of pain when they showed her the proof that Wright had taken her son, killed her husband. She had crumbled, leaning heavily on the local police chief's arm, but Sarah Durandt had not fallen.
    Instead, she had raised her head, eyes blazing out at