Page 28 of Obsessed Mr. O’Brian

She purses her lips to let her displeasure be known but exhaustion steals the argument from her.

“Okay. Fine,” she grumbles before closing her eyes.

Between one breath and the next, she falls asleep. I lose the battle between desire and logic and kiss her temple before rising.

I change into gym wear, exit the room, and call Quinn as I traverse the halls. When I request a private investigator, my right-hand man—who I forget is female ninety-eight percent of the time—responds with disapproving silence.

Realizing she thinks I want another private investigator for Regina, I fill her in on Millie. She agrees to look into not only today’s footage of Millie’s apartment building but also every detail possible about the last thirteen years.

I hang up and punish myself on the treadmill for a few minutes before rushing back to the room, removing the ice packs, taking a quick shower, and settling on the couch.

With my daughter and her new guardian angel sleeping nearby, I fade into a deep sleep faster than ever before.

I wake an indeterminate time later in a quiet rush as Lola sighs and shifts in her sleep, but my senses sharpen as I hear a soft scraping sound. I force myself to breathe slow and even as I check the room.

A shadow stands at the counter in the darkest part of the kitchen. The scratching continues. I slide my arm out from under the cover and close my fist around the hilt of my knife on the side table.

Lola’s soft snores assure me she’s sound asleep. I slip my feet to the carpet and sit up in a single, quiet movement. The new position allows me a clear view over the crib.

Millie isn’t in the bed. I squint in the dim light and confirm the mound of blankets is too small for her frame.

The scratching sound pulls my attention back to the shape standing at the kitchen counter.

Millie. It must be Millie.

I place my knife on the side table and rise to my feet. She doesn’t respond when I call her name. I stalk across the room without making a sound but stop a few paces away from my daughter’s nanny.

“Millie, what are you doing? Are you okay?”

She lifts her head and turns her face to mine. The dim light offers me enough of a view to make out her far-off stare. She looks at me with an eerie, unseeing gaze as silent tears stream down her face.

Her hand never stops moving. She turns her blank eyes back to the counter.

Unsettled, I strain for a few seconds to make out her expression in the darkness before the scratching sound pulls my attention downward.

A white rectangle sits on the counter. I can’t see the image forming on the paper, but Millie’s hand moves over the page with startling grace and precision.

She’s drawing in the darkness. In the middle of the night. While crying.

When I finally realize she’s sleepwalking, the tension drains from my shoulders. My daughter isn’t in danger. There is no threat to the two most important people in my life.

Worry rises and fills the space newly vacated by my alarm. The tears rolling down her face hit harder than any of Regina’s outbursts. They speak of deep-rooted misery and soul-shattering agony. Of a pain so vast and endless nothing can end it. Of hopelessness.

Even when I died and Regina brought me back to life and I spent weeks in the hospital—and years in and out of doctor visits and therapies—I never felt despair as potent as Millie’s.

I say her name again, soft and low so as not to startle her, but she doesn’t respond. Too afraid to cause her more distress by shocking her awake, I take a step back and lean my hip against the counter. Like a sentinel in the night, I watch over her from a few feet away as she flicks her pencil over the paper.

When she turns the page and begins a new drawing without missing a beat, I wonder how long she stood in the dark before I woke. Has she been on her feet all night instead of getting the rest her body needs to heal?

Impatience streaks through me. I cross my arms and say her name in a slightly harsher tone.

“Millie, you need to sleep. Go back to the bed.”

She stops. I stiffen. After several moments of tense silence, she makes three more strokes of her pencil, turns the page again, and starts anew picture.

I growl and run my hand through my hair before looking around the room as though some answer will magically appear.

When I turn my attention back toward her, she stands so close I jerk in surprise.