Richard Carter In James Mill

The next time I saw Carter, he was holed up in a basement, playing video games and neglecting to eat, work, or take care of himself. He’d descended into a sort of limbo while his young wife was attending the funeral of her Aunt Mirabelle in France. Without her, he just couldn't hold it together.

They had fled Michigan and notoriety shortly after he and Jill married. He was no longer the naïve young man who left home for the Marines, nor was he the disillusioned soldier trying to make his way in the real world.

The traumatic events in Cartier left him with his dream of an FBI career dead. Jill was his lifeline, but he was barely hanging on. To his PTSD and guilt is added a suspicion that he is holding his wife back from her promising career.

He drifted from one menial job to another, taking little interest in the routines of daily life. Increasingly, he worried that Jill was only staying with him out of gratitude for saving her life.

Jill knew all this, but was at a loss as to how to reassure him. In truth, she was exasperated with his inability to do anything but drift. When he finally did find something that holds his attention and interest, however, she was alarmed rather than reassured. She feared that his promise to help the single mother with a missing baby would end in failure and plunge him into a despair from which he might never recover. She had all but lost faith in him.

Richard, however, was an increasingly willing “godsend.” Once he had given his word, he would see his duty through to the end. As depressing as his hunt for the truth might be, the prospect of doing something approximating detective work exhilarated him.