by Elle Gray
I tried to get SPD to look at it closer while I was still with the department. I rattled every cage I could think of to get somebody to look at Veronica’s case. To a man, they all said there was no case to be had. They wrote it off as a simple accident caused by an unfortunate patch of black ice on a cold winter night.
It didn’t matter that although, yes, it was cold that night, it was not black ice cold. The temperature was above freezing. Thirty-four degrees, by all weather reports of that evening. And yet despite that fact, I’m supposed to believe she hit a patch of black ice, lost control of her car, and ended up going end over end, the crushed and twisted metal of her car ending up in a ditch.
I had an independent inspector look over the car to see if he could determine what had happened and what caused the accident. Unfortunately, the damage was too extensive for him to make any sort of concrete determination. Nor did he want to speculate about the cause of the crash from a mechanical standpoint.
I was left frustrated and without any answers as to why my beautiful wife, the woman who showed me a better way to live, the woman who saved me, died. It was the one time I thought about leveraging my family name to compel somebody to look into Veronica’s case. Ultimately, I didn’t do it. I couldn’t justify using my family’s name and stature within the city to force the SPD to do my bidding. It was tempting, but I couldn’t do it.
So I’ve spent the last two years searching for answers on my own, and have come up dry at every turn. And as I study the last photo carefully, searching for the smallest detail I might have missed in the last ten million times I’ve scrutinized it; I blow out a frustrated breath. I close the file and slip it back into my satchel just as I see the door to Taub’s hotel room open. I glance at my watch and see that it’s only been thirty minutes.
“Disappointing performance, Mr. Taub,” I say. “You’re going to have to do better than that to keep an eighteen-year-old girl’s interest.”
I pick up my camera and take aim, making sure I zoom in on the couple as they lean against the car, kissing each other passionately. I make sure I get a close up of their faces, so there is no doubt. As Murray pulls back, a lecherous smile on his face, I see a flash of disgust cross Tandy’s face. It’s brief and is quickly replaced by a wide, bright smile, but it confirms for me that my original thinking about her stake in this relationship was correct.
I chuckle to myself as I put my camera down. I do so enjoy being correct. I’m just about to pack it in for the night when my cellphone rings. I pick it up and see the call is coming from a restricted number and immediately feel a jolt. I have no reason to think it, but I just have a feeling I know who’s on the other end of the line, so I connect the call.
“Arrington,” I answer.
“Paxton, it is good to hear your voice again.”
I was right. It’s Hayes. A rush of adrenaline flows through me, and I feel that familiar tingle of excitement crawling along my skin.
“Mr. Hayes,” I say. “What a surprise.”
“I didn’t interrupt anything important, did I?”
“No, just documenting the depraved infidelity of an old man.”
He chuckles. “I admire your morals, Paxton,” he says. “I appreciate that you have such a strong sense of right and wrong.”
“I don’t know about all that,” I reply. “I was just hired to do a job.”
“Don’t be modest, Paxton,” he insists. “You have a very strong moral compass.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say. “Tell me something, is that why you do what you do? Because of your strong moral compass?”
“Of course.”
“I can’t help but notice the religious overtones—”
He laughs softly, cutting me off.
“Is something funny?” I ask.
“Religion can be a violent and destructive thing,” he says. I can’t help but hear the note of bitterness in his voice. “It can be vile and oppressive.”
“So why the religious iconography at your murder scenes?” I ask. “Why the crosses?”
“Call it my own personal peccadillo,” he replies.
In the motel parking lot, Taub has Tandy pressed up against the car and is all over her. She’s trying to look like she’s enjoying it, but her expression is caught somewhere between revulsion and fear. Poor girl.
“This man whose depraved infidelity you’re documenting… does he make you angry?” Hayes asks.
“Not particularly,” I reply. “Just kind of repulsed, honestly.”
“Curious.”
“Why is it curious?”
“I presumed for sure blatant infidelity would upset you.”
I chuckle softly. “Not to the point that I’d, say, kill him,” I say. “If that’s what you’re getting at.”
“As you like to say, you can’t blame me for trying.”
Taub finally disentangles himself from Tandy and steps back. He watches the girl get into her car and shut the door after her before he turns and gets into his Maserati. A midlife crisis car if I’ve ever seen one.
“What can I do for you tonight, Mr. Hayes?”
“I was just doing some reading, actually,” he says. “About your wife. A fascinating story. I didn’t actually think it would be relevant, but I was wrong.”
The adrenaline that flows through me is electric. My stomach churns, and my heart stutters. I want to hear Veronica’s name passing his lips even less than I wanted to hear it coming out of my father’s.
“What about her?” I ask.
“I just thought it was such a tragic loss to have to endure,” he says. “I am truly sorry for that.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to talk about that.”
“From what I’ve gathered, she had a profound impact on you,” he continues. “Changed the course of your life.”
“You speak as if you know me.”
“Well, in some ways I do,” he says. “Perhaps even better than you know yourself.”
“Yeah, whatever you say,” I reply. “But like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“She must have been a very special—”
“Drop it, Hayes. Now.”
He falls silent, but I can sense his amusement on the other end of the line. He’s enjoying this. I redirect my attention and watch as Taub pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the street, moving quickly, leaving me alone with the sociopath on the phone. Thanks, Murray. I grit my teeth, doing my best to not let him get to me. He’s trying to get into my head, and I can’t give him the satisfaction. I won’t.
“Do you think you knew her well?” he presses. “Veronica, that is. Do you think you knew everything there was to know about her?”
“I don’t think we ever truly know everything about another person,” I reply. “Not even somebody we’re married to. Nor should we. We all need our secrets and those things that are ours and ours alone.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he replies. “But do you think you knew her well?”
“Of course I did,” I snap. “She was my wife.”
“Interesting. You’re very defensive of her. Even still. I rather like that. It shows loyalty,” he notes. “I will be interested to see if that is actually true.”
I take a breath and let it out slowly, recognizing that he’s trying to get under my skin. A sardonic grin pulls the corners of my mouth upward as I realize how similar to my father he is in that regard, both always poking and prodding around the edges, trying to get under my skin in an effort to bend me to their will.
“Was there a reason for this call?” I ask. “Or do you just enjoy the sound of my voice?”
“You know, I have been trying to figure how exactly Special Agent Wilder fits into our burgeoning narrative,” he says.
The mention of Blake’s name rattles me. I have to keep myself from responding or giving any indication that he’d caught me off guard. I don’t know how it is he knows about Blake and me. It’s not as if we spend a lot of time out in public together. So e
ven if he was tailing me, the odds of him seeing us together are slim. Either my luck is really that bad, or the answer is something much simpler and disturbingly devious.
“Oh, we have a burgeoning narrative, do we?” I ask, hoping my voice doesn’t give me away.
If what I’m thinking is true, I don’t want to tip my hand just yet. I don’t want Hayes to know that I’m onto him. Or give him any ideas if I’m not.
“Surely you feel it building,” he says with a chuckle. “And in our narrative, I had originally thought Special Agent Wilder was your Watson.”
“I assume you have since rethought that opinion, and you’re just dying to share it with me; otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Indeed,” he says. “I have become convinced that she is your Irene Adler.”
“Is that so?”
“Does that not please you?”
“This is real life,” I tell him. “Not fiction.”
“This is the great game.”
I lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes. “I’ve told you before that I’m not playing your game,” I tell him. “I am going to find you, though. I am going to put an end to you and bring your mission to an end.”
“I am trying to teach you something, Paxton. I am trying to show you just how powerful you can become,” he says. “I’m trying to teach you that you can be so much more than you are.”
“Believe it or not, I’m just fine as I am.”
He laughs softly. “Your eyes just need to be opened,” he says. “You need to be shown that you are worthy.”
Being worthy in this man’s eyes is the last thing I want or need. I hate that I feel the darkness inside of roiling and churning like cold, greasy snakes in the pit of my belly because of him. I hate feeling drawn to him. And I really hate, more than anything, that all of those feelings that were once such a part of me, feelings Veronica once helped banish, have been reawakened because of this man.
“I’ve already told you that I am not going to play your game,” I growl.
“Oh, but you already are,” he coos. “Even if you don’t realize it yet.”
Eighteen
The Pulpit; Downtown Seattle
“Irene Adler?”
I nod and settle back into the booth as I sip on my glass of scotch. Distaste twists Blake’s features.
“He’s really taking this whole Sherlock aesthetic a bit too far, don’t you think?” she asks.
“It’s apparently important to him for some reason,” I shrug.
“It’s because it’s what bonded you two together in the first place,” she points out. “He’s holding tightly to that.”
“A little too tightly, if you ask me,” I say. “As much as I was obsessed with the books as a kid, I don’t need to center my life around it.”
She shakes her head. “That’s not it. He’s not centering his life around it. Just his relationship with you.”
“Which somehow seems creepier.”
Blake gives me a smile. “It only needs to make sense to him.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Blake takes a drink of her club soda— no alcohol for her while she’s on duty— and screws up her face in concentration.
“Wasn’t Irene Adler Holmes’ girlfriend?” she asks. “I mean, Hayes knows we’re not together like that, right?”
I shake my head. “In the books themselves, they weren’t together. She was his foil, and they had a deep, mutual respect for one another,” I tell her. “It’s only in the bastardized Hollywood versions of the books that they’ve injected sexual tension between them.”
“Thanks for that history lesson I didn’t need or want.”
I laugh softly. “Hey, you asked.”
I see Brody come through the front doors of the bar and beeline straight over to us. He slides into the booth next to Blake, an expression of excitement on his face. He’s practically bouncing up and down like a kid on Christmas morning.
“So?” I ask.
“Swept the whole office,” he says. “You were right.”
“Of course I was,” I say. “Did you doubt me?”
Blake looks between us, an expression of confusion on her face. “You boys going to tell me what’s going on?”
I look over at her and grin. “Did it not occur to you to wonder how he knew who you were?” I ask. “How he knew your name? I certainly never mentioned you to him.”
Blake sits back in her seat, a dumbfounded expression crossing her face for a moment as the implications of it all sink in for her.
“You’re kidding me,” she says. “He bugged your office?”
Brody produces a clear plastic bag and shakes it before dropping it onto the table between us with a metallic thud. I pick up the bag and study the contents, shaking my head, then cast a look at Brody.
“Nah, we’re good. I made sure they’re all junk now,” Brody says. “But how did he get these into the office?”
“I should have known.”
“Should have known what?” Blake asks.
“The computer repairman,” I say. “The same guy was at the Morgans’ house doing cable repair. He was wearing a disguise, but I should have seen through it.”
“How could you have?” Blake asks. “There’s no way you could have known we’d be here right now.”
“Yeah, but—”
“She’s right, man,” Brody says. “There’s no way you could have known any of this would happen.”
“So he’s been listening to us this whole time. He knows everything we do,” Blake says.
I nod. “Yeah. Apparently so,” I say. “But at least we figured it out before any real damage was done.”
“So like, not to be the selfish, self-centered coward here—”
“It’s never stopped you before,” Blake grins as she cuts Brody off.
“I see those Bureau comedy lessons seem to be paying off,” he fires back. “Anyway, now that we’ve found his stuff, does that make it more likely that he’ll be coming after us?”
“Probably not. It just means we need to be very careful about what we say in the office,” I reply. “It also means we’re going to need to sweep the office every single day, just to be sure he didn’t slip in and plant more.”
Brody nods, but he looks uneasy about the whole thing. His sense of adventure doesn’t usually extend beyond picking up strange women in bars. Blake is looking at the bugs from the office; her face a mixture of consternation and dismay. She drops the bag and raises her gaze to me, her eyes narrow and her jaw set in a line of grim determination.
“What else did you and your new BFF talk about?” Blake asks.
I replay the entire conversation with them, start to finish. They hang on every word. And when I finish, they both look at each other, then turn back to me, both of them looking astounded. And disturbed.
“There’s a lot there to unpack, man,” Brody whistles low. “I’m going to need some alcohol for this.”
He slips out of the booth and heads to the bar, where he immediately strikes up a conversation with a tall, willowy redhead. I roll my eyes and turn back to Blake.
“I guess he’ll be otherwise occupied for a while,” I say.
“Fine, we’ll go on without him.”
“So, this isn’t a religious thing, huh?”
I shake my head. “His disdain for religion is palpable,” I tell her. “You could hear it in his voice.”
“So why the crosses?”
“Irony? To make a point?”
My voice tapers off as my head starts to play out all the possibilities. And as I scroll through them all, I come to one inescapable conclusion that I can’t ignore.
“He grew up with religion,” I state. “Maybe his father was a pastor or something, but he was definitely raised in a religious home.”
“What makes you say that?” Blake asks.
“Because only somebody raised in a religious household can have that much contempt for it,” I say. “To
call it vicious and destructive, vile and oppressive… that can only come from somebody raised in religion. Somebody who was steeped in it every single day and didn’t have a very good experience with it.”
Blake takes a drink and leans back, seeming to be contemplating my words. She sets her glass down on the table, taking a moment to carefully line it up with the ring of moisture it had left before. Finally, she looks back up at me and nods.
“Yeah, I can see that,” she says. “That makes sense. So we need to be searching for bitter, homicidal pastor’s sons who are living near a ferry terminal.”
“Narrows things down a bit,” I say with a laugh.
“Yeah, let me Google that.”
We both fall silent for a moment and take a drink, and I let that profile solidify in my head. It seems right to me. It’s not complete yet, but it’s a good working picture of the man. But I need more. There has to be something more. That one critical piece of information that will lead me to him. As I sit there pondering, I realize how much this situation parallels my situation with Veronica. I’m searching for that one thing, that one piece of information that will open the entire thing up for me.
“So why was he so interested in Veronica?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Just trying to get under my skin,” I say. “Like my father sometimes does.”
“You have got some complicated, really messed up relationships in your life,” she notes. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Tell me about it.”
“You know what you need?”
“Fewer complications?”
She grins. “Friends. Like, actual friends,” she says. “You need to learn to be social and see what healthy relationships look like.”
“You’re my friend. So is Brody,” I say.
“I’m not around much, and Brody’s a clown,” she replies. “I’m talking about people who aren’t us, who can socialize you. You’re like a feral dog right now.”
I wave her off. “People are overrated.”
“That’s why you don’t have friends.”