by Alex Kava
Delores was staring at her again, with a look of concern.
“Tess, I am serious. I want you to have the selling bonus. You worked your ass off to move that property in two weeks. I know it’s a beautiful house and the asking price was a steal, but with all the paperwork and hedging and negotiating—selling anything right now that quickly, and especially in that price range, is nothing less than a miracle.”
“It’s…well, it’s just an awful lot of money. Are you sure you want to—”
“Absolutely. I know what I’m doing, girlfriend. I’m investing in you, Tess. I want you to stick around. Don’t need you going out on your own and becoming my competition. Besides, I’m making a nice piece of change off that property, as it is. Now go home and celebrate with that handsome man of yours.”
On the way home Tess wondered if it was possible, the part about celebrating with her “handsome man.” Daniel had been so angry with her last week when she’d refused to move in with him. She wasn’t sure she blamed him. Why was it that every time a man wanted to get close to her, she pushed him away?
Jesus, she wasn’t a kid anymore. In a couple of weeks she’d be thirty-five. She was becoming a successful and respected businesswoman. So why couldn’t she get her personal life right? Was she destined to fail at every damn relationship she attempted? No matter what she did, the past seemed to follow her around, sucking her back into its old, comfortable, but destructive, cocoon.
The last five years had been a constant battle, but finally she was making progress. And this last sale had proven that she was actually good at this. She could make a living without conning anyone. Even Daniel had become a sort of trophy, with his refined handsome features, his educated and cultured background. He was sophisticated and ambitious and so completely unlike any man she had ever been with. So what if he was a little arrogant, or that they had so few things in common. He was good for her. She winced at the thought. It made Daniel sound like cod liver oil.
Tess found herself pulling her leased Miata into the back-alley parking lot of Louie’s Bar and Grill. She decided to pick up a bottle of wine. Then she’d call Daniel, apologize for last week and invite him over for a late dinner to help her celebrate. Surely he would be excited for her. He had said he liked her independence and determination, and Daniel was stingy with compliments, even the halfhearted ones.
She sat back in the leather seat and tried to remember why she felt she needed to apologize to him again. Oh well. It didn’t matter, as long as they put it behind them and moved forward. She was getting good at putting things in the past. Yet, if that were true, what was she doing back here at Louie’s? Shep’s Liquor Mart was only three blocks down the street and on her way home. What in the world did she need to prove to anyone? Or rather, what was it she still needed to prove to herself?
She reached for the key in the ignition and was just about to start the car and leave when the back door swung open, startling her. A stocky, middle-aged man came out, his hands filled with trash bags, his apron grimy and his balding head glistening with sweat. A cigarette hung from his lips. Without removing it, he heaved the bags into the Dumpster and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. As he turned to go back in, he saw her, and then it was too late.
He grabbed the cigarette—one last puff—and tossed it to the ground without stomping it out. He strolled up to the car, carrying his bulk with a swagger Tess knew he imitated from the professional wrestlers he idolized. He thought he looked cool. When, in fact, he simply looked like a pathetic, overweight, balding, middle-aged man. Despite all that, she found him endearing, the closest thing she had to an old friend.
“Tessy,” he said, then waited as the window hummed opened. “What the hell you doin’ here?”
She noticed the beginning of a smile before he wiped at it, pretending instead to scratch the five o’clock shadow.
“Hi, Louie.” She got out of the car.
“Fuckin’ nice ride ya got here, Tessy,” he said, checking out the shiny black Miata.
She let him examine and admire it, neglecting to tell him it was a company car and not her own. One of Delores’s mottoes was that to be successful you must first look successful.
Finally, Louie turned his sights on Tess. She felt his eyes slide down her designer suit and his whistle made her blush. She should have felt proud. Instead, his attention made her feel like a fraud for a second time in the same day.
“So whatcha doin’ here? Slummin’?”
Immediately, her face grew hot.
“Of course not,” she snapped.
“Hey, I’m just jokin’ with ya, Tessy.”
“I know that.” She smiled, hoping she sounded convincing and not defensive. She turned to the car and pretended to lock the door, though the remote could do it from ten feet away. “I need to pick up a bottle of wine. Just thought I’d give you the business rather than Shep’s.”
“Oh really?” He stared at her, his eyebrow raised, but quickly gave in to a smile. “Well, I appreciate it. And you never need no excuse to come see us, Tessy. You know you’re always welcome.”
“Thanks, Louie.”
Suddenly she felt like that restless, going-nowhere bartender she had left here five years ago. Would she ever be rid of her past?
“Come on,” Louie said as he swung a muscular arm up around her shoulder.
Wearing heels, Tess was a couple inches taller, making the dragon tattooed on his arm stretch its neck. The smell of body odor and French fries made her stomach turn, only she was surprised to find it was homesickness she was feeling instead of nausea. Then she thought of Daniel. Later, he would smell the cigarette smoke and the greasy burgers. She realized that would be enough to ruin the celebration.
“You know what, Louie. I just remembered something I forgot back at the office.” She turned and slipped out from under his arm.
“What? It can’t wait a few minutes?”
“No, sorry. My boss will have my ass in a sling if I don’t take care of it right now.” She bleeped her car door open and climbed inside before Louie had a chance to do any more objecting. “I’ll stop in later,” she said through the half-opened window, knowing full well she would not. The window was already on its way up again when she said, “I promise.”
She shifted the car into gear and carefully maneuvered the narrow alley, watching Louie in the rearview mirror. He looked more confused than pissed. That was good. She didn’t want Louie pissed at her. Then immediately wondered why it mattered. She didn’t want it to matter.
She turned the car onto the street, and when she knew she was safely out of sight, she gunned the engine. But it took several miles before she felt like she could breathe and before she could hear the car radio instead of the pounding of her heart. Then she remembered that she had passed Shep’s Liquor Mart. She didn’t care. She no longer felt as if she deserved a celebration, yet she tried to concentrate on her recent successes and not the past. In fact, she remained so focused, she hardly noticed the dark sedan following her.
CHAPTER 7
Before the pizza or Gwen arrived, Maggie poured a second Scotch. She had forgotten about the bottle until she discovered it staring up at her, safely stored in the box—a necessary antidote accompanying the contents of horror. The box was labeled #34666, the number that had been assigned to Albert Stucky. Perhaps it was no accident that his file number would end in 666.
Assistant Director Cunningham would be furious if he knew she had copied every last piece of paper from Stucky’s official file. She would have felt guilty if each report, each document, each note had been recorded by someone other than herself. For almost two years Maggie had tracked Stucky. She had viewed every one of his scenes of torture and dissection, scanning his handiwork for fibers, hairs, missing organs, anything that would tell her how to catch him. She had a right to his file, considering it some strange documentation of a portion of her own life.
She had taken a quick shower after her unexpecte
d trip to the vet. Her UVA T-shirt soaked in the bathroom sink. She might never be able to remove the bloodstains. The T-shirt was old, stretched and faded, but she had an odd attachment to it. Some people kept scrapbooks, Maggie kept T-shirts.
Her years at the University of Virginia had been good ones. It was there she discovered a life of her own outside of being her mother’s caretaker. It was where she had met Greg. She glanced at her watch, then checked her cellular phone to make certain it was on. He still hadn’t returned her call about the missing carton. He’d make her wait, but she wouldn’t let herself get angry. Not tonight. She was simply too exhausted to take on one more emotion.
The doorbell chimed. Maggie glanced at her watch again. As usual, Gwen was ten minutes late. She tugged at her shirttail, making certain it hid the bulging Smith & Wesson tucked into her waistband. Lately, the gun had become as common an accessory as her wristwatch.
“I know I’m late,” Gwen said before the door was fully open. “Traffic was a bitch. Friday night and everyone’s trying to get the hell out of D.C. for the weekend.”
“Good to see you, too.”
She smiled and pulled Maggie in for a one-armed hug. For a brief moment Maggie was surprised by how soft and fragile the older woman felt. Despite Gwen’s petite and feminine stature, Maggie thought of her as her own personal Rock of Gibraltor. She had leaned on Gwen and depended on her strength and character and words of wisdom many times during their friendship.
When Gwen pulled away, she cupped Maggie’s cheek in the palm of her hand, attempting to get a good look at her.
“You look like hell,” was her gentle assessment.
“Gee, thanks!”
She smiled again and handed Maggie the carton of longnecked Bud Light she carried in her other hand. The bottles were cold and dripping with condensation. Maggie took them and used the action as an excuse to keep her eyes away from Gwen’s. It had been almost a month since the two women had seen each other, though they talked on the phone regularly. On the phone, however, Maggie could keep Gwen from seeing the panic and vulnerability that seemed to lie so close to the surface during these past several weeks.
“Pizza should be here any minute,” Maggie told her as she reset the security system.
“No Italian sausage on my half.”
“Extra mushrooms, instead.”
“Oh, bless you.” Gwen didn’t wait for an invitation to come in. She took off to roam through the rooms.
“My God, Maggie, this house is wonderful.”
“You like my designer?”
“Hmm…I’d say brown cardboard is you, simple and unpretentious. May I check out the second floor?” Gwen asked, already making her way up the stairs.
“Can I stop you?” Maggie laughed. How was it possible for this woman to sweep into a place and bring a trail of energy as well as such warmth and delight?
She and Gwen had met when Maggie had first arrived at Quantico for her forensic fellowship. Maggie had been a young, naive newbie who hadn’t yet seen blood except in a test tube, and had never fired a gun except during training on the firing range.
Gwen had been one of the local psychologists brought in by Assistant Director Cunningham to act as a private consultant and to help profile several important cases. Even back then she had a successful practice in D.C. Many of her patients were some of the elite of Washington—bored wives of congressmen, suicidal generals and even one manic-depressed White House cabinet member.
However it was Gwen’s research, the many articles she had written and her remarkable insight into the criminal mind that had attracted Assistant Director Cunningham when he first asked her to be an independent consultant for the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit. Though Maggie learned quickly that the assistant director had been attracted to Dr. Gwen Patterson in other ways as well. A person would have to be blind not to see the ongoing chemistry between the two, though Maggie knew firsthand that neither had acted upon it, nor ever intended to.
“We respect our professional relationship,” Gwen explained to Maggie once, making it clear she didn’t want the subject brought up again, though this was long after Gwen’s stint as a consultant had ended. Maggie knew that Assistant Director Cunningham’s estranged marriage probably had more to do with their hands-off policy than any attempt to remain professional.
From the first time Maggie met Gwen, she had admired the woman’s vibrancy, her keen intellect and her dry sense of humor. Gwen refused to think inside the box and didn’t hesitate to break any of the rules while still appearing to be respectful of authority. Maggie had seen her win over diplomats as well as criminals with her sophisticated but charming manner. Gwen was fifteen years older than Maggie, but the woman had instantly become a best friend as well as a mentor.
The doorbell chimed again, and Maggie’s hand reached back and grabbed her revolver before she could stop herself. She glanced up the stairs to see if Gwen had witnessed her knee-jerk reaction. She smoothed her shirttail over her jeans and checked the portico from the side window before she disarmed the alarm system. She stopped and looked out the peephole, examining the fish-eye view of the street, then she opened the door.
“Large pizza for O’Dell.” The young girl handed Maggie the warm box. Already she could smell the Romano cheese and Italian sausage.
“It smells wonderful.”
The girl grinned as though she had prepared it herself.
“It comes to $18.59, please.”
Maggie handed her a twenty and a five. “Keep the change.”
“Gee, thanks.”
The girl bounced down the circular drive, her blond ponytail waving out the back of her blue baseball cap.
Maggie set the pizza down in the middle of the living room. She returned to the door to reset the security system just as Gwen came rushing down the steps.
“Maggie, what the hell happened?” she asked, holding up the dripping T-shirt, splattered with blood.
“What is this? Did you hurt yourself?” Gwen demanded.
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, oh that. What the hell happened?”
Maggie quickly cupped a hand under the dripping T-shirt and grabbed it away, racing up the stairs to drop it back into the sink. She drained the red, murky water, tossed in more detergent and ran fresh water over the fabric. When she looked up in the mirror, Gwen was standing behind her, watching.
“If you’re hurt, please don’t try to take care of it yourself,” Gwen said in a soft but stern voice.
Maggie met her friend’s eyes in the mirror and knew that she was referring to the cut Albert Stucky had sliced into her abdomen. Maggie had slipped away into the night, after all the commotion had ended, and tried to discreetly dress her own wound. But an infection had landed her in the emergency room a few days later.
“It’s nothing, Gwen. My neighbor’s dog was injured. I helped take it to the vet. This is the dog’s blood. Not mine.”
“You’re kidding.” It took a minute for relief to wash over Gwen’s face. “Jesus, Maggie, you just can’t keep your nose out of anything that involves blood, can you?”
Maggie smiled. “I’ll tell you about it later. We need to eat, because I am starving.”
“That’s new and different.”
Maggie grabbed a towel, wiped her hands and led the way back downstairs.
“You know,” Gwen said from behind her, “you need to put on some weight. Do you ever eat regular meals anymore?”
“I hope this isn’t going to be a lecture on nutrition.”
She heard Gwen sigh, but knew she wouldn’t push it. They went into the kitchen, and Maggie pulled out paper plates and napkins from a carton on the counter. Each grabbed a cold bottle of beer and returned to the living-room floor. Already Gwen had kicked out of her expensive black pumps and thrown her suit jacket over the arm of the recliner. Maggie scooped up pizza as she noticed Gwen examining the open carton next to the rolltop desk.
“This is Stucky’s, isn’t it?”
“Are you going to rat me out to Cunningham?”
“Of course not. You know me better than that. But I am concerned about you obsessing over him.”
“I’m not obsessing.”
“Really? Then what would you call it?”
Maggie took a bite of pizza. She didn’t want to think about Stucky, or her appetite would be ruined again. Yet that was one of the reasons Gwen was here.
“I simply want him caught,” Maggie finally said. She could feel Gwen’s eyes examining her, looking for signs, watching for underlying tones. Maggie hated it when her friend tried psychoanalyzing her, but she knew it was a simple instinct with Gwen.
“And only you can catch him? Is that it?”
“I know him best.”
Gwen stared at her a few more moments then picked up her bottle by its neck and twisted off the cap. She took a sip and put the drink aside.
“I did some checking.” She reached for a slice of pizza, and Maggie tried not to show her eagerness. She had asked Gwen to use her connections to find out where the Stucky case was stalled. When Assistant Director Cunningham exiled Maggie to the teaching circuit, he had also made it impossible for her to find out any information about the investigation.
Gwen took her time chewing. Another sip while Maggie waited. She wondered if Gwen had called Cunningham directly. No, that would have been too obvious. He knew the two of them were close friends.
“And?” She couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Cunningham has brought in a new profiler, but the task force has been dismantled.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“Because he has nothing, Maggie. It’s been, what? Over five months? There’s no sign of Albert Stucky. It’s like he’s fallen off the face of the earth.”
“I know. I’ve been checking VICAP almost weekly.” Initiated by the FBI, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program recorded violent crimes across the country, categorizing them by distinguishing features. Nothing close to Stucky’s M.O. had shown up. “What about in Europe? Stucky has enough money stashed. He could go anywhere.”