by Steven James
Idiocy.
As well as unconscionable—taking advantage of a family’s loss solely for political gain.
It made her furious.
Fischer’s mistake might result in a lawsuit against the Bureau—even though the ME who failed to verify the young woman’s identity worked for the city and not the FBI. That’s what comes from these joint investigations—incompetency and unclear lines of authority. And in this case, since Rodale had assigned her to head things up, the buck stopped at her.
Not only did she need to deal with the Bureau’s public-relations black eye but also the distraught Summie family, the self-possessed congressman and his cronies, and an ever-shrinking investigative team.
Agent Hawkins was in Michigan.
Agent Bowers was recuperating.
Yesterday evening, before she’d spoken with Bowers, she’d read over the hospital’s report concerning his GSW and knew that it was more serious than he was letting on.
His recovery was necessary for the good of the investigation as well as the National Academy classes beginning on Monday. Despite his impertinence, he was the Bureau’s most qualified instructor in crime mapping and site analysis, environmental criminology and geospatial investigation, and she couldn’t afford to have him out of action and chance diminishing the Academy’s reputation as the premier law enforcement training facility in the world.
So yes, he needed rest, but she knew him well enough to guess that he was not the kind of person to listen to a doctor’s advice. So, for his own good, she’d quoted a bogus Bureau policy about agents who are injured in action being on mandatory medical leave for forty-eight hours.
And he’d actually seemed to buy it.
As she thought about him, she noted that one of the few characteristics she shared with Patrick Bowers was this: neither of them believed in coincidences.
She’d served on a committee last winter for a Defense Department program that had been terminated in February, and because of the nature of the project that the committee had been overseeing, she was almost certain it was no coincidence that the killers had chosen the Gunderson facility—however, because of the social and political implications of Project Rukh, she needed to tread lightly and confirm her suspicions before bringing them up with the task force.
For the moment, it was her job to keep all of these plates spinning in the air, and despite her experience and administrative acumen, she wasn’t sure she could do it.
But as she merged onto the highway and drove to work, she told herself that she could.
48
It took more than two hours to narrow down a possible hot zone where the killer might live or work, and I ended up with a ten-block radius in the business district of the city—not as precise as I would have hoped for, but at least it was a starting place for us as we began evaluating the home and work addresses of the people on the burgeoning suspect list.
I was emailing the data to Doehring when I heard Tessa moving around in her bedroom.
She doesn’t usually crawl out of bed until at least 10:00, and it wasn’t even 8:30 yet. I supposed that the emotional impact of finding out about the custody suit had stolen some of her sleep.
Since I didn’t want her to get a glimpse of my work, I shut off the hologram, and a few minutes later she shuffled into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed and in her pajamas but at least remotely conscious.
“Morning, Raven,” I said.
“Morning,” she managed to say. She moved in slow motion. She might have been a zombie.
“Trouble sleeping?”
She poured herself a cup of coffee, took a long, slow drink. “Yeah.” Then she gestured toward my arm. “I was worried about you.”
“About me?”
“Your scratch.”
“Well, thank you. It’s doing better. So, there’s a tender side to you after all.”
“Yeah, right.” She glanced at my phone, laptop, handwritten notes. “I see you’re already hard at work disobeying your boss.”
“I thought I’d get an early start.”
“Let me guess . . .” A yawn. “Trying to brush off conjecture with the facts until only the truth remains? Something like that?”
I stared at her. “Did you just make that up?”
She shrugged, rubbed a tired hand through her hair. “Sounded like something you might say.”
“I might want to use that in my lectures.”
“You must be desperate for material.” She drained her cup and went for a refill.
I slid my computer to the side. “Really, Tessa. Are you doing all right?”
She shrugged again. “You know.” Another yawn. “I gotta get dressed.”
While she took a shower, I spent some time finishing the paperwork for Margaret and the forms for the hospital. Soon the water in the bathroom turned off, and I started paging through some of the primate research Tessa had printed out.
I’d gotten through two articles when my computer’s video chat program blinked on and told me that Lien-hua was online.
After a moment’s consideration, I typed in, “Good morning.”
Waited.
It wasn’t long.
“Turn on your camera,” she wrote. “So we can talk.”
I did.
Her face appeared, a vase of artfully arranged flowers beside her. So, she was in her kitchen. Her sable hair was still unkempt, but it didn’t quiet her beauty.
Lien-hua appraised me for a moment, then said, “I would ask about your arm, but you’re just going to tell me that it’s okay, so let’s just skip that part. How are you, Pat? Really?”
“It feels like a bullet went through my biceps and I only got a few hours of sleep.”
My comment brought a smile and a small nod. “Thank you. And they’re saying it’s going to be okay?”
“No rock climbing for a few days. Other than that, I should be fine.”
“Ooh . . . that’s going to be rough. Think you’ll make it?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll have to take up something less strenuous. Like kickboxing.”
“Whenever you want a lesson, just let me know.”
I felt the intimate attraction I’d had for her returning. Maybe it had never left. “Be careful, I might take you up on that.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
It wasn’t easy stifling my curiosity about what she and Cheyenne might have talked about last night when they had dinner together, but it wasn’t really my business and I refrained from asking about it. “How was the body farm yesterday?”
“Disturbing. That’s not really my thing.”
“I hear you.”
A pause. “Pat, I heard through the grapevine that Margaret put you on bed rest for the next couple days.”
“Just a nasty rumor.”
She nodded softly.
Silence took over the conversation, and I could sense the mood shifting, deepening. At last she said, “I have to tell you something.”
I waited.
She was slow in responding. “When I heard you were shot, I . . . Pat, everything between us, whatever it was that went wrong, when I found out you’d been hurt like that, it all seemed so minor. So inconsequential.” She pushed a rogue strand of hair from her eye. “I was so worried about you.”
Despite myself, I noticed thoughts of Cheyenne skirting around inside of me, vying for my attention. I pushed them aside. “I should have called you last night—”
Lien-hua swept her hand through the air, as if she were erasing any missteps from our past. “It’s all right. I ended up calling Ralph, he’d just arrived in Michigan. He told me you were going to survive, unless he kills you for whining.”
I wanted to tell her that he’d yanked an IV out of my arm and that hurts and there were a lot of needles and everything, but realized that didn’t sound very macho. “Well, that’s thoughtful of him.”
Another pause—and again it seemed to move the moment deeper, shrink the space between us. “I’d li
ke to see you,” she said, “but I’ll be at the command post at police headquarters for most of the day. Will you be in the city at all?”
“Actually, Vanderveld’s covering my classes. I have a meeting with Rodale at noon. So, yeah. I’ll be in DC for that.”
“There’s a briefing scheduled for 2:00. If your meeting doesn’t go too long, would you like to grab lunch with me afterwards? I just need to be done by 1:30.”
“Lunch sounds good. I’ll give you a shout when I’m ready to leave HQ.”
“Okay.” She let her eyes smile at me and drew me inescapably into her world. “I’ll talk with you later.”
“Talk to you soon.”
As I tapped the keyboard to end the chat, I noticed Tessa with her eyebrow ring, fresh black fingernail polish, and wearing a neobeatnik skirt over black tights, watching me from the doorway.
Patrick was staring at her judgmentally.
“What?” she asked him.
“You’ve gotten into a bad habit of eavesdropping on my conversations.”
“Actually, I’ve always had it, you’re just now noticing.” She stepped into the room. “Girl problems, huh?”
“No.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She took a seat facing him. “So, you’re confused about the two of them? Which one to pursue?”
“I’m not having girl problems,” he grumbled. “I’m not confused. And who are you supposed to be? Dr. Phil?”
“Denial. Not a good sign.”
She waited him out and eventually, probably sensing that in the end evading her questions would be a losing battle, he let out a small sigh and admitted, “All right, maybe a little confused. Last month, Lien-hua breaks up with me, and now, well . . . I don’t know what to think.”
“Duh. Detective Warren is here.”
He looked at her blankly.
Okay, you have got to be kidding me.
“Relationships 101, Patrick: what makes a girl more interested in a guy than anything else?”
“I’m not sure. I—”
“Hello. Another girl interested in that guy.”
“Oh.”
“And the light goes on.”
“Gotcha.”
“So which one of them do you want to be with?”
He thought for a moment. “Honestly, I’m not sure.”
“Well, keep playing things like this, and you’ll end up without either one of ’em.”
Curiosity on his face. “What makes you say that?”
“No woman wants to be strung along while you play the field looking for someone better.”
“I’m not stringing anyone along.”
“You’re being flirty with ’em both.”
“No, I’m not.”
A pause. “If you say so.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
She shrugged. “Right. I get it.”
He folded his arms. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Agreeing with me.”
“You don’t want me to agree with you?”
“Every time you agree with me, I can tell, it’s just another way for you to unobtrusively disagree with me.”
“Am I supposed to agree with that? Or not?”
He opened his mouth as if he were going to reply, then closed it.
He glanced at the clock, obviously trying to find a way to escape the conversation. Then he stood, collected the primate notes, his phone, a clipboard, and his laptop, and stuffed them into his computer bag. “I need to get going, Tessa.”
“Where?”
“I have a meeting with FBI Director Rodale.”
She nodded toward the computer. “During your chat you said that you weren’t meeting him until noon. That’s like three hours away.”
“I’m hoping I’ll be able to get in a little sooner.”
“So you can have more time for lunch with Agent Jiang?”
He pulled out his car keys. “I’m leaving now.”
“What about me?”
“Well, I was thinking you could stay here.”
“By myself?”
He eyed her. “You’re a big girl.”
“Paul knows where we live, and he’s trying to find me, remember? To talk to me without you around? You sure you want to leave me here alone?”
Her words seemed to bring him pause.
“All right,” he said at last. “C’mon.”
She grabbed her purse. “I hope Agent Jiang doesn’t mind vegetarian.”
49
Astrid was nine when it happened.
Her mother had died in childbirth, and she’d been an only child.
There was no sister Annie, of course. She’d lied to Brad about that from the beginning . . . Her dad did not work on weekends . . . The goldfish had been Astrid’s pet, and it was a neighbor boy who’d put Goldie in the freezer, telling her later that it was all just a joke and not to make such a big deal out of it.
Astrid was the one, not the imaginary Annie, who’d cried for three days when Goldie was found dead.
And of course, her father had not hit her, never would have laid a hand on her, he was not that kind of a man.
But she hadn’t wanted to appear vulnerable or weak to Brad, so she’d invented a second past, a dual life, with just enough truth in it to keep things believable.
Though her father was a good dad, even as a child Astrid could tell something wasn’t right. Often, she would hear him crying when he was alone. Sometimes in the morning before work, sometimes late at night, sometimes in his study when he was supposed to be preparing for the college classes he taught.
She’d finally decided that maybe he cried because something inside of him was broken.
It was an explanation that made sense to a child.
She was the one who found him that night in May.
He hadn’t cried that day. Just stared at her with a distant, sad look and told her how much he loved her and how he would always love her and did she understand that? Did she really? And she’d told him that of course she did, and then he’d held her close in a way that frightened her.
“I need to do some work tonight,” he explained to her, “after you go to bed. So if you hear me in the study, don’t worry.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she’d said.
Then he tucked her in.
And soon afterward, when she’d finished reading the Nancy Drew book he’d given her for her birthday and had just turned off the light, there was a harsh scraping sound in his study, and then all at once she heard the clatter of a wooden chair against the floor, and the house shuddered around her.
She sat up. “Daddy?”
Silence, except for a thin creaking sound coming from the study. Almost like the sound of a swing in motion on a windy day at the park.
She called again. “Daddy? What happened?”
No answer.
She picked up her favorite stuffed animal, a kitten named Patches. “Daddy?”
No reply.
She slipped out of bed and she was afraid again, like she’d been when he’d told her earlier that night, with some urgency, how much he loved her.
“Daddy?”
Silence.
She padded to the hall, but it was dark and lonely and seemed to stretch forever in front of her, as if it’d grown longer since the last time she’d walked down it.
The sound of the tired creak was now growing quiet and dim.
She held Patches close.
Walked toward the study.
Her dad almost never locked the door because, as he liked to say, “You’re more important to me than work, honey. So anytime you need me, just come in. A daddy has to have his priorities straight, you know.”
But tonight it was locked, and when she called to him, he didn’t answer. So it was a good thing she knew where he hid the key—in the kitchen, in the cupboard where he kept the nice china dishes, right above the sink.
It didn�
�t take her long to find it.
She returned to the study.
Then unlocked the door, put her hand against it, and pressed.
The door slowly mouthed open before her.
She saw his feet first, about a foot off the ground, and then her eyes traveled up his legs, his body, past his head to the rope that stretched taut and straight and tight to the rafters that had stopped creaking now. Then her father’s body pivoted toward her.
And she saw his face.
And screamed.
Dropping Patches, she ran down the hall as fast as she could and dove under her bed. She was crying and trembling and wished, wished, wished she hadn’t left her kitty behind in the hall. Wished she hadn’t seen what she had.
Her daddy’s face.
Terrible, terrible thoughts tumbled through her mind. Scary thoughts and frightening thoughts and bad, bad images that she did not want to think about.
Her daddy in the study.
His face.
The tight, tight rope.
But the thoughts wouldn’t go away.
She wanted to help him, wanted to, but couldn’t.
Couldn’t do anything.
But pray.
Maybe she could pray.
So even though she wasn’t sure if God was there or was even listening, she prayed and prayed that her daddy would be okay.
But nothing changed. Her daddy didn’t come to be with her.
God ignored her. The house remained silent.
So quiet.
So lonely.
So still.
Until morning, when she heard the cook arrive, and then she ran past the study—somehow made it past the study, grabbing Patches as she did—and found the cook standing in the kitchen getting things ready for breakfast, and she told her everything.
Her father had left a note with only five words: “I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger.”
Then came the foster families who would shuffle her off to new homes if she cried all the time or if she refused to go to bed because she was too terrified of her dreams. And for a long time she couldn’t help but cry and disappear into herself and stay up all night sitting on the bed, staring at her door, but it was lonely going to new families all the time, so she’d learned to act like a good little girl, a girl who wasn’t broken inside.