by Steven James
“Something like that.” She sipped at her coffee.
“What do you mean?”
“Goethe wrote, ‘There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.’ At least that’s the most popular translation.”
I took a long look at her. “How do you know that? How do you know all this stuff?”
“The Internet,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I’ve heard of that.” I waited to see her reaction.
“And I like to read too. I read a lot.” She took a bite of her cereal. “I read your books.”
“You did? What did you think?”
She shrugged. “They’re OK, I guess. Kinda boring.”
Well, then.
I reached into my pocket. I wasn’t sure if now was a good time, but I couldn’t think of a better one. “Hey. I got you a birthday present. Sorry it’s late.”
She eyed me. “What is it?”
“I’m not telling. It’d take away the surprise.” I set the small rectangular box on the table. She looked at the present but didn’t reach for it. I slid it to her. “You’ll have to open it.”
She picked it up abruptly, tore the gold foil wrapping paper away, flipped open the fuzzy gray box, and then stopped. She didn’t even remove the necklace.
“It’s got your birthstone,” I said.
“Tourmaline.”
“Yeah. They had other colors, but I thought you’d like black the best.”
She set the box back onto the table.
“Do you like it?”
Tessa shoved her cereal bowl to the side and blinked, letting her eyelids rise very slowly. “So that’s what this is all about.”
“What?”
She looked around the room. “This. All this.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her eyes became razors. “Why didn’t you ask me if I wanted to move to Denver?”
“What do you mean?”
“After Mom died. We just picked up and moved. Why didn’t you ask me if I wanted to move?”
“Well, I just thought it might be best for both of us to get some space—”
“For both of us?”
“Yeah.”
“And how did you come to know what would be best for me?” “Tessa, I—”
“We’re supposed to be a family. Families make choices together about what’s best for everyone, not just for the one in charge.”
Her words seared the air between us. I had no idea what to say. “Listen, I—”
“You took me away from all my friends.” Her lips quivered for a moment, and then the dam broke. “My mom dies, and you make me leave everyone I know and move across the country, and all I ever wanted was a family like Cherise has—a mom and a dad—and when Mom met you, I thought maybe it would happen, just maybe I’d finally have someone to teach me the things dads are supposed to teach their daughters—I don’t know, like about life or guys or whatever and maybe come to my volleyball games and make me do my homework when I don’t want to and tell me I’m pretty sometimes and give me a hard time about my boyfriends and take a picture of me in my prom dress and then stand by my side one day when I get married . . .”
My heart was breaking, wrenching in half, but I felt powerless. “I never knew—”
By then tears were rolling down her cheeks. “You never asked!” Her voice was ripe with pain.
“I’m so sorry, Tessa, I—”
She grabbed the necklace box and threw it at my chest. The tourmaline necklace clattered to the floor. “You can keep your stupid necklace, Patrick!” She rose from the table. “You can’t buy my love!”
Tessa swept out of the room, and I sat there, stunned, suspended in time. A cold silence swallowed the room.
Go to her. Tell her you’re sorry. Do something!
I stood up and started for her room. Stopped with one foot in the hallway.
Wait. You need to give her some space. Right now that’s what she needs . . . remember? Reach out to her slowly . . . That way she knows you’re not going to hurt her.
Maybe I could drive over to the federal building, retrieve the rest of my things, and then come back to straighten things out. I didn’t want to push her, pressure her. I wanted to respect her, show her I really did care.
I slipped into the master bedroom, grabbed my wallet, and then plugged Ralph’s cell phone in so that when he picked it up later it would be charged. As I passed Officers Muncey and Stilton on my way through the dining room, Patricia Muncey asked what was up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I mumbled, preferring not to explain what was really up.
The black cat nearly tripped me as it jumped out of the way when I threw open the front door. Once outside, I had to turn my collar up against the freezing rain that had begun to splinter through the dark morning clouds.
I climbed into the car and headed to the federal building. All around me the day seemed soaked with the foretaste of death.
73
Tessa collapsed onto the bed, sobbing. Her heart screamed out, ached for love, but no one heard. No one at all.
She hated Patrick and she loved him at the same time. Both! She wanted to hug him and she wanted to slap him. It didn’t make any sense, but it was true. It didn’t matter though. Nothing mattered.
She pulled out the razor blade.
She couldn’t stand this anymore. Nothing had changed. She flew all the way out here, and nothing was any different. Patrick wasn’t her dad. Of course he wasn’t. No one was. What was she really hoping for, anyway?
She heard a car engine outside her window and looked up from the bed just in time to see Patrick backing down the driveway.
Going off to work again. Running away. Leaving her alone.
There’d always be another killer out there somewhere. That’s what really mattered to him, anyway. That’s what he loved. Not her.
If only she wasn’t in his life, they could both be happy.
In that instant she knew what she had to do: go back to New York. Hitchhike to the City. Maybe she could move in with Cherise or one of her other friends. She was old enough to get a job, to live on her own. All she had to do was slip out and get away before he came back. It’s what he really wanted, anyway. It’s what they both really wanted.
After all, it wasn’t his fault he’d fallen in love with a woman who had a stupid teenage daughter. What was he supposed to do? Suddenly know how to take care of a teenager? Suddenly care about the daughter too, just ’cause he loved her mom?
Tessa wiped at her tears and looked around the room.
She could solve everything by leaving. That’s what she needed to do.
She slid the blade into the back pocket of her jeans and flopped her suitcase open. She couldn’t bring the whole thing, way too obvious. Just the knapsack. That’s all she would need. She yanked it out of the closet and began to stuff her clothes inside it.
74
Ten minutes after leaving the house, I walked up to my desk in the federal building. The office chatter drifted into silence as I walked in. No surprise there. I gave a slight nod to the people staring at me and maneuvered between the tables to my makeshift work station. I didn’t see Ralph, Lien-hua, or Sheriff Wallace, just Margaret watching me from behind the glass door of her office.
I ignored her.
I stared at my desk. Not a whole lot here. A couple notepads, a framed picture of my wedding, the mic patch I’d been using and must have forgotten to turn in. As I was grabbing my files, papers, notes, I noticed a manila folder—today’s briefing. There was really no good reason for me to look at it now except that Margaret wouldn’t want me to.
I flipped the folder open.
The Hazmat team in New Mexico had sent in the tissue samples, and the lab found a bacterial agent, just as I’d feared they might. Pathogen type: unknown.
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid made sure the preparations for the meal were going well and then slipped quietly away from the family. He had a s
pecial role to fulfill in today’s narrative. There was someone he needed to meet.
The phone on my desk rang. I looked around. No one else nearby. I should just let it ring. After all, I didn’t work here anymore.
But then again, maybe it was Lien-hua calling to say goodbye.
I snatched up the receiver. “Bowers here.”
“I wanted Alice.” The same voice distortion software as before. I waved to Margaret, pointed frantically to her phone. She scowled at me but at last picked it up.
“Well,” I said. “I guess last night you were the one who was too slow.”
“How did you know I’d run down Richmond?”
“Fleeing suspects follow standard patterns. You’re not nearly as clever as you think.”
I heard his breathing grow heavier. Good. I was getting on his nerves.
I decided to test him. See how much he really knew. “You killed an officer last night. They’re not going to be satisfied bringing you in alive anymore. Turn yourself in. Save us another funeral.”
“All of us are on our way to a funeral, Dr. Bowers. Don’t you see that yet? It’s just a matter of timing and location. You of all people should know that.”
He doesn’t know the officer lived. He thinks he killed her.
“So that’s it, then?” I needed to get him to stumble. To give something up. “We’re all just pawns waiting to die?”
His voice became acid. “Dr. Bowers, my mother was murdered in cold blood. No reason. No design. She was a prostitute. You know what that means, don’t you? She was expendable. How many hours do you think the cops spent tracking down the killer of a trailer-trash hooker?”
I had no idea if he was telling the truth or not, but I played it like he was. “No one is expendable,” I said. “And I’m sorry about your mother, really—”
“No you aren’t. No one was sorry. No one is sorry.”
“Was she a pawn too then?”
“We’re all pawns.”
“Then who’s playing the game?”
“God is. He’s knocking us off the chessboard one at a time, littering this pathetic little planet with the corpses of his beloved little children. Just passing the span of eternity killing us off to entertain the angels.”
His words chilled me. They could have come from my own lips a dozen times over the last few months.
I thought of Christie.
Remembered her note. All I can control is what I do with each moment, with this moment, right now.
“None of us are pawns,” I said. “Not you, not your mother.”
He snickered. “If I kill someone I spend the rest of my life in jail or maybe I get the needle, but if God beats me to it, he gets to stay in heaven and be worshiped by his faithful little minions. You tell me—is that fair?”
“Death wasn’t his idea.” I could almost hear Christie speaking to me, the words of her note finally making sense after all this time. I could hardly believe I was saying this, wondered if I really believed it myself. “But life is. Life has always been his idea.”
“Pain was his idea. It shapes us. Defines us.”
“No, we’re defined by our choices, our priorities, the things we love—”
“Well,” said the killer. “I know what I love.”
“And what’s that?”
A pause. “Bethanie and Alexis weren’t mine.”
I’m tired of playing it his way. “I know.”
“I’m not sloppy like that.”
Push him. Get him to play a card. “What then? Did you call me to confess?”
“I know who the other killer is.”
It’s another one of his games. His tricks. “Yeah, well, I’m off the case. Tell somebody else.”
“You’re the only one I’ll talk to—”
I slammed down the phone.
There. I made my move. Let’s see what the Illusionist does now.
Tessa finished stuffing her clothes into her knapsack and overheard the two cops talking in the living room. “You all right with the kid?” the guy said.
“Of course. What’s up?”
“I’m gonna run out and grab some cigarettes.” It was Officer Stilton again.
“Can’t you wait half an hour? They’re leaving in a few minutes, anyway.”
“Half an hour?” he scoffed. “Obviously you don’t smoke.”
Tessa listened intently.
Officer Muncey sighed. “All right, then. Whatever.”
“I’ll be right back.” He walked out the door.
This would make it even easier. All she had to do was slip past one cop to be on her way to New York City. She watched out the window as the guy climbed into the car and backed down the driveway.
“Bowers,” screamed Margaret from her office. “What did you just do!” She burst through the doorway.
Call back, c’mon, call back . . .
I stared at the phone. “He’ll call back.”
“You hung up on him!”
Call back. “He has to be in control, he’ll call back.”
She was fuming, ready to explode.
“Let me stay, Margaret.”
The phone began to ring.
“Pick it up, Bowers!”
“Let me go after this guy.”
She reached for the phone.
“He won’t talk to you. You heard him.”
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
“Answer it!” she yelled.
“Let me go after him. Tell me I’m on the case.”
“No.”
Ring, ring.
“Then I’m leaving.” I turned to go.
“All right! Now ans—”
“Say it.”
“You’re on the case!”
I snatched up the receiver. “Yeah.”
“You do not hang up on me, Dr. Bowers!” Each word was soaked with the killer’s slow, distinct rage.
“I don’t think you know who he is,” I said. “Why would you tell me his name?”
“I don’t like sharing center stage.”
“No. Too obvious. You wouldn’t give him to me. You’d go after him yourself.” There’s something more going on here . . .
“He’s an old friend, Dr. Bowers. It wouldn’t be right to kill him. Let’s just say I made a promise.”
“Who is he then?” I was testing him, of course. I already knew Kincaid was the man.
“I can’t tell you that. Fact is, he probably convinced someone else to do the dirty work for him anyway; he’s good at that. But I can tell you this: he’ll be at the Stratford Hotel, ten o’clock this morning.”
What? Not Seattle next week?
The luncheon.
Kincaid is going after the governor today!
Then the Illusionist hung up the phone, and the office became a frenzy of activity as people tried to trace the call. If he really knows Kincaid, then Kincaid can lead me to him.
Margaret stormed over to me. “Don’t ever do that—”
I grabbed the things off my desk. “I’m going to the Stratford Hotel.”
She seemed to ponder my words, the killer, the body in the trunk of her car, her prospects at Quantico, all in one condensed, career-defining moment, and finally gave me a brisk nod. “All right. I’ll have Ralph and Lien-hua meet you there. Be careful.”
“I will be. And thanks.”
She turned and walked away, and that was that.
Before I left, I called Officer Muncey to tell her I wouldn’t be back right away and to make sure Tessa was OK. “Don’t worry. She’s fine. She’s in her room. I think she’s packing.”
“OK.”
I hung up and patted my SIG P229.
Bring this guy in, Pat.
Next stop, the Stratford Hotel.
75
Lien-hua beat me to the Stratford Hotel and met me at the door. “Just got a call from the Tennessee Highway Patrol,” she said as we stepped inside. “Someone saw two guys fighting on a runway at a regional airport not far from here. Security fou
nd Kincaid’s plane. It had over a dozen meal trays.”
“So he’s got some helpers.” I thought for a moment. And then it hit me. “They infected their livestock; you think they might have infected themselves?”
“I hope not,” she said.
I hated to even think about the consequences if they had.
Ralph burst in. “Let’s go.” He pushed his way to the front of the line by the registration counter. “We need to see the president of the hotel, now!”
Nell Prescott, president and CEO of Stratford Enterprises, welcomed us into her office and listened to us intently. After hearing our hurried explanation, she immediately led us to the hotel’s security center. A bank of video monitors stared down from the walls of the confined, dimly lit quarters.
A tightly muscled bulldog of a man bustled up to us. “What’s going—”
“Mr. Williamson,” said Nell Prescott. “These people are from the FBI. We have a situation.”
His whole body seemed to snap to attention. “What kind of situation?”
Tessa waited until Officer Stilton had driven away, then she grabbed her knapsack and opened the bedroom door.
She could hear Officer Muncey watching TV in the living room.
Tessa crept down the hallway toward the front door. She eased forward, reached for the doorknob, and then heard the cop’s voice right beside her: “And where do you think you’re going, young lady?”
Tessa whipped around and saw Officer Muncey standing beside her. “I’m just going to do some homework at the table. OK?”
Officer Muncey gestured with a nod. “Kitchen is over there.”
“I know!”
Tessa stomped into the kitchen and threw her bag onto the table. She didn’t see the necklace Patrick had tried to give her anywhere around. Well, good for him. He must have taken it with him. Who cares.
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid scanned the lobby. He didn’t like that they were cutting things this close, but it was part of the deal he’d made with Sevren to assure that his former roommate wouldn’t pass his name along to the authorities.