In the background of the shot, spotlighted before the crowd, stood Peter Faust.
The photo section ended. She flipped to the back of the book and found the newly included chapter, which recounted Faust’s more recent accomplishments. Skimming the paragraphs, she saw no mention of Elise, even though the girl said she’d been with Faust for three years. Apparently she didn’t qualify as a major development in his life.
Then she stopped, her attention caught by a name she knew.
Tess McCallum.
What the hell was Tess doing in Faust’s book?
She backtracked to an earlier page and located the start of the story. It was the case Wyatt told her about—the murdered girl, Roberta Kessler. Three years ago. Abby hadn’t known Tess back then, so even if she’d seen her name in connection with the story, it wouldn’t have stuck with her.
Faust reported that he had become a suspect, “for no good reason, but simply by virtue of who I am, or perhaps I should say, what I am.”
A search of his home, he wrote, had yielded no evidence—“although I was briefly concerned that the authorities, in their zeal to convict an innocent man, might plant evidence against me.” Even after the search, the authorities weren’t finished with him. They wanted him to be interrogated by someone from the FBI.
“By this point, I had acquired a certain leverage,” he wrote, “inasmuch as I had been the victim of their harassment and abuse. My attorneys advised me to refuse the invitation. Being of a generous nature, however, I permitted the indignity of an interview, on the condition that it be conducted by Special Agent Tess McCallum.”
He had wanted to meet her because of her highly publicized role in the Mobius case a short time earlier. “I was fascinated by the media accounts. She sounded like a gunslinger out of the Wild West, and her final showdown with mad Mobius was worthy of a Sergio Leone epic. She had killed a killer. I very much wanted to meet a woman capable of such a feat.”
The FBI complied. Faust flew, at his own expense, to Denver, where Tess headed the field office, and on a breezy September day he met her in an interview room.
He didn’t say much about his encounter with Agent McCallum, except that she had disappointed him with the plodding obviousness of her questions. Abby doubted this was true. Tess might be many things, but plodding and obvious were not among them.
Whatever the truth might be, Faust conceded a grudging respect for “the shootist,” as he called her. “Like most Americans, she was fundamentally unimaginative and uncultured, but I could discern flashes of mental acuity and stubborn grit. I admired her for this, if for nothing else. I even sent a gift basket to her office as a token of my appreciation for her time. No doubt the basket and its contents were subjected to the minutest analysis by overzealous security personnel. Quite possibly no part of it reached her. I would like to believe so, as otherwise I am at a loss to explain her failure to send a thank-you note.”
That was all he wrote about Tess McCallum, but for Abby, it was enough.
Abby closed the book. She thought of what Faust had said to her. That she had been recommended by a friend. By someone in law enforcement.
Now she knew who.
7
Tess was between classes, enjoying the warm May evening and the first glimmer of stars over the pin oaks. Late springtime in Virginia. She liked it, though the scene might have been more peaceful without the distant, incessant sound of gunfire from the firing ranges.
Still, she was content to be here—almost contented enough to wish she didn’t have to go back inside for the evening session of the seminar. She was scheduled to lead a roomful of agents in a discussion of the protocol surrounding a chemical weapons threat. Her work on the Mobius case had rendered her an unofficial expert on that scenario.
Law-enforcement seminars were commonplace at the marine corps base in Quantico, where the FBI Academy trained new recruits and retrained experienced agents as well as law officers from other agencies and even from foreign countries. To the public, however, Quantico was probably best known as the home of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, the profiling squad that had received so much attention in movies and TV shows—though as a matter of mundane fact, the unit was no longer headquartered on the base but a short distance down the road.
At the moment she didn’t want to think about profiling, training, or WMD scenarios. She wanted only to watch the false nettle and blunt brown sedge as it rippled in the cool breeze off the Potomac. Denver was far away, and she didn’t mind. As much as she loved the mountains, she was glad to find some respite from the daily bureaucratic battles and the pile of paper crowding her in-box. It would be nice to just sit here in the stillness and silence and watch the night descend.
Her cell phone rang.
Probably it was someone from Denver, calling about some new crisis. As special agent in charge, she was responsible for all major managerial decisions. She plucked the phone from her jacket and pressed the keypad. “McCallum.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
She was pleased to hear Josh Green on the other end of the line. Josh was the assistant special agent in charge of the Denver office, her immediate subordinate. He was also—quite contrary to FBI policy—her lover, and had been for the last two years.
“Not much,” she said, relaxing in his presence, even if he was two thousand miles away. “How are things in Denver?”
“Lonely.”
“Glad to hear it. It means you miss me.”
“I do miss you. I also miss my bolo tie, the black one. I think I left it at your place.”
“I hope I mean more to you than a necktie.”
“Don’t be too sure. I really like that tie.”
“You’d better be glad there’s a continent between us.”
“I’m not, though,” he said. “Not glad, I mean.”
She smiled. When she had first started seeing Josh, she hadn’t thought the relationship would go anywhere. For a long time she had been convinced she could never fall in love again. And certainly not with another agent of the Bureau. Not after Paul Voorhees. Not after she’d found him murdered in the bed they shared, a victim of the serial killer Mobius.
She’d told herself she couldn’t risk that kind of loss again. Her fear was irrational, of course. The mortality rate for FBI agents wasn’t high. And Josh, like herself, was a supervisory agent who rarely did fieldwork. He wasn’t going to get killed in the line of duty. He wasn’t going to get killed at all.
Still, she had worked hard to talk herself out of loving Josh. The echoes of her relationship with Paul made her uncomfortable, and she didn’t like keeping secrets about her personal life. She had told herself that whatever she and Josh had together wouldn’t last. It was only a fling, fun and games, nothing serious, a way to get back into the dating scene without the hassle of blind dates or singles bars. Convenient, that’s what it was.
She had maintained this fiction for the better part of a year before gradually allowing herself to know that she and Josh were a couple. A real couple with a real commitment to each other, a commitment that went beyond the bedroom.
She still didn’t know where it would lead. She was almost afraid to think about it and risk blowing it. But there would come a point when decisions would have to be made. Before long, Josh was likely to be promoted to an SAC position at another field office. Then there might be a continent between them all the time. Unless one of them decided it was time to quit the Bureau. And which one of them would that be? That was a question for which neither of them had an answer.
Josh was speaking again. “You’re still on schedule to come back tomorrow, right?”
“Taking a seven p.m. flight. The afternoon session tomorrow had better not run long.”
“If it does, just duck out and say you’re going to the ladies’ room. Then don’t come back.”
“Very professional.”
“It’s stealthy. The Bureau appreciates stealth.”
“You’re just tryin
g to get me fired so our relationship can be out in the open.”
“No, I like the secrecy. The lure of the forbidden.”
“You don’t think that part of it is getting old?”
“Well ... maybe just a little.”
“What are we going to do about this, Mr. Green?”
“Our options are limited. Of course, the Bureau’s mandatory retirement age is fifty-seven. That’s only nineteen years away for me.”
And seventeen years for me, Tess thought. Josh was too diplomatic to mention the fact that she was two years his senior. Not that she was touchy about her age—even if the big four-oh, in July, was rapidly closing in.
She knew she looked good, even for a gal pushing forty. She was of vigorous Scottish Highlands stock, from a long line of McCallums who had trod the windy heaths and braved the winter cold. Her smooth complexion showed little evidence of time’s passage, and a thick fall of strawberry blond hair still framed her face attractively. Only on TV shows did all female FBI agents wear their hair short. Real life was more forgiving.
“Nineteen years,” she said with mock seriousness. “I don’t think we can maintain our relationship in secret for quite that long. Besides, what if we want kids?”
“You can tell people you’re putting on weight.”
“And how do I explain the sudden appearance of a child on the scene?”
“Stork brought him. That’s what my parents told me about my baby brother.”
“They didn’t.”
“They did. Very reserved people, my parents. I didn’t get the lecture on sex from my father until my senior year.”
“You were a senior in high school?”
“Worse. College.”
She laughed. “Every day I learn something new about you.”
“I’m endlessly fascinating. Um, someone’s knocking on my door. Guess I’d better go. I’ll see you at the airport. Ciao.”
He was gone, the line dead. She wished they could have talked longer.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one who wanted the conversation to continue. Already her phone was ringing again. She touched the keypad.
“Forget something?” she asked.
“Are you screwing with me?”
The voice she heard didn’t belong to Josh. It was a woman’s voice, stiff and angry, not immediately recognizable.
Tess frowned. “Who is this?”
“Is it your idea of a joke? Because it’s not funny.”
She shut her eyes, placing a name with the voice. A voice she hadn’t heard in nine months. “Oh, God. Is this Abby?”
“You know damn well who it is. I’ve just been doing some research on Peter Faust. You may have heard of him.”
“Of course I’ve heard of him. I interviewed—”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Conversations with Abby were often confusing, but this one, so far, was positively Kafkaesque.
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tess said.
“Then let me make it simple for you. I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, whether you’re messing with my head or you think that by helping me, you can get back on my good side—”
“Abby—”
“Whatever it is, I don’t care. We’re not friends anymore. I told you so the last time I saw you. I meant it.”
“I know you did.”
“So I don’t need you to scare up business for me. Okay? And where Faust is concerned, scare up is the appropriate phrase.”
It took Tess a moment to sort this out. “You mean to say you’re working for Faust? And you think I hooked you up?”
“Yeah. I know, you’re just shocked, shocked, to find gambling going on in this establishment.”
“Gambling? What gambling?”
Abby blew out an exasperated sigh. “I forgot you’re not a movie fan. Let’s just say I don’t take your protestations of innocence too seriously.”
“I haven’t talked to Faust since the interview. It’s not as if he’s on my Christmas card list.”
“Nice try. But I know what I know.”
“You’re wrong. And whoever did hook you up isn’t doing you any favors. Faust is a sociopath.”
“Gee, ya think?”
“He can’t be trusted.”
“I figured that out on my own.”
Tess tightened her grip on the phone. “You should steer clear of him, Abby.”
“Too late. I’ve signed on. And I’m still convinced you had something to do with it. I don’t know why, but then I’ve never cared to explore all the emotionally repressed corners of your Catholic-schoolgirl mind.”
“The way you’re talking, you’re the last one to be making any psychological diagnoses right now.”
“Yeah, I got it. I’m nutty as a squirrel. But you’re the only link between Faust and me. So whether you were trying to help or trying to hurt, just knock it off. I don’t want you in my life again, Tess—ever. Have you got that?”
“I’ve got it.”
“Well ... good.” She sounded surprised Tess hadn’t put up a fight. “I guess that’s all I had to say.”
Click, and the call was over.
Tess stared at the phone. The pin oaks and the false nettles were forgotten. The breeze from the river barely registered in her thoughts. Even the crackle of reports from the ranges had faded away. Her mind had room only for Peter Faust.
It had been three years since she’d interviewed him, but the memory hadn’t faded. The memory of his cultured speech, his lashless ice blue eyes, his long-fingered hands.
He had been kind to her—no, not kind; that was the wrong word. Courteous. He had conducted himself with impeccable charm. But beneath the facade there was nothing charming about him. He was a snake, coldblooded and deadly.
Why the hell would Abby be mixed up with him?
Abby could take care of herself, of course. She had dealt with all sorts of psychopaths. Even so, Tess wondered if Abby knew, really knew, what she was getting into.
“Not my problem,” she reminded herself. “She said it. We’re not friends.”
Tess slipped the phone into her pocket and headed inside to talk about chemicals and death.
8
Abby felt a little better after her phone call to Tess. It had been a way for her to blow off steam. And no matter how roundly Tess denied it, there was no doubt she had been Faust’s contact. Why Faust would call her, Abby had no idea. But he had, and Tess had given him Abby’s name. Doing her a favor, conceivably.
Well, that was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.
There was a time when Abby had genuinely liked Tess. Even though the two of them were opposites in most respects, she thought she had felt a connection. That was ancient history now. Funny how a relationship could change completely over the littlest things. Like, in this instance, Tess having arrested her and held her in FBI custody for the better part of a day, facing the prospect of life in prison for a crime she hadn’t committed.
On second thought, it wasn’t such a little thing.
The last time they had seen each other was in Abby’s condo last August. Tess had come to apologize or make amends or something. Abby wasn’t buying.
She’d told Tess they weren’t friends.
What are we, then? Tess asked. Enemies?
Not yet. But if you ever come back to my town and get mixed up in my business again—we will be.
Recommending her to Faust was not exactly the same thing as getting mixed up in Abby’s business, but it was close enough to get her hackles up. Whatever hackles were. She didn’t know, but they were up, for sure.
She was all frazzled and needed to calm down. Anger was a distraction, and she could not afford to be distracted when she was on the job. She willed herself to stop the chatter of her thoughts. There was a meditative technique she used, which involved the repetition of a simple mantra: Mind like water.
That was what she needed. Her mind as clear and calm a
s still water. A reflecting pool, a liquid mirror. No worries, no anger, no ego. Only stillness and depth.
Mind like water ...
She allowed herself to relax into the cushioned softness of her armchair. After a few more repetitions of the mantra, she was calm. The left hemisphere of her brain, with its linear logic and obsessive verbalizing, had been silenced. The other half of her brain, the side that functioned wordlessly and holistically, had been activated. She could observe without judging, could act without doubt.
She called Faust, using her landline and reaching him on his. This seemed to be the safest means of communication between them. There was no evidence his landline had been tapped.
“It’s me,” she said when he answered.
“My hired predator.”
“Not really how I like to think of myself. Look, I think I’ve tracked down your mystery man—”
“So soon? Miss Sinclair, you exceed even your considerable reputation.”
Just what she wanted, compliments from a homicidal maniac. “I aim to please. Now I need to initiate contact.”
“Where is he located?”
“Huh?”
“You said you had tracked him to his lair.”
“I didn’t say lair.” And she was not giving Faust his address.
“I would be most curious to know where it is he operates from.”
“That’s not the way it works.”
“I am paying your fee, am I not?”
“Yeah—and I’m calling the shots. I don’t give out that kind of info to clients. I wouldn’t want any of them to take matters into their own hands.”
“You believe I would do this?”
“In a word, yes.”
“You distrust me.”
“Thought I’d made that clear. Try to keep up, okay?”
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