Variable Onset

by Layla Reyne

  Lincoln resumed pacing. “Fuck. If he’s on Dr. Fear’s clock, there’s no time left. Not enough—”

  Carter stepped in front of him, cutting off his circuit and clapping his shoulders. “This is good, L. They’ll make it in time.” He said it as much for his own benefit as for Lincoln’s. He wanted to be there in DC, running down this lead himself, but he had to trust Kirk’s team, that the senator’s own personal stake in the outcome would lead them to do everything possible to bring Ruby and Chase home alive. And their work here wasn’t done.

  Motion to Carter’s left drew both their gazes toward the imaging room, where Weathers had hopped off the table. “What about for Stacy?” Lincoln asked, as they watched Weathers move from the side of the table, to the chair, then back to the table. Likewise nervous. As he should be.

  “Chances aren’t as good.” Carter ran through the timeline. “The copycat kept her alive long enough to be useful, but she was just a means to an end. Ruby and Chase were the target. Once he was done with her...”

  “He’d either kill her or just leave her there to die.” Lincoln dragged a hand through his hair, glancing back at Weathers. “You think he’s playing us? He could be Doctor Fear.”

  Carter took another good long look at Clyde Weathers. Blond hair, middle-aged but fit, and seemingly genuinely upset by the prospect of losing his junkie sister. Who he’d given a car to and met up with each week to visit their mother. “I don’t think so,” Carter said. “He doesn’t fit any of the profile Kirk, you, or we’ve developed. I think he’s telling the truth.”

  “Why did the copycat want him to burn the records? Because we’d find the car?”

  “Likely, which means he somehow got wind we were getting close.”

  A mole was the last complication they needed. “Who—”

  “Agents!” O’Shea’s thundering footsteps drew them both toward the doorway. “We have a location on Stacy!”

  “That was fast,” Lincoln said.

  O’Shea handed them a photo, the resolution of the plastic-wrapped cups cleaned up.

  “Mountain Top Motor Lodge,” Carter read.

  “It’s a few exits North on 81. Confirmed it using the channel guide like you suggested, Agent Monroe.” O’Shea split a glance between them. “What do you want to do? This is your case, your call, agents.”

  They could sit and wait for news on Ruby and Chase, or they could follow this lead and try and save another life in the process. No question. “Let’s go!”

  * * *

  Carter opened the hotel room door, and Lincoln couldn’t stop his body’s instinctive reaction as he got his first live look at Stacy Weathers. Or rather dead. It only took a second to make that assessment: the blood, the eyes, the lack of chest movement, the smell. He turned his face away and swallowed hard, forcing down the rising bile. But unlike earlier at the church, and unlike all those years ago at Fame High, the queasy feeling receded quickly as his other skills—the ones he’d spent the past two decades honing—charged to the forefront. For the first time since Beverley appeared in his classroom, Lincoln felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, fully back in his element. This was a stage he was comfortable on.

  O’Shea cleared his throat. “I’m gonna go notify the front desk and check in with ERT. See how far out they are. You two good?”

  Carter mumbled something in response and tossed him the key he’d gotten from the desk clerk. Lincoln turned his attention back to the scene and began cataloguing the things wrong with this picture. The blood pooling on the bedsheets beneath Stacy’s bound hands and sliced forearms was more red than brown and some of it still dripped from her mangled wrists. And from where Lincoln stood just inside the door, he observed only the initial signs of rigor—a few fingers curled on each hand and Stacy’s jaw clenched loosely around the gag.

  A pair of booties was shoved into his hand, and Lincoln put them on, steadying himself against Carter. “The clerk didn’t see anyone come or go from the room?”

  He returned the steadying favor as Carter did the same. “Nothing,” Carter said. “Stacy paid the clerk extra when she checked in. Asked for a room on the backside here and not to be bothered.” Gloves came next. “Got the impression it’s a regular request. Transients, junkies, and the like. Security cameras don’t work either. Just for show.”

  They quickly discussed how best to get a closer look without disturbing evidence, then, game plan decided—Lincoln would examine the body, Carter would sweep the room—Lincoln waited for Carter to snap a few scene pictures with his phone before approaching the closest side of the bed.

  “Drug paraphernalia on the chest of drawers,” Carter said, as he rounded the end of the bed. “Unused. Directly in her line of sight. Ditto the mirror.”

  From his crouch beside the bed, Lincoln glanced over his shoulder, taking in Stacy Weathers’s deathbed view—her own self, bound, beaten and tortured, and the drugs that had ruined her life. Likely led her here? He turned back to the body, away from the reflection, before the disassociation from the immediate scene brought back the bile. Avoiding the dripping blood, he laid two fingers against her neck. No pulse. He added two more fingers, feeling for temp. Warm. He reached up and lifted one eye, then the other. Minor corneal clouding.

  “How long?” Carter asked.

  Lincoln withdrew his hand and straightened. “We need liver temp to be sure, but no more than six hours. There’s minor rigor and corneal clouding, so probably more than three. Given the worsening weather, there’s no way our copycat made it out here and back to DC in that time window, not if he intends to keep to Dr. Fear’s clock.”

  “Because our copycat didn’t kill her.”

  Lincoln’s gaze shot up and across the bed to where Carter stood next to the opposite bedside table. “What?”

  “Come take a look at this,” he said, not lifting his eyes from the table.

  Lincoln carefully made his way around the bed and teetered to a halt as soon as he glimpsed the handwriting on the outside of the folded sheet of paper propped on the table. Dr. Monroe, in a script he’d recognize anywhere. “Get pictures before I move it,” he told Carter.

  Carter snapped more shots, and Lincoln eyed the surrounding area for gray hairs. Anything to avoid contemplating his name, in Dr. Fear’s handwriting, on the outside of that note. No gray strands that he saw but they’d have to alert ERT to the possibility. The likelihood? Could he say that much with certainty yet? No, but it was the best hypothesis they had. Whether or not it applied to the copycat might not matter much longer, but this wasn’t the copycat’s kill.

  “All right,” Carter said, stepping aside so Lincoln could scoot in front of him in the narrow space between the bed and wall. “You’re good. I’m going to keep snapping pictures over your shoulder.”

  Lincoln picked up the note with surprisingly steady hands and found not one but two sheets of paper. He unfolded them, but before flipping them over, held them up to the light beside the bed.

  “Letter Elegant,” Lincoln said. “Batch 302.”

  “Fuck,” Carter murmured. “It was him.”

  “Them.”

  “His clock. That’s what the copycat said.”

  Lincoln lowered the sheets and turned them over. The first was Stacy Weathers’s diagnosis. “Fear the drugs would kill her.”

  “They did,” Carter said, gesturing at the unused paraphernalia on the table. “They were bait. The copycat probably used them to lure her.”

  “And Dr. Fear wouldn’t have had time to stalk her. To learn if she had any real...or rather, clinically diagnosable...phobias.”

  “I suspect it was real enough for her. I infiltrated a heroin cartel once, with this ATF agent out of San Francisco. Addicts know the drugs will kill them one day. They fear that—it’s not a good death—but the fear of going without, of withdrawal, of facing reality is more powerful.”


  Lincoln glanced from the note to Stacy to the gashes carved into her arms. And gasped, the realization setting in now that he had the added context of Dr. Fear’s diagnosis. “Look at the cuts, where they’re located.”

  Carter tilted sideways, peering closer, then whipped back upright, horrified gaze turned to Lincoln. “Did he connect the track marks?”

  Lincoln nodded. “I think so.”

  Carter’s eyes flickered to the notes. “What’s on the second sheet?”

  Bile crept up Lincoln’s throat again. On it, a wave of fear that the second sheet might be his own diagnosis. Or Carter’s. More likely his, as it’d been addressed to him. He flipped it over...and slowly breathed out through his nose, careful not to heavy sigh particulates onto the paper. Another diagnosis of the copycat.

  Except it was evolving. “He scratched out fear of anonymity,” Lincoln said. “Idolatry as a diagnosis, along with a fear of disappointment and the truth. Fuck, they know each other. And Dr. Fear realizes it now too. It’s not just a random copycat trying to steal his notoriety.”

  “Which is why he intervened in the copycat’s kill.” Carter gestured at Stacy. “Tit for tat. He’s escalating.”

  Chapter Twelve

  For the sake of maintaining their cover, Carter and Lincoln had cleared out before the local authorities arrived at the motel. While they’d convinced O’Shea to delay notifying Larry about the station arsonist, and about Weathers’s whereabouts, there was no stalling on reporting Stacy’s murder. Carter just hoped the murder and its connection to Dr. Fear didn’t immediately leak to the press, and that Larry wouldn’t challenge O’Shea’s jurisdictional strong-arming. This case needed to stay with the FBI, and quiet, for now, not only because it was connected to Dr. Fear, but because Dr. Fear was somehow tied into Apex. Of that much Carter was sure, and he and Lincoln were on his trail. Most of all, though, Carter hoped they’d given Kirk and Beverley what they needed to rescue Ruby and Chase.

  Still no word there, which Carter suspected was the reason for Lincoln’s pacing a loop around the dining table, into the kitchen, and back again. They’d come straight home and shot off texts, emails, and voicemails to Kirk and Beverley. The director reported back that Stacy’s car had been tracked to three different locations in DC and tactical teams were on their way to each, with Kirk leading the team targeting an Ivy City warehouse near where one of Stacy’s cards had been used. Radio silence since then. Not surprising. And not surprising that the holding pattern was causing Lincoln to fray, which in turn was causing Carter to unravel. Not in the good way.

  “We should go to the library. Or to the lab.”

  Carter didn’t see how that would do Lincoln much good in this state. He’d just be pacing a smaller area. “We should wait for direction from DC as to next steps,” he said from his seat at the table. “For now, why don’t you sit?”

  Lincoln walked past him, commencing lap fifteen. “We’re hours past the kill window for Ruby and Chase.”

  “They’re not gonna call mid-op, and the op likely pushed out the window. Distraction and delay.”

  Lincoln rounded the kitchen island. “Or it sped the window up.”

  “Why don’t you grab your guitar and play something?” Carter suggested. If Lincoln’s skills with the guitar were half as good as his talent at the piano, it was something Carter wanted to see and hear, a distraction for them both. “You sing too?”

  A stutter step, a curse, a dark glare from the other side of the table.

  “Ooh,” Carter drawled. “That’s a yes.”

  “I’ve done enough playing today already.”

  “Except this is for an audience of one. Your husband, Professor Polk. No pressure. You can handle that.”

  “No,” he clipped out, headed back for the kitchen.

  “Tell me about the stage fright.”

  Lincoln spun and flung his hands in the air. “For fuck’s sake, Carter, why?”

  Carter pushed out of his chair and approached his partner like he would a caged lion, which was about how Lincoln looked right now. Face scrunched in anger, blond hair askew, practically growling, definitely prowling. Carter advanced with caution, aiming at not getting eaten alive. At least not in the bad way. “Because the thought of playing in front of crowds makes you feel ill,” he said. “And maybe that feeling, plus the pacing, will make you feel even worse. So you’ll stop pacing.”

  Lincoln narrowed his eyes and leaned back against the kitchen sink, creating more distance between them. “You are diabolical.”

  “And curious.” He rested a hip against the island, letting Lincoln have his space.

  “I’m supposed to be the pissy house cat.”

  “Oh don’t worry, babe, you still hold that title. Your lion’s mane is out to here.” Carter held his hands up on either side of his head.

  Lincoln frantically smoothed down the ruffled locks. “Fuck you.”

  Mission accomplished, Carter turned for the cabinets, grabbed the tequila bottle and two shot glasses, and returned to the table. “Come. Sit.”

  “Cat, not a dog.”

  He filled each glass with two fingers’ worth of the tequila. “Hence bribes.”

  Steps approached behind him, and Carter bit back his smile.

  Lincoln tossed his phone on the table and plopped into the chair on Carter’s left. Carter slid a glass in front of him. “The stage fright stop you going forward with music?” he asked.

  Lincoln sipped at his tequila, contemplating his answer. “In large part, yes. Take current Lincoln anxiety level and ratchet it up a thousand. I was in a constant state of panic, so worried about getting it perfect, where it was going to lead, and what others would think. I wasn’t playing for me anymore. Mentally and physically, I couldn’t keep going like that. I didn’t love it, didn’t love myself, and didn’t love where I was headed.”

  “How’d your family take that?”

  “My sister was fucking ecstatic. She knew how miserable I was. Mom and Dad not so much, and I felt guilty as hell. They’d put so much into having a music kid, and then I pulled the plug before the payoff. Things were never the same, and then I moved across the country and didn’t come back. Not sure they would’ve ever forgiven me if not for Gabby and Elena. We all go out to LA every few years to visit. Proof of life.”

  Carter chuckled. “That how Elena learned the phrase?”

  “Gabby’s words, not mine.”

  “You two still close?” At Lincoln’s side-eye, Carter lifted a hand, palm out. “I only ask because you mentioned your sister was with Elena this weekend. Forgive the investigator. Just trying to understand the picture.”

  Lincoln’s glare didn’t immediately recede, and Carter worried he’d ruined every stride forward he’d made the past two days, but then, as if adjudging his apology genuine, Lincoln’s shoulders relaxed, as did the murder eyes. “Fair enough,” he said. “I suppose it’s not the way divorce usually goes. Gabby works for State. Elena was born when she was assigned to Foggy Bottom, but with her next overseas assignment, I stayed home on dad duty.”

  “That’s when you came out of the field,” Carter said, putting the pieces together. “Started teaching at Quantico.”

  Lincoln nodded. “Worked for me professionally, but personally Gabby and I drifted apart, which was probably inevitable. Gabby is like this ball of energy no one can contain. She likes to be on the move and loves relocating every few years. I am not cut out for that. I like stability and routines.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Lincoln kicked his shin but smiled. “She’s still my best friend,” he said, smile growing wider. “And Elena is a mix of us both. Energetic, adventurous, spends her summers traveling with her mom, but she likes having a home base, a place and routine to return to each fall. It works for us.”

  “I’m glad,” Carter said. “And I’m sorry if
it sounded like I doubted that.”

  “That’s on me, not you. Few years back, I dated a guy, long-term. Adam, who insisted on calling me Linc. Introduced him to Elena and everything. About a year later, he offered me a ring and an ultimatum—them or him.”

  Carter formed a fist, then released it, so angry on Lincoln’s behalf, and his own, he could scream. An incredible man offered that guy a family and he spit in their face. Carter dreamed of being so lucky one day. “I hope you sent him packing.”

  “Swiftly.” Lincoln tossed back the rest of his shot. “Didn’t even have to think about it.”

  “Good for you. Fuck him.” Carter downed his shot as well, then refilled both their glasses. “And no disrespect to your parents but fuck them too if they can’t see how well you’re doing in the profession you chose.”

  “More like lucked into it. I had an uncle who was a cop. The forensics part of his cases always fascinated me, and I was good at science and math.”

  “Same part of the brain as music, right?” Carter asked as he refilled their glasses.

  “To some extent, yes, the numbers and arrangements. I fell in love with it, like I had with music, at first.”

  “And the stage fright doesn’t bother you when teaching?”

  “It did at first, no thanks to students like you.” Lincoln cut him a sly smile, like he knew exactly what Carter had been up to back then. “But I got more comfortable with it and with my role at the Bureau. Honed those skill sets. Unlike playing a concert in front of strangers, or walking into a café full of them, the classroom is a much smaller stage where I control most of the variables. That I can deal with.”

  Carter angled toward him, shoulder to the back of his chair, one leg crossed over the other, glass in hand as he sipped at his second shot. He had Lincoln calm and talking, and Carter wanted to know everything. “You brought your guitar though, so you must still play.”

  “For me. I still love it. I still need it.” He drummed his fingers over his glass, like he would over strings, then lifted it for another slow swallow. “It’s part of who I am, but I want to continue to love it. I don’t want to resent it, and that’s where I was headed. Fast.”