Vegas Rain

by Rick Murcer

  It was sometimes easy to not think about the struggle that life could be for folks who lived paycheck to paycheck, working diligently to keep the proverbial wolves away from their collective doors. Never mind those who had no paycheck at all.

  But this pivotal decision was his and no one else’s. He guessed that his self-consternation and narcissism would be okay today, given the potentially far-reaching impact of what he had to decide.

  His stomach rumbled, and he ran a hand across his midsection. Thirty-five and courting ulcers and acid reflux wasn’t what he’d had in mind at this point in his career. Then again, the last three years since the cruise ship, and the meeting with the Good Doctor, had changed his golden career path to an uneven rocky trail that seemed to wander into the wilderness, hadn’t it?

  Finding out that Argyle had been an integral part of a government-financed program for mind control and other potential travesties, leading to US Marshall operative Braxton Smythe’s arrest, forced Josh to ask himself some more tough questions. For instance, why the director knew about Smythe’s and Argyle’s little project and never bothered to tell the BAU how that project had gone south? The director had stonewalled his line of questioning and changed the subject more than once. And, Josh, being the good soldier and the company man the Bureau believed he should be, hadn’t pushed it . . . until now.

  The director hadn’t taken kindly to his research requests. He’d tried to be discreet. Except the information he’d finally gathered held a life of its own; and there was no question AD Dickman knew where Josh had delved.

  So here he was, and he couldn’t help feeling guilty. More like convicted. His team had been intentionally broken up under the pretense of higher priorities.

  Divide and conquer.

  Reaching over to the blue dish near his keyboard, he unwrapped a butterscotch candy and popped it into his mouth. He wasn’t sure whether the taste or the smell was more to his liking. Both worked.

  The surgery for Alex’s hand was a gift, no doubt, but could have waited. Yet, the director had ordered it now, end of discussion. Then Josh had been brought in for intense situational testing and to undergo a new psychological profile under the guise of a grander scheme for his career path. At least that’s how it felt.

  Manny, Sophie, and Dean had been sent to do what the complete team was designed to accomplish. They’d have help, supposedly by the local office, but it still wouldn’t be safe, especially if his research proved to be true. Manny’s ability as a profiler was otherworldly at times. Yet, he doubted that Manny really suspected, at least not totally, what was transpiring in Las Vegas.

  Hell, what exactly was transpiring in Las Vegas? He wasn’t sure he had a clue either.

  Manny and the others were special at what they did, but a team was a team. He and Alex should be there. But orders were orders, and if he wanted to play ball and get ahead, he’d do what the hell he was told. The AD had gone as far as voicing a subtle, veiled suggestion that he should toe the line, for one could never tell when tragedy may strike. Hell, the message wasn’t that subtle.

  His stomach rumbled again.

  Orders.

  He had his, even if obeying orders meant putting his staff at risk. Except these people weren’t just his staff members. They weren’t just his people, but his friends.

  They’d had each other’s back almost from the first time they’d met, before the three of them had joined the FBI. Add Dean into the mix, and they were the sum total of his family away from his family.

  So this is what friends do, Corner?

  Rubbing his face, he stood, then reached over and turned off the computer. He began to put the family picture back in his wallet, took one last look, ran his finger along each of the three faces that meant more to him than he’d imagined possible, then put the image away, in more ways than one.

  As he hit the door and rode the elevator to the parking garage, he refocused on his job, Alex’s operation, and his BAU out west.

  Besides, his imagination was simply running on the wrong wheel. The FBI would never intentionally set up an operation to fail in order to put its agents at risk. That was absurd. He just had to trust the system and play his part. That’s what good employees, and great husbands and dads, do.

  Right?

  *****

  “You’d better go now. They’ve probably got monitors watching me,” said Alex, trying to catch his breath.

  Barb kissed him again. “Even in the closet? It’d be a heck of a monitoring system. And can you imagine how red their faces would be?”

  Moving to the side, allowing for more room so they could get dressed, Alex laughed quietly. “True, but the real nurse will be checking in soon. How am I going to explain that my wife took a uniform from the locker room and dressed like a nurse to fulfill some sexual fantasy?” said Alex, putting his green gown back over his arms.

  Barb giggled, pulling her bra over her shoulders, smiling. “Sounds to me like you just explained it. Just don’t forget to tell them whose fantasy it is. And no worries. They’re not due back in here for twenty minutes. I’ll be long gone by then. As hot as I am, I can’t stay all night. I need beauty sleep.”

  Her comment about being long gone struck him. She was a special woman, and for her to return to his room dressed like that proved it. He didn’t want her to leave and go back to her hotel, but she was right. And she was correct on another item. She was indeed hot, but . . . well, there was hot and then there was hot. Beauty sleep? My ass.

  He smiled. He sounded like Sophie.

  Two minutes later, he was back in bed, and she was leaning over him again.

  “Okay, I really have to go now, but I’ll be back bright and early.” She smiled. “You should sleep better.”

  “Yeah. You wore me out.”

  “Good.”

  For the second time in an hour, he felt her lips on his for a goodbye kiss, and he watched her leave. It wasn’t any better this time.

  Well, a little better. Making love with your wife in a hospital closet while she was half-dressed as a nurse was on a very limited number of bucket lists, he guessed. He’d never tell anyone that it wasn’t on his, but Barb’s.

  Yep. Special woman.

  Staring at the ceiling, Alex was still having a difficult time talking to the Sandman. He began to count the holes in the pale, white ceiling tile right above his head. Some were small, some were larger, and the pattern appeared to be totally random. But he knew enough about the science of acoustics and design to know that wasn’t exactly true. Random sometimes looked intentional but the reverse was true.

  He suddenly sat up and reached for his phone.

  “Shit. I should have thought of this before . . .”

  After hitting Dean’s speed-dial button, he waited.

  CHAPTER-35

  Manny stood on at the side of the Scarab bar, hands in his pockets, and then leaned against one of the ornate pillars, which was supposed to resemble Cleopatra. Sophie hurried toward a bank of slots and then disappeared around the corner. That made him smile, at least a little. It had been an hour since the second CSU had arrived to help gather evidence, and Dean had seen fit to kick them out of the room.

  Alex had nothing on Dean when it came to protecting his territory.

  He was impressed with Dean’s ability to direct and advise the new team in how he wanted the organs and jars processed and what else to look for. He wasn’t only bright, but more of a natural leader than Manny had guessed. Dean had always been reserved, content to fulfill his role within the team, all the while wearing clothes that made him impossible to ignore. Manny would profile that later.

  With Alex in the hospital, maybe Dean felt the need to step up. Whether it was the leader coming out, or he was pacing up because his friend was in a hospital bed on the other side of the country, there was certainly more to Dean Mikus than met the eye.

  What was it Sophie had said? You gotta watch out for the quiet ones.

  Dean had made it clear that Manny
and Sophie should go do something else for a while, maybe two hours or so, and then booted them from the room.

  That was okay with him. He’d been able to call Chloe for small talk and a goodnight wish. He’d liked that. Talking to her, just the two of them, had stopped his brain from running into that sometimes god-awful, full-bore investigator gear, and forced him to take a break from where that often carried him. Thinking about being a dad again, and focusing on the excitement in Chloe’s voice when she spoke of the Baby Williams, was something he embraced—in fact, absorbed. Jen had been a life changer those seventeen years ago, and still was. Now there was a second installment of parenthood on the way. He wondered if he’d ever get used to the idea of children being complete miracles.

  Dean’s forced exile was good for another reason. It gave Sophie the opportunity to blow off a little steam in the casino. She was on overload, or almost, and the whole concept of what they’d discovered had brought the two of them down the elevator in silence. Yet he also knew she was processing the information. Just like he was.

  Manny preferred the quiet to organize his thoughts and run through each possibility. He suspected that Sophie could get lost in the noise that was a Vegas casino almost as well as the sound of her own voice. Still, he’d noticed something else today. She wasn’t typically prone to showcase her emotion much, but the body of the woman had shaken her more than normal. He guessed the shooting of agent Frost and now the mummy of an innocent woman murdered brutally weighed on her as much as any two deaths they’d encountered. With good reason. This was more personal.

  Throw Argyle, tiredness, and jet lag into the mix and there was a perfect recipe for a break from reality. Manny knew exactly how she felt.

  He squeezed the conference room key he’d gotten from the head of security, looked at his watch, pulled out his room key, and was unexpectedly struck with a conundrum. They had maybe six hours until the meeting, but he was running on fumes. Sleep sounded just this side of heaven, but after the past three hours, there was no guarantee that he’d get any sleep, or that the nightmares wouldn’t decide to show up in a big way. And what about talking to Dean when he’d finished? That had to happen. They needed to be ready with all of the information they had available. But the prospect of sleep was quickly winning the battle.

  “Maybe I need to do something else with my life,” he said out loud.

  “Nah, that’s what I thought. It doesn’t help.”

  He glanced at the young bartender who’d just spoken to him. He smiled.

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No. Just a different set of rules. You look like you need a drink,” she said, grinning.

  “You know, I do. But it’ll wait.”

  “Working?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yep. At least to me. Cops always have that look.”

  Turning to face her, he asked. “Which one is that?”

  “You know. The haunted one. That weight of the world on their shoulders thing is hard to miss.”

  He raised his eyebrows and returned her grin. “I suppose you see all kinds in your profession.”

  She rolled her pretty brown eyes. “Yeah. You could say that. People are a hoot mostly, but every once in a while you see someone that’s different. Like way-off-the-charts different. Not just physical, ya know? Just . . . well, that person has one of those presences that makes you do a triple take.”

  Moving closer, Manny found himself intrigued with her insight.

  She had the gift, the one that allowed her to read people in a matter of seconds. Not the obvious expressions and what they showed of themselves on the outside, but what made them tick, the subtle nuances of body language and the hidden agendas in what they said. Whether it was as simple as an unsure glance or a vestige of anger showing through someone’s eyes, this girl would catch it.

  “I think I’ll have that drink. Water on the rocks.”

  “Coming up,” she said, her nerves in perfect order. She wasn’t intimidated by who and what he was.

  “You studied psych in college?” Manny threw the guess out there, certain he was close.

  “I did. More than studied. I have a master’s in abnormal psychology. I know, I know. But at least doing this job, I can control how much I want to see.”

  “Can you?”

  “Usually. But like I said, every so often, I see someone special.”

  Taking the water, he took a drink, his exhaustion forgotten. “You said that. Define special.”

  “Why, officer! Am I being interrogated? No wait, profiled. And you’re no officer. You’re a something else. A profiler? FBI?”

  The wave of excitement was hard to contain. This woman was right on. He understood that he might be an open book to some, but to make that guess put her in a different arena.

  His excitement then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. What if she was a plant hired by Argyle? Or worse, what if she was one of his twisted followers?

  No. the situation was too random. He thought about how luck plays into solving cases, and maybe this was one of those times. Stranger things happened.

  The hand on his arm got his attention, but he didn’t turn to look at Sophie.

  “Okay. I just won fifty bucks from one of those crooked little metal bitches, so I thought I’d find you and get something to eat,” said Sophie.

  He felt her eyes on him. She moved over to a barstool and sat down, nodding toward the bartender.

  “Who’s your new friend?”

  He pointed to her nametag. “Her name is Pricilla. Pricilla, meet Sophie, and I’m Manny. We were just discussing people and what makes them special.”

  Still no nervousness. If anything, she seemed more comfortable. Her behavior wasn’t normal for someone who had two FBI agents a few feet from her.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” said Pricilla.

  “Right about what?” asked Sophie.

  “She thinks I’m an FBI profiler.”

  “Oh really?”

  Sophie’s eyes narrowed. She was immediately suspicious. Good girl.

  “Let’s say you are right. What gave me away?”

  Pricilla tilted her head closer. “It’s how you ask a question. You search folks when you ask. Most people just ask. And I wanted you to talk to me. That’s why I spoke to you. You’re pretty easy on the eyes, and you were standing there alone, deep in thought. Sometimes that works out to a dinner and the next step.”

  “Pretty good. What else?”

  Looking down, she then looked back up. “Also, the badge on your hip sort of helped.”

  Manny dropped his hand down, touched the cold steel, and shook his head. He’d needed it to get into the crime scene and had forgotten to put it away.

  Sophie was already laughing, Manny had to join her. Pricilla only smiled wider.

  “Okay, you got me there. But you are trained, aren’t you?”

  “I tried the police academy route, but it just wasn’t me. Rules mess me up. Besides, like I said before, I get to run into folks here that aren’t so ordinary, like you. But I never get that twice in a day, like today.”

  Manny stood. “Thanks for the water, Pricilla. We need to go−wait. What does that mean?”

  He felt his heart begin to thump in his chest.

  For the first time, he saw some give in Pricilla’s face. His question had sparked something . . .

  “Ahh. Well. There was this guy earlier today. He was different. Bright. Tall. Uninhibited. Good looking too, but he . . . hell, I don’t know for sure. He just wasn’t like most guys who try to pick me up. I turn ninety-nine percent of them down. He was so charming and engaging, I would have gone with him.”

  “Did he tell you his name?” asked Manny, knowing that he had. It was part of the game, no doubt.

  She exhaled, her smile now gone. “Fredrick. His name was Fredrick.”

  CHAPTER-36

  Reaching for the volume button, he cranked it and the hard sounds of 1970s rock-and-roll burst through
the vehicle. Some habits were simply hard to break. Perhaps that’s how it should be. He’d broken down everything he’d once held sacred and replaced it with something better. Although he doubted many believed the end result of his development was better.

  Tsk. Tsk.

  Doubters had their place, but not in his world, and after all, this world was his, almost in a vacuum. Nothing was out of the question, out of the realm of possibility. For that matter, no one was out of his sphere of influence, one way or the other.

  For instance, take this little safari. Who in his right mind would follow a convoy of law enforcement vehicles back to headquarters and do what he was about to do?

  Lions roar, sheep cower. It was that simple.

  What makes a “right” mind? That was the crux of the problem with society. Most people just didn’t get it.

  If being a sheep, a conformist, someone who has bought into the moral and emotional bindings that are accepted by the masses, defines a “right” mind, then so be it. Those parameters were no longer restraints he levied against himself.

  Doing what he desired, roaring loudly, seeking whatever he wanted, and in the end, accomplishing the ultimate goal he’d set for himself, was far more than a prerogative, but an eternal right, in his mind. Only the strong survive. He lived that statement over and over.

  His thoughts circled back.

  His goal.

  He gripped the wheel more tightly. It was all coming together, here in the City of Cities. No more games, no more riddles, no more trite messages that only had previously lengthened the joy of the game for him. Agent Williams would figure out what was coming down the pike—except the part that would affect him and the BAU the most. But this time, he’d be too late. Far too late.

  Pulling to the east side of the building, he saw that three of the four vehicles that had left the Egyptian before him had already arrived. The fourth, an LVPD cruiser, was missing, but it didn’t matter. The most important units were parked in the proper location, and the occupants had entered their fortress.

  Exhaling, he lowered the radio’s volume, left the window half down, and exited his car.