Angel Face

by Suzanne Forster

  Laird was the criminal who had to be stopped.

  But Jordan had a more immediate concern. There were still missing pieces, too many to make sense of the other man’s motives.

  He posed a scenario to Laird. “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that you wanted Angela dead because she was in your way, and you wanted me to kill her because I was in your way. Two birds, so to speak. Why would you also frame her for serial killings she didn’t commit?”

  Laird looked sorely tempted to explain. The dark side of genius, Jordan thought, was unmitigated ego. He wanted to share his grand plan. He wanted to gloat.

  “You’ve got me stumped,” Jordan prompted him.

  Laird’s quick headshake probably took all the restraint he had. “I’m saying nothing more until I talk to my attorney.”

  “I hope you’ve got a good one,” Silver muttered. “I hope you’ve got a whole team of them.”

  Laird’s laughter held a sneer. “What are you, anyway, a punk field agent? I have connections at the highest levels of government. You’re not taking me down. Nobody’s taking me down.”

  “You’re already down,” Jordan pointed out.

  Laird turned on him instantly. His voice was low and trembling. His eyes were blindingly bright. “You smug bastard,” he said, “who got you into Phi Chi? Do you think a research nerd like you, who survived on scholarships and handouts, had a chance with a crowd like that? I was the reason they accepted you. I was the reason you got lucky with all those perky sorority bitches, Carpenter. My family, my name.”

  Jordan had never felt the depth of this man’s hatred before. He did now. And it all seemed to stem from their college years. It was true that Ron had taken him under his wing and introduced him around, but Jordan had known why from the beginning. Ron wanted to pick his brain, copy his work, and be on hand to take advantage of his friend’s academic prowess. He used Jordan, but he also resented him.

  “I would have made it, Ron, with or without you. And whatever you did for me didn’t give you the right to steal from me.”

  “Why not? Why the hell not? You stole from me. You stole fucking everything I had. Did I ever tell you how many times my own father asked me why I couldn’t be more like you? It was always after you’d been at our house for dinner or whatever. I’d get one of his famous speeches about how disappointed he was in me, and it finally dawned on me that he always would be. I didn’t have ‘brilliant potential.’ I wasn’t going to be a bright, shiny hero like you.”

  Jordan understood more all the time. Maybe he understood it all. “You wanted Angela out of the way, and you wanted me to kill her so you could have a ringside seat while they dragged me through the mud, right?”

  Laird’s eyes told the truth. Yes, they said, I wanted to bring you down any way I could. If I couldn’t be you, then I wanted to ruin you.

  Angela was just a means to an end, Jordan realized, and that end was him, Jordan. Laird had never been able to control his youthful jealousy and rage. He’d carried it all the way into adulthood. It wasn’t even greed that motivated him. It was recognition and revenge. He was still nothing more than a kid, seeking his father’s approval.

  “Why haven’t I been allowed to call my attorney?” Laird struggled to get to his feet. “This is a violation of my rights.”

  Jordan hauled him up and took him over to the wall phone by the kitchen door. “Call!” he said, pressing the gun barrel to his temple. He was strongly tempted to pull the trigger, but he had the feeling Laird’s very public trial was going to be a lot more interesting and less merciful.

  “Wait! There’s something I need to know.”

  Angela came up behind them. Laird turned his frightening countenance on her, but she stood her ground. “Who is Angel Face?” she said. “Tell me who she is. You owe me that much.”

  “I owe you nothing. You’d be dead by now if not for me.”

  “Bullshit,” Angela said softly. Apparently she wasn’t feeling particularly grateful. “There never was a female serial killer, was there? You invented her and her victims, and you tried to frame me for killings that never happened.”

  Laird laughed at her. “You’re crazy, and I can prove it. Your own psychiatrist will testify to that.”

  Jordan struggled to understand what Angela was saying. “Killings that never happened? But those doctors died, Angela. Somebody killed them.”

  “They died,” she said, “but no one killed them. I can’t prove it, but I’m certain of it.”

  “Dr. Inada, the visiting surgeon? The patient in my office tonight? I took their vital signs,” Jordan insisted.

  But something stuck in his mind. When Inada’s body disappeared, Firestarter had told him the CIA had to cover up the killings because Angel Face was a threat to national security. The authorities could not be allowed to find out how the doctors had died. Inada was going to have an accident, Firestarter had assured Jordan. His death would be accidental as had all the other victims’ deaths.

  Jordan didn’t know what to make of Angela’s theory, and she obviously couldn’t explain it. He looked from Ron Laird to Angela to Silver, but he found no answers to his dilemma there.

  There were no killings? There was no Angel Face?

  SOMETHING was terribly wrong with Angela, but she couldn’t imagine what it was besides exhaustion, so she’d decided to ignore it. The jittery vibrations would disappear with some sleep, she was sure, and right now, she needed her energy to deal with Silver, who’d just dropped Angela off at her apartment and was due back at task force headquarters.

  “Hang on a sec! There’s something I need to show you.”

  Silver stopped, but with great reluctance. She was on her way out of the apartment when Angela beckoned her back.

  “Please? It will only take a minute.”

  It had been a marathon night. No one had slept, and the entire morning had been taken up with police reports and interviews. The Angel Face case had gone straight to the top echelons of law enforcement, and both Angela and Jordan had told their story to various CIA and local officials. Ron Laird had been detained by a task force for questioning. Peter Brandt had been picked up for the same reason, as had Sammy Tran.

  When Angela and Jordan were finally dismissed this morning, Jordan had gone straight to the hospital to take care of things there, and Silver had offered to chauffeur Angela back to her place. The last thing on Angela’s mind when she walked in the door was E-mail, but the computer screen, glowing in the dim light of the kitchen, had reminded her of something.

  “This won’t take long,” she promised as Silver joined her at the dinette table, “and it could be important.”

  She clicked the Mail icon, and her E-mail queue appeared. Relieved, she saw that the message Sammy told her about was still there. Nothing would have surprised her at this point.

  “I met a woman in a chat room for runaways,” she explained. “She went by the name runninwyld, and she was the room’s unofficial godmother, a font of information about everything, except herself, so I don’t know a whole lot about her.”

  Angela brought the E-mail up and read it aloud.

  “I’m closer than u think, lonely. Write back as soon as u get this. I have information that’s vital to your safety.”

  She pointed out the dateline to Silver. “This came in yesterday while Jordan and I were on our way back to the States. It sounds like she knew something about my situation, but I never discussed it with her.”

  Angela stared at Silver expectantly. Her friend had gone mysteriously silent. “Is something wrong?”

  Silver’s arms were folded, and she was clearly holding something back.

  “What is it?” Angela asked. “Have I stumbled onto some state secret?”

  The other woman shook her head with weary resignation. “You met runninwyld six months ago in a chat room called girlgone, right?”

  “How did you know that?” Maybe this was it, Angela thought, still trying to explain her nerves. She’d been p
icking up weird vibes from Silver. There’d been so much going on she hadn’t noticed the other woman acting strangely.

  “And you asked her if she was in trouble?”

  “I did, yes, the other night.” Angela was beginning to wonder if her theory about Angel Face was wrong. “Is it runninwyld? Is she the serial killer?”

  Again, Silver shook her head.

  “What then? How do you know about her?”

  Silver touched Angela’s arm. “I am her, Angela. I took the name to keep in touch with you and to keep an eye on you. In fact, I formed the chat room myself and then E-mailed you an anonymous invitation to come and visit, if you remember.”

  Angela did. The invitation had come camouflaged in a list of new chat rooms that were being formed. She’d responded immediately, thinking she might find some kindred souls in the room.

  “Silver, I got an instant message from runninwyld, welcoming me when I signed in the room. Why didn’t you just tell me it was you?”

  “I wanted to, but when you came to San Luis that first time, and I helped you erase your memory, I also planted the suggestion that you wouldn’t remember me. I was on the run, too, and I didn’t know who my enemies were any more than you did. I figured there was a good chance you’d go back to the States, and I was playing it safe. You couldn’t talk about what you didn’t know, including me. But after you left, I got concerned about your safety, and I came across a CIA contact through some informant friends of mine, so—”

  “You told the CIA about me?”

  “Only hypothetically. I didn’t trust them, either.”

  “But you do work for them now?”

  “It’s fair to say that I work for them on a consulting basis,” she admitted, “but that’s not the point. At that time, the agency had reason to believe that SmartTech was involved in biowarfare research, and they gave me free rein to snoop, which included staying in touch with you. They knew nothing about the Angel Face software, and I never came across anything, either. Laird managed to keep that totally under wraps until he made the mistake of trying to trap you and Jordan Carpenter in the same net.”

  “Was I under surveillance?” Angela asked. “Is that how you knew I was at Jordan’s last night?”

  Silver smiled. “You would have been if I’d been able to find you. I staked out Jordan’s place thinking you might go there, and I got lucky. Laird’s been on watch and observe status for some time now, but like most sociopaths, he has a sixth sense for self-preservation. When you showed up in San Luis and told me someone was trying to kill you, he was my first suspect. I got permission to put him on my to-do list, and I was at my station in Córdoba, doing some computer work on him, the morning Pedro sent you to the mission.”

  “Laird was behind that?”

  “No, Jordan was. He bribed my loyal foreman.” Silver stretched out the stiffness in her arms and shoulders. “How about some coffee before I crash?”

  “Is Jordan in trouble?”

  Silver was doing neck rolls. “No, but your boyfriend’s pretty creative.”

  Her boyfriend. Angela wished. But she wasn’t going to get into that right now. She got up to fix the coffee, aware that Silver was fighting exhaustion while she was still strangely hyperalert. Something was wrong. She should have been a zombie after what she’d been through. It was probably the adrenaline in her system and the need to get some closure.

  Silver had been in on the questioning of Laird and the others, and Angela wondered how much she was permit-ted to talk about it.

  “Did they get anything more out of Laird?” she asked as she presented Silver with a steaming cup of French-pressed Colombian. “Do we know who Angel Face really is?”

  Silver took a sip and fluttered her eyelids, probably at the strength of the brew. “Laird still refuses to talk, but Peter Brandt is more than willing, and from what the task force has been able to piece together, your theory is right. Angel Face doesn’t exist and never did. From what we know now, Laird went through this year’s death records and found three doctors who’d died in accidents, and then he claimed that they were actually victims of serial killings.”

  “For Jordan’s benefit?”

  “Exactly. He did it to convince Jordan that Angel Face meant business, and that he was next on her list. Then he explained the accidents away by saying the CIA had to clean up after each strike in order to keep Angel Face out of the hands of local authorities.”

  “What about the other two doctors?” Angela asked. “They weren’t accidents.”

  “They weren’t doctors, either. They were actors, paid by Laird to fake heart attacks, again for Jordan’s benefit.”

  “What? The visiting surgeon from Tokyo University?”

  Silver nodded. “A thirty-something Asian actor who couldn’t pay his rent. Don’t forget Ron Laird is a doctor, himself. He knew how to dummy up medical credentials. The actors were prepped with drugs that mimicked arthy-mias, and Jordan’s office equipment was rigged to look as if his patient had gone into cardiac arrest right there in the exam room. The paramedics who showed up were paid off, too.”

  Silver actually smiled. “That’s where we got lucky. One of Jordan’s residents showed up just as the paramedics did, and she spotted them for phonies right away. Apparently, they carted the patient off without any attempt to resuscitate him.”

  Angela was incredulous. “Did Laird really think he was going to get away with this?”

  “He might have if Jordan had been more cooperative. Jordan took the bait with Inada, but when he refused to leave you for dead in the jungle, Laird had to come up with another strike, something symbolic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He counted on Jordan being as obsessed with you as he was with saving lives. Laird’s plan was to twist those two obsessions and turn them against him. He did that by making Jordan believe you’d set him up to kill his own patient.”

  Angela was afraid she might be ill. “I pray he doesn’t get away with this.”

  Silver agreed. “He’s a crazy, slippery son of a bitch.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” Angela sincerely wanted to help. She would have done anything.

  “There are a couple things working in our favor. One is your psychiatrist, Dr. Fremont.”

  “Really?” At one point she’d been on Angela’s list of suspects.

  “She’s okay, Angela. She contacted the agency when you disappeared, and we’ve been working with her ever since. She claims the more time she spent with you, the more she came to believe you and not Brandt. She’s volunteered to testify against SmartTech when this comes to trial.”

  Angela was still uneasy. “I wasn’t seeing Dr. Fremont by choice. Peter insisted I get help.”

  “Brandt convinced her you were paranoid, and I think to some extent he thought you were. Remember, he knew nothing about Angel Face, except that it was a software program. It’s not clear what else he knew about Laird’s scheming, or when he knew it, but we’ll get to the truth.”

  Silver sipped the coffee and shuddered, possibly with pleasure. The light from the kitchen window tipped her wispy blond hair with icicles, and made her look like a genie with special powers, despite her fatigue.

  “This stuff will keep me awake for years,” she said. “You don’t happen to have a thermos, do you?”

  Angela’s phone rang before she could put her hands on a thermos. It was Jordan, and her stomach began to flutter the moment she heard his voice. He’d called to check on her and let her know when he’d be done at the hospital.

  “I didn’t wake you, did I?” he asked.

  Angela wove the phone cord through her fingers, aware that she was smiling and tilting her head. “No, I haven’t been to bed yet, but that’s where I’m headed next.”

  “I’ll bring the mosquito netting.”

  The mere suggestion of sensual male laughter steamed up the phone lines. It made Angela’s heart race, but her reaction was closer to panic than excitement. Suddenly, intimacy wi
th Jordan Carpenter seemed threatening. This was the real world and not a tropical jungle in Mexico. And she wasn’t delirious.

  “Thanks, but I’ll make do with a comforter,” she assured him. “And a nice long nap, say twenty-four hours. I’ll be fine. Are you . . . fine?”

  “I could sleep standing up,” he said, still with that sexy laughter in his voice. “All right then, sleepyhead. Don’t bop any large cats on the nose unless I’m around to save you.”

  “No bopping, no.”

  Angela—”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t let the flame go out.”

  With that and a promise to call back, he was gone, and Angela was still vibrating from the few moments of contact they’d had. She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. She was anything but tired, and she wanted to be with him. Today. Tomorrow. She wanted forever.

  Silver was on her way out the door again. “Rain check on the coffee, okay? I have to get back.”

  “Wait! There must be a thermos around here somewhere.” Angela set down the phone and went after her friend. For some reason, she didn’t want to be alone.

  Silver seemed to understand. “Listen” she said, “you go see Dr. Fremont again and give her a chance to explain, okay? She’s on your side.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Angela promised. It was nice that Dr. Fremont didn’t think she was paranoid, but she was feeling a little paranoid right now. What she needed more than anything was to take a breath and clear her head. There’d been too much insanity for too long. Far too long. And some sleep wouldn’t hurt, either. She had a sense of profound fatigue beneath the wakefulness.

  Unexpectedly, Silver pulled Angela into her arms and hugged her. “He’s a good guy,” she whispered. “Don’t be thinking you don’t deserve him or something silly like that.”

  Angela was startled, but she hugged her friend back. He was a good guy. Her one good man. She ought to be ecstatic, but for some reason her throat was aching. It was so tight she could hardly swallow.