Cut to the Bone

by Ellison Cooper

  So, instead of taking a rest, Sayer straightened her jacket and strode toward the building.

  The door opened just as she reached the handle. A clean-cut man in scrubs stepped out, whistling a cheery tune.

  Sayer glanced up at his face and froze. She recognized Luke Windsor’s round chin and intense eyes.

  He saw her reaction and froze as well.

  She reached for her gun. “Luke Windsor” was all she got out before he bolted.

  “Hey!” Sayer shouted to make sure the assembled SWAT agents were on it.

  She knew they had two men out back, but SWAT had stayed out of sight in the front because they hadn’t wanted to give away their presence until she had a chance to recon inside.

  Windsor sprinted away and Sayer followed close on his heels.

  She could hear the pounding feet of the SWAT agents behind her.

  Windsor surged forward. Sayer tried to keep up, but her lungs burned. Every pounding step made her ribs feel like someone was slamming a sledgehammer against her side. She thought she was going to lose him when the SWAT commander flew past her, taking Windsor down hard.

  SWAT agents swarmed him and dragged him away toward the waiting wagon.

  Sayer took a hitching breath and muttered curses to herself as she hurried back toward the rest of the team feeling like half of her rib cage was about to fall right off her damn body.

  As she passed the gray building, a woman in scrubs just like Windsor’s stepped out the front door.

  “Did you all just arrest Luke?” she asked, arms wrapped around herself with concern.

  Sayer stopped. “Do you know him?” she demanded.

  The woman nodded. “I work with him here. He’s our success story…”

  “Success?” Sayer asked, heart dropping.

  “Yeah. He was here for treatment last year. Got clean, fixed his life. He’s been working here for almost four months now. He’s a night counselor, which is the hardest job we’ve got. The residents love him.” She stared off down the street. “What happened?”

  “You’re telling me that man isn’t a resident? He works here?”

  “Yeah.” She looked at Sayer.

  “Do you know if he was working last night?”

  She nodded. “He works every night. Says it keeps him off the streets.”

  “And you saw him last night? Personally?”

  “Yeah, for sure. He got here around four and then he was in sessions until almost ten. I left around midnight and saw him hanging with residents in the TV lounge right before then.”

  The woman’s voice faded into the background as Sayer thought about Luke Windsor’s unblemished face as he ran from her.

  The man she fought near the fountain last night was horribly injured, his face all banged up.

  Luke Windsor was not their man.

  FBI COMMAND CENTER, QUANTICO, VA

  Back at Quantico, Sayer hurried down the hall to the command center, Ezra trailing along behind her.

  “So?” she asked.

  “So, they’ve got Windsor in one of the interrogation rooms, but everything the nurse said checks out. Multiple witnesses confirm that Luke Windsor was at work last night,” Ezra said.

  “No chance he snuck out?” Sayer asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No way. They have heavy security on all the doors and windows. It’s a lockdown facility and he would have to use a key card to exit. Plus, there are cameras on all the exits.”

  She let out a hard breath. “Why weren’t we able to locate him ourselves?”

  “He’s apparently working under a different name, Luke Nepolitano, which is his mother’s maiden name. You were right. That brain scan didn’t belong to Windsor. Do you want to question him?”

  “No. I saw his face. That wasn’t the man I fought at the fountain last night. Windsor’s not our guy. Let’s get the task force meeting going so we can figure out a way to find those girls before we lose another one.”

  “You sure you’re up for the task force meeting?” Ezra said gently.

  The meeting was scheduled to begin in twenty minutes. There were still nine girls out there somewhere. And someone out there who tried to kill Tino and Vesper, two of the beings she loved the most in the world. Not to mention trying to kill her as well.

  “I’m fine,” Sayer said with so much force it set off a short coughing fit. She leaned forward, hands on knees. Her therapist had been telling her to accept help sometimes and now seemed like a perfect time to work on that skill. Plus, Ezra was one of the best investigators she’d ever worked with. Maybe it was time for him to have more responsibility. “Okay. You take over the meeting, but I’ll be right there with you. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let whoever set that fire delay this investigation for a second.”

  Ezra looked momentarily stunned, but then nodded curtly. “On it.” A moment later he added, “Thanks.”

  “Thanks for what? You could be running this task force just as well as I could,” Sayer said, resuming her steady pace toward the command center.

  Inside, the large room was already packed.

  Sayer had almost forgotten that she’d asked for everyone who could possibly help the investigation to be here for this meeting.

  Al Valentine sat in the first row and looked ready to come out of his skin with anticipation. The rows of DCPD officers, FBI analysts, and field agents sat alert and ready.

  When she stepped to the front, a few people cheered and called out, “Glad you’re okay!”

  She held up her hands to quiet the cheers. Rather than draw anything out, she decided to be perfectly blunt.

  “We got Luke Windsor but, based on new evidence, we no longer believe he’s our unsub.”

  The room went quiet.

  “I’m going to let Ezra take over the meeting,” Sayer wheezed, “but I wanted to be the one to break it to you all.”

  She stepped aside, suppressing the cough spasming her chest.

  Ezra pulled himself up with his cane and took her place. “Uh, so, we have a lot to cover this morning. The good news is that one of the missing girls, Nell Goodyear, was recovered safely last night thanks to Sayer who confronted the unsub at the Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain.”

  Sayer watched the room perk back up and she realized that Ezra was a natural leader. She had started with the bad news but he knew to focus on some good news first.

  “Uh, let’s see…” Ezra slid his laptop up to the small podium so he could talk and advance through his photos. “Let me recap yesterday and then we can discuss Luke Windsor.”

  Ezra summarized Cotard’s syndrome.

  Murmurs spread among the agents.

  “He appears to believe that he is trapped in the Egyptian afterlife and has to navigate the afterlife through twelve chambers. In addition to this belief that he’s dead, he also thinks there are government agents after him,” Ezra continued. “So, coupled with the information about the Amduat from Dr. Valentine, we have a good understanding of the unsub’s pathological belief system. We’ll use this information to work on possible dump spots for tonight.” Ezra glanced over at Sayer.

  She gave him a nod of encouragement, wondering if she should have him run all the meetings from now on.

  Ezra took a long breath in and explained everything that happened the day before, including the dead fake FBI agent, the confrontation at the fountain, rescuing Nell Goodyear, and the fire at Sayer’s house.

  While he wrapped up, Ezra brought up a photo of Sayer’s destroyed town house. Nothing was left of the entire second floor except a few wooden beams charred black from the fire. The back wall was missing from the entire downstairs, revealing a soggy mess of ash and soot inside.

  It was her first time seeing the aftermath and Sayer’s face drained of blood at the sight of her home reduced to a burned-out husk. It was also the first time she realized what was lost. The photo album Adi had given her documenting their joyful moments. The note that Jake had left her—the last thing he’d ever wri
tten to her. Not to mention all her books. Her research files and notes. All gone.

  “Oh, sorry, Sayer.” Ezra noticed her expression and quickly went to the next image that showed Luke Windsor.

  “Which brings me to the latest turn of events. As Sayer mentioned, we were, uh, able to capture Luke Windsor who has been working around the clock at his job at a residential facility. We’ve confirmed that Windsor was on duty at the time of the murder last night, excluding him as a possible suspect.”

  The murmur spreading around the room intensified when FBI Director Anderson stepped through the door.

  The FBI director glared at Sayer, his heavily lined face drawn into a frown that she assumed he had perfected at his country club or where ever old money like him spent their time disapproving of plebeian things.

  She did not like the stormy expression in his eyes. Despite his refined air, Sayer knew perfectly well that Anderson was a dangerously shrewd political force to be reckoned with in D.C.

  “There you are, Agent Altair,” he said, as though it were unusual to find her at a meeting of the task force she was running.

  Sayer managed to stifle the snide comeback that almost bubbled from her mouth. She was way too close to the edge to deal with this man right now.

  “I’d like to speak with you in the hall,” Anderson said, summoning her with a condescending “come here” gesture.

  She followed him out, totally unsure what to make of his appearance at Quantico since his office was up in D.C.

  “I just finished reviewing the case,” Anderson said, as if Sayer should know what he meant.

  “Okay…”

  “And I understand that you’ve just spent the morning arresting a man only to discover that he’s most likely innocent. In addition, I’ve reviewed your so-called experts only to find a museum researcher that looks more like a gangbanger, a psychologist dressed like a hippie, and Janice Holt, a disgraced former employee of the FBI. You think this is how to run a high-profile investigation?”

  “Dr. Valentine is a world-renowned—” Sayer started to say, but Anderson held up a hand.

  “Yes, I’m sure they’re credentialed, but surely even you at least have a rudimentary understanding of the way the legal system works. Experts we work with have to be above reproach and you’ve got a motley crew of fools here. I heard about your bumbling pursuit of the false bus sighting. Then your personal friend was assaulted at the hospital. And to top off the entire mess, I hear that you’re receiving assistance from one of your research subjects. A psychopath.” Anderson stared down his nose at Sayer.

  “Well, no. I mean … yes, but—” Sayer wasn’t sure exactly what to explain first.

  “Just stop. You’re done here. I expect you to dismiss Ezra and the ridiculous cadre of experts you’ve gathered. I’ve called in a senior agent from the D.C. office to take over this case from here on out. You can head home and await a formal reprimand for the absurdly incompetent way this entire investigation has been handled from the get-go.”

  Sayer was stunned. Not a word from Anderson this entire case and now he was here dropping this bomb out of nowhere. “It’s not fair to pull Ezra and all those people off this case. You can’t—”

  Director Anderson cut Sayer off with a stony stare. “I can and just did. The new case lead is already inside ready to take over this meeting,” he said over her protestations.

  Anderson spun and walked away without further comment.

  As he disappeared down the hall, Sayer tried to bottle the fury building in her chest. She wanted to launch herself after Anderson and punch him right in his aquiline nose. He didn’t care at all about those missing girls or those dead boys. All he cared about was some inexplicably petty power grab.

  Instead of attacking the director of the FBI, she let out a series of unintelligible grunts as a red haze clouded her vision.

  Sayer finally got herself under control and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “That bastard,” she said between ragged breaths.

  As the tempest of emotion faded, Sayer was left standing in the hall shell-shocked.

  She looked over at the command center door and realized she had to go in and explain what had just happened to the team who had been working tirelessly for days now. At least most of them would be able to continue to work on the case under the new agent in charge.

  She took as deep a breath as possible with her rattling lungs and stepped through the door.

  Back inside, the new case lead stood awkwardly against the wall. Sayer didn’t recognize the agent, but he looked at her with a vaguely apologetic expression. The poor guy was probably just shoved into this by Anderson and Sayer realized she couldn’t take out her anger on him.

  She stepped up to the front of the completely silent room. Everyone clearly knew something big was happening.

  “I’ve just been informed that I am no longer in charge of this case. Dr. Valentine, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time and assistance. The director does not believe that we need any additional help from you.”

  Outrage erupted, but Sayer held up her hands.

  “You know how much I want to keep working on this, but now isn’t the time for turf wars. A new agent is taking over and I know he will be a capable case lead and I know you will give him your all. Ezra, you’re with me…”

  Hands shaking with emotion, Sayer nodded a final thanks to the task force and hurried from the room.

  Al Valentine and Ezra filed out after her. They stood in the hall around Sayer.

  Al looked like he was going to hunt Anderson down and personally wring his neck. “What the actual fuck? Did I do something wrong?” Al asked.

  “None of this is your doing. The director has never liked me and this is all some kind of political power struggle or something. The man’s been trying to get me fired for years now.” She turned to Ezra. “And, Ez, I’m so sorry. I guess you’ve been lumped with me on this one.”

  “There’s no one I’d rather be lumped with.” Ezra smiled sincerely. “You’re not really going to walk away, are you?”

  Sayer looked into his burning eyes. Ezra and Al were genuinely brilliant and she knew they had a better chance of figuring out what was really going on than anyone back in the command center.

  “I won’t interfere with the investigation here, and we share anything we find, but I’m sure as hell not walking away,” Sayer said. “I genuinely think we can find those girls. Whoever wants to join me, let’s head to my place to figure out what’s next.”

  “Uh…” Ezra said. “Your place no longer exists.”

  Sayer blinked, realizing what she’d just said. “Shit.”

  Not only had she lost photos and books, every single thing she owned was now gone. No clothes. Not even a toothbrush.

  Sayer thought about Holt’s boat.

  “I know where we can go.” She smiled a hunter’s grin. “I need to pick up my motorcycle on the way, then we can reconvene there.”

  After texting with Holt to confirm they could convene on her boat, Sayer’s emotional status transformed from slightly shaky to finely honed anger. She could address Anderson’s irrational need to attack her after they solved this case. Right now, she was going to find the man who did this to her home, her family, and those poor children, and she would make him pay.

  UNKNOWN LOCATION

  Kate’s muscles felt wobbly as she worked her way methodically around the room. She stumbled over to the door, but quickly realized that it was locked from the outside. Slamming her body against the solid wood didn’t even make it budge. The windows were covered with equally thick wood nailed into place. Kate spent what felt like an hour trying to pry out the nails, but they were unmovable.

  Giving up on an escape, she turned her attention to the detritus in the corner. Three rusted bolts. Some kind of crankshaft. And best of all, an old rotary phone that she recognized from the TV shows that her mom liked. Maybe she could use it to call out somehow. />
  The phone was cracked and missing most of the outer shell. A tattered stub hung from the back with a clump of frayed wires poking out of the end. The handset was snapped in half, the mouthpiece and earpiece held together by nothing but wires. But the rotary dial itself seemed to be intact. She spun it with her finger and it made a satisfying click-click-click sound as it turned back into place.

  The phone must’ve been plugged in somewhere.

  As she scanned the walls for a phone port, her eyes slid out of focus.

  “Pay attention, Kate,” she mumbled to herself, channeling her mom’s voice in her head. But her brain felt foggy. She was starving and her body was shutting down.

  For a moment everything felt so surreal she wasn’t entirely sure if any of this was actually happening.

  “Stop it,” she said harshly. It snapped her out of her stupor and she turned back to the walls.

  She finally found a plastic plate with a small port in it that she vaguely recalled being called a phone jack.

  The actual input was so corroded there was no way the contacts inside would still work. Plus, the phone no longer had the plug that would fit into the hole.

  Fingers sluggish, she pried the plastic plate from the wall and pulled out four wires. She almost laughed at how few there were. How different this old thing was from the cell phones she had disassembled as a little girl.

  Kate studied the way they were wired to the phone jack, red and green paired to one connection and a black and yellow connected to the other. She pulled up the frayed wires hanging from the back of the phone and separated out four wires, though they were not the same four colors. When in doubt, she knew the only thing to do was just try a few combinations.