“That file’s ready,” he said.
“Thanks,” Kenzie responded, and she shot an angry look at Crow as she left the room.
In her work, she could lose herself.
In her work, she could forget her mother, her anger at Crow, her fear, her sense of violation, her embarrassment, even her pain.
In her work, using words to put together the puzzle of a criminal mind, she could gain some control over the swirling circumstances of her life.
Kenzie stared intently at her laptop screen. She sat at the desk in the third-floor guest bedroom, her head still pounding, her ears still ringing with Crow’s indictment. Why had he been so angry? Why did he care? What was the big deal?
She’d come upstairs to be alone, so she could concentrate. She had to shake her thoughts off, and focus.
She transferred the verbiage of the kidnapper’s note to another file so she could pull it apart, phrase by phrase, word by word,phoneme by phoneme. But after one quick read-through, she already had a question. She called downstairs to Scott, who quickly responded. “What’s High Stakes?” she asked as he came into the room.
Wearily he sat down on the bed. “It’s one of those tense, we’re-all-about-to-die TV shows. Very violent. Very popular. The protagonist is a Jack Bauer knock-off—his name is Connor something . . . Connor Stearman. He’s out to save the world. His techie girl genius is Joie Gorulski. They work for a secretive government entity called CISU, the Central Intelligence Security Unit. They battle foreign and domestic terrorism and the worst threat of all—Congress.”
“Congress—that’s interesting.”
Scott snorted softly. “None of us has ever watched it. Who has time?”
“Did you check online for the old shows?”
“No, but that’s a great idea. I’ll get somebody on that.”
Scott started to leave. “Are you OK?”
“Of course!” she said, and returned to the note. She began cataloging what she noticed:
The narcissistic phrases: “I’ve studied you.” “I know about your other children.” “I’ve been watching you . . .” “I’m the dealer now.” “I’m calling the shots.” “I’m in control.”
The lack of emotional language. The writer was most likely a man.
The command tone. “You will follow my instructions.”
The arrogance. “. . . you can’t imagine the lengths to which I will go . . .”
The excruciatingly proper use of English. “. . . the lengths to which I will go . . .”
The threat itself.
From the time she was little, her father had told her words were important. Words meant something. Words were a window into the mind. All the years she’d studied psychology and linguistics, all the criminal cases she’d worked, all the discussions she’d had with her mentors, had formed a primordial soup of information in her subconscious mind; out of it began to emerge an image of Zoe’s kidnapper.
Kenzie pored over every line. She took notes on the structure, the syntax, the word choice. She read it out loud, listening to the cadence, the rhythm of the sentences.
Was he working alone? Was he an amateur? How old was he? His educational level? Was he even a “he”? How about his mental state? His familiarity with the senator? Questions, questions.
Normally, a complete analysis would take her days, if not weeks. But she had no time for minute detail work now. Zoe’s life hung in the balance.
She heard a knock on the door. Crow had a Ziploc bag of ice for her. “Put this on your lip,” he said, and left again.
Kenzie looked at the bag of ice. A peace offering, she wondered? Maybe he was concerned about her. But then, why did he seem so gruff?
She had no answers, so she returned to her work. Once Kenzie had made all of her observations, she entered the language of the note into a computer program to compare it with other known threats and their outcomes. It was a program she had developed, based on data collected in excruciating detail for her doctoral dissertation. And in the case of Zoe’s kidnapper, the program said the correlation between words and action seemed high. This guy meant business. He would do what he said.
In three hours, she had a preliminary analysis.
“With a head injury, who knows what she’s thinking or how she’ll react,” Crow said in a low voice. He and Scott were standing in the Grables’ kitchen. “I sure would hate to have to depend on her in a shooting situation!”
“I need her expertise!” Scott responded.
Crow had just opened his mouth when Scott held up his hand. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
And then, Kenzie walked in. “I’m ready with a preliminary profile,” she announced. She dabbed her mouth with a tissue. The cut seeped blood.
Scott glanced at Crow. He took a deep breath. “Let’s go in the dining room.”
Kenzie preceded the men. She felt awkward, like they were staring at her back. What had they been discussing? When she got to the dining room, the senator was standing off to the side, looking weary.
“Senator Grable, could you excuse us for a few minutes?” Scott said. The senator’s wife had not yet been cleared. No sense revealing too much to him yet.
“Sure,” Grable responded. “I’ll be in my office.”
The three agents watched as he walked out, then listened for the sound of his office door shutting.
“Where’s Beth?” Kenzie asked.
“She left last night. Probably with a friend.” Scott glanced at his watch. “I’ll call her in a little while.”
Kenzie straightened her back. She dabbed her mouth and glanced at Crow again before she looked down at her notes. He leaned up against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. She felt a tremor run through her, perhaps prompted by confusion. She cleared her throat and began: “Our unsub is a native English speaker, an educated, middle-aged man. He knows the senator well. He’s familiar with the house, with the family. He takes a lot of pride in his ability with words . . . he’s most likely college-educated, could be a communicator, a speaker or writer. His attention to detail is notable. I believe he’s between the ages of thirty-five and fifty. The man has a lot of anger toward those whom he perceives have mistreated him. And he has some psychopathic or at least narcissistic tendencies.”
“Meaning?”
“A marked lack of empathy, a coldness, self-centeredness . . .”
“A psychopath?” Scott asked.
“I would say he may have psychopathic tendencies. There’s a range, you know. Some who score pretty high on the scale aren’t even criminals. They could be cutthroat businessmen or women. They may be charming, bright, attractive—but they have in common an inability to empathize and a singleness of purpose: Whatever they’re into, they’re in it for themselves. This guy may have been that type of corporate psychopath and now something has triggered an escalation: He’s crossed the line. He may not be married. Not involved with any women long-term. He’s too self-focused and angry. He’s absolutely dedicated to his work. But he feels morally superior, almost invincible. Puffed up, like a balloon. I think this is his last attempt to wrest from life what he’s sure he deserves and has never gotten. Money. Respect. Power. Those are his goals.” She lowered the notes in her hand. She looked directly at the two men, keeping her expression calm.
“The note said, ‘I’m the dealer now.’ I’m wondering if this emerged from the mind of a person who regularly played a game involving a dealer.”
“Like mah-jongg?” Crow suggested.
“Other clues indicate the note writer is a man,” Kenzie said.
“But could he have had a woman mah-jongg player standing at his side? Beth Grable, maybe?” Crow asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What about violence?” Scott asked. “How likely is he to hurt Zoe?”
Kenzie shifted in her chair. “By nature, he is not a violent person. He probably has no criminal record. But according to the measures we use, the correlation between the threat
and the unsub acting on it is high.”
Scott nodded. “He did assault the nanny . . . and you.”
“Assaulting me seems more opportunistic. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” The pain in her head throbbed. She avoided looking at Crow. “And we can’t rule out the idea he paid some low-level criminal to deliver the note,” she said.
Crow interrupted. “No, he did it himself. We know that.”
Kenzie wondered how exactly he knew that. What piece of information had she missed? “Then that’s consistent with his narcissism. I don’t know about the nanny. I’m going to keep working through the note. In the meantime,” Kenzie said, “I’d like to get access to the senator’s office on the Hill. I’d like to read some of the paperwork his staff has written, and some of his correspondence. I’d like to get a sense of the words his associates are using.”
“Because the kidnapper could be someone he’s worked with, either directly in his office or from somewhere on the Hill, or one of his other contacts,” Scott added. “I’m sure he’ll cooperate.” Scott looked at Kenzie. “That’s great. Good work. What about the show’s fan page? What do you recommend we do about that?”
“Assign someone to monitor it twenty-four/seven. I’ll give them a list of words and phrases to watch for. I would rotate personnel every three or four hours. Those message boards can be deadly boring.”
“We’re on it, Kenz.”
“I’ll get the senator on board,” Crow said, and he turned and left the room.
“You feeling OK?” Scott asked Kenzie.
No, Kenzie thought. My head hurts, I’m exhausted, and my dog is with my mother, of all people, and I can’t figure out why John Crowfeather is so angry. “Fine,” she said out loud.
“Because if you need to take a break, it’s OK. We can handle things.”
“No. Did you get the information on Beau Talmadge?”
“Jocelyn got his home address. She’s on that.”
She reminded him about the reference to “dealer” in the note. “Give me the information,” she said. “I’ll get in touch with her and if she hasn’t interviewed him, I will, before I head up to the Hill.”
Scott frowned. “Are you sure you’re OK to do that?”
“I want to.”
“Go with Crow.”
“Why?” she snapped, surprised at her own irritation.
“Because I want you to.”
That was not a direct answer, she thought.
15
Come on, honey.” Sandy unbuckled Zoe’s seat belt.
“Two hours, understand?” Grayson said, turning around in the driver’s seat of the silver Ford.
“OK, Gray. That’ll be four-thirty. I’ll see you right here.”
“And be careful, OK? I don’t want this whole thing unraveling because you screwed up.”
She shut the door and took Zoe’s hand. “We are going to have fun!” She gave the little girl’s hand a squeeze. Just before they entered the mall, she leaned down and said, “Now remember our pretending game. I’m going to call you Joey. That’s almost like Zoe. And we’re going to pretend you’re a boy. If you’re really, really good, I’ll buy you some candy when we’re done.”
Zoe looked up at her. “I want my daddy.”
That’s all she’d been saying for the last four hours. “Maybe he’s in the mall. Let’s go see, OK?”
Somehow, Sandy had talked Zoe into wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, blue jeans, and a red shirt. She actually looked like a little boy. But traces of the nail polish, the pink nail polish, were still there, on the edges of two fingers. All Sandy could do was hope no one would notice. Especially Grayson.
Fortunately, she’d deftly covered the two offending fingers when he’d checked Zoe’s hands. He’d missed that little bit of polish. Good thing, too, because Sandy didn’t know what she would do if he had forbidden her this one little excursion. Tensions in the house were high, and she could hardly stand being cooped up anymore. If he wasn’t yelling at her, he was screaming at Zoe.
But Grayson had said the senator had already begun responding to his demands, and they’d have the money soon. Zoe would be home, and they’d be gone and the stress would be over. She couldn’t wait.
Crowds of back-to-school shoppers and bargain hunters filled the mall. Sandy hoped to snag a good deal on a bathing suit, maybe even some tropical slacks and shirts. Jamaica would be warm all year ’round. She’d already given away all of her sweaters and winter coats. When her sister asked why, she had smiled coyly and hinted there’d be a big surprise soon. As much as Sandy had wanted to let her in on the secret, she couldn’t. Carol had been married for twenty years—she had no idea what it felt like to be a lonely, divorced woman in a dead-end job. No future, no hope. Nothing. Until Grayson came along.
Sandy headed for a big department store anchoring one end of the mall. As relaxing as she’d imagined this shopping trip to be, it turned out to be anything but. Zoe kept wanting to look at pretty little dresses and bows for her hair. When Sandy tried to shop for herself, the little girl swung on the clothes racks in the misses department and sang a song she’d made up about her daddy. She screamed “No!” when Sandy suggested buying some boys’ shirts and seemed to have to go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes. The kicker came when Sandy, engrossed in looking for a blouse to match a really cute pair of capris, looked up and saw Zoe talking to a uniformed security guard.
Her heart jumped into her throat and she quickly retrieved the little girl, apologizing to the officer. “My husband and I are going through a divorce,” she hastily explained, “and Joey misses his daddy so much.”
“My name’s not Joey!” the little girl yelled, but the security guard just laughed knowingly and Sandy scooped her up and left the store.
She tried letting Zoe ride the airplane in the kids’ play area of the mall. She bought her candy. Tried bribing her with a DVD. But Zoe would not be bought off. She was not a boy. She wanted her daddy. And everyone was going to hear about it.
In the end, Sandy had to settle for grabbing two pairs of jeans and a couple of T-shirts for Zoe in a children’s specialty shop. Nothing for herself. And when Grayson picked her up, she practically threw Zoe in the Ford, and slammed the door shut.
“Have fun?” Grayson asked, seeing her expression.
“This better be over soon,” Sandy muttered.
Beau Talmadge lived on Capitol Hill in an old Victorian row house three blocks from the Capitol, on the gentrified edge of one of Washington’s most crime-plagued areas. His gorgeous old house had a tiny yard portioned off by an iron fence and granite front steps. Kenzie pulled her Bucar to the curb out front.
Scott had said to wait for Crow. But she had called him and he couldn’t get there before four o’clock, half an hour from now. She wanted to get on with it.
Kenzie’s head hurt. Her last interactions with Crow had left her gun-shy. In fact, she’d been obsessing about his behavior all afternoon, and she’d already decided to confront him. Why had he been giving her such a hard time?
She gently touched her injured lower lip with her tongue as she walked up the front steps. It felt four times its usual size. She punched the doorbell. A dog began barking. A big dog. The door swung open and a man about her age grinned at her, and grabbed the collar of the Rottweiler lunging across the threshold. “Best burglar alarm ever,” the man said.
“Are you Beau Talmadge?” Kenzie asked.
“I am.”
“Special Agent Mackenzie Graham, FBI. Mind if I come in?”
He laughed. “I don’t, but Jackson might.”
“Jackson?”
“My Rottie,” he said, nodding toward the dog. “Named after one of Auburn’s most famous football players, Bo Jackson.” He grinned sheepishly. “I couldn’t call him Bo.”
“No, of course not,” Kenzie agreed. Despite her trained neutrality, she instantly liked the man.
“C’mon, Jackson,” Beau said, giving the dog’s colla
r a good shake. He stepped back from the door opening and Kenzie stepped through. The dog growled. “Let me put him up,” Beau said, closing the door, and he disappeared upstairs with the Rottie in tow.
Kenzie looked around. The tall, narrow house had a beautiful staircase ascending to the second floor. The foyer was small but handy, with pegs for jackets and a small mat for boots. The living room with a fireplace was off to the right. Over the mantle was a large oil painting of a brick building with a clock tower. She moved closer to it so she could see it better.
“Samford Hall, Auburn University,” Beau’s voice boomed behind her. “Best five years of my life.”
She turned to look at him. “Most people do college in four.”
He grinned. “Now that’s foolish. Pretty women, all you can drink, and a poker party every night. Couldn’t get enough of it.”
Kenzie noted his boyish good looks, brown hair, blue eyes, and easy grin. Every part of Beau Talmadge screamed “frat boy.” And not in a bad way.
“Sit down, sit down,” he said, gesturing toward a brown couch. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Talmadge plopped into an upholstered chair. “What can I do you for?”
“Mr. Talmadge, I’m sure you’ve heard that Beth Grable’s daughter, Zoe, is missing.”
Beau straightened up and put both feet on the floor. He leaned forward. “Yes, and I’m so sorry, really I am,” he said.
“I understand you’ve been seeing Mrs. Grable.”
He blushed. “We’re old friends from Auburn. She had pledged a sorority, I lived in a frat house. We had a lot of fun together, Beth and I, although to be honest, I don’t remember much of it.” He grinned. “When I moved to D.C., her momma told me to look her up. I did, and yes, we’ve done a few things together.”
“What sort of things, Mr. Talmadge?”
He gestured with his hands. “No sex. Honest. No affair going on, I swear. But Beth, she likes the ponies. Actually, she likes gambling of any kind, and her old man’s a bit stiff. So I’ve taken her a couple of times, to Charles Town, or Dover Downs. Once to Atlantic City. And the new Maryland casinos. But no hanky-panky, I swear.” His eyes were fixed intently on Kenzie, as if he were trying to read her response to him.
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