by Steven James
He made the anonymous call to WXTN News, crushed the prepaid cell phone beneath the wheels of the car, discarded the splintered fragments of technology in the woods. Then, he drove to a parking lot beside the entrance to the state park eight miles down the road from the burning gas station.
To wait for Astrid.
When I was done summarizing the geoprofile, I asked Lien-hua about the psychological profile she’d been working on, and she commiserated with me about the difficulty of forming a profile for multiple offenders. I agreed that I couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard that would be.
“Is that a touch of cynicism I hear?”
“No, admiration.”
Inside the house, Tessa flicked off the kitchen lights, leaving the deck unlit. Moonlight washed across the yard and gently embraced Lien-hua. I told her, “Understanding people, probing their motives, it’s not something I’ve ever been…”
“Very excited about.”
“Very good at. I read people about as good as I use chopsticks.”
She looked at me closely. “If you were profiling me, Pat, what would you say?”
“Oh, I can’t do that.”
“Give it a shot.”
“Lien-hua, I’m neither trained nor qualified to-”
“Humor me.” Her voice had a light smile in it. “Then we can both just laugh about it when you’re done.”
“Let’s just laugh about it now; save some time.”
She tilted her head. “How about this: when you’re finished, I’ll profile you.”
“You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”
“I’m a persistent woman. I usually end up getting what I want.”
Oh, boy.
I gave in. “All right. Let’s see… The suspect is-”
“Suspect?”
“Of course.”
“What am I suspected of?”
Let’s see… crimes of passion… stealing hearts…
“Just trying to be official here.” Then I cleared my throat slightly. “The suspect is of Asian descent, early thirties, slim build-”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Black hair. Athletic. Attractive.”
She nodded her appreciation for that last one. “You’re doing very nicely so far.”
“Thank you. Poised but not overbearing, she has a deeply reflective mind, keen mental acuity…”
I debated whether or not to go on, to say the things I was really thinking. If I did, if I said them, a line would be drawn through the sand of this moment, there was no doubt about that.
Tell her, Pat.
You’ll regret it if you don’t, if you shy away.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“No.” I took a small breath. “She feels both strongest and weakest, safest and most free when she’s in the arms of a confident man. She’s a woman who can take care of herself but is flattered and honored when a man offers himself to her, to take care of her.”
She stood quietly beside me in the moonlight.
I waited for her to reply, heart pounding in my chest.
“Your turn,” I said.
“Caucasian.” Her voice was soft. Velvet. “Mid-thirties. Tall. Athletic.”
“Handsome,” I offered, in case she needed any additional ideas.
“Hmm… Good-looking. In a scruffy sort of way.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. He believes in justice, is courageous enough to look for truth despite the consequences, and gets shot too many times because he doesn’t like waiting for backup.”
“You’ve been talking with Tessa.”
“Maybe.”
She paused, spoke more slowly now. “He loves life deeply, passionately, and does not do anything halfway.” She hesitated but then went on, “Since the death of his wife, he’s had trouble entrusting his feelings to others, and that’s caused him to drift away from the people he cares about most. He aches for intimacy yet is losing confidence that he will ever find it again.”
The truth of her words shattered me and lifted me. A healing wound “Still,” she said, “his heart has moved past Christie, and he’s in love with another suspect, but he’s confused because he doesn’t want to take what she’s not willing to give.”
We were both quiet then, and the sound of crickets beneath the porch filled the space left open in the night.
He’s in love with another suspect…
He aches for intimacy…
But then her comments from Tuesday night came to mind: “We need to move on… People see each other, they break up, they find a way to work together again.”
I found myself resisting her and giving in at the same time, the strange give and take of attraction. “And what is she willing to give?” I said softly. “This subject with whom he is in love?”
Her eyes left mine, wandered toward the deep woods. “First, a question.”
“Yes?”
“I need to know.” Then a long pause. “Are you seeing her?”
I knew immediately. “Cheyenne?”
“Yes.”
“We’re just friends.”
She waited for more.
No woman wants to be strung along while you play the field looking for someone better.
“It’s true.” I felt no duplicity in saying the words, but, because I knew how Cheyenne felt about me, I did feel a ripple of sadness. It seemed like no matter what I chose to say to Lien-hua, I would end up hurting someone in the end.
I repeated, maybe for Lien-hua’s sake, maybe for mine, “Cheyenne and I are just friends.”
“Pat, when a woman looks at a man the way she looks at you, she’s more than a friend. Or she wants to be.”
My heart was hammering, not just from the desire to take Lien-hua in my arms and see where the moment might lead, but also from the terrifying truth of her words: He’s in love… he aches for intimacy… he’s confused…
“At one time,” I said, “we were almost more than friends, but.. .” There was so much to say, to explain, but right now, only one thing really mattered, and I let myself say it. “Whenever I was alone with her, I ended up thinking about you.”
Lien-hua gazed at me in the gentle night, the moonlight playing in her rich ebony hair. “If I were to ask you what you want, Patrick Bowers, right now, in this moment, what would you say?”
The answer was simple. Clear. Immediate. “That I want to be with you.” I took a tight, uncertain breath. “What about you? What do you want?”
Softly, she put her hand on the side of my neck, her thumb gracing my cheek, and for a long tenuous moment she looked into my eyes, hiding nothing.
Then, she drew me close and answered my question with a kiss.
And I answered her back.
73
Astrid joined Brad in the car he’d stolen especially for tonight.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” he said.
She slipped on the wig.
Tucked her hair beneath it.
As far as they knew, the Marine at the gate to Quantico had never seen Brad, so that wouldn’t be a problem, but the soldier had almost certainly seen her.
Long ago she’d discovered that even though women tend to remember the features of a man’s face, men recognize women not so much by their facial features but rather by their figure, clothing, and hair. Most women learn this eventually: if you change your hair color, put on a distinctively different outfit, lose some weight, the men in your life, at least those on the periphery, will barely recognize you.
And so she was confident that tonight, even if the guard had already seen the woman she was impersonating, it wouldn’t matter. Especially since Astrid was using the fake driver’s license Brad had acquired and the same model car as the woman drove-he’d even borrowed the actual plates from her vehicle for this evening.
“She won’t notice that they’re missing,” he’d told Astrid yesterday. “No one would notice that their license plates we
re changed. It’s one of those things you just don’t pay attention to.”
“Why not just steal her car?”
“Because, that she would notice.”
She’d given him permission to do it.
She finished with the wig. “I’ll take the wheel.”
“Okay.”
He got out of the car, and she slid into the driver’s seat. When he’d climbed in again, she asked him, “Do you have him? Is he in the-”
“Yes.”
“And the dog?”
“It’s all taken care of.”
“And you have the shovel?”
“Yes.”
Then Astrid aimed the car toward the entrance to the FBI Academy. Tonight, the greatest taunt, the greatest thrill of all-an extra body in the FBI Academy’s body farm. And as she and her man buried it, she would tell him about their child. Predator. Prey. Death and life. The climax of their game. The cycle of all things. People see what they expect to see. With the actual license plates and the same model car, with the driver’s license, wig, and similar outfit, she did not expect that the sentry would give her any trouble. After all, why hassle two National Academy students returning to their dorm? But just in case the Marine did, her partner had his Walther P99 hidden beneath the jacket lying on his lap. And more than one body would be left behind at the farm. Predator. Prey. Death and life. Their child. The cycle of all things. “When we get there,” she told him, “I’ve got a surprise for you. Something I need to tell you.”
As I watched Lien-hua drive away, I tried to sort out my feelings.
Holding her, kissing her, had brought everything back.
The hope.
The electric desire.
The confusion.
As well as the struggles to make things work and the biting pain I’d felt when we parted ways last month.
Maybe she was right about me, maybe I hadn’t been able to open up the deep parts of my heart since Christie’s death and that’s what had caused me to drift away from the people I loved.
All because of a lingering hue of grief still crawling around inside me.
The lights of her car flickered into and out of the trees. Fog was circling into the night and made the taillights look like blurred brushstrokes from a watercolor painting.
Few can decipher even fragments of their meaning…
Finally, the night mist swallowed the car’s lights, and I returned to the living room, where I found Tessa lounging on the couch channel surfing.
Click.
Click. Through the stations.
The Sherlock Holmes book and a copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sat next to her on a pillow.
“You said good night to her?” she asked.
“I did.”
Click.
I took a seat on the couch. “I’m not sure if I should thank you or be mad at you for inviting those two over here without asking me first.”
“Let’s go with the thanking me one.” She landed on the news. A gas station nearby had exploded, and the authorities were speculating that it had been caused by a gas leak from an underground storage tank.
“From now on, keep me in the loop,” I said.
“Right on.” Click.
Click. A baseball game in extra innings.
“Did it help?” she asked. “Having them both here?”
Honestly, it seemed to make them simpler and more complicated at the same time, but I just said, “Go back.”
“To what?”
“The fire.”
Click. Click. She found it.
A young man who’d been working at the station was missing, and it was feared he’d been trapped inside. Gas lines were fueling the fire so the fire crews were having a hard time suppressing it.
The gas station was located on a road that ran along the outer perimeter of the Quantico Marine Corps Base.
“So,” she said. “More confusing.”
“Yes.” My attention was on the news.
Timing.
Location.
It’s random, Pat. Forget it.
Tessa waved her hand in front of my face. “Hey. You still there?”
“Sorry. What were you saying?”
“No, you were: that things are more confusing now that you made out with Agent Jiang.”
I blinked. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
“No, I-you were spying on us.”
She shook her head. “Not this time, but thanks for confirming my suspicions.”
Man, I hate it when she does that.
I took the remote from her, turned off the television, and tried to sound stern and parental. “Go to bed, young lady.”
“All right, Dad.”
A few minutes later as I was getting ready for bed myself, I realized that the St. Francis of Assisi pendant Cheyenne had given me was still in my pocket.
I pulled it out, hesitated for a moment, then set it in my dresser drawer and slowly eased it shut.
The Marine standing guard at the front gate to Quantico leaned toward the car window. “Good evening, ma’am.”
“Hello.”
He accepted their driver’s licenses and shone his light toward Brad. “Sir.”
“Good evening, Sergeant.”
Astrid watched him pause slightly as he noticed Brad’s scars. He looked away, but only after staring a moment too long.
He studied the licenses. “From Houston, huh?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re here for the National Academy.”
“We’re staying in Washington Dormitory,” Brad added.
The Marine didn’t look at him again, just compared their names to those on his list. Made note of the car’s license plates. “Have a good night, Ms. Larotte. Mr. Collins.” He returned their fake IDs to them.
“Thank you,” she said.
And he waved them through.
No trouble. Just as Astrid had anticipated.
Brad had printed a map of the Academy grounds that afternoon. So now, as they passed out of sight of the checkpoint, he pulled it out and studied it under a flashlight. “Turn left,” he said.
He directed her past the FBI Forensics Lab, past Hogan’s Alley to a gravel lot at the end of the road.
She parked beside a trail disappearing into the mist-filled woods.
The entrance to the body farm.
She left the wig between the seats, grabbed a flashlight of her own, and climbed out of the car.
74
Astrid heard her story unfolding in her head. Fog had fingered its way between the trees and intertwined in the dense, thorny underbrush beside the path. For a moment it made her think of the fairy tale where the misty hedge encircles the castle imprisoning the sleeping princess-the girl who is oblivious to all the princes who’ve failed to find her; the princes whose bodies hang in the deep, secret heart of the thicket.
She paused to look at a body lying face-down in a stream about twenty feet to her left.
Brad stopped walking. Stood beside her.
He’d suggested that they find the location first, then return to the car to get everything they needed, rather than “dragging ’em through the woods.”
It might have been a waste of time, but Astrid had put up with the idea. Honestly, at this point she was thinking more about the news she was going to share with him than about the young man they’d come here to bury.
The uncomfortable odor of death drifted through the forest.
Brad consulted his map. “Okay. I’m thinking we head west about two hundred yards or so. No class is scheduled to visit that area until Monday.”
“How do you know that?”
“Research,” he said simply.
“Let me see that.”
He handed her the map, and she tipped her flashlight beam across it. He stood beside her. “No,” she said, “we should just do it here.”
“I was thinking it might be better over-”
“No.
”
After a moment. “All right.”
“Let’s go get the-”
The deep, sharp prick on the side of her neck startled her; shocked her, made her jerk backward. “What the-” Her hand flew instinctively to her neck, found the needle still protruding from it. She would have yanked it out, but it was embedded deeply and she was already feeling dizzy.
Her hands dropped to her sides.
Brad had his arms out to catch her. “Easy.” She was aware, but somehow unaware, of the map and flashlight she’d been holding spinning to the ground. She must have let go of them. Must have… Now her legs were giving way and Brad was supporting her. “Don’t fight it, Astrid,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s what we used on the guard the other night, what I used on Mollie. It won’t kill you.” “What are you
…” The words felt thick and raw in her mouth. He was lowering her to the ground. “Shh. Stay calm. All will be well.” She was on her back now and he was removing the needle from her neck. “Just relax,” she heard him say, or thought she did. Nothing was certain anymore. Time rippled forward and backward. She moved her mouth, tried to speak, but nothing came out. A fairy tale. The thick fog seemed to enter her, become part of her. And the last thing she saw before the world disappeared was her lover brushing a stray tendril of hair from her face, kneeling beside her in the veiled moonlight, telling her softly, softly, to go to sleep.
75
I lay propped in bed, my computer on my lap, exploring one of the as-of-yet unmapped caverns of this case.
Several of the neuroscience articles Rodale had sent me cited the Nobel-prize-winning research of Benjamin Libet, who’d done experiments in the late twentieth-century on initiation of action, intention, volitional acts, and consciousness.
Now I was scouring the Internet, reading about his work.
Apparently, Dr. Libet would record unconscious neural impulses while research participants anticipated and then performed simple tasks such as tapping a button or squeezing a ball. For example he might tell them, “As soon as you are aware of which button you wish to press, do so.”
By noting on a cathode ray oscilloscope the millisecond at which the participant was first aware of the urge to act and then measuring that against the brain’s electrical activity (and taking into account the time it took for their muscles to respond), he would compare the timing of the unconscious neural activity to that of the participant’s awareness of their intention to act.