by Steven James
“She was inside an FBI safe house when he attacked her.”
“And yet, this man, Sevren Adkins, was able to-”
“What is your point?” Missy said curtly.
“My client is concerned for the welfare of his daughter.” He was looking directly at Missy. “Dr. Bowers has a history of breaking FBI protocol-”
“This is outrageous,” she broke in. “At a press conference on Wednesday the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director called him one of the Bureau’s finest agents.”
Wilby folded his hands in front of him on the table. “Let me cut to the chase. If this case ends up going to court, we have a man who is willing to testify that Agent Bowers threatened his life.”
What?
“Agent Bowers would never threaten another person’s life,” Missy said.
Wilby wore that look again, the one that said he’d won a round, but it was Lansing who spoke up. “He’s here right now. We can end this discussion. Perhaps come to a-”
“I haven’t threatened anyone,” I stated unequivocally.
Missy read my eyes, saw truth in them. “If he’s here,” she was looking around the room, “let’s talk with him. Let’s settle this.”
Wilby rose and went to the door at the far end of the room. He swung it open and called, “Come on in.” Then he stepped back, and a man emerged.
Richard Devin Basque.
93
5 hours left…
4:29 p.m.
Two twisting, serpentine caverns came together.
So, that’s why Basque’s in DC.
Because of you.
For a moment, the cannibalistic killer gazed around the room with his usual air of gentle confidence, the blue-green depths of his eyes reminding me of dark, arctic water. As he took a seat, I quickly ran through how Paul Lansing might have made the connection between me and Basque.
When Tessa and I visited Paul last month, Basque’s retrial had only recently come to an end. At the time, the story of how I’d managed to thwart the attempt on his life was all over the news-as was my admission in court that I’d punched him-wait, technically, physically assaulted him-during his apprehension.
After Basque’s release, Lansing could’ve easily contacted him and asked him to tell the family court judge that I had a violent streak. And considering our history, I could only imagine how glad Basque would’ve been to accept the invitation. What better way to repay me for sending him to prison for thirteen years than by destroying my family?
But what’s this about threatening his life?
Missy recognized Basque. “This meeting is over.” She stood.
“Just listen for a second,” Wilby said.
“No.” She was on her way to the door. “Come on, Dr. Bowers, we’re leaving.”
“Agent Bowers indicated to me,” Basque called, his voice remaining calm, resonant, “at Dr. Werjonic’s funeral last month, that he was intent on-”
Missy spun around. “Intent on what? Last month Agent Bowers saved your life when a gunman tried to kill you during your trial. Now you’re claiming he wants you dead?”
“Ask him.” He turned his gaze to me. “He won’t lie.”
Oh.
The room went quiet.
Everyone’s attention turned to me.
No, no, no.
Not good.
I hadn’t told Basque I wanted to kill him, but I had thought it.
Yes, I had.
Preemptive justice.
I took a moment to consider carefully what to say, but before I could respond, Missy exploded, “Did you say he won’t lie? Well, you’re absolutely right. Dr. Bowers is not the kind of man who would sit here and lie to you. However…”
She pointed to Paul. “Mr. Lansing lied to my clients about his previous job. He lied to Tessa about his reasons for coming to DC, lied about why he lives in Wyoming, lied about his friendship with a sculptor whose work appears in the Hirshhorn museum, and lied about his role in stopping the assassination attempt against Vice President Fischer six years ago. You are right, Dr. Bowers is not a liar. But in his dealings with my clients, Mr. Lansing has shown very little regard for the truth.”
Nice.
Well played.
She eyed the people in the room one at a time. “If Mr. Lansing comes anywhere near my clients or continues to harass Tessa with his emails, we will get a restraining order-and considering the pattern of deception and intimidation he has already engaged in, I can guarantee you that no judge would deny that request. I suggest you drop this ridiculous custody suit and save yourself the embarrassment of having all of this made public.” She swiveled on her heels, went for the door. “We’re done here.”
Wilby rose. “Agent Bowers is an angry, violent man who uses unnecessary force when arresting suspects-and he threatens innocent people’s lives. Tessa needs a more emotionally balanced father than that.”
I ignored him, looked at Basque. “Richard, where is Professor Renee Lebreau?”
He did not reply.
“Is she here in DC?”
Nothing.
“Did you harm-”
“This is not about Mr. Basque!” Wilby whined at me.
I glared at him, then at Lansing and Basque, and barely managed to hold back a rather pointed response, but I knew that if I said what I was thinking, it wouldn’t be in Tessa’s best interests; that it would only serve to reinforce Wilby’s claims about my allegedly bad temper.
So instead, I followed Missy into the hallway, and although I was tempted to close the door rather decisively behind me, I let it drift softly shut instead.
In the hallway, before we reached Tessa, I told Missy, “Good job.”
She was quiet.
“You did a good job in there, Missy.”
“I heard you.”
As we entered the reception area, Tessa approached us. “So? What happened?”
Missy did not reply but headed straight for the exit doors; I was punching a number into my cell phone. “I’ll explain when we get outside,” I told Tessa.
“What’s going on?”
“Please, wait with Missy. I’ll be right there.”
She gave me a disparaging look: I can’t believe you! You’re totally reneging on your promise to tell me everything that happened in there!
I was waiting for Doehring to pick up.
“It’s all good,” I said to her. “I think Paul might drop this thing.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes. Now, outside. I’ll be right there.”
Hesitantly, she obeyed.
Doehring answered, and I asked him to get an undercover officer over here ASAP to tail Basque as he left the meeting. “And call Ralph Hawkins.” I gave him the number. “Tell him we know where Richard Basque is.”
Then, I went outside and joined my stepdaughter and our lawyer on the sidewalk.
Missy was upset.
And I had a feeling that her anger wasn’t just directed at the people who’d been sitting across the table from us.
94
Missy Schuel was stone quiet until we reached the car halfway down the block. “What happened at that funeral, Patrick, the one Basque made reference to? Did you threaten his life?”
“What?” Tessa exclaimed.
“I told him I would find enough evidence to send him back to prison. He said he didn’t think I was capable of-well, at that point I cut him off and said that he had no idea what I was capable of.”
“Which funeral?” Tessa asked. “You mean Dr. Werjonic’s?”
“No idea what you were capable of?” Missy said, her eyes fastened squarely on me.
“Yes.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Nothing more specific?”
Tessa threw her hands to her hips. “Can somebody please tell me what’s going on!”
“Richard Basque was in the meeting,” I told her. “Paul is obviously looking for anything he can find to use against me.”
Then I replied to Missy, “No. Nothing more specific.”
That seemed to at least partially satisfy her. “Anything else? Any more surprises I need to know about?”
“Probably.” I saw an unmarked car with Officer Lee Anderson behind the wheel drive up and park across the street. “But none that I can think of right now.”
It had to have been less than three minutes since I called Doehring. An amazingly fast response. Anderson must have already been in the area.
I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t draw undue attention to him. “Let’s go,” I said to Missy. “I’ll drop you off at your office.”
She was free. Free. She scanned the woods as she crept through them, keeping an eye out for anyone, any movement at all. It had taken her a long time to loosen the strap around her neck and even longer to get the other arm free. But after that the legs had been easy. Free. She arrived at the stream where she’d seen the corpse last night when she first entered the body farm with the man who had left her to die. Stopping upstream from the body, she stripped off her reeking, insect-infested clothes and washed herself, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing to get the stench and dirt and rot off her body. Then she rinsed the clothes and wrung them out as much as possible, and she soaked her ankles in the cool water to relieve the pain of the ripped flesh where she’d been bitten by the scavenging animals. The Academy’s admin building wasn’t far, less than a half mile from the trailhead. If she could just get to the parking lot she could steal a car, drive to a bank, drain the money from her betrayer’s account, and be gone. But be smart. He had turned on her, yes, betrayed her, lied to her, tried to kill her. Yes, yes, yes. But- A terrible chill ran through her as she was forced to admit that he was smarter than she was, smarter than any cop or FBI agent she’d ever run into. He would find her, yes, he would; it was inevitable. And considering what he’d done to her last night-strapping her to a rotting corpse-she couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would do to her if he caught her now. Or what he might do to her baby. Even if he didn’t come after her, he would certainly plant evidence that would lead the authorities to her. He had the means to fake IDs. He was good with disguises. He could cover his tracks better than anyone she knew. He would disappear and she would end up in prison for life. And worst of all, they would take her baby away. Foster care. She’d gone down that road herself and she was not about to let her baby grow up that way. She put on her wet clothes. It was the end of her career, yes. The end of her old life, yes, okay, she knew that, but for the sake of her baby she needed to make sure she wasn’t found. Ever. Then it struck her. There was one way to keep her baby with her and also stay free from both the one who had betrayed her and the FBI. To live, she would have to die. To the rest of the world. But thankfully the one thing she was good at, the one skill she had, was setting people up for murder. And this time, she would set her betrayer up for hers. She headed to the parking lot, considering what it was going to take for her to make her death as believable as it would need to be. Predator. Prey. This time she was going to have to be both.
After dropping off Missy at her office, I needed a minute to sort through my thoughts, figure out what to do next. Too many cables tugging at my attention.
Tessa was upset.
Basque was in town, apparently trying to help Lansing in this custody case.
Dr. Lebreau was still missing.
The killers were still at large.
My arm really hurt.
If there was ever a time for coffee, this was it.
I took Tessa to an indie coffeehouse in downtown DC. She ordered a small soy milk latte; I went for a twenty-ounce Kenya AA and managed to down it and get a refill before she came out of the bathroom.
Now we were walking through a tourist-riddled park near the Capitol on our way back to the car, which I’d had to park about three blocks away.
Above us, the tangled branches of the trees lining the path seemed to snag the late afternoon sunlight, letting only jagged pieces of the day land around us.
Shadow and light, blinking at me every step of the way.
For no stated reason, Tessa and I both moved urgently toward the car.
So many thoughts corkscrewing through my mind.
I wanted to hear what Lien-hua might have discovered about the lack of DNA evidence, figure out what was going on with Margaret and her abstruse reference to abortion, go over my geo-profile again…
I’d had my phone’s ringer off since the beginning of the custody meeting, and now I glanced at the screen and noticed I had a missed call from Cheyenne.
Great.
Just one more thing to work through.
Yesterday morning Tessa had told me I was being flirty with both of them, and I had to admit she was right.
So now, considering that I seemed to be patching things up with Lien-hua, I needed to make sure my flirtiness with Cheyenne came to an end. Feeling a narrow stab of guilt and not really wanting to go through my texts and perhaps find another message from her, I pocketed the phone.
Took a drink of coffee.
Tessa gestured toward a Metro station. “So, I guess I’ll head home then.”
“I’ll take you. The car is just at the end of the block.”
“You’ve been with me for like over three hours. You need to stay here, get back to this case.”
“That can wait,” I said. “I don’t like it that Basque is here.”
“I get that, but you’ve got an undercover cop following him, so-”
“What makes you say I have a cop following him?”
She looked annoyed at having to explain herself. “Basque shows up, then you make an urgent phone call before leaving the lawyer’s office, then you stare at a guy with a mustache who pulls up outside the building in a sedan. Cops are easy to spot. Who else besides serial killers and cops have mustaches these days?”
“Pakistanis.”
“Yeah, okay, and so do cowboys, but this guy was a cop.”
I bowed out of the mustache debate. “I’m not leaving you alone. I don’t trust Lansing.”
“But in the meeting, Ms. Schuel said she’d get a restraining order if he showed up anywhere near me. He wouldn’t dare follow me.”
“And how do you know she said that?”
Tessa rolled her eyes. “She was yelling when she said it-look, Patrick, I’m fine. I have some stuff to do at home anyhow. I’ll take the VRE. You need to stay here.”
“I don’t think so.”
Our car still lay fifty meters away through the strangled sunlight.
She followed me grudgingly.
We walked.
Shadow to light.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“If you can look me in the eye and answer one question, then I’ll shut up and I won’t argue. You can bail on this case, come home, and babysit me.”
I didn’t like where this was going; I went for some coffee.
“Well?”
“Go on,” I said.
“You have to be honest.”
“I’ll be honest. What’s the question?”
“You have to promise.”
“Tessa. All right. I promise.”
Shadow to light.
“Look me in the eye.”
Good grief.
We stopped walking, and I looked her in the eye.
“Now, tell me that the Bureau has a better chance of finding these killers, of saving people’s lives if you’re not helping. If you can tell me that, then I’ll go home with you and I won’t nag you.”
“That’s not fair. Besides, it wasn’t even actually a question.”
She stood in that slumpy-teenage-girl way and gave me a critical stare.
“Tessa, there are plenty of good people working this case. It’s not like-”
“I can rephrase it if that would make it easier for you.”
“You’re more important to me than-”
“Don’t do that.”
/> My phone rang. Cheyenne’s ringtone.
Unbelievable.
“Do what?”
“Use me as an excuse.”
“I’m not using you as an excuse.”
It rang again.
“I get it that you love me,” she said. “But do they have a better chance of saving lives if you’re at home babysitting me?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
Ring.
“Just answer it.”
“I’ll get it in a minute.”
“No, I mean my question.”
“The answer is no-”
“Okay.” She sounded satisfied. “Now, get the phone.”
Another ring.
Annoyed, I picked up. “Cheyenne. Hey.”
“How are you doing? Just touching base. Seeing how the case was going. How your arm is.”
“Listen, can I call you back?”
“Sure.” But she sounded concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
Tessa said, “Ask her what she’s doing tonight.”
I shook my head at Tessa, spoke to Cheyenne, “Just give me a few minutes.”
“Ask her,” Tessa urged.
“Cheyenne, can you hang on a sec?” I held the phone against my chest. “What is it you want, Tessa?”
“It’d be stupid for her to drive into the city to help you out right now. With traffic on a Friday night? Give me a break. It’ll take me like an hour and a half to get home on the VRE, she can work till then, hang with me for supper, and whenever you get back you can fill her in on the case. It’ll give you a couple hours to work, I’ll be safe, problem solved. Everybody’s happy.”
I tried to find a glitch in her plan.
“No,” I said stubbornly.
“Can I see your phone for a sec?”
“Tessa-”
She held out her hand. “Here, just for a minute.”
“I’m-”
She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows. A reprimand from an adolescent girl.
I resisted, but in the end I found myself giving in.
Tessa took the phone. “Detective Warren, hey, it’s me. Um, listen, I’ll be home at like 6:45 or so. Can you stop by until Patrick gets back? Yeah, he’s getting all weird on me… I know. Yeah, no, we’re okay… Whatever, you will so not beat me this time… Yeah, right. So, okay, do you want to talk to him again…?”