They were talking quietly among themselves, pain radiating from each person, palpable as an aura to a psychic. It didn’t take any special powers to know they were hurting; the slumped shoulders, dark circles and red noses spoke volumes.
What were they doing here? Taylor counted five of them: the parents, Michelle and her sister Nicole, and the son, Derek. They were huddled together as if seeking warmth from each other’s bodies. Taylor had seen this before. Some families were forced apart by a tragedy; others drew together, working as one to help heal. The Harrises definitely looked to be the latter.
Taylor fidgeted and stalled, pulling at her bun until her hair tumbled down in waves. Annoyed, she whipped it back up into a ponytail. Large families filled her with a sense of dislocation, of longing. She’d never known what it was like to have a support system of siblings. Sam was like a sister to her, but it was different. They didn’t share blood, despite their aborted attempt to transfuse each other when they were ten years old. Silly, meaningful, yet neither had the courage to cut deep enough to really get the blood flowing into each other’s hands. Being blood sisters wasn’t the real thing.
She was about to clear her throat when Michelle noticed her. The group stopped talking, just looked at her with unfathomably sad eyes.
“Lieutenant,” Michelle said. There were a few murmured good mornings from the rest of the group.
Taylor nodded at them, then answered, “What can I do for you?”
It was the mother who spoke up. “We’re just here for Corinne. Is it…” She stood a bit straighter. “Is it over?”
Taylor nodded. “Dr. Loughley is finishing up, but yes, the postmortem has been completed. I can’t discuss any of the findings, you know that.”
“We do. We just wanted to be here for her. It’s hard.” A deep sniff, but she didn’t break. Taylor liked her a bit for it. “Hard to let your child go through something so invasive. If Corinne’s spirit is anywhere near, she’ll know we’re here for her.”
“Todd didn’t want to come?”
Mr. Harris coughed out a noise of disgust. “Todd took Hayden to his parents’ this morning. He didn’t even bother to stay, just whisked her away. He doesn’t care about Corinne. He’s just concerned with himself.”
“Daddy, that’s not fair.” Michelle came to her father’s side, touching his arm. “Todd knows you and Mom are too upset to care for Hayden. He’s trying to do you a favor.”
“Bullshit!” Derek Harris spoke for the first time, his full, thick hair falling over his forehead. He turned to Taylor. “You need to look a little closer at my brother-in-law, Lieutenant. I know he’s got something to do with this. I wasn’t so sure yesterday when we talked, but he’s acting strange. Something is up with him. I think he might be responsible for Corinne’s death.”
Interesting. The united front for Corinne certainly didn’t extend to her husband. Taylor held up a hand. “I will be looking at every angle of this case backwards and forwards, I can guarantee you that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make it downtown for a meeting.”
“Lieutenant?” Nicole Harris, raven hair, soulful brown eyes, thin frame bordering on emaciation, put up her hand as if she were a student seeking a professor’s attention.
“Yes?”
Nicole took a deep breath. “It’s about the baby. What’s…we want to know what’s happening with…with his body.”
“Oh,” Taylor said. “Of course. That’s going to be up to you. The folks here at Forensic Medical will issue a fetal death certificate, and you’ll have the option to bury him separately, or with Corinne. His body will be released with hers.”
The relief bled from them in waves. Michelle took her mother’s hand and looked at Taylor. “We were afraid he might be…disposed of.”
Taylor’s stomach flipped at the thought. It was horrid enough to have seen the tiny body, imagining him being thrown away saddened her deeply.
“I understand. That happens sometimes, but usually with indigent women who are early along in their pregnancies and don’t have family to claim a fetus. After twenty weeks, though, the baby is treated as a person by the medical examiner. I assure you, the baby was handled with a great deal of care.”
“Did you see him?” Mr. Harris spoke quietly, almost as if he didn’t want to hear her answer.
“I did.” Taylor’s voice cracked as she spoke. “I have to go now. Please accept my deepest condolences on your loss. I’ll be in touch soon.”
She left them there. As she walked away, she didn’t look back.
CHAPTER TEN
Taylor got into the 4Runner. Jesus. She rubbed her eyes hard. Buck up, she told herself. It could have been worse. You could have had to tell them their daughter was raped, or slit open, or stowed away in a barrel of acid. Unfortunately, as bad as Corinne Wolff’s murder was, it could always have been something more. Little comfort to the Harrises, she knew, but it made her feel better.
Hoping for an escape from the thought of those accusing eyes, she plugged her phone into the charger, then turned on the speaker and dialed “one” for her voice mail.
Baldwin’s deep voice spilled from the little phone, made tinny by the poor quality of the speaker.
“Just checking in, babe. Hope you’re having a good day. Call me when you get a chance. Love you.”
Taylor dialed him back. He answered on the first ring, sounding a bit distracted.
“I’ve had a fun morning. Everything good with you?” she asked.
“Absolutely. Everything is fine. Can’t say I miss the place, I’ll tell you that.”
“Is Garrett okay?”
“Oh. Yes, yes, completely. He’s going to be just fine.”
“That’s good. Send him my best, will you? And take care of yourself.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, then she depressed the end button, her mind immediately back in the case. Time to go to work.
*
Baldwin hung up the phone and sighed deeply, running his hands through his dark hair at speed. It made the ends stand at attention, a look he knew Taylor found terribly amusing. My little porcupine, she called him. He rolled his eyes at the silliness of it and wished he were home.
God, he hated lying to her.
No, everything was not okay.
Baldwin had always excelled at compartmentalizing. He was able to stay calm in the face of the most intense scrutiny, could clinically analyze any situation without getting close, then could move on to the next case with precision and no regrets. The FBI knew that when they hired him. The CIA knew that when they called on him.
He’d been with the profiling unit for about four years when Garrett suggested a quick day trip to Washington, D.C. for an unusual case. “It’s a favor for a friend, Baldwin. I just need you to look the scene over, go through some of the evidence, and tell me what you think.”
He’d gone willingly enough. Garrett had always been fair, a mentor. He both regretted his acquiescence and thanked God he’d been the one asked to come that day. He thought back to the beginning of this subterfuge, the June morning that altered the course of his life.
Traffic was difficult, as it always was. Garrett hadn’t spoken much as they made the drive north. It took them an hour and forty-five minutes to reach the Beltway. Not the greatest time. But once they were on 495, the roads miraculously cleared and within five minutes they were on the George Washington Parkway, heading toward McLean, Virginia.
Just past the Chain Bridge Road exit, Garrett had pulled into a scenic overlook. The Potomac River churned at their feet, the woods beyond the overlook were thick and foreboding. The faintest of paths could be seen. Garrett walked that way, beckoning Baldwin to follow. There was something familiar about the area. It took Baldwin’s mind a moment to register that they were very near Fort Marcy Park, the site of one of the most famous alleged suicides in Washington history—White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. Talk about a can of worms. Pushing the scandal out of his mind, he followed Garrett deep
er into the woods.
About two hundred yards into the thicket, they came to a slight opening among the trees. Baldwin smelled the blood before his mind registered the scene.
The clearing looked like the set of a low-budget horror flick. A makeshift drying rack was strung between two trees: flayed skin, pieces of genitalia, a severed head with wild, staring milky eyes, all were precisely tacked to the wires. There were at least five women in various stages of decay, their bodies no longer attached by the normal seams. Flies buzzed heavily around the torso of one obviously fresh kill.
Baldwin felt the bile rise in his throat, a completely unnatural reaction for him. Something evil lurked in these woods. He could feel it oozing through his pores, and fought the urge to run back to the car.
“Holy mother of God. What is this, Garrett?”
Garrett’s answer came out as a sigh. “That’s what I need you to tell me.”
Later that first day, his face white and pinched, Baldwin had sat in the upstairs room of Mr. Henry’s, a noisy bar in the District. Garrett sat beside him, silent.
Garrett had insinuated answers would be forthcoming from this meeting, but so far, there was nothing. Baldwin drank draught Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, desperately trying to wash the taste of decomposition and fear from his tongue.
He looked out the window, watched people moving past, happy that they were unaware of the horror he’d experienced. How to keep them safe?
When he turned back a large, bald-headed man sat across from him, assessing. Shrewd eyes bluer than cold ocean water, a thick neck and fingers, he gave his name only as Atlantic, a moniker obviously befitting his appearance.
Atlantic said he would become Baldwin’s handler on these gruesome, silent cases. Baldwin listened attentively, mesmerized by the icy eyes, trying to place the older man’s nationality. He’d narrowed it to a Balkan state, could detect some touches of British influence in the drawn-out A’s, but couldn’t get a precise fix. It annoyed him.
Atlantic talked in his odd accent for what seemed hours, though Baldwin knew it could only have been a few minutes. When he finished, Baldwin asked, “Why me?”
“Because you are the best we’ve ever seen. Because you’re a natural polyglot, can assimilate to any country. How many languages are you fluent in? Eight? Nine?”
“Thirteen.”
Atlantic tipped his head in respect and tapped the edge of the table like a snooker master. “Because you have the compassion to give these victims closure but the brains to keep silent. And because we ask.”
It had been enough of an answer at the time. Baldwin agreed to take on the position of profiler to the setup Atlantic called Operation Angelmaker.
His first assignment was to track the Forest Killer. Baldwin had blown the case wide open in a matter of days. The killer was a legal attaché to Zambia. Baldwin stopped him before he killed his sixth victim. The man had been summarily deported with a stern warning to his government to never let him set foot back in the United States. The killer’s flashing grin as he boarded the jet home to Lusaka haunted Baldwin’s dreams.
That was the first. There were more. Rarely on U.S. soil, the cases he worked were quiet, involved and deadly. Different killers, different MOs. Killing zones and sprees that needed to be kept as quiet as possible, that needed to be solved through back channels. These weren’t the men who made it onto Court TV, or even made it to court. These killers were protected.
The governments of various countries kept silent assassins on the payrolls. Men and women paid to kill, trained to be sociopaths, sometimes broke from their proscribed paths, headed out on their own to satiate their burgeoning needs. Developed a bloodlust that their government targets couldn’t sate. Tracking these assets was a vital function, one not left to everyday agents.
Operation Angelmaker had a real name, “The Joint Preparedness Task Force on the Convention of Potentially Dangerous Assets,” but TJPTFOTCOPDA just didn’t work as an acronym. So OA they became, a covert group so secret only the immediate members knew it existed. There was no congressional oversight, no Presidential discretion, just the head of the CIA and people on a purely need-to-know basis.
The arrangement Atlantic made with Garrett Woods was for Baldwin to be borrowed, from time to time, to oversee “projects.” What Baldwin actually did was profile these international serial killers, men the United States government would normally seek to put in jail. These killers were valuable to their country’s government, or valuable to the United States in some capacity. Men with unnatural proclivities, as Atlantic so aptly put it. Baldwin’s job wasn’t to keep them out of trouble, or keep them hidden, so much as predict where they might strike next. If the Angelmakers knew where a killer would hit, they could arrange for bait to be delivered, usually in the form of a contract hit that needed the assassin’s immediate attention. It kept the innocents from too much risk, and allowed them to keep closer tabs.
If he were honest with himself, the cross-cultural analysis was fascinating. Nature versus nurture didn’t exist in the Angelmakers. Evil superceded all.
The program went against every grain of his being, but he understood the necessity of wet work. Baldwin had always been a good soldier. He agreed to work with the group with one condition. The United States government wasn’t much in the habit of using their assassins in their own backyard. If any of these men ever stepped foot on U.S. soil again, Baldwin would be notified. He knew what these maniacs were capable of. He insisted on the stipulation, and Atlantic agreed.
He’d been working with the group for ten long years. They had at least fifty men and women in their sights at all times.
Garrett’s sudden heart problem was a fallacy. Baldwin had been pulled to Quantico so Atlantic could honor their agreement. He was being warned, and given the tools to suss out his enemy. A nemesis had disappeared from the OA’s radar screens. The killer had cleared out his home, taken all his papers, all his false IDs, and disappeared. The chatter on the circuit was he’d contracted a job in the States, but so far, no one would own up to the hit.
The assassin was an American, at least by birth. He’d been brought up all over the world, the brilliant, prodigal son of a career diplomat. He’d started killing early, sanctioned by the government. His extracurricular activities were hidden well, he had worked hard to be quite discreet. But he wasn’t quiet enough. Once he’d gotten the OA’s attention, they knew he needed to be watched. And now, all the field reports agreed. The killer known simply as Aiden was making a transatlantic journey.
Baldwin had danced with Aiden many times. He could recognize his signature anywhere. Aiden liked to be thought of as an old-school assassin, an artist who used a silver garrote to strangle his victims. He had at least forty kills to his name that they knew of; the actual number could have been much higher. He played the game, knew about the OA team, knew he was fed targets. He was an indiscriminate sort—he didn’t need a type, just needed a neck. That made him especially dangerous.
If the reports were right, if Aiden was truly in the States, Baldwin needed to keep a very close eye on him. If he could find him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Taylor and Fitz sat at a patio table in the back of Las Palmas. The front room was filled with giggling Vanderbilt co-eds and migrant workers on their lunch break, a testament to the quality of the restaurant as well as its reasonable prices. Taylor was nibbling a steak fajita quesadilla, Fitz was plowing through a taco salad. A pitcher of sweet tea separated them.
“So what did Price say?” Fitz asked.
“He understood, for starters. He’ll fight any disciplinary action taken against Lincoln. So Linc will feel a lot better about that. Poor guy, he was completely rattled. I don’t know if it was the dope or the sheer terror of having to report that he’d been smoking it. Can you imagine Lincoln with a few toots in him?”
Fitz laughed. “No. Mr. Fancypants has always struck me as the one scotch before dinner because it looks good, rather than enjoying it type. He isn’t
much for losing control.”
“Well, that’s to be expected, if you think about his background. Damn, it would be nice to have him back to work this Wolff case. I’ll bet there’s a ton of financial discovery, right up his little computer-literate heart’s alley. Marcus is back tomorrow, right?”
Marcus Wade, her youngest detective, had been out for four days doing his in-service training rotation. Without the two detectives, the squad had been too quiet.
“He’ll be in bright and early tomorrow. We can get him up to speed with the Wolff case, let him go to town. Media’s having a field day with the 911 tape.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. I heard it last night. It’s gut-wrenching.”
“Wish they wouldn’t do stuff like that. Makes our life harder.”
“No kidding.” She took a bite of quesadilla, wiped her mouth off with a napkin. “When we finish here, I want to take a run out to the Wolff house. The second interview with Todd Wolff is scheduled for two o’clock. Corinne’s whole family came to Forensic Medical this morning, did I tell you that?”
“No.”
“Yeah, well, they were all in the lobby when I left the autopsy. It was miserable. They told me Todd took Hayden to his parents’ house. Do you know where they live?”
“Not offhand. Did they say it was far?”
“Didn’t say. I haven’t gotten a call telling me he isn’t going to make round two, so I assume it’s close by. Think he’ll show up with a lawyer?”
Fitz rolled his eyes. “If he knows what’s good for him, but with any luck, no.”
“We can tag team him, see if he’s come up with anything else. The autopsy was pretty straightforward. Someone beat the living hell out of Corinne. There were signs of strangulation too. I want to look closer into Mr. Wolff’s days away.” She set her fork down on the edge of the plate, suddenly not hungry.
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