Firewalk

by Chris Roberson

  Though she was there for months, Izzie always felt like a visitor to the city, and not simply because she slept in a hotel room and drove a rented car. It was because the longer she stayed in Recondito, the more she discovered about the place, and the more she realized there was left to discover. It was like one of those fractal images that revealed an ever-increasing amount of detail the closer you looked at them. When she finally left, she could navigate the city’s streets with ease, knew the best places to eat and the best bars for a late-night drink, but still felt as though she was only beginning to scratch the surface of the city.

  She hadn’t expected ever to return, and after the way her last visit had ended she was not entirely sanguine about returning now. But Patrick had insisted that he had something that she needed to see. Something about the Reaper case that only she would understand.

  So here she was, back in the Hidden City again after all this time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The junior agent from the Resident Agency was waiting in baggage claim with a sign on which she’d written “LEFEVRE” in neat block letters, and was dressed in a white shirt, dark pantsuit, and low-heeled boots. She had graduated from the FBI Academy at Quantico so she couldn’t be any younger than her mid-twenties, but Izzie couldn’t help thinking that she looked like she should still be in middle school. Had Izzie ever been that young?

  “Agent Lefevre?” she said as Izzie approached, holding the sign in both hands. Her voice had a tentative edge to it, like a fan approaching a pop star to ask for an autograph.

  “That’s me,” Izzie answered. In her suede jacket, T-shirt, and jeans, she might have passed for an academic on vacation, or a session musician between gigs.

  “Special Agent Daphne Richardson.” She lowered the sign and stuck out a hand to shake. “It’s an honor, ma’am.”

  “Please, call me Izzie.” Daphne was probably only a year or two younger than Izzie had been when she’d first come to Recondito, and here she was treating her like a grand dame. Maybe she did want an autograph, after all.

  “Do you have any … ?” Daphne glanced over at the baggage carousels. “We’re not in any hurry if we need to wait.”

  “This is it.” Izzie hiked the strap of her go-bag higher on her shoulder. “Ready when you are.”

  Daphne was absentmindedly folding the sign into a tight bundle, the corners neat and precise. “My bureau car is parked in short term.” She started walking towards the exit, glancing over her shoulder as Izzie followed. “We’ve already got you checked in at the extended stay hotel across the street from the R.A. offices, if you want to stop in and freshen up.”

  “No need.” Izzie ran a hand through her braids. Her grandmother would have scolded her for letting them get so fuzzy, she was sure, but Izzie had more important matters to worry about. Like why she had abruptly returned to Recondito in the first place, and whether she would be getting any static from the Senior Resident Agent for the somewhat-flimsy justification for her presence. “I’d rather check in with the SRA sooner rather than later, and get to work.”

  “Agent Gutierrez is meeting with the chief of the Recondito police at the moment, but he said he would probably be back at the office by the time we got there.”

  Izzie tried not to see that as a red flag. From what she’d gathered from talking with Patrick Tevake, he hadn’t been entirely forthcoming with his superiors about the connections he’d found between his present investigations and the Reaper case, for fear that they’d order him to undergo a psych evaluation at best, and put him on suspension at worst. If the Bureau suspected that there was more to Izzie’s visit to the city than she’d let on, that could prove problematic for both of them.

  And it was still entirely possible that Patrick was mistaken, after all. Maybe a psych evaluation wasn’t the worst idea. But she wanted to see for herself first, and then decide what to do when she had all of the facts at her disposal. It had taken a long medical leave and months of counseling for her to get back into fighting trim after she left Recondito the last time. Until Patrick had called the day before, Izzie had been convinced that the party line on Nicholas Fuller was the correct answer. But if what Patrick had told her was true….

  “This is me.” Daphne pulled a key ring from her pocket, and turned off the car alarm with a short pair of beeps. Her bureau-issued “bucar” was a late-model compact hybrid with government plates. She popped the trunk for Izzie to toss in her go-bag, and then settled into the driver’s seat while Izzie buckled up on the passenger side. When she turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. She rolled her eyes. “I really need to get this thing serviced. I think it’s a problem with the battery, but I’m not sure.” She turned the key back to the starting position, then tried again.

  The engine started, but the sound of it was all but completely drowned out by cumbia music that blared from the speakers at a deafening volume.

  “Sorry!” Daphne said sheepishly, blushing, and quickly stabbed the off button on the car stereo. “I did a stint at the field office in San Antonio and picked up a taste for it.”

  “Doesn’t hurt my feelings.” Izzie grinned. “Though I prefer zydeco, myself.”

  Daphne eased the car out of the parking spot and navigated through the garage. “Maybe we should go dancing some night while you’re in town.” She laughed, half-joking and clearly half-serious. “There’s a great little club down in Oceanview I go to sometimes.”

  “Maybe,” Izzie allowed, though it didn’t seem likely.

  It had been late spring when last Izzie was in Recondito, with clear blue skies occasionally punctuated by pouring rain. Now it was coming on winter, with slate gray skies and days that seemed to end before they even began. It was only late afternoon and already the sun was starting to disappear over the Pacific, and the light that managed to reach down the concrete and steel canyons of the Financial District was ruddy and weak. In the drive from the airport in the South Bay Daphne had kept up a steady stream of pleasantries, pointing out new construction that had gone up in the last few years, recommending taquerias and food carts that had recently opened for business, inoffensive observations about the ways she suspected the city had changed since last Izzie had visited. It was when they were just a few blocks away from the Resident Agency offices that she finally got around to asking the question that Izzie had been expecting from the start.

  “So what was it really like, that night in the lighthouse?”

  Daphne had her eyes on the traffic ahead, both hands on the wheel, but her attention was on Izzie.

  “I read all of the reports when I was still at the Academy,” Daphne went on. “Everyone did, of course. It was required course reading, but still … I would have read them anyway.” Daphne cut her eyes to the side for an instance, tentatively. “You’re kind of a hero of mine.”

  Izzie shifted a little in her seat, uncomfortably. “We were just doing the job.”

  “Henderson’s book had more detail of course,” Daphne said. “But I thought your field reports had more cogent observations.”

  Thomas Henderson had retired from the Bureau a year after they wrapped up the investigation in Recondito. He was on the lecture circuit now, and Izzie had lost track of the number of times she’d switched on the TV to find Henderson appearing as a talking head on some cable news show. He’d made his name with a series of books about his experiences hunting serial killers for the BAU, starting with a best seller about the Reaper case. Having read his field reports in the time that they worked together, Izzie strongly suspected that he’d hired someone else to ghostwrite the book for him. She doubted whether Henderson even knew what phrases like “languid torpor” or “charnel-house smell” even meant. His diction and attitude had never strayed far from the Baltimore streets where he’d started out as a beat cop, no matter where his subsequent career in the Bureau had taken him.

  “Thanks?” Izzie hadn’t meant it to sound like a question, but knew that it did.

  Daphne turned of
f of Prospect Avenue onto Hauser, and Izzie recognized the building that housed the FBI’s Recondito Resident Agency a few blocks up the street. “So?” Daphne said. “What was it really like?”

  Izzie sighed, and forced a smile. “It was a rough night, I’ll admit, but it worked out all right in the end.”

  Assuming, of course, that it really did end….

  The offices of the Resident Agency were pretty much as Izzie had remembered them from the months that she spent there five years before. The computers had been upgraded and the phone system replaced, but otherwise the desks and cubicles of the small bullpen were the same as they’d been when she’d been assigned to the Reaper task force. She was pretty sure that all of the tongue-in-cheek motivational posters and comic strips clipped from newspapers pinned to the corkboard were the same ones that had already been yellowing when last she had been there.

  Recondito wasn’t large enough of a city to merit more than a two-person Resident Agency on a regular basis, and though the nearest field office was in San Francisco, due to workload requirements the Recondito office actually reported to the Portland field office. Aside from Daphne and Senior Resident Agent Gutierrez, who were the only two FBI agents on permanent assignment in Recondito, there was a small staff of support personnel who worked in the office on a part-time basis—file clerks, computer technicians, translators— and a custodial crew that serviced the entire building. When Daphne and Izzie arrived, though, the place was empty.

  After signing in, Izzie checked out a few clips worth of ammunition for her semiautomatic from the gun vault, just as a matter of course. She charged a clip into her pistol’s magazine and, after returning it to the hip holster that rode slightly behind her right hipbone, slipped the rest of the clips into an inner pocket of her suede jacket.

  “You can use this desk while you’re here. The phone extension is 214.” Daphne indicated a cubicle along the north wall of the bullpen, opposite the door to the Senior Resident Agent’s office. “Dial ‘9’ to get an outside line, and—”

  “I remember.” Izzie dropped her go-bag onto the desk. “Spent a lot of time on these phones.”

  “Oh.” Daphne seemed a little embarrassed. “Of course.”

  “I’ll probably be using my mobile most of the time.” Izzie patted her right pants pocket. The touch of the smartphone through the fabric of her jeans was strangely comforting, and Izzie resisted the urge to pat her other pockets in sequence, as she did every morning. Like most agents, she could be pretty ritualistic about her equipment, making her own sign of the cross every day before leaving her apartment: phone, FBI credentials, firearm, ammunition, handcuffs.

  Almost every morning, Izzie couldn’t help but remember her grandmother checking her gris-gris bag and charms each day before leaving her house in the Ninth Ward. Mawmaw Jean wouldn’t go out into the world without her defenses, even if there was no reason to suspect that she’d have need of them. It was no different for Izzie, though she was concerned with real-world threats and not superstitious nonsense. A mojo hand might have given an old woman a feeling of security when facing imaginary threats like haints and conjure men, but a sack full of charms, roots, and bits of bone wouldn’t be much use against a sociopath with a gun.

  Of course, Izzie’s pistol and badge hadn’t been much use against a drug-addled schizophrenic with a blade, so it occurred to her that perhaps she shouldn’t be too judgmental.

  Izzie was about to call Patrick Tevake to see when he could meet her at the morgue when the door to the office banged against the wall and a storm came blowing in. The storm was a Latino man in his early forties wearing a dark suit and tie, but the pressure in the room dropped as surely as if a tornado were on its way.

  “Agent Gutierrez,” Daphne said, standing a little straighter. “This is Special Agent Isabel—”

  “I know who she is.” Senior Resident Agent Manuel Gutierrez glowered as he stomped towards the door of his office. “Agent Lefevre, if you wouldn’t mind … ?” He gestured gruffly for Izzie to follow as he stepped inside.

  Izzie exchanged a glance with Daphne, and from her sympathetic expression it seemed as though the junior agent had found herself in the path of a Gutierrez storm front before.

  “Don’t mind at all.” Izzie closed the door to the senior agent’s office behind her.

  When Agent Gutierrez nodded toward the straight-back chair that was positioned across the desk from his own upholstered seat, Izzie sat, crossing one leg over the other casually. “I know that you received my request, but if anything was out of order or there are any points that require clarification I’d be happy to—”

  Agent Gutierrez raised a hand to silence her. “Please. This is not my first rodeo. I go on record as saying that the BAU of course has this office’s complete cooperation in any operational matters.” He lowered his hand and leaned forward, looking at Izzie from under his brows. “Off the record, I’m forced to wonder just what the hell you’re playing at.”

  Izzie kept her expression neutral. “Sir?”

  Agent Gutierrez sat back and put his hands palm down on the desk in front of him, elbows straight. “I’ve been getting an earful all morning from the chief of police and the mayor’s office. This vice cop of yours followed procedure in requesting Bureau assistance in his investigation, but when his captain informed the chief that we were reopening the highest profile murder case this town has seen in forty years, there was understandable cause for concern.” He lifted his hands from the desk, balled them into fists, slowly unclenched them again, repeated the procedure twice and then put his hands back on the desk, palms down and fingers splayed. Izzie recognized an obvious relaxation technique when she saw one, but from the SRA’s posture it was less obvious whether it was working.

  “I’m not suggesting that we reopen the file on Nicholas Fuller,” Izzie said, keeping her voice level. “But Tevake’s findings do suggest that there might be more to the Reaper case that’s left to be uncovered.”

  Again the senior agent’s hands clenched, unclenched, then fingers splayed. “And how exactly would a cop in the narcotics division be in a position to find whatever it is you think he’s found? Your request indicated that it was something in line with the profile that you used to identify Fuller in the first place?”

  Izzie considered her response before answering. “I’m forming a theory, sir. I’ll need to have a look at the material evidence myself before I can say with any certainty.”

  Agent Gutierrez sat back with a ragged sigh. “Okay, Agent Lefevre, have it your way. I’ve assured the police chief and the mayor’s office that the Bureau has no interest in drawing any undue attention to this investigation. My hope is that this is simply a case of an overzealous cop tilting at windmills, and that when you examine the material evidence you’ll find that there’s nothing of interest there. Then you can fly back to Quantico and close the books on this one, once and for all.”

  “Believe me, sir,” Izzie said, “nothing would please me more.”

  Agent Gutierrez nodded a dismissal, and Izzie rose to leave. When she reached the door, the senior agent cleared his throat for her attention. “When I took this post over from Jim Willoughby, it wasn’t long after you and Tom Henderson were here.”

  “Willoughby was a good agent,” Izzie answered.

  “He was a mediocre agent who left this office a total disaster.” Agent Gutierrez grimaced. “His grasp on department organization was tenuous at best, and a dyslexic monkey could have done a better job of filing reports.”

  Izzie flashed a tight, controlled smile. She’d been trying to be polite.

  “But he always spoke very highly of the work you and Henderson did on the Fuller case. He might not have been the best agent, but he knew a good agent when he saw one.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Izzie nodded. “I appreciate you saying that.”

  “Good luck, Lefevre. But I hope to god you don’t find anything.”

  “In all honesty, sir,” she answered, steppin
g out the door, “I sincerely hope there’s nothing to be found.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  When Izzie exited the building, go-bag slung over her shoulder and a room key for the extended-stay hotel across the street in her pocket, she found Patrick Tevake leaning against an unmarked car parked at the curb, dressed in a suit and tie. Izzie knew that he was only in his late thirties, but he looked like he’d aged at least a decade in the last five years, worry lines already forming at the corners of his eyes, flecks of silver in his dark brown hair. He was still muscular and lean, though the years had softened the line of his jaw.

  “Detective Tevake.” Izzie nodded a greeting, one hand on her hip, the other holding the strap of her bag.

  “Agent Lefevre.” Patrick tapped the shield hanging on a chain around his neck. “But it’s lieutenant now. I got promoted.”

  “Well, congratulations.”

  He stuck out his hand, a half-smile tugging the corners of his mouth. “It’s good to see you again, Izzie.”

  Izzie hummed a noncommittal response as she shook his hand. “I thought we were meeting at the morgue.”

  “I was on my way and figured you could use a lift.” Patrick dropped her hand and pulled a smartphone out of his coat pocket. “And I still had your number active in the ‘Find Friends’ app, so I knew where to find you.”

  Izzie reflexively glanced down and patted her pocket, then met his eyes and grinned. “That almost seems creepy, Patrick. Spend a lot of lonely nights tracking my movements, do you?”