‘I don’t get it.’
A long pause.
‘Look,’ Saleda said, ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this over the phone, since the locals want to get your objective opinion walking in, but you should probably be ready for what you’re going into. A group of masked people stormed a bank in town this morning. They didn’t take a thing, but they killed everyone inside. Everyone. And it was apparently brutal, Jenna.’
Jenna tore her eyes from Ayana. Even after all the years she’d gone after monsters – serial killers, rapists, and mobsters – as a forensic psychiatrist with the FBI, she still couldn’t stand to talk or hear about the gruesome crimes she investigated with her daughter’s innocent face in front of her.
‘That still doesn’t explain why they’re calling us in,’ Jenna said. They were based in DC, sure, but the FBI didn’t have jurisdiction here unless there were crimes across state lines or there’d been a kidnapping.
‘Locals invited us to consult,’ Saleda said.
Or that.
Mass murder at a bank where nothing was taken. Surely someone was missing something. Unusual, though, the locals thinking they needed the FBI.
‘They’d usually rather have a serial who kills their own family before they bring us in,’ Jenna muttered.
‘Yeah, but maybe they’re afraid this time, it could be their families,’ Saleda replied. ‘Jenna, twenty-one deaths, not a robbery, and no sign of motive except …’
‘Except what?’ Jenna blurted, impatient.
‘I know this is your little one’s first day at school and everything, and I don’t want to make any of this worse for you or make you more nervous than you are …’
Jenna’s chest tightened. ‘Unless you tell me Claudia is responsible for this, I doubt I’ll be more worried than I already am,’ she lied. Even though she’d arranged with the school for her brother, her father, and Ayana’s dad’s cop brother Victor to stay with Ayana all day at preschool with explicit instructions that A was to remain in their line of vision at all times, she still would never be confident her mother couldn’t weasel her way in if she wanted to.
‘All right,’ Saleda said, her voice grave. ‘They left a message at the crime scene. It says no one in the city is safe. Whoever they are, they promise they’re going to attack again.’
Three
Jenna Ramey pulled her beat-up Blazer into a church parking lot across the street from the bank. The police had setup a command center from the spot, and she’d need to check in. After putting the SUV into park, Jenna shot off a quick text to Charley, asking if Ayana was OK.
She sent the same one to both Vern and Victor – someone bad could intercept one phone easily, but three phones would make it harder to contaminate the message. If Claudia did get in, Jenna would find out from one of the three. Not to mention they had a list of safe words to respond to her check-ins, and none possessed a written version of the passwords that would change depending on what time she texted. Claudia had no way to possibly know, so if something went wrong, the wrong word back to Jenna from any of the three would tip her off fast.
Jenna looked out at the crowd of cops swarming the parking lot as she waited for replies, and her gaze met Saleda’s. Her superior waved for her to come on over, the raised eyebrows and bugged out eyes telling Jenna that Saleda’s patience was thin. She glanced back down at her phone. The red light blinked.
A text from Victor: Plankton.
She backed out of it and opened another from her father.
Disarray, Vern’s text read.
Nothing from Charley yet, but Jenna smiled. Both of those were the right responses. Everything was fine.
She turned off her ignition, climbed out of the Blazer, and strode toward Saleda.
‘Glad you could make it and finish your favorite song at the same time,’ Saleda griped.
Jenna ignored the snipe. ‘The rest on the way, or is Dodd getting the jump on us as usual?’
Saleda glanced toward the bank. ‘Porter and Teva are on their way from Quantico together. I assumed Dodd was on his way, too, but now that you mention it, we should probably check and make sure he’s not already inside. He does like to do that.’
‘So, close to a dozen UNSUBs stormed this area this morning with weapons and slaughtered everyone inside,’ Jenna reviewed, a convenient change of the subject. ‘They didn’t take anything, but all the perps made a clean getaway before first responders arrived, correct?’
Saleda nodded. ‘That’s what I understand. All they left behind were dead bodies and a note. Irv should have an image of it on our tablets by now.’
As Jenna fussed with her touchpad, waited for it to power up, Saleda continued. ‘We don’t have an exact headcount of the perpetrators yet. No one in the immediate area canvassed so far has any useful information, but we’re still working on it since a few people at buildings nearby at the time have yet to be located.’
The image of the note left inside the bank by the perpetrators popped up on Jenna’s screen, and she and Saleda huddled closer to read it simultaneously:
The past is over and done. We must concern ourselves with the things that are to come. Do you feel it? The suggestion that begins to creep into your mind? That undefinable something that is present in one thing before you, yet lacking in another. You cannot describe it. You cannot tell just what it is. It will take a sharp instinct to detect and perceive it. Do not linger where you stand, but concern yourselves with where you will go from here, for there is not much time. We are coming, and you will not know when, until you can look past these menial words on what will become this glorified piece of paper, you will not grasp it and move on. We are coming. We have moved on.
‘Well that’s … formal,’ Jenna said, not too sure what to make of the communications the killers had left. ‘Any other evidence? Weapons? Surveillance footage?’
‘Weapons were all blades, from the looks of the victims, apparently, but I don’t have anything more specific than that. Video surveillance at the bank was MIA – from inside the building, the parking lot, and the drive-through teller. Guess they took it with them.’
The first color of the day flashed in Jenna’s mind. She noted it, catalogued it, then let it go. There would be way more, and that one couldn’t possibly mean anything yet. Not until she walked the crime scene and could put it together with some of the rest of this madness.
Saleda and Jenna showed their badges to the cop manning the police-taped outline of the bank’s property. He checked and double-checked their faces, then triple-checked by OKing them with the cops at the command center across the street as well as the one in charge of the scene on this side of the road.
Finally, he nodded. ‘You can come on in.’
Jenna and Saleda ducked under the tape and headed toward the door, but the cop who’d checked them out walked with them, abandoning his post.
‘Don’t you think you’d better stay put at the divider, buddy?’ Saleda jibed, her tone more chastising than inquiring.
‘Actually, Lieutenant Zarecki asked me to walk you up,’ the cop replied, nodding to the cop at the door, who jogged toward the crime scene tape to take over there.
An escort. How fancy. Whether it implied their importance or that the locals wanted to keep them on a tight leash was yet to be seen.
As they neared the door, the young cop stopped and turned. ‘I should warn you, it’s not pretty. Might want to put something over your lip to smell instead of the bodies if you carry anything.’
Jenna fished into her pocket and dabbed a dot of vanilla extract under her nose, then handed the tiny bottle to Saleda. What the hell could’ve happened in here that was so bad it prompted so many warnings?
While Saleda rubbed vanilla over her lip, too, the cop stared at Jenna. After a long moment, he finally opened his mouth, gaping, then half-laughed and pointed a finger at her. ‘Jenna Ramey. Doctor Jenna Ramey, right? You’re Doctor Jenna Ramey, aren’t you?’
Jenna’s neck muscles stiffened at the star-struck
quality of the cop’s voice. God, this had gotten old. ‘Yeah. I’m her, all right.’
He shook his head, a wide smile crossing his face. ‘I just can’t believe I’m meeting you! I’ve heard so much about you!’
You and everyone else I’ve ever talked to.
He glanced from her, toward the crime scene, and back again. ‘So, you’re going to … you’re really gonna …’
‘Yes,’ Jenna snapped, trying hard to keep the annoyance out of her voice. It wasn’t his fault she was famous for being able to discern things about crimes based on the colors she associated with everything from letters and numbers to people and gut feelings. To him, grapheme-color synesthesia must sound like the cool super power everyone else thought it was.
‘We’d better go before you ask for her autograph, because I didn’t bring a pen,’ Saleda said, handing the bottle back to Jenna.
‘Right,’ the cop said. He looked at Jenna, to the bank, and back again. ‘Well, um … good luck with … it.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, even though the word was really meant for Saleda and her rescue.
A step away, Saleda leaned in toward her. ‘Don’t mention it.’
They stopped right in front of the door.
‘Ready?’ Saleda asked.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ Jenna replied.
With that, Saleda swung the door open.
Despite what she’d just said, Jenna wasn’t ready for the sight that hit her. Two bodies were splayed out on the polished marble floors next to a cheery sign advertising mortgage loan services and free online checking accounts, another was slumped against the wall surrounded by scattered, blood-smeared deposit slips. Some body parts were strewn around at random, turning the scene of what would at any other time be the most mundane of errands into a sickening, bloody canvas. A dead woman’s body was suspended awkwardly in the air over where, presumably, her waist had caught the velvet roping on its way to the floor. A man in a pool of red, the pen chained to the counter next to him dangling above his head.
But even the horrors of the blood and gore weren’t the biggest problems.
The worst part of the scene was the way the colors seemed to fly at Jenna, changing and morphing with every direction she looked. Never had she experienced this sort of wild, chaotic display of hues in her own mind at a crime scene, been unable to organize and process what they could possibly mean.
Jenna closed her eyes, shutting them all down.
‘Saleda, I can’t handle this. I’ve gotta get out of here.’
Four
Outside the bank, Saleda handed Jenna a coffee, and Jenna took a few long, deep breaths. She took a quick sip, closed her eyes.
‘So, you want to tell me what happened in there?’ Saleda asked, leaning against the stone wall outside the building next to Jenna.
Like I can explain this …
‘Too many colors,’ she said, hoping for understanding and not a ton of questions.
‘Come again?’
‘I … um …’ Jenna took another sip of the piping hot coffee, searching herself for words. ‘I couldn’t handle the colors I started to associate with each murder I saw. There are a lot of different ones.’ To say the least.
Saleda let out a half-laugh. ‘Thank God. I thought for a minute you were going soft on me.’
Jenna smirked. ‘Hardly. I can handle the awful murder scene. It’s just that the colors in my brain started making me dizzy. I’ll be fine to go back in in a minute now that I’m ready for it. I think. I’m honestly not sure how to process this one. I could look at one segment of the room at a time, but I probably need to assess the crime as whole, too, if we want to get a feel for the full picture.’
Though if I knew more about the full picture, separating it would be more helpful.
A cop to their left cleared his throat, and Saleda looked toward him. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m sorry, Special Agent Ovarez, but my commanding officer sent me out to tell you. Thought you’d want to know. We’ve found something else …’
‘Another body?’ Saleda asked.
The guy with the short, dark crew cut shook his head. ‘No, ma’am. Well, kind of, maybe …’
‘Out with it,’ Saleda said.
‘Another person,’ the young officer replied. ‘A live person. One who says she was here when the attack started.’
Jenna sat down across from the female employee who’d been found by the local cops closed inside the bank vault. The woman wore a navy pants suit – smart, tailored to fit her. She was seated in a metal folding chair, but even so, Jenna could tell she was short in stature. Five-foot-three, maybe, at most.
The woman tucked a strand of her copper-blonde, shoulder-length hair behind her ear. Her eyes were wide and fearful, and her pupils darted toward the door. ‘Who are you? What happened to Officer Zarecki?’
‘Hi, Ashlee. My name is Dr Jenna Ramey. I’m a forensic psychiatrist with the FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions.’
‘Psychiatrist?’ Ashlee asked. She glanced at the door again, her hands folded tightly in her lap.
‘Don’t worry, Ashlee. I’m not here to analyze you. It’s my job to try to put together the things we know about the crime and give the police officers and the FBI any information I can that might help them understand the mind of the individuals they’re looking for. Let’s talk about the incident,’ Jenna said, careful not to call the scene upstairs a crime or refer to the murders in any way. If this woman was downstairs, it was possible she had seen none of the crime, all of it, or anything in between, and Jenna needed this information straight from her without putting any ideas in her head. ‘Is that OK?’
Ashlee nodded wordlessly.
‘All right. Just try to tell me what you remember. That’s all I need from you,’ Jenna said. She’d had to give too many interviews just like this back when she’d been the sole reason her mother had been arrested. Even as a pre-teen, her nerves had felt over the edge. And that was with only one killer stalking around, never mind the gang of them that had taken the bank by storm. Ashlee had to be terrified, and her mind was probably clouded by fear and overwhelmed at best. ‘What was the first moment that you noticed something out of the everyday bank workings was going on?’
The woman sat there for a moment, quiet. She closed her eyes as though trying to see the scene in her mind. She winced. Folded her lips.
‘I heard someone scream. A woman. It sounded like she was near the door,’ she said softly.
‘OK, good. Where were you when you heard the scream?’
‘In the drive-through teller room. Behind the teller line inside the bank,’ Ashlee said, her words fast and clipped, a touch of panic in her tone.
‘OK. And what happened after you heard the scream?’ Jenna asked, hoping for her own selfish purposes that the bank entrance had been within Ashlee’s sightlines from where she was in the drive-through room and that Ashlee had looked toward it.
‘I turned in the direction of the scream as I backed up closer to the wall. The yells and rushing movement out of the corner of my eye scared me. I didn’t even know what exactly was happening yet, but it was just a gut instinct,’ Ashlee replied, her eyes still closed. ‘I couldn’t see a lot from where I was pressed up by the wall, but I could make out lots of black figures moving, sprays of red. It took my brain a second to process that I was seeing people being killed.’
Damn.
‘How many black figures did you see?’
Ashlee shrugged, eyes squeezed tighter. ‘I have no idea. It was such a blur. But a lot. More than you’d expect. They seemed to be pouring in the door.’
‘Right,’ Jenna said, nodding. ‘What happened after you realized what the figures were doing?’
‘I dropped down to my knees by the wall, but I knew sooner or later they’d notice me. I’d seen them, after all. I kept thinking the only way I’d be OK was if I could get out before they noticed me. I crawled out of the room and went under the teller counter for
cover, then I crawled to the left, toward the exit that leads downstairs to here,’ Ashlee said. ‘I stopped at the edge of the desk to try to peek out, see if I could make it without being seen.’
‘OK,’ Jenna said, waiting patiently for the next piece of the story. Obviously, Ashlee had made it downstairs alive. This was one suspense story where they knew at least the end of the chapter. The main character in this particular portion had made it.
‘One of the figures grabbed my wrist,’ she said.
Jenna forced herself not to react.
How the heck had she gotten away?
Jenna nodded. ‘What next?’
‘The person spoke. A man,’ Ashlee replied.
Now she was wringing her hands in her lap, though her eyes remained shut. She shook her head profusely like she was trying to tell her own memory to forget, to not relive the nightmare.
‘I begged him not to kill me. I held my other arm over my face, like I could protect myself. He could’ve just stabbed my stomach. Stupid.’
‘Why did you think he would stab you?’ Jenna asked.
‘He had a weapon. Some kind of knife.’
‘What did it look like?’
Ashlee squeezed her eyes tighter, and a tear trickled down her cheek. ‘Long. I don’t know. I can’t remember. He had something like a knife. All of them did. Only they were different, too.’
‘That’s OK,’ Jenna said. Eyewitnesses always made poor witnesses, unfortunately. ‘When he spoke, what did he say?’
‘He told me to take him to the safe. I kept begging him not to kill me. I figured I’d open the safe, let him clean it out. All I could think about was my family. They train us what to do during a robbery – how to call for help with silent alarms, stuff like that. But in the moment, I didn’t think of any of that. I could only think about doing what he said so I could go home.’
‘Understandable,’ Jenna replied, calm and smooth. She needed to give the witness confidence, help her trust her own instincts. If she didn’t, Ashlee could clam up. ‘Anyone with half a brain would be sensitive to that. What happened next?’
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