Rainey Nights

by R. E. Bradshaw

  “Ernie’s still here. Just walk through, be nice, and I’ll explain that Danny’s coming and you need to change. I’ll even make you a sandwich, okay?”

  “Come here,” Rainey said. Making sure her arm was on the outside this time, she hugged Katie and kissed her. “Thank you. That would be fantastic.”

  Rainey followed Katie into the house. She detoured into the kitchen long enough to grab an ice pack from the freezer. Ernie tried to question Rainey. Katie interceded, which she greatly appreciated.

  “Rainey wants to put on a clean shirt and Danny is on his way in.”

  “I love you, Ernie, but I know you have a thousand questions, and I just can’t answer them right now,” Rainey added.

  Ernie looked at Rainey with concern, but she didn’t push the issue. She said, “I’m going to go on home, now.” Then uncharacteristic of their usual teasing banter, she added, “I love you, Rainey. Be safe.”

  “Watch your back, Ernie. I love you, too.” Rainey bowed out and went to the master bedroom.

  She pulled off the black turtleneck she was wearing, careful of her bruised shoulder, and tossed it into the hamper. She looked in the mirror at the swelling contusion and winced. The bullet may not have pierced the skin, but an object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an unbalanced force. A thirty-eight caliber bullet could travel anywhere between six hundred and ninety to upwards of eleven hundred feet per second, depending on the load. The law of inertia was clearly visible on Rainey’s skin. She reached down to pick up the icepack from the bathroom sink just as Katie appeared in the doorway. Katie saw the bruise and reacted.

  “Jesus Rainey, that wasn’t a graze was it? He shot you.”

  Rainey covered the bruise with the ice pack, flinching when the frosty plastic hit her tender skin. “It hit my vest. No harm done.”

  Katie turned pale and looked sick. She backed up and sat down on the trunk at the end of the bed. Rainey followed her into the bedroom. She knelt down in front of Katie, still holding the ice to her shoulder.

  “Hey, it’s okay, really. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “Three inches higher and I’d be picking out your funeral clothes,” Katie snapped. She looked into Rainey’s eyes and said, “I can’t live like this.”

  The statement hit Rainey hard. She stood up and took a step back. After a moment, she went back to the bathroom. Katie remained silent. Rainey taped the icepack to her upper arm with athletic tape, splashed water on her face, and then stared in the mirror as she dried her skin. “Fuck it,” she said, to no one. She walked into the bedroom where Katie sat, still stunned. Finding a sweatshirt in the drawer of the dresser, Rainey eased it on, careful with her shoulder. She turned to Katie finally.

  “Katie, now is not the time to have this conversation. Danny is here and I have to talk to him. So, if you think you can live with it just a little bit longer, I’ll be available to have this discussion in about an hour.” The sarcasm was intentional.

  “Rainey, I didn’t…”

  “Save it. You said what you meant.”

  Katie protested, “Hey, wait a minute.”

  “No, you wait a minute. I’ve bent over backwards to insulate you from what I do for a living. This has nothing to do with my FBI career. You can hold me responsible for not telling you someone from my past might come after me, but you knew this was my job. I don’t know what else I can do about that.” Frustrated, Rainey stormed out of the bedroom and went to the living room to fix a drink.

  By the time Rainey walked in the room, where Danny and Ernie were waiting, she was mad as hell. Ernie took one look at Rainey and did not say a word, just picked up her purse, told Danny goodbye, and exited the cottage. Rainey poured a drink without speaking to Danny. She hadn’t been this angry in a very long time. The waves of fury just kept coming. A voice in her head said this was more than an argument with Katie. This rage was coming from everything that happened today and long before. She walked by Danny, going into the kitchen, disarmed the alarm on the backdoor, and stepped out onto the deck. She slammed her fist on the deck railing.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

  A light tap on the door alerted her to Danny’s presence. She turned to see him in the doorway.

  “May I come out there or would you rather continue to abuse the woodwork a bit longer?”

  Rainey glared at him, unspeaking.

  “Let me see, either you’re mad cause you got into a fight with Katie or you’re mad cause you almost got killed. Which is it?”

  Rainey was off on a much-needed rant. She didn’t have them often. In fact, she once heard herself referred to, by a fellow agent, as having ice water in her veins. She remained tight vested with most of her feelings, but on rare occasions she would vent. When she finally blew up, Danny was often the sounding board. He was probably expecting it.

  Rainey turned and shouted at Danny. “I am pissed that I didn’t climb those stairs and strangle the shit out of that kid for almost shooting me in the head. I could kill that fucking cop that didn’t do his goddamn job and got me shot. I am livid that I let that happen, because I wasn’t focused enough to do my job. And most of all, I am really fucking pissed that you didn’t tell me about Dalton Chambers being moved to within twenty miles of me. Jesus Christ, Danny, what were you thinking?”

  Danny remained silent. He sensed she wasn’t finished.

  Rainey paused, took a deep breath, and then continued with less venom and volume. “I terrified Katie, not once, but twice today. Once, by telling her that a serial killer is again threatening our lives and then nearly dying shortly after. And to top it all off, she says she can’t live like this. She’s scared that every time I walk out the door it will be the last time.”

  Danny who never took it easy on Rainey, said, “I can’t believe you didn’t see that coming.”

  “She knew who and what I was when she met me. I’m not giving up the bond business. It’s all I have left.”

  Danny spoke softly, “You have her. Isn’t that enough? Let someone else do the criminal catching. Sit in the office, go fishing, enjoy your life.”

  The words left Rainey’s mouth, before she really thought them, “What if that is not enough? What if I can’t live like that?”

  “I was wondering when your feet were going to come back to the ground. You know our relationships rarely work. It’s not a bed of roses for Katie, either. Welcome to the real world.”

  “What does she expect from me?”

  Danny tilted his head and wrinkled his brow in question. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “No, enlighten me,” Rainey shot back.

  “Rainey, everybody is not like us. They can’t turn their emotions on and off.”

  “That’s funny. I can’t seem to turn them off these days.”

  Danny pointed a finger at Rainey. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. Something horrible happened to you. You dealt with it and now you’re moving on. You may have some residual fears and distrust, but you put the big hurts and terrors in a box and filed them away for future study.”

  Rainey interrupted, “I’m not as cold blooded as everybody thinks.”

  “I didn’t say you were. I, of all people, know what you went through.”

  “I had to let it go, Danny. When I met Katie that was easier to do.”

  “You’ve had more training and time, than Katie, to come to that conclusion. Nine months ago, her world was turned upside down. Is it too much to ask for her to want some safety and security for a while? You’re out there kicking in a major violent felon’s door, and for what, twenty grand? You know you shouldn’t have bailed him out in the first place. You did it for the money. Why, because of Katie wanting a new house.”

  Ernie had obviously been shooting her mouth off. Rainey had the money to build a house without Katie’s help. She invested well and had her Bureau severance, but it was all tied up in accounts with penalties if she touched it. So she took Chauncey as a client when no one else wo
uld. She knew he was a risk, but she wanted to pad her bank account a bit with all the expenses they were about to have with the house and a baby. Danny was right. She’d taken a lot of sketchy clients lately. It didn’t matter to Rainey that Katie could finance it all and not put a dent in her trust. It was just part of Rainey’s character that she needed to pull her own weight. Rainey tried to speak, but Danny wouldn’t let her.

  He continued his analysis of Rainey’s situation. “Rainey, you jumped into this relationship during the worst possible time. You were already traumatized and then you were re-victimized by the same attacker. In the middle of a fight for both your lives, you found each other. You’ve studied human behavior as much as anybody. You know the adrenaline of new love is wearing off. The glasses of romantic illusion are losing their power. The day-to-day realities of what you did and do for a living are finally hitting home with Katie, and you are realizing that maybe you made a mistake subjecting her to this. I think the question is, what do you expect from her?”

  The doggie door popped opened, startling both of them. Freddie ran by, as if something were chasing him. Rainey looked in through the kitchen window. Katie was loading the dishwasher rather forcefully. Rainey thought Freddie had the right idea in running. Rainey looked back at Danny, whose attention had been drawn to the blonde slamming pots and pans around. They couldn’t see her face or hear her voice, but her body language strongly suggested that Katie was mumbling under her breath. Rainey knew most of what Katie was saying had her name spattered in it a few times, probably with, “Fuck you,” in front of it.

  “Hell hath no fury…” Danny said, chuckling.

  “How would you know? You haven’t kept one long enough to make her that mad.”

  “So, are you going in there?”

  Rainey shook her head from side to side. In her best Carolina hick accent, she said, “No. That there, Danny, is an extremely angry little ball of fire. I’m not touching it until it burns down to an ember.” Rainey rubbed her aching shoulder, before adding, “Let’s go down to the office. I have some bourbon down there, and I’m thinking I’m going to need a whole lot more to drink, before this night is over.”

  Danny laughed and followed her down the back steps. “You stay gone too long, and those embers might turn to ashes.”

  “Danny, why do you think you know so much about women? I am one, and half the time I can’t figure her out.”

  Danny retorted, “I don’t have to know much about women. I know you and what a pain in the ass you can be.”

  #

  “So, what did you find?” Rainey asked, pouring them both a drink.

  Danny sat in one of the old leather chairs in front of Rainey’s desk. Rainey had calmed down considerably and was now focused on finding out what Dalton had been up to. Danny pulled a small notebook from his inside coat pocket and began flipping pages. Rainey approached with his drink and put it on the table. She sat in the chair beside him, took a drink, and laid her head back.

  While Danny organized his thoughts, Rainey organized her mental boxes. She closed the one where she put Katie, and all that came with her, when she needed to focus elsewhere. The box for the bail bond business, another one where her fears and doubts resided, and all the boxes not needed for the task of the moment were snapped shut. Then she opened the one containing her behavioral analyst tools, along with one of the other dusty containers in the corners of her mind, Dalton’s box. Rainey was the expert on Dalton Chambers. If anyone knew his motives, it was Rainey. This old box had been closed for three years. She was preparing herself to do battle with Dalton, again. If she let her emotions run wild, she wouldn’t be able to process the information Danny needed to nail this fucker once and for all.

  Danny took a sip of his drink, before he began. “Rainey, I tossed his cell. I mean we tore it apart. There was no obvious communication between Chamber’s and his copycat. I found lots of correspondence, but none that jumped out at me as anything other than the basic serial killer fan bullshit. There were church bulletins from several churches, a few books on psychology, and a bible, of course. We took it all, every shred of paper we could find. I sent it all to Quantico.”

  Rainey did not open her eyes when she asked, “What are you not telling me? I hear it in your voice and you’ve never needed to read from that damn notebook the whole time I’ve known you. You could recite whole crime scenes by heart. So, you were just killing time, trying to figure out how to tell me they screwed up and let stuff get through to him that he should not have.”

  Danny cleared his throat. “I found a bunch of newspaper articles. They were all from last summer. All the details he would need to find you were in those articles. He highlighted your address, Katie’s name, her parents’ names, your mother’s name, Ernie, and Mackie’s, too. He had the pictures that went with the articles, as well. He also had the stories on your father’s murder. These were all copied on computer paper from the originals, and stuck inside his legal papers. It would have been easy to miss them. If it came in a package marked legal, all they could do was search for contraband, they couldn’t read any of it.”

  Rainey remained perfectly still. “Does he still have that female lawyer, the one who wanted to marry him?”

  “Yep. She saw him on the day he left ‘The Onion.’ Someone from the Roanoke field office has been sent to pick her up. A night sitting in an interview room should loosen her tongue. We’ll know if she gave him the information on you, by morning.”

  Rainey’s eyes remained closed. “What exactly did Dalton say when he saw you?”

  Danny didn’t sugarcoat his answer. He repeated the conversation verbatim. “He said, ‘Agent McNally, what a distinct non-pleasure. So, Rainey Bell is a dyke. I guess that makes you a faggot. Come to save the dyke’s ass, have you? I can’t see why. She prefers pussy. Now, you really don’t stand a chance.”

  Rainey remained still. She did not react to Danny’s statement.

  Danny was quiet for a few moments, and then he said, “Rainey, the team is here in Durham. We’re going to stay on this until we find this guy. Trust me when I say, I will not rest until you and your family are safe.”

  Rainey finally raised her head from the back of the chair. She finished her drink in one big gulp, before she spoke. “I will never be safe, as long as people like Dalton are out there; I will continually be looking over my shoulder. You and I both know there will always be Daltons to contend with. The best thing I can do is hope I see them coming. Other than that, my life is forever fucked.”

  Danny tried to placate her mood, somewhat. “You put yourself in the line of fire for the greater good. It is unfortunate that the events of last summer made you vulnerable. Everyone knows who you are and what you look like. Some asshole is always going to want to challenge you. I know you didn’t ask for this and I wish it hadn’t happened, but you are a highly skilled former FBI agent. You can survive this. Look what you’ve already lived through. Your training saved your life and Katie’s. Trust your instincts Rainey. You have one of the best minds of all the agents I know. You can figure out how to live without fear.”

  “It’s Katie, Danny. When she gets in my head, I don’t think straight. Pardon the pun. I’m afraid I won’t hear my little voice telling me what to do, because my focus is on keeping her safe. My being shot today was a direct result of not paying close attention to the details. She blurs the details. I’m afraid she can’t stay with me. I’m afraid I’ll have to let her go, because I love her too much to let her stay.”

  “Fear is freezing you, don’t you see that? Stop being afraid of losing her and start making sure you can keep her. Go proactive. Help me find this guy. You know Dalton better than anyone, who are we looking for?”

  “I can’t actively be involved in the investigation. That would scare Katie to death, but I will give you my opinion, and then you and the team are on your own. My job is to keep my family alive.”

  In Rainey’s mind, Ernie and Mackie were part of her family. They were
really all she had left, except for Katie, and she wasn’t sure how much more of this Katie would take. She would have to call her mother, which she dreaded immensely, but it was the right thing to do. Her mother and stepfather were in danger, just like the rest of them, even if Rainey never really spent any time with them.

  Danny picked up a pen from Rainey’s desk, poised to take notes. He said, “Okay, fair enough. Just tell me what you think and I’ll share it with the team.”

  Rainey stood up, walked to the counter, and poured another drink. She offered the bottle to Danny. He put his hand over his still full glass and waited for her to begin.

  Rainey didn’t sit back down. She walked over to the window and peered into the darkness at the lake. She watched the tiny lights on a small boat, as it slowly passed the end of the dock, headed to the boat ramp just south of Rainey’s property. The lake closed to boat traffic at nine p.m. She let her mind wander, while it sorted through her encyclopedia of Dalton Chambers knowledge. When she was ready, she turned to Danny and began.

  “The differences in the case, here in Durham, and Dalton’s crimes are what sticks out to me. The body was left in the death position for some time, before it and the head were packaged and thrown in the river. Why did he move the body? Was he trying to conceal it, or was he making sure it would be found, or did he panic and lose focus? The kill sight was probably on public land like Dalton’s. There isn’t much privacy here in the triangle, unlike where Dalton committed his murders. In order to have the seclusion he would need, for the amount of time he spends with the victims, he chose a place where he was positive no one would find him. That makes me think of avid hikers, hunters, even farmers in the area around the river, someone who knows the lay of the land.”

  Rainey took a drink and began to pace. Her mind focused on the details. Things began to click. “I don’t think this guy is a controlled killer like Dalton. He may develop into one, but right now he is learning. He followed his instructions to create a copycat crime, but somewhere along the way I think he panicked, probably when the head came off. He is not a practiced killer. I think this victim may have been his first. When the next body is found, I think you will see signs of more control. The first kill didn’t turn him off. I’m sure he killed the woman that is still missing. There are too many coincidences in how the victims were taken, who the victims were, and where they were last seen. The most obvious difference in these victims and Dalton’s is they were not virgins, or even attempting to appear that way. From the reports I saw, I gathered these were staunch lesbians. How does a man get that type of woman to go willingly with him? He must use a ruse similar to Bundy. The ‘man in need of help’ con is my bet.”