Nothing is permanent in
this wicked world. Not even our troubles.
—Charlie Chaplin
4
I smelled the smoke before I’d reached
my apartment door. But that was nothing new. Katie was always
burning something. However, as I stumbled inside and shut the door,
I was surprised to learn the lights in the living room didn’t work.
That was new.
I dropped my bag by the door and picked
my way across the room, toward the kitchen. I successfully
maneuvered around a chair and the coffee table, and a basket full
of unread magazines. Just when I thought the coast was clear, I
slammed into something big and hard, and down I went. Like a bag of
rocks. I cracked my head just before I went totally
horizontal.
“Shit, that hurt.” I lay prostrate on
the floor, cradling my pounding head, pretty stars twinkling in the
blackness. I blinked a few times, waiting for my head to
clear.
Something—sharp—poked my
belly.
“Don’t move or I’ll skewer you like a
shish kebab,” a voice said. I knew that voice.
Oh, no. Not
again.
“Mom, it’s me, Sloan.” I didn’t budge,
didn’t flex a muscle. Didn’t even blink. If my mother was in the
throes of a full-on psychotic episode, she could very well live up
to her promise. Then I’d end up with an unwanted piercing. A very
deep one, at that. When the sharp thing jabbing me in the belly
didn’t move, I repeated, “Mom, it’s Sloan. Why don’t you turn on a
light and you’ll see it’s me.”
“The lights aren’t working.” Her hand
found my head, ran down my face, fingering my nose. Her sigh of
relief was echoed by one of my own. “You have your father’s nose. I
would know it anywhere.” At last, she removed the weapon, and I
breathed freely, without worrying a deep inhalation might cause a
fatal injury.
“What happened to the lights?” I asked,
slowly and carefully sitting up.
“I tried to warn you,” Katie called
from somewhere to my right.
I turned toward my roommate’s voice.
“You said she was disassembling a few small
appliances.”
“Yeah, well, that was before she
decided to use the parts to build some crazy contraption, and
plug it in. She fried the wiring. The power
isn’t just out in our unit. It’s out in the whole building,
Sloan.”
“How was I to know the transformer from
your microwave oven was defective?” my mother snapped, sounding
insulted. “It could’ve caused a fire, you know.”
I could imagine her features twisted
into her trademark injured look, the one she’d used so many times
before with great success. She really did know how to push my
buttons. But now that I couldn’t see her face, I was slightly
immune to her manipulation.
I emphasize, slightly.
“I’m going to bed. I have an early
class tomorrow,” Katie grumbled.
“Good night,” I said, fingering the
sore lump forming on my forehead. Katie was normally a
roll-with-the-punches type of girl. Lately it seemed her patience
with Mom was wearing thin.
Shifting onto my hands and knees, I
felt around me. I found the big thing I’d tripped over. The thing
beside it, the one I’d smashed my head into, was the wood side
table, which usually sat in the room’s corner. “Mom, we’ve talked
about this before. You promised you wouldn’t plug in your
inventions before I’ve had a chance to check them
out.”
“But I kept my word ... for a long
time.”
I sent some seriously mean eyes at the
dark blob standing about five feet away. “In the past twelve hours,
you’ve broken your promise twice. And you’ve fried the electrical
systems in two buildings. I’ve all but emptied my bank account,
paying your landlord off so he won’t evict you. And now this!” My
voice was rising, and I didn’t like that. But the pain drilling
through my head and the exhaustion weighing upon my shoulders was
getting the better of me. I was furious, frustrated, and slightly
panic-stricken. I wouldn’t be getting a paycheck from the FBI for a
couple of weeks. If our landlord was going to come knocking,
looking for compensation for this catastrophe, we were all going on
a crash diet, whether we wanted to lose weight or not.
Truth be told, I could stand to lose a
few pounds, anyway. But not my mother. And definitely not
Katie.
“I’m sorry, Sloan. I was only trying to
help.”
I’d heard that line once, twice ...
okay, a million times. Many eons ago, I quit asking my mom why she
felt she needed to “help” with anything (or more importantly how
her inventions would help). My mother’s logic never made sense to
me. I assumed it was more a failing of my nonschizo-phrenic mind
than a deficiency in her reasoning. When I reached the hallway, I
drummed up the nerve to stand. For safety’s sake, though, I leaned
back against the wall for support. “Mom, are there any surprises in
the hallway?”
“No. But about the sleeping
arrangements ...”
“Yes, of course, you can take my bed,
and I’ll sleep on the couch.” My room was at the end of the hall. I
curled the fingers of my left hand around the door frame and waved
my right arm in front of my body as I blindly picked my way across
the room to the dresser. I pulled the first garments I found out of
my pajama drawer, a T-shirt and a pair of cotton
shorts.
The mattress creaked. “I’m sorry about
the power,” Mom said from the general vicinity of the
bed.
I wanted to scold her again, but I knew
it was useless. My mother did what she felt she needed to do,
regardless of any warnings, dangers, or laws. Nothing I said would
ever change that. The truth was, in her twisted logic, her actions
made sense because she believed she was protecting me. From what, I
suspected, I’d never figure out.
Schizophrenia was a real
bitch.
“Did you take your medicine today?” I
asked as I rolled off my panty hose and threw them, wadded up, onto
the top of my dresser.
“Yes, Sloan. I took every pill. I
always do.”
That was the frustrating part. She did
take her medication, exactly as prescribed. Her doctor had changed
her prescriptions so many times, I’d lost count. And each time,
she’d be better for a little while—the voices and delusions easing
for a few months—but then they’d come back as strong as ever. This
time, the quiet had only lasted a little over two months. I had
more than a sneaking suspicion things were going to head downhill
from here. The doctor had already warned me that they’d exhausted
all drugs currently approved for treating my mother’s disease.
However, because I was an optimist at heart, I decided to put in a
call to his office in the morning. Maybe there’d been a new drug
approved by the FDA since our last visit? Unlikely, sure. But I
could dream.
I shrugged out of my outdated polyester
suit jacket and laid it flat on the dresser. Off came my skirt, my
blouse. It felt like heaven getting into the comfy shorts. “Okay,
Mom. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I need to get some sleep. I had
a big day.”
“All right. Good night,
Sloan.”
“G’night, Mom.”
This time, I had some idea where the
danger zone was as I staggered and groped my way across our living
room. I managed to get to the couch without seriously maiming
myself. I only added a single painful bruise on my shin to my list
of injuries. I set the alarm on my cell phone, after checking the
battery to make sure it wouldn’t die before morning; then I settled
on the couch, hoping I wouldn’t have another one of those bizarre
nightmares.
I didn’t have any nightmares, thank
God. But I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that somebody was
watching me all night long. I must’ve woken at least a dozen times.
Each time, I glanced into the deep shadows clinging to the room’s
corners. I peered out the window. Eventually I fell back into a
dreamless slumber.
When my alarm went off at six-thirty,
my eyelids felt like they were swollen. My eyeballs were scratchy,
like they’d been plucked out, rolled in sand, and stuffed back into
my sockets. My head was foggy. I needed another hour of sleep, and
after that, caffeine. Lots of it.
Katie had already left for class by the
time I dragged my weary self off the couch at seven-thirty. I put
the side table back where it belonged and hauled Mom’s invention to
the coat closet—it weighed a freaking ton. I shoved it as far back
as I could so she’d be less likely to mess with it. I rubbed my
eyes as I padded barefoot into the kitchen, rummaged in the back of
the cabinet for the instant coffee, and lit the gas stove to boil
some water.
Mom joined me just as I was guzzling my
second cup. I set a clean mug on the counter and motioned to the
hot kettle. “Water’s hot. Help yourself. I need to get going.” Over
my shoulder, I motioned to the cupboard. “For lunch, you can cook
some noodles. Add boiling water, let them sit for three minutes,
and you’re good to go. I’ll call the office a little later and find
out how long we’ll be living like Neanderthals.”
“Thanks, honey. Again, I’m sorry about
the accident.”
Twisting, I gave my mother a wilted
semismile over my shoulder. I swear, if I didn’t love that woman as
much as I did, I’d have gone ballistic on her ages ago. But I did
love her, and I couldn’t be cruel to her. No matter how much
trouble she caused. “Promise me, you’ll keep your word from now on.
No powering up your inventions until I’ve tested
them.”
Mom smacked her right hand over her
heart. “I swear I won’t get anywhere near a wall outlet until you
tell me it’s safe.”
I headed into the shower, wondering how
long she’d keep her word this time.
The big red numbers on the digital
clock hanging on the conference room wall read twenty-five hours,
fifty-nine minutes, and thirty-three seconds, and it was counting
backward. To what deadline, I had no clue yet. But it was safe to
assume it wasn’t counting down the hours till the season finale of
The Bachelor or the premiere of the next
Twilight movie.
I wasn’t the last to hurry into the
conference room for our morning meeting. That made me feel a little
better. Chief Peyton, the only member of the team who wasn’t
waiting in the conference room, was in her office, on her phone.
But I knew I had to have been the last to arrive at the unit,
thanks to a side trip to my apartment complex’s
office.
Good news: the official “cause” was
faulty wiring—I wasn’t about to argue, especially with my bank
account balance approaching zero.
The bad news: no power for another day
or two.
JT gave me a half grin as I settled
into a chair. His dark, come-hither eyes said something I didn’t
want to try to interpret right now. So, to avoid thinking too much
about how charming he looked this morning, I busied myself, setting
up my Netbook, gathering a pen and notebook to jot notes, and
sneaking bits of a stale granola bar into my mouth. I’d forgotten
about putting that in my purse a couple of months ago, thank
goodness.
The chief rushed in just as I swallowed
the last mouthful of chocolate and granola. She pointed at the
clock and announced, “This is how much time we have until the next
victim dies.”
It was all very Hollywood.
Absolutely, I was extremely skeptical
about this whole thing. Who wouldn’t be?
Granted, because I’d dragged in much
later than everyone else, I had to assume I didn’t know everything
the other members of the team did. In my book, the deaths were
strange, perhaps a little fishy, but hardly clear-cut
murders.
“This is what we have so far.” Chief
Peyton clicked her laptop’s mouse and an image displayed on the
white wall behind her.
Nifty. PowerPoint.
The chief pointed at the picture of the
Baltimore victim. “Jane Doe Two. Approximate age, thirty-five. She
collapsed a few minutes before ten yesterday morning in Baltimore,
within walking distance of a hospital. Cause of death,
complications of malaria.” She clicked the mouse again, and this
time, an image of the woman from the morgue we’d visited yesterday
displayed. “Hannah Grant. Collapsed and died outside of a coffee
shop in Frederick, exactly forty-eight hours before Jane Doe Two.
Age, thirty-one. COD, complications of typhoid fever.” She clicked
the mouse a third time, and another photo appeared. It was of a
dead woman who looked a great deal like the first two. “And this is
the unsub’s first victim, Jane Doe One. Age, early thirties.
Collapsed and died outside of a fabric store in Arlington, exactly
forty-eight hours before Hannah Grant. COD, complications of dengue
hemorrhagic fever. That’s three women, very close in age and
appearance, all with identical bite marks on their necks. Each died
within forty-eight hours of the previous from an infectious
tropical disease. The one victim who has been identified has not
traveled outside of the United States, and thus the mode of
infection is unknown. Also, she didn’t seek medical care because,
according to family members and coworkers, she didn’t show any
symptoms prior to her collapse.”
Okay, when Chief Peyton put it like
that, I had to admit there did seem to be something going on here.
But I still felt we weren’t the right team to solve this case. It
sounded more like some kind of epidemic.
I raised my hand, gaining the chief’s
attention. At her nod, I asked, “Wouldn’t it be wise to turn this
case over to the Centers for Disease Control, since the victims
died from infectious diseases?”
Chief Peyton nodded. “I’ve sent the
case files, including each victim’s full medical reports, to my
contact at the CDC. But at this point, I’m not ready to drop our
investigation. The CDC will tackle it from its angle, and we’ll
continue from ours.”
Having two federal agencies
investigating the same case seemed like a waste of resources to me,
but who was I to judge? I was, after all, nothing but a lowly
summer intern. I supposed the chief wasn’t too eager to hand off
the unit’s first case, because that might prove the unit wasn’t
really necessary.
And where would that leave
us?
Out of a job, that was
where.
“Sounds good to me.” I glanced down at
my notes, trying to figure out what we might do next. I had no
idea. Since learning I’d be working for the FBI this summer, I’d
watched every cop/FBI/PI show on TV. Those television cops/agents/
private investigators made it look so freaking easy.
“We’re going to work this case like
it’s a serial murder. Which means we need to find the connection
between the three victims,” Chief Peyton said. “We’ll start with
victimol-ogy. Why did these three women die? I’m going to split up
the team.” She pointed at me and JT. “Skye, JT, I want you to take
the Arlington victim.”
I glanced at JT. His gaze met mine, and
something sparkled in his eyes. I felt my cheeks warm. I hoped they
weren’t Day-Glo red. “Yes, Chief.”
“Fischer, I know you have your hands
full, reviewing other cases for the unit. But we need your help
with this. I’d like you to take the Baltimore victim. I’ll take the
second, Hannah Grant. Hough’ll stay here and lend support.” Chief
Peyton stood. “I want to know everything about those three women.
Where they work and live, what they eat for breakfast. Who their
friends and enemies are. Everything.” After a beat, she smiled.
“Good luck.”
Orders assigned. Of course, I was
paired off with the one man I shouldn’t be left alone
with.
“So ...” I fell into step beside JT as
we strolled out of the room. When he stepped around a trash can, my
shoulder bumped his arm. Another rush of heat blasted to my face.
It was pathetic. I was pathetic. I hoped he didn’t notice. “Where
do we start? We have a corpse with no identification on it. How
will we figure out who she is, let alone what she eats for
breakfast?”
“By now, she must have been reported
missing. We’ll begin by looking into new missing persons reports.”
Instead of going to his desk, JT turned toward a doorway I hadn’t
noticed before.
Inside. Nirvana! The IT nerd jackpot.
The unit’s analyst Brittany had a wall full of monitors, all
displaying something different. Being something of a computer geek
myself, I was in awe.
“Hey, Hough,” JT said. “Can you give me
a list of all new missing persons reports in Maryland, Virginia,
and DC?”
“Sure. On it.” Fingers flew across the
keyboard to the sound of snapping gum. Several screens flickered
and pictures blinked across the screen. Done with her rapid-fire
commands, she spun around and smiled at JT, pushing a pair of hot
pink framed glasses up a pert nose. “Couldn’t you give me something
a little more challenging?”
Not as young as I’d first thought she
was, Brittany looked to be more my age than a teenager. It was her
funky Forever 21 style that had thrown me off. I could take a few
hints from her.
“How about female, ages twenty-five to
forty?” JT asked.
“Done.” A couple of taps and the
printer behind us whirred as it powered up to print out the report.
“You’re in luck. There’s only five.”
JT glanced over his shoulder at the
printer. “Great. Now we just need photographs.”
“Let me see what I can do.” Brittany’s
fingers danced over the keyboard. A Facebook page popped up.
“Here’s one of them, a Maryanne Levinstein.”
Standing behind Brittany, I squinted at
the screen. The crime scene photograph in the file wasn’t the best,
so I had no idea if Maryanne Levinstein was our victim or not. I
shook my head. “What do you think, JT?”
“Hmm. Not sure yet. Can you check the
profile for more pictures, Hough?”
Brittany clicked the tab, but the photo
section was blocked. “You have to be a friend to view them. Let me
see what I can do... .” A second later, the folder opened,
revealing over twenty images of the woman, smiling in every one of
them. In some, she was posing with other women; in a few, with a
man; and in a lot, she was with a couple of kids. It really hit
home then that this woman, who might be dead now, had once been a
mother, a wife, a sister, someone important to somebody. And those
somebodies would hurt like I had when my father died.
If she was our
victim.
This morning, I’d been skeptical and
hadn’t taken the case as seriously as I should have. But these
pictures made it more real to me.
Unfortunately, even though I was taking
the case much more seriously now, I felt useless. I wasn’t a
hotshot FBI agent. My ridiculous IQ, my knowledge of foreign
languages, psychology, mathematics, and science wasn’t doing me a
damn thing. My head was full of useless facts like the incubation
period of the GBV-C virus and how to speak in Ket. While Brittany
and JT were actually working, I was standing there like a dork,
being useless.
“I don’t think Maryanne Levinstein’s
our victim. But I’ll give the name to the lead detective and let
him check it out.” JT swiped the printout off the printer’s tray
and starred the name. Frowning, he read through the list. “We have
Hannah Grant’s address. Hough, can you run these addresses, see if
any of them are in the same area as Grant’s?”
Brittany nodded. “Sure. Give me a
minute.” A few more taps, and she had all five addresses plotted on
the map, along with Grant’s, whose address was indicated by a
little red virtual pushpin.
JT pointed. “We should start with that
one.” He pointed at the little yellow pointer closest to the red
one. “Deborah Richardson.” He handed the list to me. “Let’s start
by faxing this to the BPD.”
“I’ll do it.” Heading for the door, I
asked, “Are we going to wait until someone verifies the victim’s
identity before we get in touch with the family?”
“We have to wait.” JT nodded.”Unless we
find something more concrete. But it won’t take long for the
detective to check it out. In the meantime, we can do some work on
this end.”
“You’d be surprised how much dirt I can
dig up on a person,” Brittany boasted, her smile stretching from
ear to ear, her eyes flicking over to me. It made me wonder if she
wasn’t talking about me, instead of our victims.
Feeling slightly violated—and I wasn’t
even sure if I should—I headed out of Brittany’s computer cave to
fax the list of potential victims to the Baltimore detective. That
menial task done, I headed back toward Brittany’s office. At the
sound of her giggle, though, I stopped and peered in.
JT was standing very close to Brittany,
looking over her shoulder. Brittany was looking up, into his eyes;
the smile that had been devious was now dazzling.
It felt like somebody had kicked me in
the gut.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath as I
backed slowly from the door. There was no way I was walking in on
that ... whatever it was.
Instead, I went back to my desk. My
Netbook had been cleared to use on the network, so I flipped it
open and Google Mapped Deborah Richardson’s address, using Street
View to get a good look at the house. While I knew Google Maps
wasn’t always 100 percent correct in identifying the exact address,
it was still worth checking. It wasn’t usually off by much. The
building looked very ordinary: a typical middle-class vinyl-sided
Colonial on a typical street. The backyard was adjacent to a large
park. Nothing suspicious there. Next I mapped Hannah Grant’s
residence, also—assuming Google was correct—a suburban home. The
brick-and-vinyl Colonial was also located very close to a park—this
one with a playground, outdoor skating rink, and nature
trails.
Could I have found
something?
When JT finally emerged from Brittany’s
office, I waved him over.
“I was wondering what happened to you,”
he said, leaning a hip against my cubicle wall. He dropped his
notebook on my desk.
Hoping I was hiding my uneasiness, I
motioned toward my computer screen. “I was making myself useful
while you were busy... . Er ... I found something.”
“Yeah? So did we. You first.” He set a
flattened hand on my desktop and leaned over my shoulder, just like
he had with Brittany. I decided it was annoying.
I shifted slightly to the left, away
from him, even though there were a few bits of my anatomy that
liked being in close proximity to some of his. Those parts weren’t
the most intelligent. “If Deborah Richardson is one of our victims,
and Google mapped their homes correctly, two out of three victims
live in homes with lots that are adjacent to a park,” I told him,
pointing at the map displayed on my computer’s eight-inch
screen.
“Really?” His brows rose as a look of
surprise spread over the face I was trying hard not to admire.
Evidently, he hadn’t uncovered the same fact I had. “We found out
Deborah Richardson works less than half a block from where our Jane
Doe collapsed. She’s a secretary for a church. I’m confident enough
that she’s our victim. I’m not waiting for confirmation. Let’s head
out.”