There can be no good
without evil.
—Russian Proverb
5
Have you ever been really bothered by
something, and then been disturbed by the fact that it bothered you
in the first place? This wasn’t a first for me, but it was the most
frustrating time. And annoying. And irritating.
When I closed my eyes, I saw in my head
Brittany’s big, girly grin. It made me grit my teeth. The fact that
it bothered me so much made me even madder. Thus, I probably wasn’t
the best company during the drive to Deborah Richardson’s hometown.
I had no idea if JT noticed or not. He didn’t say
anything.
By the time JT’s car rolled up the
Richardsons’ driveway, I didn’t need to know the lead detective had
called JT to confirm her identity. The cars parked out in front of
the house told the whole story.
JT parked. We hurried up to the
house.
Inside, we found a tired man in his
midthirties with a pale face, made paler by bloodshot eyes. He was
talking to a detective, arms crossed over his chest.
“Agent Jordan Thomas and Sloan Skye,”
JT said to the detective.
The detective nodded.
“Agent?”
“FBI,” JT explained.
“Agent Thomas, this is Trey Chapman,”
the detective said. “And I’m Detective McRoy.”
JT offered a hand to McRoy first, then
Chapman. “Sir, we’re very sorry for your loss.”
The man blinked. His lips quirked. Not
in a smile, but in a grimace. He sniffled. “Thank you. This is all
such a shock.”
“I’m sure it is.” I offered him my hand
next, and he accepted it, giving it a firm shake.
JT pulled his notebook from his pocket.
“We’re going to do our best to find out what happened to your ...
?”
“Fiancée,” Chapman finished. “We’ve
been engaged for over two years.” He sighed, shoved his hands
through his hair, and mumbled something under his
breath.
I didn’t catch what he’d said. Sure
wish I had.
McRoy checked his phone. “I’ve gotta
take this call. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Chapman, as soon as I have
any more information.”
“Thank you, Detective.” Chapman turned
to JT. “I don’t understand. Why all the fuss? FBI? Debbie got sick
and she ... and she died. There’s no crime to solve.... Is
there?”
“We’re not saying there is, sir. We’re
just checking out some information that may or may not be related
to your fiancée’s death.”
“What information?” Chapman crossed his
arms over his chest.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”
JT flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. “Would you mind
answering a few questions for us?”
“I ... don’t know. Do I need a lawyer?”
He looked at me, as if I would tell him whether he was under any
kind of suspicion or not. What was I supposed to say?
“You don’t have to answer any question
you’re not comfortable with,” I told him. That, I figured, was a
safe answer.
Chapman gave me another look, then
nodded. “Okay.”
I glanced around the living room. “Do
you mind if I take a look around the house while you’re talking to
Agent Thomas? See if I can find anything that might tell us how
your fiancée became ill?”
He scowled. “I—I guess that would be
okay.”
I gave him a reassuring smile. “Thank
you.”
Now what? I had permission to search
the house, and I had no freaking idea what I was looking for.
Because my time was limited—I couldn’t wander around all day—I
headed upstairs to the victim’s bedroom first, thinking I’d start
in one of the most private parts of her home.
Her bedroom was tidy, the bed made.
There were no medicine bottles on the nightstand.
This room looked nothing like mine when
I was sick.
I wandered into the bathroom, still not
sure what I was looking for. It was spotless too, nothing out of
place. I felt kind of creepy taking a peek in her medicine cabinet,
but I needed to see if she had any medications that might indicate
she was treating symptoms of dengue hemorrhagic fever. I knew the
symptoms could appear anywhere from three to fourteen days after
infection, but they were severe. Chills, fever, rash,
vomiting—eventually leading to a shocklike state. I don’t know how
anyone could ignore those kinds of symptoms.
I found a bottle of expired
over-the-counter pain reliever and a brand-new, unopened box of
cold tablets. No antibiotics. Not even a bottle of
Pepto.
Was it possible she’d felt no symptoms
until immediately before she’d died?
I wandered out into the hallway,
checked the second bedroom, which looked nothing like the rest of
the house, from what I’d seen. With the dark walls, clutter, and
clothes strewn about, I surmised it was the habitat of a teenager.
I confirmed it with a quick look at the desk. Buried under a
mountain of books and papers, CDs and DVDs, was a photograph of a
blond girl with braces; her arms were flung over the shoulders of
two girlfriends.
Not wholly convinced a person couldn’t
catch a disease in that room, I headed down the hall to the third
bedroom, which had been converted into a cozy home office. The
desk’s top was clear of clutter, the laptop shut off, the cover
shut. Behind the desk, the window’s shades were up. The house sat
so close to its neighbor, I could make out the details of the
Justin Bieber poster hanging on the hot pink wall in what must’ve
been a kid’s bedroom next door. I moved closer to the window to get
a better look.
Was this bedroom, with its bed piled
high with stuffed animals and its desk cluttered with the trappings
of a child—a bug house, the Potato Head family, and a plush
unicorn—the average room of a kid?
When I was younger, I’d been anything
but average. And now I assume, my room had been as unusual as
myself. My walls hadn’t been papered with pages ripped out of teen
magazines, like this one. The yellow walls—painted that shade
because my mother had read yellow stimulated brain cells—had been
completely obscured by prints by Renoir, Gauguin, and Monet, long
before I’d graduated from elementary school. My desk had been
buried under a mountain of inventions—gadgets and gizmos I’d
erected from disassembled small appliances.
There’d been a very noticeable lack of
stuffed critters on my bed.
Allergies. Polyester-filled plushies
were dust mite magnets.
Something thumped downstairs, and I
tugged the string, lowering the blinds, turning back to the task at
hand. Hoping our victim might keep a journal on her computer, I
opened it and powered it up. Luck was on my side—she hadn’t set up
a password.
I was in.
The wallpaper was a photograph of
Deborah Richardson and the blond-haired teenager from the
photograph in the messy room. First thing I checked was her Web
browser. My fave Web sites—the ones I visited every day—launched
automatically when my browser opened. If my luck continued, Deborah
Richardson’s would do the same thing.
Bingo.
Deborah was an eBay shopper. Her Yahoo!
mail page loaded. I skimmed the messages in her in-box. Spam. She’d
left nothing unread before she died. That told me she’d signed on
and opened her e-mail that morning before leaving for work. I heard
footsteps coming up the stairs, so I shut down the computer. There
didn’t seem to be anything useful on it.
Out in the hallway, I met
JT.
“Find anything?” he asked, chewing on
the end of his pen.
“Nothing. It’s like she woke up that
morning and everything was normal. She checked her e-mail, made her
bed, got dressed, and headed for work, just like any other day. I
don’t see any sign that she was sick, not even some aspirin. I
don’t know what we’re looking for.”
He smacked his notebook with his pen.
“The fiancé didn’t give me much to work with either.”
“There is a teenager living here too,
though. Maybe we could talk to her, ask if she noticed her mother
being sick.”
“Yes, Chapman told me. She’s a
counselor at a summer camp. She had to go up a couple of weeks
before camp starts for training.” He motioned toward the stairs
with a tip of his head. “Ready to head out?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I clomped down the
stairs after him, trying not to notice how broad his shoulders
looked from that angle. “You said she died from complications of
dengue hemorrhagic fever. What exactly killed her?”
“The ME hadn’t completed a full autopsy
yet, of course, but liver damage was the early diagnosis.” Pausing
midway down the staircase, he turned to look up at me. “I think I
saw a neighbor at home. Maybe she noticed something. Let’s go talk
to her.”
“Okay.” I followed him down the
remaining stairs, sort of glancing this way and that. I was hoping
if there was something out of the ordinary in the house, it would
catch my eye. In the foyer, we said good-bye to Trey Chapman, after
having verified that the daughter, Julia, had been away since the
beginning of last week and wouldn’t be returning until late
tomorrow. Then I officially gave up; my first search for clues had
been an utter failure.
So far, I was about as useful to the
FBI as a freezer to an Eskimo.
Outside, JT pointed at the house on the
east side of the Richardsons’ home, the one I’d been peeping into
earlier. “The neighbor was working on the flower beds. I saw her
from the window.”
We followed a stone path around the
side of the neighbor’s house. JT stopped at the wooden gate closing
off the backyard. He called out, “Excuse me, ma’am?”
After a little bit of rustling, a woman
shuffled around the corner. She tipped her head and pushed back the
brim of her straw gardening hat to wipe her forehead with a gloved
hand. “Yes?”
JT flashed his credentials. “Agent
Thomas, with the FBI. We’d like to ask you a couple of questions,
if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” The woman wandered toward us.
She looked puzzled as she stopped at the gate and draped a hand
over its top. “How can I help you? This won’t take long, will it? I
have to go to work in a while.”
“Not more than five minutes, tops. Did
you happen to notice anything unusual about your neighbor in the
past couple of days?” He pointed at Deborah Richardson’s
house.
She thought for a moment, shook her
head, then glanced at the victim’s home, as if it might tell her
something. “No. Not that I can think of. Her daughter, Julia, has
been gone. She’s a summer camp counselor. With her away, the house
has been quieter than normal. Though Debbie keeps to herself,
anyway. Why?”
He toyed with his spiral notebook as he
asked, “Did you know she died yesterday?”
The woman’s eyes widened. Her gloved
hand smacked over her mouth. “Died?” After a beat, she added, “That
poor child, losing her mother. Was she ... murdered?”
“There’s nothing to suggest it was
murder, ma’am,” JT said.
“Then why is the FBI investigating?”
She glanced at me.
“We’re just following up on some
information that may or may not be related to her death,” I said,
repeating what JT had told Chapman earlier.
“This is very surprising.” The woman
chewed her lower lip. “Did you talk to the boyfriend? If you’re
looking for someone suspicious, I’d check him out
first.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked,
slanting a glance at JT.
Chances were, our victim hadn’t been
murdered, but had simply ignored her symptoms—how and why?—and had
died when she started bleeding internally. But Chief Peyton had
decided we were treating this case like a murder investigation. So,
that was what I was going to do. If nothing else, it could prove to
be good practice for when I got my job with the BAU.
A suspicious boyfriend could be a good
lead in a murder investigation.
“Well”—the woman tapped her chin with
an index finger—“on those police shows, isn’t it always the husband
or boyfriend who kills the victim?”
I nodded. “Generally,
yes—”
“I think they were having troubles,”
the neighbor said. “It was strange. He seemed to be living with
her. But only for a month or so. I believe he moved out only last
week.”
“Moved out?” I repeated, giving JT a
pointed look.
JT’s lips thinned. His neck turned red.
He swung around and glared at Debbie Richardson’s
house.
Trey Chapman’s car was
gone.
The neighbor continued talking. “Yes, I
heard some fighting. And then I saw him packing up his car. As far
as I can tell, he hasn’t been back since.”
“He was in the house today,” I told
her.
She grimaced. “Really? That surprises
me. I don’t think the breakup was a friendly one.”
Now I was confused. Trey hadn’t
mentioned that he was an ex-fiancé. I kicked
myself for not looking in the bedroom closet. That would’ve told us
if he was living there or not. I could say 100 percent for certain
that I hadn’t noticed any man gear in the master bathroom. No
shavers, shaving cream, aftershave, hair products. No toilet seat
left up. That should’ve raised some red flags.
I was the world’s worst
detective.
All of this raised one vital question:
if he’d broken up with Debbie Richardson, what was he doing at the
house today?
“Did you notice if your neighbor was
sick recently?” I asked. “Did she have the flu in the past couple
of weeks? Did she miss work at all?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
JT, who was visibly gritting his teeth,
handed the woman a card. “Thank you for your help. If you think of
anything else, please feel free to call me.”
We both looked back at Deborah
Richardson’s house.
“Damn it!” JT mumbled as he stomped
toward the home once more.
We weren’t going to get back in the
house now. Nor were we going to get the chance to ask Trey Chapman
if he was a fiancé or an ex-fiancé.
Walking alongside a visibly frustrated
JT, I asked, “Do you think the neighbor’s right about the
breakup?”
JT paused in front of the house. “If
she is, Trey Chapman should go to the top of the
persons-of-interest list.” He rammed his fingers through his hair.
“I’m going to make a call, let the lead detective know what we
found out. We need to verify whether they were broken up or not,
ASAP.” He went to his car.
“What do you think? Workplace next?” I
suggested over his car’s roof. “Maybe someone there will know if
they broke up.”
“Good thinking.” JT jerked the door
open and slumped into the seat.
After having a quick chat with Debbie
Richardson’s most recent employer, we were stumped. She hadn’t
called in sick, not once in over a year. She’d shown no signs of
illness prior to her death, and she’d said nothing about any
troubles with her fiancé. I spent the car ride back to the FBI
Academy staring at the notes I’d scrawled in my notebook. There’d
been no mention today of vampires; I decided to ask JT, “Have we
given up on the notion that some kind of paranormal activity played
a role in this death?”
Navigating his car onto a freeway that
looked more like a parking lot than a highway, JT shook his head.
“Absolutely not.”
“So, do you really believe there are
paranormal creatures out there, committing crimes—assault, rape,
murder?” When he didn’t answer right away, I added, “I promise, I
won’t tell the chief if you don’t believe in ghosts and goblins.”
Still nothing. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks the
whole paranormal angle is a joke.”
“Okay.” He sighed. The car rolled to a
stop behind a school bus packed full of kids. They were making
funny faces at us through the back windows. He made one back at
them. “You’re not the only one. I have a few doubts.” He inched the
car forward when the bus moved up. “I took the job because I felt
it would be good experience. I knew Peyton was having a hard time
getting applicants. I knew every member of the team would be
valued. And so, I saw it as a shortcut to getting out from behind a
desk and into the field. I requested a transfer.”
“You were right about that,” I said,
chuckling. “I haven’t spent any quality time in my cubicle, and I’m
an intern.”
“No matter what, if we do our jobs
well, we’ll both benefit.” He glanced over his shoulder and eased
the car into the right lane. Our exit was up ahead. “If the unit is
eventually disbanded, I’ll leave with a hell of a lot more in-field
experience than I would have if I hadn’t transferred. So will you.
Assuming you apply for a full-time position after
graduating.”
“Sounds like a good career move on your
part.”
“Would’ve been nice, though, if Peyton
had been able to attract at least one more senior agent. Fischer’s
been around a while. The rest of us are relatively new. Don’t have
the experience to do the job.”
“All you can do is your
best.”
“Yeah. But if I’d had some experience
under my belt, maybe I wouldn’t have fucked up with Trey
Chapman.”
“You didn’t ‘fuck up.’ How were you
supposed to know they might have broken up?” When JT didn’t
respond, I asked, “What’s next?”
“We dig up all we can on
Chapman.”
The “Clock of Doom” read twenty hours,
twenty-eight minutes, and thirty-six seconds when I strolled into
the unit a little while later. I had a white paper bag full of
greasy burgers and fries in one hand, a half-empty cola in the
other. JT had left, saying he had a personal matter to take care
of. He asked if I’d do some digging on Chapman.
Feeling slightly guilty for sitting in
an office, munching fries while somebody out there, somewhere, was
living the final twenty hours of her life, I headed to my desk and
flipped on my Netbook as I fought to consume the messy burger
without slopping ketchup and mayo on the keyboard.
I wasn’t “Miss Hacker-chick,” like
Brittany Hough. Nor did I have open access to all the systems she
did, so I accepted the fact that I would need to ask for her help.
It was painful, but necessary.
I put on my big-girl panties and
prepared to talk to her.
After making sure I wasn’t wearing
condiments on my face, I headed into her office to ask her to do
some digging for skeletons in Chapman’s closet. That task done, I
headed back to my desk.
A certain someone, who happened to have
stolen my internship, came strolling into
the unit just as I sat. Gabe gave me a casual wave as he sauntered
by. “Hey, Skye. What’s up?”
I spun my chair around to watch him go
to the cubicle behind me and flop into the chair like he owned it.
Adding insult to injury, he kicked his feet up on the desktop and
grinned.
I knew that grin.
My gut twisted. “What are you doing
here?”
He picked at his fingernails. “Kicking
back and chillin’ for a few.”
Nothing like stating the
obvious.
I gave him a mean scowl. “Yeah, but
shouldn’t you be doing that down in the BAU?”
“No. Why would I do that?” He looked
confused. Perplexed. Mystified. It was a convincing performance.
The boy—I emphasize boy—was one hell of an
actor. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time I’d seen his thespian
skills at work.
It had been my senior year in high
school, when he’d pretended to like me so I’d help him with
physics. I’d just turned fifteen. He was two years older. And much
more experienced. He’d charmed me through hours of tutoring every
afternoon and—eventually—out of my clothes.
Thanks to all my hard work, he pulled
what would’ve been a B- up to an A, which led to him being accepted
into the National Honor Society. And thanks to his hard
you-know-what, and the bone-melting kisses that had preceded the
loss of my virginity, I’d had nothing but trouble for years to
come.
You see, no sooner had he gotten what
he’d wanted from me than he was lobbing my shattered heart back at
me and turning his smoldering dark eyes on his next victim, Lisa
Flemming.
It was my first, my only, heartbreak. I
was so devastated, I failed my AP chemistry final exam. And I blew
the interview with the Naval Academy recruiter, which ultimately
cost me a promising career as a naval officer.
Truth be told, that part was probably a
blessing in disguise.
I scoffed. “Bravo. You just might get
an Oscar for that performance.”
“I’m not acting, Sloany. Why would I be
chillin’ in the BAU when I’m working for the PBAU ?”
Working for the ... ?
No. Effing. Way!
A rage like none I’d ever felt before
burned through my body like a surge of magma, threatening to blast
off the top of my head. I had to clamp my mouth shut to cut off the
stream of profanities that surged up my throat.
Gabe was working for the PBAU now,
after causing me to lose the internship of my dreams?
“Why?” I managed to mumble through
gritted teeth as I searched the room for a way to cause his
accidental death. I wondered if there were
security cameras in the room; and if there were, how might I pull
this off?
“Come on. It’s obvious they need my
help. Why would I stick with doing grunt work for the BAU? It was a
terrible waste of resources.”
“Resources?” I spat, rummaging through
my desk drawers. Death by ... stapler? Nah. I’d never convince
anyone he was stupid enough to staple himself to death
accidentally.
“My brilliant mind, of course.” He
cupped the back of his head and rocked the chair back.
I bit my tongue. Someday, hopefully
soon, someone else would poke a hole in his overinflated ego. It
wouldn’t be me. But if I was lucky, I’d be there to watch him
deflate.
Maybe I could knock into the chair,
causing him to fall backward, striking his head on a ... on a ...
?
No, that would be too gruesome and
painful. Even a job-stealing, virgin-despoiling jerk didn’t deserve
to have his skull cracked open like an egg.
“I requested a transfer,” he continued
explaining, oblivious to my thoughts of vengeance, “and Chief
Peyton was all too happy to welcome me aboard.” He winked. “I’m
gonna kick some vampire ass.”