Uncertainty and mystery
are energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they
keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.
—R. I. Fitzhenry
8
Six hours later, I walked a
groggy-headed JT out to the car. The diagnosis: a concussion. No
surprise there. The treatment: rest, and someone waking him up
periodically to make sure he was okay. Again, not a big surprise.
As we strolled to the car, JT informed me he lived alone. He didn’t
have any family close by. Nor did he have any friends.
In other words, he didn’t have anyone
to handle wake-up duty.
I decided I could volunteer for the
job, but only if we stayed somewhere safe. Somewhere
public.
Once we were snug and belted in, he dug
a hunting knife out of his glove compartment. Before I could stop
him, he cut the plastic hospital bracelet off. I thanked “The Big
Guy Upstairs” JT’s hand didn’t slip, and I contemplated where to
take him. The FBI Academy was probably my best bet. I could try to
get some work done while he slept, and I wouldn’t be alone with him
for any length of time. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. He’d
made it clear, after his heartfelt confession, and after throwing
up, that he’d never do anything to compromise our
jobs.
The problem: I was not 100 percent sure
I could trust myself.
This was new for me. I’d never been
attracted to someone I shouldn’t be. Not this attracted. And not
when so much was at stake. I liked JT. A lot. When our eyes met,
little sparks of electricity sizzled through my body. I haven’t
felt that way about a guy in ages.
Not since Gabe.
When the car jerked and sputtered out
of the parking lot, aimed for the freeway, JT said, “Easy on the
clutch. Where are we headed?”
“To the office. You’re on desk duty.
You heard the doctor. You need rest.”
“I’m fine. I haven’t thrown up in at
least a couple of hours.”
That was true. He was also looking a
lot less shaky. His eyes weren’t rolling around in their sockets
anymore. His CAT scan had come back clear. He had no bleeding in
his brain. Or bruising. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to take
any chances. If he was clunked in the head again, he could suffer
long-term, irreparable brain damage. Brain damage was nothing to
scoff at.
“You’re going back to the office, and
that’s final.” It was a little after rush hour, and the traffic on
the freeway had eased up. I navigated his car into a spot between a
bus and a beer truck. My knuckles turned white.
“Are you nervous, Skye?”
“No, I’m fine,” I lied. Truth was, I
hated driving this car, on the freeway, especially with trucks. And
even more, with trucks going eighty miles per hour. “How about we
work on our case while I drive? Organized or disorganized
killer?”
“Organized. Definitely,” he
said.
An organized killer was, basically, a
psychopathic killer. Organized killers avoided capture. They
planned their kills. They killed strangers. They hid evidence,
controlled the crime scene, controlled the victim, and usually
followed the media reports of their crimes. They were intelligent,
had lovers, friends, spouses, and sometimes children. They were the
Ted Bundys and John Wayne Gacys of the world.
I had to agree. So far, what little
evidence we had pointed to an organized killer. “If that’s the
case, then we’ll find no personal connection between the unsub and
his victims. It’s also highly unlikely he lives near them. But I
think the Columbia area is his trolling grounds. Maybe he uses a
ruse, like Bundy?”
“Maybe.”
“Male or female?” I asked next. JT had
been referring to the unsub as a male all along, but my gut told me
he was a she.
“Male,” JT stated, sounding very sure
of himself.
“Why do you say that? There seems to be
no sexual motive to the crimes. No mutilation or torture. Poisoning
is used more often by women. I’d consider injections of a lethal
infectious agent to be a poisoning.”
“Sure, but what about the saliva?” he
countered. “The biting and licking could be related to a sexual
fetish. And he’s killing strangers. Women kill patients in
hospitals, people they know, rarely strangers.”
He argued his case well, but I wasn’t
swayed. “Okay, so we’ve settled upon an organized killer,
male—though I’m not convinced you’re right there. That leaves
motive. Is our killer a visionary, mission-oriented, or hedonistic
killer?”
“Hedonistic. Most
definitely.”
I didn’t disagree with that. There was
no sign the killer was trying to rid the world of dangerous
thirty-year-old brunette women, or was suffering from a psychotic
break. “Thrill killer, you think?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I had my doubts there too. “Okay, but
here’s the thing. Thrill killers feed off the victim’s fear. If
he’s using an amnesic to make his victims forget about the attack,
what’s he getting out of it? The victims are walking time bombs,
but they don’t know it. What need does that satisfy in the
unsub?”
The pieces weren’t exactly snapping
into place for me. Some of them fit okay. Others, not quite. I
decided I’d go on the Internet when we got back to the office and
read up on criminal profiling. It had been a while. My memory
wasn’t hazy, but I wondered if I might have missed
something.
While I kept us alive for the rest of
the drive—no small feat, considering what I was driving—JT called
Chief Peyton to talk about our profile ... which, I couldn’t help
noticing, did not include any species but Homo sapiens. This kind
of surprised me. That first day, they’d been so quick to jump to
conclusions about the nature of our unsub. Specifically deciding he
or she was some kind of vampiric creature. What had made them
completely dismiss the idea of a nonhuman unsub now?
After a quick trip through a
drive-through, we rolled into the FBI Academy’s parking lot a
little after six. I parked the car and dropped JT’s keys into my
purse. I didn’t want JT to get any stupid ideas about trying to
drive tonight. He didn’t seem to notice.
He was quiet as we rode the elevator up
to our floor. And he didn’t say anything as we each headed to our
respective cubicles. The unit was dark. Silent. Our footsteps
echoed on the gleaming tile floor. Tap, tap,
tap. For some reason, the hollow sound gave me a case of the
shivers. The paper bag in my hand—dinner—crinkled. The cola in the
paper cup—caffeine—sloshed. My laptop bag smacked against my hip,
the material giving off a soft sloughing sound with every step.
While I carted my bagged meal to my desk, JT flipped on the lights.
I blinked as my eyes adjusted. They focused on the folded piece of
paper sitting on my desk as I sank into my seat.
That handwriting looked
familiar.
I unfolded the paper and looked at the
last line. No wonder it had looked familiar.
Gabe.
I felt my teeth clench.
Heading home for a change
of clothes. Be back in less than an hour.
Gabe
Ugh.
Why was he leaving me
notes?
He hadn’t left a time on the note, so I
had no idea how long it had been. There was no sign of Fischer,
Chief Peyton, or Brittany. I assumed Fischer and Peyton were
working—they wouldn’t call it a day with so little time left.
Brittany, on the other hand, was a big question mark. It was a
Friday night. She might not be back until Monday morning. At any
rate, I was semirelieved we wouldn’t be alone in the office for
long.
“I’m going to wash up,” JT said, his
voice echoing through the stillness, making me jerk. A fry that had
been on its way to my mouth flung from my hand, smacking the
frosted glass pane in my cubicle’s wall. It rebounded and landed
with a plop on the desktop. For some reason, it didn’t look so
edible after all that.
“Okay.” I dug into the paper container
for a fresh one and shoved it into my mouth before I lost it too.
Just as I was polishing off my dinner, JT returned from the
bathroom, looking freshly showered, his hair damp, his go bag slung
over his shoulder.
He dumped his bag on the floor in his
cubicle. I heard it land with a dull thump. Then I heard the sound
of dragging. I glanced over my shoulder. He was pulling a chair
toward me. I scooted mine over when I realized what he was
doing.
He went back to his desk, grabbed an
armload of things, and returned to my cubicle, unloading them on my
desk. Then he flopped into the chair, now in very close proximity
to mine.
Nothing like taking over a girl’s
space.
“So ... what’s all this?” I asked,
motioning to JT’s stuff, which was crowding out mine—much like his
very sexy scent and very bulky male body was overwhelming
me.
“I was sitting there at my desk,
thinking two heads are better than one, especially when one isn’t
exactly functioning at prime operating condition. Rather than make
you move to my space, I thought I’d come to yours.”
“How thoughtful.” I stuffed the wrapper
for my sandwich and the little paper cup for my fries in the paper
bag and dropped it in the trash can under my desk. That freed up
about six square inches of space.
Have I mentioned how small our cubicles
are? Or how big JT seems when we’re crowded into a space the size
of a broom closet?
He grabbed a folder, flipped it open.
“Fischer left some things on my desk. He’s chasing down a lead in
Baltimore.”
“Great. What do you have?” I leaned
toward him to get a look at the file. But instead of looking down,
something made me look at his face. Our eyes met, and something
unexpected happened. We had a little moment—you know, a guy/girl
moment. An invisible current zapped between us, leaving me a little
shivery, in a good way. Some girls might not see JT as the kind of
guy that would turn heads if he walked through a crowded room. To
me, he was mind-blowingly gorgeous. His hair was a little on the
long side, but I liked it. The way his crisp white shirt fit over
his thick shoulders and arms made me a little dizzy. And I liked
his eyes and his mouth. His lips were a nice shape,
indeed.
Were they coming closer to
mine?
“Sloan,” he whispered.
Oh, my God, he’s going
to kiss me.
I was frozen. Couldn’t move. Not an
eyelid. Not a toe. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak.
We can’t do this.
Can’t. Shouldn’t. Oh, shit.
“Helloooo?” Gabe called from somewhere
close by. Too close. Much too close.
I lurched backward.
JT jerked away.
A rush of heat gushed up my
neck.
Had Gabe seen ... ? I looked at Gabe.
He looked at me ... and smiled.
Shit!
“We were just looking over Fischer’s
notes.” I poked a finger at the folder, which should have been in
JT’s lap. It wasn’t. It was on the floor. My finger was pointing at
something else.
My cheeks flamed even
hotter.
“Yeah, Fischer’s notes.” Gabe’s eyes
narrowed ever so slightly.
I curled my fingers into a fist;
gritting my teeth, I tried to think of a comeback that wouldn’t get
me in deeper trouble. “The victim’s best friend works at a
pharmaceutical lab ...”
JT calmly scooped up the file, stood,
and shoved it into Gabe’s hands as he strolled past him. “She’s
telling the truth. I’m feeling like shit—damn concussion. I think
I’d better lie down for a while. Skye, don’t let me sleep for more
than an hour.”
“Okay,” I said, my voice a little
shaky.
Gabe glanced at the file in his hand,
then at JT’s retreating back.
I give him credit, he didn’t say a word
until after JT had closed himself in the conference
room.
He began, “Sloan—”
“If you tell anyone about this, I will
find a way to get back at you.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone.” He
slumped into the chair JT had abandoned and handed the file back to
me. “But I gotta say, I never thought you’d go for a guy like
that.”
“Like what? Er, I’m not ‘going’ for
him, anyway. Nothing happened. Nothing is ever going to happen.”
Trying to look busy so he’d drop the subject, I flipped through the
papers in the file. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to
work.”
“Sure, Sloan. If that’s what you want.”
After a beat, he sighed. “We’ve had this love-hate thing going on
for years. It’s been fun. But I think it’s time we set our past
problems aside and moved on. High school was a long time
ago.”
If only he meant that.
I rolled my eyes. “Do you expect me to
buy that line of baloney, after everything you did to me this
week?”
“Did to you this
week? What did I do?”
How could he have forgotten? I was
beginning to wonder if Gabe had been knocked in the head too.
“Where do I start?” I unfurled my right index finger. “You stole my
job with the BAU, and then decided it wasn’t good
enough—”
“Hey, I told you, I had nothing to do
with that.” Gabe glanced over his shoulders, checking to see if
anyone (who?!) was listening. “I don’t know what happened here, why
they decided you didn’t belong in the BAU, but I was called in for
an interview weeks after you were hired. When I was waiting to be
interviewed that day, I overheard a phone conversation between
Murphy and someone else. They were talking about you, about your
transfer to another unit.”
“What?” I shook my head. It was late.
It had been a long day. My brain’s circuits were clogged. I wasn’t
following him. “If they had already decided I was transferring to
the PBAU, why would they let me think, for one minute, that I
wasn’t going to have a job this summer?”
“I don’t know.”
I squinted my eyes at him. “And why did
you play along if you knew the truth?”
He shrugged. “Why not? I figured it was
harmless fun. You weren’t getting fired, just transferred. I
assumed they wouldn’t let you sweat it out too long. And I was
right.”
“This makes no sense.”
“Neither does our case,” he said,
smacking the case file in my hands, “but that’s not stopping you
from working it, is it?”
“What do you mean by
that?”
He glanced around again. I was
beginning to think he was a bit paranoid. “I took a look at the DNA
results. They’re very interesting.”
“Yeah? How so? The chief said there was
a problem with them.” Feeling like we were wasting a lot of time, I
skimmed the first page of Fischer’s notes.
“Well, for one, there are too many
chromosomes for the unsub to be a human being. Like, nineteen too
many.”
“That must be why Chief Peyton said
there was a problem with the results.” So far, I wasn’t finding
anything earthshaking in Fischer’s notes. What exactly was he
expecting us to do with all this meaningless detail? I guessed this
was why he was the media liaison and not a profiler.
“Okay. But if there was a problem with
the results, why hasn’t she requested another analysis?” Gabe
asked.
Without looking up, I dismissed Gabe’s
speculation with a shrug. “She has, I’m sure.”
“No, she hasn’t.”
“How do you know that?” I flipped
another page. Fischer wrote down a lot of stuff, but most of it was
useless.
“I have my sources.”
“So ... what are you suggesting? She’s
lying to all of us? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t trust
us yet.” He looked over his shoulder and gave me a nudge. Scowling,
I gave him a dose of mean eyes. He answered with a tip of his
head.
JT was shuffling toward his cubicle.
Clearly, Gabe didn’t want JT to know what we were talking
about.
What was he thinking? That Chief Peyton
had hired each of us for some very specific reason, only to hold
back information, thereby making it harder for us to solve our
first case? What would that accomplish?
And still, I couldn’t completely
dismiss what he was saying. It wasn’t like Gabe to jump to silly
conclusions. I’d known him—unfortunately—for years, certainly a lot
longer than I’d known Chief Peyton. He was many things—devious,
shifty, and downright manipulative. But he’d never been paranoid or
prone to jumping to ridiculous conclusions.
Gabe snatched Fischer’s notes out of my
hands. “How did I miss that? The victim’s best friend works at a
pharmaceutical lab? She could have access to infectious agents?
Where did you read that?”
“Um, the third page.” I
pointed.
Gabe checked his watch. “It’s only a
little after six.” He looked at the clock in the conference room.
“I feel useless. Do you want to go see if she’s home?”
“You want me to go with you?” I asked
him.
“Sure, why not?”
“Should we? We’re not agents; we’re
interns. We have to take JT... .”
Gabe gave me a pointed look and heaved
an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. He can come too, if you
insist.”
“He has a concussion—”
“I know what you’re thinking.” He
jabbed me in the ribs and waggled his eyebrows.
I clamped my lips closed, knowing
anything I said could—and would—be used against me. I excused
myself from my own cubicle and went to JT’s to tell him what we
were thinking. He was hunched over his computer as I approached,
his fingers flying over the keyboard. I noticed his screen went
black the moment I was close enough to see it.
I pretended not to notice the screen.
“I thought you were going to rest for a while.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“I found something in Fischer’s notes
and thought we should check it out.”
“Yeah? What?” He drummed his fingers on
the desk.
“I mentioned this earlier, I guess a
friend of Hannah Grant’s works in a pharmaceutical lab. Name’s
Yolanda Vargas. She might have access to infectious agents. Could
be the break we need.”
“Huh. Could be. But I’m onto something
here. Why don’t you two go check it out?”
“Can we do that? I mean, we’re not
agents. We don’t have any authority.”
“Yeah. Hmm.”
“Plus, you shouldn’t be left here
alone,” I reminded him. “You have a concussion.”
“I’m fine. The CT scan came back
normal.”
I gave him a warning glare.
“JT.”
“There’ll be people in and out of here
all night. I won’t be alone.” JT gnawed on his lower lip. “I hate
to leave this... .” He glanced at the countdown clock, which was
now displaying all zeros.
Clearly, we were all very aware that
our time had run out.
“Let me see if I can get Peyton or
Fischer on the phone. Give me a minute.” JT lifted his phone off
the cradle and dialed.
“Okay. I’ll go get ready.” I headed
back to my cubicle.
Gabe was waiting for me there. “What’s
up?”
“I don’t know. He’s keeping something
from me. Says it’s important. Doesn’t want to leave right now. He
blacked out his computer screen just as I got close enough to see
it.”
“I’m telling you, something’s going on
here.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” I plopped in my
chair and Google Mapped the friend’s address. “JT said he’s going
to call the chief or Fischer. In the meantime, we can be
productive. The friend lives way over on the other side of
Baltimore.”
“Traffic should be easing up by
now.”
I printed the map and hit the power
button, shutting down my computer. “You drive.”
“Okay.” Gabe stuffed his hands into his
pants pockets. “Left my keys on my desk. Be back in a few.” He
passed JT as he hurried to his cubicle.
JT’s expression was serious as he
approached me, 100 percent business. I was relieved. Maybe the
scare with Gabe had put a chill on things between us, but that was
okay. We needed to stay focused now, anyway.
Just to put his mind at ease, I said,
“If you’re concerned he’ll tell anyone—”
“Nope. Not worried.”
“Okay. Good.” I stood, looped my laptop
case’s strap over my shoulder. “So what’s the verdict? Can we go
check out this lead? Or do we need to wait? It’s getting
late.”
“I just got off the phone with the
chief. Fischer’s going to meet you and Wagner at the friend’s house
in an hour.”
“Oh. Sure. Okay.”
JT beamed. “We’re good, Skye. Nothing
to worry about. I can’t tell you what I’ve found yet, because it
might be nothing. But I don’t want to drop it now.”
“Yeah. Sure.” God, I sounded so stupid.
“I hope it’s something, JT. We’ve run out of time.”
“Exactly.” He glanced at Gabe, who was
strolling our way. “Good luck. I’ll be here when you get
back.”
“Thanks.”
As I left the building, I wondered if
Gabe’s speculations were making me overly suspicious, or if there
really was something up. Either way, I decided I couldn’t waste any
energy trying to figure it out. All I could do was follow the leads
I had and bring back what I’d found to the team. They’d take it
from there.
Gabe’s car was a brand-new Jaguar. I
wasn’t big on cars, don’t care much about specific models, but I
knew an expensive sports car when I saw one. This one was sleek and
sexy black. The inside, on the other hand, wasn’t sleek or sexy. It
was a mess. The entire backseat was piled with books, boxes of
stuff, and baskets of clothes. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear
Gabe was hauling around his entire life’s possessions back there.
As he cleared off the front passenger seat for me, he mumbled an
apology and some kind of explanation about taking some stuff to
Goodwill.
As Gabe drove us back down I-95, toward
Baltimore, I almost admitted I was glad he’d joined the team. At
the moment, I was feeling a little more like an outsider than a
member of the PBAU. At least with him here, I wasn’t alone. I
wasn’t the only outcast, the unpopular kid, wanting to be a member
of some secret club.
What had made me think things would be
different out in the real world? Once an outcast, always an
outcast.
“You’re quiet,” Gabe said. “I’ve never
seen you this quiet before.”
Staring out the window at the landscape
flying by at roughly eighty miles per hour, I hugged my computer
case to my chest. “Just goes to show, you don’t know me at all. I’m
not always the gabby twit you think I am.”
“I never said you were a
‘twit.’”
“No, but you’ve thought it,” I
replied.
“Never.” Gabe accidently bumped my knee
as he set his hand on the car’s gearshift.
A little something—an odd
sensation—buzzed through my body. I shifted in my seat, moving my
knees closer to the door and out of his reach.
“The truth is, I’ve always known you’re
smarter than me,” Gabe remarked.
I didn’t say a word. What was there to
say? “Thanks” would be so ... lame. “You’re lying” would be closer
to the truth, but I didn’t feel like getting into a debate right
now. Gabe’s IQ had mine beat by almost ten points. We both knew
that.
For years, we’d been locked in this
strange love-hate competitive thing. It probably qualified as a
relationship on the most basic level. But it was a difficult thing
to label, let alone deal with. Since that terrible time so long
ago, we’d been fairly successful at not killing each other by
avoiding each other whenever possible. Clearly, that wasn’t going
to happen this summer. I had no idea at this point what kind of
effect the next three months was going to have on our
future.
“Do you think there’s any chance we’re
going to identify the killer before someone else dies?” Gabe
asked.
“I’m beginning to have my doubts. If
you think about it, time already has run out for his next victim.
She’s out there somewhere, infected. She just isn’t showing any
symptoms yet. We don’t need to know who the killer is. We need to
know who the victim is. And we need to know what she’s been
infected with.”
“You sound defeated.” Gabe stretched
his arm over part of the back of my seat and twisted to look over
his shoulder before changing lanes. He didn’t move his arm
afterward.
“I’m trying not to feel defeated, but
it isn’t easy.” I shoved his arm away. “I don’t have a clue what
I’m doing—but damn it, I can’t just give up.” Tired of my pity
party already, I tried to turn my mind onto more productive tasks,
like solving our case. “We’re going about this all wrong. We should
be looking for the next victim, not the killer. That’s the only way
we’re going to make a difference. It’s the only way we can save her
life.”
“But how can we find her if we don’t
know where to look?”
“I don’t know. The only connection
we’ve found so far between the three victims is the proximity of
their homes to a park or school. Two of the three are located
within a half-mile radius, but that hardly helps us. If only we
knew how many residents living with homes backing those parks are
in their thirties and brunette.”
“I have an idea.” Gabe shot across
three lanes of traffic to get to the exit ramp. I grabbed the
dashboard, squeezed my eyelids shut, and said a little prayer. “We
could pretend to be taking a survey or something and go
door-to-door, asking to speak to the lady of the
house.”
“Not bad. But what about
Fischer?”
“Let him handle the lady at the lab.
We’d just be there taking notes. And, based on Fischer’s notes on
Laura Miller, you and I both know Fischer is a master note taker.
Fischer could teach the best court stenographer a thing or two
about taking notes. We don’t need to be there.”
At the end of the exit ramp, Gabe
turned left. Almost all four wheels were on the pavement when we
took the corner.
“Good point. Where are we
headed?”
“The closest spot with Wi-Fi. I hope
your laptop battery’s charged up.”