Double Vision (2 page)

“If you were the shooter, wouldn't you be more precise with someone you showed up to pop?” Jenna asked.

“Where's your head at?” Saleda asked.

Jenna bit her lip. “He's not taller than the shot at the third victim made him seem. This one's just different. He took out the first three victims with the gun in front of him. This almost looks like . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“He shot it over his shoulder,” Porter filled in.

Jenna nodded. “Almost like an afterthought.”

“Could he have not seen her at first? Was afraid she'd get away?”

“Hm. Maybe,” Jenna replied. If he
had
seen her and didn't want her to get away, it lent credibility to the idea that he was afraid of the shooting, lacked confidence. That told a different story from a killer who enjoyed the rampage. And yet . . .

Jenna didn't attempt to pull up the colors trying to rise in her brain. She had feelings, but she'd wait for them to solidify.

“Next,” Saleda instructed.

Officer Daly led them to the right, past the cereal, baking, and cookie aisles. At the deli toward the end of the store, opposite the produce section, lay the body of victim five, Mayor Frank Kuncaitis.

“He was shot point-blank in the face,” Officer Daly reminded them.

“And we're
positive
the mayor couldn't be a target?” Teva asked.

“Never say never,” Jenna mumbled. Something about all this was so off. She forced herself to ignore the royal blue tones that tried to crash in. No analyzing colors until she'd had time to process.

Victim six was back toward the checkout line, a bullet between her shoulder blades that came from behind. Rita Keegan had landed facedown on the tile, though her blood had clearly been run through and dragged all over the front of the store by panicked customers, maybe even the shooter.

“Why head back toward the exit?” Porter asked. “His pattern of movement makes no sense.”

Saleda's eyes trailed from victim six to the door. “And where's victim seven?”

Officer Daly pointed toward the cereal aisle, which they'd passed earlier. “Back that way.”

“Paranoid that his shot at the governor didn't do the job? Was going back to make sure?” Porter ventured.

Teva shook her head. “But why keep moving
deeper
into the store for the mayor and
then
come back for her? If she was your target, walk up to her, put one between her eyes, and leave.”

“For that matter, why not wait and shoot her while she's talking in the library. She'd be a sitting duck,” Jenna mumbled. “Sure, there'd be a security team, but for a planned hit, it's easier. Predictable. If the security was an issue there but not here, for that matter, wait until she's walking into the library. You know she's going in.”

“Maybe it's more to do with the mayor than we thought,” Saleda said, standing up from where she'd been kneeling beside Rita Keegan, examining the angle of the blood spray. “Onward.”

In aisle seven, body number seven, Blake Spiegel, had been shot straight on, too, only he seemed to have been facing the shooter. He fell backward from the bullet to his chest, which had gone directly through him and lodged into a wall at the back of the store.

Some shots to backs, chests. Others hit faces, but not cleanly.
“Training seems minimal. He hits seven for seven shots, but none of them executed perfectly. I'd say military background is doubtful.”

“The angle of the bullet that went through Spiegel was odd, too. It went through him, but entry point was a bit left of exit point. He seems to have shot him from a bit to the side the same way he did the governor,” Porter said.

The inconsistency of the shots, the victim order. Something about this whole thing didn't mesh. Jenna wasn't ready for colors to show so strong yet. In the past, crime-associated colors burned in her mind based on gut feelings, but only when she had enough information to resolve those feelings. This time, though, purple surrounded the shooting in the cereal aisle before she had seen or heard enough to trust it. An entirely different color from the blue that permeated the rest of the scene.

“This is the only
young
guy,” Teva pointed out. “The others were all over fifty.”

“Well, it
is
senior citizens' day,” Officer Daly said.

Good point. But that didn't mean this victim's age should be discounted. In fact, the more Jenna looked at this scene, the more she wondered if the initial idea of the governor being the motive for the shooting wasn't way off base. The first or last victims should be looked at harder, for sure. Chronological order was important to victim profiling, even if one of the victims
was
in political office. The vics could be random, but they could
not
be random, too.

Saleda was on her phone. “Irv, we need workups on the victims, more in depth than what we currently have. Backgrounds, family, friends. We'll call with more specifics, but for now take the names and break down the usual on each—military, financial, occupation, stressors, etc.”

She hung up with the technical analyst, turned to the team. “Teva, you start with the witnesses in the parking lot. Porter, see what CSI has that might be of interest. Jenna and I will break down the witnesses who actually saw the shooter.”

“Any recommendations for my team as far as the manhunt?” Daly asked.

Saleda glanced at Jenna.

“Not yet. Keep looking, but proceed with caution. Suspect is armed and dangerous,” Jenna replied. She glanced at the seventh victim on the floor, pictured the bullet sailing through his chest at a strange angle toward the back of the store. As an afterthought, she added, “Armed, dangerous, and possibly unstable.”

E
ldred sat in the parking lot of the grocery store, confused. The police told him he had to stay, but he didn't understand why. Had he done something wrong? Was he being arrested?

More and more had changed for him lately. First, Nancy told him he couldn't stay at home alone anymore, and she'd brought in a nice lady nurse to stay with him on evenings when she couldn't be there. Then his daughter had changed his living arrangements a second time. She said it wouldn't work, staying home with the nurse. He would have to live in a group home, that it was for his own safety.

Pish. His own safety. He knew how to keep himself safe, for crying out loud. He wasn't a baby, after all! He'd been on this earth taking care of himself for over seventy years, dang it! He knew darn well how to take care of himself!

And yet . . . he was at a
grocery store
. How had he gotten to the grocery store? Lately, his days were fuzzy, distorted like the reflection in a funhouse mirror.

“Sir?” a tall, brown-haired girl said, touching him on the shoulder.

“Who are you?”

“Sir, my name is Special Agent Teva Williams. I'm with the FBI. Can you tell me your name?”

Of course he could tell her his name! Eldred. Eldred. Oh, drat it. Eldred . . . “Eldred Beasley.”

“Thank you, Mr. Beasley,” she replied, and she jotted his name down in a notebook. My, she looked a lot like Nancy. In her twenties, surely. Maybe thirties, that long hair swishing in the wind. “Mr. Beasley, can you tell me where you were in the store when you heard or saw that something was wrong?”

Wrong?

Concentrate.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Sir, where were you when the shots were fired? Can you remember?”

Of course I can remember!
“Shots?”

“Dad!”

Eldred turned to see his daughter behind an orange and white sawhorse, jumping up and down and waving to him, frantic. She talked heatedly with the officer in front, though Eldred couldn't make out what she was saying.

“Mr. Beasley?” the girl in front of him said again.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Beasley, when the shots sounded, which part of the store were you in?”

He stared at this girl, who might be crazy. Shots. There weren't any shots. “I . . . I don't know what you're asking . . .”

A moment later, a cop sidled up to the girl. “That's this guy's daughter at the barricade. Says her father has Alzheimer's disease, that he might not be aware of where or who he is. She'd like to come through . . .”

The girl glanced at Eldred, then back toward Nancy. “Let her in.”

Alzheimer's disease? That was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard! He was perfectly fine!

Nancy closed the gap between the two of them, ran toward him. Hugged him. “Oh, thank God you're all right!”

“What are you doing here, Nan?” He pulled back from her to look in her eyes. Her face was . . . different somehow. “Have you done something new with your makeup?”

Nancy's eyes clouded over; her face dropped. “No, Dad, I . . .” She stopped, turned to the girl. “Nancy. I'm Eldred's daughter.”

“Nice to meet you. S.A. Teva Williams,” the girl said. She shook Nancy's hand.

Now that he could see them up close, it was obvious to Eldred that Nancy and this girl looked nothing alike. This girl was much younger, Nancy more mature than he was thinking. Maybe that was the way of fathers. You always held only the most flattering mental picture of your child in mind.

“May I speak with you for a moment?” Nancy asked the girl.

“Sure,” the girl replied.

They stepped to the side, and Eldred watched as Nancy and the girl exchanged quick, hushed words. He looked around, the parking lot seeming to come into view for the first time. Police cars everywhere, other people sitting with blankets wrapped around them, hugging. Crying.

A thought niggled the back of Eldred's mind. What was happening?

Then, the next moment, Nancy was beside him, her hand on his arm. “I'm going to sit here with you, Dad. We have to wait a little longer. Then you're going to come back home with me for a while. How would that be?”

“What for?”
Please explain all this.

Nancy squeezed his shoulder. “I just don't want you away from me right now because I can't . . . Dad, do you remember what happened inside?”

Heat climbed up Eldred's face. “Remember? Of course I remember! I was just . . .”

Then, before he could say anything else, the tears stung his eyes. He bit his lip hard, trying to stifle them, but Nancy's frown told him she'd already seen.

“Oh, Dad,” she said, pulling him into a tight hug.

He watched a few tears dribble onto his daughter's neck before squeezing his eyes shut. With them closed, she felt like Sarah. Smelled like her. His wife was one of the few things he could remember distinctly, even if it had been years since she passed on somewhere he couldn't follow.

God help him if he ever lost her. He could lose everything else and still make it, but if he lost Sarah . . .

He couldn't lose her. Not again.

Blood. Gunshots. Running. A monster.

Eldred pulled away from his daughter, looked into Nancy's eyes. “There was blood.”

Nancy blinked. “Did you see anything, Dad? Did you see the shooter?”

What was she talking about? “What shooter?”

She sighed, shook her head. “Never mind.”

And she hugged him again.

O
fficer Daly led Jenna and Saleda to the back warehouse where the witnesses who said they'd actually
seen
the shooter had been sequestered. Sniffles permeated the air, soft muttering as some of the less traumatized of the group whispered among themselves.

“I'll be out front if you need me,” Daly said.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Jenna leaned in to Saleda. “You find Dodd, I find Molly?”

“Sounds good to me,” Saleda answered.

Jenna scanned the crowded room, looking for the littlest witness. She'd have asked Daly about her, only technically, this wasn't the FBI's case yet, and Jenna didn't want the locals homing in on the girl if it wasn't necessary. She knew how she'd feel if it was Ayana in this room and there weren't any parents here to look out for her.

She wove through the crowd of people, and finally she spotted the pint-sized brunette sitting in a corner, arms wrapped around her knees. She wasn't alone.

The man crouched across from her looked to be in his late fifties. He gestured with his age-spotted hands as he spoke, the wisps of his tawny hair thicker at the sides of his oval-shaped head than on top.

As Jenna approached, she could hear what he was saying to the little girl.

“And what happened after you hid behind the meat bin?”

She folded her lips, appearing deep in thought. “I talked to the man on the nine-one-one call. I told him the gunshots had stopped. I crawled out to see if the shooter guy was gone. To check on G-Ma.”

The kid's composure made her sound about thirty. Totally calm. Poised even.

“Was he gone?” the man in plainclothes across from Molly asked.

Who
is
this guy?

“Excuse me,” Jenna said, inserting herself into the conversation. “Could I have a word?”

As he turned to look at her, Jenna realized that not only was the guy about her dad's age, but about his height, too.

He glanced back at Molly. “Back in a jiff,” he said, winking. He stood and straightened the tan jacket over his black mock turtleneck. When they were a few steps away from the child, he cleared his throat. “May I ask—”

“Dr. Jenna Ramey, BAU,” Jenna said.

“Ah. Dr. Ramey. It's a pleasure,” he said. “Gabriel Dodd.”

Jenna flinched. Too bad she and Saleda hadn't stuck together. No need for Saleda to waste time looking for him anymore, but no way Jenna was about to leave him with this kid without her for another minute. He'd already broken protocol by skipping the team briefing. How did she know he wouldn't compromise a child witness, too?

“S.A. Dodd. Nice to know you. And who's your friend?”

Dodd smiled a warm, grandfatherly smile, and a smattering of contours like dents of wood grain branched from his eyes. “You know who she is, or you wouldn't have been so keen on finding her. Remember, Doc, we're on the same team.”

All I know is she's the kid Yancy talked to on the phone.

“Kid made a nine-one-one call is my only lead, actually,” Jenna said. “What do
you
know about her?”

He shook his head. “Well,
now
I know that her grandmother was actually one of the victims, one Rita Keegan, and for a kid so young who just lost a grandparent in front of her eyes, she's calm and composed. Not as surprising to me as it might be to some, I guess. I've found some kids deal with death better than most adults just because they aren't all taught to fear it. But at first I only came over because she
is
a kid, and kids
are
different. Kids are honest, notice things some people don't. She has a unique point of view.”

Is that why Yancy thought I should find this kid? Surely there's more to it than that.

“Right. Anything good so far?”

Dodd shrugged. “Haven't had time to ask much. Join me if you like.”

With that, he turned back to his interview, squatted next to Molly.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Jenna sat down cross-legged across from Molly, next to S.A. Dodd.

“Did you notice anything about how the man with the gun looked, Molly?” Jenna asked. It would be nice to be able to ask clarifying questions like whether he was tall or short or fat, but unfortunately, those were considered leading questions. With a child, it was the kind of thing that would get anything Molly said thrown out of court in a heartbeat, if they ever found the guy.

The dark-haired little girl nodded. “Yes. He had on a mask. But do you need to know more about what he looked like when I saw him or more about what he was doing before that?”

Ominous.
“Is there something you want to tell us about what you noticed?”

Now Molly looked at the ceiling like she was trying to figure out a really hard math problem. “I know how many steps he took from when I started to count. Eight, like on the fortune-teller ball my friend Jana has. He tapped, too.”

“Tapped?” Dodd echoed.

She bobbed her head. “Yes. He tapped his gun with his hand.”

Jenna squinted, searched the girl's eyes. This kid was sharp. Observant. No wonder Yancy had thought she ought to talk to her. “How so, Molly?”

Molly brought her hand to her knee. She slapped it three times.

Jenna felt her eyebrows lift. “When did you notice that?”

“Just once. When I saw him coming toward the aisle where I was.”

“Can you do that for me again?” Consistency was key here. So important.

Tap, tap, tap.

Again, it was three.

Green burst forth, the color Jenna always associated with the number three. Three taps. A thought she couldn't fully identify tickled at her mind.

“Oh, thank God!”

Jenna whirled around to face the direction from where the voice had come, but the man was already to Molly, scooping her up and hugging her to him. He held her face hard to his chest, closed his eyes as he bowed his head toward her.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Saleda said, laying a hand on Jenna's shoulder. “Dr. Jenna Ramey, this is Liam Tyler. Miss Molly's stepdad.”

Jenna blanked her face to keep from tearing up at the man's obvious relief over seeing Molly in one piece. Hank would've done the same with Ayana had the situation arisen. As much as Yancy loved A, and as great as he was with her, she'd wondered so many times if a man who wasn't Ayana's real father could be there for her, love her as much as a dad now that Hank was gone. Watching Liam Tyler overcome with emotion at finding Molly tugged her heartstrings. Maybe it was possible.

Jenna stretched out her hand. “Nice to meet you. We were just chatting with Molly a bit about what she saw today.”

Liam Tyler's eyes went wide, seemingly at the thought of Molly having seen something so gruesome, but then he pulled back from Molly to look at her face. He smiled wide. “And are you being helpful?” he asked Molly.

Thank ya, Jesus. Not one of those parents who plants thoughts in the kid's head by freaking out over the shooting. Makes things a lot easier.

“Of course,” the precocious little girl said, sighing heavily as though it were the silliest question in the world. “I told them the number of steps the bad man took, the number of times he tapped. I was about to tell them about what time it was, but I didn't have a chan—”

Liam looked away from Molly and toward S.A. Dodd. “I'm so sorry. She does this sometimes. We're working on it, but it's unfortunately still kind of a preoccupation.”

Jenna cocked her head. “Pardon me? What is it you're working on?”

Liam put Molly down and straightened her coat as he looked over her head at Jenna. “The numbers thing. She'll tell you everything you want to know about every number she counts, but I doubt it'll help you—”

“Oh, no,” Jenna cut in quickly. Better to interrupt him and seem rude than give him the chance to plant thoughts in Molly's mind that there was any sort of information she should hold back because it wouldn't be helpful. Parents always meant well, but they never did understand that even the slightest cues given to kids could mean the difference between answers and a missing puzzle piece. She looked at Molly, who was exasperatedly trying to wiggle away from her stepdad's attempts to tidy her up, and smiled. “The numbers are super helpful, Molly. As is anything you remember. What time was it?”

Molly looked up at her and grinned, clearly proud of herself. “Three forty-five. I remember it because it lined up. Three-four-five.”

You'd have remembered it if it hadn't.
Jenna could practically see the wheels spinning in Molly's head, latching numbers onto events, people, words. She wasn't so different from Jenna at all.

“That was when I looked at my watch, but I'm not sure what time it was when the popping first started,” Molly said. As she did, she glanced up toward Liam Tyler.

Subtly seeking parent's approval. Check.
This interview would serve them better if they got Molly to a place where they could question her without the parent there to offer even the most well-meant nods of encouragement.

Jenna squatted in front of her. “We'll probably have some more questions for you later, but in the meantime, you tell Mom or Stepdad if you think of anything else that might be important, okay?”

Molly nodded in earnest. “I will think about it hard.”

Jenna didn't doubt it.

“Can I take her home now?” Liam Tyler asked, holding Molly's hand. He wore a desperate frown, an expression as worn as his nerves must've been.

Saleda smiled. “Sure. Here's my card. Please call if anything comes up. We'll be in touch, probably arrange another interview down at the station within the next day or two.”

Liam nodded. “Thank you.”

As they walked away from Molly and her stepfather, Jenna nodded toward S.A. Dodd. “Saleda, this is S.A. Dodd.”

Saleda didn't break stride, but Jenna could feel her tense beside her. “Nice to meet you, Special Agent. Tell me, is it standard practice for you to arrive first at your team's crime scene? Are you just incredibly prompt, or is there some sort of early-bird prize the rest of us don't know about?”

Dodd chuckled. “More that I was in the neighborhood.”

Saleda stopped walking. “Well, from now on, understand we attend briefings as a team and report in as such, even if you
are
Mr. Rogers.”

Ouch.

“Duly noted,” Dodd replied, not a hint of animosity in his tone.

You damn sure took that better than I would've.

“What have we learned?” Dodd asked.

I also wouldn't overstep my bounds right this second, either.

Saleda's eyes narrowed, but she faced forward and started walking again. “Not much, considering most of the witnesses are senile, confused, and traumatized.”

“The workers?” Jenna asked.

“Most didn't see a thing. They either didn't have sight lines, or they heard shots and ducked under counters for protection, scared shitless. What about the kid?” Saleda asked.

Tapping.
“She mentioned a few things. She did actually
see
the guy, but no description, really.”

“Could she work with a sketch artist?” Saleda asked.

“Doubtful. She didn't notice enough of those kinds of details.”
Tapping. Three taps. What is it about that?

“Kid's bright, though. She noticed more than most people around her,” Dodd chimed in.

“Yeah, I definitely think we'll want to talk to her again,” Jenna mumbled. She made a mental note to jot down some ideas later, think about how she might be able to relate looks to numbers when she interviewed Molly again.

“Local cops are setting up roadblocks with a sixty-mile radius. He couldn't have gotten much farther than that, but unfortunately we have virtually nothing to go on. No clue whether he left in a vehicle, on foot, or anything in between. He could've ridden a goddamned Clydesdale horse for all we know,” Saleda said.

“We should also check with local psychiatric hospitals for any recently released inpatients. This thing reeks of someone with voices in their head telling them Governor Holman was about to let aliens rule Virginia,” Dodd said.

Jenna caught herself nodding. She wasn't sure about the governor and the aliens, but from the moment she'd walked in, the lack of training in the shooter combined with the obvious planning of the event had brought the color blue to her mind. She associated the particular royal shade with a variety of things, but in this case, her gut said whatever its other implications might be, it indicated submission. She usually associated reds with power, blues with submission. One of her most high-profile cases last year had been a classic example, one in which two shooters came together, one red and one blue in her mind—the dominant and the submissive, respectively. In this single-shooter situation though, she had a feeling the submissive blue meant the perpetrator was submitting to some urge he couldn't control. Mental illness, be it schizophrenia or not, was a likely explanation for such a compulsion. True psychopaths, unlike the kind the media portrayed, were scarily
sane
, and usually displayed a great deal of control over their actions. The problem was they didn't have consciences, so they just didn't care about right or wrong.

Jenna's phone vibrated in her pocket. She reached for it reflexively, her heart leaping into her throat. Every time that phone rang, the worst possibilities flashed in. She could practically hear Claudia's voice on the other line, taunting that she had gotten Ayana somehow. With Ayana at home, away from her after everything that had happened last year, Jenna would just as soon turn herself in as the grocery store shooter than not answer that phone.

“Sorry, have to take this,” she said with no further explanation. She'd already told Saleda one of her conditions for returning to the team would be that she would have her phone on her at all times for this very reason. Saleda hadn't had enough better options to argue.