Authors: Steven James
You gotta move out in front of him, Pat. Do what you do best.
I looked back at the people examining Margaret’s car.
Everyone was talking in whispers. A tumble of barely audible words skittered across the parking lot toward me. I heard someone mutter something about the media and warrants, and then someone started calling Grolin the names I’d been thinking of but just hadn’t gotten around to saying yet.
I had to stop him. And I would. For Christie.
I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my windbreaker, stuffed the receipt into my pocket, and headed back to the crime scene.
I arrived just in time to hear Lien-hua gasp. “He sawed her in half?” Her voice broke in the middle of the sentence, and I wanted to save her from seeing the body and from the images she would never be able to erase from her mind, to protect her from doing her job, from becoming more like me. But I couldn’t protect her. I wasn’t here for that.
A few minutes later, Lien-hua, Ralph, and I drifted back together on the edge of the parking lot. Margaret strode up to us, jittery and tense. No one said a word. Then Agent Tucker and Sheriff Wallace found their way over to us, and I spoke softly, but to all of them. “When he talked to me last night, he called himself the Illusionist. He told me, ‘You can’t have her. I saw her first.’”
Ralph’s teeth were clenched. “The sawing the woman in half trick.”
“That’s sick,” said Sheriff Wallace.
Margaret turned to Lien-hua. “Where did you say Grolin works?”
“
MountainQuest
magazine. He writes the outdoor column.”
Wallace nodded. “I know the place. It’s out on highway 25 on the way to Hendersonville.”
“Find him. Bring him in.”
Dante turned to me. “Dr. Bowers?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have my phone back?”
“Oh yeah. Sure.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out the handful of parts that used to be his phone, and handed it to him.
“What on earth happened to it?”
Ralph answered for me. “He dropped it.”
“Something like that,” I mumbled. “I’m really sorry. I’ll buy you a new one.”
He shook his head, stuffed the pieces into his pocket, and then motioned to a couple of uniformed officers who followed him to a patrol car.
I felt bad, but then Margaret turned to me and I prepared to feel worse. I was sure she was going to rip into me about disregarding her orders and heading over to Grolin’s place. “Get that shoulder looked at,” she said. “Have the EMTs check it out.”
Now that was a surprise. Considering the circumstances, her concern was somewhat moving.
“I’ll be all right.”
“Dr. Bowers, there is a piece of wood sticking out of your back.”
No wonder it hurt.
“Get that taken out. You get an infection, it costs us more money. I don’t want the Bureau to have to spend any more money on you than it has to.”
Oh. Well. In that case.
“Ralph?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to do the questioning.” Her voice was iron. Flat and cold.
He nodded.
She tried to stay calm, but her voice began to quaver. “No kid gloves, Ralph. He put that girl in my car.”
He nodded again. “I understand.”
Joseph Grolin, here we come.
Tessa stared out the window of the 737 at the towering castles of clouds surrounding the plane. Glowing corridors of vapor and light split open to encircle the plane, to welcome it into their fairytale landscape. At one time she might have been impressed, even astonished by this journey through gossamer light, but today all she saw was a bunch of stupid clouds.
When she was younger she used to lie on her back in the summer grass and look up at the clouds with her mother, pointing and giggling and finding mystical creatures in the sky; mermaids and dragons and fairies. Just like all children do at one time or another.
“See that one,” she would cry. “It’s a unicorn!”
“Yes,” her mother would say. “I see it. I see it.”
Whatever the clouds really looked like, Tessa could always find a unicorn.
But not anymore. No, today there were only clouds in the sky. Shapeless and blank. No unicorns. Just misty haze surrounding her. In fact, she hadn’t seen a unicorn in a long, long time. She couldn’t even remember when.
She glanced over at the profile of the man escorting her. He’d told her his name: Special Agent Eric Stanton. He didn’t really look like an FBI agent, more like an accountant. Hair parted on the side, baby face, clean shave. But he wasn’t wearing a ring, and he wasn’t really
that
old—maybe twenty-two or so—and he might have actually looked cute if he could lose the tie and the old-man-looking glasses, grow a little soul patch . . . ruffle up his hair a little . . .
“Yes?” He was looking directly at her now. “Did you need something?” He had soft brown eyes.
“Um, no.” She looked away, out the window again. She hoped she wasn’t blushing.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
He leaned close. She could smell his aftershave.
Gak. Why did he have to use aftershave?
“You OK, kid?”
Kid!
“I’m fine.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” he said sarcastically. “As your chaperone I’m very glad to hear that.”
She looked at him again. What in the world was wrong with her! The guy was probably over thirty! Old enough to be her dad. She folded her arms and glared at him. She glanced momentarily at the Sudoku puzzle he was working on. He’d been struggling with it for the last hour or so. It was rated “expert.” Huh. Yeah, right. He should have probably been doing one rated “toddler.”
She studied it for a few brief seconds. “Six, nine, eight, four, one, three,” she said.
“What?”
“The bottom row. Fill those in, you should be able to take it from there.” After registering his surprise she added, “Though I wouldn’t bet on it.”
He looked down at the sheet then back at her. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s just easy to figure out when you’re a
kid
.”
Then he made a small sound with his mouth half open, asked her to repeat the numbers, looked down at his puzzle, and started scribbling. While he filled in the squares in his lame little puzzle, Tessa turned back to the wall of the airplane and stared out the window, searching the sky for something. Anything.
But all she could see were miles and miles of clouds.
Alice McMichaelson sighed and slumped into her recliner.
After taking Jacob to his last soccer game for the year (they won four to three thanks to Jacob’s two goals) and maneuvering through traffic and then stopping by the library to drop off Brenda’s overdue books and check out another stack that she’d probably finish by the end of the weekend and swinging through McDonald’s to get some lunch and then crawling past that nightmare construction zone on highway 240 West, she’d finally made it home.
Whew.
She kicked off her shoes. Stress. That was the problem. Starting a new job, arriving late for work, not getting enough sleep last night, running around all day with the kids.
She took a deep breath and let her thoughts wander back to work. She really liked this job. The bank was going through a merger—Second National had been bought out by Montrose Intl. Investments last month, and transferring files and accounts had been a nightmare because the two banking companies just happened to use different computer programs—surprise, surprise. But that was one of the reasons they’d brought her on board. They needed extra staff to help with the transition and she needed the money. Garrett had never sent any child support and it was tough enough just making house payments. She had to keep this job. She had to.
She sighed again, then reached down and rubbed her left foot. Ah, that felt good. Tonight, once the kids were in bed, she could do some studying, get ready for her exam on Monday. But for now it just felt good to relax.
Jacob had deposited his soccer clothes in the middle of the hall and disappeared into his room to play video games, and the truth was, she didn’t even care. A few minutes ago Brenda had emerged from her room just long enough to find a bag of Cheetos. Alice watched her daughter return down the hallway and then let her eyes wander around the living room. Could use some cleaning. Vacuuming mostly. But then again, it wasn’t so bad, really. Being a single mom with two kids, what did you expect? She’d managed OK. And maybe she wouldn’t be single forever. She was still young enough to start over again and hadn’t lost all of her looks—at least not yet. And there were a few guys who’d shown interest in her, after all.
She brushed at a stray wisp of hair. Never did find that brush, though, and it bugged her. Usually she prided herself on knowing where everything was around the house.
Well, not a big deal. She’d buy another dumb brush. And at least she didn’t have to get up for work tomorrow, just take the kids to mass at ten, and after that she had all day to relax. She could make it through until then. Yes. She could manage.
In a few minutes she would get up and straighten the living room. She closed her eyes and whispered a small prayer and rubbed her foot while the weekend drizzled past her outside.
The angels were winning.
At least for now.
Ralph suggested we take a breather and then reconvene in half an hour to debrief. It gave us all a chance to collect our bearings, refocus, grab some coffee, whatever. While everyone else went their separate ways, I had one of the paramedics take a look at my shoulder.
He pulled out the blade-like slat of wood that the explosion had buried six inches into my back, cleaned the wound, and smeared the area with antibiotic. “You really should have this stitched up,” he said. “There’s a lot of muscle damage.”
“I’ll be all right,” I told him. “Just butterfly it shut with some bandages.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Not that kind of doctor. I used to lead wilderness trips, though. Learned first aid for that.”
“Might leave a scar.”
“It wouldn’t be my first.”
He gently bandaged the wound and then patted my good shoulder. “You be careful out there.”
I thanked him and headed inside for the meeting. On the way past the senator’s office I noticed Ralph and Lien-hua standing by the water cooler. Water, good idea. Rinse the bile out of my mouth. I grabbed a cup.
“That shoulder all right?” asked Ralph.
“Yeah. It’ll be fine. Little sore though.” Actually, it was killing me. “You two OK?”
They nodded.
“Listen,” I said, “did you see any evidence at the house before the explosion?”
Ralph took a deep sigh. “A leather jacket in his closet. Looked like the one our guy was wearing last night. I didn’t grab it though because we didn’t have the search warrant yet, and then there wasn’t time to go back for it after you yelled ‘bomb.’”
“Lien-hua?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Nothing.”
Just then Margaret and Tucker walked in. They nodded a silent greeting to us and headed to the conference room. Ralph joined them, but Lien-hua stayed by the water cooler a moment longer.
“So honestly, is your shoulder OK?” she asked.
“Honestly, it hurts like the dickens.”
“The dickens?”
“My mom used to say it.”
“Oh. Well, anyway. I wanted to say . . . thanks.”
“For . . . ?”
“At the house. You covered me with your body. You protected me. You didn’t have to do that.”
Ah. She noticed.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“But . . .”
“Yes?”
“Don’t ever do it again.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I don’t need protecting, Agent Bowers. I can take care of myself. I’m a big girl. Understand?”
“Um, I—”
“Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” I said.
No,
I thought. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you don’t want me to protect you, but that you’re thankful to me when I do?”
“I would give that analysis an A,” she said with the flicker of a grin, and walked away, leaving me standing there by myself with an empty paper cup in my hand.
I will never, ever understand women.
I rinsed out my mouth, threw the cup into the trash, and followed Lien-hua to the meeting.
Margaret looked worse than the rest of us. Streaks of mascara scarred her face, and she was staring at the wall, emotionless. A zombie was in charge of our team. Ralph glanced my way and conferred the leadership of the meeting to me with a nod.
“First of all, everyone’s OK,” I said. “Right?”
Nods.
“I know right now everything seems to point to Grolin, but let’s back up for a minute and try to stay objective. Margaret, the CSIU is finishing up outside?”
“Yes,” she mumbled. “Then we have to send them to Grolin’s house and your cave up on that mountain.”
Those guys would be earning their pay today.
“Agent Tucker?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you find any more links between the crimes—like the contacts or the engagement ring?”
He shook his head. “We’ll need more time to be sure, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else. It looks like he started leaving clues with Reinita.”
“But what about Bethanie?” asked Lien-hua. “She came between Reinita and Mindy. Why would he skip over her?”
Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“We’re missing something,” I said.
Just then one of the crime scene technicians burst into the room. We all turned and stared in his direction. I think it intimidated him because he shrank back a little and mumbled, “Special Agent Wellington, you told us to let you know if we found anything . . .”
“Yes,” she snapped. “What is it?”
He shrank back even more. “Her purse. It was in the car with her, shoved back into the corner of the trunk.”
“Let’s see it,” said Ralph.
I pushed aside the piles of papers, pens, and empty coffee cups to clear off the table, and the tech guy carefully dumped out the contents of Jolene’s purse. Her cell phone tumbled onto the table along with a set of keys, a makeup case, a compact, some crumpled receipts, a billfold stuffed with pictures and credit cards, a few pens, a brush, two tampons, and a checkbook.