Shadow Man

1

I HAVE ONE of the dreams. There are only three; two are beautiful, one is violent, but all of them leave me shivering and alone. The one I have tonight is about my husband. It goes something like this:

I could say he kissed my neck, and leave it like that, simplicity. But that would be a lie, in the most basic way that the word was created to mean.

It would be more truthful to say that I yearned for him to kiss my neck, with every molecule of my being, with every last, burning inch of me, and that when he did, his lips were the lips of an angel, sent from heaven to answer my fevered prayers.

I was seventeen then, and so was he. It was a time when there was no blandness or darkness. There was only passion, sharp edges, and a light that burned so hard it hurt the soul.

He leaned forward in the darkness of the movie theater and ( Oh God) he hesitated for just a moment and ( Oh God) I quivered on a precipice but pretended to be calm, and Oh God Oh God Oh God he kissed my neck, and it was heaven, and I knew right then and there that I would be with him forever.

He was my one. Most people, I know, never find their one. They read about it, dream about it, or scoff at the idea. But I found mine, I found him when I was seventeen, and I never let him go, not even the day he lay dying in my arms, not even when death ripped him from me as I screamed, not even now.

God's name these days means suffering: Oh God Oh God Oh God--I miss him so.

I wake with the ghost of that kiss on my flushed seventeen-year-old skin, and realize that I am not seventeen, and that he has stopped aging at all. Death has preserved him at the age of thirty-five, forever. To me, he is always seventeen years old, always leaning forward, always brushing my neck in that perfect moment. I reach over to the spot he should be sleeping in, and I am pierced with a pain so sudden and blinding that I pray as I shiver, pray for death and an end to pain. But of course, I go on breathing, and soon, the pain lessens.

I miss everything about him being in my life. Not just the good things. I miss his flaws as achingly as I miss the beautiful parts of him. I miss his impatience, his anger. I miss the patronizing look he would give me sometimes when I was mad at him. I miss being annoyed by the fact that he'd always forget to fill the gas tank, leaving it near empty when I was ready to go somewhere.

This is the thing, I think often, that never occurs to you when you consider what it would be like to lose someone you love. That you would miss not just the flowers and kisses, but the totality of the experience. You miss the failures and little evils with as much desperation as you miss being held in the middle of the night. I wish he were here now, and I was kissing him. I wish he were here now, and I was betraying him. Either would be fine, so fine, as long as he was here. People ask sometimes, when they get up the courage, what it's like to lose someone you love. I tell them it's hard, and leave it at that. I could tell them that it's a crucifixion of the heart. I could say that most days after, I screamed without stopping, even as I moved through the city, even with my mouth closed, even though I didn't make a sound. I could tell them I have this dream, every night, and lose him again, every morning.

But, hey, why ruin their day? So I tell them it's hard. That usually seems to satisfy them.

This is just one of the dreams, and it gets me out of bed, shaking. I stare at the empty room, and then turn to the mirror. I have learned to hate mirrors. Some would say that this is normal. That all of us do this, put ourselves under the microscope of self-reflection and focus on the flaws. Beautiful women create fret and worry lines by looking for those very things. Teenage girls with beautiful eyes and figures to die for weep because their hair is the wrong color, or they think their nose is too big. The price of judging ourselves through others' eyes, one of the curses of the human race. And I agree.

But most people don't see what I see when I look into the mirror. When I look at myself, what I see is this:

I have a jagged scar, approximately one half inch wide, that begins in the middle of my forehead at my hairline. It shoots straight down, then turns at a near perfect ninety degree angle to the left. I have no left eyebrow; the scar has taken its place. It crosses my temple, where it then makes a lazy loop-de-loop down my cheek. It rips over toward my nose, crosses the bridge of it just barely, and then turns back, slicing in a diagonal across my left nostril and zooming one final time past my jawline, down my neck, ending at my collarbone. It's quite an effect. If you look at me in right profile only, everything looks normal. You have to stare at me straight on to get the full picture. Everyone looks in a mirror at least once a day, or sees their reflection in the eyes of others. And they know what to expect. They know what they will see, what will be seen. I no longer see what I expect to see. I have the reflection of a stranger, staring out of a mask I can't take off. When I stand naked in front of the mirror, as I am now, I can see the rest of it. I have what can only be called a necklace of cigar-sized circular scars, going from under one side of my collarbone to the other. More of the same traverse my breasts, go down across my sternum and stomach, ending just above my pubic hair. The scars are cigar-sized because a cigar is what made them. If you can put all of that aside, things look pretty good. I'm small, four foot ten inches tall. I'm not skinny, but I am in shape. My husband used to call it a "lush" figure. After my mind, heart, and soul, he used to say, he married me for my "mouth-sized boobs and my heart-shaped ass." I have long, thick, dark, curly hair that hangs down to just above said ass.

He used to love that too.

It is hard for me to look past those scars. I've seen them a hundred times, maybe a thousand. They are still all I see when I look into the mirror.

They were put there by the man who killed my husband and my daughter. Who was later killed by me.

I feel a broad emptiness rush into me thinking about this. It's huge, dark, and absolutely nerveless. Like sinking into numb Jell-O. No big deal. I'm used to it.

That's just how my life is now.

I sleep for no more than ten minutes, and I know that I won't be sleeping again tonight. I remember waking up a few months ago in the middle hours, just like this. That time between 3:30 and 6:00 A.M., when you feel like the only person on earth if you happen to be up then. I'd had one of the dreams, as always, and knew I wasn't going to be getting back to sleep. I pulled on a T-shirt and some sweatpants, slipped on my battered sneakers, and headed out the door. I ran and ran and ran in the night, ran till my body was slick with sweat, till it soaked my clothes and filled those sneakers, and then I ran some more. I wasn't pacing myself, and my breath was coming out fast. My lungs felt scarred by the coolness of that early-morning air. I didn't stop, though. I ran faster, legs and elbows pumping, running as fast as I could, reckless. I ended up in front of one of those convenience stores that fill the Valley, over by the curb, gagging and hacking up stomach acid. A couple of other early-morning ghosts looked over at me, then looked away. I stood up, wiped my mouth, and slammed through the front door of the store.

"I want a pack of cigarettes," I said to the proprietor, still gulping in air.

He was an older man, in his fifties, who looked Indian to me.

"What kind do you want?"

The question startled me. I hadn't smoked in years. I looked at the rows behind him, my eyes catching the once-beloved Marlboros.

"Marlboros. Reds."

He got me the pack and rang it up. Which is when I realized I was in sweats and had no money. Instead of being embarrassed, I was, of course, angry.

"I forgot my purse." I said it with my chin jutted out, defiant. Daring him to not give me the cigarettes or to make me feel ridiculous in any way.

He looked at me for a moment. It was, I guess, what writers would call a "pregnant pause." He relaxed.

"You've been running?" he asked.

"Yeah--running from my dead husband. Better than killing yourself, I guess, ha ha!"

The words came out sounding funny to my ears. A little loud, a little strangled. I suppose I was a little crazy. But instead of getting the flinch or look of discomfort I so wanted from him at that moment, his eyes went soft. Not with pity, but with understanding. He nodded. He reached across the counter, holding the pack of cigarettes out for me to take.

"My wife died in India. One week before we were supposed to come to America. You take the cigarettes, pay me next time."

I stood there for a moment, staring at him. And then I snatched those cigarettes and ran out of there as fast as I could, before the tears started rolling down my cheeks. I clutched that pack of cigarettes and ran home weeping.

The place is a little out of my way, but I never go anywhere else now when I want to smoke.

I sit up now and smile a little as I find the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand, and think of the guy at the store as I light up. I guess a part of me loves that little man, in the way you can only love a stranger who shows you a kindness so perfect at a time when you need it the most. It's a deep love, a pang in the heart, and I know that even if I never know his name, I'll remember him till the day I die.

I inhale, a nice deep lungful, and regard the cigarette, its perfect cherry tip as it glows in the dark of my bedroom. This, I think, is the insidiousness of the cursed things. Not the nicotine addiction, though that's surely bad enough. But the way a cigarette just fits in certain places. Morning dawns with a steaming cup of coffee. Or lonely nights in a house filled with ghosts. I know I should give them up again, before they get their claws all the way back into me, but I also know I won't. They are all I have right now, a reminder of a kindness, a comfort and a source of strength, all rolled into one.

I exhale and watch the smoke billow, caught here and there by little currents of air, floating and then disappearing. Like life, I think. Life is smoke, plain and simple; we just fool ourselves that it's otherwise. All it takes is one good gust and we float away and disappear, leaving behind only the scent of our passing in the form of memories. I cough suddenly, laughing at all the connections. I'm smoking, life is smoke, and my name is Smoky. Smoky Barrett. My real name, given to me because my mother thought it "sounded cool." This makes me cackle in the dark, in my empty house, and I think as I laugh (as I have before) just how crazy laughter sounds when you're laughing alone. This gives me something to think about for the next three or four hours. Being crazy, I mean. Tomorrow is the day, after all. The day when I decide if I go back to work for the FBI or come home, put a gun in my mouth, and blow my brains out.

2

ARE YOU STILL having the same three dreams?"

This is one of the reasons I trust my appointed shrink. He doesn't play mind games, dance around things, or try to sneak up and flank me. He goes straight for the heart of it, a direct attack. As much as I complain, and struggle against his attempts to heal me, I respect this. Peter Hillstead is his name, and he's about as far from the Freudappearance stereotype as you can get. He stands just under six feet tall, with dark hair, a model-handsome face, and a body I wondered about when I first met him. His eyes are the most striking thing about him, though. They are an electric blue I've never seen on a brunette before. Despite his movie-star looks, I cannot imagine transference happening with this man. When you are with him, you do not think about sex. You think about you. He is one of those rare people who truly care about those they deal with, and you cannot doubt this when you are with him. You never feel, when you talk to him, that his mind is roaming elsewhere. He gives you his full attention. He makes you feel like you are the only thing that matters inside his small office. This is what, to me, precludes having a crush on this hunky therapist. When you are with him, you don't think of him as a man, but as something far more valuable: a mirror of the soul.

"The same three," I respond.

"Which one did you have last night?"

I shift a little, uncomfortable. I know that he notices this, wonder what he's decided it means. I'm always calculating and weighing. I can't help it.

"The one about Matt kissing me."

He nods. "Were you able to go back to sleep afterward?"

"No." I stare at him, not saying anything more, while he waits. This is not one of my cooperative days.

Dr. Hillstead looks at me, chin in his hand. He seems to be contemplating something, a man at a crossroads. Knowing that whatever path he chooses will be one he can't take back. Almost a minute goes by before he leans back and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Smoky, did you know that within the ranks of my fellow practitioners, I'm not all that well thought of?"

I start at this, both at the idea of it as well as the fact that he is telling me at all. "Uh, no. I didn't."

He smiles. "It's true. I have some controversial views about my profession. The primary one being that I feel we have no real scientific solution to the problems of the mind."

How the hell am I supposed to respond to that? My shrink telling me that his chosen profession doesn't have any solutions to mental problems? Not exactly confidence-inspiring. "I can see how that might not be appreciated."

It's the best response I can muster on short notice.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I think my profession contains no solutions to mental problems."

And that, I think, is one of the other reasons I trust this therapist of mine. He is knife-edge sharp, to the point of clairvoyance. It doesn't spook me. I understand it--any truly gifted interrogator has this ability. To anticipate what the other person is thinking in response to what you are saying.

"No. What I mean is this: Science is science. It is exact. Gravity means when you drop something, it will always fall. Two plus two is always four. Nonvariance is the essence of science."

I think about this, nod.

"That being the case, what my profession does?" He gestures. "Our approach to the problems of the mind? Not a science. Not yet, at least. We haven't arrived at two plus two. If we had, I would solve every case that walked in that door. I would know, in case of depression, do A, B, C, and it would always work. There would be laws that never changed, and that would be science." He smiles now, a wry smile. Maybe a little sad. "But I don't solve every case. Not even half." He is silent a moment, then shakes his head. "What I do, my profession? It's not a science. It's a collection of things you can try, most of which have worked before more than once, and, having worked in more than one case, are worth trying again. But that's about it. I've stated this view in public, so . . . I don't have the greatest rep among many of my peers."

I give this some thought while he waits. "I think I can see why," I say.

"Things become more about image, less about results, in some parts of the Bureau. It's probably the same deal for the shrinks that don't like you."

He smiles again, a tired kind of smile. "Right to the pragmatic center of it as always, Smoky. At least, in things that don't involve yourself."

I wince inside at this. This is one of Dr. Hillstead's favorite techniques, using normal conversation as a cover for the soul-revealing zingers he shoots at you, casual. Like the little Scud missile he'd just popped in my direction: You have an incisive mind, Smoky, he'd said, but you don't apply it to solving yourself. Ouch. Truth hurts.

"But here I am, in spite of what anyone may think of me. One of the most trusted therapists when it comes to handling cases involving FBI agents. Why do you think that is?"

He is looking at me again, waiting. I know this is leading up to something. Dr. Hillstead never rambles. So I think about it.

"If I had to guess, I'd guess that it's because you're good. Good always counts more than looks good, in my line of work."

That slight smile again.

"That's right. I get results. That's not something I parade around, and I don't pat myself on the back about it before I go to bed every night. But it's true."

Said in the simple, nonarrogant tones of any accomplished professional. I understand this. It isn't about modesty. In a tactical situation, when you ask someone if they are good with a gun, you want them to be honest. If they suck, you want to know, and they want you to know, because a bullet will kill a liar as quick as an honest man. You have to know the truth about strengths and weaknesses when the rubber meets the road. I nod, and he continues.

"That's what matters in any military organization. Can you get results. Do you think it's odd that I think of the FBI as a military organization?"

"No. It's a war."

"Do you know what the primary problem of any military organization is, always?"

I'm getting bored, restless. "Nope."

He gives me a disapproving look. "Think about it before you answer, Smoky. Please don't blow me off."

Chastised, I comply. I speak slowly when I reply. "My guess would be . . . personnel."

He points a finger at me. "Bingo. Now--why?"

The answer leaps into my mind, the way answers sometimes did when I was on a case, when I was really thinking. "Because of what we see."

"Uh-huh. That's part of it. I call it 'see, do, lose.' What you see, what you do, and what you lose. It's a triumvirate." He counts them off on his fingers. "In law enforcement you see the worst things a human being is capable of. You do things no human should have to do, from handling rotting corpses to, in some cases, killing another person. You lose things, whether it's something intangible, like innocence and optimism, or something real, such as a partner or . . . family."

He gives me a look I can't read. "That's where I come in. I'm here because of this problem. And it's also this problem that prevents me from being able to do my job the way it should be done."

Now I am puzzled as well as interested. I look at him, a signal to continue, and he sighs. It's a sigh that seems to contain its own "see, do, lose," and I wonder about the other people who sit across from this desk, in this chair. The other miseries he listens to, takes home with him when he leaves.

I try to picture this, looking at him. Dr. Hillstead, sitting at home. I know the basics; I had checked him out in a cursory fashion. Never married, lives in a two-story, five-bedroom house in Pasadena. Drives an Audi sports sedan--the doc likes a little speed under him, a hint at some part of his personality. But these are all flat facts. Nothing to really tell you what happens when he walks in the front door of his home and closes it behind him. Is he a microwave dinner kind of bachelor? Or does he cook steak, sipping red wine alone at an immaculate dining table while Vivaldi plays in the background? Hey, maybe he comes home, slips on a pair of high heels and nothing else, and does the housework, hairy legs and all.

I warm to this thought, a little secret humor. I'll take my laughs where I can get them these days. I make myself focus again on what he's saying to me.

"In a normal world, someone who's gone through what you've gone through would never go back, Smoky. If you were the average person in the average profession, you'd stay away from guns, and killers, and dead people, forever. Instead, my job is to see if I can help you be ready to return to that. This is what is expected of me. To take wounded psyches and send them back into the war. Melodramatic, maybe, but true."

Now he leans forward, and I feel that we are getting to the end of it, to whatever point he's leading toward.

"Do you know why I'm willing to work toward that? When I know I may be sending someone back into the thing that harmed them in the first place?" He pauses. "Because that is what ninety-nine percent of my patients want."

He pinches the bridge of his nose again, shaking his head.

"The men and women I see, all mentally shot up, want to be fixed so they can go back to the battle. And the truth is, whatever it is that makes you people tick--most of the time, going back is exactly what you need. Do you know what happens to most of those who don't?

Sometimes they turn out okay. A lot of the time they turn into drunks. And every now and then, they kill themselves."

He looks at me as he says this last part, and I'm momentarily paranoid, wondering if he can read my mind. I have no idea where this is going. It's making me feel off balance, a little bit wobbly, and a whole lot uncomfortable. All of which annoys me. My response to being uncomfortable is all Irish, from my mother's side--I get pissed off and blame the other person for it.

He reaches over to the left side of his desk, picks up a thick file folder I hadn't noticed before, puts it in front of him, and flips it open. I squint and am surprised to see that it is my name on the tab. "This is your personnel file, Smoky. I've had it for some time, and I've read it through more than once." He flips over the pages, summarizing out loud. "Smoky Barrett, born 1968. Female. Degree in criminology. Accepted into the Bureau 1990. Graduated top of her class at Quantico. Assigned to assist in the Black Angel case in Virginia in 1991, administrative capacity." He looks up at me. "But you didn't remain on the sidelines of that one, did you?"

I shake my head, remembering. I sure hadn't. I was twenty-two years old, greener than green. Excited about being an agent, even more excited about being a part of a major case, even if it was pretty much just desk work. During one of the briefings, something about the case had stuck in my mind, something in a witness statement that didn't seem right. It was still turning in my head when I went to sleep, and I awoke with a 4:00 A.M. epiphany, something that was going to become familiar to me in later years. The thing was, it ended up being an insight that broke the case wide open. It had to do with what direction a window opened. A tiny, forgettable detail that became the pea under my mattress and ended up closing the door on a killer. I called it luck at the time and downplayed myself. True luck was that the agent in charge of the task force, Special Agent Jones, was one of those rare bosses. One who doesn't hog the glory and instead gives credit where credit is due. Even to a green female agent. I was still new, so I got more desk work, but I was on the fast track from that point on. I was groomed for NCAVC--the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, the part of the FBI that deals with the worst of the worst--under the watchful eye of SAC Jones.

"Assigned to NCAVC three years later. That's a pretty quick jump, isn't it?"

"The average agent assigned to NCAVC has ten years of prior Bureau experience." I'm not bragging. It's true. He continues reading.

"A few more cases solved, glowing performance reviews. And then you were made the NCAVC coordinator in Los Angeles in '96. Charged with creating an efficient local unit, and repairing relations with local law enforcement that your predecessor had damaged. Some might have thought this was a demotion, but the truth is, you were handpicked for a difficult task. It's where you really began to shine."

My mind wanders back to that time. Shine is the perfect word. 1996 was a year when nothing seemed to go wrong. I'd had my daughter in late 1995. I was appointed to the LA office, a huge feather in my professional cap. And Matt and I were going strong, strong as ever. It was one of those years when I woke up every morning excited, fresh. Back when I could reach over and find him next to me, where he should be.

It was everything that the here and now is not, and I feel myself getting angry at Dr. Hillstead for reminding me of this. For making the present all the more bleak and empty by comparison.

"Is there a point here?"

He raises a hand. "Just a little bit more. The office in LA hadn't been doing well. You were given carte blanche in restaffing it, and you picked three agents from offices around the United States. They were thought, at the time, to be unusual choices. But they proved out in the end, didn't they?"

That, I think to myself, is an understatement. I just nod, still angry.

"In fact, your team is one of the best in Bureau history, isn't it?"

"The best." I can't help it. I'm proud of my team, and I'm incapable of being modest when it comes to them. Besides, it's the truth. NCAVC

Los Angeles, known as "NCAVC Coord" or internally as "Death Central," did its job. Period and always.

"Right." He flips through a few more pages. "Lots of solved cases. More glowing reviews. Some notes that you were being considered to become the first female acting Director ever. Historic."

All of this is true. All of it also continues to anger me, for reasons I can't quite understand. I just know that I am getting pissed off, coming to a boil, and if this continues, I am going to have an explosive meltdown.

"Something else in your file caught my eye. Notations about your marksmanship."

He looks up at me, and I feel blindsided, though I don't know why. Something stirs in me, and I recognize it as fear. I grip the arms of the chair as he continues.

"Your file states that you possibly rank within the top twentieth percentile, worldwide, with a handgun. Is that true, Smoky?"

I stare at my therapist, and I feel myself going numb. The anger is disappearing.

Me and guns. Everything he's saying is true. I can pick up a gun and shoot it like other people grab a glass of water, or ride a bike. It's instinctive, and always has been. There's no genius to it that you can put a finger on. I didn't have a father who wanted a son and so taught me how to use a gun. In fact, my dad disliked them. It was just something I could do. I was eight years old, and my dad had a friend who had been in Vietnam as a Green Beret. Now he was a gun nut. He lived in a rundown condo in a run-down area of the San Fernando Valley--which fit him. He was a run-down man. Even so, to this day I remember his eyes: sharp and youthful. Sparkling.

His name was Dave, and he managed to drag my father out to a shooting range in a somewhat disreputable area of San Bernardino County, and my dad had brought me along, maybe in hopes of keeping the trip short. Dave got my dad to shoot a few clips, as I stood, watching, wearing protective earmuffs that were too big for my little-girl head. I watched them both as they held the weapons, and I was fascinated by it. Drawn to it.

"Can I try?" I piped up.

"I don't think that's a good idea, honey," Dad said.

"Aww, come on, Rick. I'll get her a little twenty-two pistol. Let her squeeze off a couple of shots."

"Please, Daddy?" I looked up at my father with my best pleading look, the one I knew, even at eight, could bend his will to mine. He looked down at me, the struggle apparent in his face, and then sighed.

"Okay. But just a few shots."

Dave went and got the twenty-two, a tiny little thing that fit my hand, and they dug up a stool for me to stand on. Dave loaded the weapon and placed it in my hands, standing behind me as my dad watched, apprehensive.

"See the target down there?" he asked. I nodded. "Decide where you want your shot to land. Take your time. When you pull the trigger, you want to do it slow. Don't jerk it, or that will throw off your aim. You ready?"

I believe I replied, but the truth was, I barely heard him. I had the gun in my hand, and something was clicking inside me. Something right. Something that fit. I looked down the range at the human-shaped target, and it didn't seem far away at all. It seemed close, reachable. I pointed the gun toward it, took a breath, and pulled. I was startled and thrilled by the jerk of the little pistol in my small hands.

"Damn!" I heard Dave crow.

I squinted down toward the target again and saw that a little hole had appeared in the center of the head, right where I had wanted it to go.

"You just might be a natural, young lady," he said to me. "Try a few more."

The "couple of shots" turned into an hour and a half of shooting. I hit what I aimed for over ninety percent of the time, and by the end of it, I knew I'd be shooting guns for the rest of my life. And that I'd be good at it.

My dad supported this habit in the years to come, in spite of his distaste for guns. I guess he recognized that this was a part of me, something he wouldn't be able to keep me away from. The truth? I'm scary-good. I keep this to myself, and I don't show off in public. But alone? I'm an Annie Oakley. I can shoot out candle flames and put holes in quarters that you toss in the air. One time, at an outdoor shooting range, I put a Ping-Pong ball on the back of my gun hand, the same one I use to draw my weapon. It sat on the back of my hand, and then that hand flew down to grab my gun. I came back up and blew the Ping-Pong ball away before it could fall to the ground. A silly trick, but I found it very satisfying.

All of this goes through my head while Dr. Hillstead watches me.

"It's true," I say.

He closes the file. Clasps his hands and looks at me. "You are an exceptional agent. Certainly one of the best female agents in the Bureau's history. You hunt the worst of the worst. Six months ago a man you were hunting, Joseph Sands, came after you and your family, killed your husband in front of you, raped and tortured you, and killed your daughter. Through an effort that could only be called superhuman, you turned the tables on him, taking his life."

I am fully clothed in the numbness now. I don't know what all of this is leading to, and I don't care.

"So here I am, in a profession where two plus two doesn't always equal four, and things don't always fall when you drop them, trying to help you go back to all of that."

The look he gives me is so filled with honest compassion that I have to look away from it; it burns me with its feeling.

"I've been doing this for a long time, Smoky. And you've been seeing me for quite a while. I develop feelings about things--you'd probably call them hunches in your line of work. Here's what my hunches have to say about where we're at. I think you're trying to choose between whether or not to go back to work or kill yourself."

My gaze snaps back up to his, an involuntary admission that's been shocked out of me. As the numbness rushes away from me in a scream, I realize that I've been played, played with great finesse. He's talked around, rambled, prodded, keeping me unaware and off balance, and then moved in for the kill. Right for the jugular, without hesitation. And it's worked.

"I can't help you unless you really lay it all on the table, Smoky."

That compassionate look again, too truthful and honest and good for me right now; his eyes are like two hands reaching out to grab my spiritual shoulders, shaking me hard. I feel tears prickling. But my look back is filled with anger. He wants to break me, the way I've broken plenty of criminals in plenty of interrogation offices. Well, fuck that. Dr. Hillstead seems to sense this, and smiles a soft smile.

"Okay, Smoky, that's fine. Just one last thing."

He pulls open a desk drawer and lifts a plastic evidence bag out. At first I can't tell what it holds, but then I can, and it causes me to shiver and sweat at the same time.

It's my gun. The one I carried for years, and the one I shot Joseph Sands with.

I can't tear my eyes away from it. I know it like I know my own face. Glock, deadly, black. I know how much it weighs, what it feels like--I can even remember how it smells. It sits there in that bag, and the sight of it fills me with an overwhelming terror.

Dr. Hillstead opens the bag, removing the gun. He lays it down on the desk in front of us. Now he looks at me again, except this time, it's a hard look, not a compassionate one. He's done fucking around. I realize that what I thought was his best shot wasn't even close. For reasons I don't understand, and apparently he does, it is this that is going to break me wide open. My own weapon.

"How many times have you picked up that gun, Smoky? A thousand? Ten thousand?"

I lick my lips, which are as dry as dust. I don't reply. I can't stop looking at the Glock.

"Pick it up, right now, and I'll recommend you fit for active duty, if that's what you want."

I can't respond, and I can't tear my eyes away from it. Part of me knows I'm in Dr. Hillstead's office, and that he is sitting across from me, but things seem to have narrowed to one world: me and the gun. Sounds have filtered out, so that there is a strange, still silence in my head, except for the thudding of my heart. I can hear it, beating hard and fast.

I lick my dry lips again. Just reach over and take it, I tell myself. Like he said, you've done it ten thousand times. That gun is an extension of your hand; picking it up is an afterthought, like breathing, or blinking. It just sits there, and my hands have stayed on the arms of the chair, stiff and clenching.

"Go ahead. Pick it up." His voice has gone hard. Not brutal, but unyielding. I've managed to get one of my hands to come off the arm of the chair, and I move it forward with all the force of will I can muster. It doesn't want to respond, and part of me, the very small part that remains analytical and calm, cannot believe that this is happening. When did an action that, for me, is close to a reflex become the hardest thing I've ever done?

I'm aware that sweat is streaming down my forehead. My entire body is shaking, and my vision has started to get dark around the edges. I'm having trouble breathing, and I can feel panic building in me, a claustrophobic, hemmed-in, suffocating feeling. My arm is shaking like a tree in a hurricane. Muscles spasm up and down it like a bagful of snakes. My hand gets closer and closer to the gun, until it's hovering just above it, and now the shaking is huge, has moved to my entire body, and the sweat is everywhere.

I leap up from the chair, toppling it over backward, and scream. I scream, and I beat my head with my hands, and I feel myself starting to sob, and I know he's done it. He's cracked me, split me open, torn my guts out. The fact that he's done it to help me isn't any comfort, none at all, because right now everything is pain, pain, pain. I back away from his desk, to the left wall, sliding down it. I register that I am moaning as I do this, a kind of keening wail. It is a terrible sound. It hurts me to hear it, like it always has. It is a sound I've heard too many times before. The sound of a survivor who has realized that they're still alive, while everything they love is gone. I've heard it from mothers and husbands and friends, heard it as they identified bodies in the morgue or got the news of death from my own lips. I wonder that I can't feel ashamed right now, but there's no room for shame here. Pain has filled me up.

Dr. Hillstead has moved near me. He won't hold me or touch me--that's not good form for a therapist. But I can feel him. He is a crouched blur in front of me, and my hatred of him, at this moment, is perfect.

"Talk to me, Smoky. Tell me what's happening."

It is a voice so filled with genuine kindness that it sparks a whole new wave of anguish. I manage to speak, broken, sobbing gasps.

"I can't live like this I can't live like this no Matt, no Alexa, no love no life all gone all gone and--"

My mouth forms an O. I can feel it. I look up at the ceiling, grab my hair, and manage to rip out two handfuls by the roots before I pass out.

3

IT SEEMS STRANGE that a demon would speak with a voice like that. He stands nearly ten feet tall, he has agate eyes and a head covered with gnashing, crying mouths. The scales that cover him are the black of something that's been burned. But the voice is twangy, almost Southern-sounding, when he speaks.

"I love to eat souls," he says in a conversational tone. "Nothing like devouring something that was destined for heaven."

I'm naked and tied to my bed, tied by silver chains, chains thin and yet unbreakable. I feel like Sleeping Beauty, written by accident into an H. P. Lovecraft story. Waking to a forked tongue against my lips rather than the soft kiss of a hero. I am voiceless, gagged with a scarf of silk. The demon is standing at the foot of the bed, looking down at me as it speaks. It looks both at ease and possessive, staring at me with the look of pride a hunter gives a deer strapped to the hood of his car. It waves the serrated combat knife it's holding. The knife seems so small in those huge, clawed hands.

"But I like my souls well done--and spicy! Yours is missing something . . . maybe a dash of agony and a side of pain?"

Its eyes go empty, and black saliva that looks like pus dribbles from between its fangs, sliding along its chin and onto its huge and scaly chest. The demon's absolute unawareness of this is terrifying. Then it smiles a leering smile, showing all those pointy teeth, and shakes a claw at me, playful.

"I have someone else here too, my love. My sweet, sweet Smoky."

It steps aside to reveal my prince, the one whose kiss I should have awoken to. My Matt. The man I've known since I was seventeen years old. The man I know in every way a person can know another person. He is naked, and tied to a chair. He's been given a long, terrible beating. The kind of beating designed to harm without causing death. The kind of beating made to feel endless, to kill hope, while keeping the body alive. One eye is swollen shut, his nose is broken, and teeth are missing behind the shredded meat of his lips. His lower jaw is formless and shattered. Sands has used his knife on Matt. I see small, deep cuts all over that face I've loved and kissed and cradled. There are big slashes down his chest and around his belly button. And blood. So much blood everywhere. Blood that runs and drips and bubbles as Matt breaths. The demon has smeared the blood on Matt's stomach to play a game of tic-tac-toe. I notice that the O s won. Matt's one open eye meets mine, and the perfection of the despair I see there fills my mind with a terrible howling. It's a howl from the gut, a soul-shattering sound, horror put to voice. A hurricane shriek strong enough to destroy the world. I am filled with a rage so complete, so intense, so overwhelming that it destroys conscious thought with the violence of a bomb blast. This is a rage of insanity, the total darkness of an underground cavern. An eclipse of the soul.

I screech like an animal through my gag, the kind of screech that should make your throat bleed and your eardrums explode, and I slam against my bonds so hard that the chains cut into my skin. My eyes bug out, trying to burst from their sockets. If I were a dog, I would be foaming at the mouth. I want only one thing: to snap these chains and kill the demon with my bare hands. I don't just want it to die--I want to eviscerate it. I want to tear it apart so that it is unrecognizable. I want to split the atoms that make up the demon and turn it into mist. But the chains stay strong. They don't break. They don't even loosen. Through this, the demon watches me in bemused fascination, one hand resting on the top of Matt's head, a monstrous parody of a fatherly gesture. The demon laughs and shakes its monstrous head, causing its multiple mouths to mew in protest. Speaks again with that voice that doesn't match its form.

"There we go! Cook and baste, bake and broil." It winks. "Nothing like a little despair to bring out the taste of a heroic soul. . . ." A pause, and then the voice goes serious for just a moment, fills with a kind of perverse regret: "Don't blame yourself for this, Smoky. Even a hero can't win all the time."

I look at Matt again, and the look in his eye is enough to make me want to die. It's not a look of fear, or pain, or horror. It's a look of love. He has managed, for just a moment, to push the demon out of the world of this bedroom, so that it's just he and I, looking at each other. One of the gifts of a long marriage is the ability to communicate anything--from mild displeasure to the meaning of life--with a single glance. It's something you develop in the process of mixing your soul with your spouse's, if you're willing to mix your soul. Matt was giving me one of those looks and saying three things with that one, beautiful eye: I'm sorry, I love you, and . . . good-bye.

It was like watching the end of the world. Not in flame and fire, but in cold, drenching shadows. Darkness that would go on forever. The demon seems to sense it as well. It laughs again and does a little prancing dance, waving its tail and dripping pus from its pores.

"Ahh-- amore. How sweet it is. That'll be the cherry on top of my Smoky sundae--the death of love."

The door to the room opens, closes. I don't see anyone enter . . . but there is now a small, shadowy figure at the periphery of my vision. Something about it fills me with desperation.

Matt closes his eye, and I feel the rage again and tear at my bonds. The knife goes down, I hear the wet, cutting, sawing sound, and Matt screams through his ruined lips as I scream through my gag, and Prince Charming is dying, Prince Charming is dying--

I wake up screaming.

I am lying on the couch in Dr. Hillstead's office. He is kneeling next to it, touching me with words, not hands.

"Shh. Smoky. It's okay, it was just a dream. You're here, you're safe."

I'm shaking hard, and I'm covered with sweat. I can feel tears drying on my face.

"Are you all right?" he asks me. "You back?"

I can't look at him. I bring myself to a sitting position.

"Why did you do that?" I whisper. I'm done with the pretense of being strong in front of my shrink. He's shattered me, and he holds my heart, still beating, in his hands.

He doesn't reply right away. He stands up, grabs a chair, and brings it close to the couch. He sits down, and though I still can't look at him, I can feel him looking at me, like a bird beating its wings against a window. Tentative, persistent.

"I did that . . . because I had to." He's silent for a moment. "Smoky, I've been working with FBI and other law-enforcement agents for a decade now. You people, you are made of such strong stuff. I've seen all the best parts of humanity in this office. Dedication. Bravery. Honor. Duty. Sure, I've seen a little evil, some corruption. But that's been the exception, not the rule. Mostly, I've seen strength. Unbelievable strength. Strength of character, of the soul." He pauses, shrugs. "We're not supposed to discuss the soul, in my profession. Not supposed to believe in it, really. Good and evil? They're just broad concepts, not things defined." He looks at me, grim. "But they aren't just concepts, are they?"

I continue to stare at my hands.

"You and your peers, you hoard your strength like a talisman. You act as if it has some finite source. Like Samson and his hair. You seem to think if you break down and really open up in here, you'll lose that strength and never get it back." He's quiet again, for a good long while. I feel empty and desolate. "I've been doing this for some time, Smoky, and you're one of the strongest people I've ever met. I can say with near certainty that none of the people I've treated in the past would be able to endure what you've suffered, are suffering. Not one of them."

I manage to make myself look at him. I wonder if he's making fun of me. Strong? I don't feel strong. I feel weak. I can't even hold my gun. I look at him, and he looks back at me, and it's an unflinching gaze that I recognize with a jolt. I've given blood-drenched crime scenes that gaze. Dismembered corpses. I am able to look on those horrors, and not look away. Dr. Hillstead is giving me the same look, and I realize that this is his gift: He is able to give the horrors of the soul a steady, unwavering gaze. I'm his crime scene, and he'll never turn away in distaste or revulsion.

"But I know you are at your breaking point, Smoky. And that means I can do one of two things: Watch you break and die, or force you to open up and let me help you. I choose the second one."

I can feel the truth of his words, their sincerity. I've looked at a hundred lying criminals. I like to think I can smell a lie in my sleep. He's telling me the truth. He wants to help me.

"So now the ball's in your court. You can get up and leave, or we can move on from here." He smiles at me, a tired smile. "I can help you, Smoky. I really can. I can't make it not have happened. I can't promise that you won't hurt for the rest of your life. But I can help you. If you'll let me."

I stare at my shrink, and I can feel it all struggling inside me. He's right. I'm a female Samson, and he's a male Delilah, except that he's telling me it won't hurt me to cut my hair this time. He's asking me to trust him in a way I don't trust anyone. Except myself. And . . . ? I hear the little voice inside ask. I close my eyes in response. Yeah. And Matt.

"Okay, Dr. Hillstead. You win. I'll give it a shot."

I know it's right the moment I say it, because I stop shaking. I wonder if what he'd said was true. About my strength, I mean. Do I have the strength to live?

4

I'M STANDING AT the front of the LA FBI offices on Wilshire. I look up at the building, trying to feel something about it. Nothing.

This is not a place I belong to right now; instead, I feel it judging me. Frowning down at me with a face of concrete, glass, and steel. Is this how civilians see it, I wonder? As something imposing and perhaps a little hungry?

I catch my reflection in the glass of the front doors and cringe inside. I was going to wear a suit, but that felt like too much of a commitment to success. Sweats were too little. As a testimony to indecisiveness, I had opted for jeans and a button-down blouse, simple flats on my feet, light makeup. Now it all feels inadequate, and I want to run, run, run.

Emotions are rolling in like waves, cresting and crashing. Fear, anxiety, anger, hope. Dr. Hillstead had ended the session with one dictate: Go and see your team.

"This wasn't just a job for you, Smoky. It was something that defined your life. Something that was a part of who you are. What you are. Would you agree?"

"Yeah. That's true."

"And the people you work with--some of them are friends?"

I shrugged. "Two of them are my best friends. They've tried to reach out to me, but . . ."

He raised his eyebrows at me, a query he already knew the answer to.

"But you haven't seen them since you were in the hospital."

They'd come to visit me while I was wrapped in gauze like a mummy, while I wondered why I was still alive, and wished I wasn't. They'd tried to stay, but I'd asked them to leave. Lots of phone calls had followed, all of which I let go to voice mail and didn't return.

"I didn't want to see anybody then. And after . . ." I let the words trail off.

"After, what?" he prodded.

I sighed. I gestured toward my face. "I didn't want them to see me like this. I don't think I could stand it if I saw pity on their faces. It would hurt too much."

We'd talked about it a little further, and he'd told me that the first step toward being able to pick up my gun again was to go face my friends. So here I am.

I clench my teeth, call on that Irish stubbornness, and push through the doors.

They close in slow silence behind me, and I'm trapped for a minute between the marble floor and the high ceiling above. I feel exposed, a rabbit caught in an open field.

I move through the metal detectors of security and present my badge. The guard on duty is alert, with hard, roaming eyes. They flicker a little when he sees the scars.

"Going to say hi to the guys in Death Central and the Assistant Director," I tell him, feeling (for some reason) like I have to tell him something. He gives me a polite smile that says he really doesn't care. I feel even more foolish and exposed and head to the elevator lobby, cursing myself under my breath. I end up in an elevator with someone I don't know, who manages to make me feel even more uncomfortable (if that were possible) by doing a bad job of hiding his sideways glances at my face. I do my best to ignore it, and when we get to my floor, I leave the elevator perhaps a little faster than normal. My heart is pounding.

"Get a grip on yourself, Barrett," I growl. "What do you expect, looking like the hunchback of Notre Dame? Get it together."

Talking to myself works most of the time, and this is no exception. I feel better. I head down the hallway and now I'm in front of the door to what used to be my office. Fear rises again, replacing the nonchalance I had mustered. There are parallels here, I think. I've gone through that door without thinking about it more times than I can count. More times than I've picked up my gun. But I feel a similar fear here, in a more minor key.

The life I have left, I realize, is beyond that door. The people who make up that life. Will they accept me? Or are they going to see a broken piece in a monster mask, glad-hand me, and send me on my way?

Am I going to feel eyes full of pity burning holes in my back?

I can picture this scenario with a clarity that appalls me. I feel panicked. I shoot a nervous glance down the hall. The elevator door is still open. All I have to do is turn on my heel and run. Run and just keep running. Run and run and run and run and run. Fill those flats with sweat and buy a pack of Marlboros and go home and smoke and cackle in the dark. Weep for no reason, stare at my scars, and wonder about the kindness of strangers. This appeals to me with a strength that makes me shiver. I want a cigarette. I want the security of my loneliness and my pain. I want to be left alone so I can just keep losing my mind and--

--and then I hear Matt.

He's laughing.

It's that soft laugh I always loved, a cool breeze of kindness and clarity. Riiiiiight, babe . . . hightailing it away from danger. That's so you. This had been one of his gifts. The ability to chide without ridicule.

"Maybe it's me now," I murmur.

I'm trying to sound defiant, but the quivering chin and sweaty palms make it hard to pull off.

I can feel him smile, gentle and smug and not really there. Damn it.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah . . ." I mutter to the ghost as I reach out and turn the knob.

I push him away in my mind, and I open the door.

5

I STARE INSIDE for a moment without entering. My terror is pure and clean and nausea-producing. It occurs to me that this is the core of what I hate the most about my life since the "big bad" happened. The constant uncertainty. One of the qualities I always liked about myself was my decisiveness. It was always simple--decide and do. Now it's: what if what if what if, no yes no maybe, stop go, what if what if what if . . . and, behind it all, I'm afraid. . . .

God, I am afraid. All the time. I wake up afraid, I walk around afraid, I go to sleep afraid. I am a victim. I hate it, I cannot escape it, and I miss the effortless certainty of invulnerability that used to be me. I also know, however much I heal, that that certainty will never return. Never.

"Get a grip, Barrett," I say.

This is the other thing I do now: I wander, without ever going anywhere.

"So change it," I murmur to myself.

Oh yeah--and I talk out loud all the time.

"You one cwazy wabbit, Barrett," I whisper.

One deep breath and I move through the door.

It's not a big office. Just the four of us, desks and computer stations, a small acting conference room, phones. Corkboards covered with photos of death. It looks no different now than when I was here six months ago. But the way I feel, I might as well be walking on the moon. Then I see them. Callie and Alan, backs to me, talking to each other as they point at one of the corkboards. James is there, focused with his usual cold intensity on a file that lays open on the desk in front of him. It's Alan who turns and sees me first. He sees me, and his eyes open wide, his mouth drops, and I am bracing myself for a look of revulsion. He laughs out loud.

"Smoky!"

It is a voice filled with joy, and in that moment, I am saved.

6

DAMN, HONEY-LOVE, you won't have to dress up for Halloween anymore." This is Callie. What she says is shocking, crass, and unfeeling. It fills me with an easy joy. If she'd done anything else, I probably would have burst into tears.

Callie is a tall, skinny, leggy redhead. She looks like a supermodel. She's one of those beautiful people; staring at her too long is like looking into the sun. She's in her late thirties, has a master's in forensics with a minor in criminology, is brilliant, and lacks any social veneer at all. Most people find her intimidating. Many decide, on first blush, that she's uncaring, maybe even cruel. This couldn't be further from the truth. She is loyal to an extreme, and her integrity and character couldn't be tortured out of her. She is blunt, forever truthful, brutal in her observations, and refuses to play games, political, PR, or otherwise. She would also put herself in front of a bullet for anyone she calls a friend.

One of Callie's most admirable features is the one that's easiest to miss--her simplicity. The face she shows to the world is the only one she has. She doesn't believe in self-importance and has no patience with those who do. This is probably the crux of what confuses those who judge her harshly: If you can't take her poking fun at you, she's not going to lose any sleep over your discomfort. Lighten up or get left behind, because--as she likes to say--"If you can't laugh at yourself, you're of no use to me."

It was Callie who found me in the aftermath of Joseph Sands. I was naked and bleeding, screaming and covered with vomit. She was dressed to kill, as always, but she didn't hesitate to gather me in her arms and hold me while she waited for the ambulance. One of the last things I remember before I passed out was the sight of her beautiful tailored suit, ruined by my blood and tears.

"Callie . . ."

This reproval comes from Alan, quiet, serious, to the point. Alan's way. Alan is a huge, scary-looking African-American. He's not just big, he is gargantuan. He is a mountain with legs. His scowl has caused more than one suspect in an interrogation room to wet himself. The irony, of course, is that Alan is one of the kindest, gentlest people I have ever known. He has a tremendous patience I have always admired and aspire to, and he brings this to our cases. He never tires of going through the evidence, of examining the smallest thing. Nothing bores him when he is tracking a killer. And his eye for detail has broken more than one case. Alan is the oldest of us, in his mid-forties, and he brought ten years of experience as a Los Angeles homicide detective with him when he joined the FBI.

A new voice. "What are you doing here?" If displeasure was a musical instrument, this would be a symphony.

It's said without preamble or apology; blunt, like Callie, but without her humor. This comes from James. We call him Damien behind his back, after the character in The Omen, the son of Satan. He's the youngest of us all, only twenty-eight, and he's one of the most irritating, unlikable people I've ever known. He grates on you, sets your teeth on edge, and infuriates. If I ever want to piss someone off, James is the gas to throw on the fire.

James is also brilliant. That off-the-charts, white-hot nova kind of brilliant. He graduated from high school at fifteen, got perfect scores on the SATs, and was wooed by every college worth a damn in the nation. He picked the one with the best criminology curriculum and proceeded to burn his way through to a PhD in four years. Then he joined the FBI, which had been his goal all along.

When he was twelve, James lost his older sister to a serial killer with a thing for blowtorches and screaming young women. He decided he was going to work in this office the day they buried her. James is a closed and faceless book. He seems to live for just one thing--what we do. He never jokes, never smiles, never does anything unnecessary to the job at hand. He doesn't share his private life or anything else that would give a clue to his passions, likes, dislikes, or tastes. I don't know what kind of music he enjoys, what movies he prefers to watch, or even if he does.

It would be too simple and neat to think of him as just efficient and logic-driven. No, there is a hostility to James that comes out in sharp bursts. His disapproval can be acrid, and his thoughtlessness is legendary. I can't say that he takes joy in the discomfort of others; I would say instead that he just doesn't care about it one way or the other. I think James is forever angry at a world where individuals like the one who killed his sister can exist. Even so, I long ago stopped forgiving him for himself. He's too much of an ass.

But he is brilliant, a brilliance forever blinding those around him, like a permanent camera flash. And he shares an ability with me that ties us together, a gift that creates an umbilicus between us, that gives me an evil twin. He can get inside the mind of a killer. He can slide into the nooks and dark places, consider the shadows, understand the evil. I can do it too. It's not uncommon for us to end up working together on certain parts of a case, in a very intimate sense. During those times, we get along like oil and ball bearings, smooth, flowing, unstoppable. All the rest of the time, being around him is about as pleasant as someone sanding me like a two-by-four.

"Nice to see you too," I reply.

"Hey, asshole," Alan purrs, a low chord of menace. James folds his hands in front of him and gives Alan a cold, direct look. It's a trait James has that I have to admire: Even though he's only five foot seven and maybe 130 pounds soaking wet, he's almost impossible to intimidate. Nothing seems to scare him. "It was just a question," he replies.

"Well, how about you drink a nice big cup of shut the fuck up?"

I place a hand on Alan's shoulder. "It's okay."

They glare at each other for a moment longer. It's Alan who breaks away with a sigh. James gives me one long, appraising look, then turns back to the file he was reading.

Alan shakes his head at me. "Sorry."

I smile. How can I explain to him that even this, those Damien ways, is somehow a right thing right now? It is something that is still "the way things used to be." James still pisses me off, and this is a comfort. I decide to change the subject. "So what's new around here?"

I walk all the way into the office, scanning the desks and the corkboards. Callie has been running things while I've been gone, and she takes the lead in responding.

"It's been quiet for us, honey-love." Callie calls everyone honey-love. As legend goes, she has an actual written reprimand on file for calling the Director honey-love. It's a complete affectation, taken on to amuse herself. Callie isn't Southern in the slightest. It annoys some people to no end; to me it's just Callie. "Nothing serial, two abductions. We've been working on some of the older, colder cases." She smiles. "Guess all the bad guys went on vacation with you."

"How did the abductions turn out?" Child kidnappings are part of the butter on our bread, and are something dreaded by all decent men and women in law enforcement. They are rarely about money. They are about sex and pain and death.

"One recovered alive, one recovered dead."

I stare at the corkboards, not really seeing them. "At least both were recovered," I murmur. Far too often, this is not the case. Anyone who thinks no news is good news has never been the parent of a kidnapped child. In this case, no news is a cancer that does not kill but instead hollows out the soul. I have had parents coming to see me over the years, hopeful for news of their child, news I didn't have. I have watched them get thinner, more bitter. Seen hope die in their eyes, and gray hairs cover their heads. In those cases, finding the body of their child would be a blessing. It would at least let them grieve with certainty. I turn to Callie. "So how do you like being the boss?"

She gives me a patented, pretend-haughty Callie smile. "You know me, honey-love. I was born to be royalty, and now I have the crown."

Alan snorts at this, followed by an actual guffaw.

"Don't listen to this peasant, dear," Callie says with disdain. I laugh, and it's a good laugh. A real one that catches you by surprise the way a laugh ought to. But then it continues a little longer than it should, and I'm horrified to feel tears welling up in my eyes.

"Oh, shit," I mumble, wiping my face. "Sorry about that." I look up at them and give them both a weak smile. "It's just really good to see you guys. More than you know."

Alan, the man-mountain, moves to me, and without warning, wraps me in those tree-trunk arms. I resist for only a moment before hugging him back, my head against his chest.

"Oh, we know, Smoky," he says. "We know."

He lets me go, and Callie steps forward, pushing him aside.

"Enough touchy-feely," she snaps. She turns her head to me. "Let me take you to lunch. And don't bother trying to say no."

I feel tears coming again, and all I can manage is a nod. Callie grabs her purse, then grabs my arm, and hustles me toward the door. "Be back in an hour," she calls over her shoulder. She shoves me out the door, and once it closes, the tears begin to flow freely. Callie gives me a little sideways hug.

"Knew you wouldn't want to start bawling in front of Damien, honey-love."

I laugh through my tears and just nod, taking the tissue she gives me, and letting her strength lead me in my moment of weakness.

7

WE'RE SITTING INSIDE a Subway sandwich store, and I'm watching in fascination as Callie fills her apparently hollow leg with a footlong meatball sandwich. I've always wondered how she does it. She can pack away more food than a linebacker, and yet she never gains a pound. I smile, thinking maybe it's those five-mile jogs she does, every morning, seven days a week. She licks her fingers loudly, smacking her lips with such enthusiasm that two older ladies shoot us a look of disapproval. Satisfied, she sighs and settles back, sipping on her Mountain Dew through a straw. It strikes me that this, right here, is the essence of Callie. She does not just watch life go by, she devours it. She gulps it down without chewing, and always goes back for more. I smile to myself, and she frowns, shaking a finger at me.

"You know, I brought you to lunch because I wanted to tell you how pissed off I am at you, honey-love. No returning my calls, not even an e-mail. Not acceptable, Smoky. I don't care how fucked up you are."

"I know, Callie. And I'm sorry. I mean it--I'm really, truly sorry."

She stares at me for a moment, an intense stare. I've seen her give it to a criminal or two, and I feel I deserve it. It passes and she smiles one of those radiant smiles, waving her hand. "Apology accepted. Now for the real question: How are you? I mean, really. And don't lie to me."

I stare off for a moment, stare at my sandwich. Look at her. "Until today? Bad. Real bad. I have nightmares, every night. I've been depressed, and it's only been getting worse, not better."

"Been thinking about killing yourself, haven't you?"

I feel the same jolt, at a lower frequency, that I felt in Dr. Hillstead's office. Here, I somehow feel more ashamed. Callie and I have always been close, and whether spoken or expressed, there is a love there. But it's been a love based on strength, not weeping on each other's shoulders. I am afraid that this love would lessen or disappear if Callie had to pity me. But I answer.

"I thought about it, yes."

She nods and then is silent, looking off to something or somewhere I can't see. I feel a prick of deja vu; she looks as Dr. Hillstead looked, trying to decide which fork in the road to take. "Smoky, there's nothing weak about that, honey-love. Weakness would be actually pulling the trigger. Crying, having nightmares, being depressed, thinking about killing yourself, those things don't make you weak. They just mean you hurt. And anyone can hurt, even Superman."

I stare at her and am at a loss for words. One hundred percent lost, I can't think of a thing to say. This is just not what Callie does, and it has caught me by surprise. She gives me a soft smile.

"You know, you have to beat it, Smoky. Not just for you. For me." She sips her drink. "You and I, we're alike. We've always been golden. Things have always gone our way. We're good at what we do--hell, we've always been able to be good at anything we put our minds to, you know?"

I nod, still speechless.

"I'm going to tell you something, honey-love, something philosophical. Note it on your calendar, because I'm not one to get deep in public." She puts down her drink. "A lot of people paint that same, tired old picture: We start out innocent and bright-eyed, and then we become jaded. Nothing's ever quite as good again, blah, blah, blah. I've always thought that was a pile of poop. Not all lives start out innocent and Norman Rockwell, now, do they? Ask any child in Watts. I've always thought it's not so much that we learn that life is shit. It's that we learn that life can hurt. Does that make sense?"

"Yes." I'm mesmerized.

"Most people get hurt early. You and I--we've been lucky. Very, very lucky. We see the hurt, doing what we do, but it's never been us. Not really. Look at you--you found the love of your life, had a beautiful child, and you were an ass-kicking FBI agent, a woman no less, all on the rise like a bright, shooting star. And me? I haven't done so bad either." She shakes her head. "I've managed not to get too full of myself, but the truth is, I've always had my pick of the guys, and I was lucky enough to have a brain to go with the bod. And I'm good at what I do at the Bureau. Real good."

"You are," I agree.

"But, see, that's just it, honey-love. You and I have never really experienced tragedy. We're alike in that way. Then all of sudden, the bullets stopped bouncing off of you." She shakes her head. "The moment that happened, I couldn't be fearless, not anymore. I was afraid, really afraid, for the first time in my life. Ever. And I've been afraid ever since. Because you are better than me, Smoky. You always have been. And if it can happen to you, it can damn sure happen to me." She sits back, puts her hands flat on the table. "End of speech."

I have known Callie for some time. I have always known that she has depths uncharted. The mystery of those depths, glimpsed but not revealed, has always been a part of her charm for me, her strength. Now the curtain has parted for a moment. It's like the first time someone lets you see them naked. It is the essence of trust, and I am touched in a way that makes me weak at the knees. I reach over and grab her hand.

"I'll do my best, Callie. That's all I can promise. But I do promise that."

She squeezes my hand back, and then pulls it away. The curtain has been closed. "Well, hurry it up, will you, please? I enjoy being arrogant and untouchable, and I blame you for the lack thereof."

I smile and look at my friend. Dr. Hillstead had told me earlier that I was strong. But for me, it is Callie who has always been my private hero when it comes to strength. My crass-talking patron saint of irreverence. I shake my head. "I'll be back in a minute," I say. "I have to use the restroom."

"Don't forget to put the lid down," she says.

I see it when I exit the bathroom, and what I see tells me to stop. Callie isn't aware of me yet. Her attention is focused on something in her hand. I step to the side, so that the doorway blocks her view of me a little, and stare.

Callie looks sad. Not just sad--bereft.

I have seen Callie be scornful, gentle, angry, vengeful, witty--any number of things. I have never seen her sad. Not like this. And I know, somehow, that it has nothing to do with me.

Whatever she holds in her hand is bringing my hero to something just short of grief, and I am shocked.

I am also certain that this is a private thing. Callie will not want to know that I have seen her this way. She may only have one face to show the world, but she chooses what parts of it to show. She hasn't chosen to show me this, whatever this is. I go back into the bathroom. To my surprise, one of the older women is there, washing her hands, and she glances at me in the mirror. I look back, biting a thumbnail as I think. Come to a decision.

"Ma'am," I say, "can you please do me a favor?"

"What's that, dear?" she asks, not missing a beat.

"I have a friend outside . . ."

"The rude one with the awful eating habits?"

Gulp.

"Yes, ma'am."

"What about her?"

I hesitate. "She . . . I think she's having a private moment right now. Because I'm in here, and she's alone. . . . I--"

"You don't want to surprise her in that moment, is that it?"

Her instant and perfect understanding makes me pause. I stare at her. Stereotypes, I think again. So useless. I had seen an uptight, judgmental crone. Now I see kind eyes, wisdom, and a well-honed appreciation of the ridiculous. "Yes, ma'am," I say, quiet. "She--well . . . she'll always be crass, but she's got the biggest heart I know."

The woman's eyes soften and her smile is beautiful. "Many great people have eaten with their hands, dear. Leave it to me. Wait thirty seconds and then come out."

"Thank you." I mean it; she knows it.

She leaves the bathroom without another word. I wait for a little more than thirty seconds and follow. I peek around the corner and now my eyebrows raise. The woman is standing by our table, shaking a finger at Callie. I walk toward them.

"Some people like a quiet lunch," I hear the woman saying. Her tone is reprimand as a weapon, as an Olympic sport. The kind that has the ability to make you feel ashamed rather than angry. My mom was world-class at it.

Callie is scowling at the woman. I can see the storm clouds building, and I hurry over. The woman is doing me a favor; better not let it become fatal.

"Callie," I say, placing a warning hand on her shoulder. "We should get going."

She scowls harder at the woman, who looks about as intimidated as a dog sleeping on its back in a patch of sun.

"Callie," I say again, more insistent. She looks at me, nods, stands up, and puts on her sunglasses with a haughty flourish that fills me with admiration. 9-9-10, I think, a near-perfect score. The Olympics of the ice queens is a heated one this year, and the crowd is roaring. . . .

"Can't get me out of here fast enough," she says with disdain. She grabs her purse and inclines her head to the woman. "Good day," she says. Drop dead, her voice implies.

I hurry us out. I shoot one last glance over my shoulder at the woman. She gives me another one of those beautiful smiles. The kindness of strangers rears its bittersweet head once again. The drive back is entertaining, with Callie at a slow boil. I nod and murmur at the right places as she mutters about "old bats" and

"wrinkly, raisined people" and "elitist mummies." My private thoughts are filled with that sad look, so alien to see on my friend's face. We arrive back at the parking lot, near my car.

I've decided it's enough for today. I'll go and see the Assistant Director some other time.

"Thanks, Callie. Tell Alan I'll be by again sometime soon. Even if it's just to say hi."

She shakes her finger at me. "I'll tell him, honey-love. But don't you dare ignore any more phone calls. You didn't lose everyone who loves you that night, and you have friends beyond the job. Don't forget that."

She squeals off before I can reply, having gotten in the last word. This is Callie's hallmark, and it makes me feel nice inside to have been the victim of it.

I get into my car, and I realize that I had been right last night. Today had been the day. I wasn't going to go home and blow my brains out. How could I? I couldn't even pick up my gun.

8

I HAVE A terrible night, a kind of Greatest Hits of bad dreams. Joseph Sands is there in his demon suit, while Matt smiles at me with a mouth full of blood. This morphs into Callie at the Subway shop, looking up from her sad piece of paper, pulling out her gun, and shooting the Subway lady through the head. She then goes back to slurping on her straw, but her lips are too red and too full, and she catches me watching and gives me a wink like a corpse closing one eye. I wake up, shivering, and realize that my phone is ringing. I look at my clock. It's five in the morning. Who'd be calling now? I haven't gotten any early-morning calls since I went on leave. I can still feel the dream bouncing around inside my head, but I push the images away and take a moment to stop shivering before I grab the phone.

"Hello?"

There's a silence at the other end. Then Callie's voice. "Hi, honeylove. Sorry to wake you, but . . . we have something that concerns you."

"What? What's happened?" She doesn't speak for a minute, and I'm getting pissed off. Little shivers still spasm through me as I hold the phone. "Dammit, Callie. Tell me."

She sighs. "Do you remember an Annie King?"

My voice is incredulous. "Remember her? Yeah, I remember her. She's one of my best friends. She moved to San Francisco about ten years ago. We still talk on the phone every six months or so. I'm her daughter's godmother. So yeah, I remember her. Why?"

Callie is silent again. "Damn," I hear her whisper. She sounds like she was punched in the stomach. "I didn't know she was a friend. I thought she was just someone you used to know."

I feel dread filling me. Dread, and knowledge. I know what's happened, or at least I think I do. But I need to hear Callie say it before I will believe it. "Tell me."

A long sigh of surrender, then: "She's dead, Smoky. Murdered in her apartment. The daughter's alive, but she's catatonic."

My hand has gone nerveless with shock, and I'm in danger of dropping the phone. "Where are you now, Callie?" My voice sounds small to me.

"At the office. We're getting ready to go to the scene, going on a private jet in an hour and a half."

I sense something through my shock, a heaviness at Callie's end. I realize that there's something else she's not telling me.

"What is it, Callie? What are you holding back?"

A hesitation, and then she sighs again. "The killer left a message for you, honey-love."

I sit for a moment, silent. Letting these words sink in. "I'll meet you at the office," I say. I hang up before she can respond. I sit on the edge of my bed for a moment. I put my head into my hands and try to weep, but my eyes stay dry. Somehow, it hurts more that way.

It's only six o'clock by the time I arrive. Early morning is the best time to drive in LA, the only time the highways are uncrowded. Most of the people driving are up to no good, or on their way to no good. I know these early mornings well. I've driven through fog and the gray light of breaking dawns many times, toward scenes of bloody death. As I am now. All the way there, all I can think about is Annie. Annie and I met in high school, when we were both fifteen. She was a soon to be ex-cheerleader, I was a reckless tomboy who smoked pot and enjoyed fast things. In the hierarchy of high school, our paths were not destined to cross. Fate intervened. At least I always thought of it as fate. My time of the month arrived in the middle of math class, and I had put up my hand, grabbed my purse, and rushed out the door to the bathroom. I was blushing as I went down the hallway, and hoping that no one else was there. I had been getting my period for only eight months, and the whole thing was still an excruciating embarrassment to me. I peeked in, saw with relief that the bathroom was deserted. I ducked into one of the stalls and was preparing to take care of my problem when a sniffling sound made me freeze, pad in hand. I held my breath, listening. The sniffling repeated itself, only this time, it broke into a quiet sob. Someone was crying, two stalls over from me. I have always been a sucker for things in pain. When I was young, I even considered being a veterinarian. If I came upon a hurt bird, dog, cat, or any other walking, crawling, living thing, it would end up coming home with me. Most of the time, the things I brought home didn't make it. But sometimes they did, and the few victories in this regard were enough to keep my crusade alive. My parents thought it was cute at first, but it went from cute to annoying after the umpteenth trip to the emergency vet. Annoyed or not, they never discouraged me from these Mother Teresa-like efforts.

As I got older, I found that this concern extended to people as well. If someone got bullied, while I wouldn't step in and rescue them from the fight, I couldn't keep myself from going over afterward to see how they were. I kept a small first-aid kit in my backpack and handed out any number of bandages during the eighth and ninth grades. I was not self-conscious about this quirk in my character. It was a strange thing: I was mortified by having to leave in the middle of class to handle menstruation, but no amount of teasing, or being called "Nurse Smoky,"

ever bothered me. Not even a little. I know that this characteristic is what led me to the FBI. The decision to go after the source of pain, the criminals who enjoyed causing it. I also know that what I saw in the years that followed changed it in some way. I became more careful with my caring. I had to. My first-aid kit became me and my team, and the bandages became a pair of handcuffs and a jail cell. This being the case, when I realized that someone was crying in the bathroom with me, I placed my pad as a hurried afterthought, all embarrassment forgotten, pulled up my jeans, and rushed out of the stall. I paused in front of the door the sobs were coming from.

"Uh--hello? Are you okay in there?"

The sobs stopped, though the sniffles were still audible.

"Go away. Leave me alone."

I stood there for a second, trying to decide what to do.

"Are you hurt?"

"No! Just leave me alone."

I realized that there wasn't any pressing physical injury to attend to, and I was about to take the voice's advice when something stopped me. Fate. I leaned forward, tentative. "Um, listen . . . any way I can help?"

The voice was forlorn when it responded. "No one can help." There was a silence, followed by another one of those awful, poignant sobs. No one can cry like a fifteen-year-old young woman. No one. It is done with all of the heart, nothing held back, the end of existence.

"Come on. It can't be that bad."

I heard a scuffling sound, and then the door to the stall slammed open. Standing in front of me was a puffy-faced, very pretty blond girl. I recognized her right away and wished I'd listened when she first asked me to leave. Annie King. She was a cheerleader. One of those girls. You know, the snobby, perfect ones who use their beauty and flawless bodies to rule the kingdom of high school. I couldn't help it, that was what I thought at the time. I had her pigeonholed and judged, the same way I hated being judged myself. And she was mad.

"What do you know about it?" It was a voice filled with fury, and it was directed at me, full on. I stared at her, caught flat-footed and flabbergasted, too astonished to be angry back. Then her face crumpled, and the rage vanished faster than it had appeared. Tears ran down her face. "He showed everyone my panties. Why would he do something like that, after everything he said to me?"

"Huh? Who--what about your panties?"

Sometimes, even in high school, it's easiest to talk to a stranger. She talked to me then, while it was just the two of us in that bathroom. The quarterback of the football team, a David Rayborn, had been dating her for almost six months. He was handsome, smart, and seemed to really care about her. He'd been pushing her for a few months to go "all the way," and she'd been resisting his advances. But he'd been so sincere in his romance of her that a few days ago she'd finally given in. He'd been gentle, and caring, and when it was over he'd held her in his arms and asked her if he could keep her panties to remember the moment by. He said it would be a little secret between them, something they knew but no one else did. A little naughty, but also kind of nice. Somehow romantic. Looking back at it now, as an adult, it seems silly to think of it in that way. But when you are fifteen . . .

"So today I'm walking off the field after practice, and they're all there. The guys from the team. David is with them, and they're all pointing at me, and hooting and making these nasty faces. Then he did it." Her face crumpled again, and I winced, realizing what was coming.

"He held them up. My panties. Like a trophy. And then he smiled at me, winked, and said it was the best addition to his collection yet."

And this cheerleader started crying again, except that now she gave herself over to it in the fullest sense of the word. Her knees gave, and she fell against me, and she was weeping like her heart was broken and would never be whole again. I hesitated for a moment (but only a moment), and then I wrapped my arms around her and held her as she cried. Right there on the tile, I hugged this stranger and whispered into her hair, told her it'd be okay.

After a few minutes, the sobs died down to sniffles, and then the sniffles stopped as well. She pushed off me and wiped her face. She couldn't look at me, and I realized she was a little embarrassed.

"Hey, I have an idea," I said. It was a from-the-hip decision, unexplainable, but somehow undeniably right. "Let's get out of here. Cut the rest of the day."

She looked at me, and squinted. "Play hooky?"

I nodded and smiled. "Yep. Just a day. I think you've earned it, don't you?"

I've always thought her decision in response was probably as sudden as mine had been in asking her. I mean, she didn't even know my name at that point. She smiled back at me, a slight smile.

"Okay."

That's how we met. She smoked her first joint that day (something I introduced her to), and about a week later she quit being a cheerleader. I'd like to say that we got revenge on David Rayborn, but we never did. Despite his reputation as an asshole, girls continued to fall for him, and he continued to take their panties as trophies. He went on to become a star quarterback, which continued through college and even a few seasons second-stringing for an NFL team. One could say this was proof of no justice in the world, but you could also say that he brought Annie and I together, something that was to have such beauty and value that I could almost forgive him for what he did. We'd bonded at the molecular level, the way only combat soldiers and teenagers do. We spent all of our time out of school together. She encouraged me to quit smoking pot, advice I followed, since my grades had been dropping. I got her to start dating again. She was there for me when Buster, the dog I'd had since I was five years old, had to be put to sleep. I was there for her when her grandmother died. We learned to drive together and spent time getting into and out of scrapes, growing up, becoming women.

Annie and I shared one of the most intimate relationships a person can have: friendship while you go from child to adult. The types of experiences and memories you take with you through life, all the way to the grave.

What happened after was what happens all the time. We graduated from high school. I was with Matt by then. She'd met a guy and decided to ride around the country with him before going to college. I didn't wait and went straight to UCLA. We did what everyone does, swore to stay in touch twice a week and forever, and then did what everyone does, got caught up in our own lives and didn't speak for nearly a year. One day I was walking out of class . . . and there she was. She looked wild, and beautiful, and I felt joy and pain and longing twang through me like a chord plucked from a Gibson guitar.

"How's things, college girl?" she asked, eyes twinkling. I didn't respond, but I gave her one hell of a long hug. We went out to lunch, and she told me all about her adventures. They'd traveled through fifty states on almost no money, seen and done a lot, had enough sex in enough different places to last a lifetime. She smiled a secret smile, and then placed her hand on the table.

"Check it out," she said.

I looked, saw the engagement ring, gasped like I was supposed to, and we giggled and talked about the future, about the plans for her wedding. It was like being back in high school.

I was her maid of honor, and she was mine. She moved up to San Francisco with Robert, while Matt and I stayed in LA. Things drifted, but we'd always manage to find time every six to eight months to place a call, and whenever we did, we were back there again, that first day we'd played hooky, free and young and happy.

Robert was a flake, who eventually left her. Some years later, I ran a background check on him, hoping to find that he was failing and miserable in his life. I found instead that he had died in a car accident. Why Annie had never shared this with me, I still don't know. When I started working for the Bureau, and by that I mean really working, the time between calls drifted to a year. Then a year and a half. I agreed to be her daughter's godmother but am ashamed to say that I met her child only once, and she never met mine. What can I say? Life moved on, the one thing it always does.

Some might judge that. I don't care. All I know is that whether it was six months or two years, whenever we talked, it was like no time had passed at all.

About three years ago her father died. I went up there right away and stayed for over a week, helping. Or trying to. Annie was older and drained and full of pain. I remember being struck by a single irony: Her agony and her age had made her more beautiful than ever. The night after the funeral, after she'd put her daughter to bed, we sat on the floor of her bedroom, and she cried in my arms while I whispered into her hair. I did not hear from her when Matt died, but I didn't wonder about this. Annie had this quirk: She abhorred the news, whether in print or on TV, and I never called to tell her what happened. I still don't know why. I thought about Annie on my way to the Bureau offices. I thought and I wondered at my reaction to her death. I felt sad. Devastated even. But it didn't seem as monumental, emotionally, as it should be. I've just arrived, and I just realized that I've lost all of my youth now. The love of my youth, the friend of my youth. It's all gone. Maybe losing Matt and Alexa was just too much. Maybe that's why I don't feel as much as I think I should about Annie.

Maybe I just don't have any more pain to give.

"What the hell are you doing here, Smoky?"

It's SAC Jones, my old sponsor. Except now he's Assistant Director Jones. I'm surprised to find him here. It's not that he's not dedicated or hesitates at stepping into the trenches; it's that he simply doesn't need to be here, and his dance card is never empty. What's so urgent about this case?

"Callie called me, sir. She told me about Annie King and mentioned that the killer left a message for me. I'm going with."

He shakes his head. "Oh no you're not. No fucking way. Aside from the fact that she's your friend, which means you can't touch this case with a ten-foot pole, you are not cleared to go back to work."

Callie is trying to eavesdrop, and Jones notices this. He gestures me toward his car, lighting a cigarette as we walk. Everyone's out in front of the Bureau offices, getting ready to head to the Van Nuys private airport. He takes a deep drag and I watch him, wistful. I forgot to bring my own.

"Can I have one of those, sir?"

His eyebrows arch in surprise. "I thought you quit."

"I took it up again."

He shrugs and gives me the pack. I pull out one of the cigarettes, and he lights it for me. I, too, take a nice, long puff. Yum.

"Listen, Smoky. You know how it goes. You've been around long enough. Your shrink keeps the content of what you guys talk about in complete confidence. But he does submit a report, once a month, giving an overview of where he thinks you're at."

I nod. I know this is true. I don't take it as any kind of violation. It's not about privacy or rights. It's about whether or not I can be trusted to represent the FBI. Or hold a gun.

"I got a report yesterday. He says you still have a ways to go and are not ready to go back to work. Period. Now you show up at six in the morning and want to go to the scene of a murdered friend?" He shakes his head, vehement. "Like I said: no fucking way."

I draw on the cigarette, weighing it in my fingers as I watch him, and try and figure out what to say. I realize that I know why he's here. Because of me. Because the killer wrote to me. Because he's worried.

"Look, sir. Annie King was my friend. Her daughter is still alive up there. She's got no other family, her dad's dead, and I'm her godmother. I'd be flying up there anyway. All I'm asking the Bureau for is the courtesy of a ride."

He draws smoke down the wrong pipe at this, and actually sputters.

"Puh-leeeze! Nice try, but who the fuck do you think you're talking to, Agent Barrett?" He stabs a finger at me. "I know you better than that, Smoky. Don't bullshit me. Your friend is dead--and I'm sorry about that, by the way--and you want to go up and get yourself on the case. That's the truth. And I can't allow it. One, you're personally involved, and that excludes you from the get-go. That's straight from the manual. Two, you're probably suicidal, and I can't allow you to step in the middle of a crime scene in that condition."

My mouth hangs open. Then my words are filled with fury and shame. "Jesus Christ! Do I have a sign hanging from my neck that says I've thought about killing myself ?"

His eyes soften at this. "Nah, no sign. It's just that we all know we'd think about it if any of us experienced even half of what you did." He tosses the cigarette to the pavement and doesn't look at me when he continues speaking. "I thought about smoking on my gun, once."

As with Callie at lunch yesterday, I am speechless. He catches this and nods. "It's true. I lost a partner, about twenty-five years ago, when I was on the LAPD. Lost him because I made a bad decision. I led us into a building without backup, and it was more than we could handle. He paid the price. Family man, beloved husband and father of three. It was my fault, and I thought about correcting that inequity for almost eight months." He looks at me, and there's no pity in his gaze. "It's not that you have a sign hanging from your neck, Smoky. It's that most of us think we would have blown our brains out by now if we were in your position."

This is the essence of AD Jones. No small talk, no dancing around things. It fits him well. You always know where you stand with him. Always. I can't meet his eyes. I throw down my cigarette, half smoked, and grind it out with my foot. I'm doing some careful thinking about what to say next. "Sir. I appreciate what you're saying. And you're right, on just about every point, except one." I look back up at him. I know he'll want to see my eyes when I say what I say next, to gauge the truth of my words. "I have thought about it. A lot. But yesterday? Yesterday was the first day I knew for sure I wasn't going to do it. You know what changed?" I point at my team, standing and waiting on the steps. "I went and saw those guys, for the first time since it happened. I went and saw them, and they were still there, and they accepted me. Well, the jury's still out on James--but the point is, they didn't pity me or make me feel like a broken piece. I can tell you, flat out, that I'm no longer suicidal. And the reason is that I stepped foot back into the Bureau."

He's listening. I can tell I haven't won him over, but I do have his attention. "Look, I'm not ready to take NCAVC Coord back over. I'm sure as hell not ready to be in any tactical situation of any kind. All I'm asking is that you let me dip my toe in the water. Let me go up, make sure Bonnie is taken care of, and let me just lend my mind to this thing, just a little. Callie will still run things. I won't be armed, and I promise, if I think it's too much, I'm out."

He puts his hands in his coat pockets and gives me a long, fierce look. He's studying me, hard. Weighing all the possibilities, every risk. When he looks away and sighs, I know I have convinced him.

"I just know I'm going to regret this, but fine. Here's the deal. You go, you get the kid, you look around. You can put in your two cents with the team. But you are not running the show. And the moment you feel even a little wobbly, you pull yourself the fuck out. I mean it, Smoky. I need you back, don't misunderstand me. But I need you back whole, and that means I don't necessarily need you back now. You understand?"

I bob my head like a child or a new army recruit, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir. I'm going, and I feel that this is an important thing. A victory. He raises a hand, waving Callie over. When she arrives, he tells her what he told me.

"You got it?" he asks, stern.

"Yes, sir. Understood."

He shoots me one last glance. "You guys have a plane to catch. Get out of here."

I walk away with Callie before he can change his mind.

"I'd love to know how you pulled that one off, honey-love," she murmurs to me. "Just know that as far as I'm concerned, it's your show until you tell me otherwise."

I don't reply. I'm too busy wondering if I've made a terrible mistake by getting back on the team.

9

SINCE WHEN DID we rate a private jet?" I ask.

"Remember I told you that we'd had two child abductions and recovered one alive?" Callie asks. I nod.

"Don Plummer was the father of the little girl we got back alive. He owns a small flight company. They sell planes, have a flying school, things like that. He offered to give the Bureau a jet pro bono, which of course we had to turn down. But--with no prompting from us--he wrote the Director and worked out giving us access when needed for a low price." She shrugs and gestures at our surroundings. "So when we need to get somewhere fast . . ."

There's an addition to the team on this flight. Some young-looking kid who seems to barely fit into his FBI persona. He looks like he should have an earring in one ear and gum in his mouth. I squint and see a hole for a piercing in his left lobe. Jeez. Maybe he does wear one when he's not on duty. He'd been introduced to me as a loaner from Computer Crimes. He sits a little off from everyone else, looking rumpled and half awake. An outsider. I look around. "Where's Alan?" I ask.

A response comes from the front of the plane. More of a growl. "I'm up here." And that's all he says.

I look at Callie, eyebrows raised. She shrugs.

"Something's bugging him. He looked pretty pissed when we got here." She gazes toward him for a moment, then shakes her head. "I'd leave it alone for now, honey-love."

I look toward the shadows that Alan is sitting in, wanting to do something. But Callie is right. And I need to be brought up to speed.

"Fill me in," I say, accepting this. "What do we have?"

I turn to James as I say this. He stares back at me, and I can see the hostility flaring up in his eyes. He radiates disapproval.

"You shouldn't be here," he says.

I fold my arms and look at him. "Yeah, well, I am."

"It violates procedure. You'll be a liability to this investigation." He shakes his head. "You probably don't even have psych clearance yet, do you?"

Callie remains silent, and I'm thankful. This is a key moment, something I need to resolve myself.

"AD Jones cleared me." I frown at him. "Jesus, James. Annie King was a friend of mine."

He stabs a finger toward me. "All the more reason you shouldn't be here. You're too close to the investigation, and you'll fuck it up."

Some part of me registers that an outsider, listening to this, would be aghast. They would not be able to believe that James is saying what he is saying. I'm inured to it--to some extent. This is James. This is how he is, and what he does. Besides, it's working for me. I'm feeling something stir inside. The old coldness, what I always used to use to handle James, to rein him in. I grip on to this and let it leak into my eyes.

"I'm here. I'm not going away. Deal with it, and give me all the details. Stop fucking with me."

He pauses for a moment, examines me. I see him settle back. He shakes his head once in disapproval, but I know that he's given in.

"Fine. But I want it on record that I think this is a blatant violation of Bureau policy."

"Duly noted." My voice is a knife edge of sarcasm that dulls against his indifference.

"Good." Now I see his eyes unfocus a bit. He doesn't have a file in front of him, but that computer brain of his is putting all the facts at his fingertips. "Her body was found yesterday. They figure she was killed three days before that."

I start at this. "Three days?"

"Yes."

"So how was the body found? Where?"

"The SF cops got an e-mail. It included an attachment, some photos. Of her. They went over to check it out, and they found the body and the child."

My heart thuds in my chest, and I sense my stomach acids churning. I feel a sour burp just waiting to get out. "Are you telling me that her daughter was there for more than three days with her dead mother?"

My voice comes out loud. Not a yell, but close. James looks at me, his face calm. Just relating the facts.

"Worse. The killer tied her to her mother's corpse. Face-to-face. She was tied like that for the whole time."

Blood rushes to my head, and I feel faint. The burp comes up, silent but awful. I can feel its taste in my mouth. I put a hand to my forehead.

"Where's Bonnie now?"

"She's at one of the local hospitals, under guard. She's catatonic. Hasn't said a word since they found her."

Silence at that. Callie breaks it.

"There's more, honey-love. Things we need you to hear before we land. Otherwise you are going to be caught flat-footed."

I dread what is coming. I dread it like I dread going to sleep at night. But I grab on to myself, hard, and shake. I hope no one notices. "Go ahead. Hit me with all of it."

"Three things, and I'll just lay them all out, one after the other. First, she left her daughter to you, Smoky. The killer found her will and left it next to the body for us to find. You're named as the guardian. Second, your friend was running a sex site on the Internet that she was personally starring in. Third, the killer's e-mail to the cops included a letter addressed to you."

My mouth hangs open. I feel like I have been beaten. As if, instead of speaking, Callie had grabbed a golf club and whacked me with it. My head is spinning. Through my shock, I register a very selfish emotion, one that shames me, but one I also grab on to with a death grip. It is fear of losing it in front of my team. Of how that will make me look, especially to James. Selfish, yes, but I recognize it for what it is, the tool I can use to get myself under control.

I grapple with the shock and sorrow that are struggling for dominance and manage to push them aside enough to speak. I'm surprised at the sound of my voice when it comes out: flat and steady.

"Let me take this point by point. On the first one, I'll deal with that myself. Let's address the second one. You're saying she was some kind of . . . Internet prostitute?"

A voice pipes up. "No, ma'am, that's not accurate at all."

It's the young kid from Computer Crimes. Mr. Earring. I look at him.

"What's your name?"

"Leo. Leo Carnes. I'm on loan here because of the e-mail, but also because of what your friend did for a living."

I give him a good once-over. He returns my gaze without flinching. He's a good-looking kid, probably twenty-four or twenty-five. Dark hair, calm eyes. "Which was what? You said I wasn't accurate. So explain it to us."

He moves up a few seats nearer to us; invited into the inner circle, he leaps at the opportunity. Everyone wants to belong. "It's kind of a long explanation."

"We have the time. Go ahead."

He nods, a gleam coming to his eye that I recognize as excitement. Computers are his thing, what he is passionate about. "To understand it, you have to understand that pornography on the Internet is an entirely different subculture from pornography in the 'real world.' " He's settling back, relaxing, getting ready to give a lecture on a subject he knows everything about. It's his moment in the spotlight, and I'm happy to let him have it. It gives me time to settle my thoughts and my stomach. And something to think about besides little Bonnie, staring at her dead mother's face for three days.

"Go on."

"Starting in around 1978, you had something called BBSs--Bulletin Board Systems. Actually the full name was Computerized Bulletin Board Systems. These were the first nongovernment, public-accessible networks. If you had a modem and a computer, you could post up messages, do file sharing, and so on. Of course, back then, almost all the users were scientists or supernerds. But the reason this is relevant is that BBSs became a place to post up porn pics. You could share them, trade them, whatever. And at this point, we're not just talking Wild West, we are talking undiscovered country. No oversight, nada. Something important to porn users because--"

James chimes in: "It was free, and it was private."

Leo grins and bobs his head. "Exactly! You didn't have to sneak in the back of some porno shop and brown-bag it. You could lock your bedroom door and download your porno pics without fear of discovery. It was HUGE. So, BBSs were the only public game in town, and they were everywhere, and porn was already everywhere on them.

"BBSs pretty much drop away as the Internet evolves and Web sites start coming out, and browsers, and dot-com names, and all that stuff. BBSs were always basically for posting, with the viewing being done after download. Now you have Web sites, where you can see it as fast as you connect to it. So what happens with porn?" He smiles. "What actually happened is twofold: You had some smart businessmen--I'm talking guys who already had money--who started to develop adult Web sites on the Net. Some were from the audiotext industry--"

"Which is what?" I interrupt.

"Sorry. Phone sex. These guys who were already raking in the dough on phone sex saw the Web and realized its potential for porn. Private, pay-per-view, on-demand whack-off material for the everyday guy. They poured a bunch of money into buying existing pornography. Pics scanned in by the hundreds of thousands and posted up on Web sites. In order to view them, you had to whip out your credit card. And that is where things changed in porn."

Callie frowns. "What do you mean, changed?"

"I'm getting to that. See, up to that point, porn was pretty much a

'hands on' kind of thing. If you were selling videos, for example, you were up to your neck in the industry. In other words, you'd been on movie sets, seen sex going on in front of you, knew the people, maybe even been in front of the camera yourself. It's always been a very tight, small group. But with Web sites, these early guys, they were a whole new breed. There was a layer between them and the actual creation of the stuff. They had money, and they paid the pornographers for their pics.

They put them up on the Web and charged to view them. You see the difference? These guys weren't pornographers, not in the classical sense. They were businessmen. With marketing plans, offices, staff, the whole nine yards. They weren't coming across as some sleazy substrata of society anymore. And it paid off. Some of those first companies make eighty to a hundred million a year now."

"Wow," Callie says. Leo nods.

"Yeah, wow. It may not seem like a big deal to us, but if you really dig into the history of porn, it was a paradigm shift. To be honest? Most of the people making porn in the early eighties were from the seventies. We're talking a lot of drugs, promiscuous sex, all the cliches. But these new Internet guys? Most of them weren't involved in wife swapping or snorting coke while getting a blow job, any of that. Most of them had never been on a porn set in their life. They were guys in business suits, making millions off the newest thing. They started to make it, well, respectable. As much as porn can be."

"You said 'twofold.' What's the other part of it?"

"While these business guys were carving out their empires, you had another whole 'adult revolution' happening. This was at a more grassroots level. Rather than Web sites that were a collection of pics of professional porn stars, you had women or couples creating Web sites that were centered around themselves and their real-life sexual escapades. These weren't people trying to make a living off porn. These were people doing it for fun. Getting off on the exhibitionism of it. It was called 'amateur porn.' "

Callie rolls her eyes. "You're not talking to babes in the woods here, honey-love. I think most of us know what amateur porn is. The 'girl next door,' swingers, blah blah blah."

"Sure, sorry. I'm in lecture mode. The relevance is, the demand for that type of porn turned out to be just as big as the demand for 'pro porn.' So much so that most of these women or couples couldn't afford to keep it up for free, as a hobby. The costs of having their Web sites accessed by so many people became prohibitive. So they started charging as well. A few of those who started early on made millions. And--and this is the key thing you have to understand--these were not pornindustry people. They didn't know anyone in the adult-video industry. They weren't in magazines, or in videos in adult bookstores. These were people driven first not by money but by the enjoyment of what they were doing.

"Whether or not you or I think this is a healthy way to be, the truth is, it created an entirely new demographic within the porn industry. Moms and dads, members of the PTA. All the while having a secret life and raking in the dough showing themselves off to the world." He turns to me. "So, what I meant when I said you weren't accurate is just that. I saw your friend's Web site. She did soft-core stuff--as in no sex. She did masturbate and use sex toys and . . . stuff like that. She charged for viewing it, and I don't necessarily approve--but she wasn't a hooker." He fumbles with his words for a moment. "I mean, I don't know if that'll help you, when you think about it, but . . ."

I give him a tired smile. Close my eyes. "It's a lot to take in, Leo. I'm not sure how I feel about any of it. But, yeah. It helps."

My mind is spinning, spinning, spinning. I think about Annie, posing nude as a chosen profession. I wonder about the secrets people keep. She was always beautiful, always a little wild. I would not have been surprised by any number of sexual secrets. But this--this throws me for a loop. Partly because I am unsure of my own ambivalence about it. A picture floats into my mind, sudden and unbidden. Matt and I were both twenty-six. The sex we were having that year could only be called spectacular. No area of our home was unchristened. No position had been left untried. My lingerie collection had grown by leaps and bounds. Best of all, none of this was happening because we were working at it. We weren't trying to "spice things up"--things were just spicy all by themselves. We were drunk on each other, cavorting with horny abandon.

I was always the more sexually adventurous of the two of us. Matt tended to be more conservative and quiet. But like they say: Still waters run deep. He could follow my lead into dark territories without hesitation. He'd howl full-throated at the moon right beside me. It's one of the things I loved about him. He was a wonderful, gentle man. But he could shift gears when I needed him to, could be rough and dark and a little dangerous. He was always my hero. But . . . when I needed a little bit of villain, Matt would provide.

We were a modern-day couple. We watched naughty movies together every now and then. I'm the one who would drag him into perusing some of the adult sites on occasion. Always on his screen name. Even though I was Big Brother, I was paranoid about Big Brother. I couldn't afford to tarnish the image of the FBI. So Matt's screen name was the one looking at all the dirty pictures. I'd tease him about this, calling him the pervert in the marriage.

We also had a digital camera. One night during this year, while he was at the store, the impulse struck me. I stripped off my clothes and took a few naked photos of myself from the neck down. Heart pounding, giggling like a maniac, I submitted the photos to a Web site that collected such things. I was fully dressed and demure by the time he got back.

A week went by and somehow I had forgotten about the incident. I was mired in a case. Anything else other than Matt and eating and sleeping and sex was not on my mental agenda. I came home late, exhausted, and dragged my way up to the bedroom. There I found Matt, lying on the bed. His hands were laced behind his head and he had the strangest look in his eyes.

"Something you want to tell me?" he asked.

I stopped, puzzled. Trying to think of anything. "Not that I know of. Why?"

"Follow me." He got out of bed and walked past me, heading toward our home office. I followed, mystified. He sat down at the desk where we had our computer. Jiggled the mouse to make the screen saver disappear. What I saw made me blush so hard, I thought my face was going to catch on fire. It was a page on the Web, and there, for the world to see, were the photos I had taken. Matt swiveled around. He had a small smile on his face.

"They e-mailed back. Apparently they loved the pics you sent them."

I stammered. Blushed some more. Blushed harder as I realized that I was getting turned on.

"I don't think you should do that again, Smoky--neck down or not, it's probably not real smart. In fact, it's pretty stupid. If anyone found out, you'd be fired in a heartbeat."

I stared at him, my face still hot, nodded. "Yeah. I mean, you're right. I won't. But . . ."

He arched his eyebrows in that way I'd always thought was sexy as hell. "But . . . ?"

"But for now--let's fuck."

And I was tearing off my clothes, and he was tearing off his, and we ended up howling at the moon. The last thing he said to me before we both fell asleep that night was so funny at the time, so Matt, that it stabs me in the heart to remember now. He'd grinned, eyes half lidded.

"What?" I asked.

"Not my daddy's FBI anymore, now, is it?"

I started giggling, and he started laughing, and we made love again and fell asleep spooned against each other.

I am not judgmental of the harmless excursions adults make, whatever the Bureau's public stance may be. I see the ending of life. It's hard to get excited about someone showing their boobs. But that's a far cry from running a Web site and charging people to watch me stuff things between my legs. I wonder if Annie got more from it than just money, or if it was only about the money. Remembering my friend, it was probably about more than just money. She was always a free-range runner, a female Icarus flying just a little too close to the sun. I shake myself from this reverie. I wonder for a moment if I have lost time, if I'm going to become one of those shell-shocked people who stop talking mid-sentence to stare off into the distance. I see James studying me. For some reason, the image of him--of all people--finding out about those pictures that got posted flies into my mind, sparking an irrational bit of paranoia. God, I really would have to kill myself then.

"You sound like you know your stuff, Leo. We're going to need you on the computer angle, so I hope you are a supergeek."

"The superest." He grins.

"Let's hear about the note."

Callie reaches over to her satchel, opens it, pulls a printout from a folder. She hands it over to me.

"Did you read this?" I ask James.

"Yes." He hesitates. "It's . . . interesting."

I nod, meeting his eyes, and I feel the connection. Oil and ball bearings. This is where we meet, and he wants to know what I think of it, whatever else he might feel or say.

I focus my attention on the words as I read them. I need to get into this killer's mind, and these are words he gave a lot of thought to. To us this document is priceless. It can tell us a lot about this monster, if we can unravel it.

To Special Agent Smoky J. Barrett. I wish this was "eyes only," but I know how little your FBI respects privacy when it comes to a chase. Every door is thrown open, the shades are rolled up, the shadows chased away.

I'd like to apologize first for the lapse between

killing your friend and alerting the police to her death. It couldn't be helped. I needed time to get certain things into motion. I will strive to be honest with you, Agent Barrett, and I will be honest here. While the needed time was the primary factor, I'll admit that thinking about little Bonnie, face-to-face with her mother's corpse for those three days, staring into her dead eyes, smelling the stink as it began, held a curious thrill for me. Do you think she'll ever recover from that? Or do you think she'll be haunted by it until the day she dies? Will that day come sooner, perhaps by her own hand, as she tries to chase away the nightmares with a sharp razor or some sleeping pills? Only time will tell, but thinking about it is interesting.

Further honesty: I didn't touch the child. I enjoy the pain of people, I am that serial cliche. I am not morally against the sexual rape of youth, but it holds no particular allure for me. She remains chaste, at least physically. Raping her mind was far more fulfilling. As you are one of those people who cannot turn away from death, I'll tell you about the death of your friend, Annie King. She did not die quickly. She was in much pain. She begged for her life. I found this both amusing and arousing. What, I wonder, does that make you tick off on your checklist about me, Agent Barrett?

Let me help you along.

I was not the victim of sexual or physical abuse as a child. I was not a bedwetter, and I did not torture small animals. I am something far purer. I am a legacy. I do what I do because I come from a bloodline, from the FIRST.

It is truly what I was born to do. Are you ready for this next, Agent Barrett? You will scoff, but here it is: I am a direct descendant of Jack the Ripper.

There. It's said. You are, no doubt, shaking your head as you read this. You've consigned me to the status of another nut, an unfortunate soul who hears voices and gets his orders from God.

We'll clear up that misconception, and soon. For now, let's leave it at this: Your friend Annie King, she was a whore. A modern-day whore of the information superhighway. She deserved to die screaming. Whores are a cancer on the face of this world; she was no exception.

She was the first. She will not be the last.

I am carrying on in the footsteps of my ancestor. Like him, I will not be caught, and like him, what I do will become history. Will you play the Inspector Abberline to my Jack?

I hope so, I truly do.

Let's begin the chase in such a way: Be at your office on the 20th. A package for you will be delivered, and it will authenticate my statements. Though I know you won't listen, I give you my word that the package I send will contain no traps or bombs.

Go and visit little Bonnie. Perhaps you can wake each other up screaming at night, now that you're her new mommy.

And remember--there are no voices, no commands from God. All I have to listen to, to know who I am, is the beating of my own heart.

From Hell, Jack Jr.

I finish reading and am silent and still for a moment. "That's some letter," I say.

"Just another wacko," Callie says in a voice that's brimming with scorn.

I purse my lips. "I don't think so. I think this one's more than that."

I shake my head to clear it, look at James. "We'll talk about this later. I need to think about it for a little while."

He nods. "Yes. I also want to see the scene before I draw any real conclusions."

That connection again. I feel the same way. We need to be there where it happened. To stand on the killing ground. We need to smell him.

"Speaking of that," I say, "who caught this at SFPD?"

"Your old friend Jennifer Chang," Alan rumbles from the front of the plane, surprising me. "I talked to her last night. She doesn't know you're coming up with us."

"Chang, that's good. She's one of the best." I met Detective Jennifer Chang on a case nearly six years ago. She was about my age, competent as hell, and had an acidic, biting sense of humor that I liked. "Where are they at on this thing? Have they started processing the scene?"

"Yep," Alan says, moving down the aisle, sitting closer to us. "Crime Scene Unit in SF was all over it, with Chang playing the little dictator. I talked to her again at midnight. She already had the body at the coroner's, all the photo work done, and CSU in and out. Fiber, trace, everything. That woman is a slave driver."

"That's how I remember her. What about the computer?"

"Other than dusting for prints, they haven't touched it." He jerks a thumb at Leo. "The Brain told them he'd take care of it."

I look at Leo, nodding my head. "What's your plan on that?"

"Pretty simple. I'll do a cursory examination of the PC, check for any booby traps that might have been set to wipe the hard drive, stuff like that. Look for anything immediate. Beyond that, I'll need to take it back to the office to really work on it."

"Good. I need you to scour her computer, Leo. I need any and all deleted files, including e-mail, pictures, anything--and I mean anything--that can help us on this. He found her through the Internet. That makes the computer his first weapon."

He rubs his hands. "Just lemme at it."

"Alan, you take your usual avenue. Gather up copies of everything SFPD has so far in terms of reports, canvassing, and then second-guess all of it."

"No problem."

I turn to Callie. "You take CSU. They're good up there, but you're better. Try and be nice about it, but if you have to push someone aside . . ." I shrug.

Callie smiles at me. "My specialty."

"James, I want you to take the coroner for now. Put on the pressure. We need the autopsy done today. After, you and I will go over and walk the scene."

The hostility percolates, but he doesn't say anything, just nods. I stop for a second. I run through it all in my head, making sure I've covered all the bases. I have, I think.

"That it?" Alan asks.

I look up at him, surprised at the anger in his voice. Having no idea where it's coming from. "I think so."

He stands up. "Good." He walks away, back to the front of the plane, as all of us watch and wonder.

"Who put a big fat bug up his ass?" Callie asks.

"Yeah, what a grouch!" Leo chimes in.

Callie and I swivel our heads to stare at him. Hostile gazes all around.

Leo glances back and forth between us, nervous. "What?" he asks.

"It's like the saying goes, child," Callie says, poking a finger at his chest. " 'Don't beat up my friend. Nobody gets to beat up my friend but me.' Do you follow?"

I watch as Leo's face closes down, becomes impassive. "Sure. You mean I'm not your friend, right, Red?"

Callie cocks her head at him, and I see some of the hostility leave her face. "No, honey-love--that's not what I'm saying. This isn't a clique, and we're not in high school. So drop the poor besieged nerd persona."

She leans forward. "What I'm saying is that I love that man. He saved my life once. And you don't get to pick on him like I do. Yet. Do you follow, sweetie pie?"

Leo appears less hostile but not quite ready to back down. "Yeah, okay. I understand. But don't call me child."

Callie turns to me and grins. "He just might fit in after all, Smoky."

She looks back at Leo. "If you value your life, don't ever call me Red again, earring boy."

"I'm going to talk to Alan," I say. I'm distracted, not as amused by this banter as I would normally be. I move forward, leaving them to their good-natured bickering. Some small part of me that used to be a leader registers that what Callie is doing is, in fact, good for Leo and thus for the team. She's accepting him in her own way. I'm glad. Sometimes when teams work together for a long while, they become too insular. Almost xenophobic. It's not healthy, and I'm happy to see that they haven't gone down that path. Well, at least Callie hasn't. James stares out the window, closed and cold and not taking part. Quintessential James, nothing new. I arrive at the row Alan is sitting in. He's staring at his feet, and the tension that pours off him is choking. "Mind if I sit down?" I ask. He waves a hand, doesn't look at me. "Whatever."

I sit and regard him for a moment. He turns to stare out the window. I decide to try the direct approach. "What's up with you?"

He looks at me, and I almost recoil from the anger in his eyes.

"What's that supposed to be? Show you can talk to the 'brotha'?

'What up?' "

I'm speechless. Struck dumb. I wait, thinking this will pass, but Alan continues to glare at me, and his rage only seems to be building.

"Well?" he asks.

"You know that's not what I meant, Alan." My voice is quiet. Even calm. "It's obvious to everyone that you're upset about something. I'm just--asking."

He continues to glare for another moment, but this time the fire does burn down. A little. He looks down at his hands. "Elaina is sick."

My mouth falls open. I'm flooded with shock and concern, instant and visceral. Elaina is Alan's wife, and I have known her for as long as I have known him. She is a beautiful Latin woman, beautiful in both form and heart. She came to see me in the hospital, the only visitor I had. The truth is, she gave me no choice. She barged in, brushing the nurses aside, walked up to my bed, sat on the edge, and fought my hands aside to draw me into her arms, all without speaking a single word. I melted against her and wept until I was dry. My strongest memory of her will always be that moment. The world a blur behind my tears, Elaina, comfortable and warm and strong, stroking my hair and crooning comfort to me in a mix of English and Spanish. She is a friend, the rare, forever kind.

"What? What do you mean?"

Perhaps it's the real fear he hears in my voice, but now the rage disappears. No more fire in those eyes. Just pain. "Stage-two colon cancer. They removed the tumor, but it had ruptured. Some of the cancer spilled into her system before the surgery happened."

"And what does that mean?"

"That's the fucked-up part. It might mean nothing. Maybe the cancer cells that came out when it ruptured are nothing to worry about. Or maybe they're there, floating around, ready to spread through her system. They can't give us any for-sures." The pain is building in his eyes. "We found out because she was having really bad pains. We thought it might be appendicitis. They took her right into surgery and found the tumor, took it out. Afterward, do you know what the doc told me? He told me she was stage four. That she was probably going to die."

I look at his hands. They are shaking.

"I couldn't tell her. She was recovering, you know? I didn't want her to worry, just wanted her to concentrate on getting better from the operation. For a whole week, I thought she was going to die, and every time I looked at her, that's what I thought about. She didn't have a clue." He laughs, mirthless. "So we go back in for her checkup, and the doctor has good news for us. Stage two, not stage four. Seventy to eighty percent survival rate over five years. He's all grins, and she starts crying. She found out that her cancer wasn't as bad as we thought, and she didn't know till just then that this was good news."

"Oh, Alan . . ."

"So she's going to be getting chemo. Maybe some radiation; we're still gathering all the information. Making our choices." He stares at those big hands again. "I thought I was going to lose her, Smoky. Even now, even when the facts say she's going to be fine, I don't know. What I do know is what it would feel like. I had a whole week to feel that. I can't stop feeling it." He looks at me, and the anger is back. "I felt the possibility of losing her. And what am I doing? Flying toward our next skell. She's at home, sleeping." He looks out the window. "Maybe up by now. But I ain't with her."

I stare at him, aghast. "Jesus, Alan! Why don't you take a leave? Be with Elaina, not here. We can handle this without you."

He turns to look at me, and the pain I see in those eyes takes my breath away and almost stops my heart.

"Don't you get it? I'm not mad because I'm here. I'm mad because there's no reason for me not to be here. Either everything is going to be fine, or it's not. And it doesn't make a damn bit of difference what I do."

He holds up his hands, splays them. Two huge catcher's mitts. "I can kill with these hands. I can shoot with them. I can make love to my wife and thread a needle with them. They're strong. Lot of dexterity too. But I can't reach in and take out that cancer. I can't help her. I can't fucking stand it."

The hands go back down into his lap, and those helpless eyes go back to watching them. I look at them too, try to find words for my friend. I feel his fear, and mine. I think of Matt.

"Helplessness is something I understand, Alan."

He looks at me, emotions warring in his eyes. "I know, Smoky. But--

don't take this the wrong way--all things considered, that's not confidence-inspiring." He grimaces. "Ah, shit. Sorry. That sounds all wrong."

I shake my head. "Don't worry about that. This isn't about what happened to me. It's about what's happening with you and Elaina. You can't tell me what you're feeling and walk on eggshells at the same time."

"I guess not." He blows air out through his lips. "Fuck, Smoky. What am I going to do?"

"I . . ." I sit back for a moment, thinking. What is he going to do?

I catch his eyes again. "You're going to love her and do everything you can. You're going to let your friends help you if you need it. And here's the most important thing, Alan. You're going to remember that it just might turn out okay. That the deck isn't stacked against you."

He gives me a crooked grin. "Cup half full kind of thing, huh?"

My response is fierce. "Damn right. This is Elaina. Cup half full is the only acceptable way to look at it."

He looks out the window, down at his hands, and now at me. The gentleness I have always cherished in my friend is back in his eyes.

"Thanks, Smoky. I mean it."

"So far from not a problem it's not even funny."

"Let's keep it between us for now, though, all right?"

"Deal. Are you okay?"

He purses his lips, nods his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." He looks at me, squints. "What about you? You okay? We haven't really talked . . . since." He shrugs.

"It's not like you didn't try. And yeah, for now, I'm doing fine."

"Good."

We gaze at each other for a moment, not speaking, just understanding. I stand up and give his shoulder a last squeeze before I walk away.

First Callie, now Alan. Problems and heartache and mysteries. I feel a twinge of guilt. I've been so caught up in my own agony these last six months, I realize I hadn't even considered that the lives of my friends might be something less than perfect, that they might have their own fears and pain and miseries. It shames me.

"Everything copacetic, honey-love?" Callie asks me as I sit down.

"Everything's fine."

She looks at me for a moment with that patented Callie intensity. I don't think she's really buying it, but she lets it go. "So, honey-love, while we're all running around on our assigned tasks, what are you going to be doing?"

The question brings me back to the purpose of this flight, makes me shiver. "First I'm going to talk to Jenny. I'll take her out to a coffee shop or something." I look at James. "She's good, and she saw the scene fresh. I want to get her firsthand impressions of it." He nods. "And then I'm going to see the best possible lead we have."

No one asks who I mean, and I know all of them are glad to let me do it. Because I'm talking about Bonnie.

10

WE WALK INTO SFPD, ask for Jennifer Chang, and are directed toward her office. She sees us coming. I am gratified as her eyes light up when she spots me. She moves toward us, towing along a male partner I don't recognize.

"Smoky! They didn't tell me you were coming."

"It was kind of a last-minute thing."

Jennifer stops close to me and gives me a once-over, head to toe. Unlike other people, she doesn't bother to cover her interest in my scars. She gives them a frank look.

"Not so bad," she remarks. "Healed up good. How about on the inside?"

"A little raw, but healing too."

"Good. So--is this a takeover, or what?" Jenny is right to business. I have to handle this part well; it is a takeover, but I don't want Jenny or other members of SFPD to get disgruntled about it.

"Yeah. But only because of the message to me. You know the rules, the e-mail constitutes a threat to a federal agent." I shrug. "That makes it a federal matter. But this has nothing to do with anyone here thinking SFPD can't do the job."

She mulls this over for a second. "Yeah, well. You guys have always dealt straight with me."

We follow her into her office, which is a small room with two desks. Nonetheless, I'm surprised. "Your own office, Jenny. Pretty impressive."

"Best solve rate three years in a row. The Captain asked me what I wanted, and I said this. He gave it to me." She grins. "Kicked out two old-timers to do it too. Didn't make me very popular. Like I care." She points to her partner. "Sorry. Should have introduced you earlier. This is Charlie De Biasse, my partner. Charlie, the feds."

He inclines his head. De Biasse is obviously an Italian name, and Charlie looks it, though perhaps not pure-blooded. He has a calm, easygoing face. His eyes don't match. They look sharp. Sharp and watchful.

"Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise."

"So," Jenny says, "what's the game plan?"

Callie gives her a rundown of the various assignments we have laid out. Jenny gives a nod of approval when she's done. "Sounds good. I'll get copies of everything we have so far put together for you. Charlie, can you call CSU and give them a heads-up?"

"Yep."

"Who has the keys to her apartment?" I ask.

Jenny picks up an envelope on the side of her desk and hands it to Leo. "They're in there. Don't worry about contaminating the scene. Evidence collection is done. The address is the one on the front of the envelope. See Sergeant Bixby at the desk. He can get you a ride."

Leo looks at me, eyebrows raised, and I nod, sending him on his way. I catch Jenny's eye. "Can we go somewhere? I'd like to talk to you about your impressions of the scene."

"Sure. You and I can go and get a cup of coffee. Charlie can set everyone up here, right, Charlie?"

"Yep."

"That would be great."

"Is your medical examiner any good?" James asks. Of course, since it's James, it doesn't come out as a harmless question but a challenge. Jenny frowns at him.

"According to Quantico she is. Why--have you heard differently?"

He waves his hand at her, a gesture of dismissal. "Just tell me how I can hook up with her, Detective. Save the sarcasm."

Jenny's eyebrows shoot up, and I see her eyes cloud over. She glances at me, and perhaps it's the look of anger she sees on my face, directed at James, that pacifies her. "Talk to Charlie." Her voice is tight and terse. It has no effect on James. He turns away from her without a glance back. I touch her elbow. "Let's get out of here."

She shoots one last brooding look at James before nodding. We head toward the precinct door.

"Is he always such a dick?" she asks as we're walking down the front steps.

"Oh yeah. The word was invented for him."

We only have to walk a block to reach the coffee shop, something San Francisco seems to have as many of as Seattle. It's a mom-and-pop place, not a franchise, with a relaxed, earthy feel to it. I order a cafe mocha. Jenny gets some hot tea. We settle down at a table next to the window and enjoy not talking for a moment. Sipping at our respective cups. The mocha is exquisite. Exquisite enough, I realize, for me to enjoy it, even with all the death around me. I look outside at the city passing by. San Francisco has always intrigued me. It's the New York of the West Coast. Cosmopolitan, with European influences, it has its own charm and character. I can usually tell if someone is from San Francisco by their clothing. It's one of the few places on the West Coast where you see wool trench coats and hats, berets and leather gloves. Stylish. The day outside is nice; San Francisco can tend to run chilly, but today the sun is out, and the weather hovers in the low seventies. A scorcher by this city's standards. Jenny puts down her tea and runs a finger around the rim of the cup. She seems thoughtful. "I was surprised to see you here. Even more surprised to find out you're not heading up your team."

I look over my cup at her. "That was the deal. Annie King was a friend of mine, Jenny. I have to stay on the periphery of this. At least officially. Besides, I'm not ready to run NCAVC Coord again, not yet."

Her gaze at me reveals nothing, but neither does it judge. "Not ready as in you say you're not ready, or the Bureau says it?"

"It's me saying it."

"So . . . don't be offended, Smoky, but if that's true, how did you even get authorization to come up here? I don't think my Captain would have let me, in a similar situation."

I explain to her about the changes that I had felt in myself by virtue of connecting back up with my team. "It seems to be good therapy for me right now. I guess the Assistant Director saw it that way too."

Jenny is silent for a moment before speaking. "Smoky, you and I are friends. We don't trade Christmas cards or come over for Thanksgiving. We're not that kind of friends. But still friends, right?"

"Sure. Of course."

"Then as a friend, I have to ask: Are you going to be able to deal with this case? All the way? This is bad stuff. Real bad. You know me, and you know I've seen a lot. But that thing with her daughter . . ." She shudders, an involuntary spasm. "I'm gonna have nightmares about it. On top of that, what was done to your friend wasn't pretty either. Oh yeah, and she was your friend. I can understand what you're saying about it being healthy for you to test the waters again, but do you really think this is the case to do it with?"

I am honest in my reply. "I don't know. That's the truth. I'm messed up, Jenny, make no mistake about that. I guess it doesn't make a lot of visible sense for me to get involved, but . . ." I think for a minute. "It's like this. Do you know what I've been doing since Matt and Alexa died?

Nothing. I don't mean nothing as in taking it easy. I mean nothing. As in sitting in a single place all day long, staring at a blank wall. I go to sleep and have nightmares, wake up, and stare at things till I go back to sleep. Oh, or sometimes, I look at myself in the mirror for hours and trace over these scars with my fingers." Tears prick my eyes. I'm gratified to find that they are tears of anger and not weakness. "All I can tell you is that that--living like that--is even more terrible than what I'll see being involved with Annie's death. I think. I know that sounds selfish, but it's the truth." I run out of words like a clock that needs to be wound. Jenny sips from her tea. The city continues to churn around us, unaware.

"Makes sense to me. So, you want my impressions of the scene?"

This is all she says. She is not brushing me off. She is acknowledging me in her way. Telling me she understands, so let's get down to business. I am grateful.

"Please."

"I got the call yesterday."

I interrupt. "As in you, personally?"

"Yep. Asked for me by name. Voice was disguised, and told me to check my e-mail. I might have ignored it, but he mentioned you."

"Disguised how?"

"It was muffled. Like he'd put a cloth over the mouthpiece of his phone."

"Any notable inflections? Unusual use of slang? Hint of an accent of any kind?"

Jenny looks at me, a bemused smile on her face. "You going to work me like a witness, Smoky?"

"You are a witness. For me, at least. You're the only person who actually talked to him, and you saw the scene fresh. So, yeah."

"Fair enough." I see her thinking about my question for a moment.

"I'd have to say no. In fact, I would say just the opposite. There was an absence of inflection. His voice was very flat."

"Can you remember what he said, exactly?" I know the answer to this question is yes. Jennifer has an unusual memory. It's as scary in its own way as my skill with a handgun, and is feared by defense attorneys.

"Yeah. He said: 'Is this Detective Chang?' I said it was. 'You've got mail,' he said, but then he didn't laugh. That was one of things that got my attention, first. He didn't push the melodrama of it. Just said it as a flat fact. I asked who this was, and he said, 'Someone's dead. Smoky Barrett knows them. You've got mail.' And then he hung up."

"Nothing else?"

"That was it."

"Hm. Do we know where the call originated?"

"From a pay phone in LA."

My ears perk up at this. "Los Angeles?" I think about it. "Maybe that's why he needed three days. So either he's a traveler, or he's actually from LA."

"Or he's just messing with us. If he is from LA, then my guess would be that he came up here for Annie." Her face looks strained and uncomfortable as she says this. I know why.

"Which would mean I was the person whose attention he wanted to get." I have already accepted this possibility--no, make that probability--although I have not confronted it emotionally. The fact that Annie may be dead not only because of what she did but because she was my friend.

"Right. But that's all conjecture. Anyway, so I go and check my e-mail--"

I interrupt her. "Where did he send the e-mail from?"

She looks at me, hesitant. "He sent it from your friend's computer, Smoky. It was her e-mail address."

This sparks a sudden, unexpected wave of anger in me. I know he did this not just to cover his tracks, but to show that what was Annie's was now his. I push it aside. "Go on."

"It gave Annie King's name and address, nothing else, and there were four attachments. Three were photos of your friend. The fourth was the letter to you. At this point, we are taking it seriously. You can fake anything when it comes to photos these days, but it's like a bomb threat--you evacuate just in case. So my partner and I gathered up some uniforms and went over to the address." She sips her tea. "The door wasn't locked, and after some knocking without any answer, we pulled our weapons and entered. Your friend and her daughter were in the bedroom, on the bed. She had her computer set up in there." She shakes her head, remembering. "It was a bad scene, Smoky. You've seen more of that than I have, that kind of methodical, intentional killing, but I don't think you'd have seen it differently. He cut her open, removed her insides, and bagged them. Slit her throat. But the worst of it was the daughter."

"Bonnie."

"Right. She was tied face-to-face with her mother. Nothing fancy. He just put them stomach to stomach, and wrapped rope around them both until she couldn't move. She was there like that for three days, Smoky. Tied to her own dead mother. You know what happens to a body in three days. The air-conditioning wasn't on. And the fucker had left a window cracked. There were blowflies."

I do know. What she's describing is unimaginable.

"The kid is ten years old, and the smell is already bad, and she's there with flies all over. She'd turned her head so her cheek was resting on her mom's face." Jenny grimaces, and I get a hint of the horror she felt at that moment. I'm thankful, so thankful, I wasn't there for that. "She was quiet. Didn't say a word when we got into the room. Not while we were untying her. She was just limp, and stared. Unresponsive to questions. She was dehydrated. We got EMS over right away, and I sent her off with an officer. She's fine physically, and I have a guard posted at the door of her room just in case. I got her a private room, by the way."

"Thanks. I appreciate that. A lot."

Jenny waves it off, sips her tea. I'm surprised to see the smallest of trembles as she does this. She is truly, deeply affected by the memory, as tough as she is. "She hasn't said a word since. Do you think she'll ever get over it? Could anyone?"

"I don't know. I'm always surprised at what people can live through. But I don't know."

She gives me a speculative look. "I guess so." She is silent for a moment before continuing. "Once we had her off in the ambulance, I shut the place down. I called CSU in, and I kicked their ass, hard. Maybe a little harder than I needed to, but I was just so . . . pissed. That's not even a good word for how I felt."

"I understand."

"While all that was happening, I called and talked to Alan, and here we are. I don't have much more than that. We're at the dead beginning of it, Smoky. Evidence collection only. I haven't had time to slow down and really look at anything."

"Let's step back a little. Let me walk you through it like a witness."

"Sure."

"We'll do it as a CI."

"Okay."

By CI I mean "cognitive interview." Witness recollections and accounts are one of our bugbears. People see too little, or don't remember what they've seen, due to trauma and emotion. They can remember things that didn't really happen. Cognitive-interview technique has been in use for a long time, and while it has a specific methodology, its application is more of an art form. I'm very good at it. Callie is better. Alan is a master.

The basic concept behind the cognitive interview is that simply walking a witness through from the start of the event to the end, over and over, does not, as a rule, lead to more recollection. Instead, three techniques are used. The first is context. Rather than starting from the beginning of the event, you take them prior to it. What their day was like, how it was going, what life worries/happinesses/banalities were running through their head. Get them to recall the normal flow of their life prior to the abnormal event you want them to remember. The theory is that this serves to put the event you want them to recall into context. By grounding them in memories prior to the event, they are more able to move forward through the event and will remember in greater detail. The second technique is to change the sequence of recall. Rather than starting them from the beginning, start them from the end, and go backward. Or begin in the middle. It makes the witness start and stop and reexamine. The last part of a good CI is changing perspective.

"Wow," you might say, "I wonder what that looked like to the person standing by the door?" This shifts their inspection of the event and can jar more facts loose.

With someone like Jenny, who is a trained investigator with excellent memory, cognitive interviewing can be very, very effective.

"It's late afternoon," I say, starting. "You're in your office, doing . . . ?"

She looks up toward the ceiling, remembering. "I'm talking to Charlie. We're going over a case we've been working on. Sixteen-yearold prostitute, beaten to death and left in an alley in the Tenderloin."

"Uh-huh. What are you saying about it?"

Her eyes get sad. "It's what he's saying. About how no one gives a shit about a dead whore, even if she's just sixteen years old. He's mad and sad, and venting. Charlie doesn't do well with dead kids."

"How did you feel at the time, listening to that?"

She shrugs, sighs. "About the same. Mad. Sad. Not venting about it the way he was, but understanding. I remember looking down at my desk while he was ranting away, and noticing that the side of one of the photos from her file was sticking out. It was a picture from the scene, where we found her. I could see part of her leg from the knee down. It looked dead. I felt tired."

"Go on."

"Charlie wound down. He finished spewing, and then he just sat there for a second. He finally looked over and gave me that silly, lopsided smile of his, and said he was sorry. I told him it was no big deal."

She shrugs. "He's listened to my ranting in the past. It's one of the things partners do."

"How did you feel about him, at that moment?"

"Close." She waves a hand. "Not lovey or sexual, or anything like that. That's never come up between us. Just close. I knew he'd always be there for me and vice versa. I was happy to have a good partner. I was about to tell him that, when the call came in."

"From the perp?"

"Yeah. I remember feeling kind of . . . disoriented when the perp started talking."

"Disoriented how?"

"Well, life was--normal. I was sitting there with Charlie, and someone says 'you got a phone call' and I say 'thanks' and pick it up--circumstances and motions I've experienced and done a thousand times. Normal. Suddenly, it wasn't. I went from the usual to talking to something evil"--she snaps her fingers--"just like that. It was jarring." Her eyes are troubled as she says this.

This is the other reason I decided to use CI technique with Jenny. The biggest problem with witness memory is the trauma of the event. Strong feelings cloud recall. People outside law enforcement don't understand that we experience our own trauma. Strangled children, chopped-up mothers, raped young boys. Talking to murderers on the phone. These experiences are shocking. They are filled with emotion, however well suppressed. They are traumatic.

"I understand. I think we have context here, Jenny." My voice is smooth and quiet. She's letting me put her in the "then," and I want to keep her close to it. "Let's move forward. Take it from when you are walking up to the door of Annie's apartment."

She squints at nothing I can see. "It's a white door. I remember thinking it was the whitest door I'd ever seen. Something about that made me feel hollow. Cynical."

"How so?"

She looks at me and her eyes seem ancient. "Because I knew it was a lie. All that white. Total bullshit. I felt it in my gut. Whatever was behind that door wasn't white, not at all. It was going to be dark and rotten and ugly."

Something cold twinges inside of me. A kind of vicarious deja vu. I have felt what she is describing.

"Go on."

"We knock, and we call her name. Nothing. It's quiet." She frowns.

"You know what else was strange?"

"What?"

"No one peeked out their door to see what was going on. I mean, we were 'cop knocking.' Loud and pounding. But no one looked. I don't think she really knew her neighbors. Or maybe they just weren't close."

She sighs.

"Anyway. Charlie looks over at me, and I look back at him, and we both look at the uniforms, and we all unholster our weapons." She bites her lip. "That bad feeling was really strong. It was an anxiety ball bouncing around in my stomach. I could feel it in the others too. Smell it. Sweat and adrenaline trembles. Shallow breathing."

"Were you scared?" I ask her.

She doesn't answer for a moment. "Yeah. I was scared. Of what we were going to find." She grimaces at me. "Want to know something weird? I'm always scared just before I get to a scene. I've been on homicide for over ten years, and I've seen everything, but it still scares me, every time."

"Go on."

"I tried the doorknob, and it turned, no problem. I looked at everyone again and opened the door, wide. We all had our weapons up and ready."

I switch perspectives on her. "What do you think the first thing Charlie noticed was?"

"The smell. It had to be. There was the smell, and the dark. All the lights were off, except for the one in her bedroom." She shivers, and I realize that she's unaware of it. "You could see the doorway to her bedroom from where we were standing. It was down a hallway almost directly in line with the front door. The apartment was close to being pitch-black, but the bedroom doorway was kind of . . . outlined by light." She runs a hand through her hair. "It reminded me of that whole

'monster in the closet' thing I had sometimes as a kid. Something scratching on the other side of that door, wanting out. Something awful."

"Tell me about the smell."

She grimaces. "Perfume and blood. That's what it smelled like. The smell of perfume was stronger, but you could smell the blood underneath it. Thick and coppery. Subtle, but kind of . . . aggravating. Disturbing. Like something you could see out of the corner of your eye."

I file this away. "What then?"

"We did the usual. Called out to the occupants, cleared the living room and the kitchen. We used flashlights, because I didn't want anyone touching anything."

"That's good." I nod, encouraging.

"After that, we did what made sense--we went toward the bedroom door." She stops and looks at me. "I told Charlie to put on gloves before we even entered, Smoky."

She is telling me she knew, felt, that murder was on the other side of that door. That she was going to be dealing with evidence, not survivors. "I remember looking at the doorknob. Not wanting to turn it. I didn't want to look inside. To let it out."

"Go on."

"Charlie turned the knob. It wasn't locked. We had a little trouble opening it because there was a towel stuffed along the bottom of the door."

"A towel?"

"Soaked in perfume. He'd put it there so the smell of your friend's corpse wouldn't come wafting out. He didn't want anyone finding her until he was ready."

And just like that, part of me wants to stop this. Wants to get up, walk out the door of this coffee shop, hop in the jet, and go home. It is a feeling that surges over me, almost overpowering. I fight it back.

"And then?" I prompt her.

She is quiet, staring off. Seeing too much. When she begins to speak again, her voice is flat and empty. "It hit us all at once. I think that's what he wanted. The bed had been moved so that it was in line with the door. So that when we opened it, we could see it all, smell it all, in an instant." She shakes her head. "I remember thinking of that white, white front door. It made me feel so fucking bitter. It was just too much to process. I think we stood there for at least a minute. Just looking. It was Charlie that realized it first--that Bonnie was alive." She stops talking, staring into that moment. I wait her out. "She blinked, that's what I remember. Her cheek was lying against her dead mother's face, and she looked dead herself. We thought she was. And then she blinked. Charlie started cursing, and"--she bites her lip--"crying a little. But that's between us and the uniforms we had there, okay?"

"Don't worry."

"That was the first and--I hope--only fuckup. Charlie just ran into the room and untied Bonnie. Trampled all over the scene." Her voice sounds both hollow and bemused. "He wouldn't stop cursing. He was cursing in Italian. It sounds very pretty. Strange, huh?"

"Yeah." I'm gentle in my reply. Jenny is there, completely in the moment, and I don't want to jar her out of it.

"Bonnie was limp and nonresponsive. Boneless. Charlie untied her and whisked her right out of that apartment. Right out, before I could even think to say or do anything. He was desperate. I understood." Her face twists. "I sent the uniforms out to call EMS and CSU and the ME, blah, blah, blah. That left me there with your friend. In that room, smelling like death and perfume and blood. Feeling so angry and sad I could have puked. Staring down at Annie." She shivers again. Her fist clenches and unclenches. "You ever notice that about the dead, Smoky?

How still and quiet they are? Nothing alive could ever fake that kind of stillness. Still and silent and nobody home. I shut off at that point."

She looks at me and shrugs. "You know how it works."

I nod. I do. You get over the initial shock, and then you shut down the part of you that feels so that you can do your job without weeping or puking or losing your mind on the spot. You have to be able to give horror a clinical eye. It's unnatural.

"It's funny to look back at it, in a way. It's like I can hear my own voice in my head, some kind of robotic monotone." She mimics this as she speaks. "White female, approximately thirty-five years of age, tied to her bed in the nude. Evidence of cuts from neck to knees, probably made by a knife. Many cuts look long and shallow, showing probable torture. Torso"--her voice wavers for a second--"torso cavity open and seems to be empty of organs. Victim's face is twisted, as though she was screaming when she died. Bones in her arms and legs appear to be broken. Killing looks purposeful. Appears to have been slow. Posing of the body suggests prior thought and planning. Not a crime of passion."

"Tell me about that," I say. "What's the sense you got of him from the scene, at that exact moment?"

She is silent for a long time. I wait, watching as she looks out the window. She turns her eyes to me.

"Her agony made him come, Smoky. It was the best sex he ever had."

These sentences stop me. They are dark, cold, and horrible. But they are some of what I was looking for. And they ring true. Even as they empty me out, leave me hollow, I begin to smell him. He smells like perfume and blood, like doorways in shadow, outlined by light. He smells like laughter mixed with screams. He smells like lies disguised as truth, and decay seen out of the corner of your eye. He is precise. And he savors the act.

"Thanks, Jenny." I feel empty and dirty and filled with shadows. But I also feel something beginning to stir inside. A dragon. Something I was afraid was dead and gone, amputated from me by Joseph Sands. It's not awake, not yet. But I can feel it again, for the first time in months.

Jenny shakes herself a little. "Pretty good. You really put me in it."

"It didn't take much skill on my part. You're a dream witness." My response sounds listless to me. I feel so tired right now. We sit for a moment, quiet. Contemplative and disturbed. My mocha no longer tastes exquisite, and Jenny seems to have lost interest in her tea. Death and horror do that. They can suck the joy from any moment. It's the one thing that you have to struggle with, always, in law enforcement. Survivor's guilt. It seems almost sacrilegious to savor a moment in life while talking about the screaming end of someone else's.

I sigh. "Can you take me to see Bonnie?"

We pay the check and leave. The whole way over, I'm dreading the thought of seeing those staring eyes. I smell blood and perfume, perfume and blood. It smells like despair.

11

I HATE HOSPITALS. I'm glad they are there when they're needed, but I have only one good memory of being at one: the birth of my daughter. Otherwise, a visit to the hospital has always been because I am hurt, or someone I care for is hurt, or someone is dead. This is no exception. We have entered a hospital because we need to see a young girl who was bound to her dead mother for three days. My own time in the hospital is a surreal memory. It was a time of intense physical pain and an unending wish to die. A time of not sleeping for days, until I'd pass out from exhaustion. Of staring at a ceiling in the dark, while monitors hummed and the soft sound of nurses' shoes shuffled down the hallways, overloud in the cotton-stuffed quiet. Of listening to my soul, which had the empty rushing sound you hear when you put your ear to a seashell.

I smell its smell, and shiver inside.

"Here we are," Jenny says.

The cop in front is alert. He asks to see my identification, even though I'm with Jenny. I approve.

"Any other visitors?" Jenny asks.

He shakes his head. "Nope. It's been quiet."

"Don't let anyone in while we're inside, Jim. I don't care who it is, got it?"

"Whatever you say, Detective."

He sits back in his chair and unfurls a newspaper, and we enter. I feel dizzy the moment the door closes and I see Bonnie's still form. She's not asleep, her eyes are open. But they don't even move in response to the sound of our entrance. She is small, tiny, made more so as she is dwarfed not just by the hospital bed, but by her circumstances. I am amazed how much she looks like Annie. The same blond hair and upturned nose, those cobalt-blue eyes. In a few more years she will be almost a twin of the girl I held on a bathroom floor in high school so many years ago. I realize I've been holding my breath. I exhale, walking over to her.

She's on the barest of monitoring. Jenny had explained on the way over that a thorough exam showed no rape and no physical injury. There is a part of me that is thankful for that, but I know her wounds run much deeper. They are gaping and bloody and no doctor can stitch them, these wounds of the mind.

"Bonnie?" I speak in a soft, measured voice. I remember reading somewhere about talking to people in a coma, how they can hear you and it helps. This is close enough to that. "I'm Smoky. Your mother and I were best friends, for a long time. I'm your godmother."

No response. Just those eyes, staring at the ceiling. Seeing something else. Maybe seeing nothing. I move to the side of the bed. I hesitate before taking her small hand in mine. A wave of dizziness crashes over me at the feel of her soft skin. This is the hand of a child, not fully grown, a symbol of that which we protect and love and cherish. I held my daughter's hand like this many times, and an emptiness opens up as Bonnie's hand fills that space. I start to speak to her, not sure of the words until they tumble from my lips. Jenny stands off, silent. I'm barely aware of her. My words sound low and earnest to me, the sound of someone praying.

"Honey, I want you to know that I'm here to find the man who did this to you and your mother. That's my job. I want you to know that I know how bad this is. How much you are hurting inside. Maybe how you want to die." A tear rolls down my cheek. "I lost my husband and my daughter to a bad man, six months ago. He hurt me. And for a long time, I wanted to do exactly what you're doing now. I wanted to just crawl inside myself and disappear." I stop for a moment, draw a ragged breath, squeeze her hand. "I just wanted you to know I understand. And you stay in there, as long as you need. But when you're ready to come out, you won't be alone. I'll be here for you. I'll take care of you."

I'm weeping openly now, and I don't care. "I loved your mother, sweetheart. I loved her so much. I wish she and I had spent more time together. Wish I'd seen more of you." I smile a crooked smile through my tears. "I wish you and Alexa had known each other. I think you would have liked her."

I am growing dizzier, and the tears just seem to keep on coming. Grief is like that sometimes. Like water, it finds any opening, forces itself through any crack until it explodes, inexorable. Images flash through my mind of Alexa and Annie, turning the inside of my head into some insane, strobe-lit disco. I have only a moment to realize what's happening. I'm passing out.

Then things go dark.

This is the second dream, and it is beautiful.

I'm in the hospital, in the throes of labor. I'm giving serious thought to killing Matt for his part in putting me here. I am being cleaved in two, I'm covered in sweat, grunting like a pig, all in between screams of pain.

There is a human being moving through me, trying to come out. It does not feel poetic, it feels like I'm shitting a bowling ball. I've forgotten about the supposed beauty of having a child, I want this thing out of me, I love it I hate it I love it, and all of this is reflected in my screams and curses.

My doctor's voice is calm, and I wish I could smack his stupid silly bald head. "Okay, Smoky, the baby's crowning! Just a few more pushes and she'll be out. Come on, hang in there."

"Fuck you!" I yell, and then push. Dr. Chalmers doesn't even look up at me at this. He's been delivering children for a good long time.

"You're doing great, honey," Matt says. He's got his hand in mine, and a part of me registers a perverse hope that I'm grinding his bones into powder.

"How would you know?" I snarl. My head snaps back at the force of the contraction, and I am cursing like I have never cursed before, blasphemous, horrible words to make a biker blush. There is the smell of blood and of the farts that have been escaping as I've been pushing. I think, there is no beauty here, and I want to kill all of you. Then the pain and pressure increases, something I would not have thought possible. I feel like my head should be rotating around, I am cursing with such terrible abandon.

"One more time, Smoky," Dr. Chalmers says from between my legs, still calm in this maelstrom.

There is a gushing, sucking sound, and pain, and pressure, and then--she is out. My daughter has emerged into the world; the first sounds she hears are words of profanity. There is a silence, some snipping sounds, and then something that pushes all the pain and anger and blood away. That stops time. I hear my daughter crying. She sounds as pissed off as I had been moments ago, and it is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard, the most beautiful music, a miracle beyond my capacity to imagine. I am overwhelmed, I feel like my heart should stop beating. I hear that sound, and look at my husband, and I begin to bawl.

"Healthy baby girl," Dr. Chalmers says, leaning back as the nurses clean Alexa and wrap her up. He looks sweaty, and tired, and happy. I love this man that I wanted to swat just seconds ago. He has been a part of this, and I am thankful, though I can't stop crying or find the words. Alexa was born just after midnight amid the blood and pain and profanity, and that was something you get only a few times in life--a moment of perfection.

She died after midnight as well, taken back into a womb of darkness from which she would never be reborn.

I come to, gasping, shaking, and weeping. I am still in the hospital room. Jenny is standing over me. She looks stricken.

"Smoky! Are you okay?"

My mouth feels gummy. My cheeks are cracking with the salt of my tears. I am mortified. I shoot a look toward the hospital door. Jenny shakes her head.

"No one else has been in here. Though I would have called someone if you hadn't woken up soon."

I gulp in air. They are the deep, gulping breaths of post-panic attack. "Thank you." I sit up, there on the floor, put my head in my hands. "I'm sorry, Jenny. I didn't know that was going to happen."

She is silent. Her tough exterior has faded for a moment, and she looks sad without pity. "Don't worry about it."

These are the only words she says. I sit there gulping air, my breathing getting calmer. And then I notice something. Just as in the dream, the pain of the moment is rushed away.

Bonnie has turned her head, and she is looking at me. A single tear rolls down her cheek. I stand up, move to her bed, take her hand in mine.

"Hi, honey," I whisper.

She doesn't speak, and I say nothing more. We just stare at each other, letting the tears roll down our cheeks. That's what tears are for, after all. A way for the soul to bleed.

12

S AN FRANCISCANS DRIVE a lot like New Yorkers: They take no prisoners. Traffic is medium-heavy at the moment, and Jenny is intent on ferocious negotiations with the other vehicles as we drive back toward SFPD. A symphony of honks and curses fills the air. I have a finger stuck in one ear so I can hear Callie as I talk to her on the cell phone.

"How's it going at CSU?"

"They're good, honey-love. Very good. I'm going over everything with a fine-tooth comb, but I think they covered every base, from a forensic standpoint."

"And I take it that they didn't find anything."

"He was careful."

"Yeah." I feel depression knocking, push it away. "Have you checked in with the others? Any word from Damien?"

"I haven't had time yet."

"We're almost back at the station anyway. Keep doing what you're doing. I'll check in with everyone else."

She is silent for a moment. "How's the child, Smoky?"

How is the child? I wish I had an answer to that. I don't, and I don't want to talk about it right now. "She's in bad shape."

I click off the phone before she can reply, and stare out the window as we travel through the city. San Francisco is a maze of steep hills and one-way streets, aggressive drivers, and trolley cars. It has a certain foggy beauty I've always admired, a singularity all its own. It is a mix of the cultured and the decadent, moving fast toward either death or success. At this moment, it doesn't seem so unique to me. Just another place where murder happens. That's the thing about murder. It can happen at the North Pole or on the equator. It can be committed by men or women, youths or adults. Its victims can be sinners or saints. Murder is everywhere, and its children are legion. I am filled with darkness right now. No whites or grays, just solid coal pitch-blacks. We arrive at the station, and Jenny moves us out of the still-busy river of the street into the more peaceful parking lot belonging to SFPD. Parking is hard to come by in San Francisco--God help anyone stupid enough to try and pirate these spaces.

We head in through a side door and make our way down a hallway. Alan is in Jenny's office with Charlie. Both are engrossed in the file in front of them.

"Hey," Alan says. I can feel his eyes examining me, taking stock. I don't acknowledge it.

"Any word from the others yet?"

"No one's talked to me."

"You come up with anything?"

He shakes his head. "Not so far. I wish I could say that the cops here are fuckups, but they aren't. Detective Chang runs a tight ship." He snaps his fingers, smiles at Charlie. "Oh yeah--sorry. And her faithful sidekick too, of course."

"Blow me," Charlie replies without looking up from the file.

"Keep at it. I'm going to call James and Leo."

He gives me a thumbs-up, goes back to reading.

My cell phone rings. "Barrett."

I hear James's sour voice. "Where the hell is Detective Chang?" he snarls.

"What's up, James?"

"The ME won't start cutting until your little friend shows up. She needs to get her ass over here now."

He hangs up on me before I can reply. Asshole.

"James needs you at the morgue," I tell Jenny. "They won't start without you."

She smiles a little smile. "I take it the dick is pissed off?"

"Very."

She grins. "Good. I'll head over there right now."

She leaves. Time to call Leo, our rookie. A disconnected musing as I dial: What kind of jewelry does he wear in his ear when he's not on the job? It rings five or six times before he answers, and when he does, the sound of his voice puts me on alert. It is hollow and terrified. His teeth are chattering.

"C-C-C-Carnes . . ."

"It's Smoky, Leo."

"V-v-v-video . . ."

"Slow down, Leo. Catch your breath and tell me what's happening."

When he speaks next, his voice comes out as a whisper. What he says fills my head with white noise.

"V-v-video of the m-m-m-m-murder. Terrible . . ."

Alan is looking at me, concern in his eyes. He can tell that something's happened. I manage to find my voice. "Stay there, Leo. Don't go anywhere. We'll be there as fast as we can."

13

I REMEMBER THIS area from when I came to visit Annie after her father died. She lived in a towering apartment building--again, a la New York state of mind, where the apartments are more like condos, replete with dining rooms and sunken baths. We pull up to the front of the building.

"Nice place, nice area," Alan remarks, looking up at it through the windshield.

"Her dad did okay," I say. "He left her everything in his will."

I look around at this clean, safe area. While no area of San Francisco can truly be called suburban, it definitely has its "nice neighborhoods."

They take you away from the noise of the city, the good ones taking you up high so that you can look out across the bay. There are the old neighborhoods, with their Victorian-style homes, and then there are the areas of new development. Like this one.

It strikes me now as it did before: No place is safe from the possibility of murder. No place. The fact that it is less expected here than in a slum will make you no less dead in the end.

Alan calls Leo as we climb out of the car. "We're in front, son, hang on. We'll be up in a sec."

We head through the front doors and into the lobby. The man at reception watches us as we pour into the elevator, but says nothing. We ride in silence to the fourth floor.

Alan and I were quiet on the way over, and we are quiet still. This is the worst part of the job for anyone who does it. Seeing the actuality of the act. It is one thing to process evidence in a lab, to peer into a killer's mind as an exercise. It is another to see a dead body. To smell the blood in a room. As Alan once said, "It's the difference between thinking about shit and eating it."

Charlie is silent and grim-looking. Perhaps remembering last night, turning that knob and seeing Bonnie.

We arrive at the floor and exit, walk down the hallway and turn. Leo is outside. He's sitting down, back against the wall, his head in his hands.

"Let me handle this," Alan murmurs.

I nod and we watch as he moves to Leo. He kneels down in front of him and places a huge hand on the young man's shoulder. I know from experience that as big as that hand is, the touch is gentle.

"How're you doing, kid?"

Leo looks up at him. His face is white and pale. It shines with a greasy sweat. He doesn't even try to smile. "I'm sorry, Alan. I lost it. I saw it, and then I puked, and I couldn't stay in there . . ." His words taper off, listless.

"Listen up, son." The big man's voice is quiet, but it demands attention. Charlie and I wait. As much as we want to get inside and move forward in our jobs, we both have compassion for what Leo is going through. This is a crucial moment for those in our profession. It is the blooding. The point where you peer into the abyss for the first time, where you find out that the boogeyman really does exist and really has been hiding under the bed all those years. Where you come face-to-face with real evil. We know this is where Leo will either recover or find a new line of work. "You think there's something wrong with you because you got freaked out by what you saw?"

Leo nods and looks ashamed.

"Well, you're mistaken. See, the problem is, you've seen too many movies, read too many books. They give you this crazy-ass idea about what being tough means. How a cop is supposed to act when he sees dead bodies or violence, stuff like that. You think you're supposed to have some smart one-liners on the tip of your tongue, a ham sandwich in your hand, and be all unmoved and shit. Right?"

"I guess."

"And if you don't, then you must be a pansy, and you have to be embarrassed in front of the old-timers. Shit, maybe you're thinking because you puked you're not cut out for this line of work." Alan swivels, looking back at us. "How many scenes did you see before you stopped barfing, Charlie?"

"Three. No, four."

Leo's head pops up at this.

"How about you, Smoky?"

"More than one, that's for sure."

Alan turns back to Leo.

"Me, it was about four. Even Callie's puked, though she won't admit it, since she's the queen and all." He squints at Leo. "Son, there's nothing in life that prepares you for seeing that kind of thing for the first time. Not a damn thing. Doesn't matter how many pictures you've looked at, or case files you've examined. Real dead is a whole different game."

Leo looks at Alan, and I recognize the look. It's the look of respect, bordering on worship, that a student gives a mentor. "Thanks."

"No problem." They both stand up.

"You ready to brief me, Agent Carnes?" I make my voice a little stern. He needs it.

"Yes, ma'am."

He has some color in his cheeks again and looks a little more determined. To me, he just looks young. Leo Carnes is a baby, introduced to murder, now destined to get old before he should. Welcome to the club.

"Well, go ahead, then."

His voice is calm as he talks. "I came over and ran through the initial checks, verifying that there were no booby traps or viruses present. I then did the first thing you always do--I checked to see what file was last modified. It turned out to be a text file named readmefeds."

"Really?"

"Yes. I opened it up. It contained a single sentence: Check the pocket of the blue jacket. There was no blue jacket I could see, but then I looked in the closet. Inside the left pocket of a woman's blue jacket, I found a CD."

"So you decided to take a look. It's okay. I would have done the same thing."

He continues, encouraged. "When you make a CD, you can give it a title. When I saw the title of this one, I got very interested." He swallows. "It was named The Death of Annie."

Charlie grimaces. "Son of a bitch. Jenny's going to be pissed that we missed this."

"Go on," I say to Leo.

"I looked to see what files were on the CD. There was just one. It's a high-quality, high-resolution video file. It essentially fills the entire CD." He swallows again. Some of the paleness is coming back. "I clicked on the file, which launched a player, which then played the video. It was . . ." He shakes his head, tries to get a grip on himself.

"Sorry. The killer encoded and created this video. It's not a complete start-to-finish timeline--that would probably be too big for a CD, in terms of the size of the video--it's more of a . . . montage."

"Of Annie's murder." I say it for him; I know he doesn't want to have to say it himself.

"Yeah. It's-- indescribable. I didn't want to keep watching, but I couldn't help myself. Then I started puking, and then you called. I left the apartment and I waited outside until you came."

"You didn't puke in the bedroom, did you?" Charlie asks.

"I made it to the bathroom."

Alan claps him on the back with one of those catcher's-mitt-size hands. If Leo had dentures, they would have gone flying out of his mouth. "See? You do have the stuff, Leo--you kept your head about losing your stomach. That's good."

Leo gives him a sheepish half smile.

"Let's go see this," I say. "Leo, you don't need to be there if you don't want to be. I mean it."

He gives me a very direct look. It is a surprising mixture of maturity and contemplation. I realize in a flash of insight that I know what he is thinking. He is thinking that Annie was my friend. That if I'm going to go and watch her die, anybody should be able to. I can almost hear his thoughts. His eyes confirm it; they get hard and he gives a determined shake of his head. "No, ma'am. The computer end of things is my job. I'll do my job."

I acknowledge his strength the way we acknowledge things like that--by making nothing of it. "Fair enough. Take us inside."

Leo opens up the door to the apartment and we enter. It hasn't changed much from how I remember it. It's a three-bedroom layout, with two bathrooms, a large living room, and a great kitchen. Most striking is the fact that Annie is everywhere. She lives through the decor, the essence of the place. Blue was her favorite color, and I see blue in the drapes, a blue vase, a photograph containing a broad blue sky. The place is classy, it has a kind of effortless quality, without gilt edges or gold leaf. Everything matches, but not in that irritating obsessive-compulsive way, that "keep up with the Joneses" way. It is a study in muted beauty. It is serene.

Annie always had that gift. The ability to accessorize without having to think about it. Everything, from the clothes she wore to the watch on her wrist, was always stylish, without being arrogant or frumpy. Elegant without being ostentatious. It was instinctive for her, and I always viewed it as evidence of her inner beauty. She did not choose things because of how others would see them on her. She chose them because they called to her. Because they were right. Because they fit. The apartment is a reflection of this. It is covered in the ghostly dust of Annie's soul.

But there is another presence here as well.

"You smell that?" Alan asks. "What is it?"

"Perfume and blood," I murmur.

"The computer is this way," Leo says. He leads us into the bedroom. Harmony dies in here. This is where he did his work. It is a conscious opposite of Annie's unconscious beauty. Here someone strove for dissonance. To break the serenity. To destroy something exquisite. The carpet is stained with blood, and my nose picks up the strong, rotten odor of decay, mixed with the smell of Annie's perfume. They are two opposites: one the smell of life, the other the stench of death. An end table is overturned, a lamp smashed. The walls have been scratched, and the whole room feels jagged and wrong. The killer raped this room with his presence.

Leo sits down at the computer. I think of Annie.

"Go ahead," I tell him.

Leo pales. Then he moves the mouse and positions the arrow over a file, double-clicking it. A video player fills the screen, and the video begins. My heart almost stops as I see Annie. She's nude from head to toe and handcuffed to the bed. Bile rises in my throat as I think of myself with Joseph Sands. I force it back. The killer is dressed in black. He has a hood over his face.

"Is that a fucking ninja outfit?" Alan rumbles. He shakes his head in disgust. "Christ. It's all a fucking joke to him."

My gift as a hunter kicks in on automatic. The killer looks to be about six feet tall. He's in shape--somewhere in between muscular and wiry. I can tell from the skin exposed around his eyes that he is white. I'm waiting to hear him speak. Voice-recognition technology has come very far, and this could be a crucial break. But then he disappears from the camera view for a moment. I can hear small sounds of him fumbling with something. When he comes back into the camera's view he looks right into the lens, and I get the sense from the crinkles around his eyes that he is smiling behind that mask. He lifts up a hand and gives a count with his fingers. 1, 2, 1-2-3-4 . . . Music fills the room in the video. It drowns out all other noises. It takes me only a moment to place it. When I do, I am almost sick. Almost.

"Jesus Christ," Charlie whispers, "is that the Rolling Stones?"

"Yep. 'Gimme Shelter,' " Alan says. His voice is flat with rage. "Just a barrel of laughs for this sick fuck. Giving himself a little mood music."

The volume is up and the song is loud. As it picks up speed, the killer starts to dance. He has a knife in one hand, and he dances for Annie and for the camera. It's frenetic, crazy, but he does move with the beat. Insanity with a rhythm.

"Ra-a-ape, murder . . ."

This is why he picked this song. That's his message. It echoes my sentiments earlier in the day. What he can do, it's always just a step away. I close my eyes for a moment as I see that Annie, too, realized this. It is something I can see in her eyes. Terror mixed with a loss of hope. The killer has stopped dancing, though he still twitches to the beat. His movements seem almost unconscious. Like someone tapping their foot to a song without realizing they're doing it. He is standing by the bed, his eyes fixed on Annie. He seems mesmerized. Annie is struggling. I can't hear it over the music, but I can tell she is screaming through her gag. He looks at the camera once more. Then he bends forward with the knife.

The rest of it is as Leo had said. A montage. Flashes of Annie's torture, rape, horror. The knife is what he uses on her, and he takes his time with it. He likes to cut slowly, and he likes to cut long. He touches her everywhere with its blade. I physically jolt as each new image flashes. Full body spasms that make me feel like I'm being shocked by a car battery. Flash, shock, jolt, Annie getting tortured. Flash, shock, jolt, Annie getting raped. Flash, shock, jolt, he cuts, he cuts, he cuts, dear God, he won't stop cutting. Her eyes fill with agony, her eyes fill with terror, and eventually they empty and fill with an endless gaze at nothing. Still alive, but no longer there. The killer is joyous, exultant. He is doing a rain dance, and the rain is blood. I watch as my friend dies. It is slow and awful and without dignity. By the time he is done, she is long since gone, a gutted fish. Watching her die, this woman I held as a child, this woman I grew up with and loved, it's like being back in that bed, watching Matt scream.

I have not truly wept for Annie since she died. I find that I am weeping now, that I have been throughout. They are silent tears, rivers running down my cheeks. They mourn the death of the only other person besides Matt who knew all of me. I am alone in this world. I have no roots, and it is unbearable. Annie, I think--you so didn't deserve this.

I don't wipe them away. I'm not ashamed of these tears. They make sense.

The video finishes playing, and everyone is silent.

"Play it again," I say.

Play it again, because there is a dragon inside me, and she is awakening. I need her to wake up angry.

14

S O, LET ME get this straight," Alan says. "He not only shot this video, he sat down and edited it?"

Leo bobs his head up and down. "Yep. But not on this computer. Hard drive isn't big enough, and there's no editing software on it. He probably brought a high-powered laptop with him."

Alan whistles. "He's a cold one, Smoky. That means he sat and edited the video while your friend was lying there dead, and Bonnie was watching. Or worse."

No one has said anything about my tears. I feel empty, but I am no longer numb. I respond.

"Cold, organized, competent, technically proficient--and he's definitely the real thing."

"What do you mean?" Leo asks.

I look at him. "He's crossed a line, as a person, and he'll never come back from that. He loved what he was doing. It really made him come alive. You're not going to do something you love that much just one time."

He looks at me, taken aback by this concept. "So now what?"

"Now you all get out, and we get James over here."

I hear my own voice as I say this, note its coldness. Well, well, I think. It's started. It's still there. How about that?

Charlie and Leo look confused. Alan understands. He smiles, not really a happy smile. "She and James need some space, is all. We have plenty to do in the meantime. You want me to take over for James at the ME's?" he asks me.

"Uh-huh . . ." My reply is distracted and distant. I barely register it when they leave. My mind is a huge, open space. My gaze is fixed on the faraway.

Because the dark train is coming.

I can hear it in the distance, chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a, belching smoke, made up of teeth and heat and shadows.

I met the dark train (as I call it) during my very first case. It is a thing hard to describe. The train of life runs on the tracks of normality and reality. It is the train most of humanity rides, from birth to death. It is filled with laughter and tears, hardships and triumphs. Its passengers are not perfect, but they do their best.

The dark train is different.

The dark train runs on tracks made of crunching, squishy things. It's the train that people like Jack Jr. ride. It's a train fueled by murder and sex and screams. It's a big, black, blood-drinking snake with wheels. If you hop off the train of life and run through the woods, you can find the dark train. You can walk next to its tracks, run alongside as it passes, get a glimpse of the weeping contents of its boxcars. Jump aboard, move through its corpse cars, through the whispers and bones, and you will reach the train's conductor. The conductor is the monster you are chasing, and he has many guises. He can be short and bald and forty. He can be tall and young and blond. Sometimes, rarely, he can be a she. On the dark train, you see the conductor as he really is, underneath the fake smiles and three-piece suits. You stare into darkness, and at that moment, if you look without flinching, you will understand. These killers I hunt are not quiet and smiling inside. Every cell in their body is an unending, eternal scream. They are gibbering and wideeyed and evil and blood-covered. They are things that masturbate as they gobble human flesh, that groan in ecstasy as they rub themselves with brains and feces. Their souls don't walk: They slither, they spasm, they crawl.

The dark train, simply, is where I remove the killer's mask in my mind. Where I look and don't turn away. It is the place where I don't back off, or excuse or look for reasons, but instead accept. Yes, his eyes are filled with maggots. Yes, he drinks the tears of murdered children. Yes, there is only murder here.

"Interesting," Dr. Hillstead had remarked during one of our sessions, after I had explained the dark train to him. "I guess my question--and my concern--Smoky, would be: Once you get on, what keeps you from never getting off the train? What keeps you from becoming the conductor?"

I had to smile. "If you see it--really see it--then there's no danger of that. You can see that you aren't like that. Not even close." I turned my head to stare at him. "If you really unmask the conductor, you realize that he's alien. He's an aberration, a different species."

He'd acknowledged me, smiled back. His eyes didn't seem convinced. What I didn't tell him was that the problem wasn't becoming the conductor. The problem was to stop seeing him, how he looked in his unmasked state. That could take months sometimes, months of waking nightmares and cold sweats at dawn. The thing that was always hardest on Matt was that it was made up of silences. Closed rooms he couldn't join me in.

That's the price you pay for riding the dark train. A part of you becomes a solitude that normal people will never have and no one else can ever enter. A little sliver of you becomes alone, forever. Standing here, in Annie's death place, I can feel it rushing toward me. When it's coming, whether I'm just watching it pass or moving through its cars, I can't have others around me. I get distant and cold and . . . not nice. The exception is a fellow hobo. Someone else who understands the train. James does. Whatever other faults he has, however much of an asshole he can be, James has the same gift. He can see the conductor, ride the rails.

Removing all the metaphors, the dark train is a place of heightened observation, created by a temporary empathy with evil. And it's unpleasant.

I look around the room, letting it seep into me. I can feel him, smell him. I need to be able to taste him, hear him. Rather than pushing him away, I need to pull him close. Like a lover.

That is the thing I never told Dr. Hillstead. I don't think I ever will. That this, that intimacy, is not only disturbing--it is addictive. It is exciting. He hunts everything. I only hunt him. But I suspect my taste for blood is just as rich and strong.

He was here, so this is where I need to be. I need to find him, and snuggle close to his shadows and maggots and screams. The first thing I sense is always the same, and this time is no different. His excitement at the invasion of another's boundaries. Human beings divide themselves, create spaces to call their own. They agree between them to respect that ownership. This is very basic, almost primal. Your home is your home. Once the door is closed, you have privacy, relief from keeping up the face you show the world. Other human beings come in only if invited. They respect this because it's what they want as well.

The first thing the monsters do, the first thing that excites them, is to cross that line. They peek into your windows. They follow you throughout your day, watching. Maybe they enter your home while you are away and walk into your private spaces, rub up against your private things. They invade.

And destruction of others is their aphrodisiac.

I remember an interview with one of the monsters I caught. His victims were young girls. Some were five, some were six, none were older. I saw the pictures of them before--bows in their hair and radiant smiles. I saw the pictures of them after--raped, tortured, murdered. Tiny corpses screaming forever. I was wrapping up, about to head out the door of the interrogation room, when the question occurred to me. I turned to him.

"Why them?" I asked. "Why the young girls?"

He smiled at me. A big, wide, Halloween smile. His eyes were two twinkling, empty wells. "Because it was the worst thing I could think of, darlin'. The badder it is"--and he'd licked his lips at this--"the better it is." He'd closed those nothing eyes and had shaken his head back and forth in a kind of reverie. "The young ones . . . GOD . . . the badness of that was just so damn sweet!"

It's rage that fuels this need. Not pinprick annoyance, but fullblown, world-on-fire rage. A constant, roaring blaze that never dies. I feel it here. As deliberate as he might want to be, in the end he destroyed in a frenzy. He was out of control.

This rage usually comes from extreme sadism visited upon them when they were children. Beatings, torture, sodomy, rape. Most of these monsters are made, by Frankenstein parents. Twisted ones create children in their own image. They beat their souls to death and send them out in the world to do unto others.

None of that makes any pragmatic difference. Not in terms of what I do. The monsters are, without exception, irredeemable. It doesn't matter why the dog bites, in the end. That he bites and that his teeth are sharp are what determines his fate.

I live with all of this knowledge. This understanding. It is an unwanted companion that never leaves my side. The monsters become my shadow, and sometimes I feel like I can hear them chuckling behind me.

"How does that affect you, long term?" Dr. Hillstead had asked me.

"Is there any constant emotional consequence?"

"Well--sure. Of course." I had struggled to find the words. "It's not depression, or cynicism. It's not that you can't be happy. It's . . ." I'd snapped my fingers, looking at him. "It's a change in the climate of the soul." I'd grimaced as soon as the words left my mouth. "That's some silly poetic bullshit."

"Stop that," he'd admonished me. "There's nothing silly about finding the right words for something. It's called clarity. Finish the thought."

"Well . . . you know how land masses that are near the ocean have their climates determined by it? By that proximity? There may be some freak twists in the weather, but pretty much it's a constant, because the ocean is so big and it doesn't really change." I'd looked at him; he'd nodded. "It's like that. You have this constant proximity to something huge and dark and awful. It never leaves, it's always there. Every minute of every day." I shrugged. "The climate of your soul is affected by it. Forever."

His eyes had been sad. "What is that climate like?"

"Someplace where there's a lot of rain. It can still be beautiful--you do have your sunny days--but it's dominated by grays and clouds. And it's always ready to rain. That proximity is always there."

I look around Annie's bedroom, hear her screams in my head. It's raining right now, I think. Annie was the sun, and he is the clouds. So what does that make me? More poetic bullshit. "The moon," I whisper to myself. Light against the black.

"Hi."

James's voice startles me out of my reverie. He's standing at the door, looking in. I see his eyes roaming over the room, taking in the bloodstains, the bed, the overturned night table. His nostrils flare.

"What is that?" he murmurs.

"Perfume. He coated a towel with perfume and stuffed it under the door so the smell of Annie's body wouldn't get out right away."

"He was buying himself time."

"Yeah."

He holds up a file folder. "I got this from Alan. Crime-scene reports and photos."

"Good. You need to see the video."

When it starts, this is how it goes. We talk in short bursts, automatic gunfire. We become relay racers, passing the baton back and forth, back and forth.

"Show me."

So we sit down, and I watch it again. Watch as Jack Jr. capers around, watch as Annie screams and dies a slow death. I don't feel it this time. I'm untouched--almost. I'm detached and distant, examining the train with narrowed eyes. I get an image in my head of Annie, lying dead in a grassy field, while rain fills her open mouth and dribbles down her dead gray cheeks.

James is quiet. "Why did he leave this for us?"

I shrug. "I'm not there yet. Let's take it from the beginning."

He flips open the file folder. "They discovered the body at approximately seven P.M. last night. Time of death is rough, but based on the decomposition, ambient temperatures, et cetera, the ME estimates she died three days before, at around nine or ten P.M."

I think it through. "Figure he took a few hours raping and torturing her. That means he'd have gotten here at around seven o'clock. So he doesn't come in while they're asleep. How does he get inside?"

James consults the file. "No sign of forced entry. Either she let him in, or he let himself in." He frowns. "He's a cocky fucker. Doing it early evening, when everyone is still up and about. Confident."

"But how does he get in?" We look at each other, wondering. Rain, rain, go away . . .

"Let's start in the living room," James says.

Automatic gunfire, bang-a-bang-a-bang.

We walk out of the bedroom and down the hall until we're standing in the entryway. James looks around. I see his eyes stop roaming and freeze. "Hang on." He goes to Annie's bedroom and comes back holding the file. He hands me a photo.

"That's how."

It's a shot of the entryway, just inside the door. I see what he wants me to see: three envelopes lying on the carpet. I nod. "He kept it simple--he just knocked. She opens the door, he slams through it, she drops the mail she's holding. It was sudden. Fast."

"It was early evening, though. How did he keep her from screaming and alerting the neighbors?"

I grab the folder from him and scan through photos. I point to one of the dining table. "Here." It shows an opened grade-school math book. We glance over at the table. "It's less than ten feet away. Bonnie was right here when Annie answered the door."

He nods in understanding. "He controlled the kid, so he controlled the mother." He whistles. "Wow. That means he came right in. No hesitation."

"It was a blitz. He didn't give her any time at all. Pushed his way in, slammed the door, moved right to Bonnie, probably put a weapon to her throat--"

"--and told the mother if she screamed, the kid would die."

"Yeah."

"Very decisive."

Rain, rain, go away . . .

James purses his lips, thoughtful.

"So the next question is: How soon before he got down to business?"

Here is where it really begins, I think. Where we don't just consider the dark train, we climb aboard. "It's a series of questions." I count them off on my fingers. "How soon before he started on her? Did he tell her what he was going to do? And what did he do with Bonnie in the meantime? Did he tie her up or make her watch?"

We both look at the front door, considering. I can see it in my head. I can feel him. I know James is doing the same.

It's quiet in the hallway, and he's excited. His heart is pounding in his chest as he waits for Annie to open the door. One hand is poised to knock again, the other holds . . . what? A knife?

Yeah.

He has a story to give her, and he's rehearsed it many times. Something simple, like . . . he's a neighbor from the floor below with a question. Something that feels like it belongs.

She opens the door, and not just a crack. It's early evening; the city is awake. Annie is at home, inside a security-gated apartment building. All of her lights are on. She has no reason to be afraid.

He comes through the door before she can react, an unstoppable force. He pushes inside, knocking Annie down, closing the door behind him. He rushes to Bonnie. He pulls her close and puts the knife to her throat.

"Make a sound and your daughter dies."

Annie forces back the instinctive scream that had been building in her throat. Her shock is total. Everything has happened too fast for her to process. She's still looking for some kind of rational explanation. Maybe she's on a hidden-camera show, maybe a friend is pulling a prank on her, maybe . . . crazy ideas, but crazy would be better than the truth.

Bonnie is gazing up at her, eyes full of fear. Annie would have accepted then that this was no prank. A stranger had a knife to her daughter's throat. This was REAL.

"What do you want?" was her first question. She was hoping that she could bargain with this stranger. That he wanted something less than murder. Perhaps he was a burglar, or a rapist. Please, oh please, she's thinking, don't let him be a pedophile.

I remember something. "She had a small cut on her throat," I say.

"What?"

"Bonnie. She had a small cut in the hollow of her throat." I touch my own. "Here. I noticed it at the hospital."

I see James think about this. His face goes grim. "He made it with the knife."

We can't be sure, of course. But it feels right.

The stranger takes the point of his knife and pricks the hollow of Bonnie's throat. Nothing major, just enough to draw a single bead of blood, a single gasp. Enough to show that he means business, to make Annie's heart jump and thud and quiver.

"Do what I say," he says, "or your daughter dies slow."

And right then, it was over. Bonnie was his leverage, and Annie belonged to him.

"I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt her."

He smells Annie's fear, and it excites him. An erection stirs in his trousers.

"I think Bonnie was there while he raped and tortured Annie. I think he made her watch it all," I say.

James cocks his head. "Why?"

"A few reasons. The main one is that he kept Bonnie alive. Why? It gave him an extra person he had to control. It would have been easier if he'd just killed her. But Annie was the prey. He's into torture, he likes fear. Anguish. Having Bonnie there, having Annie know she was there and seeing what was happening . . . it would have driven her insane. He would have liked that."

James mulls this over. "I agree. For another reason too."

"What?"

He looks me in the eye. "You. He's hunting you too, Smoky. And hurting Bonnie makes the cut that much deeper."

I stare at him in surprise.

He's right.

Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a, the dark train is picking up speed . . .

"Do what I tell you, or I'll hurt your mommy," he says to Bonnie. He uses their love of each other like a cattle prod, driving them toward the bedroom.

"He moves them into the bedroom." I walk down the hall. James follows. We step inside. "He closes it." I reach over and shut the door. I imagine Annie, watching it close and not realizing that she would never see it open again.

James stares at the bed, thinking. Envisioning. "He still has two of them to control," he says. "He wouldn't have been afraid of Bonnie, but he can't relax yet, not until Annie's secured."

"Annie was handcuffed in the video."

"Right. So he made her handcuff herself. Just one wrist is all he'd need."

"Take these," he'd said to Annie, removing a pair of handcuffs from a bag, tossing them at her--

No, that wasn't right. Rewind.

He has the knife to Bonnie's throat. He looks at Annie. Looks her up and down, owning her with his eyes. Making sure she understands this.

"Strip," he says. "Strip for me."

She hesitates, and he wiggles the blade against Bonnie's throat. "Strip."

Annie does, weeping, as Bonnie watches. She leaves her bra and panties on, one last resistance.

"All of it!" he growls at her. Wiggles the knife. Annie complies, weeping harder now--

No. Rewind.

Annie complies and forces herself not to weep. To be strong for her daughter. She removes her bra and panties and holds Bonnie's eyes with her own. Look at my face, she's thinking, willing. Look at my face. Not this. Not him. Now he removes the handcuffs from the bag he'd brought in.

"Handcuff your wrist to the bed," he tells Annie. "Do it now."

She does. Once he hears the click of the ratchet, he reaches into the bag and pulls out two other pairs of handcuffs. These go around Bonnie's tiny wrists and ankles. She is trembling. He ignores her sobs as he gags her. Bonnie looks at her mother, a pleading look. A look that says: "Make it stop!" This makes Annie cry harder.

He's still cautious, careful. He's not letting himself relax yet. He moves over to Annie and handcuffs her other wrist to the bed. Followed by her ankles. Then he gags her.

Now. Now he can relax. His prey is secure. She can't escape, won't escape. Didn't escape, I think.

Now he can savor the moment.

He takes his time setting up the room. Positioning the bed, getting the video camera just right. There is a way that things are done, a symmetry that is impor- tant, vital. You don't rush this. To miss a step is to take away from the beauty of the act, and the act is everything. It's his air and his water.

"The bed," James says.

"What?" I look at it, puzzled.

He stands up and walks over to the baseboard. Annie's bed is queen-size, formed of smooth, rounded wooden pieces. Sturdy.

"How did he move it?" He walks to the headboard and looks down at the carpet. "Drag marks. So he pulled it toward him." He moves back to the base of the bed. "He would have gripped it somewhere here and pulled it by walking backward. He'd need leverage . . ." James kneels down. "He'd have grabbed it at the bottom and lifted it." He stands up, walks to the side of the bed, drops onto his back, and squirms under the bed up to his shoulders. I see the light of his flashlight go on, then back off. When he comes back out, he is smiling. "No print powder there."

We look at each other. I can almost feel each of us crossing our fingers. People make the mistake of thinking that latex gloves prevent the transfer of fingerprints. In most cases, this is true. But not always. These types of gloves were originally developed for surgeons so they could maintain a sterile buffer during operations. The flip side of this is that the gloves have to fit like a second skin for the surgeons to use their instruments with no loss of precision or sensitivity. This tightness and thinness can cause the gloves to form-fit into the ridges and bifurcations of the prints on the hand and fingertips. If--and this is a big if, but still possible--someone wearing the gloves then touches a surface that can take an impression, they can leave a usable print. Annie's bed is made of wood. It's possible that cleaning solutions used on it could have left a residue that would retain a fingerprint impression, even through the killer's gloves.

A long shot. But possible.

"Good one," I say.

"Thanks."

Oil and ball bearings, I think. On the killing ground, this is the only place that James plays nice.

The stage is set. He's moved the bed . . . just so. The camera is positioned . . . just so. He does one last check to make sure that everything is perfect. It is. Now he gives Annie his full attention, gazing down at her. This is the first time she truly sees. He's been distracted, setting up his theater. She still had hope. Now his gaze is fixed on her, and she understands. She sees eyes that have no horizon. They are bottomless, black, and filled with an unending hunger.

He knows when she knows. When she understands. It enflames him, like it al- ways does. He has extinguished hope in another human being. It makes him feel like a god.

James and I have arrived at the same place on this timeline. We are there. We see him, we see Annie, and out of the corner of our eyes, we see Bonnie. We smell the despair. The dark train is picking up speed, and we are along for the ride, tickets punched.

"Now let's watch the video again," he says.

I double-click the file, and we watch as the montage rolls by. He dances, he slices, he rapes.

The sheer violence of what he is doing sprays blood everywhere, and he can smell it, taste it, feel the slick of it through his clothes. At one point, he turns to look at the child. Her face is white, and her body shakes as though she's having a seizure. This creates an almost unbearable, near-orgasmic symphony of delicious extremes for him. He shivers, every muscle shaking with emotion and sensation. He isn't just being bad. He is raping good. Fucking it to death. Music and blood and guts and screams and terror. The world is shaking, and he is its epicenter. He is climbing toward the pinnacle, and he lets it come to him--that point where all of it explodes in a searing, blinding light, where all reason and anything human dis- appears.

It is a brief moment, and it is the only time that the hunger and need fade to nothing. A tiny instant of fulfillment and relief. The knife comes down and there is blood and blood and wet and blood and he is climbing, climbing, climbing, standing on tiptoes at the peak of a mountain, stretching his body as far as it will go, reaching a finger out, not to touch the face of God, not to become something MORE, but to become nothing, nothing at all, and he throws his head back as his body shakes with an orgasm more powerful than he can stand.

Then it's over, and the anger that is always there returns. Something jitters in my mind. "Hold it," I say. I use the controls of the player to rewind the video. I let it play. That jitter again. I frown, frustrated. "Something's not right. I can't put my finger on it."

"Can we do a frame by frame on this?" James asks.

We play around with it a bit until we find a setting that, though not frame by frame, at least takes us through it in slow motion.

"Somewhere in here," I murmur.

We both lean forward, watching. It is toward the end of the tape. He is standing next to Annie's bed. I see a flicker, and he is still standing next to Annie's bed, but something is different.

James sees it first. "Where's the picture?"

We roll it back again. He is standing next to the bed, and on the wall behind him is a picture of a vase of sunflowers. The flicker again, he is still standing next to the bed--but the picture is gone.

"What the hell?" I look over at the place on the wall where the picture would have hung. I see it, leaning up against the overturned end table.

"Why did he remove it from the wall?" James asks. He's asking himself, not me. We run through it again. Standing, picture, flicker, standing--no picture. Over and over. Standing, flicker, picture, no picture, picture no picture . . .

Understanding doesn't just rush over me. It roars. My mouth falls open, and I get light-headed. "Jesus Christ!" I yell, startling James.

"What?"

I rewind the video. "Watch it again. This time, note where the top of the picture frame is, and track that point on the wall once it's gone."

The video moves through, we pass the flicker. James frowns. "I don't--" He stops and his eyes widen. "Is that right?" He sounds incredulous. I run through it again. There's no doubt. We both stare at each other. Everything has changed.

We know now why the picture had been removed. It had been removed because it was a frame of reference. For height. The man standing over Annie while the picture was still on the wall was a good two inches taller than the man standing over her after it was removed.

We'd reached the engine room on the dark train and had been thrown out of it by the shock of what we saw.

Not one conductor.

Two.

15

YOU'RE RIGHT," LEO says. He looks up at James and me in amazement.

He has just finished examining the video. "That flicker is a bad splice."

Callie, Jenny, and Charlie are there, crowded around the monitor. We had filled them in on the sequence of events as we saw them, ending with this bombshell.

Jenny looks at me. "Wow."

"You run across anything like this before?" Charlie asks. "Two of them working together?"

I nod. "Once. It was different, though. A male-female team, and the male was dominant. Two males working together, that's very unusual. What they do, it's personal to them. Intimate. Most don't like to share the moment."

Everyone is quiet, mulling this over. Callie breaks the silence. "I should check for those prints, honey-love."

"I should have thought of that," Jenny says.

"Yes, you should have," James bites. He's back to his old self. Jenny glares at him. He ignores her, turning to watch Callie. Callie is unpacking a UV scope and its accoutrements. The scope uses intensified ultraviolet reflectance to detect fingerprints. It emits intense light in the UV spectrum. This light reflects uniformly off flat surfaces. When it hits imperfections--such as the ridges and whorls of fingerprints--it reflects these as well, making them stand out against the uniformity of the surface they are on. You can take crystal-clear photographs of these imperfections with a UV camera, usable in fingerprint matching and identification. The imager boasts a head-mounted display that protects the eyes from the UV rays, a UV emitter, and a hand-carried, high-resolution UV

camera. The scope doesn't always work, but the advantage of trying it first is that it does nothing to the surface you're examining. Powders, superglue . . . once these substances are applied, you can't take them back. Light leaves it the way you found it.

"All ready," Callie says. She looks like something from a sciencefiction movie. "Turn out the lights."

Charlie hits the switch, and we watch as Callie gets onto her back and squirms under the bed. We can see the glow of the UV emitter as she passes it across the surface of the baseboard. A pause, some fumbling, and we hear a few clicks. A few more clicks. The emitter light goes out and Callie squirms back out, stands up. Charlie turns the lights on. Callie is grinning. "Three good prints from the left hand, two from the right. Nice and clear, honey-love."

For the first time since Callie called me to tell me about Annie's death, I feel something besides anger, grief, and coldness. I feel excited.

"Gotcha," I say, grinning back at her.

Jenny shakes her head at me. "You guys are truly, truly spooky, Smoky."

Just riding the dark train, Jenny, I think to myself. Letting it lead us to their mistakes.

"Question," Alan says. "How come no one complained about the music? They had the volume up pretty high."

"I can answer that one, honey-love," Callie says. "Just be quiet and listen."

We do, and I hear it right away. The thumps of loud bass, mixed with muffled treble, coming from various places in floors above and below. Callie shrugs. "Young people and couples live here, and some like to play their music loud."

Alan nods. "I'll buy that. Second point." He gestures around at the room. "They were messy. Real messy. There's no way they just walked out of here covered in blood. They had to clean up first. The bathroom looks pristine, so I'm thinking that they washed up in there and scrubbed it down after." He turns to Jenny. "Did the Crime Scene Unit check the drains?"

"I'll find out." Her cell phone rings, and she answers it. "Chang." She looks at me. "Really? Right. I'll tell her."

"What now?" I ask.

"That was my guy at the hospital. He said Bonnie spoke. Just a sentence, but he thought you'd want to know."

"What?"

"She said, 'I want Smoky.' "

16

JENNY GOT ME to the hospital fast; she pulled out the stops, used her siren to run red lights. Neither of us spoke on the way over. I'm standing by Bonnie's bed now, looking down at her as she gazes up at me. I am again struck by how much she looks like her mother. It's disorienting; I just came from watching her mother die, and yet here Annie looks up at me, alive through her daughter.

I smile down at her. "They said you asked for me, honey."

She nods, but doesn't speak. I realize there won't be any more words coming from Bonnie right now. The glazed look of shock is gone from her eyes, but something else has settled in and put down roots. Something distant and hopeless and heavy.

"I need to ask you two questions first, honey. Is that okay?"

She looks at me, speculative. Apprehensive. But she nods.

"There were two bad men, weren't there?"

Fear. Her lip trembles. But she nods.

Yes.

"Good, honey. Just one more, and then we won't talk about it any more right now. Did you see either of their faces?"

She closes her eyes. Swallows. Opens them. Shakes her head. No.

Inside, I sigh. I am not surprised, but it's still frustrating. Time for that later. I take Bonnie's hand.

"I'm sorry, honey. You asked to see me. You don't have to tell me what you want if you still can't talk. But can you show me?"

She continues to look up at me. She seems to be looking for something in my eyes, some reassurance. I can't tell from her expression whether she is finding it or not. But she nods.

Then she reaches over and takes my hand. I wait, but that's all she does. And then I understand.

"You want to come with me?"

She nods again.

A million thoughts shoot through my head at this. About how I'm unfit to care for myself, much less her. How I'm on a case, and so who's going to watch her? I think these things, but none of it really matters. All I do is smile down at her and squeeze her hand. "I have some things to do, but when I'm ready to leave San Francisco, I'll come get you."

She continues to gaze into my eyes. Seems to find that thing she'd been looking for. She gives my hand a squeeze, and then she lets go, turns her head into her pillow, and closes her eyes. I stand there for a moment, looking down at her.

I walk out of that room knowing something's changed in my life. I wonder whether it's good or bad, and realize that just now, that doesn't really matter. This isn't about good or bad or indifferent. It's about survival. That's the level we're operating at right now, Bonnie and me. We're headed back to SFPD. The car is filled with silence.

"So, you're going to take her?" Jenny asks, breaking it.

"I'm all she's got. Maybe she's all I have too."

Jenny chews on this. A small smile appears on her face. "That's good, Smoky. Real good. You don't want a kid her age in the system. She's too old. No one would adopt her."

I turn to her. I sense something hidden here. Some undercurrent accompanying her words. I frown. She shoots me a tense look. Then relaxes with a sigh.

"I was an orphan. My parents died when I was four, and I grew up in the system. No one seemed interested in adopting a Chinese kid at the time."

I'm shocked and surprised. "I had no idea."

She shrugs. "It's not something you share a lot. You know, 'Hi, I'm Jenny Chang, and I was an orphan.' I don't like to talk about it much."

She looks at me, emphasizing that this moment is no exception. "But I will say this: You did a good thing there. Something pure."

I think about this and know what she says is true. "It does feel right. Annie left her to me--or so I hear. I haven't seen her will yet. Is it true he left it next to Annie's body?"

"Yeah. It's in the file."

"Did you look at it?"

"Yep." She pauses again. Another one of those thoughtful, weighty pauses. "She left everything in your hands, Smoky. The daughter is the true beneficiary, but she named you as executor and trustee. She must have been some friend."

I ache at this sentiment. "She was my best friend. Since high school."

Jenny is quiet for a few moments after this. When she speaks, it's a single word, but it's filled with everything she wants me to know.

"Fuck."

Fuck that, and fuck the world, and injustice, and what happened to you, and your daughter dying, and kids getting killed in general, and fuck it all till it's dead and buried and turned to dust and the dust is gone forever. That's what she's saying.

I reply in kind.

"Thanks."

17

DO YOU WANT the full version, or the condensed version?"

Alan opens the folder containing the autopsy report as he says this.

"The condensed version. Please."

"Here are the basics. The killer or killers raped her, both pre-and postmortem. He or they cut her with a sharp blade before she died, with most of the damage inflicted being nonlethal."

Torture. I nod for him to go on.

"Cause of death is exsanguination. She bled out, due to the severing of the jugular." He glances at a page in the folder. "Once she was dead, and they were done having their fun with her body, they cut her open. They removed the internal organs and placed them in Baggies, which were left by the body." He looks up at me. "All the organs are accounted for except the liver."

"They probably took it with them," James says into the silence that follows. "Or ate it." I hide a shiver at these words. I'm sure he's right.

"Examination of the wounds shows that they're consistent with those caused by a scalpel, which fits. Because the ME says that the removal of the organs was skillful. Not just the surgery, but knowing where the organs were and how to remove them intact. They not only separated the large and small intestines, they divided them into their component parts. Three for the small intestine, four for the large."

I think about this for a moment. "Did he--sorry, they--dissect any other organ in the same way?"

He consults the file, then shakes his head. "No." He looks up at me.

"They were showing off."

"That's good," I say, grim.

Leo's look at me is incredulous. "How is that good?"

Alan turns to him, answering the question for me. "It's good because the way we catch these guys is that they make mistakes. If they're showing off, that means the act itself isn't enough for them. They also want our attention. That means they're not going to be as careful as they could be. Or should be. So they're more likely to make mistakes."

"In simpler terms, child," Callie says, "it means they're even more Looney Tunes than usual. That increases the chances of them slipping up."

"I get it." Leo says this but looks a little bit disturbed as he thinks it over. I understand. Looking at the dissection of human organs by two psychopaths as a bright spot is hard to get your mind around. He's probably wondering if he wants to get his mind around it. Alan continues. "Once they'd removed the organs, they left the body cavity open and tied Bonnie to her body." He closes the folder. "No seminal fluids found, and there was some evidence of latex in the vagina."

They'd used rubbers to prevent leaving their DNA.

"Nothing else. No hairs or fingerprints found on or in the body. That's it."

"So what does that leave?"

James shrugs. "Look at the rest of the picture. There weren't any hesitation wounds. They were operating at a high level of certainty in what they were doing when it came to cutting her open. One of them may have had formal medical training. I think it's probable."

"Or they've just had a lot of practice," Callie murmurs.

"What else do we know?" I look around at each of them. Alan pulls out a legal pad and a pen at my words. This is a part of our routine. He's ready to jot down any relevant thoughts and musings.

"We know they're both white, both males," Callie says. "One is close to six feet tall, the other is approximately five ten. Both are in shape."

Alan speaks next. "They're careful. They understand the basics of transference and take precautions to avoid it. No hair, no epithelials, and no semen."

"But they're not as smart as they think they are," I note. "We have the fingerprints on the bed. And we figured out that there are two of them."

"Well, that's the problem, isn't it?" Alan says in a wry voice. "If they really understood transference, they'd understand it always happens, somehow."

Alan is referring to "Locard's Principle." Locard is considered the father of modern forensics, and we all know the principle by heart: When two objects come into contact, there is always transfer of material from one to the other, and such material may be small or large, may be difficult to detect; never- theless it occurs, and it is the responsibility of the investigating team to gather all such material however small they may be and prove the transference. Our killers were careful. The absence of semen is telling. It shows control. With the advent of crime books, television shows, and HIV, rapists using rubbers is on the rise. But it's still unusual. Rape is about sexual power and violation. Rapists get high on the intensity of sensation this gives them. Condoms get in the way of both the violation and the sensation. Jack Jr. and friend used them, making Alan's point for him.

"We know they're not perfect," James says. "They have an immediate weakness--showing off and wanting to taunt us. That's higher risk and creates the possibility of them screwing up at some point."

"Right. What else?"

"At least one of them is technically proficient." This is from Leo. "I mean, it's not rocket science these days, editing video. But there is a learning curve, the way they did it. Not something your average computer user is going to know right off the bat."

"We think they're based in LA, right?" Callie says. I shrug. "We're going on that premise. But it's something we suspect, not something we know. We do know their victim type. They told us--they're planning to go after other women like Annie." I turn to Leo.

"What did they call her in the letter?"

"A modern-day whore of the information superhighway."

"What about that? What kind of numbers are we talking about?"

Leo grimaces at the question. "Thousands, if you take the U.S. as a whole. Maybe close to a thousand even if you narrow it to just California. But that's not the only problem. Think of it this way: Every girl with a site is potentially an independent contractor. While some are sponsored under the umbrella of a single company, a lot of them are like your friend. They design, maintain, and operate their own Web sites. It's a business of one, with a single employee. And there's no chamber of commerce for this type of business. There are lists of these types of sites in various places, but there isn't any one single consortium."

I think on this bit of bad news. Something occurs to me. "Fair enough, but what if we take it from this view: Instead of looking at everyone in that industry, let's look for the places where the killers could have found Annie. You say there are lists of these types of sites, right?"

He nods.

"It's unlikely that she's on every one of those. We look for the ones she does appear on, then we narrow the field to just the other women on those particular lists."

Now he is shaking his head again, but not in agreement. "It's not that simple. What if they found her by using a search engine? And if they did, what word or phrase did they use? Also, most site operators like her put up their own 'feeder sites.' Small, free sites with sample photos and a link to their primary site. Kind of a 'sample the goods and if you like it, come into the store.' They could also have found one of those sites."

"Not to mention the fact that they could have found her through you, Smoky." Callie sounds reluctant as she says this. I give her a look of agreement. Followed by a sigh of discouragement.

"So the Web end of it leads us nowhere?"

"Not nowhere," Leo says. "The one place to look is her subscriber list. The people who paid to see her 'members only' area."

My ears perk up at this. Alan is nodding. "Right, right," he says.

"That's how they got all those perps in the kiddie-porn sting, yeah?"

Leo smiles at him. "Yep. There are a lot of laws and oversight when it comes to credit-card processing. Fairly precise records are kept. Best of all, most processors have a built-in address check. Where the address given at sign-up has to match the address of the cardholder they have on record."

"Do we know how many subscribers she had?"

"Not yet. It won't be hard to find out. We'll need to get a warrant, but most of those companies are easy to work with. I wouldn't expect any trouble."

"I want you to work on that when we get back," I tell him. "Alan can walk you through the warrant end of things. Get the list and start combing through it. I also want her computer scrutinized. Look for anything-- anything--that might be a clue. Maybe she noticed something off, made a note to herself . . ."

"Right. I'll also get her e-mail. Depending on who her provider is, they should still have copies of anything recent that's not already sitting on her computer."

"Good."

"There's something else," Jenny says. "They went to a lot of trouble to make us think there was only one of them."

"Maybe they were hoping to confuse us with it later, somehow," I say. "I don't know. I haven't worked that one out yet." I shake my head.

"Bottom line is, we have something to run with. The prints." I turn to Callie. "Where do we stand on that?"

"I'm going to enter the prints into AFIS when we're done here and get the guys back in LA to run it. It can scan through a million prints in a minute or two, so just a few hours."

This, more than anything, excites everyone. It could be that simple. The Automated Fingerprint Identification System is a formidable tool. If we're lucky, we'll find our guy, quick.

"Let's get onto that right away."

"What did you and James figure out about them, Smoky?" Callie asks.

"Yeah, let's hear it," Alan rumbles. Both of them stare at me, waiting. I knew they'd ask; they always do. I rode the dark choo-choo train, I saw the monsters, at least one of them. Callie and Alan want to know: What did you see?

"This is all just based on feelings and surmise," I say. Alan waves his hand at me, a dismissive gesture. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You always give us that same, lame disclaimer. Just tell us."

I smile at him and lean back, looking up at the ceiling. I close my eyes and gather it all in. Snuggle up against it, catch the scent.

"They're a little bit of an amalgam. I don't have them separated out yet. They are . . . smart. Very smart. Not just faking smart. I'm thinking at least one of them has a higher education." I glance at James. "Possibly medical school." He nods in agreement. "They're deliberate. Planners. Precise. They spent hours studying up on forensics so they could make sure to leave nothing behind. This is a very, very important part of it for them. Jack the Ripper was one of the most famous serial killers of all time. Why? For one thing, he never got caught. They're following in his footsteps, in this and other ways, mimicking him. He taunted the cops, so they're taunting us. His victims were prostitutes, so they're going after what is--to them--a modern-day equivalent. There will be other parallels."

"Narcissism is a problem for them," James interjects. I nod. "Yeah."

Charlie frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Think of it this way: When you drive a car, do you have to think about it?" I ask.

"No. I just drive."

"Right. But for Jack Jr. and friend, driving isn't enough. They need to admire how good their driving is. How perfect and artful it is. That type of narcissism, where they admire what they do as they're doing it . . ." I shrug. "If you take the time to watch yourself drive, you don't have both eyes on the road."

"Hence the fingerprints on the bed," James says. "That's not a small fuckup. We're not talking hair or fibers. We're talking about five prints. Too busy watching themselves be clever."

"Gotcha," Charlie replies.

"You know, when I said they were an amalgam, that's not entirely true." I purse my lips, considering. "There is a Jack Jr. I think that's a single identity. It's just too important to share." I look at James. "You agree?"

"Yeah."

"So what does that make the other guy?" Alan asks.

"I'm not sure. Maybe a student?" I shake my head. "I can't see it clearly. Not yet. I do think that Jack Jr., whichever one he is, is dominant."

"That's consistent with past 'double teams,' " Callie says.

"Yep. So, they are smart, precise, and narcissistic. But one of the things that makes them so dangerous is their willingness to commit. They don't have a problem with decisive action. That's bad for us, because it means they don't make things too complicated. They keep it clean and simple. Knock on the door, bust in, close the door, take control. A, B, C, D. That isn't a natural ability as a general rule. It's possible one or both of them has a background in the military or law enforcement. Something that would train them in the unhesitating subduing of another human being."

"The taste for rape and murder is real," James says.

"Isn't that a given?" Jenny asks.

I shake my head. "No. Sometimes someone tries to hide a regular murder in the guise of a serial killing. But what they did to Annie, how they did it . . . that was real. They're genuine."

"They have a dual victimology," James says.

Callie frowns. Sighs. "You mean they target us as well as the women they go after."

James nods. "That's right. The victim selection, in this instance, was specific and reasoned. Annie King fit two profiles for them. She ran an adult Web site, and she was the friend of someone on this team. They went to a lot of effort to get your attention, Smoky."

"Well, they got it." I sit back for a moment, running through it all in my head. "I guess that covers everything. Let's not forget the most important thing right now that we know about these guys."

"What's that?" Leo asks.

"That they're going to do it again. And keep doing it until we catch them."

18

I HAD ASKED Jenny to give me a ride to the hospital so that I could check in on Bonnie while everyone else worked on their appointed tasks. When we arrive at the door to her room, the cop guarding it holds up a legal-size manila envelope. "This came for you, Agent Barrett."

Right away, I know something is wrong. There's no reason for anyone to be dropping anything off for me here. I snatch it out of his hands and look at it. Block letters on the front in black ink give it a simple address: ATTN.: SPECIAL AGENT BARRETT. Jenny glares at him. "Jesus Christ, Jim! Use your head!" She's gotten it. Jim is a little slower on the uptake. I know when it hits him because his face turns ashen.

"Oh . . . shit."

I will give him this: His first action is to spin up and out of his chair and open the door to Bonnie's room, hand on his weapon. I'm right behind him, and I feel a relief that almost overwhelms me when I see her there asleep and safe. I motion for the cop to come back out. Once we're all outside, he puts it into words.

"This is probably from the killer, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Jim," I say, "it probably is." I don't have the energy to make my voice sound biting. It comes out sounding tired. Jenny has no such problem. She stabs a finger into his chest with enough force to make him wince.

"You fucked up! Which pisses me off, because I know you're a good cop. You know how I know you're a good cop? Because I specifically requested you for this duty and knew you'd be more than just a warm body." She's fuming, far beyond being pissed off. For his part, Jim takes it all without a trace of resentment or justification.

"You're right, Detective Chang. I don't have a defense. The nurse at the station in reception brought it by. I saw Agent Barrett's name, but I didn't make the connection. I went back to reading my paper." He looks so hangdog at this point that I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

"Damn! I let myself get lulled into a routine! A rookie mistake! Damn, damn, damn!"

Jenny seems to feel for the cop a little too, now that he's so busy beating himself up. Her next words are more conciliatory. "You're a good cop, Jim. I know you. You'll remember this screwup till the day you die--which you should--but you probably won't ever let it happen again." She sighs. "Besides, you have done your primary duty here. You kept the kid safe."

"Thanks, Lieutenant, but that doesn't make me feel any better."

"How long ago did this get delivered to you?"

He thinks about it for a second. "I'd say . . . about an hour and a half. Yeah. The nurse at the station brought it to me and said that some guy delivered it. She figured I could get it to you."

"Go get all the details. How it was delivered, who, everything."

"Yes, ma'am."

I look at the envelope as Jim runs off. "Let's take a peek inside."

I open it. Inside is a sheaf of papers clipped together. I see at the top, Greetings, Agent Barrett! Which is enough for now. I look up at Jenny.

"It's from him. Them."

"Damn it!"

My palms are a little sweaty. I know I need to read what's inside, but I dread this killer's next revelations. I sigh, fishing the ever-present pair of latex gloves I keep with me during investigations out of my jacket pocket. I slip them on, open it up, and pull out the clipped sheaf of papers. The letter is on top.

Greetings, Agent Barrett!

By now I imagine you are into the thick of it, you and your team. Did you enjoy the video I left for you? I thought the music I selected was par- ticularly apropos.

How is little Bonnie? Does she scream and weep, or is she simply silent? I wonder about this from time to time. Please, tell her I said hello. Most of my thoughts are, of course, devoted to you. How is the healing going, Agent Barrett? Still sleeping in the nude these days? With that pack of cigarettes on the nightstand to the left of your bed? I have been there, and I must say, you talk quite loudly in your sleep.

"Holy shit," Jenny whispers.

I hand her the papers. "Hold on to these for a second."

She takes them. I run to the nearest trash can, where I proceed to vomit up everything inside my stomach. They'd been inside my house! Had watched me sleep! A thrill of terror spikes through me, followed by a nauseating sense of violation. Then anger. Beneath it all, terror remains as the backdrop. One thought shouts inside my head: It could happen again! My entire body is trembling, and I slam a fist against the rim of the trash can. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and walk back over to Jenny.

"You okay?"

"No. But let's finish it." She hands me back the papers. They shake in my hands as we continue.

Matthew and Alexa, such a shame. You, alone in that ghost ship of a home, staring at your disfigurement in the mirror. So sad. I think you are more beautiful scarred, though I know you believe that to be untrue. I'll say something helpful to you, Agent Barrett, just this once. Scars are not marks of shame. They are the brands of the survivor. You might wonder why I'd offer a helping hand. It springs from a sense of fairness. A need to make the game exciting. There are many in this world who could hunt me well, but you . . . I think you can hunt me best. I've gone to great effort to ensure that you are back in the game, and just one more thing is left, one last wound to stitch up. A hunter needs a weapon, Agent Barrett, and you cannot touch yours. We need to correct this, to bring balance to the game. Please find attached some information that I believe to be at the heart of this diffi- culty you are having. It may leave a scar of its own when you read it, but don't forget: A scar is always better than an unhealed, open wound. From Hell,

Jack Jr.

I flip over the page. It takes only a few moments for me to understand what it says. Everything around me goes silent and slow. I can see that Jenny is speaking to me, but I cannot hear her words. I am cold, and getting colder. My teeth chatter, I start shivering, and the world begins tilting away from me. My heart pounds, faster, faster, and then sound returns in a chaotic flash, like a thunderclap. But I am still so cold.

"Smoky! Jesus--Doctor!"

I hear her, but I cannot speak. I can't stop my teeth from chattering. I see a doctor come over to me. He feels my head, looks into my eyes.

"She's going into full-blown shock here," he says. "Lay her down flat. Put her feet up. Nurse!"

Jenny leans over me. "Smoky! Say something."

I wish I could, Jenny. But I am frozen, and the world is frozen, and the sun is frozen too. Everything and everyone is death, dead, or dying. Because he was right. I read the paper and, just like that, I remembered. It's a ballistics report. The part he'd circled for me said this: Ballistics tests prove conclusively that the bullet removed from Alexa Barrett came from Agent Barrett's weapon. . . .

I was the one who shot my daughter.

I hear the sound and marvel at it, before I realize that it is coming from me. It is a shriek, beginning low in the throat and then climbing, octave after octave, until it seems high enough to break glass. There it hangs, like an opera singer's vibrato. It seems to go on forever. Everything is going black now. Thank God.

19

I WAKE UP in a hospital bed to Callie hovering above me. There is no one else here. When I look at Callie's face, I know why.

"You knew, didn't you?"

"Yes, love," she says. "I knew."

I turn my face away from her. I have not felt so listless, so drained of life, since I woke in the hospital after that night with Sands. "Why didn't you tell me?" I don't know if there's any anger in my voice. Don't care.

"Dr. Hillstead asked me not to. He didn't think you were ready. And I agreed. Still do."

"Really? You think you know so goddamn much about me?" My voice sounds raw to me. The anger is there now, hot and poisonous. Callie doesn't even flinch. "I know this: You're still alive. You didn't put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. I have no regrets, honeylove." She says the next in a whisper. "That doesn't mean it didn't hurt, Smoky. I loved Alexa, you know I did."

I snap around at this, look at her, and the anger drains away. Just like that. "I don't blame you. Or him. And maybe he was right, after all."

"Why do you say that, love?"

I shrug. I'm tired, so tired. "Because I remember everything now. But I still don't want to die." I hunch into myself for a moment as pain shoots through me. "Which feels like such a betrayal, Callie. I feel like, if I want to live, then I didn't love them enough."

I look over at her, and I see that she is stricken by my words. My Callie, my happy-go-lucky Queen-Hell-on-Wheels, looks like I just punched her in the face. Or maybe the heart.

"Well," she says after a long moment, "that's not true. Going on after they're dead, Smoky--that doesn't mean you didn't love them. All it means is that they died and you didn't."

I file this profundity away for future thought; I can feel its merit.

"Funny, isn't it? I've always been able to hit what I want with a gun. It's always come naturally to me. I remember aiming at his head, and then he was so damn fast. I've never seen anyone move that fast. He yanked Alexa off the bed and made her take the bullet for him. She was looking right into my eyes when it happened." My face twists. "You know, he almost looked surprised. With everything he'd done, he still had this look on his face, like for just a moment he thought he'd gone too far. And then I shot him."

"Do you remember that part, Smoky?"

I frown. "What do you mean?"

Callie smiles. It's a sad smile. "You didn't just shoot him, honey-love. You filled him up with bullets. You emptied four clips into him, and you were about to reload when I stopped you."

And just like that, I am there and I do remember.

He'd raped me, cut on me. Matt was dead. I was coasting on waves of pain, surfing in and out of consciousness. Everything was slightly surreal. Like being a little bit drugged. Or the hungover feeling you can get when you take an afternoon nap that's just a half hour too long. There was a sense of urgency, I could feel it. But it was far away. I was feeling it through soft gauze. I'd have to wade through syrup to get to it.

Sands leaned forward, putting his face close to mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek. It was unnaturally hot. A flash of something sticky--I realized it was his spit, drying on my chest. I shivered once, a full-body shiver. A long, rolling shake.

"I'm going to undo your hands and feet now, sweet Smoky," he whispered in my ear. "I want you to touch my face before you die."

My eyes roll toward him, and then roll up into my head. I lose time. I coast back into awareness and feel him at my hands, loosening them. Coast back out, into the black. Surf in again, he's at my feet. Cowabunga. Light to shadow, shadow to light. I come to again, and he's next to me, spooned into my side. He's naked, and I can feel that he's hard. His left hand is fisted into my hair, bending my head back. The right is draped over my stomach, and I can feel the knife in it. That breath again, sour and hot.

"Time to go, sweet Smoky," Sands whispers. "I know you're tired. You just have one more thing to do before you sleep." His breathing quickens. His erection stirs at my side, poking into my hip. "Touch my face."

And he's right. I am tired. So damn tired. I just want to coast into the black, have it all be done and gone and over. I feel my hand coming up, to do this last thing he wants--and then it happens.

"MOMMY!" I hear Alexa scream. It is a scream of full-throated terror.

It's a backhanded, bone-rattling slap across my face.

"He told us Alexa was dead, Callie," I whisper in the hospital room.

"Said he killed her first. I heard her scream, and I realized that he'd lied to me, and I knew--I KNEW--he was going to see her next!" I clench my fist as I remember, and feel my body trembling in anger and terror, all over again.

It was as though someone had detonated a bomb inside me. I did not just come awake, I exploded. The dragon crawled up from inside my belly, and she roared, and roared, and roared.

I smashed Sands's face, felt his nose crunch under the heel of my hand. He grunted, and I was off the bed and heading for the nightstand where I kept my gun, but he was like an animal. Feral and oh-so-fast. No hesitation. He rolled onto the floor and was sprinting out the bedroom door. I heard his feet pounding on the hardwood floors of the hallway, heading toward Alexa.

And I began to scream. I felt like I was on fire. Everything was turning white hot, adrenaline was burning me up, and the intensity of it was excruciating. Time had changed. It hadn't slowed down, just the opposite. It sped up. Faster than thought.

I had my gun and was not so much running down the hallway as tele- porting down it, moving toward Alexa's room in flashes rather than steps. And I was fast, damn fast, because he was only just turning into her doorway, and then I was there too, and I saw her. On the bed, the gag he had placed around her mouth now loosened. Good girl, I remember thinking.

"MOMMY!" she screamed again, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, rivers of tears. And now I was the animal, no hesitation, raising my gun, aiming for his head . . .

Then horror. Horror, horror, horror, going on forever, never ending, hell on earth.

Then me, screaming. Screaming, screaming, screaming, going on forever, never ending, hell on earth. Me, shooting Sands, over and over and over, determined to shoot him till I was out of ammo, and then--

"Oh Jesus, Callie." Tears fill my eyes. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I'm so sorry."

She takes my hand, shakes her head once. "Don't worry about it, Smoky." She squeezes my hand, a fierce squeeze. It almost hurts. "I mean it. You weren't in your right mind."

Because I remember hearing Callie bust in through my front door, seeing her appear, weapon drawn. I remember her moving toward me with exaggerated caution, telling me to put down my gun. Me screaming at her. Her moving toward me. I knew she wanted to take it away from me, and I knew I just couldn't let her do that. I still needed to put it to my head, to shoot myself, to die. I deserved to die for killing my child. So I did the only thing that seemed to make sense to me. I pointed the gun at Callie, and I fired.

It's pure luck that the chamber was empty. Thinking of it now, I remember that she didn't even slow down, just kept moving toward me until she got close enough to take away the gun, which she tossed to one side. After that I don't remember very much at all.

"I could've killed you," I whisper.

"Naw." She smiles again. It's still a little bit sad, but some of the mischievous Callie shines through. "You were aiming at my leg."

"Callie." I say it as a reprimand, albeit a gentle one. "I remember." I hadn't been aiming at her leg. I'd been aiming at her heart. She leans forward and looks me right in the eyes. "Smoky, I trust you more than I trust anybody in this world. And that hasn't changed. I don't know what else to tell you. Except that I'll never talk about it with you again."

I close my eyes. "Who else knows?"

Silence. "Me. The team. AD Jones. Dr. Hillstead. That's it. Jones clamped down on it pretty hard."

Except that's not it, I think. They know. I can tell she has something else to say.

"What?"

"Well . . . you should know: Dr. Hillstead is the only person who knows about your reaction to finding out today. Aside from Jenny and the rest of the team."

"You didn't tell AD Jones?"

She shakes her head. "No."

"Why not?"

Callie lets go of my hand. She looks uneasy, a rare thing for her. She stands up and paces a little. "I'm afraid--we're afraid--if we do, then that's it. He'll decide you can never go back to work. Ever. We know you may decide that, anyway. But we wanted to leave the options open."

"Everyone agreed to this?"

She's hesitant. "Everyone but James. He says he wants to speak to you first."

I close my eyes. Right now, James is the last person I want to talk to. The very last.

I sigh. "Fine. Send him in. I don't know what I'm going to decide just yet, Callie. I do know this--I want to go home. I want to get Bonnie and go home, and try to figure this out. I need to get my head straight, once and for all, or I'm done. You guys can follow up on AFIS and the rest of it. I need to go home."

She looks down at the floor, then back up at me. "I understand. I'll get it all into motion."

She walks toward the door. Stops and turns back to me as she gets to it. "One thing you should think about, honey-love. You know guns better than anyone I've ever met. Maybe when you pointed your gun at me, you pulled the trigger because you knew it was empty." She winks, opens the door, and walks out.

"Maybe," I whisper to myself.

But I don't think so.

I think I pulled the trigger because, at that moment, I wanted the whole world to die.

20

JAMES WALKS IN and closes the door behind him. He takes a seat in the chair next to my bed. He's silent, and I can't read him. Not that I ever could.

"Callie said you needed to talk to me before deciding whether or not you were going to rat me out to AD Jones."

He doesn't reply right away. He sits there, looking at me. It's exasperating.

"Well?"

He purses his lips. "Contrary to what you probably think, I don't have a problem with you coming back to full and active duty, Smoky. I don't. You're good at what we do, and competence is all I ask for."

"So?"

"What I do have a problem with is you being only halfway." He gestures at me lying on the hospital bed. "Like this. It makes you dangerous, because you're unreliable."

"Oh, please eat shit and die."

He ignores me. "It's true. Think about it. When you and I were in Annie King's apartment, I saw the old you. The competent one. So did everyone else. Callie and Alan started to defer to you again, to rely on you. Together we found evidence that would have been missed. But then all it took was a letter and you collapsed."

"Little more complicated than that, James."

He shrugs. "Not in the way that matters it's not. Either you are back all the way, or not at all. Because if you come back like this, you're a liability to us. And that leads to what I am willing to agree to."

"What?"

"That you either come back fixed, or you stay the fuck away. If you try to come back still screwed up, I'm going straight to AD Jones, and I'll just keep climbing until someone listens to me and puts you out to pasture."

The fury in me is white hot. "You are some arrogant prick."

He's unmoved. "This is the way it is, Smoky. I trust you. If you give me your word, then I know you'll keep it. That's what I want. Come back fixed, or don't come back at all. It's nonnegotiable."

I stare at him. I don't see judgment or pity.

He's really not asking much, I realize. What he's saying is reasonable. I hate him anyway.

"I give you my word. Now get the fuck out of here."

He gets up and leaves without looking back.

21

WE LEFT IN the early morning, and the flight back was a silent one. Bonnie sat next to me, holding my hand and staring off into the distance. Callie spoke once to let me know that two agents would be posted at my home until I said otherwise. I didn't think he would be back now that he'd tipped his hand, but I was more than happy to have the protection. She also told me that AFIS had come up empty. Oh, happy day.

I am boiling over inside, a big mess of harm and confusion lit by little starbursts of panic. It is not the emotion overwhelming me, it is the reality. The reality of Bonnie. I glance at her. She unsettles me even more, responds by turning her head to give me a full, frank look. She regards me for a moment, and then goes back to her stillness and that thousand-yard stare.

I clench a fist and close my eyes. Those little panic starbursts glitter and burst and crack.

Motherhood terrifies me. Because that's what we're talking about here, plain and simple. I am all she has, and there are many, many miles to go. Miles filled with school days, Christmas mornings, booster shots, eat your vegetables, learn to drive, home by ten, on and on and on. All the banalities, big and small and wonderful, that go into being responsible for another life. I used to have a system for this. The thing was, it wasn't just called motherhood. It was called parenthood. I had Matt. We bounced things off each other, argued about what was best for Alexa, loved her together. A large part of being a parent is a constant near certainty that you are screwing it up, and it is comforting to be able to spread the blame around. Bonnie has me. Just me. Screwup me, towing a freight train of baggage while she tows a freight train of horror and a future of . . . what?

Will she ever speak again? Will she have friends? Boyfriends? Will she be happy?

I realize as my panic builds that I know nothing about this little girl. I don't know if she's good in school. I don't know what TV shows she likes to watch, or what she expects to eat for breakfast in the morning. I know nothing.

The terror of it grows and grows, and I am babbling to myself inside and I just want to open the hatch on the side of the plane and jump out screaming into the open air, cackling and weeping and--

And there's Matt's voice again, inside my head. Soft and low and soothing.

Shhhh, babe. Relax. First things first, and you have the most important one out of the way already.

What's that? I whimper back to him in my mind.

I feel his smile. You've taken her on. She's yours. Whatever else happens, however hard it is, you've taken her on, and you'll never take that back. That's the First Rule of Mom, and you did it. The rest will fall into place. My heart clenches at this, and I want to gasp.

The First Rule of Mom . . .

Alexa had her problems; she wasn't a perfect child. She needed a lot of reassurance, sometimes, that she was loved. In those times, I would always tell her the same thing. I would cuddle her in my arms, and put my lips in her hair and whisper to her.

"You know what the First Rule of Mom is, honey?" I would say. She did, but she always answered the same way:

"What, Mommy? What's the First Rule of Mom?"

"That you're mine, and I'll never take that back. No matter what, no matter how hard things are, no matter if--"

"--the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, and the stars stop burning," she'd say, completing the ritual.

It was all I had to do, and she'd relax and be certain. My heart unclenches.

The First Rule of Mom.

I could start with that.

The starbursts stop glittering inside me.

For now.

We all get off the plane. I walk away without saying anything, Bonnie in tow.

The agents in question accompany us home, driving behind us the whole way. The air outside is chilly, just a little foggy. The freeway has only started getting busy, not quite up to speed yet, like a hill of sluggish ants waiting for the sun to warm them up. The inside of the car is quiet the whole way home. Bonnie isn't talking, and I am too busy thinking, feeling, fretting. Thinking a lot about Alexa. It had not occurred to me until yesterday how little I have thought about her since her death. She's been . . . vague. A blurred face in the distance. I realize now that she was the shadowy figure in my dream about Sands. The letter from Jack Jr., and remembering, has brought her crashing into focus. Now she is a vivid, blinding, painful beauty. Memories of her are a symphony turned up too loud. My ears hurt, but I can't stop listening. The symphony of motherhood, it's about loving with absolute abandon, loving without regard for self, loving with a near totality of being. It's about a passion that could outburn the sun with its brightness. About a depthless hope and a fierce, rending joy. God, I loved her. So much. More than I loved myself, more than I loved Matt.

I know why her face has been so blurred for me. Because a world without her, it is-- unbearable.

But here I am, bearing it. That breaks something inside me, something that will never heal. I'm glad.

Because I want this to hurt, forever.

When we get to the house twenty minutes later, the agents don't speak, just give me a nod. Letting me know they're on the job.

"Wait here a sec, honey," I tell Bonnie.

I walk over to the car. The window on the driver's side rolls down, and I smile as I recognize one of the agents. Dick Keenan. He had been a trainer at Quantico while I was going through the academy. Heading into his fifties, he decided he wanted to finish out on the "streets." He's a solid man, very old-school FBI, crew cut and all. He is also a practical joker and a marksman.

"How'd you get this detail, Dick?" I ask him.

He smiles. "AD Jones."

I nod. Of course. "Who's that with you?"

The other agent is younger, younger than me. Brand-new and still excited about being an FBI agent. Looking forward to the prospect of sitting in a car doing nothing for days at a time.

"Hannibal Shantz," he says, sticking his hand out the window for me to shake.

"Hannibal, huh?" I grin.

He shrugs. He's one of those good-natured guys, I can tell. It's impossible to get under his skin, impossible not to like him.

"You up to speed on everything, Dick?"

His nod is terse. "You. The little girl. And, yeah, I know how she came to be with you."

"Good. Let me be clear on something: She's your principal. Understand? If it comes down to a choice between shadowing her or me, I want you to keep an eye on her."

"You got it."

"Thanks. Good to meet you, Hannibal."

I walk away, reassured. I see Bonnie waiting for me, with my house as a backdrop.

I had time in the car to wonder about why I stayed in that house. It had been an act of stubbornness. Now it might also be an act of stupidity. I realized that it's something basic to my nature. It is my home. If I were to relent, to give that up, then some part of me knew that I'd never be whole again. Here there be tygers, true. But I still wasn't leaving.

We're in the kitchen, and my next move comes to me without asking.

"You hungry, honey?" I ask Bonnie.

She looks up at me, nods.

I nod back, satisfied. The First Rule of Mom: Love. The Second Rule of Mom: Feed your offspring. "Let me see what we have."

She follows me as I open the refrigerator, peering in. Teach them to hunt, I think, and then I have to fight back a little hysterical bubble of laughter. Things don't look good in the fridge. There's a near-empty peanut butter jar and some milk that is putrefying past its expiration date.

"Sorry, babe. Looks like we'll have to do some shopping." I rub my eyes and sigh inside. God, I'm tired. But that's one of the truths of parenthood. Not a rule, really. More of a given natural law. They are yours, you are responsible for them. So too bad if you're tired, because, well-- they can't drive and they don't have any money.

To heck with it. I look down at Bonnie and give her a smile. "Let's go stock this place up."

She gives me another one of those frank looks, followed by a smile. And a nod.

"Right." I grab my purse and keys. "Saddle up."

I had told Keenan and Shantz to stay on my house. I could take care of myself, and it was more important to me to know that no one would be waiting for us when we came back.

We're moving through the aisles of Ralph's supermarket. Modernday foraging.

"Lead the way, honey," I tell her. "I don't know what you like, so you'll have to show me."

I push the cart and follow Bonnie as she glides across the floor, silent and watchful. Each time she points something out, I grab it and look at it for a moment, letting it set into my subconscious. I hear a loud, bass voice inside my head: MACARONI AND CHEESE, the voice booms. SPAGHETTI WITH MEAT SAUCE--NO MUSHROOMS, EVER, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH. CHEETOS--THE HOT AND SPICY KIND. The Food Commandments. Clues to Bonnie, important. I feel like something rusty and dusty inside me is starting to get into motion, one screechy gear at a time. Love, shelter, macaroni and cheese. These things feel natural and right.

Like riding a bike, babe, I hear Matt whisper.

"Maybe," I murmur back.

I'm so busy talking to myself that I miss that Bonnie has stopped, and I almost run her over with my cart. I give her a weak smile. "Sorry, honey. We got everything?"

She smiles and nods. All done.

"Then let's get home and get eating."

It's not riding the bike that's the problem, I realize. It's the road the bike is traveling that's changed. Love, shelter, macaroni and cheese, sure. There's also a mute child and there's a new mom who's scarred, talks to herself, and is a little bit crazy.

I am on the phone with Alan's wife, and as I talk, I watch Bonnie wolf down her macaroni and cheese with dedication and intensity. Children have a real pragmatism when it comes to food, I muse. I know the sky is falling, but, hey--you gotta eat, right?

"I really appreciate it, Elaina. Alan told me what's going on, and I wouldn't ask, but--"

She cuts me off. "Please stop, Smoky." Her voice chides, gentle. It makes me think of Matt. "You need time to work things out, and that little girl needs a place to be when you're not there. Until you get things settled." I don't respond, a lump in my throat. She seems to sense this, which is very Elaina. "You will get things settled, Smoky. You'll do the right things for her." She pauses. "You were a great mother to Alexa. You'll do just fine with Bonnie."

A mixture of grief, gratitude, and darkness comes over me when she says this. I manage to clear my throat, and get out a husky "Thanks."

"No problem. Call me when you need me to help."

She doesn't demand more response from me and hangs up. Elaina has always been long on empathy. She'd agreed to look after Bonnie if there were times I needed a sitter. No hesitation, no questions asked. You're not alone, babe, Matt whispers.

"Maybe," I murmur back. "Maybe not."

My phone rings, startling me out of my conversation with a ghost. I answer it.

"Hi, honey-love," Callie says. "Little development I wanted to apprise you of."

My heart clenches. What now?

"Tell me," I say.

"Dr. Hillstead's office was bugged."

I frown. "Huh?"

"The things Jack Jr. said in that letter, honey-love: Didn't you wonder how he knew them?"

Silence. I'm startled and dumbfounded. No, I realize. I hadn't wondered. "Good grief, Callie. It never occurred to me. Jesus." I am reeling.

"How is that possible?"

"Don't feel bad. With everything else that happened, it didn't occur to me, either. You can thank James for thinking of it." She pauses.

"Dear God, did I really just say 'thank' and 'James' in the same sentence?" I can hear her mock-shudder through the phone.

"Details, Callie," I say. The words come out tight and impatient. I'm not interested in humor right now and I'm too tired to apologize for it.

"He had two audio bugs planted in Dr. Hillstead's office--functional but not high end." She's letting me know that they aren't distinctive as gadgets go and probably not traceable. "Both were remote activated. They transmitted wirelessly to a miniature recorder placed in a maintenance closet. All he'd have to know is when your appointments with Dr. Hillstead were, honey-love. He could activate the bugs and pick up the recordings later."

A sense of violation surges through me, a powerful jolt of electricity. He'd been listening? Listening to me talk about Matt and Alexa? Listening to me be weak? My rage is so overwhelming I feel like I want to swoon, or vomit.

Then, as fast as it came, it goes. No more violation, no more rage, just exhausted desolation. My tide has gone out, my beach is dry and lonely.

"I gotta go, Callie," I mumble.

"Are you all right, honey-love?"

"Thanks for telling me, Callie. Now I have to go."

I hang up and marvel at my own emptiness. It is exquisite, in its way. Perfect.

"At least we'll always have Paris," I murmur, and feel a cackle building.

I realize that Bonnie has finished eating and that she is looking at me. Watching me. It startles me, shakes me down to my bones. Jesus, I think. And it comes to me that this is the first thing I need to realize, once and for all. I am not alone. She is here, and she sees me. My days of sitting in the dark, staring off at nothing and talking to myself--those days have to end.

No one needs a crazy mommy.

We're in my bedroom, on my bed, looking at each other.

"How's this, honey? Will it do?"

She gazes around, runs her hand over the bedspread, and then smiles, nodding her head. I smile back.

"Good. Now, I thought you would probably want to sleep in here with me--but if you don't, I'll understand."

She grabs my hand and shakes her head like a bobble-head doll. A definite yes.

"Cool. I do need to talk to you about some things, Bonnie. Is that okay with you?"

A nod.

Some people might disapprove of this approach. Getting down to business so soon with her. I don't agree. I'm going by feel here, and something tells me to be honest with this child, nothing less.

"First thing is, sometimes when I sleep--well, most of the time--I have nightmares. Sometimes they really scare me, and I wake up screaming. I hope that doesn't happen with you sleeping in here, but it's not really under my control. I don't want you to be scared if it does."

She studies my face. I watch as her eyes slide over to the picture on my nightstand. It's a framed photo of me, Matt, and Alexa, all smiles and with no idea that death was in the future. She gazes at it for a moment, then looks back at me, raising her eyebrows. It takes me a moment to understand. "Yes. The nightmares I have are about what happened to them."

She closes her eyes. She lifts her hand up and pats her chest. Then opens her eyes and looks at me.

"You too, huh? Okay, honey. How about we make a deal--neither one of us gets scared if the other one wakes up screaming."

She smiles at this. It strikes me, for just a moment, how surreal this is. I am not talking to a ten-year-old about clothing or music or a day at the park. I'm making a pact with her about screaming in the night.

"The next thing . . . it's a little harder for me. I'm deciding whether or not I'm going to keep doing my job. My job is to catch bad people, people who do things like what was done to your mom. And I might just be too sad to keep doing that. You understand?"

Her nod is somber. Oh yeah, she understands.

"I haven't decided yet. If I don't, then you and I can decide what to do next. If I do . . . well, I won't be able to keep you with me all the time. I'll have to have someone watch you when I'm working. I can promise you this: If I do that, I'll make sure you like whoever you're with. Does that sound all right?"

A careful nod. I'm getting the hang of this. Yes, that nod says-- but with reservation.

"This is the last thing, babe. I think it's the most important, so listen to me carefully, okay?" I take her hand and make certain that I am looking right at her when I say what I say next. "If you want to stay with me, then you will. I won't leave you. Not ever. That's a promise."

Her face shows the first real emotion I've seen since I found her in that bed at the hospital. It crumples, overtaken by grief. Tears spill out onto her cheeks. I grab her and hug her to me, rocking her, as she weeps in silence. I hold her and whisper into her hair, and think of Annie and Alexa and the First Rule of Mom.

It takes a while, but she stops crying. She continues to hold on to me, her head against my chest. The sniffles die away and she pulls back, wiping her face with her hands. She cocks her head and looks at me. Really looks. I see her eyes roam over my scars. I start as her hand comes up to my face. With tremendous tenderness, she traces the scars with a finger. Starting with the ones on my forehead, running feather touches over my cheekbone. Her eyes tear up, and she rests a palm against my cheek. Then she is back in my arms. This time, she is the one hugging me. Strangely, I don't feel like weeping as she does this. I have a brief glimpse of peace. A place of comfort. Some warmth enters into that part of me that froze at the hospital today.

I pull back and grin at her. "We're some pair, huh?"

Her smile in return is genuine. I know it's only momentary. I know that her true grief, when it hits her, is going to be a tidal wave. It's still nice to see her smile.

"Listen, part of what I told you? About deciding whether or not I'm going to keep doing my job? There's something I need to do tonight. Do you want to come with me?"

She nods. Oh yeah. I give her another smile, a chuck on the chin.

"Well, let's go, then."

I drive to a gun range in the San Fernando Valley. I give it a once-over before getting out of the car, trying to work up my nerve. The building is all function, with peeling paint on the exterior walls and windows that have probably never been washed. Like a gun, I think. A gun can be scratched and battered, have lost its shine. All that matters, though, is the basic truth: Will it still fire a bullet? This worn-out building is no different. Some very serious gun owners come here. By serious, I don't mean enthusiasts. I mean men (and women) who have spent their lives using guns to kill people or keep the peace.

People like me. I look over at Bonnie, give her a lopsided smile.

"Ready?" I ask.

She nods.

"Let's go, then."

I know the owner. He's an ex-Marine sniper, with eyes that are warm up front but cold in the back. He sees me and his voice booms out:

"Smoky! Haven't seen you in a while!"

I smile at him, gesture at the scars. "Had some bad luck, Jazz."

He notices Bonnie and smiles at her. She doesn't smile back. "And who's this?"

"That's Bonnie."

Jazz has always been a good reader of people. He knows Bonnie is not all right and doesn't bother with any "hey, honey, how are you"

stuff. Just nods at her and looks at me, hands flat on the counter.

"What do you need tonight?"

"That Glock." I point at it. "And just a single clip. And ear protection for both of us."

"You bet, you bet." He removes the gun from the case and lays a full clip beside it. He grabs some ear protectors off the wall. My hands are sweating. "I, uh, need a favor, Jazz. I need you to take it into the range for me and load in the clip."

He raises his eyebrows at me. I feel myself blushing with shame. My voice, when it comes out, is quiet. "Please, Jazz. This is a test. If I go in there and can't pick up that gun, then I'll probably never shoot again. I don't want to touch it before then."

I see those eyes, examining me, warm and cold at the same time. Warm wins out. "No problem at all, Smoky. Just give me a second."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot." I grab the ear protectors and kneel down in front of Bonnie. "We have to wear these inside the firing range, honey. It's superloud when you fire a gun, and it'll hurt your ears if you don't."

She nods, holding out her hand. I give her the ear protectors. She puts them on and I do the same.

"Follow me," Jazz indicates with a gesture.

We go through the door into the range. Right away I smell that smell. The smell of smoke and metal. There's nothing quite like it. I'm relieved to see that the range is empty right now. I make it clear to Bonnie that she has to stay back against the wall. Jazz looks at me and slides the clip home. He lays the gun down on the small wooden counter that faces the range. The cold eyes this time, but then he smiles at me and turns and heads back into the main part of the shop. He knows I want to be alone.

I look back at Bonnie, give her a smile. She doesn't return it. Instead, she looks at me, an intent look. She understands that I am doing something here, something important. She's giving it the seriousness it deserves. I pick up the human-shaped target and attach it to the clip that holds it. I hit the button, watching it sail away from me, down the range, farther, farther, farther. Until it seems the size of a playing card. My heart thuds in my chest. I am shivering and sweating at the same time.

I look down at the Glock.

Sleek, black instrument of death. Some protest its existence, some think it's a thing of beauty. For me, it's always been an extension of myself. Until it betrayed me. This is a Glock model 34. It has a 5.32-inch barrel and weighs just under thirty-three ounces with a fully loaded magazine. It fires ninemillimeter bullets and has a magazine capacity of seventeen. The trigger pull, unmodified, is a smooth 4.5 pounds. I know all of these mechanical things. I know them like I know my own height and weight. The question now is whether or not we can reconcile, this blackbird and I.

I move my hand toward it. I am sweating more profusely now. I feel light-headed. I grit my teeth, force myself to keep reaching. I see Alexa's eyes, the O of her mouth as my bullet, from my gun, entered her chest and silenced her forever. This plays over and over again in my head, like film that has been looped. Bang and death, bang and death, bang and the end of the world.

"GODDAMN YOU GODDAMN YOU GODDAMN YOU!" I don't

know if I am screaming at God, Joseph Sands, myself, or the gun. I snatch up the Glock in a single fluid motion, and I am firing it; the black steel jerks in my hand, pow-pow-pow-pow-pow!

Then I hear the click of an empty chamber, a spent magazine. I am shaking, crying. But the Glock, it's still there. And I have not passed out.

Welcome back, I think I can hear it whisper. With a shaking hand, I push the button that will bring the target back to me. It arrives, and what I see fills me with a kind of exultation, tinged with sadness. Ten head shots, seven in the heart. I had hit everything I wanted to, where I wanted to. Just like always. I look at the target, then at the Glock, and I feel that joy and sadness all over again. I know now that shooting will never be the simple joy it used to be. There's been too much death behind it for me. Too much grief I can never forget.

That's okay. I know now what I needed to know. I can hold a gun again. Loving it is unimportant.

I pop out the magazine, grab my target, and turn to Bonnie. She is goggling at the target, and at me. Then she smiles. I ruffle her hair and we head out of the range, back into the shop. Jazz is sitting on a stool with his arms crossed. He has a faint smile on his face. His eyes now are all warm, no cold in sight.

"I knew it, Smoky. It's in your blood, darlin'. In your blood."

I look at him for a moment, and I nod. He's right. My hand and a gun. We're married again. While it may be a rocky re lationship, I realize that I missed it. It's a part of me. Of course, the gun's not youthful anymore either. It's aged now, and scarred. That's what it gets for picking me as its bride.