The Face of Death

Her tears had subsided by the time she'd finished emptying out the small bag Karen had left. She sat down on the edge of her bed, filled with bewilderment and a dull ache.

Why am I here? Why can't I sleep in my own room?

She didn't understand any of this.

Maybe the Rebecca lady knew.

"There you are," Rebecca said as Sarah showed up in the kitchen. "Did you get all your stuff packed away?"

"Yes."

"Come have a seat at the table. I made you a bologna sandwich, and I got you some milk--you do like milk, right? You're not lactose intolerant or anything?"

"I like milk." Sarah sat down in the chair and picked up the sandwich. She was hungry. "Thank you," she said to Rebecca.

"No problem, sweetie."

Rebecca sat down at the other end of the table and lit up a cigarette. She smoked and watched Sarah as the little girl ate. Sad and pale and small. That's too bad. But everybody learns the same thing sooner or later: It's a tough old world.

"I'm going to explain some of the rules of the house to you, Sarah. Things you need to know while you're living here with us, okay?"

"Okay."

"First of all, we're not here to entertain you, understand? We're here to give you a roof over your head, to feed and clothe you, make sure you get to school and all of that--but you're going to have to keep yourself occupied. Dennis and I have our own lives, and our own things to do. We don't have time to be your playmates. Understand?"

Sarah nodded.

"Okay. Next thing, you'll have chores around the house. Get them done and you won't get in trouble. Don't get them done and you will. Bedtime is at ten. No exceptions. That means lights out and under the covers. The last rule is simple, but it's important: Don't talk back. Do what we say. We're the grown-ups, and we know what's best. We're giving you a place to live and we expect to be treated with respect. Understand?"

Another nod.

"Good. Do you have any questions for me?"

Sarah looked down at her plate. "Why am I living here? Why can't I go back home?"

Rebecca frowned, puzzled.

"Because your mom and dad are dead, honey, and there's no one else that wants you. That's what Dennis and I do. We take in kids that don't have anywhere else to go. Didn't Karen explain that to you?"

Sarah shook her head, still staring at her plate. She looked numb.

"Thank you very much for the sandwich," she said, her voice small.

"Can I go to my room now?"

"Go ahead, honey," Rebecca said, stubbing out her cigarette and lighting another. "You new ones usually cry for the first few days, and that's okay. But you'll need to learn to toughen up fast. Life goes on, you know?"

Sarah stared at Rebecca for a moment, taking this in. The little girl's face crumpled and she fled the table.

Rebecca watched her go. The blonde took a long drag on her cigarette. Pretty girl. It's a shame what happened to her.

Rebecca waved her hand in dismissal, though she was alone. Her eyes were angry and miserable and surrounded by too much mascara. Well, that's too bad. It's a tough old world.

Sarah lay on her strange new bed in her strange new house and curled into herself. Tried to make herself small. To make herself (Go away)

Because maybe if she could

Go away

She'd reappear back at home, with Mommy and Daddy. Maybe--

and this idea perked her up, filled her with hope--this was all just a long, bad dream. Maybe she'd gone to sleep on the night before her birthday and never really woken up.

Her brow furrowed in thought. If that was true, then all she needed to do was go to sleep in her dream.

"Yes!" she whispered to herself.

That was it! She'd just go to sleep here (in her dream), and then she'd wake up in the real world. Buster would be there, snuggled up next to her, and her mother's painting would be there, hanging on the wall at the foot of her bed. It would be morning. She'd get up and go out and Daddy would tease her about not having any presents or cake, but there would be presents and cake . . . Sarah hugged herself in her excitement. This had to be the solution to--she looked around--all this.

Just close your eyes and go to sleep, and when you wake up, everything will be happy again. Because she was exhausted and only six, Sarah fell asleep without any effort at all.

26

"WAKE UP."

Sarah stirred. Someone was shaking her. Someone with a soft female voice.

"Hey, wake up, little girl."

Sarah's first thought was: It worked! This was Mommy, telling her to get up on her birthday!

"I had a bad dream, Mommy," she murmured.

A pause.

"I'm not your mommy, little girl. Come on, wake up. It's almost time for dinner."

Sarah opened her eyes in surprise. It took a moment for her to focus on the girl speaking to her. The girl had spoken the truth: She wasn't Mommy.

It's no dream. It's all real.

Acceptance arrived again, painful and absolute.

Mommy's dead. Daddy's dead. Buster's dead and Doreen's gone, and I'm all alone and no one is ever coming back. Something of what she was feeling must have showed on her face, because the girl talking to her frowned.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Sarah shook her head. She couldn't talk.

The girl's face softened.

"I understand. Well, anyway, my name is Theresa. I guess we're foster-sisters." She paused. "What's your name?"

"Sarah." Her voice sounded weak, faraway.

"Sarah. That's a pretty name. I'm thirteen--how old are you?"

"Six. I just had a birthday."

"That's cool."

Sarah examined this strange but friendly girl. Theresa was pretty. She looked vaguely Latin, with brown eyes and thick, dark hair that ran just past her shoulders. She had a small scar near her hairline. Full, sensual lips softened a serious face. She was pretty, but Sarah thought she looked tired too, like a nice person who'd had a hard day.

"Why are you here, Theresa?"

"My mom died."

"Oh." Sarah fell silent, unsure of what to say. "Mine did too. And my daddy."

"That sucks." A long pause. Then, soft and sorrowful: "I'm really sorry, Sarah."

Sarah nodded. She felt her face getting hot, her eyes begin to prickle.

Don't be a silly old crybaby!

Theresa didn't seem to notice. "I was eight when my mom died,"

she said, talking while Sarah listened and struggled with her tears. "A little older than you, but close enough. So I know how you feel and what you can expect. The main thing you have to understand is that for the most part, none of the people you deal with really care about you. You're alone. I know that sucks to hear, but the sooner you realize it, the better off you'll be." She grimaced. "You don't belong to any of these people. You're not their blood."

"But . . . but . . . if they don't care, why do they do it?"

Theresa gave Sarah a worn-out smile. "Money. They get paid to."

Sarah stared off, taking this in. A frightening thought occurred to her.

"Are they bad people?"

Theresa's expression was grim and sad. "Sometimes, yeah. Every now and then you'll get a good foster-family, but a lot of the time, it's bad."

"Is it bad here?"

The thing that flew across Theresa's face was bitter and dark and complex, part blackbird, part teardrops, part dirt.

"Yeah." She grew silent, looking off. She took a deep breath and smiled. "Probably not so much for you, though. Rebecca's not the one you have to watch out for. She doesn't drink the way Dennis does. As long as you do what she says and you don't cause any trouble, she'll leave you alone. I don't think they'll hit you much."

Sarah paled. "H-hit me?"

Theresa squeezed Sarah's hands. "Just keep to yourself and you'll be fine. Don't talk to Dennis when he's drunk."

Sarah listened to all of this with the pragmatism of a child, in spite of her fear. She believed what Theresa said, that these people didn't care about her, that they'd hit her, that she shouldn't talk to Dennis when he was drunk.

The world was becoming more and more terrifying, more and more solitary.

Sarah looked down at her hands. "You said we're foster-sisters. Does . . . does that mean you're my friend, Theresa?"

It was humble and plaintive and it made Theresa's breath hitch in her chest.

"Sure, Sarah." She forced conviction into her voice. "We're sisters, remember? Yeah?"

Sarah managed to smile. "Yeah."

"Good girl. Now come on, it's time for dinner." Theresa's face grew stern. "Don't ever be late for dinner. It makes Dennis mad."

Sarah was terrified of Dennis from the moment she laid eyes on him. He was a simmering volcano, full of heat, ready to erupt. This was something that anyone who met him sensed.

He felt dangerous

And

mean

He stared at Sarah as she and Theresa sat down.

"You Sarah?" he asked. His voice rumbled. The question crackled like a threat.

"Y-yes."

He gazed at her for a long moment before turning his attention to Rebecca.

"Where's Jesse?"

Rebecca shrugged. "I don't know. He knows better, but he's been getting pretty defiant."

Sarah was still staring at Dennis, wide-eyed, so she saw the rage that passed over his face at this. It was a snarl of pure hate.

"Well," he said, "I'm going to have to do something about that."

His face closed up again. "Let's eat."

The meal was meat loaf. Sarah thought it was okay. Not as good as Mommy's, but that kind of felt right, anyway. Dinner passed in silence, punctuated by the clink of silverware and the sounds of chewing. Dennis had a can of beer, and he took large gulps of it between bites of his meat loaf, putting it down and staring around the table. Sarah noticed that he spent a lot of time looking at Theresa, while Theresa was careful never to look at him.

Dennis was on his third beer by the time dinner was over.

"You girls clear the table and do the dishes," Rebecca said. "Dennis and I are going to watch TV. When you're done, you can go to your room."

Theresa nodded and stood up and began gathering the dishes. Sarah helped. The silence continued. Rebecca smoked her cigarette and stared at Dennis with a mix of desperation and resignation, while Dennis simmered and stared at Theresa with an emotion Sarah couldn't define.

Everything about this was alien to her. Dinner at home had always been full of conversation and stories, laughter and dogs. Daddy teased her, Mommy would watch and smile. Buster and Doreen would sit at attention, hoping beyond hope for table scraps that (almost) never came.

There, Sarah was special, and things were light and fun. Here, things were heavy. Things were dangerous. She wasn't special, not a bit. She followed Theresa into the kitchen and over to the sink.

"I'll rinse the dishes off," Theresa said, "and you put them in the dishwasher. Do you know how to do that?"

Sarah nodded. "I used to help Mommy do it."

Theresa smiled at her. She started the process, and they fell into a comfortable rhythm. Things almost seemed normal.

"Who's Jesse?" Sarah asked.

"He's the other one of us living here. A boy, sixteen." Theresa shrugged. "He's nice enough, but he's started defying Dennis. I don't think he's going to be here much longer."

Sarah placed a handful of forks into the cutlery basket. "Why?"

she asked. "What's going to happen to him?"

"He's going to piss Dennis off, and Dennis is going to beat him up, and this time I think Jesse's going to fight back. Even that bitch Karen Watson won't be able to ignore that."

Sarah took a plate that Rebecca handed her. "Is Ms. Watson mean?"

Theresa looked at her, surprised. "Mean? Rebecca and Dennis are bad, but Karen Watson? She's pure evil."

Sarah considered this concept. Pure evil.

They finished rinsing the dishes. Theresa put dish detergent into the dishwasher and turned it on. Sarah listened to the muffled

"thunka-thunka" sounds coming from the dishwasher and was comforted by them. They sounded no different from the ones at home.

"Now we go to our room," Theresa said. "Straight there. Dennis will be really drunk by now."

Sarah sensed danger again. She was starting to understand that this was life here. You walked across a minefield of eggshells at night, while the enemy listened with bat ears for the sound of a single crack. The air in this home was heavy with tension and caution and (she sensed) real danger.

Sarah followed Theresa as they left the kitchen. She glanced toward the couch as they passed the living room. What she saw happening there made her blink in shock. Rebecca and Dennis were kissing--that was no big deal, she'd seen Mommy and Daddy kiss plenty of times--but Rebecca didn't have her shirt on, and her boobies were showing!

Something twisted in Sarah's belly at the sight. She knew, at some visceral level, that she wasn't supposed to be seeing this kind of thing. Kissing was fine, boobies were fine (she was a girl, after all) but boobies mixed with kissing . . . her face burned and she felt queasy. They entered the bedroom and Theresa closed the door, taking great care to make no noise.

(Eggshells and tension, eggshells and tension) Sarah sat on her bed. She felt faint.

"Sorry you had to see that, Sarah," Theresa muttered, angry.

"They're not supposed to do that where people can see them--

especially kids."

"I don't like it here," Sarah said in a small voice.

"Me neither, Sarah. Me neither." Theresa fell silent. "I'm going to tell you something else. You won't understand it now, but you will in the future. Don't trust men. They only want one thing--what you saw on the couch. Some of them don't care how old you are, either. Some of them like it better that way."

There was a bitterness to Theresa's voice as she spoke that made Sarah turn to her. The thirteen-year-old was crying, silent, angry tears that were meant to be felt but not heard.

Sarah jumped off her bed and went over to sit by Theresa. She put her small arms around the older girl and hugged her. She did this without thinking, as much a reflex as a plant turning toward the sun.

"Shhh . . . don't cry, Theresa. It'll be okay. Don't cry."

The older girl wept for a few more moments before wiping away her tears and forcing a shaky smile.

"Look at me, being a big old crybaby."

"It's okay," Sarah said. "We're sisters. Sisters can cry in front of each other, right?"

Theresa looked stricken, filled with a commingling of old wounds and old happiness. They ran together through her spirit, a muddy flood, few whites, many grays.

In later years, Sarah would remember this moment, convinced that it led Theresa to do the things she did.

"Yeah," Theresa replied, her voice shaky. "We're sisters." She grabbed Sarah and hugged her. Sarah closed her eyes and hugged back and inhaled. She thought Theresa smelled like flowers in summer.

For a moment--just a moment--Sarah felt safe.

"So," Theresa said, breaking the hug with a smile, "do you want to play a game? All we have is Go Fish."

"I like Go Fish."

They grinned at each other and sat on the bed and played, ignoring the grunts and moans from other parts of the house, safe on their island in a sea of eggshells.

27

THERESA AND SARAH HAD PLAYED FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF, and then had talked for another two. The room was a like a sanctuary from the truths that had brought them here. Theresa had talked about her mother, and had shown Sarah a single picture.

"She's beautiful," Sarah had said, awed.

It was true. The woman in the photograph was in her midtwenties, a mix of Latin and something else that came together to produce laughing eyes, exotic features, and a mane of chestnut hair. Theresa had glanced at the photo one more time before putting it back under her mattress with a smile.

"Yeah, she was. She was really funny too, you know? Always laughing about something." The smile had disappeared. Theresa's face had grown colder, her eyes more distant. "She got raped--sorry, she got killed by some stranger. A man that liked to hurt women."

"My mommy got killed by a bad man too."

"Really?"

The six-year-old had nodded, somber. "Yes. But no one believes me."

"Why?"

Sarah had related the story of The Stranger. Of what he'd made her parents do. When she'd finished, Theresa hadn't said anything for a moment or two.

"That's some story," she'd finally replied.

Sarah had looked up at her new sister, hopeful. "You believe me?"

"Of course I do."

The love that Sarah had felt for Theresa at that moment had been fierce.

She'd wonder, years later, if Theresa really had believed her. She'd wonder and shrug it off. The truth was unimportant. Theresa had given her a feeling of safety and hope when she needed it most. Sarah loved her for it forever.

Rebecca had knocked on their door just before ten o'clock.

"Time for bed," she'd said.

Now they lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. Sarah was allowing herself to feel some relief. Things had been bad. So bad. And most things still were. She knew that this wasn't a good place to stay. She didn't know what her future held. But she wasn't alone anymore, and that, well, that was everything right now.

"Theresa?" she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're my foster-sister."

A pause.

"Me too, Sarah. Now go to sleep."

Sarah was sleeping her first dreamless sleep in many days when the sounds woke her up.

A man was there, covered in shadows, crouched over Theresa's bed. The Stranger!

She began to whimper.

The sounds stopped. A thick stillness hovered in the air.

"Who's that? Sarah? You awake?"

She realized the voice belonged to Dennis. Terror became puzzlement, followed by a creeping unease. Why is he here?

"Answer me, girl," he hissed. "You awake?"

His voice sounded so mean. She whimpered again and nodded. He can't see you, silly!

"Y-yes," she stammered.

Silence. She could hear Dennis breathing.

"Go back to sleep. Or keep quiet. Whichever."

"It's okay, Sarah," Theresa said, her voice faint in the darkness.

"Just close your eyes and cover your ears."

Sarah closed her eyes and pulled the covers up over her head, trembling. She kept her ears uncovered, listening hard.

"Go on, put it in your mouth," she heard Dennis whisper.

"I--I don't want to. Please, Dennis, just leave me alone." Theresa's voice was filled with misery.

A quick sound, followed by a gasp from Theresa that made Sarah shiver.

"Put it in your mouth, or I'll put it somewhere else. Somewhere that'll hurt. You understand?"

The silence that followed seemed unending. Then, wet noises.

"That's it. Good girl." Sarah didn't know what his "good girl"

really meant, but she knew it was something bad.

(Very bad)

That was what she felt in this room right now, the presence of something very, very bad. Something ugly. Something that made her feel dirty and ashamed without knowing why.

The noises changed, got faster, and then they stopped and Dennis groaned, a heavy, horrible groan that made Sarah tremble. Another long silence. The sounds of motion, moving sheets. The floor creaked. Footsteps. She heard them coming near her bed. (Monsters)

They stopped and she knew Dennis was there. Standing over her. She tried not to move, not to breathe. Tried to

Be nothing

She could smell him. Smoke and alcohol, mixed with a musky sweat, all of which made her want to scream and gag at the same time.

"You're pretty, Sarah," he whispered. "You're going to grow up to be a nice-looking young lady. Maybe I'll come pay you a visit in a couple of years."

(Be nothing Be nothing Be nothing)

Sarah was so terrified that she began to get nauseous. She felt him move away. Heard his footsteps padding toward the door and out the room.

They were alone now. Sarah could hear her own heartbeat, fast like a hummingbird, loud like a drum.

This died down enough for her to become aware of Theresa crying. It was a faint, deep sound.

Talk to her, dummy.

I'm scared. I don't want to come out from under the covers. Please don't make me, I'm only six, I don't want to do this anymore no more--

Shut up! She's your SISTER, you big fraidy-cat!

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut tight one last time before opening them. She took a deep breath and mustered all the courage her child heart could deliver. She pulled down the covers.

"Theresa?" she whispered. "Are you okay?"

Sniffling sounds.

"I'm fine, Sarah. Go to sleep."

She didn't sound fine, not at all.

"Do you want me to come hug you and sleep with you?"

A pause.

"Don't come over here. Not in . . . this bed. I'll come there."

Sarah watched Theresa's shadow rise and move toward her. The bedsprings squeaked as the older girl climbed into bed with her. Sarah reached out with her hands. They met Theresa's shoulders and she realized that the older girl was sobbing, face pressed against the pillow to mask the sound.

Sarah pulled on Theresa's shoulders with her small hands, urging the older girl toward her.

"Shhh . . . it's okay, Theresa. It's okay."

Theresa came into the small girl's arms without resistance. Her head found Sarah's chest and she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Sarah hugged Theresa's neck and petted her hair and cried a little herself.

What happened? A few hours ago we were playing Go Fish and felt happy, then Dennis comes and does these bad bad bad bad bad things.

A new fear thrilled through Sarah.

Maybe this is how everything's going to be now!

She set her mouth and shook her head.

No. God wouldn't let life be like that.

She thought these things as Theresa wept. The sobs turned into quieter tears, which turned into sniffles, which turned into nothing. Theresa kept her head on Sarah's chest. Sarah kept stroking her hair. Mommy used to do that for her when she was upset, and it always helped.

Maybe all mommies do that. Maybe Theresa's mommy did it too.

"Men are bad, Sarah," Theresa whispered, breaking the silence.

"My daddy wasn't," Sarah replied, regretting the words as they came out of her mouth.

She was only six, but she knew that Theresa wasn't really talking about men like Sarah's daddy. She was talking about men like Dennis. Although he was the first such man Sarah had ever met, she knew that Theresa was one hundred percent right about him.

All Theresa said was "I know," and she didn't sound mad.

"Theresa?"

"Yeah?"

"What did he mean when he said he'd come visit me in a few years?"

Another long silence, this one filled with things Sarah couldn't identify at all.

"Don't you worry about that, little girl," Theresa said. The tenderness in her voice brought an unexpected prickle of tears to Sarah's eyes. The older girl's hand came up to her cheek and touched it, once.

"I won't let him get you. Not ever."

Sarah fell asleep believing this.

28

"WHAT COLOR, HONEY?"

It was Sunday and Sarah was with her mother in her studio. She liked to do this sometimes, just sit down and watch Mommy paint or sculpt, or whatever. Her mother looked most beautiful when she was being an artist.

This painting was a landscape. Mountains in the background, preceded by a large open meadow dotted with lushly leafed trees. The colors were vibrant and unreal: a purplish sky, butter-yellow grass, the sun an impossible orange. Sarah thought it was amazing. Her mother was asking her what color she thought the leaves on the trees should be.

Sarah frowned. She didn't have words to explain why she liked the painting. Mommy had told her in the past that that was okay, that what you felt was more important than what you thought. What she felt about this painting was "pretty" and "joyful."

"The real colors, Mommy. But shinier."

Sarah didn't have the vocabulary, but Linda knew her meaning was exact. Sarah was seeing something in her mind and trying to describe it. It was up to Linda to figure out what.

"Shinier . . . you mean brighter? Like a lightbulb gives more light or less light?"

Sarah nodded.

"Okay, honey."

Linda began mixing oranges and reds, bemused.

Maybe she's got some artist in her.

Sarah was saying that the leaves should be the correct colors of autumn leaves, but brighter, in fitting with the rest of the painting. She glanced at her daughter.

"Do you like this painting, babe?"

"I love it, Mommy. It makes me want to go and play and jump and stuff."

Mission accomplished, Linda thought, happy and satisfied. She turned back to the painting and began coloring the leaves, over-bright.

Sarah watched her mother. She was aware of a deep feeling of happiness. She was a child, she lived in the now, and the now was very, very good.

Her mother stopped painting and went rigid. Her back was to Sarah. She stood there, unmoving, frozen in place.

"What's the matter, Mommy?"

Linda jerked at the sound of her daughter's voice and began to turn around in slow motion. Taffy-time. When her face became visible, Sarah jerked back in horror. Her mother was screaming a soundless scream, eyes wide, mouth open, teeth apart.

"M-m-mommy . . . ?"

Linda's hands flew up to the sides of her head. The paintbrush flew, speckling Sarah with blood as it spun through the air. Sarah could see the painting behind her mother. The leaves on the trees were burning.

The scream stopped being silent, a terrible sound, like someone had torn the roof off hell. It played in stereo, full of echoes and reverb and rage.

"What did you do! What did you do! What did you--"

Sarah woke up.

"What did you do!"

The scream was real. It was here, now, in this house. The Stranger?

The door to the bedroom was open.

"Dennis! Oh God! What did you do, Theresa?"

Sarah realized that Rebecca was the one screaming. Get out of bed, fraidy-cat. Theresa might need your help!

Sarah whimpered in terror, frustration, anger.

I don't want to have to be brave anymore.

Silence.

Too bad, fraidy-cat. That's the way it is now.

Sarah was weeping and shaking in fear, but she made herself get out of bed. Her legs belonged to someone else, they wobbled and shook.

She moved toward the door, but when she got to it, she froze. What if there are more

nothings

Out there?

What if Theresa's become a

nothing

puppyshead?

Move it, fraidy-cat. You're six. Stop acting like a baby. Sarah made herself move forward, out of the room, into the hall. Her fear was so strong now that she began to sob.

"What did you do?" Rebecca continued to shriek.

Sarah's sobbing grew stronger as she forced herself to keep walking toward the sound of Rebecca's screams. Her nose began to run and the world blurred.

Don't want to go look! Don't want to!

The other voice was gentler now.

I know you're afraid. But you have to. For Theresa. She's your sister.

Sarah bawled, but nodded her head in response, and forced her feet to keep moving.

A moment later and she was in the doorway of Dennis and Rebecca's room. Theresa was there, sitting on the floor, her head down. She had a knife in her lap. It was coated with blood. Rebecca was naked on the bed, hysterical, her hands moving over Dennis in frantic motions. She was covered in blood too.

Dennis was still. His eyes were open.

Sarah realized in a flash that Dennis was

nothing

puppyshead

now.

"What did you do?"

Sarah gasped.

Oh no. Theresa did this.

She ran over to the older girl, crouched down on her knees, and shook her.

"Theresa! What happened?"

The older girl's face was slack and pale, her eyes listless.

"Hey, little girl," she whispered. "Like I told you. He'll never bother you at night. Ever."

Sarah recoiled in horror.

"Go call the police, Sarah."

Theresa bowed her head and began rocking back and forth. Sarah watched her, confused and frantic.

What do I do?

The card. From the lady-policeman.

"What did you d-d-dooooooooooo?"

Call her, now.

As she ran from the room, she realized at some level that the eggshells and the danger were gone from this house. She wondered how this could be.

Many years later, she understood how that could be. By then, she had stopped believing in God.

29

CATHY JONES SAT WITH SARAH. THEY WERE IN CATHY'S PERSONAL car--Cathy wasn't on duty, but the girl had called her, so she'd come after calling it in to the station.

This is just fucking horrible, she thought to herself. She looked at Sarah. The girl's cheeks and eyes were red from crying.

Who can blame her? She checks in to a new home, and the fosterfather gets murdered by one of the other kids the first night. Jesus.

"Sarah? What happened?"

The six-year-old sighed. It was a heavy sigh, filled with a worldly weight that dismayed the young policewoman.

"Dennis came to visit Theresa in her bed. He did bad things. He said he'd come see me in my bed in a few years too." Sarah's face crumpled. "Theresa said that she'd never let him do that. That's why she killed Dennis. Because of me!"

Sarah threw herself into Cathy's arms and began to sob. Cathy froze. She was unmarried, she had no kids, she'd been an only child with an undemonstrative father. She gave herself an F in intimacy. Hug her, dummy.

She wrapped her arms around the six-year-old. Sarah started crying harder. Now say something to her.

"Shh. It's okay, Sarah. It'll be okay."

It occurred to her that maybe Dad had had it right, being sparse with words of praise and comfort. Because she didn't think what she was saying was true, not at all, no, sir. She didn't think it was going to be okay. Not ever.

"The girl said that?"

Sarah's crying had died down to sniffles, and Cathy had left her alone while she went over to talk to the detective on the scene, Nick Rollins.

"Yes, sir. She said that this guy Dennis--the foster-father who got killed--came to visit the other girl in bed."

"Fuck me," Rollins said, shaking his head. "Well, if it bears out, that might change the outcome for the doer. If he was raping her, and threatening to do the same to your girl . . ." He shrugged, sad. "It'll keep her from going down for murder."

They both looked up as female officers led Theresa from the house in handcuffs. The girl kept her eyes on the ground and shuffled like a chained ghost.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked Rollins.

"Sit tight with the girl. Someone from Social Services is on the way over."

"Yes, sir."

Cathy watched as Theresa was helped into the backseat of a police car. The policewoman glanced over at her own vehicle. Sarah was staring through the windshield, watching the darkness, seeing nothing. A

Cathy was back with Sarah, sitting in her car while they waited for the woman from Social Services. Rollins had gotten a statement from Sarah. He'd been very good with the little girl; Cathy was grateful.

"Cathy?" Sarah asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah?"

"You didn't believe me when I told you about the man at my house, did you?"

Cathy shifted in her seat, uncomfortable.

How do I deal with this one?

"I wasn't sure if I should believe you or not, Sarah. You were . . . pretty upset."

Sarah scrutinized Cathy. "Did you tell the other policepeople, though? What I said?"

"Yes. Of course."

"They didn't believe me, did they?"

Cathy shifted again, sighed. "No, Sarah. They didn't."

"Why not? Do they think I was lying?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. It's . . . there's nothing that shows anyone else was there. And sometimes, when bad things happen, people . . . get confused. Not just kids. Grown-ups too. That's what they think. Not that you're lying. That you were confused."

Sarah turned back to the windshield.

"I wasn't. Confused. It doesn't matter. The mean lady is here."

Cathy saw a worn-looking middle-ager moving toward them.

"Mean, huh?"

Sarah nodded. "Theresa said she was pure evil."

Cathy stared at the little girl. She might have dismissed a statement like this yesterday. But now? The girl who'd killed a child molester to save Sarah had said the woman was "pure evil."

"Sarah. Look at me."

The little girl turned to the policewoman.

"You hold on to my card. And you call me if you need me." She indicated Karen Watson with a nod. "Understand?"

"Okay."

That's it, huh? That's all you're going to do for her?

The inevitable reply came, the one that Cathy pulled out in any situation that demanded more intimacy than she was willing to give: It's all I've got right now.

She was an old hand at ignoring the feeling of shame. She wasn't in quite enough denial to blame it all on dear old Dad, though. A

Karen had helped Sarah pack her clothes and shoes. She had been act ing really nice again. Sarah had understood: There were other people watching. Once they were alone, she'd known that Karen would turn mean again.

They were driving now, and sure enough, Karen was giving her angry looks. Sarah didn't care. She was too tired.

"Messed up a good thing," Karen muttered. "Not like you have many options. Well, now you'll see what happens when you can't get along."

Sarah had no idea what Karen was talking about. Something bad. She was too sad to be afraid.

Theresa, Theresa, why why why? You should have talked with me. We were sisters. Now I'm all alone again.

They had pulled up to a large one-story building, made of gray concrete and surrounded by fences.

"Here we go, princess," Karen said. "This is a group home--you'll be staying here until I feel like giving you another chance with a foster home."

They got out of the car. Sarah followed Karen to and through the front door of the home. They walked down a hall until they got to a reception desk. A tired-looking woman in her forties stood up. She had brown hair and was the skinniest person Sarah had ever seen. Karen handed a form to the woman.

"Sarah Langstrom."

The woman read over the form, glanced at Sarah. She nodded at Karen.

"Okay."

"See you later, princess," Karen said. She turned around and walked away.

"Hi, Sarah," the woman said. "My name is Janet. I'm going to get you settled into bed for now, and then I'll show you around in the morning, okay?"

Sarah nodded.

Don't care, she thought. Don't care about anything. Just want to go sleep.

"This way," Janet said.

Sarah followed Janet down the hallway, through one set of locked doors, then another. The walls were painted institution green. The floors were worn linoleum. The home looked like every other heavily used but grossly underfunded government building in the country. The hallway they were in now was lined with doors. Janet stopped in front of one and opened it, taking pains to be quiet.

"Shhh," she said, putting a finger to her lips. "Everyone's asleep."

Janet kept the door open a crack so they could use the light from the hallway. Sarah saw that she was in a large room, fairly clean, filled with six sets of two-tier metal bunk beds. Girls of various ages were sleeping in each.

"Over here," Janet whispered, indicating one of the sets of beds.

"The bottom bunk will be yours. The restroom is down the hall. Do you need to go?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, thank you. I'm tired."

"Go to sleep, then. I'll see you in the morning."

She waited until Sarah had crawled under the covers before leaving. The door clicked shut and now it was dark. Sarah wasn't afraid of this dark, because she was in that place again, where she wanted to (Be nothing)

She didn't want to think about Theresa or Dennis or blood or strangers or being alone. She just wanted to close her eyes and see the color black everywhere.

She had started to fall into an exhausted sleep when she was woken up by a hand at her throat. It was choking her. Her eyes flew open.

"Quiet," a voice whispered.

The voice belonged to a girl--a strong girl. The hand around Sarah's neck was viselike.

"My name is Kirsten," the voice said. "I run this room. What I say goes, period. You got it?"

She loosened her grip on Sarah's neck. Sarah coughed.

"Why?" she asked once she'd caught her breath.

"Why what?"

"Why do I have to do what you say?"

A hand came out of the dark. The slap rocked Sarah's head, and the pain was shocking.

"Because I'm the strongest. I'll see you in the morning."

The shadow was gone. Sarah's cheek ached. She felt more alone than ever.

Yeah, but you know what?

What?

At least you're not being a crybaby.

She realized that this was true. What she was feeling wasn't grief. It was anger.

As she began to fall asleep again, the words Kirsten had said came back to her.

I'm the strongest.

A final flare of anger.

Not forever.

She fell into the blessed black.

Hey, there. Me again, back in the here and now. Looking back at it, Kirsten wasn't completely wrong, you know. That's the truth of the group home: The strongest ones rule over the weaker ones. She taught me that, although I wasn't thankful then. Hell, I was only six. Now I'm older, and I know the truth.

Someone had to do it.

I learned that lesson good.

I put the diary down again as the rising sun greets me through the windows. There's no way I can finish this before I have to go in to work, but at least I have my answer: No one believed her because he covered his tracks when he killed the Langstroms. No one was after Sarah, they'd probably thought, she was just having a run of really bad luck. This was borne out by the events that followed with her first foster-family.

That being the case, a new question arises: Why had The Stranger decided to come out into the open now?

I ignore all of the other questions, the ones about Sarah and the landscape of her soul; those edges are far too sharp for such a beautiful sunrise.

B O O K T W O

Men Who Eat Children

30

I CURSE THE RAIN AND READY MYSELF FOR THE RUN TO THE front steps of the Los Angeles FBI building.

Southern California had very little rain and a whole lot of sun for nearly a decade. Mother Nature is making up for lost time with a heavy rainstorm every three days or so. It started in February and it's been going on for two months now. It's wearing thin. Nobody carries an umbrella in Los Angeles, even if they should. I'm no exception. I stuff the copy of Sarah's diary into my jacket to protect it, grab my purse, and poise my thumb so I can hit the lock button of my key fob on the run.

I open the door and sprint, cursing, cursing, cursing. I'm drenched by the time I arrive.

"Rain got you good, Smoky," Mitch remarks as I pass through security.

No response beyond a smile or a grimace is expected. Mitch is the head of security for the building, a grizzled ex-military man; fifty-five or so, fit, with hawk eyes and a certain coldness to him. I drip-dry on the elevator as I head up to the floor my office is on. Other agents ride up with me, looking just as bedraggled. Everyone got drenched; each region has its own piece of stubbornness. This is ours.

The current incarnation of my position is known as NCAVC

Coordinator. NCAVC stands for "National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime" and it is headquartered in DC. Every bureau office has someone in charge of being the local "rep" for the NCAVC, a kind of Amway network of death. In sleepier, slower places, one agent covers multiple areas of responsibility, NCAVC Coord being just one of many hungry mouths he or she has to feed.

We're special here. We get some of the best psychos around, in a volume that justifies a full-time Coordinator In-Charge (me) and a multiagent team. I have been in charge of my team for almost a decade. I hand-selected everyone; they are the absolute best around, in my notso-humble opinion. The FBI is a bureaucracy, so there are always rumbles and rumors about changing the name or the composition of my squad. For now, we are here, and we are generally more than busy. I head down the hallways, turning right and then left as I continue to drip on the thin, tight-woven gray carpet until I get to the NCAVC

Coord offices, known within the building as "Death Central." I enter and my nose twitches at the smell of coffee.

"Good grief, you're drenched."

I give Callie a baleful look. She, of course, is dry and perfect and beautiful. Well, not perfect, maybe. Her eyes are tired. A mix of pain and painkillers? Or just a lack of sleep?

"Coffee ready?" I mumble.

The need for caffeine is great.

"Of course," Callie says, pretending to be offended. "You're not dealing with an amateur here." She indicates the pot. "Freshly brewed. Hand-ground this morning by yours truly."

I go over and pour myself a cup. I take a sip and shiver in mock delight.

"You're my favorite person ever, Callie."

"Of course I am."

Alan comes ambling in from the back part of the offices, cup in hand.

"Thought I was your favorite person," he rumbles.

"You are."

"You can't have more than one favorite person," Callie complains. I toast her with my cup and smile. "I'm the boss. I can have as many favorite people as I want. I can even have rotating favorite people. Alan on Monday, you on Tuesday, James . . . okay, James is a stretch. But you get the idea."

"True enough," Alan says, toasting me back and returning the smile.

We all share a comfortable silence and sip Callie's divine coffee. Letting the morning creep through us at a decent pace. It's not always like this--in fact, it's rarely so. Many, many mornings the coffee comes in Styrofoam, is far from divine, and is drunk on the run.

"Did everyone get here before me?" I ask. "Geez. I thought I was being an early bird. The conscientious boss and all that."

"James isn't here yet," Alan offers. "I couldn't sleep last night. Started reading that diary." He gives me another toast with his cup, a bit sarcastic this time. "Thanks for that."

"Likewise," Callie says.

"Then we're a club," I reply. I rub my eyes with one hand. "How far did you guys get?"

"I got to the arrival at her second foster home," Alan says.

"I'm not there, yet," I say. "Callie?"

"I finished it," she says.

The door opens and James enters. I nurse a secret satisfaction that he's as soaked as I am. Later in arriving too. Ha ha. He doesn't say anything to anyone. Just marches past us toward his desk.

"Good morning," Callie calls after him.

"I finished the diary last night," he calls back.

That's all he says. No "hello" or "good morning." James is all business.

"That's our cue," I say. "Let's get to work."

I'm facing everyone. They're seated, I'm standing.

"Let's begin with the diary." I tell them where I've gotten to.

"James, you finished it. Fill me in. Anything immediately probative past what I've already read?"

He considers this. "Yes and no. She goes into another foster home, and that doesn't end up well. She has some bad experiences in the group home. Oh, she intimates at one point to having been sexually abused."

"Great," I mutter.

"From a purely investigatory standpoint," James continues, "there are three areas of immediate follow-up based on what she wrote. There's the original crime scene--the murder of her parents. There's the cop who took an interest in her. Cathy Jones. Jones disappears later, and Sarah doesn't know why."

"Interesting," Alan notes. "And there is his mention to her of prior victims. The poet, the philosophy student."

"Okay, that's good," I say. "Now let's talk about motive," I begin.

"Revenge. Does anyone disagree?"

"Makes sense," Alan says. " 'Pain,' 'justice,' all that. The question is, revenge for what? And why is Sarah in the mix?"

"Sins of the father," I say.

They all look puzzled. I fill them in on my deductions from last night.

"Interesting," Callie murmurs. "Something the grandfather did. It's possible."

"Let's examine the overall picture. He stated to Sarah that he is

'making her over in his own image.' He calls her his sculpture and gives that sculpture a title: A Ruined Life. What does that tell us?"

"If he's making her into him, that he thinks his life was ruined,"

Alan replies.

"Right. So he devises a long-term plan, not to kill her, but to destroy her emotionally. That's pretty severe pathology. It tells us he wasn't just ignored by Mommy. Something was done that requires devastation of a girl's life as a response. What are some possibilities?"

"Going off the 'own image' concept," Alan says, "he orphaned her. So he was probably orphaned at an early age himself."

"Good. What else?"

"I think he was raised in an unsupportive environment," James says. "He destroyed anyone or anything that vaguely promised to become a support system for Sarah. He isolated her completely."

"Okay."

"Additionally," James continues, "we can surmise that he was the recipient of sexual abuse."

"Based on?"

"It's inductive. Orphaned, a lack of emotional support--he fell into the wrong hands. Statistically, that means he was sexually abused. It fits with the sheer ambition of his plan for Sarah. Fits with the need for a plan at all."

"Callie? Anything to add?" I ask.

Her smile is cryptic. "Yes, but for now I'll just say I agree. Let's get to me last."

I frown at her, she sips her coffee and smiles, unfazed.

"So he was orphaned and abused," I continue. "The question: Which does he want revenge for, one or both? And why multiple victims?"

"I don't follow," Alan says.

"We have Sarah as a living victim, a kind of symbolic recipient of revenge. Fine. If we follow that line of thought, the Kingsleys become incidental. Collateral damage, their bad luck to have fostered Sarah. But we also have, per Sarah's accounts, the poet and the philosophy student. Why were they in the line of fire? And why the difference in MO between them and Vargas?"

Alan shakes his head. "You've lost me."

"Vargas got the same treatment as the Kingsleys," James explains.

"His throat was cut, he was disemboweled. Terrible enough, I guess, but not the most painful way to go. When he talks about the poet and the philosophy student, it's different. Sounds like their deaths were no fun at all. The same goes for Sam and Linda Langstrom. Nothing quick or painless about that."

"You're saying he changes his MO based on what he considers to be the severity of their crime?" Callie asks.

"I'm saying he feels like he's handing out justice. Within that paradigm, not every offense merits the same punishment."

Alan nods. "I'll buy that. Let's call them primary and secondary victims. Vargas and the Kingsleys would be secondary victims. Sarah and her parents, the poet and the philosopher, they'd be primary victims, deserving the worst he can dish out."

"Yes," James replies.

"Except we're theorizing that Sam and Linda are secondary, in their own way," Alan muses. "Descended from the actual bad guy."

"Not secondary to him, though. It still fits the construct. If Grandfather Langstrom did something to affect The Stranger as a child, and he's no longer available for justice, then his progeny deserve to suffer by proxy," James says.

"It would also mean that The Stranger views Granddad's crimes as particularly bad," I say.

"You're basing that on what he's done with Sarah?" James asks.

"Of course."

"How do you know the poet and the philosophy student, whoever they are, didn't have children as well? How do you know there aren't other Sarahs out there?" he asks.

I pause, considering this pretty unsavory, pretty terrible thought. "I guess I don't. Okay, so we theorize he was orphaned, fell into the wrong hands, and suffered abuse. The scars on his feet support that. Anything else?"

Silence.

"My turn," Callie says. "I spent a good part of my evening digging through Mr. Vargas's computer. It's infested with pornography of every kind, including hardcore kiddie porn. He's indiscriminate in his perversion. In addition to the kiddie porn I saw scat, bestiality." She makes a face. "Vomit eating."

"Okay, we get the idea," Alan says, looking distressed.

"Sorry. All of that, however, seemed to have been for personal consumption. It supports what we already know: Mr. Vargas was an unpleasant individual. His e-mail wasn't revelatory either. The video clip, however, was."

"Video? Of what?" I ask.

She indicates her monitor. "Crowd around and I'll show you."

We form a semicircle. The media player has already been invoked.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Go ahead," I reply.

She hits play. A moment of blackness. An ugly rug comes into view.

"I recognize that," I murmur. "The carpet in Vargas's apartment."

The camera jitters and the shot moves up, rolling around like a drunk as the camera is wrestled onto a tripod. It settles down to autofocus on the same sad bed, the one I'd found Vargas and the girl dead on. A nude girl clambers onto the mattress. She's too young, only just pubescent. She takes a moment to arrange herself. Gets on her hands and knees. Her wrists are in handcuffs.

"That's the girl from last night," I say.

A voice outside the shot murmurs something. I can't make out the words, but she turns her head up and looks right into the camera lens. Her living face is placid, almost docile. It's not all that different from her dead face. She has beautiful blue eyes, but they're as hollow as a drum. Full of nothing.

Jose Vargas comes into view. He's dressed, wearing blue jeans and a dirty white T-shirt. He looks his age. His back is slightly stooped. He's unshaven. His face is tired, but his eyes, they're bright. He's looking forward to whatever it is he's about to do.

"Is that a switch in his hand?" Alan asks.

"Yes it is," Callie replies.

The switch is a thin branch that's been stripped from a tree. I can see a hint of its green core at one end. Vargas has prepared for corporal punishment the old-fashioned way. He moves behind the girl. Leans forward, seems to be checking the camera. Nods to himself. He gives the girl a critical eye.

"Ass higher in the air, fucking puta," he barks. The girl hardly blinks. She wiggles a little, forcing her posterior higher.

"That's better." Checks the room again, the camera, again. "That's good." A last nod to himself and Vargas gives the camera his full attention. He smiles and it's an ugly smile, full of brown teeth or the spaces where teeth should be.

"Man needs a dentist," Alan mutters.

"So, Mr. You Know Who," Vargas begins. "Hello. Buenos dias. It's your old friend, Jose." Vargas gestures at the girl. "Some things, I guess, never change." He spreads his hands to indicate the room. Shrugs. "Other things, they change a lot. Money is not so good these days. All that time in prison, it left me with not many--what do they say?-- job skills." Another gap-toothed smile. "But I have skills, yes? You know this. I remember them, the things you taught me when I was younger, in those times that were better. I'll show you how much I remember. Yes?"

Vargas holds up the switch. Smiles.

"Teach the property. But never leave marks that make the property less valuable. Jose remembers."

Vargas pulls his arm back. His mouth falls open. It's almost cavernous. An indescribably hungry look comes over him. I doubt he's aware of it. The switch pauses at the top of the arc, trembles in his excited hand, and then comes whistling down. The impact on her feet is barely audible, but the girl's response is extreme. Her eyes bug out, her mouth opens in a wide O. A moment later, silent tears begin to fall. She clenches her teeth, trying to ride the pain.

"Say the words, puta!" Vargas barks.

"Y-you are the God," the girl stammers. "So I t-thank you the God."

"Accent sounds Russian," James notes.

Vargas comes down with the switch again. His eyes are brighter, his mouth wider. He drools a little. Madness.

This time, the girl arches her whole body, and cries out.

"The words!" Vargas shouts, grinning now.

It goes on like this a few more times. When it's over, Vargas is panting and sweating and his eyes are fluttering. I can see a bulge in his jeans. The girl sobs openly.

Vargas stumbles a little, seems to remember his original purpose. He brushes a lock of greasy hair from his eyes, gives the camera another sly and dirty smile.

"You see? I remember everything." The girl sobs louder. "Shut up, fucking puta!" Vargas snarls at her, incensed by the interruption. She puts her hands to her mouth to stifle the noise.

"I think, Mr. You Know Who, that you will give Jose money for what he remembers." Another grotesque smile. "You go now, watch this again. I know you will, anyway, yes? Jose remembers that about you. You enjoy these things. You watch this again and you think about what you are going to say to Jose when you talk to him. Adios. "

Vargas glances at the sobbing girl, rubs his crotch, and smiles at the camera.

Blackness.

"Wow," I say. I feel ill.

"Mr. You Know Who. That's original. So we have Vargas blackmailing someone who's familiar with this whole practice of caning feet," Alan says.

"Behavior modification," James opines. "Torture combined with forced, repetitive usage of a degrading phrase that admits subservience."

"Beats the feet so as not to mark up other parts of the body and reduce value," Alan adds.

"It continues to fit," I say. "The Stranger has the same marks. That's no coincidence. Vargas's attempt at blackmail confirms the involvement of others and it points toward the sexual abuse, as well."

"You know," Alan says, shaking his head, "if he'd stuck with Vargas and his kind, I might not have much of a problem with our perp." His face is grim. "Man that would do that to a child? That's a man that deserves to die."

No one argues this point.

"I did a thorough search of his hard drive," Callie says. "I was hopeful. Vargas encoded the video for some reason, I thought he might have uploaded it to a server somewhere or the like." She shakes her head. "No such luck. I suppose he encoded it and then he burned it to disc and sent it to whomever he was blackmailing."

"This seems to lead back to the human-trafficking angle," I say.

"Barry says that was handled at our level. Here in California, actually. It's a key point of follow-up." I rub my face, move back to the front of the office. "Okay, what else?"

"Key change in his behavior," James says. "When he murdered the Langstroms, he took steps to conceal himself. Now he's stepped out into the open. Why?"

"All kinds of reasons that could be," Alan rumbles. "Maybe he's sick, dying, running out of time. Maybe it's taken him a while to figure out the identities of the guys he thinks need killing. The interesting confluence is that it's all happening at the same time that Vargas is getting his blackmail scheme going. Looks like some things that were buried dug themselves up."

"It points to an endgame," I say. "He knows that we'll be after him. Hell, he's invited it. He sees things coming to a conclusion."

"So where do we go from here, honey-love?"

I consider this question. We have many different directions we could go in. Which are the most likely to bear fruit?

"Time to divide and conquer. Alan, I want you to take the Langstroms. Gather up all the information you can get on them, their deaths, their background. No stone unturned. Find out who the grandfather is. If my hunch is right, he's important. Call Barry if you need someone to run local interference."

"Got it."

"James, I want you to work on two things. I want a VICAP search on the murders of our poet and philosophy student. Let's see if we can find out who they were."

VICAP stands for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Its purpose is to create a collated database of violent crimes that allows for a nationwide cross-referencing of violent acts.

"Fine. The second thing?"

I fill him in on the computer program found on Michael Kingsley's computer. "Check the progress with that, see if they need assistance with resources. And I'm going to want to have a talk in my office shortly."

"Very well."

He doesn't ask what I mean when I say we need to "talk." He knows I want us to have a closer mental look at The Stranger together, the only "meeting of the minds" he and I are capable of.

"And me?" Callie asks.

"Call Barry and see where things stand on the sketch artist for the tattoo. Also, see if he's made any progress on identifying the Russian girl."

"Anything else?"

"Not for now. Okay, that's it."

Everyone gets rolling. I go into my own office and close the door. I need to go see AD Jones, to find out what he knows about Vargas, but in light of everything I read last night, there's something else that needs doing first. I dial Tommy's number. He answers on the second ring.

"Hey."

"Hey," I reply, smiling to myself. "I need a professional favor from you."

"Name it."

"I need a bodyguard."

"For you?"

"No. For the victim I told you about. Sixteen-year-old girl named Sarah Langstrom."

Tommy is all business. "Do we know who's after her?"

"Not by sight."

"Do we know when he's going to do it?"

"No. And there's a twist. She's probably only the target by proxy; it's the people close to her that end up dead."

He pauses. "I can't do it myself. You know I would if I could, but I'm in the middle of something."

"I know." I don't press him on what his "middle of something" is. Tommy's use of the understatement is an art form. For all I know, he's talking to me on the phone while his car is surrounded by gunmen.

"Don't you have people for this?" he asks.

"For general surveillance, but I want a full-time professional bodyguard. I'll sell it to the boss and the Bureau will pay the bills."

"Gotcha. Well, I have someone. A woman. She's good."

I sense hesitation in his voice.

"What?" I ask.

"Just rumors."

"About her?"

"Yeah."

"Like?"

"That she spent some time killing people."

I pause.

"What kind of people?" I ask.

"The kind of people the United States government needs dead."

He pauses. "Allegedly. If you believe in stuff like that."

I digest this.

"What do you think about her, Tommy?"

"She's loyal and she's lethal. You can trust her."

I rub my eyes, thinking. I sigh. "Fine. Give her my number."

"Will do."

"You know some interesting people, Tommy."

"Like you."

I smile, again. "Yeah. Like me."

"I have to go."

"I know, I know. You're in the middle of something. I'll call you later."

He hangs up. I sit for a moment, wondering what someone described as "loyal and lethal" will be like. A knock on the door interrupts this train of thought. James pokes his head in.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

I glance at the clock on my wall. AD Jones can wait a little while longer, I suppose.

"Yeah. Let's talk about our psycho."

31

JAMES AND I ARE IN MY OFFICE, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. Just thee and me, my disagreeable friend.

James, misanthropic James, has the same gift I do. His lack of tact, his rudeness--the man is a consummate asshole, it's true--none of that matters when we sit down to commiserate on evil. He sees it like I do. He hears and feels and understands.

"You have an edge on me, James. You finished the diary. Did you read the notes I faxed you?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what you think."

He stares at a space on the wall above my head.

"I believe the revenge motive is correct. The video with Vargas, the messages on the wall--the references to justice in particular--it all fits. The thing that I felt reading the diary, however, is that he's begun to mix his paradigms."

"English, James."

"Look, the original purpose is a pure one, within its own framework. Revenge. He was the recipient of bad acts. He's visiting bad acts on those directly responsible--or in Sarah's case, we're theorizing--the descendants of those directly responsible. That's the path we're following, and I believe it will bear fruit." He leans back in his chair. "But let's examine the way in which he dispenses justice."

"Pain."

James smiles, a rare thing. "That's right. The endgame is murder, sure. But how quickly you arrive at dead . . . well, that depends on how much pain he thinks you deserve. He's obsessed with the subject. I think he's crossed the line from dispensing justice with clarity to a true enjoyment of inflicting pain."

I consider this. The behavior James is describing is common, too common. The abused becomes the abuser. Molest a child, and he often grows up to become the molester. Violence is contagious. I imagine The Stranger, on his knees like that poor blond girl in the video, while some drooling stranger whips his feet, again and again.

Pain.

He grows up, chock-full of rage, and he decides it's time for payback. He gets going on his plan, and everything is moving along, but then somewhere along the way, a switch flips. The rage he's attempting to expiate mutates into a twisted type of joy. So much better to be the one holding the whip than the one being struck. So much better, in fact, that it begins to feel good. Hell, it begins to feel great. Once an individual falls down that rabbit hole, the white lines blur into gray and a journey back is pretty much impossible. It would explain the contradictions at the scenes. The blood-painting and erection versus the calm, cool, and collected of a man-with-a-plan.

"So he likes it now," I say.

"I think he needs it," James replies. "And the best thing is, he's got the perfect rationalization in place. That old standby: The end justifies the means. He's owed, the guilty will be punished. If innocents suffer along the way, that's unfortunate."

"Not really unfortunate, though, you're saying."

"Correct. Look at Sarah. He's loving what he's done to her. It moves him." James shrugs. "He's hooked. I bet his creativity extends further, to other victims. If we scratch the surface, I think we're going to find imaginative, colorful deaths, all of them variations on a quintessence of pain."

Everything he's saying is unproven and for now, unprovable. But it feels right. It shifts something inside me, lets it slide into an oily waiting place. He's not delusional. He knows what he's doing and why, and his victims aren't just of a type--they're directly involved with his past. But--and it's a big but--he's hooked on death now. Murder isn't just a resolution to injustice anymore. It's become a sexual act.

"Let's talk about two specific things," I say. "The change in his behavior and his plan for how to end things for Sarah."

James shakes his head. "I'm concerned about the first. I can understand him going public with his actions and the reasons for that. It goes hand and hand with revenge as a motive. You don't just want them to experience justice, you want the world to know why."

"Sure."

"But he's become aware of changes, in himself. I think his original plan might have involved him getting caught, going out in a blaze of glory that would highlight his story for the world. But now he's discovered that he really enjoys killing people. If he dies, he can't do that anymore. That's a strong addiction to turn away from."

"If he doesn't want to get caught, he's had plenty of time to plan for an escape route."

"Exactly. I believe that the original intent of the plan remains the mandate. He wants everything to come out, wants the sinners and their sins revealed. But he'd prefer to walk away from that. Probably with the rationalization of continuing his 'work.' Lots of other sinners out there, after all."

"We need to be careful," I murmur. "At some point he's going to try and lead us by the nose. We need to watch out for that, challenge our conclusions."

"Yes."

I sigh. "Fine. What about Sarah? Does he end this by killing her?

Or does she get to live?"

James ponders this, staring up at the ceiling. "I think," he says,

"that it all depends on how successful he is in his goal to make her over in his own image, and then, how much he identifies with her as a result. Is she really him? If so, does he let her live, suffering, or does he perform a mercy killing? I'm not sure."

"I'm arranging for her to be protected."

"Advisable."

I tap my fingers on the desk. "Based on the Vargas video, the motive, the scars on his feet, I'm going with the following: He was a victim of commercial-level child trafficking, resulting in heavy physical and sexual abuse. This occurred over a long period, and now that he's grown up, he's pissed and he's working to make things right. So to speak."

James shrugs. "It's plausible. At least some aspects of it, I think, are true. It's a shame, really."

"What's that?"

"You saw the Russian girl. She was broken. Nothing substantial left inside. Our perpetrator, though--he's not broken, not at all. It means he started out strong. The basic building blocks were tough ones."

"In the biggest picture, he's broken too. But I understand what you're saying. Anything else you can think to add?"

"Just one thing. You asked me if there was anything probative about the diary. Obviously, most of it's true, or her version or view of the truth, but--"

"Wait. Tell me why you think that. Why you believe it."

"Simple logic. We're accepting as a known that Sarah Langstrom is not the doer in the Kingsley murders. Fine. This girl spends the last few months writing about a lunatic who kills the people around her and then it actually happens? The odds of that being a coincidence are beyond astronomical. In light of the Kingsley killings, Sarah's story only makes sense if at least some part of it is true--unless she can see the future."

I blink. "Right. Makes sense. You were saying?"

"I was saying that while I believe in most of her story, there's something missing. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something, some aspect of her story, is bothering me."

"You think she's lying about something?"

He sighs, frustrated. "I can't say that. It's just a feeling. I'm going to be rereading it. If I figure it out, I'll let you know."

"You should trust that feeling," I say.

He gets up to leave. He stops at the door. Turns to me.

"Have you figured out what Sarah is for us?"

I frown. "What do you mean?"

"What Sarah represents to us. We know how The Stranger sees her, she's his sculpture. A creation made of pain for the purpose of vengeance. But she's something for us too. I realized it last night. I was wondering if you had."

I stare at him, searching for an answer.

"Sorry," I say. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"She's Every Victim, Smoky. You read her story and that's what you get: She's every victim we've ever failed to save. I think he knows that. That's why he's dangling her in front of us. He's holding her just out of reach and making us watch her scream."

He exits, leaving me dumbfounded.

He's right, I see that. It fits with my own sense of things. I'm just surprised that James cares enough to see it himself. Then I remember James's sister, and I wonder about what he said, and about the depth of feeling required to come to that conclusion. Rosa was a victim he failed to save.

Is that the real reason James is always so disagreeable? Because he couldn't stop caring about the death of his sister?

Maybe.

Regardless, he was right, and his observation dictated even more caution from us.

Sarah wasn't just The Stranger's revenge--she was his bait.

32

"I'M GOING TO SEE AD JONES," I TELL CALLIE AS I EXIT MY OFFICE.

"Come with me."

"Why?"

"The trafficking case? It turns out he was involved."

"You don't say?"

"Cross my heart and you know the rest."

I am back in that windowless office, seated with Callie in front of the gray megalith AD Jones calls a desk.

"Tell me about the case," AD Jones says without preamble. "In particular, talk to me about Jose Vargas."

I launch into a recap of everything that's happened up to this point. When I'm done, AD Jones leans back, staring at me while he taps his fingers on the arm of his chair.

"You think this perp--The Stranger--is an abused kid from Vargas's past?"

"It's the current working theory," I say.

"It's a good theory. The scarring on the feet of the perp and the Russian girl? I've seen that before."

"You said you were involved in the trafficking case that Vargas was suspected of participating in."

"Yep. I was on the task force in 1979, directly under the agent-incharge, Daniel Haliburton." He shakes his head. "Haliburton was a fixture here, a dinosaur, but a great investigator. Tough. I was new, just two years out of the academy. It was a messy case. Real bad stuff. I was excited anyway. You know how it is."

"Yes, sir."

"LAPD Vice had experienced a spike in child hookers and kiddie porn. It was always an ongoing problem, but this was different. They noticed a lot of these kids shared commonalities."

"Let me guess," Callie says. "Scarring on the feet."

"That was one of them. The other was that none of them came from the US. They were predominately South American, some were European. We guessed the Europeans were being routed through South America and then up here into the States."

He pauses, looking off into the past.

"Most of the victims were girls, but there were some boys too. They ranged in age from seven to thirteen, none older. All of them were in bad shape. Many of them were suffering from multiple STDs, unhealed vaginal and anal tearing . . ." He waves a hand. "You get the idea. Suffice to say, it was the kind of case that makes an impression on people."

"The only good thing about pedophiles," I say, "is that they're universally hated."

"Yeah. So the LAPD called us in. No one cared about credit or PR

or politics. It was refreshing. We formed a task force, they did the same, and it was a full-court press." A faint smile. "That meant different things back then than it does now. Ethical debate in law enforcement was a little more . . . fluid."

"I take it you mean--hypothetically speaking, of course--that suspects were questioned in an overly aggressive manner."

His smile is grim. "That's one way to put it. 'Patient presented with unexplained brusing.' Like that. Not my thing, but"--he shrugs, pained--"Haliburton and his buddies came from a different time.

"The traffickers were smart. One point of contact. Money changed hands then the child changed hands. No further concourse between the buyer and the seller after that."

"How many children are we talking about?" I ask.

"Five. Three girls, two boys. That number dropped to two girls and one boy not long after we had them in protective custody."

"Why?"

"One of the boys and one of the girls had had enough. Committed suicide. So we had the children," he continues, rolling over this tragedy, wanting to get past it, "and we had the dirt who bought them. One of the girls and one of the boys were owned by a pimp, a real scumbag by the name of Leroy Perkins. That guy had a soul like a block of dry ice. He wasn't even personally into kids, he just liked the money they could bring in."

"That seems worse, somehow," I say.

"The other girl was owned by a pervert who did like kids. He generated some cash on the side by filming himself having sex with them and then selling the movies to like-minded baby-rapers. His name was Tommy O'Dell.

"Hypothetically, a certain segment of cops and agents leaned on Leroy and Tommy very, very hard. They wouldn't talk. We threatened to put them into the prison general population and to leak who and what they were to the other cons. No go. I thought Tommy O'Dell would crack, I really did. He was a worm. He didn't. Leroy never came close. He told Haliburton at one point, 'I talk to you, it'll take weeks for me to die. Then they'll kill my sister, my mom--hell, they'll even kill my houseplants. I'll take my chances inside.' "

"It sounds like he was convinced that he was dealing with some very scary people," Callie says.

"Scarier than us, that's for sure. We tried longer than we should have and got nowhere. That left us with the kids. It took some time and coaxing, but we got a couple of them to talk about what they'd gone through." AD Jones grimaces. "Bad, bad stuff. Conditioning--

the caning of the feet--combined with verbal degradation and rape. A lot of the time they were hooded or blindfolded, and they were kept very isolated, from one another as well as from the traffickers. Even so, one of the kids had seen Vargas, and had heard his name. He was able to describe him. We gathered Vargas up." The look in his eyes is chilling. "We were committed to doing just about anything to get him to talk, and this time--hypothetically--I was ready to lend a fist."

He pauses then. It's a long, thoughtful pause, layered through with regret.

"The boy's name was Juan. He was nine. Cute kid, smart kid, talked a lot once he got going, even though he had a slight stutter. He was from Argentina. I admired him, we all did. He'd been through hell but was still fighting to keep his head above water, and trying to do it with dignity." AD Jones gives me a look that's about a million years old. "Dignity. And he was nine."

"What happened?" I ask.

"We had the kids stashed at a safe house. The night before Juan was going to officially lay things out on tape for us, someone hit it. They killed a cop, an agent, and took all three kids."

"Took them?"

"Yes. Back to hell, would be my guess."

I can't speak for a moment, I'm so appalled by this thought. Those children had been rescued from the monsters. They should have been safe.

"Didn't that point to--"

"An inside job?" He nods. "Of course. Things got turned upside down, here and at the LAPD. Everyone on the task force was put under a microscope and got a metaphorical rectal exam. Nothing was ever found. The best part? We had no physical evidence to tie Vargas to the children. All we had was the word of a long-gone witness. Vargas walked, O'Dell and Perkins went away. Perkins survived. O'Dell got shanked. No more kids with scarred feet showed up. We never found Juan or the other two girls, but we heard from an informant that some children matching their description had crossed back into Mexico and then been shot." He shrugs, frustrated even now.

"Every other lead dead-ended, from Immigration to Vice to Organized Crime. We cast our nets wider. Let other cities know what to watch out for. Nothing. The task force was disbanded."

"It sounds like whoever was behind this then is still around now,"

I say. "Vargas made that video for blackmail purposes."

"Doesn't that seem odd to you?" Callie asks.

"What's that?"

"The bad guys were scary in 1979. Vargas didn't strike me as a particularly heroic individual."

"Get the case files, Smoky. If you need questions answered by someone who was there, let me know." His smile is humorless. "That was the one for me. Up to that point, I figured we'd always get the bad guy. Justice would prevail and all that. That's the case where I realized there were going to be plenty of times the bad guys got away. It's also where I realized that there were"--he hesitates--"men who eat children." A pause. "Metaphorically speaking, I mean."

Except it's not really a metaphor is it, sir? That's why you paused. They do eat them, raw and weeping and warm. They swallow them whole. A

I'm back at Death Central. Callie is getting the administrative wheels in motion that will deliver the files on the human-trafficking case to us. My cell rings.

"Something I wanted to let you know about right away," Alan says.

"What?"

"In the process of digging into the Kingsleys, I decided to check in with Cathy Jones. The cop from the diary?"

"Good thinking." It's a good idea. She was a trained observer who was there, and she also knew Sarah in the years following. "What did you find?"

"What I found was bad and weird. A lot bad. Well, a lot weird too. Jones made detective two years ago. A month after that, she was off the force for good."

"Why?"

"She was attacked in her home. She was beaten into a three-day coma. And it gets worse."

"Worse how?"

"He beat her head with a pipe. Various injuries resulted, but the most severe was permanent damage to her optic nerves. She's legally blind, Smoky."

I'm silent, taking this in. Failing to some degree.

"But that's not all."

"What else?"

"The attacker whipped her. On the bottoms of her feet. Bad enough to leave scars."

"What?!" I almost shout, I'm so surprised.

"No kidding. I had the same reaction. So that's bad, but--"

"I already know what's weird--that he let her live."

"Exactly. He's killed everyone else we know about so far, except for Sarah. Why not Jones?"

"Have you talked to her?"

"That's why I'm calling. I got an address on her, but I'm in the middle here . . ."

"Give it to me. Callie and I will go see--" I stumble over the word see for a moment. "We'll go talk to her."

33

CATHY JONES LIVES IN A CONDO IN TARZANA, HER NEIGHBOR- hood yet another example of a suburb tucked away amidst the urban sprawl of greater Los Angeles. It's a nice enough building, kept up, but perhaps a little worn around the edges.

The rain has stopped for now, but the sky is gray and the clouds still look angry. Callie and I spent almost an hour navigating our way here. LA hates the rain and it shows; we'd passed two accidents on the freeway.

We'd called ahead, but had gotten only her voice mail.

"Ready?" I ask Callie, as we stand in front of the door.

"No. But knock anyway."

I do.

A moment passes. I hear the sound of footsteps on a hardwood floor, and then a voice, clear but uncertain.

"Who's there?"

"Cathy Jones?" I ask.

A pause. Then a dry reply:

"No, I'm Cathy Jones."

Callie looks at me with an eyebrow raised.

"Ms. Jones, this is Special Agent Smoky Barrett, of the FBI. I'm here with another agent, Callie Thorne. We'd like to speak with you."

The silence is heavy.

"About what?"

I could reply, "Your attack." I decide to take a different approach.

"Sarah Langstrom."

"What's happened?"

I hear raw alarm in the question, mixed with perhaps a hint of res ignation.

"Can we come in, Ms. Jones?"

Another pause, followed by a sigh.

"I guess you'll have to. I don't go outside anymore."

I hear the sound of a dead bolt being turned, and the door opens. Cathy is wearing a pair of sunglasses. I see small scars at her hairline and temples. She's a short woman, slender but compact. Athletic. She's wearing slacks and a sleeveless blouse; I can see the wiry muscle in her arms.

"Come in," she says.

We enter. The condo is dark.

"Feel free to turn on some lights. I don't need them. Obviously. So make sure you turn them off before you leave."

She leads us into the living room, sure-footed. The interior of the condo is newer than the outside facade. The carpet is a muted beige, the walls an off-white. The furniture is clean and tasteful.

"You have a very nice home," I offer.

She sits down in an easy chair, indicating the couch to us with a sweep of her hand.

"I hired a decorator six months ago."

We sit.

"Ms. Jones--"

"Cathy."

"Cathy," I correct. "We're here because of Sarah Langstrom."

"You said that already. Cut to the chase or hit the road."

"Blind and disagreeable," Callie says.

I shoot a furious look at Callie, aghast. I should have known better; Callie is the undisputed master of incisive ice-breaking. She'd assessed Cathy Jones and had understood sooner than I had: Cathy wanted to be treated like a normal person more than anything else. She knew she was being an ass; she wanted to see if we were going to coddle her or call her on it.

Cathy grins at Callie. "Sorry. I get tired of being treated like a cripple, even when it's a little bit true. I found that pissing people off tends to even the playing field the fastest." The smile disappears. "Tell me, please. About Sarah."

I relate the story of the Kingsleys, of Sarah's diary. I talk about The Stranger, and recount our analysis of him. She sits and listens, her ears turned toward my voice.

When I finish, she sits back. Her head turns toward the window in the kitchen. I wonder if this is an unconscious mannerism, something she did when she still had her sight.

"So he's finally shown his face," she murmurs. "So to speak."

"It appears that way," Callie replies.

"Well, that's a first," Cathy says, shaking her head. "He never did when I was around. Not with the Langstroms, not later with the others. Not even with me."

I frown. "I don't understand. He did this to you--how do you figure he wasn't revealing himself?"

Cathy's smile is humorless and bitter. "Because he made sure that I'd keep my mouth shut. That's the same as staying hidden, isn't it?"

"How did he do that?"

"The way he does everything. He uses the things you care for. For me, it was Sarah. He said, quote, 'to take my lumps and keep my mouth shut' or he'd do to Sarah what he was going to do to me." She grimaces, a haunted mix of anger and fear and remembered pain.

"Then he did what he did. I knew I could never let him do that to her. So I kept my mouth shut. That and . . ." She pauses, miserable.

"What?" I prod.

"It's one of the reasons you're here, right? You want to know why he kept me alive. Why he didn't kill me. Well, that's one of the reasons I kept my mouth shut. Because I lived. Because I was afraid. Not for her. For me. He told me if I didn't do what he said, he'd come back for me." Her lips tremble as she says this.

"I understand, Cathy. Truly, I do."

Cathy nods. Her mouth twists and she puts her head in her hands. Her shoulders tremble some, though not much, and not for long. It's a quiet cry, a summer thunderstorm, there and then gone.

"I'm sorry," she says, raising her head. "I don't know why I bother. I can't actually cry anymore. My tear ducts were damaged along with everything else."

"Tears aren't the important part," I say, the phrase seeming lame even as it comes out of my mouth.

Who are you, Dr. Phil?

She fixes her sightless gaze on me. I can't see her eyes through the black lenses of the sunglasses, but I can feel them. "I know you," she says. "About you, I mean. You're the one who lost her family. Who got raped and got her face cut up."

"That's me."

Even blind, the gaze is piercing.

"There is a reason."

"I'm sorry?"

"That he didn't kill me. There is a reason. But let's get to that last. Tell me what else you want to know."

I want to press her, but discard the idea. We need to know everything. Impatience with the sequences of it all would just be counterproductive. We cover the Langstrom murders, as per what we read in Sarah's diary.

"Very accurate," she confirms. "I'm surprised she remembers so many details. But I guess she's had a lot of time to think about it."

"So that we're clear," I say. "You were one of the responding officers? You were there, you saw the bodies and Sarah?"

"Yes."

"In Sarah's diary, she says that no one believed that her parents had been forced to do what they did. Is that true?"

"It was true then, it's still true now. Go and pull the case file. You're going to find that it's never been ruled as anything other than a murder-suicide, case closed."

I'm skeptical. "Come on. You're saying there was nothing there, forensically?"

Cathy holds up a finger. "No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that no one took a hard, close look because he'd set up the scene so well. You get a sense, sometimes, when a scene has been staged. You know?"

"Yeah."

"Right. Well, you didn't get that sense here. You had a suicide note, held down by a glass of water with Mrs. Langstrom's fingerprints and saliva on it. You had her fingerprints on the gun, as well as blowback of both gunshot residue and blood consistent with what you'd expect from a suicide. You had her fingerprints around her husband's neck. Her fingerprints on the hacksaw used to decapitate the dog. She was taking antidepressants on the sly. What would you have thought?"

I sigh. "Point taken."

Hearing the story from the lips of another professional puts it into a different light for me. I see it as Cathy saw it, as the homicide detectives would have seen it, without the benefit of a Kingsley crime scene or Sarah's diary.

"You hinted that there was something there to find," Callie murmurs.

"Two things. Small, but there. The autopsy report on Mrs. Langstrom noted some bruising around both her wrists. It wasn't considered probative because we weren't looking for anything. But if you do have a reason to look . . ."

"Then you think about handcuffs and Sarah's story," I say. "You think about Mrs. Langstrom getting angry and yanking on those padded cuffs as hard as she could and bruising up her wrists."

"That's right."

"What was the other thing?"

"In the accepted scenario she shot the dog and she shot herself. No one reported hearing gunshots, and we're not talking about a twentytwo popgun. Which makes you start thinking about a silencer, even though no silencer was on the gun at the scene."

"What made you start looking?" Callie asks. Cathy is quiet for a moment, thinking.

"It was Sarah. It took a while, but as time went on, and I got to know her, I began to wonder. She's an honest girl. And the story was so damn dark for a girl her age. People kept dying or getting hurt around her. Once you give in to the possibility, you start seeing clues everywhere." She leans forward. "His real brilliance has always been in his subtlety, his understanding of how we think, and in his choice of victim. He doesn't overdo his staging, so it looks natural. He leads us to a conclusion, but not with so many bread crumbs that we'd get suspicious. He knows we're trained to reverse-engineer in the direction of simplicity rather than complexity. And he chose a victim in Sarah with no relatives, so there's no one that's going to hang around and demand that we take a closer look, no one that's going to worry at it."

"But there was, wasn't there?" I say in a quiet voice. "There was you."

Cathy does that looking-toward-the-window thing again. "That's right."

"Is that why he did this to you?"

Cathy swallows. "Maybe that was part of it, but I don't think it was the big reason. Doing what he did to me was useful to him." She seems to be breathing a little faster.

"Is there anything about what he did to you--about what happened to you--that would be helpful?" I ask, prodding. "I know it's difficult."

She turns to me. "This guy is--or has been--a ghost. I think anything that puts a face on him is going to help, don't you?"

I don't reply; it's a rhetorical question.

Cathy sighs, a ragged sigh. Her hands tremble and the quickened breathing continues.

"Funny. I've been wanting to tell the real story for almost two years. Now that I can, I feel like I want to jump out of my skin."

I take a gamble. I reach over and grab one of her hands. It's clammy with sweat and it shakes. She doesn't pull it away.

"I used to pass out," I tell her. "After it happened. For no reason at all."

"Really?"

"Don't pass it around," I say, smiling, "but yes. Really."

"Truth, honey-love," Callie says, her voice soft. Cathy pulls her hand away from mine. I take this as a struggle for strength on her part.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I've been taking pills for anxiety since it happened, until about two weeks ago. I decided I wanted to wean myself off them. They turned me into a zombie, and it's time to get strong again. I still think I made the right decision, but"--she waggles her hand--"it makes things harder, sometimes."

"Do you have coffee?" Callie chirps.

Cathy frowns. "Sorry?"

"Coffee. Caffeine. Nectar of the gods. If we're going to sit and listen to something horrible, I think coffee is sensible and recommended."

Cathy gives her a faint, grateful smile.

"That's a great idea."

The normality of a cup of coffee seems to calm Cathy. She holds on to the cup as she speaks, stopping to take a sip when things get too rough.

"I'd been poking around in the case files for years, trying to find something that would convince a senior detective to take another look. You have to understand, while I was considered a decent cop, I was still just a uniform. It's a whole different social strata, the plainclothes and the unies. The guys in Homicide are driven by statistics. Solve rates, murder rates per capita, all that stuff. If you want them to add an unsolved to the pile--particularly if it means taking it out of the solved column--you'd better have something compelling. I didn't."

"The wrist-bruising wasn't enough?" I ask.

"No. And let's be honest, I don't know if it would be enough for me, if the situations were reversed. The bruising was noted, but per the ME's notes, it could have come from any number of things. Her husband grabbing her wrists too hard, for one. Remember, she's supposed to have strangled him."

"That's true."

"Yeah. Anyway, I'd been chasing this for a few years, on my own time, and getting nowhere." She pauses, looking uncomfortable and ashamed. "To be honest, I wasn't always pushing on it the way I should have. Sometimes, I doubted the whole scenario. I'd lie in bed at night, thinking, and I'd decide I didn't believe her, that she was just a messed-up kid who'd cooked up a story to explain the otherwise senseless deaths of her parents. I'd generally come back to my senses, but . . ." She shrugs. "I could have done more. I always knew that, in the back of my mind. Life just kept moving forward. I can't really explain it." She sighs. "In the meantime, I did my job and got my promotions. And then, I went for detective." She smiles at the memory. She's probably unaware that she's doing it. "Passed the test with flying colors. It was cool. A big deal. Even my dad would have approved."

I note the use of the past tense regarding her father, but I don't press her on it.

"I wanted Homicide, but I was assigned to Vice." She shrugs. "I was a woman, and not bad looking, but I was tough. They needed someone to play hooker. I was disappointed at first, but then I started to enjoy it. I was good at it. I had a knack."

More of that unconscious smiling. Her face is animated.

"I kept in touch with Sarah. She was getting harder and colder every year. I think I was the only thing keeping her in touch with herself, in a way. I was the only person who'd known her the whole time that really cared." She turns her sightless eyes to the kitchen window, contemplative. "I think that's why he came after me when he did. Not because I'd become a detective. Not because I was poking around. Because he knew I cared. He knew he could count on me to pass on his message if I thought it might help Sarah."

"What message?" Callie asks.

"I'll get to that. The other thing . . . I think it was time to take me away from her." She turns her head to me. "You understand?"

"I think so. You're talking about his overall plan for Sarah."

"Yes. I was the last one left who knew who Sarah was, inside. The last person she could be sure of. I don't know why he let it go on as long as he did. Maybe to give her hope."

"So he could snatch it away," I say.

She nods. "Yep."

"Tell us about that day." Callie's voice is soothing, a gentle push. Cathy's hand grips the coffee cup in a reflexive motion, a brief spasm of emotion.

"It was just like any other day. That's the thing, I think, that throws me the most. Nothing special had happened on the job, or personally. The date wasn't significant, and the weather was as usual as it comes. The only difference between that day and another is that he decided it was the day." She sips from her cup. "I'd finished up a late shift. It was past midnight when I got home. Dark. Quiet. I was tired. I let myself in and went straight for the shower. I always did that. It was symbolic for me--do a dirty job, come home and shower it off, you know."

"Sure," I reply.

"I got undressed, I took my shower. I put on a bathrobe and grabbed a book I was reading--something trivial and silly but entertaining--and then I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a seat right here." She pats the arm of the easy chair with one hand.

"Different chair, same location. I remember putting my coffee cup down on the table"--she goes through the motion, caught up in the memory--"and the next thing I knew, there was a rope around my neck, pulling me back, so fast, so strong. I tried to think, to do something, to get my hands up between the rope and my neck, but he was too fast. Too strong."

"We call that a blitz attack," Callie says, her voice kind. "In the case of a strong attacker, it's successful most of the time. There probably wasn't much you could have done."

"I tell myself that too. I usually believe it." She sips from her cup. It's her lip that trembles, this time. "He knew what he was doing. He yanked back and up"--she grabs her own throat, demonstrating--

"and I was out within seconds." She shakes her head. "Seconds. Can you believe that? He could have killed me right then. I would never have woken up. I'd have died. But . . ." Her voice trails off. "But I did wake up. Over and over. He had the rope twisted around me, John Wayne Gacy-style. He'd tighten it up, cut off the blood to my brain, I'd go out. He'd loosen it and I'd come around. Then he'd tighten it up again. I woke up once and my bathrobe was gone. I was naked. I woke up again, and my hands were cuffed behind my back, my mouth was gagged. It was like drowning over and over again, and waking up in a new part of the nightmare every time. The thing that was worst of all, for some reason, was that he didn't speak. "

I can hear the stress in her voice, the anxiety at this particular part of the memory.

"I remember thinking I just wanted him to say something, to explain, to make it make sense. But nothing." Her hands are still shaking and restless. She clasps them in her lap, she rubs her arms with them. She is a portrait of unconscious, continuous, nervous motion.

"I don't know how long it went on." She manages a somewhat wry, somewhat sickly grin. "Too long." The sunglasses again, looking at me. "You know."

"I know," I agree.

"Then I woke up and he let me stay that way. I was on my bed, hands and ankles cuffed. It took me a little bit of time to really come around. I remember wondering if he'd raped me, that if he had, I wouldn't know for sure."

"Did he?" I ask.

"No. No, he didn't."

Still no sexual pathology with females, I think to myself.

"Go on," I say.

"He started talking. He said, 'I want you to know, Cathy, that there's nothing personal in this. You have a part to play, that's all. Something you have to do for Sarah.' " Her lower lip trembles. "That's when I knew. Who he was. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before that, but it hadn't. 'Here's what's going to happen,' he said. 'I'm going to beat your body and you'll probably never be a cop again, Cathy Jones. When it's done, you'll tell them you have no idea who could have done this to you, or why. If you do otherwise, I'll destroy Sarah's face and dig out her eyes with a spoon.' "

Cathy's voice continues, hushed.

"It didn't register, what he was saying, but also, in a way, it did. So I did what any self-respecting detective would do. I begged. I begged like a baby. I--I wet myself."

I hear the shame in her voice and I recognize it.

"He wants you to feel bad about that," I say. "To be ashamed of your fear, like it means something."

Her mouth twists. "I know. Most of the time I get that. It's hard sometimes."

"Yeah."

This seems to calm her a little. She continues.

"Then he showed me something. He told me he was putting it in the drawer of my nightstand. 'A few years from now, someone is going to come knocking, asking questions. When they do you can tell them your story and give them what's in the drawer. Give it to them and tell them: "Symbols are only symbols." ' "

I struggle with my impatience. What? What's in the drawer? And what the hell is that supposed to mean, "Symbols are only symbols"?

"I don't remember most of it. I get flashes, sometimes, big and bright, almost unreal. Like a painting with too much white in it. I remember the sounds more than the pain. Thudding noises, deep vibrations inside my skull. I guess that was him beating on my head with the pipe. I remember tasting blood, and thinking that something really bad was happening, but I wasn't sure what. He whipped my feet so bad I couldn't use them for a month." Gaze back to the kitchen window. "The last thing I remember seeing, ever, was his face. Too much light on it, too bright, that God damn panty-hose stocking mask. Looking down at me and smiling. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital and wondering why I couldn't open my eyes."

She goes quiet. We wait her out.

"I came around after a while. Remembered. Realized I was blind."

She stops, remembering. "You know what it was that convinced me he meant what he said? About going after Sarah? About going after me?"

"What?" Callie asks.

"The way he'd told me 'it wasn't personal.' I remembered him saying it, and how he looked and sounded when he did. Matter of fact. Not angry, not rushed, not crazy-looking or rage-filled, or anything. Normal, even smiling, like someone talking about a good book they'd just read." She reaches for her coffee cup, finds it, takes a sip. "So I did what he said. I kept my mouth shut."

"For what it's worth, I think that was a wise call," I say. "The picture we're getting of this guy is of someone who doesn't bluff. If you'd spoken up, he probably would have hurt Sarah, or you, or both."

"I tell myself that a lot," she replies, trying to smile. "Anyway."

Another sip from the cup. "He messed me up good. Fractured my skull, including shattering a line of it so bad they had to carve some of the bone away. He broke my arms and my legs with that pipe, and knocked out most of my teeth. These are implant-retained dentures. What else? Oh yeah--to this day I can't step outside without having a full-blown panic attack."

She stops speaking, waiting for a response. I remember the aftermath of my own attack, and recall how much I hated the aphorisms people trotted out, stock phrases they used because, really, words hadn't been invented that were adequate.

"I don't know what to say," I tell her.

Her smile, this time, is warm and genuine. It catches me off guard.

"Thanks."

She understands that I understand.

"Now, Cathy--what did he give you?"

She points toward the back of the condo. "Bedroom is on the right. It's in the top drawer."

Callie nods to me and gets up, heading to the bedroom. A moment later she returns. Her face is troubled. She sits down and opens her hand, revealing what she has clasped inside. The shiny gold glints in the light. A detective's shield.

"It's mine," Cathy offers. "My shield."

I stare at it.

Symbols are only symbols.

I'm one hundred percent stumped. I look at Callie, raise an eyebrow in query. She shrugs.

"Do you have any idea why he put special significance on this?" I ask Cathy.

"No. I wish I did, but I don't. Believe me, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it."

My frustration rises. Not at Cathy. I'd come here hoping for answers, excited at that possibility. All I had was another puzzle.

"Can you tell me something?" Cathy asks.

"Of course."

"Are you good?" she asks me. "Will you get him?"

This is the voice of the victim, breathy, a little hungry, filled with doubt and hope. I'm unable to decipher the emotions running across her features. Joy, anger, grief, hope, rage, more. A rainbow of light and dark.

I stare at her, taking in the scars at her hairline, my own face in the lenses of the sunglasses, seeing the ugliness he created, but also seeing some of the beauty that he couldn't destroy. A terrible feeling comes over me. Pain and rage and an almost unbearable desire to kill something evil. Callie answers for me.

"We're the best, honey-love. The very best."

Cathy stares at us, and I feel "seen," blind or not.

"Okay," she whispers. Nods. "Okay."

"Cathy, do you want protection?" I ask.

She frowns. "Why?"

"I . . . we're after this guy. At some point, he's bound to know it. Maybe he even wants us to be after him. It might reopen his interest in the past."

"In me, you mean."

"It's possible. I know he promised if you did what he said he'd leave you alone, but he's really not to be trusted."

She pauses, thinking, for the longest time. The moment seems to hang forever. She ends it with a shake of her head.

"No thanks. I sleep with my gun under my pillow. I have a hell of an alarm system." Her grin is humorless. "And I kind of hope he does decide to come pay me a visit. I'd be happy to blow his ass away."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

I glance at Callie, and the unspoken goes between us: We'll get a car parked in front whether she wants it or not.

She takes another sip of coffee. Lukewarm by now, I'm sure. "Do me one favor?"

"Anything," I say, meaning it.

"When this is over, let me know."

I reach over, grip her hand.

"When this is over, I'll have Sarah let you know."

A pause, and then she squeezes my hand, once.

"Okay," she says again.

She pulls her hand away, reaching for strength.

34

I ' M GAZING OUT THE PASSENGER - S I D E W I N D O W; I'D ASKED Callie to drive so that I could think. We'd discussed the visit with Cathy, tried to pick apart the mystery of the shield and his stupid word game. We'd gotten nowhere.

I feel exhilarated and disconnected and let down, a cocktail of excitement and unreality. I am exhilarated because we are in motion. We're on the hunt, and we know things we didn't know before. I'm let down by the questions that continue to stack up without answers to go along with them.

The unreality hit me on the way to the car. Last night, while reading Sarah's diary, I met Cathy Jones for the first time. She was a new cop, healthy, dedicated, flawed, more good than bad. Human. Meeting her today at her home, seeing her as she's become--it's like knowing the end of a story you haven't read all the way through yet. Like traveling in a time machine.

My phone rings, startling me from my reverie. I glance at the caller ID, see it's Alan.

"What's up?" I answer.

"Something interesting," he rumbles. "Something maybe good for us."

I sit up straighter. "What?"

"Well, I'm standing in front of the Langstrom house. And you know what? It's still the Langstrom house."

I frown, perplexed. "I don't get it."

"I got together with Barry. We were going over the case file--and I have some thoughts on it, by the way--and I just wasn't feeling it. I decided I needed to see the scene. Even if it is ten years later."

"Sure."

"Barry has a lady friend in the Hall of Records and also knows some woman in the phone company." I can almost hear Alan rolling his eyes. "To make a long story short, we find out that the house is currently owned by--get this--The Sarah Langstrom Trust."

"What?" The surprise in my voice is sharp. Callie shoots me a look.

"That's what I said. I figured, okay, maybe the parents were a lot better off than we thought. Maybe there's a future happy ending here, Sarah's going to come into a lot of money. Turns out that one is true, but the other isn't. The Langstroms did okay, definitely in the higher percentile of upper-middle-class. But they weren't rich rich, you know?"

"So?" I ask, waiting for the explanation-as-punch-line.

"So, it turns out that the trust was set up by an anonymous donor after the Langstroms were murdered. Someone who was supposedly a big fan of the late Mrs. Langstrom's work."

"Wow," I say, meaning it.

"Yeah. The trust doesn't have any physical location, just a lawyer named Gibbs who administers it. He won't give up the name of the donor right now, but he's not being an asshole. Just abiding by the rules of the bar."

"We'll have to get a subpoena," I say, still excited. "An art fan? That hits pretty close to home."

"That's what I thought. Anyway, Gibbs kept on proving he's not an asshole. He said that as long as we got something in writing from Sarah saying it was okay, and he could verify it with her on the phone, he'd let us into the house. We drove over to the hospital and saw her."

"How is she doing? How did she react to the news?"

An uncomfortable silence that communicates an uncomfortable shrug. "She was pretty shook up about it. She wants to see the house. I had to promise her we'd take her soon to get her to stay in bed."

I sigh. "Of course we'll take her."

"Good. So, we got her okay, got her on the phone with Gibbs, and then the lawyer brought us over here. Guess what?" He pauses for emphasis. "The place hasn't been entered since the Crime Scene Unit released it ten years ago."

"Are you kidding me?" I can't keep the disbelief out of my voice. Callie gives me another look.

"Nope. The only stuff missing are some things from what was Sarah's room. Maybe the perp came back and took some souvenirs."

"Give me the address," I say without hesitating.

I get it and hang up, excited.

"Tell me," Callie says, "or I'll sing the national anthem, here and now, with gusto."

This is a threat. Many things about Callie are beautiful. Her singing voice isn't one of them.

Malibu, I've always thought, is a mix of the rich and the lucky. The rich are the ones who can afford to buy homes in this desirable, notfar-from-the-ocean community today. The lucky are the ones who bought before prices put most homes out of reach of the average bear.

"Beautiful," Callie observes as we roll down the Pacific Coast Highway.

"Sure is," I reply.

It's just after lunch, and the sun has decided to make an appearance. The ocean is to our left, broad, blue, the world's immovable object and unstoppable force all rolled into one. You can love the ocean, and many do, but don't expect it to love you back. It's too forever. On the right the hills are crisscrossed by the snaky, windy streets that lead to various Malibu homes and neighborhoods. Lots of green as a result of the rains, I note. Not good news for the upcoming fire season.

We find our turnoff and after ten minutes and a few false starts, pull up to the given address. Alan and Barry have remained outside, Alan standing and listening as Barry leans up against Alan's car and smokes and talks. They see us and approach as we climb out.

"Nice," I remark, looking at the house.

"It's a four-bedroom," Barry says, consulting a notepad, his own Ned. "Three-thousand-plus square feet, three full baths. Bought twenty years ago for about three hundred thou, worth about a mil and a half now, and fully paid off by the mystery benefactor."

The home is a slice of America sans California. A large, whitefenced front yard, the requisite tree made for climbing, a hand-laid flagstone path to the front door, and a general sense of comfortableness to it. The home itself is painted in off-whites and beige, and appears kept up.

"I guess there's a management service?" I ask Alan. He nods. "Yeah. Gardeners come out once a week, brush clearing done before fire season, new coat of paint every two years or so."

"Two?" Barry says. "I do mine every five."

"Salt air," Alan explains.

"Where's the lawyer?" I ask.

"He got a call from a client and had to go."

"Do we have the key?" I ask.

"We do." Alan smiles, opening a huge hand to reveal a ring with two keys on it.

"Then let's go inside."

When I enter the home, that sense of disconnectedness rushes over me again. I'm back in the time machine.

The problem, I think, is that Sarah's story was too vivid. She gathered up everything she could still feel and used it to bring her story to life, to take us down to the watering hole.

I half expect Buster and Doreen to come running, and I feel a twinge of sadness when they don't.

The home is unlit. The sunlight creeping through plantation shutters provides a dusky illumination. I move to just inside the doorway, and my shoes touch a floor of rich cherry hardwood, layered with a patina of dust. The wood continues forward into the kitchen on the right. I make out granite countertops, well-matched cabinets, and dusty stainless steel. The left is dominated by a large open room--not a living room per se, but a place to entertain. Ten people could mill around in it comfortably, twenty if they don't mind brushing up against each other. The hardwood continues there. Past this room is more open space, edged on the right by the kitchen, leading to the living room proper, which is where the carpet begins. It's bold, a dark brown. I move forward for a better look and smile a sad smile. The brown is matched by the rest of the living room, from paint to furniture. Decorated by a dead artist with an instinctive understanding of color.

A hallway heads off to the left from the living room, leading to the rest of the house. On the right, past a large and very comfortablelooking couch, are a series of sliding glass doors, thick-glassed, leading into what looks like a large backyard. The house is silent, almost oppressive.

"Feels like a tomb," Barry mutters, an echo of my own thoughts.

"It is," I say. I turn to Alan. "Let's go through this step-by-step."

He flips open the case file--which I note is pretty thin--and consults it.

"No sign of forced entry," he begins. "Perp probably got a copy of the keys. Responding officers Santos and Jones entered through the sliding glass doors from the backyard. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Langstrom were found just inside." He nods his head toward the spot. We walk over and look.

"You weren't kidding about nobody being here since CSU," I mutter.

A square of the brown carpeting is missing, cut away by the Crime Scene Unit for the blood evidence it contained. They only took what they thought they'd need; dark splotches are still visible elsewhere, including spots on the wall and couch. Gunshots to the head are messy.

"Mr. Langstrom was handcuffed nude--they both were. Position of his body was facedown. Mrs. Langstrom ended up on her back, with her head resting right about where that missing piece of carpet is."

I gaze down, envisioning the tableau.

"The ME notes on-site that Mr. Langstrom's eyes show petechial hemorrhaging, and that bruising around the neck is consistent with strangulation. Autopsy confirmed."

"Did Mrs. Langstrom get an autopsy?" I ask.

As a suicide, she might not have.

"Yeah."

"Go on."

"Lividity confirmed that they hadn't been moved postmortem. They died as and where they were found. Liver temps put time of death at roughly five A.M."

"That's the first thing that reads weird to me," Barry says. I look at him. "What's that?"

"TOD is five in the morning. The cops were called hours later. What kind of gun did she use?"

Alan doesn't have to consult the file. He's already considered the question Barry is posing. "Nine mil."

"Loud," Barry opines. "Noisy. She shot the dog and she shot herself. Why didn't anyone hear anything?"

"Cathy Jones asked the same question," Callie replies.

"Sloppy," Alan says in disgust, shaking his head. He's talking about the inductive police-work. Alan spent ten years in Los Angeles Homicide before coming to the FBI, and he was known for his attention to detail and his refusal to take shortcuts. He would have thought about the sound of the gunshot if he'd been the one investigating ten years ago.

"Go on," I tell him.

"Sarah was found outside, in a near catatonic state. No mention of a burn on her hand anywhere in the file." The look he gives me is significant. "So when we went to see her in the hospital, I checked. She's got a small scar there." He frowns, more disgust. "Sloppy again. They didn't check shit, just ate what they were spoon-fed."

I point out what's important. "Bad then," I say, "but good for us now. They weren't looking, which means that there could still be something here that will lead us to him."

"What about the gun?" Callie asks, thoughtful.

Alan gives her a quizzical look. "What about it?"

"Did they look into it? Did the Langstroms even own a gun?"

Alan flips through the file, nodding as he finds something. "It was unregistered. Serial number filed off. Says here they figured she'd bought it on the street." His voice becomes sarcastic. "Yeah, because Linda Langstrom would know exactly where to go to buy a hot gun. Why would she even bother? If she planned to kill herself, she wouldn't have been worried about it being traced."

I look at Barry. "Would the gun still be in evidence?"

"I'm guessing yes. Evidence destruction is a hassle. It takes about an hour to fill out the paperwork, and from what I've seen so far, the guys on this case didn't seem inclined to go the extra mile."

"Then let's get it, Alan. Have Ballistics check out the gun."

"Might have a history," he says, nodding.

"What next?" I ask.

"Bullet was a hollow point, so there was maximum destruction on exit." He flips a page. "Linda Langstrom's fingerprints were found on her husband's neck. Consistent with her being the doer. There was the note, and the antidepressants."

"What about that?" I query, interested.

"Nada," he replies. "Just a note that she had them. No follow-up."

"Other physical evidence?"

He shakes his head. "CSU only fine-toothed in here, and even that was pretty perfunctory. They left the rest of the house untouched."

"They weren't looking for evidence to break a case," Callie muses.

"They were collecting evidence to confirm what they already knew."

"Thought they knew," Alan clarifies.

"Where was the dog killed?" I ask.

Alan consults the file again. "Near the entryway." He frowns. "Take a look at this."

He hands me a photograph. I peer at it and grimace. In it, Buster the faithful dog is headless, lying on the hardwood floor near the entryway. I take a closer look and my eyes narrow.

"Interesting, huh?" Alan asks.

"Sure is," I reply.

The photograph shows Buster lying on his side. His head--or where his head would be--is pointed toward the front of the house. A bloody hacksaw lies a short distance away.

"If Linda Langstrom was the killer," I say, "why was the dog in the entryway? And why was he facing toward the door? It's suggestive of him responding to someone entering the house, not someone already here."

"There's more," Alan says. "Blood evidence found in Sarah's bedroom. Testing showed that it was nonhuman. That backs up her story about the dog's head being tossed on her bed. It doesn't fit. Linda cutting the dog's head off is already a stretch. Tossing it into Sarah's room? No fucking way." I can see anger building in Alan. I don't respond, letting him run his course. "You know, it's not that this guy was that fucking smart. The cops on this case were lazy. Sloppy. Didn't give a shit. I would have caught the discrepancies with the gun, and I sure as hell would have thought long and hard about the damn dog. Once I heard Sarah's story, and I confirmed that her hand was burned, I would have been all over this house. Fuck." He boils for another few seconds and then he puffs out his cheeks and exhales, a long sigh.

"Sorry. I'm a little pissed. Could be that none of this had to happen."

"Maybe not," I acknowledge. "It's also possible you would have processed the house and found nothing, and ended up ruling it a suicide too." I pause as a thought comes to me. "You know what the really terrible thing is? That it wouldn't have mattered. Sarah had no family. If he didn't leave any forensic evidence--and I'm betting he didn't--then the outcome for Sarah would have been the same even if they believed her."

"Foster care and all the bad it brought her," Alan says.

"That's right. Now we have the benefit of hindsight and new information. Let's concentrate on rectifying things." I turn to Callie. "I want you to get together with Gene, and then I want you to turn this house inside out. Let's see if we can find something, now that someone's actually looking."

"My pleasure."

"In fact," I say, deciding, "get on that now. You can take the car, I'll catch a ride with Alan."

She nods, not responding with words. I sense a brief struggle in her and watch as a hand strays to her jacket pocket. Pain, I realize. It just hit her hard. Out of nowhere. I can tell from her eyes that she knows I know. I also get the message in bright flashing neon: Move on, let it go, privacy is the altar I worship at.

"What do you want me to do?" Barry asks, breaking the moment.

"Not that I don't have plenty to keep me busy. Lots of other dead people out there, and this isn't exactly my jurisdiction. Thankfully, I know a lady detective who works the Malibu precinct."

"I appreciate that you came when I asked, Barry. Really."

His smile is faint. He shrugs. "You never cry wolf, Smoky. So I always come. What else do you need from me?"

"The evidence, all of it. Especially the gun."

"Will do. You'll have it today."

"And something else that you might not like."

"What?"

"I want you to look into the detectives that ran this case back then, discreetly."

A long pause as he considers what I'm asking, why I'm asking.

"You thinking one of them could be the doer?"

"The work was sloppy. I've seen worse, and I understand why they came to the conclusions they did, but I don't understand why there was never any real follow-up with Sarah. I see notes from Cathy Jones, who was a rookie. I don't see any interview of Sarah by the detectives assigned. I want to know why. If I poke around, it will send up alarms."

Barry sighs and shakes his head. "Fuck. Yeah. I'll look into it."

"Thanks."

I look at the room, thinking. Taking in the tomb that used to be a home. I nod, satisfied that we can leave, for now.

"Let's go," I say to Alan.

"Where to?"

"Gibbs. I want to meet this lawyer."

"If his lips are moving, he's lying, honey-love," Callie says. We all head out the door.

"What are you doing when your lips are moving, Red?" Barry asks. She smiles. "Enlightening the world, of course."

This is Callie, I think. This will always be Callie, pain or pills or not, a wisecracking, taco-loving, donut-dunking friend. We all climb into our respective vehicles and head off in different directions.

"How long will it take us to get there?" I ask.

He checks the clock on the car dash. "About forty minutes would be my guess."

"I'm going to spend the time reading."

I pull the diary pages from my purse.

She is him, I think, and he is her.

Sarah is a microcosm. The Stranger is showing her to us to approximate the story of his own life. Understanding what Sarah went through is the closest I'll come, right now, to understanding what he went through.

I settle back. The clouds start crying again.

Sarah's Story

Part Three

35

Let's take an honesty break.

It occurs to me that writing this as a story is about more than just be- ing a good writer. It's about distance. As long as I write about these things in third person, it's almost like it's happening to someone else, a fictional character or something. Isn't denial great?

If you really want to get deep and start lobbing metaphors, then we can talk about how similar this is to a seriously fucked-up fairy tale. Gretel with no Hansel, and the witch is way too smart. She got me in the oven and she's roasting me slowly. Red Riding Hood, but the wolf caught me and instead of swallowing me whole, he's taking the time to chew his food. So, where were we? Oh yeah: the group home.

The group home was an arena and we were its gladiators. The group home was where I learned how to fight. I learned the differ- ence between a warning and an attack. I learned that you didn't have to be afraid to hurt someone, and that size wasn't the only thing that mattered. I learned to be violent, in a way that I'd never even thought of before. Was that a part of his plan?

I wondered. I wonder. It doesn't matter. It's not really me, anyway, right?

"I SAID, GIVE ME THE PILLOW."

Sarah set her mouth and forced herself not to look away from Kirsten.

"No."

The older girl was incredulous.

"What did you say?"

Sarah trembled inside, just a little.

Stand up to her. No more fraidy-cat, remember?

It was easier to say or think than do, that was for sure. Kirsten wasn't just three years older, she was a big girl. She had broader shoulders than most of the other girls in her age group, she had big hands, and she was strong. She liked violence. A lot.

Doesn't matter. You're eight now. Stand up to her.

"I said no, Kirsten. I'm not letting you boss me around anymore."

An ugly smile curled the bigger girl's lips.

"We'll see about that."

Sarah had been living at the Burbank Group Home for two years. It was a Lord of the Flies environment, where might made right, and adult oversight was based on punishment, not prevention. It was an atmosphere that nourished the angers and brutality of someone like Kirsten.

Sarah had no friends here. She'd kept her head down and her eyes open. She'd acquiesced to Kirsten's demands to hand over desserts and better bedding and the thousand other small tortures the older girl devised.

But Sarah had recently seen the future, and it had changed her view of things. She'd found out what happened in the dorms of the older girls. Here, she was being asked to hand over a pillow. There, she might be asked to hand over herself.

The idea of this tapped into something in Sarah, something unyielding and angry and stubborn. Sarah had spent a lot of time observing Kirsten. She realized that the older girl relied entirely on her size and strength. There was nothing skillful about her attacks. She always-- always--went for the slap first. Sarah had received enough of them. Teeth-rattling, bone-jarring, raising bruises that could last a week.

Now was no different. Kirsten stepped forward, cocked her arm back, and sent her hand whistling through the air toward Sarah's cheek. It was the kind of attack that only worked on opponents who were too afraid to fight back. Sarah did what anyone would do if they weren't afraid--she ducked.

Kirsten's hand passed through the air above her head. A look of pure surprise crossed the older girl's face.

Now, while she's off balance!

Sarah's life was simple. Wake up, shower, eat, school, and then back to the dorms or common areas. It gave her plenty of time to think about things when she needed to. Consideration had revealed to her that a closed fist was superior to an open hand. She stood up, cocked her arm back, made a fist, and punched Kirsten in the nose as hard as she could, her whole body behind it. The impact shocked her.

That hurt!

It hurt Kirsten too. Blood burst from both nostrils and the bully stumbled back, falling, landing on her butt.

Now, finish her. Don't let her get up!

Sarah had seen girls oppose Kirsten's reign of terror twice before. She'd noticed in those instances that Kirsten wasn't satisfied with a slap or two. One of the girls had been kicked unconscious, and then Kirsten had shaved her head. The second girl had her arm bent behind her back until it broke with a horrible, audible crack. Kirsten had stripped her naked while the girl screamed, and then had locked her out in the hallway.

Sarah knew that this defeat would have to be just as decisive. Kirsten was already struggling to get back up. Sarah kicked her in the face. Her foot caught Kirsten in the mouth, causing her lower lip to split open. Kirsten's eyes bugged out, she screeched in pain, and there was blood everywhere.

A dark and savage joy began rising in Sarah. This wasn't waiting for something bad to happen. This wasn't waking up from one nightmare to find yourself living another. This was better

This was under her control.

She kicked Kirsten again, this time catching her in the nose. The older girl's head snapped back, and the blood sprayed, a brief but satisfying fountain. Kirsten looked up at Sarah in terror. Sarah's nostrils flared at the sight of it.

More. Don't stop.

She jumped onto Kirsten, pushing the girl onto her back, and she began to punch her, over and over and over, until her fists went numb, and then she stood up and kicked Kirsten in the stomach, arms, chest, legs. The older girl curled into herself, trying to protect her face. Sarah didn't feel out of control. Just the opposite. She felt detached. Joyous, but detached. Like she was eating a particularly delicious piece of cake in a dream. She stopped when Kirsten began to sob.

Sarah stood over her for a moment, catching her breath. Kirsten was sobbing, her arms curled around her head. Sarah caught glimpses of bleeding lips, a crooked nose, an eye that had begun to swell shut. You'll live.

She got down on her knees and put her lips up to Kirsten's ear.

"If you ever try to hurt me again, I'll kill you. Do you hear me?"

"Y-y-yes!"

A thunderclap inside her, and the anger was gone. Just like that. Something her mother had once said came to her.

"If you can turn your enemies into friends, then you'll live a better life, babe."

She hadn't known what it meant at the time. She thought she might, now.

She stuck her hand out.

"Come on. I'll help you get cleaned up."

Kirsten peeked an eye out, still fearful. She gave Sarah's hand a distrustful look.

"Why would you help me?"

"I don't want to be your boss, Kirsten. I just want you to leave me alone." She leaned forward, wiggled her hand. "Come on."

After a few more seconds of disbelief, Kirsten uncurled. She sat up, eyeing Sarah with a mixture of fear and interest. Her hand was shaking as she reached out to take Sarah's. She winced as she stood up. Kirsten's face was a mess.

"I think I broke your nose."

"Yeah."

Sarah shrugged. "Sorry. Do you want me to help you clean your face in the bathroom?"

Kirsten regarded the smaller girl for a moment. "Nah. I'll go myself, and then I'll go see the nurse." Kirsten tried to smile, failed, and shrugged instead. "I'll tell her I slipped and fell on my face."

Sarah watched as the older girl limped off. Once she was gone, Sarah sat down on her bunk and put her head in her hands. Her adrenaline rush was over. She felt shaky and a little sick to her stomach.

She lay back and looked up at the bottom of the bed above her. Maybe things are going to get better now.

It had been two years. Two years since her parents died and Theresa killed Dennis and she came here to this violent, friendless place. The Stranger still visited her dreams sometimes, but less and less.

She was only eight, but she wasn't an innocent anymore. She knew about death and blood and violence. She understood that the strong survived better than the weak. She knew what sex was, in all its guises, though she had (thankfully) not yet experienced it firsthand. She'd also learned to hide her emotions, or evidence of them. She had three objects, three talismans, whose meanings she kept hidden from the other girls. There was Mr. Huggles. There was a family picture of her, Mommy, Daddy, Buster, and Doreen. And there was the photo of Theresa's mother.

She'd grabbed it from its hiding place underneath Theresa's mattress. She intended to return it to Theresa someday. She thought about her sister a lot, sometimes. She knew she'd always consider Theresa a sister, that she'd always remember that one safe night of Go Fish and laughter. She knew she'd never forget why Theresa had done what she did. Sarah understood all of that, now. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the picture of the beautiful young mother. Sarah ran her fingers over it, smiling at the laughing eyes and chestnut hair.

She knew that Theresa was in juvenile detention until she was eighteen. Cathy Jones had told her.

Three more years, and she'll be free.

She put the photo back, and laced her fingers behind her head. She'd tried writing Theresa once. Just a short, silly little letter. Sarah had gotten a two-sentence response back:

Don't write me while I'm in here. I love you. Sarah understood. She fantasized sometimes about Theresa turning eighteen and coming to adopt her. Silly dreams, she knew. She couldn't help it.

Cathy Jones came to see her every three or four months. Sarah welcomed her visits, though she was curious about the woman's reasons. Cathy was very hard to read. Whatever. Just don't lose her card.

Sarah had begun to think like a survivor. To classify things as assets or liabilities. Assets were important. Cathy was an asset. Cathy could find out about important things, like Theresa, or the fact that Doreen had been adopted by John and Jamie Overman. Things like that. Other than Cathy, Karen Watson had been her only contact with the outside world. Sarah grimaced. She understood what Theresa had meant by "pure evil" now. Karen Watson wasn't just uncaring--she despised the children she was responsible for. She was one of the few people Sarah really hated.

A knock at the door startled her from her reverie. She sat up. Janet poked her head into the room.

"Sarah? Karen's here to see you."

"Okay, Janet."

The skinny woman smiled and left. Sarah frowned.

What could that witch want?

Karen was seated at a table in the common area. Sarah walked over and sat down facing her. Karen studied the young girl.

"How are you doing, princess?"

"Fine."

What Sarah really wanted to say was "What do you care?" but she knew better. The strong did better than the weak, and in this relationship, Karen was the strong one.

"Do you think you've learned your lesson now? About getting along in a foster environment?"

The first time Karen had asked Sarah this question was a year ago. Sarah had just had a birthday without a cake, and was feeling sad and angry. She'd screamed at Karen, and then had run off. She'd had a year to think about it, and this time, she was ready.

"I think so, Ms. Watson. I really do."

Sarah wanted out of this place. Karen Watson was the key. Assets and liabilities.

Karen smiled at this capitulation. "Well, good. I'm glad to hear that, Sarah, because I have a family I can place you with. Not a rich couple by any means, but you'd be the only one there."

Sarah bowed her head, demure. "I'd like that, Ms. Watson."

Karen gave her an approving nod. "Yes. I think you've learned your lesson." She stood up. "Pack your things tonight. I'll take you there tomorrow."

Sarah watched her go. She smiled to herself.

Fuck you, you old bitch.

Sarah was back in her room, staring up at the mattress above her again, when Kirsten returned. Both of the bigger girl's eyes were blackened. Her nose had been splinted, and her lips had been stitched. She limped. She winced when she breathed. She went over to her own bunk, which was out of Sarah's line of sight. Sarah heard the bunk creaking as Kirsten climbed into it, and then there was silence. They were alone.

"Cracked some of my ribs when you kicked them, Langstrom."

She didn't sound angry.

"Sorry," Sarah ventured, though she knew she didn't really sound that sorry.

"You did what you had to."

Another long silence ensued.

"Why'd you pack your bag?"

"I'm going to a foster home tomorrow."

Another silence.

"Well . . . good luck, Langstrom. No hard feelings."

"Thanks."

Sarah was shocked when a few tears spilled from her eyes. This offering from her enemy had affected her in a way she couldn't understand. But she knew who to be grateful to.

"Thanks, Mommy," she whispered to herself.

She wiped away the tears.

Assets and liabilities. Tears were a liability.

36

"HI, MS. WATSON; WELCOME, SARAH. COME IN, PLEASE."

The woman's name was Desiree Smith, and Sarah wanted to like her on sight. Desiree was in her early thirties and she had the look of a friendly soul--happy eyes, smiling lips, an open book. She was short and dirty-blonde. Her frame was thick without being heavy, and she was pretty without being beautiful. Desiree had an uncomplicated worldview, a genuine and simple warmth.

Sarah examined her surroundings once they were inside the house. It was clean and unostentatious, filled with a happy clutter but not messy.

Desiree brought them into the living room.

"Please sit down," she said, indicating the couch. "Can I get you anything, Ms. Watson? Sarah? Water? Coffee?"

"No thank you, Desiree," Ms. Watson said.

Sarah shook her head. She knew better than to ask for something if Witch Watson hadn't.

"I got everything done based on the legal requirements you went over with me, Ms. Watson. Sarah has her own room, with a brand-new bed. I stocked the fridge with some basics. I have the emergency numbers listed next to the phone--oh--and I got the paperwork needed to enroll her in school."

Ms. Watson smiled and nodded in approval.

Go on, pretend to care, Sarah thought. So long as you leave when you're done.

"Good, Desiree, that's very good." Ms. Watson reached into her battered leather carryall and pulled out a folder, handing it over to Desiree. "Her immunization records are there, as well as her school records. You'll need to get her enrolled immediately."

"I will. First thing Monday."

"Excellent. Where's Ned, by the way?"

Desiree looked worried. Sarah noticed that the woman had started to wring her hands, but had forced herself to stop.

"He got called last minute to do a long-haul. It was a lot of money--we couldn't turn it down. He really wanted to be here. That's not a problem, is it?"

Ms. Watson shook her head, waved her hand. "No, no. I've met him before, and you've both passed your background checks."

Desiree's relief was obvious. "That's good." She looked at Sarah.

"Ned's my husband, honey. He's a truck driver. He really wanted to be here to meet you, but he'll be back next Wednesday."

Sarah smiled at the nervous woman. "That's okay."

Don't worry. Witch Watson just wants to get in, leave me, and get out.

"Any last questions for me, Desiree?"

"No, Ms. Watson. I don't think so."

The social worker nodded, and stood up. "Then I'll be going. I'll check in on you in a month." She turned to Sarah. "Be good, Sarah. Do what Mrs. Smith tells you."

"Yes, Ms. Watson," Sarah replied, demure again.

Go away, Witch, she thought.

Sarah waited on the couch while Desiree led Karen to the door and said her good-byes. The door closed, and Desiree came back over and flopped down on the couch.

"Whew! I'm glad that's over with! I was so nervous."

Sarah gave her a curious look.

"Why?"

"We've never taken in a child before, Sarah, and we really wanted to. Ms. Watson bringing you over and taking a look around was the last hurdle."

"Why is it so important to you?"

"Well, honey, sometimes Ned is gone a lot. He's here a lot too, but sometimes on a long-haul he'll be gone for two weeks. I do some work from home as a travel agent, but it gets lonely. We both like children, and it just seemed to make sense, you know?"

Sarah nodded. She pointed toward one of the photographs on the wall. "Is that Ned?"

Desiree smiled. "That's him. You'll like him, Sarah, I promise. He's a beautiful man. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body."

So you say.

She pointed to a photo she'd noticed earlier of Ned and Desiree with a baby. "Who's that?"

Desiree's smile changed. It became a sad smile that spoke of a hurt that was ever-present but no longer crippling. Some event had colored her soul without breaking her.

"That was our daughter, Diana. She died five years ago, when she was just a year old."

"How did she die?"

"She was born with a bad heart."

Sarah studied the photograph, thinking.

Can you trust this one? She seems nice. She seems really nice. But maybe it's a trick.

Sarah was only eight, but her experience at the Parkers', followed by two years in the group home, had taught her an important lesson: Trust no one. She liked to think of herself as hard, cold, a prisoner with a sneer on her face.

The truth was that she was only eight, and what she really wanted was for the warmth in this woman to be real. She wanted it with a deep-down desperation that made her heart tremble.

"Do you miss her?" Sarah asked.

Desiree nodded. "Every day. Every minute."

Sarah watched the woman's eyes as she said these things, looking for lies. All she saw was a river of sorrow, tempered by acceptance of the possibility of hope.

"My parents died," she blurted out without meaning to. The river of sorrow turned into compassion. "I know, honey. And I know about what happened at the Parkers' too." Desiree looked down, seemed to be searching for the words she wanted. "I want you to know something, Sarah. It'll seem sometimes to you like I don't understand the bad things that can happen in this world. Even with everything I've experienced, like losing Diana, I'm an optimist. I try to find the good side of things. But that doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I know evil exists. I know you've seen too much of it. I guess what I'm saying is that I've got your back."

Hope welled up in Sarah's heart. It was crushed by a wave of cynicism.

"Prove it," she said.

Desiree's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, well . . ." She nodded. "Fair enough." She smiled. "How about this? I know that Karen Watson isn't a very nice person."

It was Sarah's turn to be surprised. "You do?"

"Yep. She puts on an act, but I was watching. I saw the way she looked at you. She doesn't really care about you, does she?"

Sarah scowled. "She doesn't care about anyone but herself. You know what I call her?"

"What?"

"Witch Watson."

Desiree's mouth twitched and then she laughed. "Witch Watson. I like that."

Sarah smiled back. She couldn't help herself.

"So," Desiree said. "Okay?"

"Okay," Sarah replied.

Maybe, she thought.

"Good. Now that that's settled, I want to introduce you to someone. I kept him in the backyard while Ms.--sorry-- Witch Watson was here, but now I want you to meet him. I think you'll like him."

Sarah was puzzled. Was Desiree crazy after all? It sounded like she was talking about keeping someone in the backyard.

"Uh, okay."

"His name's Pumpkin. Don't be afraid of him--he's friendly."

Desiree walked over to the sliding glass door that led into the backyard and opened it up. She whistled.

"Come on, Pumpkin. You can come inside now."

There was a ferocious-sounding "woof."

A dog!

Happiness shot through Sarah's soul like an arrow. Pumpkin appeared at the door, and Sarah understood the reason for the name immediately. The dog's head was huge. Crazy-huge--like a pumpkin.

He was a coffee-colored pit bull, and he looked both ridiculous and terrifying, with his jowls flopping and his tongue lolling and his oversized skull. He raced up to Desiree, looked up at her and spoke: "Woof !"

Desiree smiled and leaned over to pet the pit bull. "Hey, Pumpkin. We have a visitor. A girl. She's going to be staying with us, and her name's Sarah."

The dog cocked its head, aware that its owner was talking to him, but unable to understand any of it.

Sarah got up off the couch. Pumpkin turned at the sound.

"Woof !"

The dog came bounding over. Sarah would have been terrified if not for the fact that Pumpkin was wagging his tail in the universal sign of dog happiness. He bumped into her with his massive head and proceeded to lick her offered hand, coating it with slobber. Sarah grinned. "Yuck!" She petted the pit bull, who sat back on his haunches and grinned. "You sure are a goofy-looking dog, Pumpkin."

"I rescued him from a bar eight years ago," Desiree said. She smiled. "It was in my younger days, and I wasn't always that smart. I noticed a group of bikers over by a pool table laughing and making noise, and when I went over to see what they were doing, there was Pumpkin. He was just a puppy, but they had him up on the pool table, and they were shooting pool balls at him. He was scared, and whining."

"How mean!"

"Yeah, I thought so too. I yelled at them all, and I might have tried to start a fight--which would have been really stupid on my part--but my girlfriend grabbed my arm and dragged me away. I was still very upset about it, so I kept drinking and--I don't remember how it happened--when I woke up the next morning Pumpkin was lying next to me in my bed."

Sarah continued to pet the dog, bemused by this strange woman and her tale of drunken dog-rescuing. Something hitched in her chest. She was mortified to find that tears were running down her face.

"What's the matter, Sarah?"

Desiree was empathetic. She didn't move closer or try to hug Sarah.

Sarah wiped her face with a small, angry hand.

"Just . . . we had dogs, and my mom would have liked the story about Pumpkin, and--" She sat back down on the couch, miserable.

"Sorry. I'm not a crybaby."

Pumpkin put his head in her lap and looked up at her, as if to say: I'm sorry you feel bad, but can you keep doing the petting thing?

"There's nothing wrong with crying when you're sad, Sarah."

Sarah looked up at Desiree. "What if you're always sad? You'd never stop crying."

She thought for a moment that she'd said something wrong because of the pain that twisted Desiree's face. Then, understanding: She's feeling that way for me.

No matter how precocious, no matter how hardened, an eightyear-old only has so much complexity to draw on. Sarah's interior walls had developed cracks, which had become fissures, and while the dam had not burst, the tears wouldn't stop. She put her hands to her face and cried.

Desiree sat down next to her on the couch but was careful not to do anything else. Sarah was grateful. She wasn't ready for that yet, to surrender herself to the arms of an adult again. It was nice to have Desiree there, though. Pumpkin displayed his own empathy; he'd stopped demanding to be petted and was licking Sarah's knee. Desiree didn't speak until Sarah was done crying.

"So," she said, "you met Pumpkin. Do you want to see your room?"

Sarah nodded and managed a smile. "Yes, please. I'm tired."

You know one of the things I've realized? I've realized that a dog really is man's (or woman's) best friend.

As long as you feed them and love them, dogs love you back. They won't steal from you or beat you or betray you. They're honest. What you see on the surface is what you get underneath. Not like people.

"We're here," Alan says, pulling me away from my reading. I fold the pages in half and replace them in my purse with great reluctance. Sarah's experiences had awakened in her a taste for violence. But she was still guilty of hope.

Was that how it had been for him? A slow erosion of the soul? At what point did the taste become a hunger?

Did any part of him still hope?

37

TERRY GIBBS, THE LAWYER, HAS AN OFFICE IN MOORPARK. I AM familiar with Moorpark by accident; Callie's daughter and grandson live here.

The secret of Callie's daughter had haunted her for years. A killer had discovered this, and had attempted to exploit this knowledge to his advantage. The result? Callie and I, breaking the sound barrier, pounding on her daughter's door with our guns drawn, expecting the worst. Marilyn was fine, the killer is dead, and Callie now has a relationship instead of a regret. This satisfies both my sense of justice and my sense of irony, a self-satisfaction that's probably as ugly as it is gratifying. I feel the killer's death deserves my gloating more than my guilt. Moorpark is an up-and-comer, located in Ventura County, west of Los Angeles. In many ways it's California of old; if you drive down the 118 freeway to get there, you pass through miles of unpopulated hills and mini-mountains. Sometimes there are even cows. Moorpark used to be a rural town. Now it is a growing suburban hub, middle to upper-middle class, with some of the fastest-appreciating homes in Southern California.

"Give it twenty years and it'll be an urban-sprawl shit hole," Alan comments, gazing out the window, providing a cynical future-echo to my thoughts.

"Maybe not," I offer. "Simi Valley, the town next door, is still very nice."

Alan shrugs, not believing a word of it. We turn off the 118 freeway onto Los Angeles Avenue.

"Up here on the right," Alan says. "In the business park."

We exit the street into a large collection of four-to five-story office buildings, as new as the rest of Moorpark with glass that gleams in the sunshine.

"Pull up over there." Alan points.

As we park the car, my cell phone rings.

"Is that Smoky Barrett?" a perky female voice asks.

"Yes. Who's this?"

"This is Kirby. Kirby Mitchell."

"Sorry--do I know you?"

"Tommy must not have told you my name. Silly guy. You asked for a referral from him? For personal protection? That's me."

I realize that the cheerful voice belongs to my "loyal and lethal"

bodyguard and possible ex-assassin.

"Oh, right. Sorry," I fumble. "Tommy didn't give me your name."

Kirby chuckles. It's a chuckle that matches the rest of her voice: light, a little melodic. The sound of someone without a care in the world, someone who'd been happy to wake up that morning, who hadn't needed any coffee when she woke up, who probably went on a five-mile jog straight out of bed, smiling the whole way. I'm considering not liking her, but that's the problem with cheerful people. You feel obligated to give them a chance. I'm also intrigued. The idea of a Pollyanna-assassin appeals to the perverse side of my nature.

"Well," she says, a juggernaut of good cheer, "no harm done. Tommy's great, but he's a guy, and guys forget the details sometimes, it's a man thing, I think. Tommy's better than most, and a hunk to boot, so let's forgive him, okay?"

"Sure," I reply, bemused.

"So, when and where would you like to meet?"

I glance at my watch, thinking. "Can you meet me in the reception of the FBI building at five-thirty?"

"FBI building, huh? Coolness. I guess I'd better leave all my guns in the car." A melodious laugh, somehow amusing and disturbing at the same time, given the context. "I'll see you at five-thirty, then. Bye!"

"Bye," I murmur. She hangs up.

"Who was that?" Alan asks.

I stare at him for a moment. Shrug. "Possible bodyguard for Sarah. I think she's going to be a hoot."

Coolness.

Terry Gibbs ushers us into his office with a smile. It's a small office, with his desk in the front, and file cabinets along a far wall. Everything has a used but sturdy look to it.

I take stock of the lawyer as he motions for us to sit down in the two padded chairs facing his desk.

Gibbs is an interesting mix of a person. It's as though he couldn't decide who he wanted to be. He's a tall man. He's bald, but he has a moustache and a beard. He has the broad shoulders and athletic moves of a fit man, but he smells of cigarettes. He wears glasses with thick lenses, which highlight intense, almost beautiful blue eyes. He's wearing a suit without a tie, and the suit looks expensive and tailored, a mismatch with the office furniture.

"I can see what you're thinking in your eyes, Agent Barrett," he says, smiling. He has a nice voice, smooth and flowing, not too deep or too high. The perfect voice for a lawyer. "You're trying to match up the thousand-dollar suit and the crappy office."

"Maybe," I admit.

He smiles. "I'm a one-man band. I don't make the big bucks, but I do okay. It forces compromise: flashy office or flashy suit? I decided on the flashy suit. A client can forgive a messy office. They'll never forgive a lawyer in a cheap suit."

"Kind of like us," Alan says. "You can show them the badge, but all they really want to know is if you got the gun."

Gibbs nods, appreciative. "Exactly." He leans forward, resting his arms on the desk, hands clasped, serious. "I want you to know, Agent Barrett, I'm not being intentionally uncooperative on the Langstrom trust. I'm bound, ethically and legally, by the rules of the bar."

I nod. "I understand, Mr. Gibbs. I assume that you have no problem with us getting a subpoena?"

"None whatsoever so long as it legally sets aside my obligations to comply with the rules of privilege."

"What can you tell us?"

He leans back in the chair, looking off at a space over our heads, thinking.

"The client approached me approximately ten years ago, wanting to set up a trust to benefit Sarah Langstrom."

"Man or woman?" I ask.

"I'm sorry. I can't say."

I frown. "Why?"

"Confidentiality. The client demanded absolute confidentiality in every way. Everything is in my name for that reason. I have power of attorney, I administer the trust, and my retainer is paid from the trust."

"Did you consider that someone wanting that much confidentiality might not be up to anything good?" Alan asks. Gibbs gives Alan a sharp look. "Of course I did. I made some inquiries. At the other end of those inquiries I found a child orphaned by a murder-suicide. If Sarah Langstrom's parents had been killed by an unknown intruder, I would have refused to take on the client. As it was, with the mother ruled the murderer, I couldn't think of a reason to refuse."

"We're looking into the possibility that it wasn't a murdersuicide," I say, watching his reaction. "It may have been staged to appear that way."

Gibbs closes his eyes for a moment and rubs his forehead. He seems distressed. "That's terrible, if true." He sighs and opens his eyes.

"Unfortunately, I'm still bound by attorney-client privilege."

"What else can you tell us without violating that?" Alan asks.

"The trust is a fund, designed to keep up the family home, and to provide Sarah Langstrom with means. It's to be released to her control on her eighteenth birthday."

"How much?" I ask.

"I can't give you an exact amount. I can say that it will let her live comfortably for many years."

"Do you report to your client?"

"Actually, no. I assume there's some form of oversight in place--a way for the client to keep an eye on me, to make sure I'm not emptying out the cookie jar. But I haven't had contact with the client since the formation of the trust."

"Isn't that unusual?" Alan asks.

Gibbs nods. "Very."

"I noticed that the exterior of the home is well kept up. Why not inside? It's a dust farm," I say.

"One of the conditions of the trust. No one was to enter the home without Sarah's permission."

"Strange."

He shrugs. "I've dealt with stranger." He stops speaking for a moment. A pained, almost delicate look comes across his face. "Agent Barrett, I want you to know, I'd never have knowingly participated in anything that would bring harm to a child. Never. I lost a sister when I was younger. My little sister. The kind big brothers are supposed to protect. You understand?" He looks miserable. "Children are sacred."

I recognize the guilt I see rising in his eyes. It's the kind of guilt that comes with feeling responsible for something you couldn't have done anything about anyway. The kind that appears when fate is at fault but you're the one left holding the bag.

"I understand, Mr. Gibbs."

We'd spent an hour fencing with the lawyer, trying to extract more information from him without any luck. We're back in the car, and I'm trying to decide on my next move.

"I got the idea that he wanted to tell us more," Alan says.

"Me too. I agree with your original assessment. I don't think he's trying to be a jerk. His hands are tied."

"Subpoena time," Alan says.

"Yes. Let's head back to the office and get in-house counsel on it."

My phone rings.

"An update on other fronts," Callie says.

"Go ahead."

"As it turns out, the files on the Vargas case--both ours and the ones at the LAPD--are missing."

My heart sinks.

"Oh, come on. Are you kidding?"

"I wish I was. The best guess is lost over time, although I suppose we could theorize that they'd been stolen, all things considered."

"Whichever one it was, we don't have the files." I rub my forehead.

"Fine. I know you're working on processing the Langstrom home--

but do me a favor. Call AD Jones and see if he can give you a list of names of the agents and officers who worked the case."

"Will do."

I hang up.

"Bad news?" Alan asks.

"You could say that." I relate the substance of the call to him.

"Which do you think? Lost or stolen?"

"My vote is on stolen. He's been planning for years, and he's been manipulating things to allow discovery at his pace. That makes this too much of a coincidence."

"Probably right. Where to now?"

I'm prepared to answer when my phone rings again.

"Barrett," I answer.

"Hey, Smoky. It's Barry. Are you still in Moorpark?"

"We're just leaving."

"That's good. I did some checking into the detectives originally assigned to the Langstrom case. Get this: One's dead. He ate his gun five years ago. Not particularly probative, to be honest--the guy had been on the ragged edge for years, apparently--but what is interesting is that his partner retired two years later. Just quit, four years short of his thirty."

"That is interesting."

"Yeah. It gets better. I got ahold of this guy. His name's Nicholson. Dave Nicholson. I told him what was up and get this: He wants to see you. Now."

Excitement thrills through me. "Where does he live?" I ask.

"That's why I asked if you were still in Moorpark. He's close. He retired to Simi Valley, just up the road."

38

DAVID NICHOLSON, BARRY HAD FILLED ME IN, HAD BEEN A GOOD cop. He came from a family of cops, starting on the East Coast in New York with his grandfather, migrating westward in the sixties with his father. His dad had been killed in the line of duty when David was twelve.

Nicholson had made detective in record time, apparently deserved. He was known to have a sharp mind and a meticulous nature. He was given to flashes of insight and was a feared interrogator. He sounds like Alan's long-lost white brother.

None of which reconciles with the loose ends left in the Langstrom case. This fact, and the fact that he wants to see me-- now--

fills me with hope.

"This is the place," Alan says as we pull up to the curb. The home is on the outer edges of Simi Valley, on the LA side, where many of the older homes lie. Not a house on the block has more than one story. They're all ranch-home layouts, built in the unimaginative style of so many homes of the sixties. The yard is well kept up, with a plain concrete path leading to the front door. I see a curtain in a window to the right of the door move aside and catch a glimpse of a face, peering out.

"He knows we're here," I say to Alan.

We get out and walk toward the house. Before we get there, the door opens and a man comes out, standing on the concrete block that forms the porch. He's barefoot, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He's a tall, big man, about six foot three. He has broad shoulders and a big chest. His hair is dark and thick, he has a square-jawed, handsome face, and he seems younger than his fifty-five years. His eyes, however, lack vitality. They are dark and empty, full of echoes and open spaces.

"Mr. Nicholson?" I ask.

"That's me. Can I see some ID?"

Alan and I pull out our respective badges. He inspects them and inspects us in turn. His gaze lingers on my scars, but not overlong.

"Come in," he says.

The interior of the home is a throwback to the late sixties/early seventies. There's wood-paneling on the walls, a flagstone fireplace. The one nod to the present is the dark hardwood flooring that runs through the home.

We follow him into the living room. He indicates a plush-looking blue couch and we sit.

"Get you anything?" he asks.

"No, sir."

He turns away from us and stares out the sliding glass doors that lead into his backyard. It's a small yard, longer than it is wide, more dirt than grass. A wooden fence encloses it. I don't see any trees at all. Moments pass. Nicholson continues to stare, frozen in place.

"Sir?"

He starts.

"Sorry." He comes over and seats himself in an armchair that's been placed kitty-corner to the couch. The chair is an ugly green, but it looks comfortable and weathered and well-used. Faithful furniture, quietly loved. It faces a twenty-inch television. A foldable dinner-tray stands next to it.

I can imagine Dave Nicholson sitting here at night, watching television, a microwave meal placed on the dinner-tray in front of him. Normal enough, but for some reason, in this place, it's a sad picture. An undercurrent of waiting and depression layers everything. It's as though the furniture should all be draped with sheets, and the house should have a wind blowing through it.

"So listen," he says, before I can ask him any questions. "I'm going to tell you something I'm supposed to tell you, and then I'm going to tell you something I'm not supposed to tell you. Then I'm going to do what I was supposed to do."

"Sir--"

He waves me off. "Here's what I'm supposed to tell you: 'It's the man behind the symbol, not the symbol, that's important.' Got that?"

His voice is monotonous and matches the hollowness in his eyes.

"Yes, but--"

"Here's the next thing. I threw things off on the Langstrom investigation, steered the conclusions. He told me that the evidence would point to a murder-suicide, as long as I didn't look too hard. All I had to do was accept what was on the surface. So I did." He sighs. He seems ashamed. "He needed the Langstrom girl--Sarah--to be left alone. Said he had plans for her. I shouldn't have done it, I know that, but you have to understand--I did it because he has my daughter."

I freeze, shocked. "Your daughter?"

Nicholson stares at something above my head, talking almost to himself. "Her name's Jessica. He took her away from me ten years ago. He made me helpless and he told me what to do, yes he did. He told me that someone would come asking questions, years down the line, and that I was to give them the message I just gave you. If I did all that, and one final thing, he said he'd let her go." His eyes plead with me.

"You get it, right? I was a good cop, but this was my daughter. "

"Are you saying he took her hostage?"

He points a thick finger at me. "You make sure she's okay. You make sure he keeps his end of the bargain. I think he will." He licks his lips, nods too fast. "I think he will."

"David. You need to slow down."

"Nope. I've said enough already. I need to finish up now. One last thing."

He reaches a hand behind his back. It comes out holding a large revolver. I jump up, followed by Alan. I reach for my weapon, it finds my hand, but I'm not the one Nicholson wants to kill. The barrel finds his own mouth, a brutal thrust, it angles up. I reach toward him. "No!" I yell.

He closes his eyes and pulls the trigger, and his head explodes in a

"bang" and I am showered in his blood.

I stand there, gaping, as he topples forward from the armchair.

"Jesus!" Alan yells, rushing toward Nicholson.

I stand there and watch, dazed. Outside, the clouds open and the rain begins to fall again.

39

ALAN AND I ARE INSIDE NICHOLSON'S HOME. THE LOCAL COPS are here, wanting to take charge, but I ignore them in my fury. A man--a cop--is dead, and I know his death is much more than a suicide. I want to know why.

I had washed my hands and gloved them, and I can still feel the spots where I scrubbed his blood from my face.

I stalk through the living room, down the hallway, into Nicholson's bedroom. Alan follows.

"What are we looking for, Smoky?" he asks, his voice cautious.

"A God damn explanation," I snap, my voice hard and furious and cracking around the edges.

The suddenness of it, the awfulness of it, had shocked me like a backhand across the face. My stomach was queasy from the rush of adrenaline. I couldn't get my mind around the death yet, not fully. I only knew that I was enraged. He had done this. It was his fault.

The Stranger. I'm sick of his games and his puzzles and everything else. I want to fucking kill him.

Nicholson's bedroom is like the rest of his house, careless and Spartan. Things are clean enough, but the home has no soul. The walls are bare, the window coverings are cheap and mismatched. He slept here, he ate here, it kept the rain off his head. That was all. I spot a photograph in a frame, on a table next to the bed. Nicholson is in it, smiling, his eyes alive. He has his arms around a young girl, who looks to be about sixteen. She has her father's thick, dark hair. The eyes belong to someone else. A mother's ghost?

Alan looks at the photo as well.

"Looks like a father/daughter picture to me," he says. I nod, still not speaking.

Alan opens the walk-in closet and begins to rummage around on the shelves. He pauses, a lack of motion, silence.

"Wow," he says. "Check this out."

He walks out of the closet. He has a shoebox in his hands, the top off. I catch a glimpse of Polaroid photographs. Lots of them. Alan takes one out and hands it to me.

The girl is pale and she is nude. In this photograph she appears to be in her early twenties. The photo was taken full-frontal. She stands with her hands clasped behind her, her feet slightly turned in, her gaze averted and despondent. She has large breasts and an unshaven pubic area. She looks exposed and emotionally numb.

I compare this photograph to the one in the frame.

"It's definitely the same girl," I say.

"This box is full of them." Alan speaks as he rummages. "Looks like they're in chronological order. Always nude. Different ages." He rummages some more. "Jesus. Based on changes in her face and body, these go back a lot of years."

"Over ten, I imagine." I feel deflated. My rage has dissipated, leaving emptiness behind. Alan stares at me, taking this in. He taps a foot and jiggles the shoebox in one giant hand. "Okay. Okay. Makes sense. He takes Nicholson's daughter hostage. But Nicholson's not just a dad, he's a cop. The perp needs a way to keep Nicholson on a leash, so he provides him with regular proof of life." Taps his foot harder. "God damn. Why didn't Nicholson go to the FBI? Why leave his daughter in this guy's hands for that long without doing something?"

"Because he believed him, Alan. He believed that The Stranger would do what he said. If Nicholson deviated from the plan, The Stranger would kill the daughter. If Nicholson stuck to the plan, he'd keep her alive. And he sent Nicholson regular proof that he was keeping his word."

"I get that, but still--would you have done what Nicholson did?

For as long as he did?"

The answer is instantaneous. I don't have to give it much thought. The possibility of Alexa, alive, or the current reality of her death?

"Probably, yes. If he was convincing enough. Yes." I look at him.

"What if it was Elaina?"

His foot stops tapping. "Point taken."

I stare at the photograph. "Why? Why Nicholson?"

"Thought we knew that. He needed Nicholson to steer the Langstrom investigation."

I shake my head. "Bullshit. I mean, yes, he used him for that purpose--but why take the risk? Why bother? He could have covered his tracks better--hell, he covered them pretty well as it is. Involving Nicholson increased his exposure. Why was The Stranger willing to take that chance?" I run a hand through my hair. "We need to dig through Nicholson's past." I pace. "It's all about the past in this case, we just haven't found the connections yet. Who did I give the job of finding out about Sarah's grandfather to?"

"That'd be me. I haven't gotten to it yet. There was the lead with the Langstrom home, the trust." He gestures, a way of indicating where we are now and why. "Nicholson. Things have been moving pretty fast."

"I know, and I understand, but it's important."

"Got it."

I stare down at the sad girl in the sad Polaroid. It's representative of this case, something going on forever, something terrible, something that can be traced to the past. Nicholson, Sarah's grandfather, a case from the seventies.

Where did they all come together?

I'm talking to Christopher Shreveport, the head of CMU. CMU is the Crisis Management Unit. They deal with response to critical incidents, such as kidnappings and the like.

"She's a hostage?" he asks me.

"Yes. Unless she's dead already."

Silence. Shreveport isn't cursing, but I can feel him wanting to. "I'm going to send an agent over there by the name of Mason Dickson."

"Is that a joke, Chris?"

"Just the one his parents played on him when they named him. He's trained with CMU at Quantico and he's our local go-to guy for kidnappings in your area. He'll do what he can. I wouldn't hold your breath. Something tells me Mason isn't going to be able to do much until you crack the case."

"Maybe he'll just keep his word and let her go."

"Everyone should have a dream, Smoky. That one can be yours."

40

IT'S NOW LATE AFTERNOON. THE RAIN HAS STOPPED AGAIN, BUT the gray clouds won't disperse. The sun is fighting to shine, a losing battle. Everything feels stark and wet and barren. This type of weather emphasizes the concrete nature of Los Angeles in an unflattering way. It matches my mood.

Agent Mason Dickson had shown up approximately fifty minutes after I finished talking to Shreveport. He was a redhead with a baby face sitting on a six-six lanky frame. He was improbable, but he seemed competent enough. We'd briefed him, handed him the shoebox of Polaroids, and left, feeling impotent about it all. Alan gets a call on his cell as we pull into the FBI building parking lot. He murmurs a few times.

"Thanks," he says, and then hangs up. "Sarah Langstrom is getting released tomorrow," he tells me. I tap my purse with a finger, thinking, uneasy.

"Elaina talked to me yesterday," I say. "I think she wants Sarah to come live with you guys."

A sad smile crosses his lips. The shrug is infinitesimal.

"Yeah. She talked to me about it. I exploded, said no way. Really put my foot down."

"And?"

"And we'll be taking Sarah." He looks out the windshield, his eyes finding the gray clouds that just won't go away. "I can't say no to her, Smoky. I was never very good at it. Post-cancer, I can't seem to do it at all."

"Can I ask you something, Alan?"

"Always."

"Did you ever decide? About whether you're going to leave the job, I mean."

He doesn't answer right away. Keeps gazing out the windshield, gathering his words carefully, like a wheat farmer gathering his bushels by hand.

"You ever watch any of those cold case real crime shows?"

"Sure. Of course."

"Me too. You know what always strikes me about those shows?

That so many of the cops they interview about old cases are young and retired. I mean, it's rare to see a really old guy who's still on the job."

"I hadn't thought about it until now." And I hadn't. But as I do, I realize he's right.

He turns to me. "You know why? Because working homicides is dangerous, Smoky. I'm not talking about physical danger. I'm talking about spiritual danger." Waves a hand. "Mental danger if you don't believe in the soul. Whatever. The point is, you look in that direction too long, you run a risk of never recovering from what you see." He hits a fist into his palm, lightly. "I mean, ever. I've seen some shit, Smoky . . ." He shakes his head. "Saw a half-eaten baby, once. Mommy took a bad hit of acid and got hungry. That's the case that made me an alcoholic."

I start at this. "I didn't know," I say.

He shrugs. "Before my Bureau days. You know what got me to quit drinking?" He looks away. "Elaina. I got soused one night and came home at three A.M. She told me I needed to stop. I--" He grimaces. Sighs. "I grabbed her by the arm, told her to mind her own business, and then I passed out on the couch. Woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon. Elaina was cooking breakfast, taking care of me like she always did, as though nothing had happened. But something had happened. She was wearing this sleeveless comfort-shirt she liked, and she had a bunch of bruises on her arm. Bruises from where I'd grabbed her." He rests for a moment, gathering another few bushels. I wait, mesmerized. "That mom who ate her baby came around, of course. When she realized what she'd done, she . . . shrieked. I'm talking about a sound a human being shouldn't be able to make, Smoky. Like a monkey that'd been set on fire. She shrieked and once she started, she never stopped. Well, that's how I felt when I saw those bruises on that lovely woman's arm. I felt like shrieking. You understand?"

"Yes."

He turns to look at me.

"I quit the booze and I bounced back. Because of Elaina. There have been some other bad times, and I've always bounced back. Because of Elaina, always because of Elaina. She's . . . she's my most precious thing." He coughs once, a little self-conscious. "When she got sick last year, and that psycho targeted her, I was afraid, Smoky. Afraid of getting to a place where I needed her but she was gone. If that happened, I'd never make it back. It's all a balancing act, you know? Knowing how far I can go out, how much I can see, and still make it back to her. One day I'm going to say it's enough, and I hope I know when it's right." He smiles at me. It's a real smile, but it's too complex to be called "happy." "The answer to your question is that for now I'm here, but one day I won't be and I don't know when that day will come."

We pass through security, and are moving through reception when a fit, vibrant, thirtyish-looking blond woman with a bright smile places herself in front of us. She holds out a hand for me to shake. She almost crackles with confidence and energy.

"Agent Barrett? Kirby Mitchell."

I start, and then realize that it must be past five-thirty by now. I had forgotten.

Ah, yes, the killer, I want to say. Pleased to meet you--but should I end that with a question mark? Time will tell, I guess. Instead, I smile and shake her hand and give her a once-over. Kirby in person is a match for her phone voice. She's attractive and slender, perhaps five foot seven, with blond hair that may or may not belong to her, twinkling blue eyes, and a perpetual smile composed of over-bright teeth. She has the look of someone who spent her early twenties as a fun-loving beach bunny, hanging out with surfers, drinking beer next to bonfires, sleeping with guys as blond as she is and who smelled of seawater and surf wax and maybe a little bit of the Mary Jane. The kind of girl who was always ready to slip on a cocktail dress at five on a Friday. It would have been black and short and she would have danced till the place closed down. I had had friends like her, wildness in a bottle.

Except that she's a bodyguard, and per Tommy, an ex-killer. The disparity of these things both intrigues and concerns me.

"Pleased to meet you," I manage.

I introduce her to Alan.

She grins and punches him on the arm, playful. "Big guy! Do you find that a help or a hindrance? Doing your job, I mean?"

"Help, mostly," he replies, bemused. He rubs his arm where she hit him, a look of surprise on his face. "Hey, that hurt."

"Don't be a baby," Kirby says. She winks at me.

"We're heading to our offices," I say.

"Lead the way, FBI people."

The offices are empty. Everyone is occupied, doing the things I sent them off to do. Callie is processing the Langstrom home. James is probably dealing with Michael Kingsley's computer. It's been a day of sprinting, and it's not over yet.

Kirby continues to jabber away, and I watch her as we go through the offices. I realize that as she speaks, her eyes are roaming. Taking in the surroundings. They pause the longest on the whiteboard, and then move on, missing nothing.

I've seen eyes like hers before, on leopards or lions or the human versions thereof. They flicker like candles, seeming casual but seeing everything.

We all go into my office and sit down.

"So now that we're all friends," Kirby says, still perky, "let's talk about how I work. I'm very good, you should know that. I've never lost a client, and I don't plan to--knock on wood!" She raps my desk with a knuckle, grins. "I'm trained in surveillance, hand-to-hand combat, and I can use, gosh, just about anything when it comes to weapons."

She counts off on her fingers. "Knives, handguns, most automatic weapons. I'm okay as a sniper as long as it's not past four hundred yards. The usual." Another one of those twinkle-eyed smiles. " 'Mess with the best, die like the rest,' silly, I know, but I just love that saying, don't you?"

"Uh, sure," I reply.

"I have one rule." She waggles a finger at me, a good-natured warning. "No leaving me out of the loop. I have to know everything to do my job. If you fudge on that, and I find out, then I'll have to quit. I'm not trying to be a meanie-beanie, that's just the way it has to be."

"I understand," I say.

Meanie-beanie?

"Okay." She continues talking, a juggernaut of words. Kirby is like a freight train. Hop on board or get rolled over, the choice is yours.

"Now, I know you're probably looking at me and thinking, 'Who is this airhead?' Tommy's an honest kind of guy--cute too"--she winks at me, conspiratorial--"so I'm sure he felt he just had to mention that I maybe, allegedly, might have killed some people in the past for the military-industrial complex. And you're looking at that, and then you're looking at this." She indicates the whole of herself with a sweeping gesture. "And you're thinking, maybe she's a wack-a-doodle, am I right?"

"Maybe a little," I admit.

She smiles. "Well, this is just who I am. I'm a California girl, always have been, always will be. I like my hair blond, I like two-piece bikinis, and I love the smell of the ocean." She shimmies in her chair. "And I love to dance!" Another multi-kilowatt smile. "I have what they called on my psych eval 'an overdeveloped ability to assign certain human beings to the category of other.' The average person isn't built to kill, you see. It's not a part of the makeup. But we have to kill, all the time. Soldiers have to. SWAT snipers have to." She nods once, toward me.

"You have to. So what to do, what to do, problems, problems. The answer is: We decide that they are other. They aren't like us, maybe they aren't really human, whatever. Once that's done--and this is something the psychological and military communities have known for a long time--they're a lot easier to kill, let me tell you." Another perky smile, but this time she doesn't let it reach her eyes. I think she's doing this on purpose, to show me the killer she keeps inside. "I'm not a psycho. I don't get all jolly about blowing people away, I'm not into all that 'guts to grease the treads of our tanks' stuff." She laughs as though this idea is the silliest thing ever, ho ho ho. "Nope, it's just really easy for me to decide who the enemy is, and hey, once that's done, they're not a member of my club anymore, you know?"

"Yes," I reply. "I do."

"Coolness." The Kirby-train rushes on. She talks in waves, in a way that makes it impossible to get a word in without interrupting her.

"Now, as far as the resume goes, I have a degree in abnormal psych, and I speak fluent Spanish. I was in the CIA for five years, and the NSA for six. I spent a lot of time in Central and South America doing, ummmmm, odd jobs." Another conspiratorial wink, which gives me a little bit of a chill. "Got bored and quit--and gosh, was that hard. I could tell you some stories. Those intel agency guys really take themselves seriously. They didn't want to let me go." She smiles and again it doesn't quite bleed into her eyes. "I convinced 'em."

Alan raises a single eyebrow, but says nothing.

"So--where was I? Oh yeah: I got out and spent a few months wrapping up some old business. A couple of really icky guys from Central America were bugging me. They thought I was still working for the NSA." She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Some men never learn the meaning of the word no. It was almost enough to make me swear off Latin men--but not quite!" She laughs, and I find myself smiling against my will at this dangerous pixie of a woman. "I spent about six months beaching-out, got even more bored, and decided it might be fun to go into the private sector. It pays a lot better, let me tell you. I still get to shoot people every now and then, and I can make it to the beach in between jobs." She spreads her arms in a "ta-dah"

gesture. "And that's the story of little old me." She leans forward.

"Now let's hear about the client and the cuckoo-bird that's after her."

With a last glance at Alan, who sends me a subtle shrug, I launch into the story of Sarah Langstrom and The Stranger. Kirby focuses on me with those leopard eyes, listening with intensity, nodding to let me know that she's hearing what I'm saying.

I finish and she sits back, thinking, tapping her fingers on the chair. She smiles.

"Okay, I think I have the picture." She turns to Alan. "So, how are you going to feel about having me at your home, big man?" Another playful punch to the arm. "More important, how is your wife going to feel?"

Alan doesn't answer right away. He fixes his gaze on Kirby, thoughtful. She bears this scrutiny without a seeming care in the world.

"You'll protect my wife and the girl?"

"With my life. Though geez, let's hope it doesn't come to that, huh?"

"And you're good?"

"Not the best there is, but darn close." Unending cheerfulness, the optimistic assassin.

Alan nods. "Then I'm glad to have you. And Elaina will be too."

"Coolness." She turns to me with the snapping-fingers look of someone remembering something they'd almost forgot. "Oh hey. I need to ask. If the cuckoo-bird does come calling--do you need him alive or dead?"

The smile doesn't falter. I look at this very dangerous woman and consider my answer. If I ask her, Kirby Mitchell will consign The Stranger to the category of "other." If he shows his face, she'll kill him with a smile and head off to the beach for a bonfire and some beer. I only hesitate because I understand; this is not a theoretical question she's posed.

Want me to kill him? Hey, no problem. I'll do that, and then we'll hit a club, drink some margaritas. Coolness.

"I'd prefer him alive," I say. "But keeping Elaina and Sarah safe is the priority."

It's a shitty, evasive answer. She takes it in stride.

"Gotcha. Now that that's settled, I'm going to head over to the hospital. I'll be there until tomorrow, and then we'll move her over to your place, big guy." She stands up. "Can one of you escort me out of here? And hey, can you believe all this rain?"

"I'll take you," Alan says.

She whirls out of the office, leaving me feeling like I've just been run over, but, somehow, in a good way.

I look at my watch. It's after six o'clock. Ellen, our in-house counsel, might still be here. I pick up the phone and dial her extension.

"Ellen Gardner," she answers. She sounds calm, unruffled. Ellen always sounds this way. It's just a little bit inhuman.

"Hi, Ellen, it's Smoky. I need a subpoena."

"Hold that thought," she answers without hesitation. "Let me get a notepad."

I picture Ellen, sitting behind her cherrywood lawyer's desk. She's an angular woman, made of up lines that are not so much severe as they are businesslike. She's in her mid-fifties, with brown hair that she keeps cut short (and dyed, I suppose--I've never seen a gray), and a tall, thin, almost boyish frame. Ellen is crisp and precise and all business--

a lawyer, in other words. I heard her laugh, once. It was a merry, unfettered sound that reminded me not to hold to stereotypes.

"Go ahead," she says.

I tell her everything, the big picture as well as the specifics of the Langstrom trust.

"So the lawyer says we need a subpoena to compel him," I finish.

"He says he'll cooperate as long as it 'legally sets aside his obligations to comply with the rules of privilege.' "

"Right," she replies. "That's where you have a problem."

"What?"

"There's no legal grounds for a subpoena to compel yet."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. At this moment, all you have is a closed case. A murder-suicide. Following that, you have an anonymous philanthropist who decides to set up a trust to care for the home and for Sarah. But there's no crime established yet, right?"

"Not officially," I admit.

"Okay. Next question: Is there any way to establish that the trust itself is an ongoing criminal enterprise? Does its existence assist, or was it set up to assist, in the commission of a crime or fraud?"

"That might be more difficult."

"Then you have a problem."

I chew my lip, thinking. "Ellen, the only information we really need is the name of the client. We need to know who he is. Does that help?"

"Gibbs is claiming privilege on that because the client requested confidentiality of identity?"

"That's right."

"That won't hold up. If you can prove it's probable the client has in formation vital to an ongoing investigation, I can get you that name."

"I gotcha."

"It has to be real, though. Start by finding something that changes the Langstroms' murder-suicide to good old-fashioned double murder. Once you have that, the trust becomes a logical avenue of investigation, and we can compel Gibbs to reveal the identity of his client."

The tone of her voice changes, friendlier, less crisp. "I'm giving it to you straight, Smoky. Gibbs might have seemed helpful, but that little phrase he dropped on you about 'legally setting aside his rules to comply with privilege'? It's a bear."

I want to argue, but I know it's a waste of time. Ellen is a solver. She thinks in the direction of how could we, not you can't because. If she's saying it, she's saying it because it's so. I sigh, resigned.

"Gotcha. I'll get back to you."

I hang up and dial Callie.

"Overworked Incorporated," she answers. "How can I help you?"

I smile.

"How is it going there?"

"Nothing to brag about yet, but we're taking it slow. We're still processing the front of the house."

I fill her in on the day from where our paths diverged. I begin with Gibbs, continue with Nicholson, and end with Ellen. She's quiet for a moment after I finish, digesting this.

"This has been quite the forty-eight hours, even for you."

"You can say that again."

"Well, call it quits then. Gene and I are here. James is off being dis agreeable somewhere. Bonnie is waiting at Alan and Elaina's. If you're not going to listen to me and get a dog, honey-love, then at least go home and see your daughter."

I smile again. Callie is Callie--she can almost always make me smile.

"Fine," I say. "But call me if you find anything."

"I kind of promise to maybe do that," she quips. "Now go away."

I hang up and sit back, closing my eyes for a moment. Callie's right. It's been an insane few days. Singing, blood-covered sixteenyear-olds. The terrible diary.

And the one that hits home, suddenly. My hands tremble against each other. I bite my lower lip, using the pain to fight back tears. A man killed himself in front of me today, Matt. Looked at me, spoke to me, and then put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. His blood was on my face.

I didn't know Dave Nicholson. It didn't matter. He wasn't in that category that Kirby had talked about. He wasn't "other." He was one of us, all human, and I can't help mourning him.

I hear footsteps on the carpet, and I swipe my hand across my eyes. A knock, and Alan pokes his head in.

"I got your friendly neighborhood killer off to her car."

"How does home sound? At least for a little while?"

He thinks about it. Sighs.

"For a little while, yeah. That's a great idea."

41

I TOLD ALAN I'D MEET HIM AT HIS HOUSE; I HAVE ONE OTHER stop to make.

I drive to the hospital through more rain, and that's fine, because I'm raining inside. It's nothing heavy, just a light but continuous drizzle. This is a part of the job, I reflect. The internal weather. Home and family is sunshine, most of the time. Work is almost always rain. Sometimes it's thunder and lightning, sometimes it's just a drizzle, but it's always rain.

I realized some time ago that I don't love my job. It's not that I dislike it--far from it. But it's not something to love. It's something to do because you have to. Because it's in your blood. Good, bad, or indifferent, you do it because you don't have a choice. Except now you do have a choice, don't you? Maybe there's more sunshine to be found at Quantico, yes?

Even so.

I reach the hospital parking lot and park and resolve, as I race through the rain to the front doors, to be quick. It's almost seven o'clock, and I feel the need for a heavy dose of Elaina and Bonnie. Some sunshine.

When I get to the room, Kirby is there, sitting in a chair outside the door, reading one of those trashy gossip tabloids. She looks up at the sound of my footsteps. Those leopard eyes flash for a moment before she hides them behind a twinkle and a smile.

"Hey, boss-woman," she says.

"Hi, Kirby. How is she?"

"I introduced myself. I had to do some talking, let me tell you. She wanted to be sure I could kill things. I had to convince her, or she wanted me gone. I convinced her."

"Okay."

"Good" or "Great" doesn't seem appropriate.

"That's a fucked-up child, Smoky Barrett," Kirby says. Her voice is soft, cozened perhaps by a hint of regret. It's a new sound, and it makes me consider her in a new light.

Kirby seems to sense this. She smiles and shrugs. "I like her." She turns back to her paper. "Go on in. I need to find out what's happening with Prince William. I'd jump his royal bones in a heartbeat."

This yanks a grin from me. I open the door and enter the room. Sarah's lying in bed, looking through the window. I don't see evidence of any books, and the TV's off. I wonder if this is all she does all day, if she just lies here and stares out at the parking lot. She turns to see me as I come in.

"Hi," she says, and smiles.

"Hi yourself," I reply, smiling back.

Sarah has a good smile. It's not pure like it should be--she's been through too much--but it gives me hope. It shows that she's still herself inside. I pull up a chair next to her bed and sit down.

"So what do you think about Kirby?" I ask.

"She's . . . different."

I grin at this. It's a concise and perfect description.

"Do you like her?"

"Sure, I guess. I like that she's not afraid of anything, and that she chooses to do this kind of thing. You know--dangerous stuff. She told me not to feel guilty if she gets killed."