The truth was, the room had never been used for anything more than an occasional hand of poker when the late shift got bored. Until now, anyway.
Andy decided it was high time the conference room was actually used for something remotely resembling police work, and since both the usual investigatory methods and Scott and Jennifer’s work were beginning to pile up paper they needed to keep handy and in some kind of order, it seemed logical to use that space. So Andy commandeered the room and within a couple of hours that morning had efficiently shifted the bulk of the files and other paperwork on the investigation from various desks in the bullpen to the conference room.
The room had at least been set up to facilitate such a move, so it was a simple task to have the switchboard reroute relevant calls to the multiline phones in there, and Andy pretty much rerouted himself to the room on a semipermanent basis.
“We also have a bit more privacy in here,” he told Scott and Jennifer when they gathered there shortly before lunchtime. “I won’t declare this room off limits to those not actively involved in the investigation, but I will make it known that anything in here is to be considered confidential.”
Jennifer shifted a cinnamon toothpick to the other side of her mouth and said, “And by doing so we can hope that they won’t think we’re nuts or, if they do, that they won’t talk about how nuts we are.”
Andy shook his head. “I doubt anybody’s going to think we’re completely nuts, not with this.” He nodded toward the bulletin board they had just finished setting up. “We have sketches, photos, or descriptions of four victims in 1934 closely matching four of our victims. That has to be more than coincidence, and it has to mean something.”
“Yeah, but what?” Scott wondered.
“That’s what we have to determine. Which means we’ll use every source we can until we figure it out.”
“Does that mean you’re telling Garrett about this?” Jennifer asked.
“Yeah. Drummond insisted we keep some of the crime-scene and victim details confidential, but he didn’t say a damned thing about our speculation and lines of research. Garrett’s smart, and he has sources we can use. So I’m telling him. Maggie too. I’ll try to get them both in here this afternoon.”
Jennifer tapped the folded newspaper lying on the table before her. “Well, since Garrett got his picture in the paper today and the reporters are hotly speculating that he’s assisting the police because of his sister being a victim, I imagine you’ll be hearing from an unhappy Luke any time now.”
Andy sighed. “Yeah, I know. What the hell was I doing letting a civilian into the Mitchell house when our forensics team was still working there, for Christ’s sake. I know what he’ll say. And if he doesn’t like the way I’m running this investigation, he can run it himself.”
Jennifer grinned. “Aw, he won’t want to do that. Might ruin his nice manicure or get blood on his shoes. If you lean on your acting talents and make like you want to dump it all in his lap, he’ll probably make himself scarce for at least the rest of the week.”
“It’s a thought,” Andy said, brightening.
Scott laughed, but said, “Well, we should have plenty to keep us busy. Even running into dead ends takes time.”
“No sign of the rest of the files from 1934?” Andy asked.
“Nope. But I haven’t stopped looking. If the damned things exist, I’ll find them.”
“In the meantime,” Jennifer said, looking at Andy, “anything new in the search for Samantha Mitchell? Since we’ve been in here trying to get organized this morning, I hadn’t heard.”
“No, nothing new. I’ve got teams out canvassing the neighborhood and every patrol in the city keeping their eyes peeled for that lady. It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth.”
“What about Maggie’s hunch? Did forensics get anything from the Mitchell’s game room?”
“A couple of things, yeah. They picked up chemical traces of chloroform on one spot in the carpet not too far from the door, as well as a few strands of Mrs. Mitchell’s hair. And there are some very faint signs that he got into that room through a window. There was a short in the security net that the system didn’t pick up for some reason.”
“A short he caused?” Scott wondered.
“Could be. The really interesting thing is that Mitchell insists his wife never—but never—stayed alone in the house without having the system on. So if the attacker knocked her out with chloroform—”
“Then who deactivated the system at the front door?” Jennifer finished.
Andy nodded. “Exactly. It was deactivated at the control panel by the front door, so he either knew or was somehow able to obtain the security code. And it wasn’t one even a hacker could figure out just by using the predictable numbers—phone numbers, anniversaries or birthdays, and so on. Our resident electronics wizard says our guy is either very, very good or very, very lucky.”
Jennifer said, “And since we already know he beat a top-notch system in order to snatch Laura Hughes, we can assume he’s very, very good.”
“That would probably be a safe assumption.”
Scott said, “How come Maggie tumbled to it being the game room Samantha Mitchell was abducted from? I mean, how come our guys missed it the first time through?”
“I asked them that,” Andy said. “They had lots of reasons, but what it all boiled down to is that they concentrated on the expected points of entry like the front and back doors. Needless to say, they won’t make that mistake again.”
Jennifer smiled slightly. “I’ll bet. You can tear the bark off a tree with that temper of yours when you’re really pissed, Andy.”
“I was really pissed.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Scott said plaintively, “But how did Maggie know?”
“Instinct,” Andy answered promptly. “And she’s got enough sense to check the unexpected as well as the expected. Just like you two. Keep it up, will you?”
Scott nodded, faint puzzlement still lingering on his face.
Andy decided he’d make a lousy poker player.
Jennifer said, “The other victims were found within forty-eight hours of being abducted, so if it is our guy, we should know something by tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Andy said. “Question is, will Samantha Mitchell be a living victim or a dead one?”
To say Maggie hadn’t slept well was an understatement, and she was feeling unusually raw and edgy when she went to Beau’s house on Tuesday morning. She let herself in and made her way to the studio, calling out hello as she went.
Beau glanced up from the portrait he was working on and said immediately, “Have some coffee.”
The pot was already on the worktable, along with two cups and the milk Maggie preferred.
“So you knew I was coming,” she muttered, pouring herself a cup and sitting down.
“I thought you might be, yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Call it a hunch.”
“Goddammit, Beau!”
He smiled slightly. “Okay, it was more than a hunch.”
“I could really dislike you sometimes, you know that?”
“I know. I’m sorry, Maggie.”
She sat in silence for some minutes, drinking her coffee and watching him paint. Then she sighed a bit raggedly. “She’s dead, Beau. Samantha Mitchell is dead. And her baby with her.”
He paused to wipe off one of his brushes, gazing at her soberly. “I’m sorry about that too. Have they found her body yet?”
“No. But they will.”
“When?”
“You tell me.” She stared at him challengingly.
He returned to his painting but after a moment said, “Tomorrow, I think. Early tomorrow. Or maybe late tonight. Hard to tell.”
“Do you know where?”
Beau was silent.
“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she’s not dead yet. If we could find her as soon as possible—”
“It wouldn’t make
any difference,” he said softly. “She’s dead already, Maggie. You know she’s dead already.”
Maggie knew, but she’d been hoping . . . After a long moment, she said, “Yesterday at her house, while I was walking through, I felt her. And when he grabbed her . . . she was so scared. So scared. For herself. For her baby. She knew neither one of them would survive. From the instant he grabbed her, she knew.”
Beau painted for a moment, then asked, “Did she know who he was?”
“The same way I know who he is. Not a face, not a name. Just evil. Just evil alive and walking around pretending to be human. I have to stop him. I have to.”
“Yes.”
“And there isn’t much time left. I feel that too.
More and more with every day that passes. If I don’t stop him soon, it’ll be too late. It’s my last chance, Beau.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
She laughed without humor. “If you did know, would you tell me?”
“Probably not.”
“Free will again.”
“Yes. Free will.” Leaving his painting finally, Beau cleaned his brushes and palette, then fixed himself a cup of coffee and joined her. “You’re doing the best you can, Maggie. It’s all you can ask of yourself.”
“It isn’t enough.”
“It will be. Trust yourself. Trust your abilities and your instincts.”
She looked at him steadily. “Yesterday was a real . . . bitch of a day. First interviewing Hollis and then walking through the Mitchell house. And it got worse. It actually got worse. I painted something last night. I closed my eyes and cleared my mind the way you told me to, and I painted something horrible. It was inside me, Beau. That image, dark and bloody, was in my head, a part of my soul. I could almost . . . feel her die.”
He didn’t look surprised and merely nodded. “I told you it would probably happen.”
“Not like that. You didn’t tell me it would be like that.”
“You’re an artist, you think—and feel—in images. It’s natural.”
“Natural? What’s natural about painting the corpse of a tortured, mutilated woman? A woman I’ve never met, never even seen?”
His voice remained calm. “You have to try to distance yourself, Maggie, or this is going to destroy you.”
She drew a breath and struggled to keep her voice level. “I told you once before that I was afraid. It’s . . . blinding me, I think. I don’t know what to do next.”
Beau hesitated, then said, “It isn’t your fight alone, you have to remember that. Stop trying to do it all yourself, Maggie. Let them help you. Let him help you.”
After a moment, Maggie nodded. “I’ll try.” She pushed her cup away and got to her feet.
Gazing into his coffee cup, Beau said almost absently, “You might want to show Garrett the painting.”
Just the idea made Maggie feel even more raw. “Why? Why should I show him . . . that . . . in me?”
“Call it a hunch,” Beau said.
“. . . So that’s what we have so far.” Quentin frowned at the stacks of papers and files spread out on the conference table in the parlor, then looked at Maggie again. “Not a whole hell of a lot, but probably as much as the investigating officers.”
Kendra said, “He didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
Quentin lifted his brows. “How did it sound?”
“Arrogant,” she explained. “We’ve only been here a few days, and we’re claiming to have as much info as the cops who’ve been on the case for months. Use your head, Quentin.”
“You’re a lot more fun when you’re typing something,” he told her.
“And you wouldn’t rattle on like this if you didn’t have a dozen cups of coffee in your system. I keep telling you, caffeine is not your friend.”
“I am not wired.”
“Want me to point out how many times you paced the length of the table while you talked?”
John said, “Ignore the byplay. Apparently, it’s their way of working together.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Maggie said. She was sitting at the far end of the conference table near the windows, chin in hand. “But could we call a truce, guys? Andy wants John and me back at the station this afternoon, and it’d be nice if I got all this clear in my mind so I’ll have my story straight just in case any awkward little questions come up.”
Quentin grinned at her. “Walking both sides of the street beginning to bug you?”
“Let’s just say I’d feel a lot happier if Andy, at least, was in on this parallel investigation of ours. For one thing—” She broke off, wondering irritably if she had any hope at all of keeping things straight.
“For one thing,” John finished calmly, “he and his detectives do have—or think they have—something new. Something he’s told neither you nor me.”
Maggie looked at him. “So you caught that?”
“For a cop, Andy has a very readable face. Either that, or he wanted both of us to guess there was something and press him to find out what it is.”
She thought about it, then nodded slowly. “Maybe. Without Luke Drummond holding him on a leash, I think Andy would use just about any resource he could get his hands on to cage this animal.”
Quentin said, “So given his druthers, he’d grant you two complete access?”
“I think so, yeah. As a matter of fact, I don’t think he’d have too much of a problem with a couple of FBI agents working quietly behind the scenes to help.”
“He wouldn’t think we were stepping on his toes?”
Maggie shook her head immediately. “Not Andy. Unlike Drummond, Andy’s not the least bit political, and he doesn’t give a damn who breaks a case or gets the credit for it, just as long as the bad guys get put away. He’s a cop to his bones.”
“The best kind,” Quentin said.
“Yeah. Which is why I don’t think he’d protest too much if he found out about you two. With Drummond breathing down his neck and hell-bent not to call in outside help, the fact that you guys are here unofficially is all to the good, as far as Andy’s concerned.”
John said, “And if Drummond does somehow find out, I’ll take the flak. He’s already pissed at my interference, and today’s newspapers won’t make him any happier. I might as well make him good and mad while I’m at it. He can get royally pissed at me for acting without authority and he won’t have to blame any of his people for going behind his back.”
Quentin glanced at his partner, then said to John, “It’s up to you two, of course, but if this detective is likely to be open to our involvement, we say let’s tell him. In all honesty we’d prefer at least one cop on the inside and in a position of authority to know we’re involved. It would certainly make sharing information easier and more profitable—and it’ll undoubtedly make our little jaunt out here more palatable to Bishop.”
Maggie frowned slightly. “Bishop?”
“Our boss,” Quentin explained. “Bishop leads our unit at Quantico.”
If anything, Maggie’s frown deepened. She studied Quentin for a moment, then turned her gaze to Kendra. Abruptly, she asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be psychic too, would you?”
Without a blink or a hesitation, Kendra said, “What I am we usually term ‘adept,’ used more to mean skilled than expert. I’m very mildly telepathic, but I tend to be able to pick up more from objects than people.”
“And this unit of yours is entirely made up of . . . adepts?”
Quentin also didn’t hesitate. “More or less. We have some support people who barely qualify as adepts, but most of the field agents are. Varying abilities and strengths. We use our abilities as just another tool to investigate crimes. Needless to say, it’s something we generally keep quiet about, at least publicly.”
Kendra murmured, “You understand why, of course.”
Maggie smiled. “Oh, of course. It’s not exactly something the Bureau would want to advertise, especi
ally with its other public-relations nightmares of recent years.”
“Exactly.”
“And then there’s the whole believability factor. Telepathy? Precognition? Not what they usually teach in Criminal Investigation Techniques 101. You’re not just using unscientific methods, you’re practically out in the ether.”
Quentin grinned. “Sometimes even further out. One day I’ll have to introduce you to a young medium we know—who talks to the dead.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“She’s convincing, believe me. But for now, yes, traditional cops tend to frown on what they don’t understand, even with a solid success record like ours. So even though we’re billed as using ‘unconventional investigative methods,’ we tend to stick to traditional police work as much as possible.”
“Mmm. So you generally pretend to be conventional agents with . . . a few lucky breaks and a little intuition? I’ll bet you guys have a hell of a time coming up with reasonable explanations for how you know the things you know.”
“It can be challenging,” Quentin admitted.
“Yes, I imagine it can. And you’re letting me in on it because I am—presumably—psychic as well?”
“We wanted all our cards on the table,” Kendra said. “In our experience, psychics outside our unit become much more comfortable working with us once they understand that we understand what they’ve been going through.”
Maggie glanced at John, who was expressionless, then lifted a brow at Kendra. “And do you understand?”
“Frankly, you’re a bit outside even our experience, Maggie. We have an empath in the unit, but he’s nothing like as strong as you seem to be.”
“Or as . . . uniquely focused,” Quentin added. “Is it only violent experiences you pick up on?”
Unlike the two of them, Maggie did hesitate before replying, but finally shrugged and said, “That’s strongest, maybe because that’s where I’ve had to concentrate all these years. Places where violent events have happened, people who’ve experienced trauma and violence. I can usually sense other emotions when I try, but more dimly, and they don’t . . . affect me . . . the way violence and pain do.”