Every Wicked Man

by Steven James

  Since there was so much going on with the case today, I’d brought my phone along. Although it was silenced, I saw the screen light up with an incoming request from Calvin for a video chat.

  I ignored it.

  Christie continued. “She didn’t stop holding my arm until the show was over and she went to her room to play, and I heard her reassuring her teddy bear, Francesca, ‘They helped the baby find her mommy again.’ I hope she doesn’t remember me lying to her, but if she does, I hope she’ll forgive me.”

  The cell went still.

  “Sometimes a lie is a gift?” I ventured, trying to discern where she was going with this.

  “Sometimes keeping the truth from someone can be a way to show them love.”

  “But the truth is always the greater gift,” I said. “I mean, right?”

  She silently stared at her wineglass.

  “Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” I asked at last. “Did I say something that hurt you?”

  “No, you didn’t. Not at all.”

  My phone’s screen lit up.

  Calvin again.

  Maybe he found the Matchmaker.

  “You can answer that, Pat,” Christie said.

  “I don’t want it to distract us from tonight, from being together.”

  “I know. But it’s okay. Take it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “It’s okay. Really.”

  I finger-swiped the screen to accept the call.

  “Hello, my boy. I might have something for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Matchmaker.” He gave me an address in the Bronx.

  “How did you find this out?”

  “Targeted inquiry,” he said, as if that explained everything. “He’ll disappear if you bring a large police presence. We’ll go in quietly. And we must be ready for anything.”

  “We? No, not we. Just me.”

  Silence.

  “Calvin?”

  I repeated his name again but then realized he’d ended the call.

  I stared at the phone.

  Get there and dissuade him.

  “What is it?” Christie asked.

  “I think I need to go. Is that alright?”

  “Of course. I’d feel guilty if I even tried to keep you here. I’ll bring your meal home.”

  “We can pick this conversation up later. Truth. Lies. Love. The greatest gift.”

  “Of course.”

  After kissing her good-bye, I left the restaurant.

  * * *

  +++

  Christie watched him go.

  She hadn’t thought of the turtles or that polar bear cub in years, and now, the more she did, the more she realized that what Pat had said at first was probably true—sometimes a lie is a gift.

  And her response felt true as well: Whether people forgive us or not, at times, keeping the truth from them might be the most powerful way to show our love for them.

  Maybe Pat and Tessa didn’t need to know about the cancer after all. Maybe silence about her condition would be the best way for her to extend her love to them. What right did she have to steal their happiness from them by telling them such tragic news? Silence was a gift she could give, a gift they deserved. Whether they eventually forgave her or not wasn’t her main concern—whether or not she could serve them now, was.

  * * *

  +++

  In the bathroom, Sasha put a finger down her throat and forced herself to vomit up whatever she’d been drugged with. Rinsing the taste of vomit out of her mouth was difficult, but she did the best she could before she left the restroom to meet with Blake again.

  54

  Timothy finished reading about Emily and, a bit self-consciously, accepted the applause of the audience at the bookstore.

  They’d been entertained by Emily’s struggles.

  By her pain.

  Of course they had. That was what they’d come here to listen to: artfully chronicled accounts of suffering.

  In one of the paradoxes of art, people only want to read books about characters who go through the kind of troubles they themselves would never want to experience in real life. Nobody wants to read a story in which everything goes right, and nobody wants to live a life in which everything goes wrong.

  It’s the predicament of every author. No aspect of life is immune from being picked over for a plot point, a character quirk, a description, the seed of a scene. Pain is material. You become a voyeur on suffering and make a living by re-creating it for others.

  And you cannot help but feel when you do that. You cannot help but identify with the pain the characters experience.

  Now, as Timothy was thinking of Emily’s suffering, he looked across the faces of the people in attendance and saw Miranda Walsh, the young graduate student who’d disappeared six months ago on the night of his last book signing.

  No. It can’t be.

  But there she stood—her blonde hair curling down and landing so gently on her shoulders, her clear innocent eyes, her gentle-shy smile. She was—

  She’s gone!

  Yet there she was.

  The woman he had cared about.

  The woman he had loved.

  And as she opened her mouth, her eyes rolled back and turned ghostly white. And then the dark blood began to seep from her slit throat, oozing down across her lemon-colored dress, leaving behind deep and terrifying stains that would never come out. The crimson evidence of a terrible death at the hands of a terrible man.

  There she was.

  And then she wasn’t.

  He blinked and blinked and she didn’t return.

  You’re seeing things again, Timothy! You’re losing it!

  He tried to pretend that he hadn’t just seen what he had, tried to pretend that everything was fine and he was still in control control control.

  He scratched at the wretched bugs skittering underneath the turtleneck and across his arm.

  Rebekah stood, enthusiastically thanked him for reading, and then announced that it was time for the Q and A.

  “Anyone have any questions?” she asked brightly. “It’s not every night you get to ask a world-famous novelist about his stories or how he comes up with them.”

  * * *

  +++

  “Was there something in my water?” Sasha said to Blake, pretending that she was still feeling woozy. “The water that guy in the car gave me?”

  “Just something to help you relax.”

  “You drugged me?”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Oh really? Then tell me what’s going on here.”

  “When someone lies, certain physiological changes come over her. I just gave you something that enhances those, that makes it easier for me to tell if you’re holding something back from me. If you’re not being honest.”

  Of course, as a DEA agent, she knew about drugs like that—ones that heighten pupil dilation, ectodermal response, heart rate, respiration. But as an escort, she needed to pretend that she wasn’t familiar with what he was talking about.

  “Why would you think I’m going to lie?”

  “I have to be careful who I trust. There are consequences for betrayals. And the more intimate the betrayal, the more severe those consequences must inevitably be.”

  She leaned a hand against the wall to feign losing her balance. “I don’t want you to take advantage of me.”

  “And I don’t want you to take advantage of me.” He placed her hand in his and slid two fingers down her wrist to check her pulse. “Your heart, it’s racing.”

  “It must be what you gave me.”

  “Did you betray me, Sasha?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Did you tell someone about the condo? That I
was using it?”

  “Who would I tell about that?”

  “And see, that’s not a direct answer. That doesn’t engender my trust in what you have to say.”

  She pulled away from him. “I want to leave.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment. As you can see, your driver is gone. There’s no car outside.”

  Where is backup? Where is Greer?

  Blake approached her, and she swiftly drew her weapon. “Easy there, cowboy.”

  “Aren’t you full of surprises.”

  “I want to leave.”

  “You can keep your gun out if it makes you feel safe.”

  “Actually, it does.”

  “Let me show you around the grounds.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I want you to know what’s going to happen here.”

  Why is he doing this? A stall? To set you up for an ambush?

  “Don’t try anything.” She was still playing the role of an escort. “You don’t drug a girl and then just pretend that everything is fine. Something’s wrong with you.”

  “Please.” He gestured toward the door.

  Well, stalling would work to her advantage rather than his.

  “After you,” she said, keeping the Ruger carefully pointed at his head.

  * * *

  +++

  To Tessa, so many of the questions people were asking Timothy Sabian seemed sophomoric and lame: “What’s a typical day like for you?” “Did you always want to be a writer?” “Where do you get your ideas from?”

  It was tiresome.

  She wanted to ask him the opposite of that last one, actually: how he kept ideas at bay—which would probably be a lot more legit of a problem for an artist. The issue almost certainly wasn’t one of coming up with ideas as much as knowing which ones to disregard. Wherever ideas come from, as a writer, sifting through them must be a lot tougher than coming up with them in the first place.

  Finally, after the Q and A was over, people lined up to get their books signed, and Tessa accidentally-on-purpose found her way to the back of the line.

  Although Timothy looked a bit ill-at-ease doing so, he took time to speak with each of the people as he signed the books they handed him. As a result, the line moved slowly, but it was a good kind of slow because it showed he cared about the fans who’d come to see him.

  There were just two people in front of Tessa when Rebekah snuck out from behind the register and came toward her, looking overwhelmed and tense. “Tessa, I’m out of ones. Why did everyone suddenly decide to pay in cash tonight? It’s crazy. Could you go grab some more for me from the back room? That would be awesome.”

  “Oh. Yeah, sure. No problem.”

  Tessa passed through the aisle of books by authors Q–R and opened the door to the part-office, part-workroom, part-storage area in the back of the bookstore near the exit.

  A waist-high pile of books on the left waited to be shelved. Ahead of her, a desk and scribble-covered wall calendar. To her right, a mini-fridge where Rebekah and the other two people who worked here kept their lunches and drinks.

  Usually, Rebekah stored extra money in a shoebox on a shelf above the desk, tucked behind a collection of books claiming to know who Jack the Ripper really was. It was the closest thing the Mystorium had to a safe.

  Tessa opened the box and found it bereft of ones, with only a dozen or so fives and three twenties. She returned it to the shelf and repositioned the Ripperology books in front of it to keep it hidden.

  She’d never known the staff to put money anywhere else, but maybe Rebekah had a new system in place.

  Okay, where else would they keep their cash?

  She started with the desk drawers. The first one, nothing. Just a few papers. The one below it, envelopes. She was about to close it when the door to the workroom opened, and she turned and found herself looking into the eyes of Timothy Sabian.

  55

  Timothy hadn’t meant to startle the girl in the office, but by the way she gasped and by the look on her face, he must’ve really scared her.

  He held up both hands in a disarming gesture. “Sorry, didn’t mean to burst in on you like that. You must be Tessa.”

  She looked at him warily. “How do you know that?”

  “Rebekah sent me. Told me she forgot to tell you where the money was.” He did his best to smile in a reassuring way. “They moved it.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  He gestured toward the desk. “Do you mind?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  He entered and stepped around her, letting the door close of its own accord behind him.

  And that’s when he noticed the ceramic Mystery Writers of America mug beside the computer monitor on the desk. It contained a clutch of pens and pencils. A highlighter. Two markers. And a letter opener—silver and sharp and capering there in the light.

  He heard the voice tempt him to pick it up: You’re back here alone. You could take care of things. Take the money to Rebekah and no one would know. No one would find out.

  “Yes, they would,” he muttered.

  “Who would what?” Tessa said.

  “No, I just . . . Never mind.”

  She suspects something. You can’t let her leave now.

  “I have to!” he exclaimed. “I’m not going to hurt anyone!”

  Tessa edged closer to her purse, which she’d set on the office chair. “Why would you hurt anyone?”

  “I’m sorry, no.” He stumbled for the right thing to say. “I need to leave.”

  * * *

  +++

  Okay, at this point the guy was seriously weirding her out, but oddly enough, Tessa got the sense that he was more frightened than she was.

  As she was sorting through whether to say something to him or just take off, she heard shouting coming from beyond the door in the main part of the bookstore.

  “Where is he?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Who?” Rebekah asked.

  “Timothy Sabian.”

  Tessa edged the door open and peeked out. A desperate-looking, disheveled, middle-aged woman stood near Rebekah with her hand suspiciously stuffed into her purse.

  From living with Patrick this long, Tessa had learned that a hidden hand is a bad sign since it might very well conceal a weapon—especially if it’s in a situation when you would expect the hand to remain visible.

  She’s reaching for something. Pepper spray? A gun?

  “He left already,” Rebekah told her.

  “No! I know he’s here. He’s supposed to be here!”

  The woman started searching the store.

  Something’s really wrong with her. You need to get him out of here.

  Tessa urgently asked Timothy, “Did you leave anything out there?”

  “Just the journal I was reading from.”

  “I’ll get it for you after you’re gone.” She took his hand. “Follow me.” Quickly and quietly, she led him toward the back exit.

  Behind them, she heard the woman shrieking, “He killed my daughter. He killed her! That detective told me his name. Where is he?”

  Tessa threw the back door open, and she and Timothy escaped into the night.

  “What was that all about back there?” She was filled with a disorienting rush of nerves and adrenaline. “What did she mean by that stuff about you killing her daughter?”

  “I didn’t. I swear.”

  “But you do know what she’s talking about.”

  “A young lady disappeared after my last signing. That woman must think I had something to do with that. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I would never hurt anyone.”

  More shouts came from inside the bookstore.

  “You should get out of here,” Tessa told him.

  Spur-of-the-momently, she slipped
the church bulletin out of her book and scribbled her contact info on it, then handed it to him. “Drop me a note and tell me a snail mail address. I’ll send your journal to you.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, now go.”

  Timothy tucked something into her palm, thanked her effusively, and then hastened off into the night.

  Tessa looked down and found that he had given her a letter opener that she hadn’t even seen him holding.

  * * *

  +++

  “What are you planning to do with all these mannequins?” Sasha asked Blake.

  She still had her gun out, but Blake hadn’t made any move at her, and as far as she could tell, he still believed she was just an escort. Yes, perhaps an escort who’d given up the location of his condominium, but not an undercover agent.

  “They’re not just mannequins, Sasha. They’re a way to spread a message.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There are forces out there that have in mind to harm our country and destroy our way of life.”

  “Terrorists.”

  “That’s right. I want to protect us. And sometimes sacrifices need to be made in the service of the greater good.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Make a statement that will open up the pathway to a safer, more prosperous future for us all.”

  * * *

  +++

  I parked down the block from the address Calvin had given me.

  When I checked my messages, I saw that we’d received the cell records of the previous suicide victims. Although it might very well take hours to pore through them looking for connections to specific locations, I wondered if we could cut right to the chase.

  I tried Agent Collins, but she’d left the office for the day, so I put a call through to Angela Knight in the Cyber division at Headquarters in D.C. I’ve worked with her in the past, she knows me, and she always comes through when I’m in a pinch. I filled her in, then told her the address Calvin had passed along. “See if you can pinpoint any incoming or outgoing calls from that location from the previous suicide victims. Add Thomas Kewley to the mix.”