by Steven James
“Got it.”
“I’ll see you two tomorrow,” he muttered and walked off.
We had just under an hour before we needed to be at the stakeout. Lien-hua went to change and clean up. I called Tessa and left a message that I’d see her in the morning. Then I did a little more work analyzing the abduction locations, and before I knew it Lien-hua had returned and I was climbing into her car to head to Vanessa Mueller’s house.
54
Lien-hua pulled over to the curb, flipped off the headlights, and eased the car to a stop, leaving the keys in the ignition just in case we needed to get out of there fast. She had changed into a tailored green silk blouse. I told myself I shouldn’t be taking note of things like that, but I couldn’t help noticing that she was looking good.
Vanessa Mueller lived in a quaint two-story house with black trim and a wide porch. The house looked like a pale yellow dream in the moonlight. We sat staring at it for a few minutes. The light in the living room was on, and I could see Vanessa sitting on the couch watching television. Thankfully her home was an older design and had only a front door, making it easier to stake out—no rear exit to cover.
I heard the keys jangle as Lien-hua bumped them reaching for her coffee. She cleared her throat slightly. “So, you have a daughter.”
I was momentarily confused. I couldn’t remember telling her that I had a daughter . . . oh yeah, Ralph had asked why I wasn’t picking her up at the airport. “Stepdaughter, actually. Yeah. She’s seventeen. Her name is Tessa.”
“What’s she like?”
“Well, she’s smart, street-smart. A survivor. She’s tough.”
“Tough? Anything else?”
“Um . . . she likes to wear black.”
“Well, what does she like to do?”
I shifted in my seat. “I don’t know. Listen to music. Hang out with her friends.” Where are you going with this?
Lien-hua didn’t say anything for a few moments. Finally she added, “So you’re not too close then?”
I took in a long, slow breath. Man, Pat, she can read you like a book. “No. Not really.”
A short silence and then, “How did she handle her mother’s death?”
I began to fidget with my pen. “OK, I guess. We don’t talk about it much. So do you think Grolin’s going to show up?”
“Do you talk about it at all?”
I was beginning to regret volunteering for this stakeout. “Christie’s death was hard on both of us. Truth is, Tessa and I have never been all that close, and after her mom died, it just got worse—”
Suddenly I felt Lien-hua’s hand press gently against my left arm. It unnerved me and somehow comforted me, brought me back to the moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to . . . We don’t have to talk about—”
“No. It’s OK,” I said, but I wasn’t sure that it was.
She pulled her hand back, laid it on her thigh.
I took a slow breath. “One in every eight women in North America is diagnosed with breast cancer. Did you know that?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Neither did I. A year ago.” I could feel the familiar tightening in my chest, the desperate helpless feeling you get when you look back over your shoulder at something painful from your past; something that haunts you but is also a part of you. You try to run from it, but it’s always right there, breathing down your neck. It’s not true what they say. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Sometimes it just throws salt on them and laughs as you squirm.
“What about Tessa’s father?”
I shook my head. “She never met him. Christie was in college when she got pregnant. He took off when she told him the news. Never saw the guy again.”
I heard Lien-hua mumble a few words about him that I was surprised she knew.
“Yeah. My sentiments exactly.” I sipped at my coffee. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Ever married?”
“Just to my job.”
I tried to think of something fitting to say to that but couldn’t. I sipped the really bad coffee and almost had to spit it out. It tasted like hazelnut-flavored motor oil. I set it back down and decided to change the subject. “Work many stakeouts before?”
“Not so many.”
“How many?”
“Counting tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well. That would make one.”
I laughed a little. It felt nice.
She turned to face me. “You?”
“Lots in my early years when I was a detective in Milwaukee. I guess some people get used to them. I never really did. I’m too antsy. I hate sitting still. I always need to be doing something, solving something. I like stakeouts about as much as I like briefings.”
“But yet you volunteered for tonight.”
“Yes. I did.”
I looked out the window at Vanessa’s house. No change.
A car drove past us, and we watched its taillights shrink into the night. As they disappeared Lien-hua said, “I don’t think he’ll come.”
“Who?”
“Grolin. I don’t think he’s going to show.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah I think you might be right.” I peered at the quiet house. “So, what about you, Lien-hua. You know all about me, what’s your story?” It was an innocent question.
“Well, there’s not much to tell, I guess.” She tipped her coffee back, took a long, slow sip. “I graduated from Washington State University with a master’s degree in criminal science. Then I worked for a while as an officer in DC.”
Outside the windshield, the wind fluttered a handful of autumn leaves out of a tree above us and placed them gently onto the hood of the car.
“After a couple years, I applied at Quantico at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, did a two-year apprenticeship and, ta-da. Here I am.”
“Here you are,” I said. I was looking at her profile now in the dim light. The light from a nearby street lamp was slipping through the windshield and landing on her face, illuminating her chin, her lips, the gentle slope of her cheek.
She set down her cup and looked in my direction. I didn’t look away.
“It’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it?” she said.
No, not at all. Pretty stunning, in fact.
I caught myself. “What? Your story?”
“No, having to drink this coffee.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. Painfully bad.” I was still looking at her, but I managed to notice the wind nudge the leaves off the hood and drop them onto the road.
We both looked away from each other.
“So you climb, then?” she said.
“A little. You?”
“No, never had the chance. Mostly for me it’s kickboxing.”
“Kickboxing?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. I knew it was something like that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I’m not sure exactly how to say this . . . but . . .”—Oh, go ahead, just say it—“your physique, presence, the way you move. At first I figured you for either a dancer or a gymnast.”
“Physique?” She was grinning out of the side of her mouth.
Oh boy. “I meant it as a compliment.”
“You’re not supposed to notice things like that.”
I smiled. “I’m paid to notice everything.” It seemed suggestive when I heard myself say it, but I didn’t intend it that way.
She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “So I’ve heard.” She located the cup resting beside her leg, lifted it, found it empty, set it back down. “You climb much?”
“Used to. I haven’t been to the crags in, well, a while.” I hesitated, because the last time I’d been climbing was with Christie. It didn’t feel right saying her name just then.
“Hmm,” she said noncommittally. “Miss it?”
“Yeah, I do. I miss her—it—I mean, yes
, I do miss it. Yes.” Only too late did I realize what I’d said, too late to take it back. Thankfully, for reasons I could only guess, Lien-hua decided to ignore it. She started telling me about some of the kickboxing tournaments she’d competed in. I cracked my window open, and a rush of frigid air poured into the car. We’d been sitting here awhile. The windows had started to steam up. I hadn’t realized how cold it was getting outside. In the car it seemed warm.
“Maybe we could go climbing sometime,” I offered. “When all this is done.”
She hesitated and then answered, “Maybe. When all this is done.”
“Unless there’s someone else you . . . ?” It was a way of asking if she had a boyfriend. She had to know it was. She had to read the subtext. She was too good at reading people not to.
She took a breath but didn’t answer. Hesitated. “There used to be,” she said at last.
A moment of quiet. There was more to the story. But I didn’t pursue it. I stared at the house again. The living room light blinked off.
55
A moment later the light in the upstairs bedroom flicked on. I saw Vanessa pacing behind the curtains, gesturing with her hand.
“She’s talking on the phone, you think?” asked Lien-hua.
“Looks like it.”
We watched her for a minute, and then the light went out. She was still in the room. Lien-hua picked up her walkie-talkie. “Subject stationary,” she said. “No intruders. Will update. Over.”
“I’m here if you need me,” Brent replied from the other end. “Over.”
I waited until she set the walkie-talkie down. “So, what else did Ralph tell you about my life?”
“Nothing much . . . But he didn’t have to.” She was being elusive. Slightly coy. I was beginning to wonder if she had volunteered for tonight just to be alone with me.
Oh. Wait. That’s right, I’d volunteered to be with her.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been aware of you. For a while.”
I smiled at her. “Aware of me?”
“Read your books. I heard you present a couple times at some conferences.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”
She shrugged. “Never came up.”
“So what did you think?”
“About?”
“The books. The conferences.”
“Are you fishing for a compliment, Dr. Bowers?”
I flushed a little and was thankful we were in the dark. “Of course.”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “your presentations are always thought-provoking and professional, your ideas well articulated . . .”
“But?”
“I’d give you a B.”
“Not even a B+?”
“Nope. Just a B. I don’t agree with your conclusions.”
“About profiling?”
“About people.”
“People?”
“Yes.”
Outside the car, a gust of wind sent a collection of leaves dancing, skittering down the road.
“What do you mean?”
She glanced in my direction. “You still haven’t guessed the last motive.”
I hesitated. “Are you trying to change the subject? What conclusions did you mean?”
“Trust me. Guess the missing motive.”
“OK, but we’re coming back to this. Let’s see. I’m running out of ideas here. OK, how about this—insanity. Madness. Some crimes are motivated by psychosis.”
She shook her head. “That’s not a motivation. That’s a condition. It precipitates certain behaviors, but it’s not what motivates them.”
“Depression?”
“That’s a condition too, a state of mind. It increases the likelihood of certain behaviors but doesn’t motivate them.”
The light in the bathroom went on, then a moment later went off.
I sighed. “I don’t know, Lien-hua. I give up.”
She was silent. I wasn’t sure if she was going to tell me what it was or not, and I had no idea what any of this had to do with my conclusions about people. My arm was getting cold. I rolled the window back up.
At last she turned in her seat so she could look directly at me. “We’re not just accumulations of choices, patterns, random chance, and mixed motives, Pat. Our movement through space and time isn’t just based on expediency, benefits, convenience, and comfort.”
In the building tension of the moment I could feel her breathing merging with mine, our hearts beginning to beat in sync with each other.
“So what is it? What’s the motive?”
Our eyes met. “It’s love, Pat. It changes everything. It’s the motive that you missed. It’s the root of all the others, the core of all we do. It’s the puzzle piece you always seem to overlook, the most important one of all.”
She didn’t say the next words, but I heard them as clearly as if she had. That’s why you don’t know your daughter. That’s why you won’t let go of your dead wife. Fear and love. The two most important motives. Love and fear, twisting together in your heart. My chest tightened, my pulse quickened. I felt defensive and on fire and helpless all at the same time, but it was also alluring to be understood by someone. She knew me in ways I didn’t know myself, yet she barely knew me at all. I was overwhelmed with the desire to touch her, to be with her, to hold her. I wanted her to be all that Christie was and more, but didn’t want to risk the pain all over again. And I didn’t want anyone to replace Christie; I wanted someone to complete me like Christie had, but in a new way. I wanted to love again, to trust again, but I didn’t know how. I was afraid to know how.
I was breathing faster.
Normally I know what to do and I do it, I don’t hesitate. I don’t second-guess. But in that moment I was fumbling around in the dark. Part of me was terrified. Part was in love. Maybe fear and love were just different sides of the same motive, looping through our lives. Sometimes enslaving us, sometimes setting us free. Fear and love. Love and fear. Wrestling. Beauty and death.
Lien-hua and Christie.
My throat tightened.
For a moment I forgot the real reason I was in this car with Lien-hua Jiang.
I waited like a fool, like a schoolboy, hoping she’d take my hand or place her palm on my knee or kiss me. Something, anything. Finally, after an eternity, I watched my hand reach over to brush a strand of hair away from her neck. Maybe I was just thinking it, imagining it, wanting it to happen.
My finger glanced across her skin.
No, I wasn’t just imagining it. It was happening. This was happening.
She watched me with quiet eyes. Didn’t do anything to stop me. The moment became everything, squeezing out the rest of the universe, sliding outside of time. The air we exhaled met in the space between us, intermingling. Kissing. Becoming one.
She let me trail my finger down her neck toward her shoulder. Her skin was tender and electric and alive. A cool glow slanted through the window. I saw the glistening light ease along her willowy throat, toward the top buttons of her blouse.
I was inhaling all the guilt and desire and longing and loss and fear from the last eight months, and it was too much for me. I hesitated, and in the beat of a heart, in the breath of a moment, everything changed. Somewhere between her words and my tentative touch, a chill settled into the space between us. With gentle precision, she leaned away from me and looked out the window. Time began again. I watched my hand drop out of sight onto the seat beside me. “I’m sorry . . .” I tried to say everything but ended up saying nothing. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“We can’t.” Her words carried a firm finality.
Awkwardly, I retrieved my hand. It landed on my lap with a thud, and I tried to fold my hands, but my fingers were as stiff as bricks. “I don’t know what I—”
“No. Don’t.” She cut me off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t say it. Please, don’t say anything else.” There weren’t barbs on her words, she wasn’t trying to hurt me or ev
en brush me off, but there was a chill wrapped around them. She had retreated into herself again. Into her shell. The night loomed around us.
I stared straight ahead at the house and beyond it. Inadvertently, I wiped my palms against my jeans. My heart wouldn’t stop hammering, my hand wouldn’t stop shaking. The finger that had touched her cheek was still on fire, tingling with the taste of her skin.
The moment stretched itself thin. I could sense Lien-hua’s heart beating, pulsing someplace beside me, finding its own rhythm again, its own unique tempo. Neither of us looked at each other.
“I’m sorry, Lien-hua.”
“Stop.” Then she took a deep breath that might have been a sigh. I couldn’t tell. “Please.”
I peered out the passenger-side window but couldn’t seem to find anything to focus my eyes on. I shook my cup. I’d finished my coffee a long time ago—just coffee grounds left. Nothing worth drinking. I didn’t feel like drinking any anyway. I felt more like shooting myself in the head.
Somewhere between us lurked a forest of unspoken words. Tension still hung in the air, but the words were going to remain unsaid for now. Because just then, the door to the house eased open and Vanessa stepped outside.
“There she is,” I said, leaning forward. Never in my life had I been so relieved and so disappointed to see a stakeout come to an end.
Vanessa glanced up and down the street, pausing for a moment. Her eyes seemed to rest on our car. Then she hurried over to her Corvette, slipped inside, and started the engine.
“She didn’t see us, did she?” Lien-hua whispered.
“No,” I said as confidently as I could. But she might have. Maybe she did.
Vanessa backed out of her driveway.
“All right,” I said. I was glad to be in control of my words again, of my thoughts again. “Time to move.”
56
I snatched up my walkie-talkie. “Subject is mobile. Heading eastbound toward highway 240. Unit one in pursuit. Please advise.”
“Unit two here,” Brent replied. “I’m close. I’ll back you up. Over.”
