“Yes?” Dr. Eastmann said brusquely.
“Nathan Hill,” Will said, “And Abraham Kaufman. Both have been killed.”
“Yes—I have heard,” the doctor said, nodding stiffly. “A tragic thing to be sure. Very bad for the town. But what do you come to me for?”
“We understand that they were both patients of yours,” Catherine said.
Dr. Eastmann raised his eyebrows. “You are insinuating something? Accusing me, perhaps? Do I need to call my attorney?”
“No, no … nothing like that,” Will said, smiling broadly. “We’re just trying to get some more information about the victims. Can you tell us anything about them that the investigating detectives might have missed?”
Dr. Eastmann was already shaking his head. “There is nothing of note,” he said. “Kaufman, he had a weak heart valve; he required an anticoagulant. It was part of a recovery program following heart surgery he had last year. And the boy …” Dr. Eastmann squinted. “I don’t recall. Something about infection—he had a weakened immune system and a wisdom tooth was infected. Yes.”
Evasive answers, Kim thought. Is he hiding something?
“Can you go into more detail?” Gaia asked. “Can you think of anything, even something trivial, that we could—”
“Nothing, there is nothing,” Dr. Eastmann said impatiently, standing up. “Please, now—I have patients to see. Perhaps if you come back later, I can provide you with medical records, but I am very busy right now. I must ask that you go.”
“But—” Gaia began.
Will grabbed her arm suddenly.
“Did you hear that?” Will said. “A door slamming.”
Kim looked back at the door that led to the outer office. Hadn’t they left it open? It had just swung shut, as if blown by a sudden breeze.
Gaia and Will looked at each other and then strode over to the door, pulling it open. They all walked out into the waiting room.
It took a moment for Kim to notice what had changed. The elderly woman was still sitting at the coffee table. The fake painting was still hanging on the wall. And then he got it.
The front desk was empty. Bill Oakley had gone.
Walking closer so that he could see behind the desk, Kim felt something like an electric current passing through him. On a shelf below the desk he saw a large black-leather-bound Bible and next to it a book of Old Testament scriptures.
“Gaia,” Kim yelled suddenly, pointing.
Below the religious books he had seen a pair of hiking boots. Their soles were encrusted with red clay.
“Ma’am,” Catherine said to the elderly lady with the bandaged arm, “did you see what happened to Mr. Oakley?”
“What—?” The woman cupped her ear, frowning.
“Did you see what happened to Mr. Oakley? The desk clerk?”
“Why—” The woman pointed at the front door. “It was the strangest thing. Once you’d gone into the office, he suddenly got up and bolted out of here.”
Gaia and Will didn’t need to be told twice. They dashed out the door onto the balcony.
Meanwhile, looking out the office’s window, Kim suddenly saw a slim figure in a white lab coat running across the parking lot below.
“Parking lot,” Kim yelled, vaulting forward. He had to jump over the coffee table to catch up with Catherine, who was dashing out the office’s front door, her gun drawn.
Will and Gaia both vaulted over the side of the balcony. They hung from its railing side by side for a moment and then dropped lightly to the ground, rolling as they landed.
Blam! A gunshot rang out, deafeningly loud, echoing like a repeated drumbeat across the narrow plaza. Blam! Another gunshot.
Will and Gaia dove behind the fountain just as a bullet smacked into the other side of the fountain’s stone base. That’s a nice effect, the back of Kim’s mind thought. He was so adrenalized that he didn’t realize he’d drawn his own gun until he looked down and saw the sun glinting off its magazine. Falling back against the wall that ran along the back of the balcony, he worked his way over to the balcony’s rail, holding the gun down in both hands. Below, he could see Gaia moving along the edge of the courtyard, her gun drawn.
“APB, APB,” Catherine was saying intently into her cell phone behind him on the balcony. “Hello? Hello?” She shook the phone, obviously having lost the connection, and then began redialing.
In the parking lot below, Bill Oakley was crouched behind a car, pointing his gun over its hood back at Gaia and Wil. From his aerial vantage point Kim could see that nobody had a good shot.
“Hello? Hello? This is Agent Sanders calling—” Catherine repeated behind him.
Resting his hand on the balcony’s railing, Kim carefully aimed his gun at Bill Oakley’s shoulder and pulled the trigger.
Blam! A shot rang out and a bit of cement exploded in the ground in front of Oakley. In that moment Gaia leaped over the fountain’s edge and ran forward, gun drawn, her blond hair flying behind her.
“Freeze! FBI!” Gaia shouted, pressing the gun barrel against Bill Oakley’s head. “You have the right to remain silent—”
“Sheriff?” Catherine said into the phone behind her. “Sheriff? This is Agent Sanders. We’re putting out an all points bulletin for Bill Oakley, a Caucasian male who—what?”
“It’s over,” Bill Oakley yelled, smiling. He was waving up at Catherine, handing his gun to Gaia. “You got me!”
The game bell rang right then.
“Attention, attention.” Special Agent Bishop’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “The Hogan’s Alley game is completed. Repeat, the game is over, and we have a winner. Kim Lau, Gaia Moore, Catherine Sanders, and Will Taylor are the winners of the game.”
Will
There are moments I like to call “sublime.” Not many of them, but once or twice they come along.
Kissing Gaia in the car was one. But it didn’t last. I think I’ve wanted to kiss that girl since the first moment I saw her, when she came out of her dorm room and ran smack-dab into me. I can’t believe that was only a couple of days ago. I remember that I could barely think straight—I babbled some nonsense about her name meaning “Goddess of the earth” and was actually lame enough to bring up, for no reason, the fact that I’m a track star.
But I couldn’t help it. The word Goddess came into my head because in that moment, I felt like a starstruck, romantic little kid. This stunning blond creature in a dirty T-shirt had just run into me, as if I hadn’t already been thinking about her nonstop after her performance in the obstacle course.
So I finally kissed Gaia Moore. And it was sublime.
But that moment, that sweet moment when the loudspeaker announced we’d won, was somehow even better. I actually felt light-headed. I laughed like a little boy and looked up at the cloudless blue sky hanging over that wonderful fake town, and I actually hugged the actor playing “Bill Oakley,” the “killer,” as he was congratulating me.
How about that, Uncle Casper? I thought deliriously. We won the game! We’re at the top of the damn class! How do you like that!
And then Gaia and I hugged, and she kissed me again, very quickly, very shyly, while Kim and Catherine were on their way down the balcony steps and couldn’t see. Like I said, sublime moments.
The rest of that day is a blur. I remember that we all got the rest of the day off, and all the trainees, winners and losers both, ended up at Johnny Ray’s, where we got to mingle with all the “Hogan’s Alley” actors and talk about the game.
I remember sitting at one of those round wooden tables, on my third or fourth beer, with Kim next to me, grinning as “Dr. Eastmann” and “Detective Okuda” talked about how they’d laid bets on our team.
“I knew you guys had it,” the “Okuda” actor said.
“No way,” said “Dr. Eastmann,” who really has no accent at all. “I had you completely fooled.”
Agent Bishop made a surprise appearance at Johnny Ray’s and even joined us for a drink. She explai
ned the rest of the game—how Bill Oakley’s murder spree was based on an actual case study, in which a fundamentalist born-again Christian turned psychotic and decided that all medical science was mankind interfering with God’s plan. Whenever people who were “supposed” to die received medical treatment, the killer believed that he had to “release” them from their “sinfully prolonged” life—and when he had “saved” them, he wrote what he’d done on the wall in their own blood, “baptizing” their spirits as he rescued them from purgatory.
“Amazing,” Kim said, shaking his head as Catherine refilled his beer glass. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, isn’t it? So many different psychoses to study …”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Agent Bishop confirmed.
“Hey,” Gaia said, dropping into a chair beside me. Kim and Catherine came over, too, and we all looked at each other. I think each of us wanted to say something clever, but nothing was coming to mind.
“We’re going to head back,” Gaia told us, indicating Catherine and herself.
“You don’t want another beer?” I said. But I knew the answer before I’d even finished asking.
“I’m going to be drinking as little as possible for a while,” Gaia said, standing up and reaching to squeeze my arm. “I’ll see you back there.”
“Whatever you say, Ms. Moore,” I told her.
“What?”
“Like I said before—we did meet again on the field of battle, and you won fair and square.”
“Oh, please,” Gaia said. The light of the setting sun silhouetted her as she and Catherine walked out of Johnny Ray’s and into the night air. And behind her back this South Carolina boy silently raised a glass in her direction.
EVENING CRICKETS’ SONG
The sun was setting, a golden panorama above the canopy of trees to the west, as Gaia walked across the gravel toward Catherine’s Altima. The music and laughter from Johnny Ray’s continued behind them. Gaia slowed down, dialing a number on her cell phone while Catherine got out her car keys.
1 … 212 …
How long had it been since she’d dialed a New York phone number? Gaia didn’t remember. A very long time. Years, maybe. She pressed send and lifted the phone to her ear. She could hear a phone ringing miles and miles to the north as she looked out at the beginning of the sunset.
What’s it like right now in New York? Gaia tried to picture it. The air wasn’t this clear, that was certain. There would be traffic noises, the drone of air conditioners, passing planes and traffic helicopters, the constant murmur of more than a million people on a slim island a few miles long.
“You’ve reached Tom Moore.”
Gaia’s father had a new answering machine message—or at least, one she’d never heard before. “I’m not here to take your call, but if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you.”
And then the beep, so quickly that Gaia hadn’t had time to collect her thoughts. She stood there on the gravel in the sunset, the car in front of her, its taillights already lit as Catherine idled the Altima engine.
“Um—Dad, it’s me,” Gaia said awkwardly. “I’m calling from Quantico.”
And what else did she want to say? Gaia wasn’t sure—but she had to keep talking or the machine would cut her off.
“Um, I just—I just wanted to tell you that everything’s fine. I’m working for Special Agent Malloy now. I’ve had a couple of snags, but I’ve—I’ve made some friends, and I guess things are going okay. So I guess I’m with the FBI now.”
The wind was blowing through the Virginia trees—Catherine tapped on her car horn impatiently, just once.
“So I just wanted to say,” Gaia started, “thank you. For everything. I love you.”
Beep! The machine cut her off. Had it picked up that last part?
Gaia hoped so.
“I can’t wait to take a shower and get into bed,” Catherine said, stifling a yawn as she drove them out of the gravel parking lot and onto the highway. Soon they were cruising toward the FBI base, and the sky was darkening to gold. There were still puddles in the highway left and right as they drove.
“I feel the same way,” Gaia said, leaning back against the car seat. “We’ve got firearms training tomorrow when I get back from my drills.”
“Drills?”
“Running and calisthenics,” Gaia explained. “Six-thirty in the morning, while you’re still fast asleep. It’s part of my probation.”
Gaia was staring out the window, watching the landscape go by as they drove. She was thinking about New York, and the life she’d run away from, and the new life she’d started here. I almost ran away from this one, she thought sleepily. I’m really glad I didn’t.
“Almost there,” Catherine said, pointing. “She lives right around the corner from the bar.”
Through the windshield Gaia saw Kelly’s small, two-story house coming nearer. It had a red-shingled roof and its siding was painted a restful blue color. Gaia had never seen the outside of the building in daylight—the last time she was here, she’d been carried inside, unconscious.
“Are you sure about this?” Catherine asked, idling the car in the driveway. “We can do this later.”
“No, I want to do it now,” Gaia said firmly. It was true—she’d made up her mind. No matter how ashamed she was of what she’d done, it was time to make amends.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Catherine asked, killing the engine and dropping the Altima into park. The evening crickets’ song filled the car. With the engine off, both women could hear the soft, distant sound of a baby crying.
Gaia shook her head. “I’ll just be a minute.”
Gaia slammed the car door and crossed the gravel drive to Kelly’s porch, which was littered with brightly colored plastic toys and a small tricycle. She hesitated a moment and then knocked on the edge of the screen door.
“Just one second,” Kelly’s voice sang out. Gaia waited and Kelly appeared behind the screen door, rocking her baby in her arms. She wore a Johnny Ray’s T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. She was barefoot. “Hello, Gaia,” she said without expression.
“Hi, Kelly.”
Kelly squinted. “You here for more of my hangover remedy? Welcome to it, if you want some.”
If she’s angry at me, Gaia thought, I deserve it. I’d better take it and move on. I can’t avoid it—not in a small town like this.
Not if I’m staying here.
“No, thanks,” Gaia said. “Listen, I came around to apologize.”
Kelly looked back at her and smiled tightly, but Gaia thought it was just politeness. In her arms the baby woke up and began to cry.
“Shhh, Jasmine,” Kelly murmured soothingly. The baby had bright blond hair, as wispy as the puffs on a dandelion. Gaia could barely see in the evening light. “Shhh. This is just a friend. Say hi to Gaia.”
“Hi, Jasmine,” Gaia said through the screen door. “She’s pretty.”
Kelly smiled. “Thanks.”
“I really wanted to apologize,” Gaia said awkwardly. “I’m sorry I hurt Jack. I mean, I’ll tell him myself,” she added quickly. “And I’m supposed to tell him that the agency will pay for all the damage I did to his apartment. But I—but I wanted to talk to you first. I don’t know why I did what I did. I guess I’m kind of a confused person.”
“You don’t seem that confused to me,” Kelly said. She kept rocking the baby. “A part of you is very angry.”
“That’s right.”
“But not all of you. It’s the same way with Jack. With all of us, really.” Jasmine had fallen back asleep, but Kelly kept rocking her. “Are you going to be staying on?”
“I hope so.”
Kelly smiled. “Glad to hear it,” she said. “Come around again and I’ll buy you a drink. But just one.”
Gaia laughed and then waved and turned back toward Catherine’s Altima, its headlights glowing in the growing dark.
A P00L 0F BL00D
Catherine and Gai
a rounded a curve in the road, and now they were passing the mowed memorial field, with the large bronze statue of the infantryman standing in his endless vigil against the oncoming night. Gaia stared up at the dark silhouette of the statue as they passed, thinking about grief—what it could do to people and what it had done to her. It was almost as if—
Wait.
Gaia twisted in her seat, looking back at the statue.
“Catherine,” she said quietly, “stop the car.”
“What? Jesus, now what? I swear, driving with you is—”
“Look,” Gaia said, pointing.
There were no flowers in the bronze gun barrel.
Every morning and every afternoon, rain or shine, I put flowers in the soldier’s gun, Ann Knight had said.
I live right there.
Catherine was idling the car. Gaia stared at the empty bronze gun barrel and then slowly pivoted her head and looked over at the small house across the road.
The lights in the house were out.
The front door was ajar.
The windows were open.
“Catherine,” Gaia said. “You know how there are always flowers inside the gun?”
“Yeah, so?” Catherine asked, sounding impatient.
“Well, I met the woman who puts them there. She told me she never misses a day, rain or shine.”
“That’s really touching, Gaia. But do you mind if I drive while we talk about this?”
“I think this is a crime scene, Catherine.”
“What?” Catherine asked.
“Like Bishop said, in a crime scene see what’s not there,” Gaia said. “Here’s what I recommend we do. We’ll get out of the car. We’ll walk over to that house. We won’t go in or even step onto the porch—we don’t want to do anything to disturb the scene. We’re just going to look.”
“But the game’s over,” Catherine said.
“That game’s over. But remember the steak house. The rules,” Gaia recited, “are constantly changing.”
“Okay,” Catherine said. “Okay.”
“You want to kill the engine?”
Catherine killed the engine. The headlights flicked out, and now they were in total country dark. The sky had faded to a dim, pale blue. Gaia and Catherine got out of the car and walked toward the house.
Kill Game Page 20
