Patrick Bowers 08 - Every Crooked Path

by Steven James

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Give me a second.”

  I studied the layout of the room and chose a bookshelf across from Tessa’s dresser, positioning the camera so that it wouldn’t catch the corner of the mirror and there would be less chance of them seeing Naomi’s reflection.

  I held back from turning it on for the moment and radioed back to Naomi that things were set.

  “Look in her drawers and her closet for me,” she said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m going to have to put on some of her clothes to make it believable.”

  For some reason, even though I knew that it was the whole reason for doing this, it hadn’t really registered that she would be digging through Tessa’s dresser or shuffling through the clothes she had in her closet.

  Man, if Tessa ever finds out, she is not going to be happy.

  “I need to know where things are,” Naomi explained. “I doubt Tessa would have to root through her clothes looking for what to put on.”

  “I’m not going to go through her things.” Just being in here was bad enough. “It’s believable that she might sort through her drawers looking for what to wear. You can pull it off. I trust you.”

  A pause. “Okay, I’ll figure it out. Where’s the camera?”

  “It’s on the south wall in the bookshelf, third shelf from the top. There’s a plastic skull. I set it right next to that. If you turn slightly to the left as you enter the room they shouldn’t be able to see your face.” Then I added, “Alright, I’m going to start recording. We’ll need to stop talking.”

  I turned on the camera and set it to wirelessly transmit its signal, just as Blake had shown me before I left his office. “She got done with her exams early,” I said for Blake’s benefit, making up a reason for why we were filming now, since I’d told him earlier that Tessa wouldn’t be home until four. “She’s on her way.”

  This was happening.

  It was officially in play.

  Naomi and I met outside Christie’s place in the hall near the elevator, and I handed her the apartment key.

  She said nothing, but nodded, then slung a book bag over her shoulder, walked up, and unlocked the door.

  +++

  Blake sat at his desk, sipping whiskey, surrounded by his silent ladies, watching the video feed of the girl’s bedroom on his computer’s monitor.

  Bowers had started the transmission, had indicated that the girl was coming home early.

  Now, on the screen, the door to her room opened and she stepped inside.

  With her sunglasses on, Blake couldn’t see her face all that clearly, but the people who were going to purchase this video weren’t going to be very interested in that little detail anyhow.

  If he sold it.

  That was yet to be determined.

  He might just post it online and let the world watch it for free.

  68

  On the subway, Tessa plugged in her earbuds and escaped into the sardonic lyrics of House of Blood, then found a seat and dug her journal out of her backpack.

  She wasn’t into writing on her laptop—not writing writing. Assignments, sure. Whatever. But sorting out her feelings? That she did by hand in her journal.

  There was just this way of looking at the words, of processing them, of moving ideas from her mind to her fingertips that happened when she handwrote stuff that didn’t happen when she typed.

  She flipped to the last entry that she’d written.

  It was from the point of view of her namesake, St. Teresa of Ávila, a Christian mystic her mom was into back in the day when she got pregnant with her. Tessa had tried to climb into the mind of the saint and sort out how she might feel about God, about the Bible.

  She glanced it over.

  The word-heat of your story

  causes blisters on my eyes.

  I’m seared into a new way of seeing.

  Of being.

  Of dreaming.

  I can’t touch the page anymore

  or my skin might just

  burst into love and

  grow scars that look like yours.

  Whenever I close my Bible,

  steam presses out of the cover.

  She liked that phrase “word-heat of your story.” It seemed to really capture what a saint might be feeling.

  It wasn’t so much that Tessa didn’t believe those things about Christianity like her mom did, it was just more like she wasn’t sure what she believed.

  How do you know what you know, and how is that different from believing that you know it? At what point does doubt become faith, and belief become knowledge?

  It was all sort of twisty and hard to put your finger on.

  House of Blood raged their lovesick angst into her ears. Fire and malaise in every word. It made her feel right at home.

  She flipped to the next page, a blank one, then jotted down a few words, reworked them, and let the rhythm of the writing unearth where the poem should go.

  Normally, she wasn’t into stuff that rhymed, but this time it was as if the words wanted to come together that way and she wasn’t about to pick a fight with them.

  The night is as black as an eel.

  The day is as long as the night.

  My heart has been wrapped up in steel.

  I can feel the vampires bite.

  Time has been taunting and turning.

  The streams in my soul have run dry.

  The vision is clouded and blurry.

  The past wants to wake up and die.

  Oh, dread of the heartache and venom,

  the vision scrawled under my skin.

  The future is pregnant with glory,

  but the present is weary and thin.

  Just one more stop and then a two-block walk home.

  She toyed with some of the words, “venom” especially. It didn’t feel quite right, but at the moment the rest of the poem seemed pretty much on target, like she’d captured what was going on in her heart: the confusion and questions, the uncertainty and anger about her mom and their future together.

  The train jostled, and the person standing beside her bumped into her elbow, causing her to draw a meaningless line across the center of the page, as if she were scratching out everything she’d just written.

  She glanced up severely at the man who’d banged into her, and he just flipped her off.

  So maybe he’d done it on purpose.

  She tugged her earbuds out. “What’s your problem?”

  “No problem, honey.”

  He fake-blew her a kiss.

  Jerk.

  She was tempted to tell him off, but the train started to slow and she held her tongue and just closed up the journal instead and stuffed it into her pack.

  They rattled to a stop and she stood.

  Only one day of exams left and then she was finally free for the summer.

  But come autumn, where would she be in school? Here? Or in Omaha?

  Man, it was just too much to deal with right now.

  She filed into the anonymous crowd of people leaving the train, making sure she accidentally-on-purpose stepped on Mr. Kiss Blower Guy’s foot as she passed by him.

  Then she headed for the steps that led to the subway exit.

  +++

  “Okay,” Naomi’s voice came through the radio. “It’s done. I’m in the hall.”

  Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since she’d entered Christie’s apartment.

  “What took you so long?” I asked into the radio.

  “I needed to sell it. A fifteen-year-old girl isn’t just gonna come home after school, change clothes, and then leave her bedroom. I’m not even sure why she would change clothes at this time of day anyway, unless she was pla
nning on meeting someone—but that doesn’t matter. Point is, she’d hang out, at least for a little while. Text her friends. Chill, listen to some music, whatever. I’ll be down in a minute. I’m on my way to the elevator now.”

  69

  From where Tobin and I sat in the sedan halfway down the block, we could see Naomi exit the apartment building wearing a different outfit from before, but one that I recognized as consisting of Tessa’s clothes.

  I looked out the car windows in both directions, studying the people who were on the sidewalk to see if there was anything out of the ordinary, or if there was anyone I recognized as being part of the case—and I saw one of the men who’d been at the bar earlier.

  Ah.

  So they were checking up on this.

  Once he noticed Naomi, who was wearing the wig and sunglasses and really could have passed for Christie’s daughter, he pulled out a cell phone, made a call, and started walking away from the apartment.

  And that’s when I saw Tessa coming this way on the other side of the street.

  Oh.

  No.

  It didn’t appear that the man took any notice of her.

  She isn’t supposed to be home yet!

  She’ll see Naomi wearing her clothes!

  “Turn around, Naomi,” I said into my radio. There was no one close to her, so I told her to drop the apartment key for me.

  She immediately turned and slipped the key out of her pocket, flicking it onto the sidewalk.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Tessa.”

  “What?”

  “She’s on her way home, take the next left. Go around the block. I don’t think she saw you.”

  Tessa continued toward the apartment building’s entrance.

  That camera was still in her room. If she went in there now, Blake, or whoever might be watching the video, would know she wasn’t the one who’d changed clothes a few minutes ago. It would jeopardize everything.

  I needed to get up there and stop her before she went into that room.

  Exiting the car, I crossed the street, jogged down the block, snatched up the key from the sidewalk, and then hurried into the lobby just in time to see the elevator doors close behind Tessa.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, I raced to the fourth floor and emerged as the elevator opened at the end of the hall.

  Tessa had her head down and was staring at her phone texting someone or playing one of the word games she liked when she emerged from the elevator, but I clearly wasn’t going to make it into the apartment and into her room before she could get in there or before she would look up.

  “Hey,” I called, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Patrick?” She looked at me quizzically. “What are you doing here?”

  “I needed to swing by and pick something up. How was school?”

  “Stupid. What did you need to pick up?”

  We walked toward the door to the apartment. The whole way I was brainstorming for a believable way to keep her from entering her bedroom until I’d had a chance to remove the camera.

  Nothing popped into my mind.

  “Hello?” she said somewhat impertinently. “I asked what you forgot, what you came back to get.”

  I wasn’t about to say, “A secret camera that’s hidden in your bedroom,” but I didn’t want to lie to her either. “It’s just something for work,” I told her. “Do you know where your mom is?”

  “At her office, obviously. Unless she decided to move to Omaha without me.” Tessa eyed me. “You do know about that, don’t you?”

  She unlocked the door.

  “She did tell me about the job offer, yes.”

  We entered the apartment.

  “When?”

  “When?”

  “When did she tell you?”

  “The other day.”

  “What day?”

  “Saturday.”

  “What time?”

  I didn’t think it would go over very well if she found out Christie had told me about the possible move first. “About eight or so.” I didn’t specify that it was a.m.

  “But you were at that detective’s place.”

  “Cell phones are amazing things,” I said evasively, and I was glad she didn’t press it further.

  “So, what’s up with you and her, anyway? I mean, is it just gonna be over or what? Long-distance romances suck.”

  “Both of us are exploring our options.”

  “Your options, huh? Options of what? It’s not like you’re gonna move out there with us, is it?”

  “I don’t really know what the future is going to bring.”

  “Okay, whatever,” she said dismissively. “I’m not into vagaries and deflection. If you don’t wanna talk about it, fine, we won’t talk about it.”

  She headed directly for her room.

  “Tessa, hold up a sec.”

  Okay, how to do this.

  I didn’t know if the camera in her room would pick up the sound of us talking in the hall, so I wanted to be careful what I said and how loudly I said it.

  “What?” She had her hand on the doorknob.

  Even if Blake hears you, though, he won’t necessarily be suspicious. He might think you just want to get the camera out before she goes back into the room.

  “Don’t go in there right now,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. An incoming call.

  I had a burner phone with me too, but this was on my personal phone and I wondered if it might be Christie.

  “Hang on.”

  I unpocketed my phone and glanced at the screen.

  The number was listed as private, but there was also a text that popped up even as the phone was ringing.

  Answer it, Agent Bowers.

  “Why don’t you want me to go into my bedroom?” Tessa said.

  Tell her. You’re going to have to tell her.

  “There’s something in there that doesn’t belong.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  I tapped at the screen to answer the call. “Hello?”

  “I received the footage.” It was Blake’s voice, but I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he thought the video was truly of Tessa or if he was onto us.

  “Eh-hem.” Tessa cleared her throat emphatically. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to answer a call in the middle of a conversation?”

  I raised a finger to indicate that I needed a second, then said into the phone, “I gave you what you wanted. Now I want the credentials to get onto the site. And access to the video.”

  Tessa opened her mouth, but I shook my palm to signal for her to stop right away.

  I couldn’t slip into the other room to talk privately or else she might go into her bedroom, but I couldn’t very well stand here talking to Blake with her listening in.

  Tessa threw a hand to her hip and looked at me with a mixture of confusion and defiance.

  Blake gave me a location that was nearly a mile and a half away. “We’ll want you there in ten minutes. We’ll find you.”

  “I can’t make it by then, I’ll need more—”

  The line went dead.

  “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on here or not?” Tessa belted out.

  There was no elegant way to put this, no way to finesse my way out of this situation.

  Do it. You just need to take care of it.

  “I can’t explain right now.”

  As I approached her, she opened her bedroom door and I said, “I need to check first, before you go in there.”

  Without waiting for a reply, I slid past her, briefly acted like I was inspecting the room for something, then ended up at the bookshelf, snagged the camera, turned it o
ff, and dropped it into my pocket.

  “What was that?” Tessa said. “I saw you grab something.”

  “A camera.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain everything later. Right now I need to go.”

  “What do you mean it was a camera?”

  As I left, I heard her call after me one more time before the closing door behind me shut out the sound.

  With traffic, there was no way to guarantee that we could drive to that intersection in time.

  But there was a way to bypass traffic.

  I checked the time on my phone as I flew down the stairs and then out the front door, and by the time I hit the street I was already in full stride on my way to the corner Blake had specified.

  70

  I sprinted down the street, weaving through the stream of pedestrians.

  I had no idea how I was going to explain all this to Christie and Tessa, but right now I was more concerned with just making it to the intersection in time so I wouldn’t miss out on whatever Blake and his crew were going to tell me or hand off to me.

  From my early morning runs when I stayed over at Christie’s, I knew this area of the city pretty well and there was a park nearby that I could cut across and shave off enough distance that I might be able to make it to the corner in time.

  As I ran, I radioed Tobin and told him to wait for word from me.

  Thoughts of the case flipped through my head. The stakes. The timing. The video of D’Nesh’s backpack that had led us on the path to where I was here today.

  There were four masks on that couch.

  Four hands reached in to pick them up. All Caucasian. What was different?

  Three right hands and one left hand, and based on the location of the masks and the arms, they came from four different people.

  It hadn’t seemed relevant at the time, but earlier Blake had used his left hand to pour and then take his drink.

  That doesn’t prove anything.

  No. But it was something to keep in mind.

  The corner was close, just one more block.

  Ignoring the walk signal and an oncoming taxi, I shot across the street in front of it, bouncing slightly off the front bumper as the cab skidded to a stop. The blaring horn told me how happy the driver was about that.