Level 26

by Anthony E. Zuiker

  “Like what?” Dark asked.

  “I’m thinking of the priests especially,” Constance said. “Organized religion. And those kids—that’s school. Or education. The horses—police?”

  Dark nodded, barest hint of a smile on his face. “You’re seeing it now, too.”

  “Honestly? Not exactly.”

  “I think what motivates him is moral righteousness.”

  Constance squinted. “How did you come up with that?”

  “Priests fuck little boys, so Sqweegel pays them back.”

  “But those men haven’t been accused of a single thing. We did a thorough check. If that’s the case, then it’s a ridiculous form of misplaced aggression.”

  “Maybe actual guilt doesn’t matter to Sqweegel. A few examples represent the whole. And to him, the entire Church deserves punishment.”

  “It’s a little more than an eye for an eye, though, isn’t it?”

  Constance had seen the crime-scene photographs. The priests’ bodies were so severely burned, forensics workers had to rely on dental records to make identifications. This, of course, was nothing compared to what the forensics team would be taking home in their nasal cavities. Constance had been around burned bodies. You don’t forget the nauseating sweetness that comes back every time you inhale.

  “You mean,” Dark said, “molestation versus immolation?”

  “Yeah,” Constance said. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “But in the Catholic Church, mortal sin is punishable by the fires of hell.”

  “Which makes Sqweegel the devil?”

  “Actually,” Dark said, “in some twisted way, he might think he’s Saint Peter.”

  “So what about these horses? Are they a symbol of the corruption of the horse-racing industry?”

  “I know you’re trying to be funny, but think about it. Who do those horses represent? The New York Police Department. Perhaps he’s judging them for some kind of sin.”

  “And the kids from Hancock Park are the symbols of something else,” Constance said, running with it. “Maybe their parents’ greed, or lack of parental interest. We should go back and talk to them again, see if we can pick up the thread.”

  “Riggins already has agents over there,” Dark said.

  “There’s also the number thing,” Constance said.

  “Go on.”

  “From the poem. Six priests. Five horses. Three kids. He’s ticking down a list.”

  “Right. But not in order. His through line isn’t numerical. Something else is guiding him.”

  “There are seven lines in his poem,” Constance said. “Seven’s an interesting number. You know, as in deadly sins?”

  “No,” Dark said. “I don’t think he’d be that straightforward. He’s trying to tell us something with the numbers. Daring us to be clever enough to read the pattern.”

  Constance realized how much she’d missed this back-and-forth. Anyone else would have laughed if she’d said it out loud, but it was like good sex. Give-and-take. Two minds working toward the same goal, be it catching a psycho or pleasing each other. Both, Constance thought, were as close as two minds could get. In some ways, she felt like she knew Dark better than anyone else.

  And that explained a lot about what had eventually happened between them.

  “I need to go to New York. The sooner the better,” Dark said.

  “Maybe that’s what he wants you to do,” Constance said. “He could have had somebody else do the horses.”

  “No. Sqweegel’s a hands-on kind of killer. In thirty years there’s not been a single indication that he’s used a partner or hired someone to carry out a task. I’ve considered whether he’s changed up now, but I don’t think so. He’s a control freak. No one else is worthy of working with him.”

  “Freak is right. But still, I don’t think now is the time for you to be hopping a plane and—”

  Just then Dark’s BlackBerry chimed. He picked it up, held it to his ear. Nodded silently. “Uh-huh. Okay.”

  “What is it?” Constance asked.

  Dark was already halfway down the hallway.

  “Hey! Dark! What the hell’s going on?”

  “Sibby,” Dark said.

  chapter 59

  Constance raced to catch up to him, winding through the halls of 11000 Wilshire. “Dark!”

  He finally stopped and turned. “What?”

  “Let me give you a ride to the hospital. We can keep sorting out the murder poem in the car. What good is a flashy rental if I don’t use it to fly through the streets of Beverly Hills?”

  Dark turned it over in his mind for a minute, then nodded. “Okay. Fine.”

  The rental was far from flashy. It was a downright dowdy Chevy Uplander minivan, which Constance picked because she didn’t know whether she’d be transporting a half dozen agents around town or just herself. She hadn’t expected to be in this thing alone with Dark.

  And now that he was headed to his wife, and now that they had a moment alone, away from the insanity of the War Room, she felt like she had to say something. Finally. After all of these months.

  “You said Sqweegel’s looking to judge people—to send a message,” she said. “He’s on a mission of moral righteousness. Trying to punish the sinners.”

  “Yeah,” Dark said.

  “So I have to ask.”

  “What?”

  “Why’s he trying to punish you?”

  “I don’t know. Riggins and I have tried to puzzle that one out. We think it’s because of my prior involvement in the case, but that doesn’t make much sense. He’s reading way too much into our relationship.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” Constance said.

  Dark just stared at her.

  Constance started to make a right turn onto Wilshire, but an SUV sped up before she could get far. It was basically the middle of the night, but the street was surprisingly alive with traffic. She looked at Dark, then decided she had to say something before it was too late.

  “You don’t think it has anything to do with you and me?”

  Dark didn’t respond at first. He didn’t do anything, in fact. He didn’t even seem to have exhaled. He could do that, and it drove Constance insane with frustration. Give her a little something. Anything. Especially putting it all out on the line like that.

  She finally made the turn onto Wilshire.

  Dark said, “That was a long time ago, Constance.”

  “Almost a year.”

  “And only you and I know about it, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then that’s not it.”

  Okay, then, Constance thought. Problem solved. Guilty mind wiped clean. Gee, that was easy. She should have done this years ago.

  A short while later, they arrived at Socha.

  Dark had thought about it, too. Ever since he’d asked Riggins why me.

  There were plenty of stains on his soul, but the only one he felt an ounce of guilt over was what had happened with Constance.

  He wasn’t himself then. He was a hollowed-out ghost of himself. He was a walking corpse who fooled himself into thinking he was human one night.

  What had happened was in the past, and it was going to remain there.

  Right?

  “Hi,” Sibby said.

  She had been vaguely worried that, after all of this waiting, her vocal cords wouldn’t work, that the words wouldn’t come out.

  “Hi,” Steve said, and reached out to hold her hand.

  The past day or so had been fuzzy and dreamlike—doctors and clipboards and IV tubes and beeping machines and then hearing about the crash, and racing to save the baby. It all seemed a bit removed from her physical self, like she was watching a medical TV drama about these horrible things happening to someone else.

  But none of that mattered now, because Steve was here.

  She was reaching out now and touching his hand with her fingertips, and his skin was blissfully real. So real. She could smell his shampoo.
The fabric softener they used on their clothes.

  “Welcome back,” he said. “The doctors say you’re okay, your liver’s stable, and the baby’s going to be fine. How do you feel?”

  “Like I was hit by a car,” Sibby said.

  Steve looked down at her, brow furrowed; then he laughed.

  Truth was—even though the doctors and nurses had told her what had happened, about the crash on the I-10 and her liver damage and everything else—she didn’t remember a single second of the accident, or its aftermath. It was as if her brain had mercifully erased it from her short-term memory. Maybe later she’d deal with it.

  What she did remember was horrible enough: that text message from her stalker. She remembered every word, and what they implied. She had to tell Steve now because she didn’t believe in coincidences. She’d been desperate to tell Steve the moment she woke up.

  But Steve leaned in close, mouth open, like he had a big important thought that he just couldn’t seem to force out of his throat. It was killing him.

  “I have to tell you something,” Steve said. “Something that happened when we first met. Something I never told you.”

  Constance watched through the small glass window set high in Sibby’s hospital-room door. Tears welled in her eyes at the sight of Dark and his wife speaking their first words since the accident. Knowing no one would hear her say it, knowing no one but Dark could understand what she meant, Constance mouthed a few short words and hoped their meaning would find its way to Sibby somehow.

  I’m sorry.

  chapter 60

  3:13 A.M.

  Sibby heard what Steve was saying, and didn’t hear him at the same time. She was too focused on the texts and the need to say it right so Steve wouldn’t freak out.

  “You don’t owe me any explanations about anything,” she told him. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No. You need to know.”

  “Whatever it is, Steve—it can wait. There’s something I didn’t tell you.”

  Sibby felt his grip on her fingers loosen a bit, like he was already distancing himself.

  “What are you talking about?” Steve asked.

  “I lied to you the other morning. I thought it was just me overreacting, and you were so freaked out—”

  “Just tell me,” Steve said.

  “When I woke up, I did feel strange. Groggy. Sore.”

  Steve stopped breathing, then lowered his head, which confused Sibby. She’d expected him to go ballistic, but instead it was like he already knew.

  Did he know? Did they examine her for rape without telling her?

  Steve pulled his hand away entirely. She reached out, caught his thumb.

  “Wait. That’s not everything. There were also these text messages.”

  Now Steve looked surprised. “Messages?”

  Sibby told him as many as she could remember. How they sounded like vaguely dirty Bible verses, and how they’d always seem to arrive when he was out of the house, or she was off by herself shopping.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to worry. Please don’t be angry.”

  “God, of course I’m not angry,” Steve said. “Don’t think that.”

  “I don’t know if that has anything to do with this thing you’re chasing, but if it does…”

  “It does,” Steve said quietly.

  “But why us? Why me, all of this time?”

  “It’s me. It’s my fault. You’re with me, so he’s hurt you, too. And the baby. He’ll keep on hurting you. He’s not going to stop.”

  The revelation hit Sibby hard. All of this time, their entire relationship, Sibby had assumed that Steve’s stoicism was just who he was. But now it was clear that it wasn’t a personality trait. It was a survival tactic—a wall he’d built to separate their new life from the life he once led. Now the wall had crumbled, the old life was seeping into the new, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  That is bullshit, Sibby thought.

  “Well there’s only one thing you can do,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “End this.”

  Steve looked at her, almost stunned—like a child who’d been scolded. Then he recovered. Tried to put some of the wall back in place.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “I haven’t told you everything. We have a history.”

  “I don’t care. You’re the best at what you do, even if you haven’t done it for a while. Why else would they come to you? Why else would the FBI want you on this case so badly?”

  “I’ve tried before,” Steve said. “Once officially. Once unofficially. But both times, it ended the same way. I couldn’t catch him. I’m not the man for the job. No matter what the FBI thinks.”

  “So what are we supposed to do? Run away and hope this thing doesn’t come looking for us? You can stop him, Steve.”

  “You really don’t understand.”

  “Stop saying that. After all of this time together, you think I don’t know the real you? The one you try to hide?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “The only way to catch him is to become like him. To think the sick little things he does. To climb inside of his diseased mind and try to make sense of it all. But I can’t do that. Not now. Not when I climb into bed with you at night. Not with the baby we’re about to bring into this world. That’s what you don’t understand. If I try to catch this monster, I’m absolutely fucking terrified I’m not going to come back the same man.”

  Sibby reached up from her bed and touched his face. Lifted it up so that she could look directly into his eyes. So that they could touch like they’d touched countless times before—naked soul to naked soul. The kind of touch when words and physical sensations and everything else fall away, and you’re left standing in front of each other, completely exposed.

  “I know you,” she said calmly. “And I know that’s not a possibility.”

  There were two brisk knocks. More nurses? Now? Sibby thought. They had to interrupt us now?

  But it wasn’t the Socha hospital staff. It was Steve’s former boss—Tom Riggins.

  “I’m sorry to do this,” Riggins said, “but Wycoff’s plane just touched down, and he wants us over there pronto for a status report.”

  Steve lowered his head again, but Sibby wouldn’t let him.

  “Go stop this freak,” she said. “No matter what happens, I’ll be here for you when you get back.”

  “Dark,” Riggins said. “Look, I know this is shitty timing, but we really do have to go.”

  Steve lowered his head, sighed, then stood up slowly, like a child being forced to leave a safe, warm bed for a cold, hard, yellow bus.

  Sibby reached out and grabbed his fingers one last time.

  “I love you,” she told him.

  Steve opened his mouth as if to say something, but then changed his mind and leaned over to kiss her instead.

  “I’ll get him back to you safe and sound, don’t worry,” Riggins said.

  Steve looked back at her once, longing in his eyes. Then he was gone.

  chapter 61

  Private Runway / Los Angeles International Airport

  3:55 A.M.

  Inside the depressurized cabin of Air Force Two, Secretary of Defense Norman Wycoff was waiting for Riggins and Dark. He looked like a caged animal preparing to pounce on his keepers the first chance he got.

  Dark studied Wycoff carefully. The man didn’t look right. Granted, Dark didn’t know him personally. But you didn’t have to know someone to tell they’d been having a bad day. His button-down Oxford looked like it had endured sheets of perspiration, then had been air-conditioned dry again. There were dark circles under his eyes, which flittered around nervously. His hair looked slightly greasy, as well as the tip of his nose and ears—like he hadn’t bothered with a shower in a while. His lips and tongue seemed dry, and his splotchy, pink skin gave off a bracing odor. Wycoff had been drinking. From the
looks of the small wastebasket next to his seat, he’d been knocking them back all the way from D.C. No cup, no ice, just a bunch of little plastic spirit bottles.

  He was also picking his teeth with a thumbnail, as if he was trying to dislodge a fragment of steak.

  “Well?” Wycoff asked. “Are we almost ready to apprehend this monster?”

  Riggins sighed. “I’ve transported my best people here, and we’re actively pursuing every lead—”

  “Oh, fuck you,” Wycoff said. “Don’t give me that bullshit you give reporters. What have you got? Have you uncovered a single piece of evidence we can use?”

  “Maybe,” Riggins said. He didn’t want to mention the bird feather until it turned into something real. Last thing he needed was Wycoff here demanding the feather himself, taking it to his people, and more or less getting the hell in the way.

  “Maybe?” Wycoff said. “Riggins, I swear to God if you don’t start giving me real answers—”

  Dark coughed. “Sorry. Been a long night. Mind if I help myself to some water?”

  “Knock yourself out,” Wycoff said, jamming a thumbnail between two front teeth and scraping.

  Dark found a small plastic bottle of springwater in the fridge. He fumbled with the cap, dropping it on the floor. He crouched down to scoop it up and deposit it in the waste basket.

  Wycoff straightened himself, as if someone had whispered in his ear that a CNN camera had swung in his direction. “Listen to me. I’m not going to rest until this son of a bitch is apprehended and executed for what he’s done. That means I’m not leaving L.A. until that happens. Consider me an active part of your investigation.”

  Just then one of the flight attendants wandered by and distracted Wycoff, who leaned toward her and, with his hands all over her, whispered a request in her ear.

  As she returned and handed Wycoff the toothpick he’d asked for, Dark felt the object he’d just palmed and slid it into an official Air Force Two vomit bag, then into his pants pocket.