The Rook

by Steven James

  Her fingers curled lightly around mine, didn’t let go, although now she’d stopped teaching me sign language. She placed her other hand gently against my closed eyes. “Don’t open them,” she said.

  “Not yet.” The feelings for her that I’d been trying to quiet for months rose, climbed through time, and became a restless melody drawing me deeper and deeper into the moment.

  “Monday night, after I brought Tessa back to the hotel and I saw you in the hall …” Her voice was a cool caress that calmed me and thrilled me. One of her hands on my hand, the other across my eyes. “That’s what I wanted to tell you, Pat, but I couldn’t find the words. I wanted to tell you: ‘I need you.’”

  My heart was on fire. The world became a sprinkle of joy and wonder and promises as new as dawn. “I need you,” I whispered the words, and then added two more: “Come closer.”

  I said the words and I signed them. “Come closer.” I repeated them again.

  And again.Until she did.

  And that’s when I heard the knock at the door.

  Victor Drake had just finished printing out the boarding pass for his flight to the Philippines and was busy shredding papers when the three men arrived at his home. Victor hated the word henchmen. He hated the idea of using henchmen. And even more, he hated giving money to his henchmen. But that was exactly what he was about to do.

  He saw their cars pass across the video monitor of the surveillance cameras at the front gate, then he headed downstairs to usher his three henchmen into his home.

  95

  A moment ago, when we heard the knock, both Lien-hua and I had leapt off the couch, pulled our weapons, and approached the door to the hallway.

  Now, we covered both sides of the door. I silently counted to three with my fingers, then I threw the door open, grabbed the person standing outside it, pulled him into the room, and had him on the ground and restrained before the door even banged into the wall.

  It was the man from the front desk. In his hand, he held a manila envelope. Lien-hua scanned the hallway and then, finding it empty, quickly closed the door.

  “Hey!” the guy cried. “It’s just me. It’s just me.”

  I eased my grip, holstered my SIG, saw Lien-hua do the same.

  “Who’s the envelope from?”

  “I don’t know. Some homeless guy brought it in, told me someone gave him fifty bucks to deliver it to me. That’s it. That’s all I know. Now, please.”

  I took the envelope from him and then I stood back. “Did he tell you the room? Did he tell you which room to deliver it to?”

  The man from the front desk climbed to his feet, shaking his head. “No. Just said the Asian lady and the guy who needed a shave. That’s it. I swear.”

  My name had been printed on the front of the envelope. “All right.” I dug a few bills out of my pocket and handed them to him.

  “We’d rather not be disturbed.”“I’ll keep that in mind,” he mumbled as he passed back through the door and walked away rubbing his wrist.

  I closed, then dead-bolted the door. “Someone knows we’re here, Lien-hua, but it doesn’t look like they know which room.”

  “Shade.”

  I nodded. “Probably. He may have followed the doorman; let’s be ready either way.”

  She eyed the envelope. “Do you think you should open it?”

  “No, but I don’t always do what I should.” Carefully, I took it into the bathroom and held it over the sink just in case there was powder or poison inside. But it felt like only a few slips of paper.

  I unclasped the metal brad, cupped the envelope open, and one piece of paper and a photo of the shattered tank in the warehouse slid out. The piece of paper read, “You missed something, Dr. Bowers.” It was signed, “Shade.” The handwriting appeared to be the same script as the words on the warehouse wall.

  As I stared at the photo of the tank’s remains, I had a thought.

  “Lien-hua, back in the interrogation room, Melice whispered something to you. What did he say?”

  “He asked me if I thought drowning would be a terrible way to go.” She was quiet for a moment then added, “The truth is, someone close to me drowned a long time ago and I got the feeling Melice knew it and that’s why he asked me the question.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I asked him if that’s why he drowned the women. Because he thought it would be a terrible way to go.” Then she gazed at me.

  “Why, what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking things aren’t what they appear to be.” I pocketed the photograph. “I have to go back to the warehouse.”

  “What?”

  “I think I might know who Shade is.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I need to check first.”She started to tie back her hair. “I’ll come too.”

  “No, no. You have to stay here with the device.”

  “You can’t go alone, Pat.”

  “Lien-hua, I’m still not sure who to trust in the police department or even the FBI. If Melice and Shade see a big team coming, they’ll disappear and this’ll go on and on. They might go after Tessa.

  I can’t let that happen.”

  “But it might be a trap.”

  “Of course it’s a trap, that’s why we shouldn’t both be there, and that’s why we definitely shouldn’t bring the device. You need to stay here with it. Besides, if one of them is at the warehouse and one comes here, we can get them both. Divide and conquer. I’ll be all right. This ends. And it ends tonight.”

  “But Pat—”

  “Shh.” I touched my finger lightly to her lips. “That’s sign language for I’ll see you soon, don’t worry about me, we’ll talk more when I get back.”

  She looked like she was going to argue with me, but at last, she repeated my newly invented sign and pressed her finger against my lips.

  Then she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. Just on the cheek, that was all. But it was a kiss, and it felt intimate and familiar and natural.

  And it gave me swift courage and it sharpened my resolve.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

  “I’ll be here.” Then she added. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can.”

  I went into the suite’s closest bedroom, looked over the device one last time. I thought perhaps it would be better if Lien-hua and I didn’t have all of our eggs in one basket, so, I removed the cesium-137 pack from the bottom of the device just like Dr. Osbourne had shown me, then I slipped the device and my cell phone back into the laundry bag, and, taking only the cesium-137 unit with me, I went to go find Shade.In his home office next to his library, Victor was handing the suitcases of money to Geoff and Dr. Kurvetek when a man built like an NFL linebacker burst through the door, and aimed a gun at his head. “FBI,” the guy said. “Shut up. Lay down. And I might not shoot you.”

  Victor dropped to the floor as the two henchmen in the room simply gazed at the agent.

  “I said down,” the big guy growled, leveling his weapon at Geoff.

  Then, from his position on the carpet, Victor saw Suricata, who had slipped to the bathroom a few minutes earlier pull a long knife from his jacket and take another silent step closer to the FBI agent’s back.

  But Victor must have stared at Suricata a moment too long because the agent noticed Victor’s eyes and pivoted to face his assailant.

  Suricata was quick, knocking the agent’s gun away and swiping at him with the knife, backing him into the room. Dr. Kurvetek took advantage of the brief scuffle and ran past them into the hallway.

  Meanwhile, Geoff rose, pulling a gun of his own.

  Victor wanted to leave but he really needed to shred the rest of those papers. Of course, if his henchmen could stop this guy, he could shred them in a few minutes. Two against one.

  He decided to wait it out.

  Suricata raised his ten-inch custom-made dagger and sneered at the FBI agent. “I’m Suricata. It’
s important to know the name of the man who kills you.”

  “Oh. Well, in that case, I’m Ralph,” the guy said. “Let’s dance.”

  Suricata flipped the knife around in his hand, tossed it into the air, then snatched it out of its rotation and feinted toward the FBI agent named Ralph. Geoff was aiming his gun, but as Suricata and Ralph ducked and turned, he couldn’t seem to get a clear shot at the agent. Suricata jabbed the knife at Ralph, and for an instant it looked like he was going to bury it in the agent’s chest, but Ralph spun away from the blade and sunk a massive fist into Suricata’s stomach, catching him by surprise. Two more blows to the stomach, one to the back, and Suricata was down.

  “Stop right there,” said Geoff, taking careful aim at Ralph and grinning. “Hmm … homicide by cop. Always hate to see that—”

  But an intense-looking woman stepped out of the library and cut him off in mid-sentence, “Drop your gun, Officer Rickman.” Victor recognized her from the PROC meeting. Another FBI agent.

  Geoff hesitated and the woman continued, “Don’t tempt me. I don’t like dirty cops, and shooting you would save the taxpayers a lot of money. Drop it now.”

  Geoff made eye contact with her, slowly set down his gun, and Victor began sliding along the wall toward the door as Ralph cuffed Suricata and the woman cuffed Geoff.

  Victor was almost to the library. He might still be able to slip away.

  “What took you so long, Margaret?” said Ralph.

  “I wanted to let you have a little fun first, Agent Hawkins.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything. Thanks. Someday I’ll return the favor.” Ralph picked up the knife. “This is nice. I needed a new knife.”

  Margaret saw Victor beside the door. “Going somewhere?”

  Victor froze. “No, no. Just wanted to thank you. Those two men broke into my house and were about to—”

  “Help you finish shredding those papers?” She gestured toward the stack of research beside the shredder. Victor watched her begin paging through the files. Then she said, “I think we’ll need to confiscate these as evidence.”

  Ralph picked up the boarding pass from Victor’s desk. “The Philippines, huh? I hear that’s a nice place. And no extradition treaties with the U.S. How convenient.”

  And in that moment, Victor Drake wished, oh how he wished, he hadn’t used up his bottle of pills.One song ended, or so Tessa thought, and another began. It was hard to tell. Every song rolled effortlessly into the next.

  The music and the gyrating dancers made it nearly impossible to talk, so eventually, when Riker signaled for her to follow him, she clung to his fingers and let him lead her through the sea of people, to a bar located around the corner from where the band was jamming.

  The bar was just far enough from the heart of the music so people could actually call out their orders to the bartender and be heard.

  Riker straddled a chair. “Whadd’ya want?” he asked Tessa.

  For a moment, Tessa thought about having a drink. It wouldn’t have been her first one, but she didn’t like how alcohol clouded her thinking, made reality fuzzy. No, she didn’t want that. Not tonight.

  Tonight she wanted to savor every moment.

  She shook her head.

  “C’mon.” He signaled with a finger to the bartender and pointed at a Corona. “I’m buying.”

  “I don’t want any,” she said again.

  He looked at her, eyes smoldering. The lights from the club flickering, dancing across them. “Don’t ravens drink?” Then he put his hands on her forearms, gently. So gently. A light touch. An endearing smile. “The night’s just getting started,” he said.

  The little girl inside of her felt herself drifting farther onto the ice.

  He cared about her. He did. His tenderness proved it. She could trust him. It would be OK. He would hold her tonight and she would hold him and her heart would have a safe place to go.

  “OK,” she said at last, when the long tremulous moment was over. “But just one.”

  96

  The warehouse loomed before me like a giant coffin in the night.

  Shade or Melice was probably waiting for me. Maybe both of them. But I can do pretty well fending for myself when I have to, and I knew that if they were here, this would be my best chance at catching them.

  Watchful, cautious, I stepped from my car and leaned beneath the crime scene tape. Then I pulled out my SIG and my Maglite and approached the great black coffin.

  The criminalists had chained the door to the warehouse shut, but it didn’t take me long to pick the lock. I creaked the door open, entered the dusty stillness, and took in the scene. High above me, the jagged windows let only slivers of city light into the building.

  No sign of Shade of Melice.

  With my flashlight, I located the window I’d climbed through after scaling the outside wall. Then I swept the light along the wall to find the staircase I’d descended.

  Missing … what was I missing?

  I moved the light toward the area where I’d first seen Melice.

  Ralph was to your left … the tank with Cassandra was at the far end of the warehouse.

  Swinging the light like a giant saber, I walked warily forward. I could hear the faint sound of dripping water from somewhere. The lonely air around me took the sound and toyed with it, magnified it, making the innocent drops of water sound like the soft, wet heartbeat of the building. Other than that, complete silence.No sign of Shade or Melice.

  After a few moments, I found the remnants of the tank where Cassandra had been imprisoned for over twelve hours. I stepped inside the tank’s remains and stood where she stood. This is where she screamed. Where she wept.

  The rusty ring beside my feet.

  Gently dripping water.

  The camcorders used to record the women had been hidden in the wall about four meters away. I shone my flashlight on the area.

  The camera angles in all eight videos were consistent, so the cameras had been mounted in the same place for all the shots. I’d read in the criminalists’ report that Melice had used two cameras, one of which he’d moved subsequent to filming Cassandra’s video.

  I walked to the room where the cameras had been located, made sure no one was waiting in ambush for me, then found the cameras’

  original positions. After checking the sight lines, I returned to the tank and saw that Melice had done an amazing job of concealing the cameras’ locations. Both were set in shadowed recesses in the wall and wouldn’t have been visible from inside the tank.

  Just two tiny holes in a wall full of shadows.

  Four meters away.

  I tuned my ears to listen for any hint of movement, but heard nothing. If Shade or Melice were here, so far they’d been deathly still.

  Windows, high and off to the left … the glint off the windows

  …

  You’re still missing something, Pat. Think.

  The chain lay beside my foot, still attached to the metal ring. The last link of the chain was bent, opened, scratched. I guessed Ralph had used a tool of some kind to wrench it open. I studied the chain, counted the number of links. I bent low, aimed the beam of my light at the place where the metal ring was attached to the bottom of the tank. Then turned and looked up at the writing on the wall.Remembering the water fingering away from the tank and into the room, I let my light follow the cracks in the uneven floor as they spread away from the tank.

  What was I missing?

  I thought of John Doe’s suicide, the fires, the abduction, the death of Austin Hunter.

  Once again, I wondered what I would have done if someone had been threatening to hurt Lien-hua. Even before having her hand on mine, even before feeling our fingers intertwine or receiving her gentle kiss, I would have done anything to save her.

  Anything.

  As I let myself think of her, the last couple days became more vivid to me, colored richer by my feelings. I pointed the light at the place on the floor where sh
e had leaned over to help Cassandra.

  As far as we knew, Cassandra was the only one to survive this tank. Seven other women had died right where I was standing—all within the last four months; beginning about the same time the Illusionist attacked Tessa, the same time Sebastian Taylor disappeared. The same time Lien-hua first flew to San Diego to profile the arsonist.

  Motives. Dripping water. Echoing.

  Thorough. Professional.

  Lien-hua found the exit door at the aquarium.

  She was also the one who found the gloves at the site of Monday night’s fire.

  I aimed my light at the now-broken chain once again.

  Melice asked for Lien-hua by name. She was the one who tried to make the case for Dunn being Shade.

  Fact. Fiction.

  Fiction. Fact.

  Someone had to tell Melice about the device. You told Lien-hua the device was in the evidence room. She whispered something to Melice during the interrogation. The note from Shade said, “You missed something, Dr. Bowers.”

  I missed something.

  No, no, no.

  Lien-hua was the one who offered to tell Cassandra about Hunter’s death. She held Cassandra. Let her weep against her shoulder.

  Psychopaths just look at other people as objects to be used and then discarded …

  Everything I knew about the case was beginning to split apart.

  Lien-hua was the one who quickly bandaged Melice’s hand with her sock. So quickly. That’s where he’d hidden the pick—in the hand she wrapped …

  There was no robbery, no murder, no crime, no motive, the room wasn’t locked.

  I grabbed the chain. Yanked it.

  The room wasn’t locked.

  The eyewitness to Melice’s trial in DC was killed … Lien-hua knows DC. She used to be a detective there … What had Osbourne said? The government was worried about the Chinese … She’s Chinese. She’s planning a trip to Beijing.

  Defeating him in his own castle.

  Every thought was a betrayal to my feelings, to my world, to all I’d come to believe about the woman who told me she needed me.

  Semantic aphasia … using the words that your listeners want to hear. It’s a way of manipulating people.