Twisted and Tied

by Mary Calmes

  “I think I know what we’re gonna do after work today,” Eli ventured.

  Me too. Drinking. Lots and lots of drinking.

  “Jesus, Doyle, you look like ass.”

  Ian sat down hard in Kowalski’s chair, and I stepped in close, hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

  “That makes no logical sense,” Ian whispered like his brain was offline.

  I was at a loss myself. I could not imagine anyone being less ready to be a liaison than Ian. But at the same time… Ian was very similar to Kage in a lot of ways. Meeting Kage, hearing him bellow, seeing his size, and being the subject of his glare, you wouldn’t guess he was unflappable under pressure and the rock we all clung to.

  So maybe, just maybe, Kage saw the same in Ian.

  Still, the announcement made my chest explode with a flock of flapping birds. I couldn’t even take one more surprise today. Not. One.

  Kage then cleared his throat and indicated the back of the room with an open hand.

  “With the changes I’ve just implemented, we need an additional six men here in the investigator office, and we have five—oh, four—here today.”

  Attention shifted to the men standing along the back wall close to the exit. Our floor was set up so there was glass at desk level to the ceiling and concrete block from desk level to the ground. There was no door that let out of the bullpen. The only door that could be closed was the one to Kage’s office.

  When Kage was promoted, he was supposed to move to the chief deputy’s office, one door down from where we were now, but he’d stayed in the supervisory deputy’s office. I wondered what would happen now.

  “Joining our team are Senior Investigator Josiah Redeker, from the District of Nevada,” Kage announced, and Redeker lifted his hand, “Deputy Marshal Gabriel Brodie, from the Southern District here in Illinois, Probationary Marshal Leo Rodriguez, who moved here from New York, Probationary Marshal Sen Yamane, from LA—” Kage paused as another man came in, all smiles until he saw Kage furrow his brow. “—and Deputy Marshal Eric Pazzi, from the Northern District of California.”

  We all remained quiet as Kage took a breath.

  “We arrive on time here in Chicago, Pazzi.”

  “Yessir,” he said quickly, grimacing.

  “There will be one more joining us in the next few days, but at the moment, I’m still awaiting transfer paperwork.”

  Ian put a hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention.

  “All the transfers meet me in the conference room. Everyone else remain here so I can give you your—yes?”

  A man I had not seen since the past fall stood in the bullpen doorway, and even though seeing him shouldn’t have signaled alarm in me—he was just an FBI agent, not some harbinger of doom—I still jolted. After a moment two more joined him, all in trench coats, and Special Agent Tilden Adair, who I knew, the one in front, opened his badge to reveal the familiar FBI credentials and pulled them for Kage.

  “I’m Special Agent—”

  “Tilden Adair,” Kage finished for him. “I remember. What can I do for you, Agent?”

  He gave Kage a nod as he put his wallet away. “We have a situation, Chief, and we need Marshal Jones.”

  “And what situation is that?”

  He coughed. “I have three dead men in an art gallery in the West Loop.”

  “Which has what to do with Jones?”

  I knew what the answer was before the words were even out of his mouth. There could be no question, not really. The FBI only came looking for me, to me, for one reason.

  “We believe it’s Craig Hartley,” Adair announced, and everyone in the room turned to look at me.

  I read it on the faces of the new guys, the surprise and then shock that turned fast to sympathy. They all felt bad for me, and even if they didn’t know the whole story—and how could they, only my most inner circle did—still, they were sorry. Because when you had a serial killer kidnap and torture you and then pay you house calls and save your life… it was weird and twisty, and there was a blurring of good and evil there.

  In the beginning, when Hartley had put a kitchen knife into my side, a singular emotion could be dredged up when his name was spoken, and that was fear. But over the years, as he had escaped from prison and found his way back to me twice, now what could be fished from the depths of my soul was still panic and dread, but also humiliation, gratitude, and rapport. So when Adair spoke, the jolt of terror was followed almost instantly by resignation.

  “Believe or know?” Kage growled.

  “We know,” Adair said before turning quickly, grabbing Kowalski’s garbage can, and vomiting, I was guessing, both his breakfast and morning coffee.

  I turned to look at Kage, who looked over his shoulder at Prescott. “You might need to start this morning without Jones.”

  IT WAS a field trip, but not everyone went. Kage was sending Becker in his place, and since Ian was the new liaison, he was going, which was good since, one way or another, he was going with me. Before I could follow Ian out of the room, Kage called me over.

  Stepping in front of him, I was surprised when he took hold of my shoulder.

  “Listen, make sure you let Kohn talk to any reporters that are there. If you have to vomit, do it like Adair and not at the scene, and if the Feds or anyone gives you any trouble, sic Doyle on them because that’s what he’s there to do, corral the interagency bullshit.”

  “Yessir,” I agreed, smiling slightly over the vomit part. Leave it to Kage to remind me of something ordinary like throwing up to somehow inject normalcy. I appreciated it more than I could say.

  He nodded and tipped his head toward the door.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said and pivoted and darted to catch up to Ian.

  I could tell, as I walked out of the office, that some of the guys were unsure about me. It was weird, I would guess, to be that close to someone they’d read about or even seen on the news. My name had been in print in conjunction with Hartley a lot over the years. The Wikipedia entry on him had my marshal picture, and while the whole thing with Hartley cutting out my rib wasn’t in there because it was not common knowledge, there was still the part about him kidnapping and torturing me. There were also some lurid bits about what he’d done to the women he’d killed, as well as Special Agent Wojno, and his picture from the FBI Most Wanted list. The fact that he had eluded the FBI on a number of occasions was also in there, and the opinion that, while dangerous, he was not a rampaging psychopath.

  The men I rode the elevator down with cast surreptitious glances at me, wanting, I knew, to ask about Hartley. I had been asked about Hartley since he first became a suspect and was still unsure how to answer. The big question, why I was still alive, was one I certainly had no response for. Only Hartley could say. But as I stood there silently, back against the cold steel as we descended toward the parking garage, I could feel how thick the tension was around me. Adair himself was eying me warily.

  “Listen, Jones, it should only be you coming with us. This is an FBI inves—”

  “You heard Kage,” Becker interrupted. “You get me and Doyle, Kohn, and four others, and that’s how this is gonna go. If you don’t like it, you can have your boss call mine, and maybe Jones will—”

  “Yeah, all right,” Adair agreed with a grunt, clearly annoyed. “Just don’t turn this thing into a circus.”

  “That’s hysterical, coming from you,” Ian retorted, his voice a sarcastic drawl. “You’re the ones who shared what happened to your agents with the press before Thanksgiving last year. That was fuckin’ brilliant.”

  Becker bumped Ian, and he crossed his arms and exhaled sharply. Apparently the new liaison needed to calm the hell down. Ryan and Dorsey were there to show Rodriguez and Brodie, the new guys Kage sent with us, how we ran things, and both of them were suddenly staring forward, trying not to make eye contact with Ian. I understood. If it were me, I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with him either. He looked like he was ready to tear someone’s head of
f, the way his jaw was set, clenched with the muscle working in his right cheek, how flat and cold his eyes had gone, and the rigid battle stance. The whole soldier mantle was drawn tight around him, and he was bristling with seething menace.

  Gently, quietly, I put a hand between Ian’s shoulder blades before sliding it up into his hair. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them back up, he looked better, settled, grounded, and as he took a breath, I saw him relax a bit. He wasn’t calm, but he was better. Nice to know just my touch could do that.

  We took the gigantic Chevy Suburbans that normally went out only for fugitive pickups or if the whole department was involved in a task force. The last time we all went on assignment as a group was before Halloween last year, when our Most Wanted included a child predator. Now, loaded up with Becker driving, we moved out, following the Feds to the gallery.

  No one said a thing during the ride, only Ian’s hand on my thigh, where no one could see, keeping me calm. I wasn’t scared—Hartley wasn’t there waiting for me—but there was that anxiety over what had been left for me to see.

  Once we reached the street and parked, we all piled out and waited for Adair and the rest of his team to join us.

  “So how do you know it was him?” I asked when Adair motioned for us to follow him.

  I remembered him because of his looks. I had never met anyone with black eyes that were so striking under heavy black brows, framed by long, thick lashes in his pale—like alabaster-white—face. He didn’t look sickly, but you could see the blue veins under the skin of his throat and hands.

  “He—” Quick breath, and I took a step away from him because he’d already shown his stomach was iffy. “—signed it, and there’s an inscription on the wall.”

  I stopped walking and looked at him because that hit me as all kinds of wrong, and I felt it physically, the tremor that shuddered through me, but also, and more importantly, instinctively. Because while Hartley did leave messages, he didn’t sign his work; it wasn’t his way. He wasn’t prideful in that respect, and that was part of the point of knowing who you were chasing. He made you have to get to know him, which I did.

  “We would have kept this from you, Marshal, but even though you’re not involved with our ongoing pursuit of Craig Hartley, you are, in fact, tied to him until he’s back behind bars.”

  “Right,” I concurred as Ian slipped a hand up my back, resting it on my shoulder for a moment before letting it slide off. He couldn’t very well hold my hand, but I could have really used the contact.

  The Sanderson Gallery down by the Loop was only fifteen minutes from the office. CPD was keeping a crowd back. I saw the yellow tape up, and then inside of that, as we closed in, the spray of what I thought was probably blood on the front windows.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yeah, it’s blood.”

  “Is there more inside?” I asked Adair, already knowing the man I knew was not responsible for whatever horror was behind the door. The last time I saw Hartley, I got the feeling murder was no longer in his repertoire. He did it to sort out something horrible in his head, to make a statement about who was weak and able to be seduced, and who was not.

  There were women who came forward afterward, horrified it could have been them if they had, in fact, decided to cheat on their husbands. There was one woman who implied murder was what an adulteress deserved. I had roared at her at my desk, sent her scurrying from the bullpen because it was such shit that I couldn’t stand to look at her. But all of that, the women Hartley killed, the way he did it, the people he murdered during his last escape and the man he dispatched to save me… none of that was ever rage. He was methodical, steady, and… what, tidy? There was never a mess, never blood splatters and over-the-top shows of power. It wasn’t him, and as my stomach turned into a block of ice, a feeling of dread sank over me.

  What the hell was going on?

  “Jones?”

  “Yeah, sorry. So is there more blood?”

  “No, that’s all there is, period, and it only belongs to one of the men. There’s no more blood anywhere than that in the gallery.”

  Which was more like Hartley, but still not likely.

  I kept pace with everyone, and a part of me wished it was just me, Ian, and Becker, and maybe Eli. I didn’t like the new guys seeing how closely I was involved with a psychopath.

  The cop at the door gave us booties to cover our shoes and gloves for our hands, and then one by one, we entered the gallery.

  It was a beautiful space, with an open-beam ceiling, polished hardwood floors, and industrial lighting. The exposed brick wall along one side would have made it feel warm, but it contrasted with a lot of glass and chrome and modern furniture that made the room seem cold. Of course the three dead men hanging from the moveable walls added to the morgue vibe of the place.

  At Becker’s direction, all of us, as well as the agents, fanned out so they could take in what I was sure the papers would call a horrific tableau. They liked saying shit like that.

  “This is new,” Ian said to no one in particular, scanning what was clearly a presentation before pointing to the words For Miro done in beautiful flowing cursive. “What is that?”

  “Paint,” Adair answered with a cough. “Like I said, the only blood in here is on the front window.”

  “So where do we think their blood is?” Ian continued.

  “We have a—oh, here,” Adair said quickly before gesturing to the other side of the room, where a man stood surrounded by several others. It looked like a trench coat convention. “Kelson! Here!”

  I expected him to be talking to one of the older men, but a younger one I hadn’t noticed stepped out from the circle and strode, almost strutted, across the room, followed closely by two others.

  “This is our behavioral profiler, Kol Kelson, from Langley.”

  Kelson had to be older than he looked because, if I had to go on a guess, I would have said twenty-three, twenty-five tops. He was about five nine, thin, with lean muscles, golden-brown skin, delicate features, and honey-colored eyes. He was easily one of the prettiest men I’d ever met in my life.

  “Oh, Marshal Jones,” he said reverently, rushing forward, hand out, eyes wide, staring at me like I held the secrets to the universe. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but really, it’s a pleasure.”

  “Likewise,” I muttered, shaking his hand as he put his other over the clasp.

  It was eerie. I felt strange, like the air in the room was slowly being sucked out, and I was starting to have that prickling, uneasy feeling where my clothes felt too tight and my skin started to itch, and there was a cramp in the back of my neck.

  “What do you think of your love letter?” he tossed out nonchalantly, almost arrogantly.

  “I’m sorry?” I snapped, pulling back my hand, glaring at him because these were men he was talking about, people who were now dead, and his callous disregard made me want to punch him in his smug elfin face.

  “Did you not tell him?” Kelson asked, squinting at Adair.

  “No, I-I thought you would want to.”

  Kelson’s face brightened. “Thank you, that was thoughtful.”

  He made me uncomfortable. I felt that quirk of something I didn’t like. Kelson was… off somehow. His reactions didn’t match what was happening. He should have been horrified like the rest of us, sickened, but instead he was enthralled. And I wasn’t stupid; I knew people processed trauma differently. At her grandmother’s funeral, Catherine could not stop laughing until I finally took her out of the synagogue to the car, where she dissolved into a deluge of tears. But this wasn’t that. This was Kelson hopped up on adrenaline, and I had to figure out why.

  After taking hold of my bicep, he walked me closer to the three bodies, letting go once we were within touching distance of the wall.

  The three panels were arranged as a trifold, like those pieces of posterboard kids bought to stick their projects to when they presented them
to the class. Each man hung on a separate moveable wall.

  The man on the left was turned on his side, facing the middle, stuck to the wall with what looked to me like fishing line, posed as though he were running and throwing roses in the air. Each petal was glued down, and a small mound of petals lay on the floor in front of the wall. The man on the right had his left hand on his chest, and in his right, he held out a bouquet of roses. Another mound of petals on the floor. The man in the middle faced front, holding a human heart, presumably his, in his cupped hands, along with several roses, as though offering it to whoever was standing in front of him. It was horrifying and stunning at the same time.

  “Jesus,” Ian said, his breath rushing out as he stopped beside me, his hand on the small of my back, not caring who might see him touching me.

  “Marshal Jones.” Kelson almost sang my name.

  “Do we—” I coughed. “—know who these men are?”

  “Yes,” Kelson said, “and that’s why Hartley dedicating them to you is interesting.”

  I waited, irritated he wasn’t just telling me, instead making it more dramatic than it needed to be.

  “These are three of the FBI’s Most Wanted.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  He shook his head. “No. And from what the forensic team has been able to determine already, one of them has been dead for a month, and the other two between one and two weeks.”

  “So he hunted these guys down and killed them.”

  “Yes.”

  I stared at the dead men because this was getting further and further from anything Hartley had ever done in his life.

  There had been copycats over the years, and the second I thought it, the idea took hold because, really, the man I knew was not some kind of vigilante. And honestly, if he were going to make an overture of love toward me, he would have probably kidnapped me, gutted me, and filled my cadaver with flowers. That was more his speed—the statement, not this. I had no idea what was going on, but the longer I stood there, the more alien the scene became.