by Steven James
She took a step.
“Wait,” I said.
She stopped. Glared at me.
“If Rodale wants me in on this, then I’m all in. Don’t micromanage. Let me do my job.”
“That’s precisely what I’m here to do: to make sure everyone does his job.”
She left.
I thought about the case and about Cheyenne.
Call it a quirk, but I don’t like unanswered questions, so even though it felt like a vague disloyalty toward Cheyenne, I decided to check on any prior ties she might have with Executive Assistant Director Margaret Wellington.
As I headed for my car, I made a wide berth of the cable news feeding frenzy outside the building.
Ever since arriving at the house nearly three hours ago, Tessa had been trying to make her way through Boulders Dancing on the Tip of My Tongue, a collection of poems by Alexi Mar nchivek, a Russian poet mostly unknown in America but someone who understood the paradoxes of life-both its tragedy and its glory.
Tessa didn’t know Russian, only Latin and French, so she was stuck reading an English translation, which was sort of annoying.
Finally she put it aside. Her friend Pandora had been bugging her to read some Sherlock Holmes, which she was totally not into, but Tessa had been hoping to check out some Robert Louis Stevenson, who, unlike so many of the writers of “the classics,” actually could write.
She opted for Stevenson instead of Doyle and pulled out The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Every five minutes she’d been checking to see if there was an email from Paul. He always sent his emails by 9:00, but for some reason tonight he was late, and that sort of worried her. She’d emailed him over an hour ago, but he still hadn’t replied.
She found her bookmarked page and read Stevenson’s description of a foggy night in London.
The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town’s life was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind.
Nice.
Very nice.
Tessa checked the email again.
Nothing.
She read on, but ten minutes later, distracted by her thoughts, she laid the book on the couch and tried the TV. American Idol reruns.
Karaoke on steroids…
That would be a no.
Click.
Some kind of Western. Click.
A Seinfeld rerun, commercials, commercials, one of the Star Wars movies. More commercials. She was about to turn off the stupid thing when she came to a cable news story with footage of a zoo or something in DC where a congressman’s daughter had apparently been attacked.
She paused.
The reporter, a perfectly sculpted woman with perfectly styled hair speaking in a perfectly cultivated voice, was explaining that the congressman couldn’t be reached for comment. “But we have confirmed that this is a joint investigation and that the FBI is already working closely with local law enforcement. Bob-”
The FBI, huh?
“Thank you, Chelsea.” The camera cut back to the news anchor. Then he started interviewing the network’s “expert crime analyst” who apparently didn’t have any additional information but wasn’t about to let that stop him from giving detailed interpretation of the unconfirmed facts concerning the case.
Guesswork about conjecture based on hearsay.
Cable news today.
On the news loop captured “only moments ago” running behind Anchorman Bob’s left shoulder, Tessa noticed a man in the background walking toward a car. He was wearing an FBI jacket and might have been just another anonymous agent, but she recognized the way he carried himself. And she knew the car.
Patrick.
Okay.
That’s informative.
She waited for more details from the anchorman, but the same footage kept replaying, and Bob kept restating the same information with slightly different wording each time, including a teaser before each commercial break to make it seem like there was breaking news about the case.
Finally, when he invited people to email him their opinions about whether or not this was an act of domestic terrorism, promising to read the messages on the air as they came in, she couldn’t deal with it anymore. Actual news reporting had died a swift and certain death in the age of instant messaging and 140-character attention spans.
She clicked off the TV.
Checked her email.
Nothing.
After grabbing a bag of tortilla chips from the kitchen, she flopped onto the couch again and thought back through the night.
Detective Warren had dropped her off at the house just a few minutes after 8:00, the storm churning around them.
They’d talked about surface stuff on the way: what Tessa was hoping to do during the summer (check out the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, maybe the NSA museum, the Spy Museum, things like that), and if she had a boyfriend (nada), and if she was thinking about college yet (yeah, maybe Brown or USC; maybe Duke), what she wanted to study (that’s easy-double major in English and Deep Ecology).
When they arrived at the house, Detective Warren had offered to stay with her, but Tessa told her not to worry about it. “I’ll be fine. Seriously. But thanks for the ride.”
“All right. Lock the doors.” And even though she was nowhere near old enough to be Tessa’s mother, she sounded parental.
“I will.”
“Good night.”
Tessa hesitated before climbing out of the car. “You’re not just here to take a bunch of classes, are you?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I know how you feel about Patrick. I could tell. In Denver.”
A long pause. “Good men are hard to find.” At this point, the detective sounded more like a sister than a parent. Guy talk between two girls.
“So you came here to win him back?”
“I never had him, Tessa.”
“What about your ex-husband? Aren’t you two-”
“Tessa.”
She waited, expecting to hear that it wasn’t any of her business, but Detective Warren went a different direction. “We’re getting along again-and that’s a good thing. But we’ll never be close like we were. That’s over.”
It was hard to know how to respond.
Actually, Tessa respected her for her frankness and for pursuing what really mattered to her, and from everything she’d seen, Cheyenne and Patrick really would make a good couple. “He likes you too,” she said at last, though she wasn’t sure she should have. “Patrick does.”
Detective Warren was quiet. “I should probably go. Good night, Tessa.”
“G’night.”
“And lock those doors, okay?”
“Right.”
Then Tessa hurried through the rain, using her body to protect the mail she’d grabbed at the end of the driveway on the way to the house.
Then inside.
Door closed.
Locked.
Ever since being attacked and nearly killed by a serial killer whom Patrick had been tracking last October, she’d learned to be extra cautious. She checked the back door, confirmed that it was locked.
Okay.
Good to go.
But now, three hours later, Patrick still wasn’t home.
She knew that he hadn’t gotten over Lien-hua yet, but if things weren’t going to work out there, she felt like he should totally hook up with Detective Warren.
However, it was obvious he liked them both, and honestly, so did she. It would have been a lot simpler if one of the women had been a real loser, but Detective Warren, the forthright cowgirl, and Agent Jiang, the introspective beauty, were both pretty amazing women.
Tessa checked her laptop once more, and this time she saw the email icon flashing.
With a small shiver of the guilt that comes from going behind someone’s back, she tapped the space bar. Tessa, Hey! You’re n
ot going to believe this. I’m in DC! Only for the next couple days-a friend of mine has a few sculptures that are showing at the Hirshhorn Museum. I have the middle of the day tomorrow free and I’d love to see you. I could meet at 10:30 or so. I’m thinking by the Capitol, maybe? I know a few people and I think I can get you a tour of the House gallery. Let me know. Love, Paul
Oh.
Unbelievable.
Not good.
Not good at all.
She reread the letter.
Tomorrow!
Why didn’t he tell you about this sooner? Why would he A pair of headlights turned from the road and began meandering down the long, winding driveway to the house.
Oh, man.
Patrick.
Tessa couldn’t think of any way of telling him what was going on-no, no, no, not right now. He’d been suspicious of Paul from the start, and if he found out she’d been emailing Paul like this behind his back, he’d be furious.
Besides, even if he would give her permission to meet with Paul, there was no way he’d be happy about it.
No way in the world.
Enough with the emails. There’s stuff you need to talk to Paul about. Go see him, get your answers, then sort everything out with Patrick tomorrow night.
She typed in her reply to Paul.
The garage door opened.
Patrick was home.
13
I heard Tessa rummaging through the cupboards in the kitchen. “That you?” I called.
“How could the answer to that question possibly be no?”
I paused.
Good point.
She appeared, crossed the room, and plopped onto the couch.
“Did you have a good night?” I asked.
She shrugged. “You? Was it bad? At the primate place?”
I let my eyes ask her how she knew where I’d been, and she flipped her thumb toward the television. “I saw you on TV.”
“Perfect.”
“It’s all over the news.”
I sighed. “Yeah, well, the media is going to have a field day with this one.”
She’d piled the mail on the coffee table beside her laptop, and I picked up the stack and started shuffling through it as we spoke: the latest issues of Sports Illustrated and Soldier of Fortune, both addressed to Freeman Runnels, the man who was letting us stay in his home for the summer… “Did you thank Detective Warren for the ride?”
“Patrick, I’m not five.”
“I know that.” A handful of sales flyers, a few credit card offers-all for Runnels.
“So, don’t treat me like it. I know when to say please and thank you.”
I looked up and saw that she was giving me an irritated stare.
“I’m just making sure you were polite,” I said.
“I’m the queen of polite.”
I blinked. “You’re the queen of polite?”
A raised eyebrow. “Careful.”
“I’m just saying.”
She laid her book on the couch and stood. “I gotta get to bed.”
“Hey, are you feeling all right?”
“Sure, yeah.” Her tone softened. “I’m just, you know. Worn out, I guess. I have a big day tomorrow.”
Back to the mail again. “I thought you were gonna hang out around here. Read?” Hardly anyone knew we were staying here, so I was surprised to see an official-looking letter addressed to me from a law firm in DC.
“Yeah, I mean, I was thinking I might take the VRE train to the city. Maybe see if I can get a reader’s card for the Library of Congress. I hear they’re pretty cool about giving them out to students. Is that all right?”
The Library of Congress was the biggest library in the world. A bibliophile’s paradise. I knew it was her mandatory mecca for the summer. She’d talked to me earlier about getting a reader’s card to get access to the main reading room, so her request wasn’t a surprise.
As I ripped open the letter I realized I couldn’t think of any good reason not to let her go, except that I didn’t really like the idea of her wandering around the District of Columbia alone.
Ease up. She’s seventeen.
“Sure, that’s fine. I’m teaching most of the day tomorrow anyway.” Then a thought. “I’ll be in class from 8:00 to 11:00, and then from 2:00 until 5:00. I have a meeting in between there, but I should have enough time to sneak to DC, grab lunch, and get back to the Academy. What do you say? Hang out together for lunch?”
You’ll never make it, Pat. Not with the briefing… the drive alone could take you “Lunch.” A slight pause. “Yeah.”
Good.
I’d find a way to make it to DC in time.
After an awkward moment, she headed for her room, but I called after her. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”
She didn’t turn around. “Yeah.”
“I love you,” I said.
Her bedroom door swung open. “You too.”
She went in, clicked it shut.
Yes, definitely spend some time talking tomorrow.
I slipped the envelope’s contents into my hand and scanned the pages.
And felt my throat tighten.
The letter was from a law firm representing Paul Lansing.
He was taking me to court to get custody of his daughter.
14
I’d only been in the DC area for a couple weeks, not long enough to get to know any lawyers, but Ralph had lived here for the last decade.
I speed-dialed him, and he answered after two rings. “Yeah?” His voice was hushed.
“You still at the primate center?”
“Naw. I’m at home. Tony’s in bed.” Tony was Ralph’s eleven-year-old son. A boy Tessa called “a Cheetos-eating, soccer-playing, video-gaming fool.”
“Sorry to call so late.”
“What’s up?”
“I think I need a lawyer.”
A pause. I had the sense that he was repositioning the phone. “What do you need a lawyer for?”
I told him about the letter from Lansing’s law firm. “Here’s the thing: I’m her legal guardian, so I don’t think there should be any prob-”
“This guy is her father, Pat.”
“I know, but he was never in the picture.”
“Did he want to be?”
An uncomfortable memory squirmed through me.
Last month Tessa had found an old letter that Christie had kept in which Paul begged her not to abort her unborn child. He’d promised to help raise the baby, but Christie hadn’t wanted him to be a part of their lives and had moved away, then raised Tessa alone.
“That’s not the point, Ralph.”
“The court always favors blood relatives. You know that. And she’s still a minor.” His voice had softened, and I didn’t sense that his sympathy right now was a good sign. “You will need a lawyer,” he said. “A good one.”
Not what I’d wanted to be hearing. “You know of any?”
“Most of the ones I know don’t do divorces, custody, any of that stuff. It’s all criminal law.” He thought for a moment. “Hang on a sec. Let me talk to Brineesha.” I heard him turn away from the phone and exchange a few indecipherable words with his wife, then he was back on the line with me. “Brineesha says hi.”
“Hi, back.”
“I’ll tell her. Anyway, she might have someone for you. One of her friends from work-Tracy-I guess she just went through a divorce, messy custody battle, the whole thing. Whoever Tracy’s lawyer was seemed to be really sharp. Brin says she’ll ask her for the name first thing in the morning when she gets to the bank.”
At least it was a start. “Tell her thanks.”
“Hey, don’t worry about this thing, okay? It’ll work out.” His assurances seemed to be having the opposite effect on me.
“Yeah.”
“See you at 11:30 tomorrow. My office.”
“All right.”
Astrid led Brad down the steps to the basement.
Where they were keeping the wo
man.
“How was it for you?” she asked him. “Tonight, I mean? Being able to watch?”
“It was everything I’d hoped it would be.”
She’d been watching things too, from a rather unique vantage point. “The video feed to that store was a great idea,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“You got the footage I asked for? Afterward?”
He held up his phone.
“Good.” She took it from him. Slipped it into her pocket.
She had to admit, Brad’s plan was by far their most devastating and brazen one yet. There were a few holes that she would fill in over the next two days, but overall he’d done a satisfactory, even admirable, job, and she was quite proud of him. Two more people would die, and the FBI would never suspect her or Brad of anything.
“How did you learn to reroute the video like that to the television store?”
“Research.”
“Research?”
“A job I had before my accident.”
He left it at that, and she sensed it was awkward for him to go on. He’d never told her how he got his scars, but ever since the two of them had first met, it’d been evident to her that the memory was painful.
She decided not to press the issue at the moment.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and went to the room Brad had recently remodeled.
Last month, he’d asked her if they could move some of their work to the house. She hadn’t liked the idea at first, but he’d been persistent, and when she realized it would be harder to travel after the baby was born, she’d given him permission.
He’d spent the last few weeks working on the room. She’d allowed him free rein, and in the end had been surprised by how thorough he’d been in designing it so that it could serve an array of troubling purposes. He’d even made the room soundproof and added a drain to the floor to make cleanup easier.
For her, the excitement came from the feeling of control, not from inflicting physical pain. Brad, on the other hand, had recently become more and more fascinated with that secondary aspect of their hobby.
His choices for outfitting the room reflected that.
She opened the door.
Brad stood quietly beside her as she made sure the woman was safely tucked away for the night.
