Into the Black Nowhere

by Meg Gardiner

  Lia’s cheeks flamed red. She began blinking and licking her lips. “Just . . . it was a bad time. Can we leave it at that? It happened.”

  She held up a photo. Caitlin’s stomach tightened.

  The cat lay small and lifeless, blood caked in the fur around its throat. The photos were stuck in wet grass around it. In all of them, Lia lay unaware, asleep in a simple and revealing nightgown. A repeated witness to death.

  “Aaron did this,” Lia said. “That’s what counts. You have to believe me.”

  “Please scan and send that to me.” Caitlin’s heart was beating like a drum. “I also need to examine the original. I’m going to have an agent from the Phoenix FBI office contact you.”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  Caitlin clicked her pen. “I need all the information you have on Aaron Gage. Full name, date of birth, place of birth. Any photos you can send me.”

  Lia rattled off the pertinent information but said, “I tore up all my photos and flushed them. I wanted any memory of him gone.”

  “Do you know where Gage is?”

  “No. Don’t want to. Want not to know. I left Rampart. I transferred, and you better believe that this freaky shithead Aaron Gage is a major reason why.”

  “Who might know?” Caitlin said.

  “I cut off contact with most people at Rampart. I couldn’t tell you.” Her gaze shifted to the side.

  Caitlin didn’t doubt that Lia was convinced of Gage’s guilt. And that she was terrified. And that she was withholding something.

  “Do you have any idea where I could start looking?” Caitlin said.

  “Last I heard, he joined the army.” Lia turned back to the screen. “It’s him. He’s not just a drunk-ass stalker anymore. He’s a full-on killer.” She leaned in. “Find him. ’Cause I’m putting myself out here, way past the line.”

  Lia ended the call. The screen went black.

  • • •

  Caitlin strode down the hall, searching the station, until she found Emmerich. Rapid-fire, she filled him in.

  “We need to find Gage. He was controlling and angry. Plus the fire setting, killing the cat—that’s as clear a set of behavioral indicators for psychopathic sexual sadism as it gets.”

  Emmerich said, “Fox had no prompting from you before bringing any of this up.”

  Caitlin felt affronted. “Absolutely not.”

  She knew better than to lead a witness, or to shape the information she drew out of a witness in questioning.

  “The sheriffs have withheld the fact that Shana Kerber’s throat was slit and that the Polaroids found in the forest were stuck in the ground around the body,” Caitlin said. “It’s the killer’s signature. That doesn’t strike me as coincidence.”

  Emmerich’s gaze sharpened. “Me neither.”

  17

  Working with Nicholas Keyes at Quantico, Tuesday morning Caitlin tracked down Aaron Gage. He was alive. He had an address across the Red River in Rincon, Oklahoma.

  “Oklahoma,” she said. “Way beyond the current kill zone. That fits the profile of an anger-excitation killer who hunts outside his own neighborhood.”

  “I-35 runs through Rincon,” Keyes said, on speaker. “Gideon County is a straight shot, due south.”

  Rainey came in. Hearing the conversation, her eyes went to the wall map of Texas.

  Keyes said, “And I can confirm one part of Lia Fox’s story. Gage served in the army. Military records coming to you now.”

  “Thank you,” Caitlin said.

  Rainey tapped her knuckles on the conference table. “Copy me.”

  Caitlin felt a surge of excitement. But five minutes later, Rainey read through the records and shook her head.

  “Eight years’ active duty, multiple deployments, Purple Heart, honorable discharge—he’s not the UNSUB.”

  “Why not?” Caitlin said. “The UNSUB loves violence. Multiple deployments to active war zones would give him cover to commit atrocities.”

  “Our UNSUB loves violence he can control. And war is never controllable.” Rainey’s voice had a harsh edge. “He loves violence he can inflict, against people who are in no position to fight back. The United States has a volunteer army—people join knowing they might go into harm’s way. The UNSUB wouldn’t touch that with a tent pole.”

  Caitlin felt a pinprick of doubt, and resentment that she immediately tried to squelch. Listen to the experienced agent.

  “Acknowledged,” she said. “But there’s something in this story that needs investigating. We won’t know what it is until we talk to Gage.”

  Across the room, Emmerich and Detective Berg leaned over a list—names that had come in via the tip line. Emmerich listened to Berg, underlined several names, and looked up. His gaze caught Caitlin’s. His question was wordless.

  “Located him. We’re on it,” she said.

  Caitlin held out her hand to Rainey for the car keys.

  “It’s going to take us hours to drive to Oklahoma,” she said.

  Rainey handed over the keys. She knew that Emmerich was the one who had agreed to this. But Caitlin didn’t know how Rainey felt about that. She recognized that her own position in the unit was unusual. She’d been recruited straight out of an Alameda County Sheriff’s Office homicide unit. She didn’t have the years of investigative experience most FBI agents accumulated within the Bureau before they joined the BAU. She sometimes felt like the teacher’s pet. She knew she had to earn her stripes.

  Oklahoma was going to take the rest of the day. She couldn’t afford for this trip to be a snipe hunt.

  “There’s a real lead here. It’s important,” she said.

  Rainey nodded. “Then we should get going.”

  Rainey headed for the door. As she walked, she scrolled on her phone, searching the military records they’d received from the DOD. Outside, she hopped in the SUV and made a call, trying to reach Aaron Gage’s former commanding officer. Caitlin got in the driver’s seat.

  “Please tell Colonel Marthinsen to return this call as soon as possible,” Rainey said, buckling her seat belt.

  Caitlin fired up the engine. Two minutes later, she hit the on-ramp for I-35 North.

  • • •

  The hills of southern Oklahoma slow-rolled across the winter-gold prairie, dipping to rivers and creeks, thick with leafless trees. The road curved through farmland and past a Chickasaw resort and casino. Caitlin drove silently behind her sunglasses. Rainey worked on her laptop until they pulled off the interstate in Rincon and headed into the countryside. Shutting down her computer, she pulled up a map on her phone.

  “Judging by satellite imagery, Gage’s cabin is smack in the middle of the woods.” Her face was grave, but her tone was sardonic.

  “As in teen-slasher-movie woods?”

  “As in black girls and geeks die first.” The edge left her voice. “It does match the profile.”

  They pulled off a twisting country road and bumped along a rutted gravel driveway. Rocky promontories barred their view until they topped a rise and found a half-acre property where the cabin faced south, toward the red clay river that lazed across the horizon. Caitlin pulled up in front and stopped.

  “Well.”

  The cabin was rustic, with a broad porch and wide windows. Across the driveway sat an old red barn. It was sun bleached and listing. The door was open.

  Inside, in the slatted light, sharp farm implements dangled from the rafters, jangling in the breeze like sinister chimes. Caitlin and Rainey exchanged a look.

  They climbed from the Suburban. Scanning the barn, the drive, the trees, the shadows, they approached the cabin.

  Caitlin had her coat unbuttoned, right hand low, not touching her weapon but making sure she had free access to it. No cars in the driveway or barn. No animals. No sound.

  She climbed to the por
ch, sweeping the view, and knocked on the door. As she did, Rainey’s phone rang.

  Caitlin glanced through the front window. Saw no sign of movement inside. The lights were off.

  Rainey answered the phone. “Colonel Marthinsen. Thank you for returning my call so promptly.”

  She listened, her face intent. From the phone, Caitlin could hear the man’s baritone voice.

  She knocked again.

  Rainey said, “I understand, Colonel. Yes. His final deployment . . .”

  From the back of the cabin came a man’s voice. “Coming.”

  Caitlin stepped back and turned sideways to the door.

  “Thank you, Colonel.” Rainey hung up. Her face was unreadable. “Gage’s former CO. He filled me in on how Master Sergeant Gage got his Purple Heart.”

  Her expression hinted at irony. Inside the house came footsteps. A man’s—and a dog’s paws ticking on a wooden floor.

  The door opened. Aaron Gage stood shadowed in the doorway.

  “Yes?” He wore dark glasses. He turned his head slightly, as if judging who was at the door by the way their bodies blocked the breeze.

  At his side was a black Labrador. A guide dog. Gage held his harness.

  18

  FBI? What’s going on?”

  Aaron Gage was red bearded, lean, fit, like a kickboxer. His dog stood patiently at his side as he gestured Caitlin and Rainey into the house.

  He closed the door. “Did I hear you mention Colonel Marthinsen?”

  “You did,” Rainey said.

  “What kind of questions required a call from my former commanding officer?”

  He stood by the door, now unwilling to welcome them further. His posture, Caitlin observed, was army straight.

  “We needed to know what wasn’t in your official records, Sergeant.” Rainey’s voice was velvet, and matter-of-fact. “Colonel Marthinsen told me how you lost your sight.”

  “It wasn’t a covert op,” Gage said. “Afghanistan’s on the map. And an IED is only secret until your Humvee drives over it. Why are two feds at my door?”

  Caitlin felt the flush on her cheeks. Good question. They’d driven two hundred fifty miles to interrogate a man who could not be the killer.

  Rainey’s lips were pressed tight. She was biting back I knew it.

  For a few seconds, Caitlin felt the brackish wash of failure. Snipe hunt. It had been too good to be true. Rainey had told her so.

  Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that this lead had a legitimate basis.

  She had run background on Lia Fox. On the long drive, Rainey had spelled her at the wheel, which had given her time to send requests and get the information. Lia was who she said she was. No criminal record. No history of filing false police reports. She’d never been sectioned. And the Houston Fire Department had confirmed the time and location of the apartment fire. They’d forwarded their call logs and the department’s fire incident report. Gage’s apartment had been gutted. The source of the blaze was a lit cigarette. The manner of combustion was, as Lia had claimed, undetermined. Evidence at the scene suggested an accident—that Gage had passed out while smoking. But arson could not be ruled out.

  Caitlin had checked the date of the fire. It was a Saturday night.

  The FBI’s Phoenix Division had spoken to Lia and obtained the original photo of the dead cat surrounded by snapshots. The photo was digitally dated, and the date appeared to be genuine.

  And, more than eighteen years later, Lia Fox remained terrified about the fire, the aftermath, and the man standing before Caitlin.

  Caitlin saw no evidence that Lia was a fabulist. To the contrary. If Lia had jumped to conclusions about Gage, she had cause. Real events had shaped her fears.

  Rainey was radiating impatience. But Caitlin’s gut told her not to let go of this. Not yet.

  “We’re investigating the serial disappearances and murders in Solace and Dallas,” she said to Gage. “You may be able to help us.”

  “Me?” His mouth hung open. “Those women they found in the woods? Jesus. What do you think I can tell you?”

  “You attended Rampart College.”

  He went silent. Eventually, he said, “That was a long time ago. What’s the connection?”

  “Your apartment was gutted by a fire,” Caitlin said. “What can you tell us about that?”

  “Nothing,” Gage said.

  “Sir?”

  He stood like he was at parade rest, holding the guide dog’s harness. “I can’t tell you anything, because I have no memory of the fire.”

  Rainey gave Caitlin a plain look now, not worrying that Gage would catch her side eye or other visual cues.

  “Why not?” Caitlin said.

  Gage paused, seeming to read the mood in the air, deciding whether to continue talking.

  “Back then I was pretty fucked up,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “Booze. I’m from a family of alcoholics and when I started college I set out to continue the family tradition.” He tilted his head. “Who told you about the fire—Dahli?”

  “Sir?”

  “Who told you? My ex-girlfriend, Dahli—Dahlia Hart?”

  Caitlin declined to say. “There was talk that you harassed your girlfriend after the fire.”

  He recoiled. “What? Absolutely not. Harassed her? One hundred percent no. I never even saw her again. Jesus, who told you that?”

  Caitlin felt a dropping sensation in her gut. “You wouldn’t have needed to see her to harass her, Mr. Gage.”

  “Goddammit. She was . . .”

  He stopped himself. For a second, he seemed on the verge of an outburst. Then he pulled back.

  Caitlin pressed further. “Somebody killed her cat and left it for her to find.”

  Gage’s mouth opened. “Somebody killed Slinky? Are you serious?”

  He seemed horrified, but Caitlin was intrigued that he remembered the name of the cat.

  “Mr. Gage? We have concerns that you may have been the one who did that.”

  “You didn’t know, did you?” His voice was as dry as sand. “About what happened to me in Kandahar. That’s why you’re here. You thought I was killing people in Solace. What, because I grew up in Texas? Because of Dahli?”

  Rainey said, “Sir—”

  “Listen. After I burned down my own crib, I got clean and sober. Enlisted. Served six tours, until I was wounded. I never saw Dahlia again. I never spoke to her again. I never contacted her again. I didn’t harass her. I sure as hell didn’t kill her cat.” He shook his head. “Really? You think I would bash some kitten’s head in because a girl broke up with me?”

  His face was flushed. He was breathing hard.

  The cat’s head hadn’t been bashed in.

  “So I was a mess. I was a drunk at twenty. But I was never violent with women. Or animals. I got eight years’ active duty under my belt, honorable discharge, got my degree. I work for a local nonprofit now, finding jobs for other vets. I have a family. None of this is me. It never was. It never will be.”

  Family. Rainey was perusing the living room. The plaid sofa had a plush toy on it. There weren’t many photos on the walls, but the ones on the windowsill portrayed Gage and a petite strawberry blond. A set of building blocks was scattered in the corner.

  Rainey slowly shook her head. She mouthed, “Dead end.”

  Caitlin drew her aside. Quietly, she said, “We’ve eliminated Gage. But not the incident. It matches the UNSUB’s profile exactly. That’s the homology—where the killer’s character and action first came together.”

  Rainey’s mouth drew to one side. She arched an eyebrow.

  “We’re missing something,” Caitlin said.

  She returned to Gage. “We didn’t mean to cast undue suspicion on you. But this investigation is urgent. We’re after a m
urderer who has killed at least two women and abducted four others since last summer. We need all the help we can get.”

  Gage’s shoulders and jaw relaxed perhaps a millimeter. “Understood.”

  At his side, the dog yawned. Gage said, “Chevy, sit.” The Lab promptly did.

  Caitlin said, “Something happened back in college that may be pertinent to our investigation. Memories fade, or become twisted—especially those formed under life-and-death circumstances. But we have to either get to the bottom of this or eliminate it completely.” She thought for a second. “Do you have any photos from that time?”

  Rainey frowned, maybe thinking, Why would a blind guy hang on to photos? But Caitlin was thinking, Why would he purge?

  “Yeah,” he said. “A few things that didn’t get burned up in the fire.”

  He pointed them at a closet near the front door. Inside it was a cardboard box of college memorabilia.

  In a photo album Caitlin found Dahlia Hart—Lia Fox—in a group shot at a picnic. She ran her fingers over the photo, stunned. Lia’s long hair was dyed platinum blond. She would fit right in among the Polaroid dead.

  Rainey looked over Caitlin’s shoulder. She was thoughtful.

  There were a dozen college kids in the photo, haphazardly gathered for the shot. The girls looked experienced at posing for the camera. The boys looked like they could barely stop goofing around long enough to snap the photo. Gage stood in the center of the shot. His bright blue eyes and slightly boozy smile seemed warm and easygoing. Lia sat at the picnic table. Her smile was photogenic but somehow glum.

  Immediately behind her stood a dark-haired, good-looking young man. His gaze was fixed on her.

  Caitlin turned to Gage.

  “There’s a photo taken at a picnic.” She described it to him. “One of the men is white, has dark brown hair, light eyes, he’s roughly your height.”

  Gage slowly shook his head. “I vaguely remember the picnic. That could be a number of guys.”

  “He’s wearing a diver’s watch. And a New Found Glory T-shirt.”

  Gage thought for a moment. “WWJD bracelet?”

  The young man in the photo wore a black wristband with four white letters. “Yes.”