“Oh God, please tell me I don’t have to talk to her today.” Rainey pleaded with Ernie. “You call her back. Tell her I’m fine and I’m sorry I didn’t call her.”
“No, ma’am. I’ve already had the pleasure twice this morning. I’m good for another year or two.”
Rainey cringed. “That bad, huh?”
Ernie pushed off Rainey’s knee and stood up. “Constance is on the warpath, honey. Stick your head up and let her take her best shot, before she gathers any more steam.”
Rainey fell back against the couch, exasperated. “Can my life get any more complicated at this moment?”
Ernie had reached her desk when she turned to face Rainey. “Sure honey, Katie could call and tell you why she reacted the way she did the other night. She’s been taking hormones for the last month and is scheduled to be inseminated next week.”
Rainey popped up into a rigid sitting position. “You’re making that up.”
“No, darlin’, I’m not. She wanted to surprise you. Surprise!”
#
“Hello, mother,” Rainey said into the receiver.
She was seated at her desk, signing checks, and praying this conversation would be as brief as possible.
“Caroline Marie, I cannot believe you were on the news and did not warn John and me.”
John Herndon was Rainey’s stepfather. He adopted her, which Rainey had demanded reversed when she discovered the existence of her real father. He was a nice enough man, but he was no match for his wife, and no source of comfort to Rainey. She ignored her mother’s insistence on calling her by the name she was given, after her grandmother, who thought “Rainey” was base and uncivilized, had changed her birth-name. Once she knew her real name, she had insisted on being called “Rainey,” to her grandmother’s severe disapproval. Her mother called her Rainey most of the time, unless she was in trouble. She called her “Caroline Marie” when she was in really big trouble.
Rainey talked fast, so her mother would have no time to comment. “Mother, I did not call you because I didn’t want to alarm you. Just so you’re caught up, I have been temporarily reassigned to the Bureau and I may appear on TV several times before this is over. I appreciate your concern, but I’m surrounded by good officers that won’t let anything happen to me.”
Constance leapt in with both feet. “I am not talking about your career choices. Quite frankly, I’d rather have a daughter in the FBI than one who chases lowlife bail jumpers for a living. What I am calling about is your announcement to the world that you are a lesbian. Do you have to continue to rub it in our faces? I won’t be able to go to the club, until John Edwards gives them something else to wag their tongues about.”
The truth was out. Her mother cared more about her bridge club than Rainey being hunted by a serial killer. She barely remembered the years when her mother was kind and loving. That was before Rainey’s grandmother fully sunk the teeth in and changed Connie into Constance forever. It did not surprise Rainey that her safety was the least of her mother’s concerns.
Rainey took a breath and let it out slowly. Then, as calmly as she could, said, “I did not make an announcement about my sexuality. I answered a few questions and told off an obnoxious reporter. I assure you, attracting your attention to my personal life was the last thing on my mind.”
“Don’t take that superior tone with me,” Constance shot back. “I think that attack on you did something to your brain. Your father would be so disappointed in this leap into sexual debauchery. Living in sin, in his house. Bill would never have approv…”
Rainey, who for the most part tried to be, at least, respectful of her mother on the rare occasions that they spoke, launched into her mother with all the built up frustrations of the last week for fuel.
“I may not be the daughter you wanted, but my father was proud of me and loved me for who I am. Don’t presume to speak for him, not now, not ever. Do you understand? Shut up now, or I’ll never speak to you again, or is that what you want? If so, lose my number, disown me, claim you found me in a ditch and did what you could, but alas, I was just too common to fit into your world. Fuck you, Connie. Is that clear enough for you?”
Rainey slammed the cell phone shut and threw it down on her desk. She stood up, grabbed two fists full of hair, and roared at the ceiling, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
She heard slow clapping at her office doorway. Rainey turned to see Ernie standing there, smiling, and continuing to clap in a slow deliberate rhythm.
“Now that, baby girl, was a long time coming.”
#
Every possible button that Rainey Bell possessed was being pushed. Rainey’s boxes were coming uncapped at an alarming rate. On the way to Durham, the hands-free device in her car began to speak.
“You have a call from Katie. Please press the call button to answer.”
Rainey glanced at the mirror, where the call button was located. “Not now, Katie, not now,” she said aloud, but she pushed the button anyway.
“Hey honey,” Rainey said, trying to sound upbeat.
“Don’t ‘hey honey’ me. I know exactly what you’re planning to do and it’s just plain nuts.”
Oh my, God! The UNSUB might be under stress because he couldn’t communicate with his master, but Rainey had the exact opposite problem. She couldn’t keep people from talking to her. Was a minute alone to gather her composure too much to ask? How was she supposed to out-think Dalton Chambers, who, although he was a complete narcissist, had an extremely high IQ? Rainey couldn’t put the lids back on the boxes fast enough.
“What are you talking about, Katie?”
Playing dumb did not work. “Rainey Bell, you are not going to that bar Saturday night. That’s it! I’m putting my foot down. Let the team do the work. Consultants don’t wear body wires and set themselves up as bait.”
“Well, I can see we need to tighten up security at the police station. Did one of the cops tell you?”
Katie was almost hysterical. “No, Danny told me. He thought I should talk to you, while you still had a chance to change your mind. Rainey, you can’t go through with this.”
Rainey made a mental note to tell Danny to fuck off, too. “Did he also tell you why I’m doing this? I’m not going in there alone. I will be wired with both video and audio, so the team can see what I see. If the UNSUB is in that bar, he will have to get close to me. He won’t be able to resist. If I can’t spot him, maybe the team will. We have to be proactive on this guy. We can’t sit around and expect him to make a mistake. He could make us wait a long time, but he will come for us, Katie. Have no doubts about that.”
“Why does it have to be you? Can’t some other lesbian cop go in there? I mean, I’m sure they would spot a straight one right away, but there has to be someone else.”
In that high moment of stress, Rainey found Katie’s comment hysterical and began to laugh.
“Are you laughing?” Katie was incredulous.
Rainey tried to control her amusement, when she said, “So, what you’re saying is, that because I have slept with a woman for nine months of the forty years I’ve been alive, these women will be able to tell within seconds that I have crossed over to their ranks.”
“Rainey, I hate to inform you, but you are a famous lesbian around here. You’re not only a famous lesbian; you’re a hot FBI agent with a gun. You are the quintessential lesbian icon.”
They both laughed for a moment and then a hush fell over them.
Rainey spoke first. “I will not be alone in there, Katie. There will be five other armed women in the bar with me, and a dozen cops outside. Saturday night, Feme Sole will be the safest place in Durham.”
“How will you recognize him?”
“A lot of it has to do with body language, eye contact, things like that. The team will look for people watching me. How they watch me is more important than the fact that they are.”
“What about afterwards, when you go home?”
Rainey suspected, if they didn�
�t locate the UNSUB at the bar, Danny would not allow her to go home alone. He was giving her rope, but he wouldn’t let her hang herself. “I’ll be covered then, too. Danny will make sure of that.”
“I still think this is crazy.” Katie would not let up.
Rainey made a fatal mistake. She responded without thinking, “That’s because your hormone levels are jacked up and you can’t be rational.”
There was a deadly silence on the line, followed by, “Your call has ended. If you would like me to reconnect your call, say, ‘Yes,’ or press the call button to hang up.”
Chapter fourteen
Rainey managed to make it through the rest of the morning without making anyone else mad or telling them off. She could feel herself near the edge of a roaring tempest. If one more person dropped a load on her, Rainey was going to show everyone just how hot the ice in her veins could run. Nobody really knew Rainey’s thoughts and desires. No one knew the weight she carried. They were all about to find out, because Rainey Bell had reached her limit. God help the person that tipped the scale.
Rainey leaned with her back against the wall of the conference room, arms crossed over her chest. Her body language said, “Stay away.” She eyed Danny from across the room, still sweltering beneath the surface because he shot his mouth off to Katie. They had been with the team all morning, planning and re-checking the evidence. The opportunity to confront Danny had not presented itself. When it did, he was going to get an earful.
“Rainey, I need to put this video camera on your jacket.”
It was James. Rainey had been so engrossed in her thoughts of kicking Danny’s ass, she did not feel James approach. She stood up straight and turned to the shorter man, presenting the lapel of her jacket.
James talked while he pinned on the button size camera. “This is real simple. See, it has a clasp, just like a tiepin. Tomorrow night, wear black if you can. It won’t show up, especially if you put it in place of a button, or something like that. It has a built in microphone, but I want to add an extra one for backup, and you’ll have an earwig so we can talk to you. ” He stepped back. “Great. You don’t notice it at all on that jacket. Now, we can see and hear everything you do.” He moved back toward his computer on the table. “You just wear that around for a few minutes, so I can check the feed.”
Rainey looked down at the small black camera. “How far away can you be?”
“About 1000 feet, clearly. I’m going over to the bar this afternoon to check for interference possibilities. The jail is very near there, so I don’t want to get mixed up in their bandwidth. I think we’ll be okay, unless they all start talking at once. If we need to, one of the other officers can wear a transmitter to receive and boost your signal.”
“I’m going over there this afternoon. You can test it then.”
“Great, just let me know when you’re ready to leave. I’ll get the van ready.”
James went back to work on his computer. The rest of the team was making plans for lunch. There was nothing left to do, except Rainey and Detective Robertson’s visit to Feme Sole. When the others began moving toward the door, Danny walked over to Rainey.
Keeping his voice low, he said, “Your body language suggests that your mood soured since I left you this morning. I assume Katie called you.”
Rainey glared at Danny. Between gritted teeth she responded, “It was not your place to tell her.”
“She had a right to know, Rainey.”
Rainey raised her voice slightly, the anger apparent in her tone. “That may be true, but she should have heard it from me, not you. You don’t know what she’s like, how wound up she can get. You scared her.”
Danny lowered his voice more, apparently trying to get Rainey to do the same. “I think we should continue this conversation in private.” He turned to the others, who had stopped at the door to watch the fight. “Could you give us a moment, please?”
The room cleared. Danny sat down on the edge of the table. He lowered his shoulders and smiled calmly. Rainey recognized the non-confrontational technique they used on agitated suspects. It did nothing to quell her anger.
As soon as the door closed behind the last gawker, she said, “What you did was far outside the bounds of our personal and professional relationship. I’ve stood by and watched you screw up one relationship after another and not once did I stick my nose in your business.”
“Maybe you should have,” Danny answered, candidly. “Be mad at me if you want, I did what I thought needed to be done. Lying to her, about the danger you are putting yourself in, is not going to fix your relationship.”
Rainey’s anger flared. “I did not lie to her!”
Danny’s calmness was in stark contrast to Rainey’s temper. “It’s a lie of omission. I know you don’t want to hear this, but that’s the root of all your problems with Katie.”
“Now you’re going to profile my relationship? That’ll be the fucking day…”
“The fucking day, what, Rainey? The fucking day you listen to someone other than yourself. Since your father died and then the assault, you quit listening to anybody. You stopped trusting people. You became excessively cautious, constantly vigilant, and overly protective of the people you care about. That’s classic post traumatic stress.”
“What, now you’re going to tell me I need a shrink? I did my Bureau required time on the couch, thank you.”
“A few more sessions couldn’t hurt. Maybe you and Katie should go together. You might learn what is really behind her concerns. You haven’t told her what you’re really afraid of and the not knowing is terrorizing her.”
Rainey continued to scowl at Danny. “She doesn’t need to know the details.”
“It’s not your job, Rainey, this one or the bail business. I don’t think you give her enough credit. Katie knows she fell in love with a cop. She knows what dangers are out there, but she sees your fear, and it doesn’t have a name. Katie can’t process it and deal with it until she knows.”
Rainey took a step closer to him. “Back off, Danny.”
Danny stood up. Non-confrontational strategies went right out the window. “Why not tell her what really lurks out there, the thing that drives the fears of Rainey Bell?”
Rainey seethed. Her hands were clinched in fists, her jaw muscles contracted.
Danny stared into her eyes, calculating his chances of getting away with what he was about to say.
He softened his tone, and said, “You’re not scared of someone coming after you. You are more than prepared for that. You’re afraid of losing someone else. You’re terrified of being left behind, broken hearted, and alone.”
“You don’t have a fucking clue what I’m afraid of,” Rainey spat.
“You’re the one pushing Katie away, not your job, not the boogey-men out there. You’re obsessed with protecting her and in so doing you are smothering her. You’re going to lose her, because of it.”
Rainey turned on her heels and stormed out the door. She passed the rest of the team in the hall, staring at the open laptop James held up for them. Rainey realized they had been watching the fight on screen. From the looks on their faces, she could tell the lapel camera caught it all. Rainey unpinned the camera from her jacket and handed it to James.
“Here, take this. It’s obvious that it works,” Rainey snapped.
She continued down the hall and entered the bullpen. Rainey found Detective Robertson at her desk.
“Come on, Sheila. I’m taking you to lunch.”
#
On the way to the car, Rainey called Feme Sole, hoping to reach one of the co-owners, Phyllis Rowan. Rainey found the name of the bar appropriate for a lesbian club in the middle of judicial central. In the past, women had few individual rights of their own. A woman was designated feme sole in order to conduct business and own property independent of a man, a right that had to be bestowed upon her by the state. The name of the bar was a reminder of just how hard women had to fight for independence. The bar was located do
wn the block from the Detention Center, on Pettigrew Street.
On the third ring the husky female voice of a long-time smoker said, “Feme Sole.”
“Hi, I was wondering if Phyllis was around?”
Rainey heard the distinct intake of a drag on a cigarette and then the exhale, before the voice said, “Yeah, this is Phyllis. What can I do for you?”
“I’m Agent Bell with the FBI. I believe Detective Robertson has been in contact with you. I know we’re set up to come to the bar later this afternoon, but the detective and I would like to come earlier, if that’s okay with you? We were going to grab a quick lunch first.”
The voice brightened on the other end. “We serve lunch, if you want to come on now. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it going.”
Rainey imagined a cheeseburger dripping with grease and deep-fried fries, but Katie would have a fit if she knew Rainey ate that much fat. Rainey had to admit she was healthier since Katie made it her mission in life to feed her, but healthier meant more food and extra miles to run. Katie distracted her from running too many mornings and Rainey worried about the pounds that would slow her down. With that in mind she said, “How about a chef salad? Do you have that?”
“One fresh chef salad coming up. Sweet tea?”
“Sweet tea would be fantastic.” Rainey looked at Sheila, who nodded that was fine with her. “Make that two of everything. See you in a few minutes.”
Rainey was quiet on the way to the bar and Sheila must have sensed it was best to leave her alone. When they exited the car, in the big dusty parking lot next to Feme Sole, Rainey turned to Sheila.
“When we go in there tomorrow night, I don’t want you near me. Find a spot today, where you can see the whole dance floor. I’ll ask the owner to reserve the table. I want to know where to look for you, if I need you.”
“I gotcha’ back, girl. Don’t you worry about that.”
Rainey examined the bar’s typical tobacco warehouse architecture, prevalent in the old “Big Tobacco” district. Durham once held the largest tobacco company in the world, American Tobacco, formed when the five biggest rivals in the industry became one company in the late eighteen hundreds. The city began extensive urban renewal back in the nineties. Now the old abandoned warehouses and factory buildings, with their elaborate red brickwork, were commercial and residential spaces. A bar in this district probably did very well. At least, the real estate was worth a bundle.
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