Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (19 page)

“Agreed,” she replied. “I think maybe you are
misunderstanding our intent.”

“From where I sit it sounds to me like you’re trying
to paint my wife as her accomplice. Is that the intent you’re
talking about?”

“Actually, it’s just the opposite,” Agent Hanley
offered. “We’re working to rule out Miz O’Brien completely.”

“Oh please.” I let out an abbreviated harrumph. “Do
you really think I’m going to believe you aren’t lying through your
teeth right now? Ten minutes ago you hit us with a purposely
transparent good cop-bad cop routine. Why, I haven’t quite figured
out, but it’s obvious you’re trying to run a game down on us. I
sincerely doubt we can believe anything you’ve said since you
walked through the door. You probably aren’t even with the BAU at
all.”

“I can assure you we are with the BAU,” he replied.
“And what you choose to believe is up to you, but you do need to
calm down. The simple truth is we’re on your side, whether you
realize it or not.”

Doctor Jante directed herself toward me. “We’re
gathering information for a criminal analysis, Mister Gant. The
supposed Miranda personality has recited various other facts about
Miz O’Brien, all of which we have been able to corroborate.”

“Corroborate how?”

“Primarily through public records.”

“Since you’re the FBI I suppose I shouldn’t bother
to ask if it occurred to you that she, or again her attorneys, did
a bit of research via those same public records?”

“Of course it did,” she replied, shaking her head.
“In fact, it’s our working theory.”

“You keep saying ‘supposed Miranda personality’,”
Felicity interrupted. “What do you mean by that?”

“We aren’t exactly sure what to call it,” she
answered. “To put it simply, it all comes back to what I mentioned
before. In cases of Dissociative Identity Disorder, the psyche
splits as a defense mechanism. It compartmentalizes the effects of
severe psychological trauma but will then act out when subjected to
triggering stressors. Since the origin of the disorder can usually
be traced back to a recurring trauma such as extreme abuse or
sexual molestation, generally the fracture focuses on a childlike
personality where the individual can create what they perceive as a
safe space. There may be other identities, yes, but the childlike
aspect is a dominant and driving force. As I told you before,
Annalise has no such fracture. She simply has Annalise and Miranda.
Both of who are wholly aware of one another and appear to have some
type of symbiotic relationship, although that seems to be
disintegrating rapidly. I’ll admit that initially I believed her to
be faking the disorder, however, if that is the case she is very
adept. If she is for real, then she is a very unique case
indeed.”

Felicity and I looked at one another briefly but
remained tight-lipped. Puzzle pieces were starting to fall into
place, and the picture they made was less than pretty. However, it
wasn’t the image I’d been conjuring in my mind’s eye over the past
half hour. Instead, it was an updated version of the one I’d feared
all along.

I don’t suppose any of this should have come as a
surprise to me. After all, I had always been of the belief that
Miranda would continue to use Annalise until she could find a way
to reconnect with Felicity, and she was obviously doing just that.
She knew full well my wife wouldn’t come to her willingly, so she
needed a way to make it happen, and establishing complicity seemed
to be her plan.

“So why am I really here then?” Felicity asked with
a quick shake of her head. “What is it you want from me?”

“For exactly the reason we told you in the
beginning,” Hanley said. “So we can gather information.”

“But it’s not just for your database, is it?” I
asked.

“Admittedly, there is another need for the
information, yes,” Jante answered. “Everything we gather will be
provided to the prosecution. But, at this point, we don’t know what
her attorney might try, and we have to be absolutely certain of our
facts where this case is concerned. Given what we have learned so
far, it is a near certainty that you’ll be brought into court to
testify, Miz O’Brien.”

“About what?”

“The connection between the two of you.”

“That’s exactly what Miranda wants,” I replied.

“Why is that?”

“Long story.”

Felicity jumped in. “Do you think her attorney might
try to shift blame to me?”

“We don’t know for sure what his plan of attack will
be. Right now we’re just speculating,” Agent Hanley answered.
“Insanity defenses are a long shot at best, and he most certainly
knows that, but that is the most likely starting point given her
current state. Still, he would be a fool not to use you in some
way. If the insanity ploy fails, then he will be pulling out all
the stops, if for no other reason than to lessen the severity of
her sentence.”

“You sound like a prosecuting attorney yourself
instead of a profiler,” I observed.

“Case investigator is what we
prefer,” he replied. “At the BAU we
create
profiles
, but the title Profiler is
actually a term coined by the media and hyped by Hollywood.
However, you’re somewhat correct. I worked as a prosecutor before
joining the bureau.”

“Hmmph,” I grunted. “Well, that’s what I get for
assuming. I figured you’d need to have a background in psychology
not law.”

“I have both, actually. A Masters in Law and a BS in
psych.”

“I guess it’s good to keep your options open,” I
replied, for lack of anything better to say. “What about you,
Doctor Jante? You actually sound like a psychologist.”

“I am,” she replied.

“Well, at least there are no surprises there.”

“Let’s get back to your original question,” Hanley
said. “Our data will be a part of the prosecution’s case, as is
customary whenever a serial offender goes to trial. But it’s
usually just a profile for comparison. In Devereaux’s case, she’ll
no doubt be facing a court-ordered psych evaluation given the
nature of her crimes—also not unusual. But by having unfettered
access to her now, we may well end up with invaluable data at our
disposal that wouldn’t come out in a standard psych eval. However,
whatever we come up with needs to be accurate. We can’t afford a
misstep with this.”

“Okay, but what about the evidence?” I asked. “The
way I understood it, there was more than enough to convict
her.”

“In theory there is, but did you ever hear of a
little media circus called the O. J. Simpson trial?” he asked.

“Point taken,” I said with a nod. “But still…”

“Believe me, we’re right there with you. But, we
also have a job to do, and believe me, her ‘dream team’ isn’t made
up of underpaid public defenders. She has some serious hired
guns.”

“So why didn’t you just tell us what this was really
about in the first place?” Felicity asked.

Doctor Jante shook her head. “To be honest, it’s
easier to tell if a subject is lying if you catch them off guard.
And we had to be sure.”

“Great,” I muttered. “So this was all one big lie
detector test.”

“In part, yes,” she replied.

“But did I pass then?” Felicity asked.

Jante shook her head. “Not really.”

“And that means what?” Felicity pressed. “You’re
going to arrest me again?”

“No,” the doctor replied. “But you’re still holding
something back and that concerns us.”

“Trust me, I’m not keeping anything secret that
would help you.”

“So then you admit that you are withholding
information?” Hanley asked.

“This is turning into an interrogation again,” I
objected.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mister Gant, but it’s
the two of you who are turning it into an interrogation by not
cooperating,” he replied, voice stern and even.

“We’d be a lot more cooperative if you were being
honest with us.”

“We are.”

“Only when it’s convenient for you,” I replied. “Or
did you forget the big reveal just a minute ago?”

“Mister Gant, believe it or not we are trying to
help you.”

“You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it.”

“Mister Gant,” Doctor Jante interrupted. “We need
you to calm down. Devereaux and her attorneys are trying to drag
your wife into this, and so far they are doing a damn good job.
Essentially, Devereaux is placing herself at the scene of your
wife’s extramarital tryst with Lewis…”

“That’s not what it was,” Felicity objected.

“Be that as it may, that is exactly how it will be
portrayed in court,” Hanley replied with a dismissive gesture.

Jante continued. “Either way, she appears to be
trying to make a mutual connection between the two of you that goes
beyond her simply having an obsession.”

“So why doesn’t she just come out and accuse
Felicity of being her accomplice then?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be
easier?”

“She’s far too intelligent for that,” Jante replied.
“It might sound easier, but it would be less effective. She knows
making an accusation like that would be far too obvious under the
circumstances. Instead, she’s painting Miz O’Brien into the
picture. Remember, all it takes is reasonable doubt.”

“She’s not after reasonable doubt,” I blurted,
forgetting to hold my tongue. “She’s after complicity.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Have either of you wondered why she wanted to talk
to you pre-trial?” I asked.

“Of course,” she replied. “It’s obvious she is up to
something, and it would appear that somehow implicating Miz O’Brien
in the crimes is it.”

“Like I said, complicity.”

“But complicity gets her nothing.”

“Actually, it gets her access to my wife, which is
what she really wants.”

“Why?”

I knew I was getting carried away, so I slammed on
the brakes and tried to recover by saying, “Just call it a
hunch.”

Felicity recognized that I had talked myself into a
corner and jumped in to divert the conversation. “So what do we do
now?”

Jante looked over to her. “Unfortunately, we can’t
simply assume that she is fabricating everything she says. The real
sticking points are the mentions of Miranda in your arrest record,
so we need to be clear on why exactly that is.”

“It sounds like you consider that some sort of
damning evidence,” I observed.

“It is. It indicates a connection.”

“Then let me ask another question and hope like hell
I don’t regret it later. Why does the federal government care
whether or not my wife is implicated in this?”

“Contrary to what you might believe, Mister Gant,
the government does actually care whether or not an innocent person
is wrongly accused or convicted of a crime.”

“No offense, but you’ll have to forgive me if I take
that with a shaker full of salt.”

“I’m merely answering your question. We aren’t here
to change your opinions.”

I didn’t press any further. I felt certain there was
something going on behind the scenes here, but I wasn’t quite sure
what it was. However, what I did know for a fact was that some
unnamed benefactor within the FBI had pulled my fat out of the fire
when I had been arrested in New Orleans while unofficially
investigating this case on my own. Something told me that same
mystery person was behind this as well. I suppose I should have
been thankful, and in many ways I was, but in the back of my head I
couldn’t help but wonder what price I was going to pay and exactly
when the bill was going to come due.

“We are simply trying to find the truth,” Doctor
Jante said. “We need to determine if anything Devereaux has said is
both accurate and at the same time inaccessible without her first
having direct contact with Miz O’Brien.” She shifted her gaze to
Felicity and added, “If you had such contact with her, we need to
know about it, and why.”

“And if there is something she knows that she
shouldn’t?” my wife asked.

“Then we could potentially have a problem,” Hanley
said.

“I think we have one then,” she replied.

“How so? Did you have direct contact with
Devereaux?”

“No, not until the night at the zoo when she was
captured. And when she called to threaten me. But you already know
about all that.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“I’m sure Miranda knows quite a bit about me,” she
sighed. “Much more than she reasonably should.”

“It would help if you could be a bit more specific
about that,” Doctor Jante pressed.

“Believe me,” I spoke up. “That’s just about as
specific as you want her to get.”

“And why is that, Mister Gant?” she asked.

I had already slipped twice and managed to duck and
run. I didn’t know if I could get away with it a third time. But,
since this conversation was rushing headlong toward parts unknown,
I elected to give them my standard answer anyway. “Because if
either of us tell you who Miranda really is, and how we came to
know her, you won’t believe us.”

“How can you be so sure?” Hanley asked.

“Got the t-shirt,” I told him with a matter-of-fact
shrug.

“May I ask if this has anything to do with your
personal contention that Miranda is actually some sort of Voodoo
spirit and that Devereaux, as well as your wife, have both been
possessed by said entity?” Doctor Jante asked.

The question caught me cold, and I simply didn’t
have an immediate response for it. In fact, I wasn’t entirely
certain I had a response at all. The one thing that kept going
through my mind, however, was Ben Storm’s voice saying, “Yeah, tell
it to a judge.”

After a moment I let out a chuckle and shook my
head. “You two are good. I walked right into that, didn’t I?”

“We’re simply after the truth, Mister Gant.”

The question in my mind at this point was how they
knew. Obviously they were in possession of the case files; they had
said as much right at the outset. But, I wasn’t aware that any of
the less tangible information had ended up in those official
records. In fact, I was somewhat flabbergasted that it apparently
had.