The chair was comfortable. The leather soft. “Why am I here?” I took note of the spacious office and the lack of noise. A silent office. Strange.
“You don’t know?” Chance said, putting down the papers in his hand.
“No.”
“They can’t get through to you.”
“Who can’t?”
Chance moved the screen on his desk so I could see what he’d been watching. Mitch sitting next to a hospital bed. Kurt pacing the room.
“Mitch and Kurt, Ellie. They can’t get through to you. You’re not responding.”
“Am I dead?”
He shook his head. “No. You just don’t want to wake up.”
“Then why am I here?” I sighed.
“Because you have to wake up. Delta can’t close the case … you still hold information in your head that they don’t know. Without it and you, no one will make the connection between Fallon and Stevens or Fallon and the victims.”
“Of course they will.”
Chance’s eyes hardened. “They won’t. You hold the key. Get your shit together and wake up.”
“I don’t know who Unsub One is … I don’t know why Jodie had cloudy vision when she wasn’t drugged.”
“She was drugged, just not with lorazepam. Think outside the square. That second Unsub isn’t Greek like the first one, Ellie, he’s an Eastern European.”
I felt my forehead tense. I ran through countries I thought were Eastern European. Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Russian Federation, Moldavia, Latvia. I’m sure I missed some and none felt like it fitted.
“That doesn’t help me. I don’t know anything.”
Chance’s hands flattened on the desk, he pushed himself to his feet and moved toward me.
“Unsub One, Ellie. You know who he is. Think about it. Think about Hank. You know this.”
I wanted the dark back.
Thinking about Hank was not something I wanted to do, it ranked way up there with waking up. Hank had been in prison too long for this to be coming from him. He didn’t kill these women. I saw a band saw dripping with blood and meat.
“This isn’t helping me, Chance.”
“It will. Think, Ellie. Think about Hank and his visitors. Find out who is hanging out with him.”
No! There is no obvious link between Hank and this case. The women weren’t turned into human jigsaw puzzles: they were drained of most of their blood.
No amount of thinking gave me a connection between the crimes under investigation and Hank.
“There’s no link …”
Chance shook his head. “Think, Ellie.”
“I am thinking.”
When did Chance become such a nag?
I slumped in the chair and let the case notes scroll through my mind, comparing the new investigation with Hank’s messy pastimes. The one similarity: unconscious victims. Hank favored fentanyl.
“Fentanyl spray. Hank used Fentanyl spray to knock out his victims.” I gave it a minute to let that thought work through to a conclusion. A light went on. “Fentanyl spray is a Russian invention.”
Chance winked. “I think you’re starting to see …”
“But we never found the source of the fentanyl.”
“Check the prison logs. You’ll find it and when you do, you’ll find Unsub Two.”
“Two?” No, he said I’d know who Unsub One was if I thought about Hank. “What about One?”
“Keep thinking, Ellie. It’s right there …”
How did Hank get a letter delivered to my house? How did he get a letter out of a
prison
and to my house? Someone smuggled it out? Who could get close enough to a maximum security prisoner to do that? A lawyer or a family member. I doubted a lawyer would risk losing their job doing something that stupid.
“Crap! Hank is related to someone within this case …” The thought meandered around in my head looking for something to latch onto.
“Got it yet?” Chance asked leaning closer to me.
I shook my head. The thought sloshed from side to side and spilled over the edges of my brain. Thoughts dripped like clocks in a Salvador Dali painting. Clocks. Time. Melting. I looked closer at the faces of the melting clocks. I didn’t get it. Felt like everything hinged on time. Time. A headline oozed over two of the clocks. Not time but The Times. As I watched, the headline morphed into a letter posted in a mailbox. Times. Post. Journalist.
Rosanne Lette.
A door crashed into its frame, shaking the images around me. Walls ran. Colors merged. Puddles formed. Clocks slid to the floor taking all the images of Hank’s destruction with them. A pool of frothy red formed at my feet.
Crap! No wonder she doesn’t talk much about her son. Her son’s father is Hank. Kristopher delivered the letter. That’s the reason Rosanne broke into my home. She wanted to know if I knew about Hank. Oh, man!
“Ellie?”
“Uh huh.”
“You got it?”
“Kristopher Lette is Hank’s son.”
Which is great n’all but he’s not the guy I saw. He’s not one of the Unsubs.
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t help me narrow down the Unsub any, Chance.”
“Come on, Ellie, use that brain of yours … it’s not rocket science.”
Wiseass.
Maybe it is rocket science. What did I know? Unsub One was directly linked to Jane Daughtry. Possibly an abusive ex. According to Chance, Unsub Two was a Russian with a link to Hank.
I’d missed something.
What happened at the last crime scene?
What didn’t I want to see?
“Chance?”
“You have to look, Ellie. I know you don’t want to. You have to.” His voice soft, firm but soft. Whatever I didn’t want to see was bad. He only ever used that tone for bad shit.
I sank further into the chair and let myself be transported back to the crime scene and Jodie Norris. This time, I walked in the door and focused on Jodie. I saw her blonde hair hanging over the side of the bathtub. I moved the shower curtain back so I could see the rest of Jodie, aware that I’d only seen her face before. Her torso displayed stab wounds. Her arms and legs bore a few slashes. A long incision across her lower abdomen.
The fetus lay in the bath near her. No blood anywhere.
Both mother and baby drained.
“How old was it?” I asked looking into Chance’s eyes then back at the baby. “She, how old was she?”
“Seventeen point four weeks. Look closer at the baby.”
I zoomed in on the image. The cord was torn.
“Baby bled out just like Jodie.” Chance nodded. “Ripping a fetus from a uterus is different from stabbing women and taking perfume or body wash.”
“Yeah,” Chance replied. “Ya gotta wonder about someone who could do that sort of damage to two human beings.”
“This is the Russian’s handiwork?”
“Yes.”
“He’s escalated.” Those words sat there for a second before they were followed by my next question. “How would he have known about the pregnancy?”
Chance smiled a knowing smile and said nothing. Not helping. I had to admit he’d been pretty helpful so far.
He looked at me and grinned. “How do you like me so far?”
I shook my head. “Really? You’re still going there with mixing television series?”
“Could be worse.”
True.
“Thanks for choosing a series I liked.” Chance morphed into Keen Eddie then back to Chance. “Was that fun for you?”
His dimples deepened as he grinned. “Yeah.”
“Not helping.”
“Ah, but I am.”
Yeah, he actually was.
His tone changed, less playful, more serious. “You have to go back, Ellie. You need to get this case closed, they need you.”
“They—”
“Delta and Mitch. They. Need. You.”
“But—”
“It’s not what you think, Ellie. It’s okay to go back.”
The room shimmered like an oasis in the desert. Sparkling like sand on a hot day. Chance blurred. Now what?
Someone picked up my world and shook it. Life became a snow globe full of glitter. A voice broke through the sparkles. As the clouds of silver glitter cleared, Mitch came into focus.
He looked upset. My doing, I supposed. Didn’t make me feel good at all. Another tick in the box marked fail. I couldn’t quite get why he wanted to marry me. That wasn’t helpful thinking either. I had enough clues not to say that aloud.
I hoped.
“You’re back.” The relieved timbre in Mitch’s voice tugged at my heart. “Can you open your eyes?”
I did as he asked. Light bounced from all angles, firing spiky lightning bolts into my eyes. I winced.
“The light,” Mitch said and the brightness dimmed to a much more manageable level.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“Don’t mention it,” he replied. “You’ve been out awhile, El. We were getting jumpy.”
We?
“We who?”
Dad. Of course. That made sense. Where else would he be? Home with his crazy lady friend and the potential serial killer of a son.
That could be awkward if she didn’t die and they got married. A serial-killing stepbrother would not make me a favorite in the hallowed halls of the FBI. Bad enough that my cases were used at the academy and not always as shining examples of how clever we were!
“You okay there, kid?” Dad said, stooping down and kissing my forehead.
“I’m good, Dad, don’t know what the fuss is all about.”
Not even being facetious, I really didn’t know.
Dad chuckled. “Never known you to be anything other than good. One day perhaps you’ll acknowledge things could be better.”
Mitch laughed softly. “Then I’ll really worry,” he said, squeezing my fingers under his.
“Where’s Kurt?” I asked, sitting up a bit and regretting the movement. My head swam.
“I’m here,” he said from the other side of my bed.
He didn’t sound happy. I didn’t want to ask what had happened. I launched into a list of things I needed him to check on regarding the case. Everything Chance told me or I remembered. Kurt wrote without comment until I stopped talking.
“We’re looking for a Russian, yes?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “A Russian who has a connection to Hank.”
“And Rosanne Lette’s son is Hank’s son too?”
“Yes.”
“And you can prove all of this?”
“No.”
He rolled his eyes.
Come on, you should be used to this.
Dad interjected, “I might be able to help …”
“You can?” I said, turning my head to face him.
“After that incident at your home, Rosanne and I had a big talk. She told me about Hank. I can confirm he is her son’s father.” Dad paused to regroup. “For obvious reasons, she doesn’t tell people.”
“Okay. How did she meet him and how long ago were they together?”
“She met him at college. He was campus security. She was doing her masters. We’re talking twenty-five years ago.”
“And?”
“They dated briefly, the result was Kristopher.”
“Hank knows?”
“Yes.”
“Does the offspring know?”
“Yes.”
I turned my head and said to Kurt, “I want a list of everyone who has ever visited Hank in prison and I want it now.”
Kurt pulled his phone from his pocket and walked out the door. I could hear him talking outside the room. That was the moment I realized I wasn’t in the Emergency Department. I was on a ward in my own room.
That didn’t seem like a good thing. That seemed like they expected me to stay for a while.
I couldn’t see it as something I’d be doing.
Kurt poked his head around the glass door. “Anything else I can do for you while I have Sam on the line?”
“Yes, find out where Jane Daughtry met Unsub One. My money is on college. She went to George Mason. I want to know if she was ever seen by the campus medical staff for unexplained bruising, breaks or anything that might have been abuse. Find her school records. If she ever reported a rape or sexual assault, I want to know about it.”
Kurt nodded and relayed the information to Sam.
“Anything else?”
Oh boy, yes!
“Yeah, but not for Sam.” I waited while Kurt said goodbye. As soon as he was back in my room, I started up again. “Where’s Matthew Collins?”
“Sandra called him in, he couldn’t get off shift but said he’d swing by when his shift ends.”
“Good. He might know the name of whoever it was who used to like patchouli and who hurt Jane.”
“There’s nothing in her recent past.”
“I think whatever it was, happened when she was at college, so it’s not recent.”
“So why did the Unsub wait until now to kill her?”
“That I don’t know. Could be one of several things. He may not have been able to get to her. He may have been quietly planning this the whole time. Something may have triggered this killing spree.”
Kurt nodded. “You think he knows the Russian who knows Hank?”
“Yep, they’re working together.”
“When did they meet?”
“Could be on campus. I think the Russian is older than the other Unsub. I didn’t get a good enough look at him to know for sure. But if he were a rent-a-cop on campus he would’ve had an element of perceived power, which might have made him an attractive friend to Unsub One.”
Kurt nodded in agreement. Always nice when people agree with me.
Mitch squeezed my hand to get my attention. “I know you need to spit out everything you’ve got in your head regarding this case, El …”
Dammit.
He wanted to talk. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. I felt okay, the first time I’d felt really okay in weeks. Seemed like a bad thing. Pollyanna assured me it didn’t need to be bad, that maybe I just got used to feeling like crap and didn’t notice anymore. I looked at Mitch, trying to gauge his thoughts. I couldn’t hear them in my head. No clues.
Suck it up, Princess, the conversation will happen whether you like it or not.
“Okay, let’s do this,” I said, with more resignation than I intended. “Tell me.”
He let my hand go and fished something out of his pocket. A piece of paper. Carefully he unfolded it and handed it to me.
Black and white.
Not the easiest picture to see.
After carefully studying the image, I was none the wiser.
“What am I looking at?”
He moved closer and pointed to part of the image. “This here is baby one.”
My brain stopped. Rewound, froze again, followed by a jolt and it lurched forward.
“Sorry, say that again, because I thought you said baby one?”