Harrison Schofield and his wife Eleanor pulled through the security gate and into the parking lot of the Will County Mental Health Center. The hospital had changed its name in 1975 to be more politically correct. Prior to that, it had been known as the Will County Home for the Criminally Insane.
Schofield took a deep breath and looked around the grounds of the so-called hospital. It didn’t resemble any other hospital he had ever seen. It reminded him more of a prison. The home consisted of a large single-story building faced with red brick and surrounded by a twenty-foot barbed-wire fence that curled inward to make it nearly impossible to climb. Snow covered the ground, and shards of ice clung to the bare hard maple and oak trees that dotted the landscape. As he stepped from the car, he smelled a combination of diesel and sewage-tainted water wafting through the air. The sewage flow of the Chicago River and Ship and Sanitary Canal found their way into the Des Plaines River south of where he now stood, and if the wind was just right, industrial run-off mixed with the flow from the canal to make a perfect storm of noxious odors. It seemed to him that he always visited his mother on windy days.
He and Eleanor walked into the visitor area, and a security man buzzed them inside. The big black guard sat behind an inch of Lexan polycarbonate. He slid a clipboard through a waist-high slot. As he filled out the proper paperwork and signed in on the guest registry, Schofield noticed that the guard had abnormally small hands for his size.
“Do you need a locker key?” the guard said.
“No, thank you. My wife is waiting here.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know when the patient is ready to be seen.”
Schofield walked over to the row of linked orange visitor chairs and sat next to Eleanor. He emptied his pockets and gave her the contents.
“Are you sure that you don’t want me to come in with you?” she said.
“I’m sure. You really didn’t have to take time off work to come with me. I could’ve done this alone.”
“You could have. But you shouldn’t have to. I know how hard this is for you. Are you sure that you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I love you, Harrison. I’m here for you no matter what. You can tell me anything.”
He knew that he should have felt some kind of warmth or surge of happiness at hearing those words, but unfortunately he felt nothing. He squeezed her hand and raised it to his lips. “Thank you.”
After a moment, the guard called, “Schofield?”
He thought it strange that the guard went through the same motions even though he was the only visitor on the list. As he stood, his wife commented, “If she’s doing better, maybe next time we can bring the kids.”
He smiled back at her. “I’m sure she’d like that.”
The narrow visitor room was one of many holding areas in a long hallway. A Hispanic orderly dressed all in white opened the windowed door for Schofield. The man had a tattoo of a python running up the left side of his neck. Inside, the walls of the visitor room were yellowed with age, and his mother sat in a metal chair at the far end of a gray rectangular table. She looked good. She was a beautiful woman with long black hair and rosy cheeks. She had given birth to Schofield when she’d been only thirteen and could easily have passed for his wife or sister rather than his mother.
He sat down across from her at the long table. The light from a barred window at her back fell over her shoulders and reflected off her black hair. She gave him an angry look and then turned away in disgust.
“Hello, Mother,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
She spat at him. “Why do you come here? You filthy little maggot. You’re an abomination.”
He swallowed hard and fought to remain calm. “I hear that you’re doing well. You look healthy.”
She turned away and refused to acknowledge him. He looked at the window in the door to see if the orderly was watching, but the tattooed man was nowhere to be seen. “No one’s listening, Mother. Don’t you think that it’s time you told me who my father really is?”
Her face curled into a snarl. “You know who he is. That demon raped me and impregnated me with his vile seed.”
Schofield closed his eyes and tried not to let her see him cry. He had listened to this for as long as he could remember. His mother, who had always been mentally unbalanced and had run away from home, had been twelve years old when she became pregnant with him. At the time, she had been taken in as a member of a cult led by a man that called himself the Prophet. The group was comprised of others like her—runaways, miscreants, the mentally unstable. When she became pregnant, she told the other cult members that Satan himself had come to her in a dream and implanted her with the seed of the Antichrist. She attempted suicide during her second trimester, but the Prophet stopped her.
From the moment of his birth, Schofield had been a revered outcast. The other children were afraid of him. They refused to play with him and resented his special status. They called him names when the adults weren’t listening. Freak. Monster. Devil. They hated him, but he only wanted them to be his friends, to treat him as a member of the group.
But worse than any of them was his own mother. She hated him with a passion and intensity that he never understood. She tried to murder him on many occasions throughout his youth, and if not for the intervention of the Prophet, he would never have grown to see adulthood.
“So are they treating you well here, Mother? Do they have a Christmas tree? Do you exchange gifts?”
Her lips trembled with rage, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze or respond. He sighed and stood up. “Merry Christmas, Mother. Eleanor and the kids wish you the same. The kids would like to see you.”
The angry look on her face melted away, and her eyes grew large like those of an expectant child. When she spoke, her voice was filled with a breathless anticipation. “Will you bring them? I’d love to see them.”
He looked out the window and thought for a moment. “I’ll only bring them here if you behave yourself. You don’t have to love me. I don’t blame you for that. You’re right. You’ve always been right, and I understand that now. I am an abomination. But I won’t let you speak to me like you did today in front of my kids.”
“I promise. Please, bring them.”
“I’ll consider it.”
With that, he pounded on the glass. The tattooed orderly opened the door and escorted him toward the exit. As they moved down the long white hallway, Schofield tried to focus on the white tile floor and the glowing reflections of the fluorescent lighting instead of on his mother and the past. Deep mouthfuls of air filled his lungs over and over. It took all his strength and focus to keep from hyperventilating or throwing up.
Vasques fumed as Belacourt concluded the briefing and dismissed the officers. She had been utterly humiliated, but she refused to let Williams get under her skin. She needed to maintain her composure. She needed to maintain control.
The room was getting warm from all the bodies, and she had to get some air. But Agent Garrison stepped in front of her as she moved toward the door. He gave her that awkward what-can-you-do smile and said, “Agent Vasques, we were hoping to meet with you about the case. Maybe review some of the evidence together. Question the witness.”
She wanted to bust his teeth out. These men had publicly disgraced her, and now they wanted to waste more of her time. But it would give her the chance to give Williams a piece of her mind. The corners of her mouth curled into a faux smile that took all her willpower to maintain. “Sure. I have some work to do at the Chicago field office. You can meet me there in an hour.” She handed Garrison one of her cards. “The address is there on the card. It’s on West Roosevelt Road. Park in the garage across the street.”
Garrison seemed a bit surprised at her easy acceptance of their request. “Great. Thank you. We’ll see you there.”
She pushed out of the building and reached her Crown Vic. She popped in four pieces of gum, chomped them furiously, and gripped the steering wheel until her fingers ached. Her phone had been on vibrate during the briefing, and she had felt a few text messages buzz through. With great effort, she tore her fingers from the steering wheel and ripped the phone from her jacket pocket. The first text was from a friend at the Bureau.
Checked out your new buddies from the DOJ. Williams is listed as working there, but he doesn’t seem to exist at all beyond that. Like he’s been erased.
She sat there a moment watching the traffic fly past on Route 50 and let her mind wander through the implications of this new information. The Bureau had some of the best diggers in the world, and if her friend couldn’t access Williams’s background, that meant that it was classified at the highest levels.
The more Vasques thought about what had happened in the briefing, the more she realized that Williams was right. His points were valid, and her assessments were flawed. It was really Belacourt’s fault. Her father’s old partner disliked the Bureau and didn’t want to deal with anyone there other than her. He had forced her into putting together a profile for him. It wasn’t something she enjoyed or for which she had much of an aptitude. That was why she had dropped out of the BAU and had pursued a career investigating human-trafficking cases instead.
A single question kept floating to the surface of her thoughts.
Who the hell are these guys?
She had no idea, but she was damn sure going to find out.
The Chicago FBI field office sat off to itself along Roosevelt Road on a lot enclosed by white pillars and a black rod-iron fence. It was as long as it was tall, and a grid of mirrored windows covered its entire front. Vasques’s office was on the fourth floor against the south wall, overlooking a room full of agents working away at cubicles.
She ushered the three men from the DOJ inside and shut her door. The office had no windows and was fairly private, but she still reminded herself to keep her voice down and remain calm. Gesturing at a pair of visitor chairs, she stepped around her desk and sat down. The older man, who had introduced himself as Brubaker, and Williams sat in the chairs. She had only two, so Garrison remained standing. Brubaker and Garrison wore identical black suits, white shirts, and black ties. But Agent Williams wore a gray silk shirt undone to the second button, no tie, with a black T-shirt underneath. She already knew he was the maverick of the group, but even his attire, perhaps subconsciously, suggested some small defiance of authority. She had known rogues like him during her tenure with the Bureau, and in her experience, they often got people hurt or killed.
“Okay, gentlemen. Why don’t we cut the crap, and you tell me who you really are.”
Brubaker looked at Williams and something passed between them, but she couldn’t be sure what it was. Williams said, “We haven’t lied to you. We’re part of a group within the DOJ that specializes in this type of case. We’re all on the same team. All we want is to catch this guy and make sure that he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
Williams looked at Brubaker again, and the older man raised his eyebrows and tilted his head toward her. Williams continued. “I also want to say how sorry I am for what happened in the briefing. If I had known that you prepared the profile, I would have handled it differently.”
She considered this. Thought about letting him off the hook but decided against it. “Why would we want your help? What do you bring to the table?”
His eyes went distant for a second, and his hand reached toward the spot where his tie would have been. He rubbed at the spot on his chest. Finally, he said, “I notice things.”
Silence stretched within the room. “That’s it?” Vasques laughed. “You notice things. I’m afraid you’re going to have to do better than that.”
Williams closed his eyes and started pointing around the room. “Your trash can is small and black, wire mesh. It’s filled with some papers but mostly junk-food wrappers. A half-eaten box of McDonald’s fries, a wrapper from Subway, Snickers-bar wrapper, from what I could see. You’ve got a vent in the far-right corner of the room, up high. It’s missing a screw and squeaks a little. So does your chair, which is actually a different model from all those we passed on the way in. I assume you brought it from home. It looked like it has better lumbar support. You have fourteen awards and diplomas hanging on the left wall in two rows of seven. The third one in the second row still has part of the price tag showing on the frame where you apparently gave up on scraping it off. There are three gray filing cabinets in the left corner with five drawers each. There are twelve pictures in black frames sitting on top of the cabinets.”
His eyelids opened, and his gaze found hers. His eyes were beautiful and bright, stunning yet piercing. She noticed that the eyes were different colors. Half bluish green and half brown. He said, “Those things are just the obvious ones, though. All on the surface. They’re not just objects. Each has a story to tell about you.”
Without glancing away from her, Williams pointed to the pictures in the corner. “Closest one to us is a picture of Belacourt and a man I assume to be your father. It was taken at the same precinct we just came from. Next one to the right is of you at your college graduation with your dad and brother. You’re wearing a cap and gown. Your dad’s wearing a gray suit with a red tie. Your brother, a guess based on resemblance, is wearing a blue sweater and a wool jacket. I can see that you went to Duke University from the chapel in the background. It’s pretty distinctive. Also, there are no pictures of your mother anywhere. So I can infer that you were raised by your father and your mother died when you were very young. But then again, that doesn’t quite fit. She didn’t die. If she had, you’d probably still have a photo of her. I’m guessing she abandoned you and your brother. Maybe she couldn’t handle being a mother and having a cop as a husband. You’re single with no kids. Easy to tell that since you have no pictures of family other than your father and brother.”
Vasques’s breathing had become shallow and forced. She wanted him to stop but couldn’t find the words.
“You’re on temporary assignment to help with this case, and you once received training from the Behavioral Analysis Unit. But you dropped out. That’s why the profile contained all the right terminology, but not the right kind of insight and assessment that you can only gain from working real cases in the field. You’re a workaholic, and you don’t know what to do with yourself when you’re not here. All those takeout boxes, and there are also tiny stains on your desk blotter. Looks like barbecue sauce or steak sauce, maybe. You eat a lot of meals in this office. There’s also a few smudges there that look like make-up and lipstick. You must have fallen asleep and planted your face there on the desk.”
Brubaker said, “I think she’s heard enough, Marcus.”
But Williams ignored the older agent. “You just quit smoking. You’ve been chewing on your lower lip, and every time I’ve seen you, you have at least two pieces of gum jammed in your mouth. The awards and diplomas also tell me that you’re somewhat insecure about your position in the Bureau. You probably have every shooting trophy and commendation you’ve ever received on display. Then there’s your gun. Bureau typically issues Glock 22s or 23s, maybe even a 19 chambered for 9mm since it has a smaller frame and fits a woman’s hand better. Or you could carry a Sig P226 or P220. But you’re packing a custom Sig Sauer 1911 chambered for .45 ACP. It’s the biggest model they make. It’s like you’re trying to prove something to yourself or those around you. Telling everyone that you’re tough enough to handle anything. We’ve come a long way in terms of equality, but I’m sure there are still plenty of hurdles for a woman in the Bureau.”
“Okay, Marcus. You’ve made your point,” Garrison said from the corner of the room.
“Not sure if I have. There is one more thing. If I had to guess, I’d say that you dropped out of profiling around the same time that your father died. You told everyone that was the reason, but the truth was that you didn’t like trying to get inside the heads of killers. Some people just aren’t built for it. Plus, I can tell you’re a hands-on type of person. You like being in the field. Kicking down doors, taking down bad guys, saving the day. You get to see the faces of the people you help. But a profiler spends most of his or her time in a basement at Quantico living inside the minds of some of the world’s most deranged individuals. Still, it was quite an honor to be selected. There are only around thirty actual profilers out of 13,864 special agents in the Bureau. Your dad must have been really proud. Maybe that’s why you only quit after he was gone. Didn’t want to disappoint him. But, ultimately, it wasn’t a life that you wanted. You were afraid that to admit the truth to anyone would somehow show weakness.”
Williams continued to stare deep into her eyes, and Vasques felt the odd sensation that he was looking straight into her soul. Her heart throbbed against the walls of her ribcage. She felt naked and helpless. She swallowed hard and said, “I see what you mean about noticing things. I’m sure that will come in handy during the investigation. Garrison mentioned that you wanted to talk to the witness.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, meet me downstairs in the lobby in five minutes.”
She stood up quickly, still flustered. Her cheeks were on fire. The air was hot. Her composure was cracked and broken, but she fought to maintain control. She slipped past the three men and out of her office, leaving them to find their own way out. The way to the bathroom wound around the corner past some additional offices and cubicles. She shuffled inside the women’s restroom and found an open stall.
After slamming the stall door and sitting down on the toilet, she tried to breathe deeply and wrestle her emotions under control. But she couldn’t. Williams had discovered things about her that no other living person knew. He had laid her bare and touched on subjects she never discussed with anyone. She felt as if he was the only person in the world that had truly seen who she was. And that made her feel frightened and ashamed.
With her face buried in her hands, Special Agent Victoria Vasques began to cry.