Schofield stared out across the crowd assembled inside the Tinley Park middle-school gymnasium. The happy smiling faces etched with joy. The normal people. Children laughed. A dark-haired grandmother bounced an infant on her knee. The parents of one of the players jumped in the air after their son hit the second of two free throws. Such simple pleasures, yet they eluded him. None of them understood how lucky they were to have been given the gift of happiness.
His son Ben sat on the end of the bench, rubbing his shoe against the red gym floor and staring at it intently. Concern overwhelmed Schofield’s thoughts. Something was wrong with the boy. There had been a change in him. Two years ago he had been a star player, but now he seemed so distracted. A good father would be able to get to the bottom of it and help the boy overcome whatever it was that distressed him. The dark cloud pushed down harder against Schofield as he thought of how many ways he had failed the people he loved. He felt the black hand of sadness pushing him down, crushing him, bleeding him dry.
“Harrison? Are you okay?”
He looked at his wife and put on his best smile of reassurance. He felt so lucky to have her. During college, he had sat in the back of all his classes and avoided the other students like the plague. But their math teacher had asked him to tutor Eleanor and, much to his surprise, she had actually shown an interest in him. And it wasn’t even that she chose to overlook his many flaws. She saw them and accepted them. He loved her for that.
“I’m fine. But, Eleanor, you know how much I love you, right?”
She gave him a strange look, her eyebrows arching and her neck cocking to the side. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not dying or anything?”
He laughed, but it was all for show. “Can’t a man just tell his wife how much she means to him without any ulterior motive?”
“I guess so,” she said, but there wasn’t much confidence behind the words. “I love you, too. But you can talk to me if anything’s ever bothering you.”
“I know, but I’m fine. Really. You know how I am about crowds and people. It just makes me uncomfortable. But speaking of things bothering people, do you know what’s going on with Ben? Is he having problems at school?”
Eleanor shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope he’s just going through a phase, but he won’t talk to me about it. He’s his father’s son,” she said, with a sideways glance.
Schofield ignored the jibe and continued absently to watch the kids of his son’s team run up and down the court. Back and forth, back and forth. Going through the motions.
But then, across the glistening floor of the gymnasium, sitting two rows up in the opposite team’s bleachers, he saw her. Melissa Lighthaus—the woman he had chosen to be the next sacrifice. But why was she there? He knew everything about this woman from the brand of shampoo she used to the last thing she did every night before she crawled into bed. She had no children. She had a sister with two kids, but they lived in Arkansas. There was no reason for her to be there.
He felt his chest tightening as if the world was closing in on him. Yellow spots dripped across his vision, and he felt dizzy and nauseous.
She shouldn’t be there. It didn’t make sense. The variables didn’t add up.
He couldn’t breathe. He felt like someone was holding him underwater.
Growing cold, drowning, his arms flailing, the blood-red water.
He was no longer in the gym. A memory from his childhood had fought its way to the surface of his mind.
It was an unusually cold day in August. He remembered because he’d only had shorts and a T-shirt to wear. They were staying in a hotel room with an orange bedspread. He remembered that, but he couldn’t remember his age. Memories were funny that way. His mother had called him into the bathroom with her. She lay naked in the tub, her hair flowing around her. She had sung a quiet lullaby to him or maybe to herself. Then she slit her wrists. He watched her do this and cringed away from the tub. Tears ran down his cheeks, but he didn’t truly understand the depth of what she was attempting.
She had waited a moment for the blood to leak from her body and then called him closer. He leaned over the edge of the tub, and she grabbed him and held him against her chest under the water. He kicked and fought, but her grip and her resolve were like iron. The water streamed through his eyes and mouth, his mother’s blood flowing down his throat and filling his lungs, a metallic taste on his tongue. He remembered thrashing as he tried to push away and the softness of her skin beneath his fingers. He remembered her arms hugging him tightly around the chest. The warmth of the water covered him like a blanket, encasing him in a comforting cocoon, changing him, preparing him for the next world. Then things became blurry, but he remembered a distinct feeling of peace. This was what he had always wanted, for his mother to hold him and make him feel safe and loved. And in that moment, he somehow knew that she did love him, and she was trying to protect him. But then the Prophet had heard the noise and had burst into the bathroom, saving them both from the brink of death.
Now back in the gym, years later, he wished that his mother had succeeded on that cold day in August.
“I need some air,” Schofield said as he stumbled down the steps of the bleachers. He pushed his way through the door of the gym and found the bathroom. He threw up in the sink and then stared at his reflection in the mirror. He saw the demon inside staring back at him. If the Prophet was right and he truly was the son of Satan, the harbinger of the apocalypse, then he needed to be stopped. His children deserved to be free of him. His wife and kids were all that mattered, and there wouldn’t be room for them in the Prophet’s new world.
As if in a daze, he made his way through the belly of the school building. The halls were empty and lit only by ambient light. The stuttering rhythm of his footfalls smacked against the tiles. The whole place reeked of pine-scented cleaning chemicals. Before he realized that he had a destination, he had searched and found access to the building’s roof.
Schofield made his way across the blacktop surface, past vents and heating and cooling units spewing exhaust, to the building’s edge. The wind ruffled his hair. The air was freezing. The snow-shrouded ground called to him, ready to embrace him like his mother had on that cold day from his memories. He stepped up onto the raised lip of the roof. His arms stretched out at his sides, and one leg dangled over the edge. All he needed to do was take one step. One step, and the nightmare would be over. The demon would be dead, and the world would be a brighter place.
But what if the fall didn’t kill him? How would he explain what had happened? There was no way for it to have been an accident.
As he considered this, he realized that it didn’t really matter. Either way, the fall would stop the final ritual. The world would continue on even after the darkest night. It would stop him from hurting anyone else. One step and the Prophet’s plans would be vanquished.
His thoughts turned to the Prophet, the rituals, the darkest night. Something didn’t add up. How had he not seen it before? Did he really follow the Prophet that blindly?
The darkest night was three days away, but that evening he had planned to secure the first of the five sacrifices needed for the final ritual. Did the Prophet plan for him to take more than one girl a night? If so, the old man hadn’t shared his plans, and Schofield wasn’t prepared.
Then, suddenly, things became clear.
A terrible thought struck him and burned through his heart with the ferocity of a thousand suns. He stepped back from the edge and fell to his knees. His arms wrapped around his chest, and he rocked back and forth. His body trembled with fear and shame.
He suspected he knew where the Prophet planned to acquire the final three sacrifices. And it changed everything.
Maggie pulled her luggage from the trunk of the bright green taxicab and paid the driver. It had been a long day. Her flight had been delayed, and her rental car had blown a tire on the way to the hotel. She had spent an hour waiting for the rental company to get her a cab. The representative had claimed that they would deliver her a new car directly to the hotel, but she suspected that wouldn’t get done without another hour on the phone. And now she would have to face Marcus.
He would be furious that she had disobeyed his orders, but she didn’t care. She was going to assist on this case whether he wanted her help or not. She checked in at the front desk. The lobby was jammed with people and there was a long wait for assistance. Luckily, she had Stan in her corner, and he had already booked her a room just down the hall from Marcus and Andrew.
She made her way upstairs, dropped off her luggage, and then knocked on Marcus’s door. After a short wait, Andrew answered. The top two buttons of his starched white shirt were undone, and his black tie hung loosely around his neck. He held a slice of pizza in his left hand. Judging from the lack of the typical warm pizza aroma, it was a leftover from a previous meal.
“Maggie?” he said, an expression of genuine surprise on his face.
She raised her eyebrows. “You going to invite me in?”
“Umm, yeah. Come on in.”
Maggie entered the outer room of the suite and looked at the display board showing all the evidence that they had gathered so far. The board was truly a marvel. She definitely didn’t miss Allen’s old corkboard, but she did miss his calm and thoughtful leadership.
“What are you doing here, Mags?” Andrew said.
She took a deep breath and ignored the question. “How are things going with the case?”
He sighed. “I actually just got off talking with Stan. He’s dug up a couple new leads for us to follow.”
“Good. Then what are we waiting for? Where’s Marcus?”
Andrew’s gaze darted around the room as if he was searching for something. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Then, after another pause, he finally replied, “He’s having dinner down in the hotel restaurant with an FBI agent who’s also consulting on the case.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you acting so funny?”
He shrugged his shoulders almost as high as his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay. I think I’ll join them.”
“Well, umm, I—”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just sure he’ll be thrilled to see you.”
Vasques took a sip of her wine and tried to stretch some of the tension from her shoulders. The day had been a roller coaster, and she needed a moment to unwind. She stared across the table at the man examining a cream and purple menu. His beautiful strangely colored eyes scanned each item, but she also noticed those same eyes gazing swiftly around the room, scanning the scene in micro-glances, taking it all in. He had rolled the sleeves of his gray silk shirt up to his elbows, exposing the tightly wrapped cords of muscle on his forearms. He must work out, Vasques thought, and she wondered if the rest of his body looked as good.
It was strange how she had started her day passionately hating this man and ready to run him out of town, and now she was ready to . . .
Easy, girl. One step at a time.
The waiter took their orders and filled their glasses. The place wasn’t exactly five-star, but it was nice and quiet, a good place to enjoy a late dinner and go over the particulars of the case or whatever else might come up. Marcus leaned against the back of the booth and casually rested his right arm along the top of his seat. “So why the FBI?”
“It seemed like the place where I could make the biggest impact, do the most good. Why the DOJ? It seems like you’d be a good candidate for the BAU. I didn’t even know there was a unit at Justice investigating serial murder.”
“We’re small, very specialized. Only work . . . special cases.”
“Ones that are extra-bad?”
“I guess you could say that. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, regular law enforcement are good at what they do. They don’t need a guy like me. But sometimes, extreme cases need extreme . . . tactics.”
“They need a guy who notices stuff.”
Marcus shrugged. “Among other things.”
“You like what you do?”
His face went serious, and he took a long sip of his coffee. “Sometimes destiny doesn’t care whether or not you like the path it sticks you on.”
Vasques nodded. She had seen first-hand what happened to some agents at the BAU. It wasn’t uncommon for the monsters to get inside a person’s head and follow them home. Marcus had chosen a booth in the back of the restaurant with his back to the wall. Still, his body language was that of someone who was hyper-alert, as if he was expecting an attack at any moment. Yet he didn’t come across as a nervous type. He wasn’t tense. He seemed perfectly calm, as if it was merely second nature to him. Her dad had been that way as well, but not nearly to this extent. She had once seen the same look in the eyes of a friend’s husband who was a special-operations soldier and had just returned from a war zone.
“What do you see?” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You keep glancing around the room. What do you see?”
He held her gaze with those piercing green and brown eyes. “Everything. I see everything.”
“You can’t turn it off, can you?”
“It’s exhausting, really. Every piece of clothing, every gesture, every movement. All stored away and analyzed. And it goes beyond that. I also can’t help breaking objects down in my head. Analyzing their parts. I guess the best way to explain it is to think of it like TV screens. Me sitting across from you is one screen, but then imagine if there was a TV sitting next to me. And the remote’s broken. It keeps flipping through the channels over and over.”
“That would definitely be annoying.”
“Now imagine that it’s not one TV. It’s a whole wall of them like you’d see in the control booth of a news program or maybe one of those big sports betting places out in Vegas with a thirty-foot wall of TVs. That’s why I love movies and books. When I’m sitting in a movie theater, it’s not so much that they all turn off, but it is like someone clicks the mute button. It’s the only time that I can escape from me.”
“You don’t like yourself?”
“Who does?”
“Like you?”
He smiled. “Who likes
themselves
? Anyway, now you know why I say that it’s a curse, not a gift.”
“I can see what you mean about that being exhausting, but I can also see how it could help in an investigation.”
The waiter walked by and refilled her wine glass. Marcus added, “The problem is that I’m really not that smart. I’m not some brilliant Sherlock Holmes. I have all the info in there, but that doesn’t mean that I can always make sense of it or even realize what’s significant.”
Her eyes went distant as she considered something. There was one fact of the case that wasn’t contained in any of the reports. Only she, Belacourt, and Stupak knew of it. “In all the reports you’ve looked through for this case, you haven’t read the name Anthony C, have you?”
He looked down and to the left, pausing like a computer accessing its hard drives. “No, nothing comes to mind. Why?”
“After my father died, I found a note on his desk at home that read
Anthony C—The Anarchist?”
“You think he was on to something.” He looked down again and added, “There’s nobody on the suspect list with that name or alias.”
“I know. It could be nothing, and it’s hard to get much from just a last initial. It could have been an informant, a suspect, a lead, anything. I did have them check the list of Camry owners, but nothing there either.”
“Well, I’ll file it away in my head. Right next to the crime-scene photos and that awful smell of Belacourt’s aftershave.”
Vasques laughed and put on her best smile. “It is pretty bad.”
Marcus mirrored her playful grin.
But then his face fell and his eyes went wide. She turned to see what he was looking at and noticed a beautiful young blond woman approaching them. She was wearing jeans and a tight leather jacket. Vasques could see the gun beneath the woman’s coat and the badge clipped to her belt. The woman grabbed a chair from a nearby table, and turning it around backward, she pulled it up next to their booth and sat down.
The newcomer glared at Marcus and said, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”