“Lucas, I’d slap you right now if I weren’t afraid I’d rip out an IV.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Why can’t you just try?”
“We’re just not a
Little House on the Prairie
kind of family, Katie. After all, my brother’s girlfriend just tried to kill me.”
“Tyler didn’t have anything to do with that. He came in and offered an olive branch, and you just threw it right out the window.”
I pressed the button on my armrest. “Sorry, Katie,” I said, wincing in exaggerated fashion, “but I’m going to need another shot of morphine. Can you come back tomorrow? By yourself?”
She surprised me by grabbing my arm, regardless of the IV. “You think you can always end things on your terms, don’t you? You think it makes you tough and powerful, but it’s just a weakness, Lucas. Someday you’ll realize it.”
“I’m not trying to end things on my terms. I’m just tired. All this excitement, you know.”
She let go of my arm. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to here. You may get away with the smart-ass attitude with other people, but not me.” She lifted my chin to make me look at her. “I love you, Lucas,” she said. “I just wish you were easier to love.”
No matter how hard we fought, or how exasperated we made each other, we never left angry. Katie was my last safe haven in the world. “I love you, too, little sis. Tell Grace and Ally I’m still coming to their homecoming football game. Let them know I didn’t forget. Go Cougars, all the way.”
Katie smiled. “I will. Now go to sleep.” She turned and, with a last glance of mock disapproval, dimmed the lights before leaving. In that moment she reminded me so much of our mother. For an instant I could see our mother’s shadowy form leaning into the dimly lit bedroom of my childhood, checking on us every night before she went to bed.
“Good night, Katie,” I whispered as the door closed, and I found myself alone in the chilly silence of my hospital room once again.
A knock on the door the next morning woke me as Raritan, Parkman, and Woodson walked into the room. Parkman wore a smirk on his face, as usual, while Raritan looked serious. Woodson wore the only smile.
“What’s going on?”
Raritan clapped his hands together. “You’re getting out. You’re officially off the hook. Your girlfriend—”
“Ex-girlfriend,” I said, before having the sense to keep my mouth shut and listen.
“Your girlfriend Mara Bliss has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Her psychiatrist’s current theory is that she’s replaced whoever truly did this to her with you, because you’re a significant person from her past.
“Her timeline inconsistencies, the various eyewitnesses who saw you before and after her abduction, and her psychiatric evaluation all put you officially off the hook, end of story. Despite what I said yesterday, you’re back on the case.”
I let out a barely perceptible breath. No longer being the prime suspect in Mara’s abduction was good news. Being reassigned to the case was nothing short of a miracle.
“In fact, both the Louisiana and Mississippi field offices are going to work together from here on out, since victims have come from both states. So you and Agent Woodson will be working it together.”
“But this was my case.”
Raritan’s lips tightened. “I’ve almost been ripped a new asshole because of all this and you’re questioning me? Let me repeat myself. You have a partner in this investigation, and you’re not working in a vacuum anymore. At all, ever again. The Mississippi and Louisiana field offices will cooperate fully on this one.”
I almost threw in a fart joke in reference to his new asshole, but caught myself in the nick of time.
Raritan kept talking. “Anyway, bottom line, you’re getting out of here. When you’re up to it, you and your new partner here should go over to the morgue and interview the ME regarding the newest victim. Woodson will take you to the morgue then back to your residence, just to make sure you get back in one piece. We already had the towing service transfer your vehicle back to your place, so you need a ride anyway.”
“One second,” Woodson started to protest, but Raritan smiled curtly toward her.
“All part of being a good partner,” he said, turning his attention back to me. “Parkman and I are off to San Diego. They have three missing kids in six weeks out there and it doesn’t look good. So you two keep us informed of what goes on down here. We also need an official FBI interview with Mara Bliss. She’s the only person to ever see this guy and walk away from it so far. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how to extract any information from our favorite witness. Good luck trying to see her yourself.”
I shrugged, but didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, work up a profile and set up a debriefing for the locals. We’ll videoconference in, probably from Quantico by that time.” He glanced at the bandages on my side. “The doctors tell us you’re very lucky. The blade penetrated a couple inches deep but somehow missed vitals. You should be fine in no time. You’re infection-free and ready to go. Get a shower. They’re bringing up your release papers in a half hour. We’ll talk to you both once we’re settled in San Diego.”
They turned to leave. “Jimmy,” I called after him. “Thanks.”
Raritan paused at the door, but didn’t turn around. “By the way, somebody in the police departments down here has a big mouth.” As if it was choreographed, Parkman tossed the daily edition of
The Times-Picayune
onto the bed as he walked past. I turned the folded paper around and read a front-page story.
When I looked up again, Raritan and Parkman were gone. Only Woodson stood there, regarding me in silence.
The headline from that day’s paper ran in big, black letters:
SNOW WHITE KILLER STRIKES AGAIN
The front-page article included a photo of Donny frowning among a sea of microphones as he addressed the media. It described the identification of a third victim of the so-called Snow White Killer. It read slim on details and I noticed, thankfully, that it mentioned neither my name nor Mara’s. Somehow Donny and his boys had managed to keep our incident in the basement under the radar.
Woodson nodded her head toward the doorway. “I’m going down to the cafeteria. You want anything?”
Her words shook me from the newspaper story. “What? Oh, yeah, actually. I’m dying for a cup of coffee. I’m going to have to go into rehab if I don’t get some caffeine into my system soon. You mind?”
“Not a problem. Be back in fifteen,” she said, and walked out the door.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I realized for the first time that my IVs were gone, and I felt good enough to stand. I walked to the bathroom and disrobed.
In the shower stall I tried to prepare myself to step back into the world of the Snow White Killer as the water thudded against my neck. For some reason my mother’s face floated into my mind instead, her face still wearing that upside-down smile as she waved nervously to me that night twenty-plus years ago, before she turned to follow that boy into the forest.
My mother’s death wasn’t the work of a serial killer, all parties had concluded. I’d investigated every piece of information exhaustively with every free moment back when I’d worked in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. And they were right; it didn’t look like the work of a serial killer, either. My mother and those boys could have stepped into a drug deal gone sour, an escaped convict, or a cult of Satan worshippers, for all I knew. Impossible to say. But they’d definitely found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and paid the ultimate price. That summed up the long and short of it. End of story. Happened every day, as a matter of fact.
Cosmically pervasive shithouse luck.
The shower suddenly grew colder around me, and I scrambled to turn off the faucet.
* * *
I’d just finished changing into my clothes when Woodson materialized in the doorway, two cups of steaming coffee in one hand and a large yellow envelope in the other.
“Here.” She held the bulky envelope out toward me.
I took it and peered inside. My badge, my holstered Luger, and my wallet. Tools of the trade.
“Thanks,” I said, slipping the wallet into my back pocket. I was still stiff and tried to slip the holster around my chest and shoulder, to no avail. Woodson stepped forward.
“Here. Let me.” She slipped the leather loop of the holster strap over my shoulder and I managed to push my arm through. She reached into the bottom of the envelope and held my badge toward me. “Don’t forget this.”
“Thanks, Woodson.”
“Don’t mention it.”
A nurse opened the doorway behind us and we turned as she spoke. “Dr. Madden? I’m here to take you downstairs. You have to leave in the wheelchair.”
I started to protest, but knew it would be futile after seeing the look on the attending nurse’s face. I took my seat in the wheelchair, and Woodson led us out of the hospital.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later I sat in the passenger seat of Woodson’s sleek Audi as she wove her way along Highway 49 and headed north out of Gulfport. “You look pale,” Woodson said. “Do you want me to pull over?”
“I’m fine, Agent Woodson.”
She glanced over as she slowed down for a red light ahead. “Please, call me Roslyn.”
“Hey, if you want me to be informal with you, I’ll just call you Woodson. Last names are just my way, if you don’t mind.”
“Fine, fine
Madden.
” She emphasized my last name as she gunned the accelerator. “By the way,
Raritan,
” she said, demonstrating her mastery of the new nomenclature, “wants us to go straight to the morgue. So what’s the best way?”
“Well,
Woodson,
take Highway 49 north. It’s straight up about twenty miles.”
She cut in front of a dilapidated pickup truck with an angry honking horn. She shrugged and looked over apologetically. “Sorry. I learned to drive in downtown DC.”
I shook my head. “Just remember you’re in Mississippi now. Nobody needs to get anywhere fast. Not even us.”
“You Southerners are just so laid-back. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Y’all Southerners,” I corrected her. “And please note that about half of us laid-back Southerners carry loaded guns in the gun racks of our pickup trucks down here. So please try to be considerate, Agent Woodson, as you share the road with us.”
I watched out of the corner of my eye as Woodson glanced into the rearview mirror to find out whether there was a gun rack in the truck behind us.
I couldn’t help smiling.
* * *
A few minutes later I struck up another conversation. “So, Woodson, you know
my
story. But how did
you
wind up in the FBI?”
Woodson shrugged. “To tell the truth, your book
The Killing Mind
had something to do with it, actually.”
“Oh stop.”
“No, it really did. In fact, I read your book while I was in medical school, of all places.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot, Bob mentioned you’d gone to medical school, too. So what inspired you to leave the path of the Hippocratic Oath?” I leaned over as if taking her into confidence. “Our new line of work pays a lot less, by the way.”
Woodson smiled, but it was forced. “Why I left the path? During my last year of medical school, my roommate didn’t come home from a date one night.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I figured she decided to stay over at her boyfriend’s. The police found her two weeks later, washed up on the banks of the Chattanooga River in a garbage bag. Actually two bags.”
“Oh. I see.”
She waved me off. “We weren’t even that close,” she said, “but it affected me. It was something equal parts sorrow and fear, and wouldn’t go away. I became obsessed—not with the murder but the murderer. What could drive someone to saw a body in half? What was the rationale, however twisted? How could he be caught?”
“If it’s any solace, Woodson, I know what you mean. How did you eventually get connected with the FBI?”
“I called the number,” she said, with another forced laugh. “I mean, I went online and called the career opportunities phone number. A month later … wait, how did you put it again? I was getting my ass whipped into shape in Hogan’s Alley.”
In the wake of her unexpected honesty, I considered telling her about my mother and the real reason I’d joined the FBI, but didn’t. Instead I simply nodded along. “A lot of profilers have a story like that. It’s just part of who we are, I guess.”
She sighed. “I guess so.”
We drove on in silence after that, and the red clay hills and groves of skinny pines flew past. After a while I risked another glance over at Agent Woodson, this time noticing the graceful, almost hypnotic curvature of her bare neck.
Two MDs, and not a stethoscope between us.
Half an hour later we arrived at the Stone County morgue.
Donny greeted us at the entrance of the small brick building as we walked up. “Looking pretty good, all things considered.”
I shook his extended hand, wincing slightly at the movement. “Wasn’t serious, they tell me.”
Donny grunted his disbelief. Ordinarily he would have had plenty more to say on the topic of Mara Bliss, had we been alone. Instead, he simply nodded agreeably in Woodson’s direction. “Don Noden, Harrison County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Nice to meet you, Sheriff,” Woodson replied, extending her hand. “I’m the profile coordinator for the Jackson field office.”
Donny glanced at me as he took her hand, just long enough to betray his surprise. “Nice to meet you, too,” he offered amiably, then spat a wad of tobacco juice to the side.
It was his way of letting Woodson know that no matter who might be the newest FBI profile coordinator in Mississippi, he wouldn’t be changing his mode of operating one bit. Including spitting at will, whenever he felt like it.
“Well,” he said, wiping his lower lip with the back of his hand, “I pulled the evidence documents and crime scene photos.” He withdrew a crisp manila folder from his jacket and handed it to me. “They’re doing the autopsy now. Y’all ready?”