“Of course. Did it have his picture on it?”
“What good is it without one? He wasn’t a bad lookin’ man, either. A little hard in the face, but you live long enough, life makes you hard. Isn’t that right?”
“We would like to go up now, Mrs. Pitre. Is it just one room over the garage?”
“Two rooms and a bathroom. Ray built it for Joey after we give him that set of drums. Couldn’t stand having him in the house with that racket. I don’t know if he was any good, but he could wake the dead with them.”
“I see. Do you mind if we go up alone? We like to see things completely undisturbed.”
Mrs. Pitre isn’t overjoyed by this, but after a moment, she hands over the keys. “I want a receipt for anything you take.”
“You’ll get that.” John turns to me and pulls me aside. “I’m going up with Daniel and Lenz for a quick look. I’d like to take you up, but it wouldn’t fly with the forensic unit.”
“I’m okay. Go on.”
John confers with the head of the forensic unit, who hands him a sheaf of plastic evidence bags. Then he, Lenz, and Baxter climb the stairs inside the garage. Mrs. Pitre sidles my way as I watch, figuring a woman might give her more information, so I flee to the FBI sedan and lock myself in the front seat.
The roar of an outbound jet rattles the car and my bones, and I wonder why Mrs. Pitre isn’t as crazy as a road lizard rather than slightly addled. As I settle in for a wait, John limps down the bottom four steps.
“Is it your leg?” I call, getting out and hurrying toward him.
“No.” There’s an evidence bag in his hand. He waves to the chief of the forensic unit, and a platoon of technicians hurry toward the garage with their cases and bags.
“What is it? What did you find?”
“The UNSUB knew we were coming. The place was wiped clean, like the cell phone. All we found was a stash of junk food: Pop-Tarts, potato chips, Hostess Twinkies, and beef jerky. He must have worn gloves when he bought them. But waiting for us on the kitchen counter was a perfect row of photographs.”
A strange chill runs along my shoulders. “The victims?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Eleven. Not the woman from Dorignac’s grocery, and not Thalia.”
“So he didn’t take the Dorignac’s victim.” I realize John is still holding the evidence bag. “What’s in that?” I ask, my chest tightening.
John sighs and touches my arm. “Jane’s photo. If you’re up to it, I’d like you to see if you can tell me where it was taken.”
“Let’s see it.”
He hesitates, then opens the Ziploc and slides out the photo. It’s a black-and-white print, shot with a telephoto lens. The depth of field is so poor that I can’t distinguish the background, but Jane is clear. Wearing a sleeveless sweater and jeans, she’s looking toward the camera but not into it. She looks more intense than usual, her eyes narrowed in the way people tell me mine do when I’m concentrating. As I study the image, searching for some telling detail, anything that might yield a clue to her fate, my heart clenches like a fist and my skin goes cold.
“Are you okay?” he asks, taking hold of my shoulders. “I shouldn’t have showed that to you.”
When he touches me, I realize he’s shaking. His wounded leg is barely supporting his weight.
“Look at her arms, John.”
“What about them?”
“No scars.”
“What?”
A wave of vertigo throws me into a spin, though I know I’m standing still. “Jane was attacked by a dog when she was little.”
“Dog?”
The photo begins to quiver in my hand as realizations clamor for attention. I’ve seen this photograph before. But the copy in my hand isn’t a true photo print; it’s an ink-jet facsimile printed on photo paper. Fighting tears, I press the picture to my chest and close my eyes.
“Careful,” John warns. “There might be fingerprints.”
“Look!” Dr. Lenz says over John’s shoulder. “There’s something written on the back.”
John leans forward and studies the back of the print. “It’s an address. Twenty-five-ninety St. Charles.”
“That’s Jane Lacour’s address,” says Lenz.
“There’s a phone number, too.”
“Seven-five-eight, one-nine-ninety-two?” I ask.
“No,” John says softly. “It’s a New York number. We need to trace this right away.”
He reaches for the picture, but I push his hand away, turn over the photo, and read the number: 212-555- 2999.
“I know this number,” I whisper.
“Whose is it?” John asks.
“Just a second.” I try to think back through a haze of scotch and Xanax. “Oh, my God . . . it’s Wingate’s gallery. Christopher Wingate. I dialed this number from the plane back from Hong Kong.”
“Jesus,” John says under his breath. “That’s everybody tied in the same knot. Wingate, the UNSUB, and de Becque. They’re all tied together now.”
“Wingate’s number on a victim’s photo,” muses Lenz. “That could mean Wingate selected Jane Lacour.”
“How could he?” asks John. “He hasn’t been in New Orleans for years.”
“He didn’t choose Jane,” I whisper. “He chose me.”
22
THE CAUSEWAY ACROSS Lake Pontchartrain is the longest bridge in the world built solely over water. The twenty-three miles of humming concrete and traffic push me inward like a mantra, toward the dark vortex of my fear and guilt. Somewhere on the other side of this shallow lake, amid the exploding construction caused by white flight from New Orleans, stands the house of John Kaiser. The man himself sits beside me in the passenger seat of my rented Mustang, the seat fully reclined so that he can stretch out his wounded leg.
Thirty seconds after he read Christopher Wingate’s number off the back of my photograph, John’s leg gave way and he collapsed in Mrs. Pitre’s driveway. Baxter ordered him back to the hospital, but John argued that he was only tired, that he should have used the walking cane, and that he had to return to the field office to work the new connections between the UNSUB, Wingate, and Marcel de Becque. Baxter gave him two choices: go back to the hospital or go home and rest for the night. John chose the latter, but as we picked up my Mustang from the field office, he called upstairs and had an agent bring down a thick folder filled with the latest Argus-generated enhancements of the abstract Sleeping Women. He’s like I used to be when I got my teeth into a war story—unstoppable.
The picture he pulled from the Ziploc bag floats in my mind like a grayscale emblem of guilt. I’ve placed the photo now. It ran in several major newspapers two years ago, when I won the North American Press Association Award. Wingate must have accessed some database that contained that picture, printed it on photo-quality paper, and sent it to the UNSUB in New Orleans.
“Do you want to talk about it?” John reaches out and touches my knee.
“I don’t know.”
“I know what you’re thinking, Jordan. A little survivor guilt is normal, but this is crazy. You’re forcing everything to fit a predetermined result. And the result you’re reaching for is that Jane died because of you. I don’t know why you want to feel that guilt, but that’s not what happened.”
I squeeze the wheel, trying to control my temper. “I don’t want that guilt.”
“I’m glad. Because that would be really fucked up.”
I grip the wheel still harder to bleed off my exasperation, but it does no good. “Will you call and see if they’ve compared the handwriting? If it’s not Wingate’s, I’ll admit I’m being paranoid. But if it is, we’ll know Wingate mailed or gave the UNSUB my picture.”
John takes out his cell phone, calls the field office, and asks for the forensic unit. “Jenny, John Kaiser. Have you guys heard from New York on that handwriting yet? . . . What did they say? . . . I see. One hundred percent sure? . . . Right. Thanks.” He presses End, the
n lets his head fall forward and sighs.
“What is it?”
“The phone number on your photo was in Wingate’s handwriting.”
My stomach goes hollow, and I slam the wheel with my open hand. “There it is. Somebody outside New Orleans chose me as victim number five, and it got Jane killed.”
He bites his lower lip and shakes his head. “If I had to pick someone, I’d pick Marcel de Becque.”
“What if he ordered me, John? The way you’d commission any painting? He’s known who I am for years. He tells Wingate he wants me in the next painting, but since I’m traveling all the time, Wingate finds an easy way to supply what de Becque wants. He takes Jane instead.”
“There’s one big hole in that theory.”
“That de Becque didn’t have Jane’s painting? That’s easy. Wingate sold it out from under him. That’s the source of their bad blood.”
“I was talking about coincidence. Every other victim lives in New Orleans. But for some unknown reason, de Becque chooses you—a world traveler based in San Francisco—as victim number five. To fill de Becque’s order, Wingate decides to use your twin sister as a substitute. And that substitute just happens to live in the same city as all the other victims? That’s a statistical impossibility.”
A low pounding has started at the base of my skull. I reach down to the floor and unzip my fanny pack, looking for my pill bottle.
“What’s that?” John asks as I bring it up.
“Xanax.”
“Tranquilizers?
“It’s no big deal.”
“Xanax is a chemical cousin of Valium.”
“I know that. Look, I need to calm down.”
He looks out his window at the lake, but I know he’s not going to let it drop. “Do you take them regularly?”
I pop off the lid, shake two pills into my hand, and swallow them dry. “This has been a bad day, okay? I watched Wendy die. I watched you get shot. A guy tried to kidnap me, and I just found out I’m responsible for my sister’s death. You can put me in rehab tomorrow.”
He looks back at me, his hazel eyes filled with concern. “You do what you have to do to get through this. I’m just worried about you. And me. We’ve got another fifteen minutes in the car. You’re not going to fall asleep at the wheel, are you?”
I laugh. “Don’t worry about that. Two of these would put you out, but they’ll barely dent me.”
He studies me for a long moment, then faces the causeway again. “Sooner or later, we’re going to break through the wall, Jordan. We’re going to find those women. All of them.”
Sooner or later. It had better be sooner. Later is like the horizon; it recedes as you approach.
JOHN LIVES IN a suburban ranch house on a street with twenty others exactly like it. Homogenous Americana, enforced by neighborhood covenant. The lawns are well-tended, the houses freshly painted, the vehicles in the driveways clean and new. I park in the driveway, then help him out of the passenger side. With only me present, he uses the cane. It’s slow going, but he grits his teeth and keeps walking.
Under the carport, he punches a security code into a wall box and opens the back door, which leads into a laundry room, then a spotless white kitchen.
“You obviously never cook,” I remark.
“I cook sometimes.”
“You have a maid, then.”
“A woman comes in once a week. But I’m basically a neat guy.”
“I’ve never met a neat guy I’d want to spend the night with.”
He laughs, then winces. “The truth is, I’ve been sleeping on a cot at the office since Baxter called about your discovery in Hong Kong.”
“Ah.”
Beyond the kitchen counter is a dining area with a glass table, and a large arch leads onto a decently furnished den. Everything appears to be in its appointed place, with only a couple of magazines on a coffee table suggesting the presence of an occupant. The house feels like it’s been cleaned up for sale, or is even a demo unit used to sell young marrieds on the neighborhood.
“Where’s all your junk?” I ask, feeling a warm wave of Xanax wash against my headache.
“My junk?”
“You know. Books, videotapes? Old mail? The things you buy on impulse at Wal-Mart?”
He shrugs, then looks oddly wistful. “No wife, no kids, no junk.”
“That rule doesn’t apply to other bachelors I’ve known.”
He starts to reply, but winces again instead.
“Your leg?”
“It’s stiffening up fast. Let me just get on the couch there. I can go through the Argus photos there.”
“I think you’d better rest before you start on those.”
He limps to the sofa with his weight on the cane, but instead of helping him sit, I take his hand and pull him past the sofa toward the hall. “I don’t want to sleep,” he complains, pulling back against my hand.
“We’re not going to sleep.”
“Oh.”
His resistance stops, and I lead him toward a half-open door at the end of the hall, where a cherry foot-board shows through. Like the rest of the house, the bedroom is clean; the bed is neatly made. With John’s casual dress habits, I thought this inner sanctum might be the secret wreck of the house. Maybe that’s just projection.
He starts to sit on the bed, but I stop him and pull back the covers first. Once he gets horizontal, the painkillers will kick in, and it will be a while before he feels like getting up again.
“I need to sit down,” he says in a tight voice.
With me holding his upper arms, he eases back and sits on the edge of the bed, then lies back on the pillow with a groan.
“Bad?”
“Not good. I’m okay, though.”
“Let’s see if I can make it better.”
I slip off my shoes, then climb onto the bed and carefully sit astride him. “Does that hurt?”
“No.”
“Liar.” Leaning forward, I brush his lips with mine and pull back, waiting for him to respond. His hands slide up my hips to my waist; then he kisses me back, gently, yet insistently enough to remind me of the passion I felt in the shower last night. A warm wave of desire rolls through me, which combined with the Xanax suppresses the shadowy images bubbling up from my subconscious.
“I want to forget,” I whisper. “Just for an hour.”
He nods and pulls my lips to his, kissing me deeply as his arms slip around my back. After a bit, he nibbles my neck, then my ear, and the warmth escalates into something urgent enough to make me squirm in discomfort. That’s the way I am. I go a day or a week or a month without being aware of my body, and then suddenly it’s there, making me uncomfortably aware of its needs. But my need runs much deeper than flesh. For the past year, I’ve lived with a growing emptiness that has threatened to swallow me whole.
“You have something?” I whisper.
“In the dresser.”
I slide off him and move to the dresser.
“Top drawer.”
When I get back to the bed, I stand looking down at him. He watches me with wide eyes, waiting to see what I’ll do. The base of my skull is still throbbing, but not so badly now. I’d give a lot to have my shoulders rubbed, but he’s in no shape to do that for me. Given what his doctor told us, he’s not in shape to do anything I have in mind. But I suspect he feels differently.
“You okay?” he asks.
I smile at him and begin unbuttoning my blouse. The bra I put on this morning is sealed in an evidence bag in the belly of a plane on its way to Washington, and the agent who lent me a change of clothes didn’t have an extra bra in her trunk. When the blouse slips off my shoulders, John’s breath goes shallow.
I slide off my jeans and panties, then climb back to the spot I was in before. As he looks up at me, I see the pulse beating at the base of his throat. I touch his lips with my finger.
“Five minutes ago I felt as low as I ever have. I thought we were going to come in here and have
violent sex that would exorcise our demons just long enough to let us sleep. But that’s not what this is.”
He nods. “I know.”
“You make me happy, John.”
“I’m glad. You make me happy too.”
“God, we’re a bad movie.”
He laughs. “The real thing always sounds like a bad movie.” He reaches up and touches my cheek. “I know you’re torn to pieces inside, especially after seeing that picture. I don’t—”
“Shh. This is how it is. Life happens in the middle of death. I feel lucky to have found you, and this is where we happen to be. You could have died today. So could I. And we’d never have known what this was like.”
“You’re right.”
“Come on. We deserve it.”
He reaches up and rubs my abdomen, and the warmth of his hand makes me shiver. He nods down toward his leg. “I’m not exactly in top form.”
“You’re still talking pretty well.”
“And?”
“One critical part is still in working order.”
He shakes his head and laughs. “You’re not shy, are you?”
“I’m forty, John. I’m not a Girl Scout anymore. And you still owe me from the hotel.”
“I wondered why you hadn’t taken off my clothes.”
I smile down at him. “First things first.”
“How do we do this?”
“I’ll make it easy for you.”
Leaning forward, I take hold of the headboard and slide up his chest, then rise onto my knees. Without hesitation, he lays his hands on my hips and pulls me to him, kissing lightly. A thrill of heat races over my skin, and I settle against him.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
“Don’t talk. Just keep doing that.”
He does, and after less than a minute, I know this is not going to take long. I learned long ago that the trick is not to concentrate on reaching a peak, but to be with someone with whom you feel totally at ease. Then you can close your eyes and let go of the world, and you’ll be carried to the peak without ever taking a step. I’ve felt at ease with John from the first, and now is no different. He knows where I want to go and how to take me there, and I’m content to let him. I dig my fingers into his hair and pull him into me, and he groans with pleasure.