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Tom shook her hand, didn’t notice nicotine on her fingertip. “You’re a long way from home, Ms. Toro.”
“So are you, Special Agent Piper.”
They spoke in hushed tones, so as not to disturb those around them, who were apparently enraptured in the mayor’s oratory.
“I sat next to you on purpose,” she said.
“Are you asking me out on a date, Ms. Toro?”
“Not unless you’re hiding a vagina.” Her breath smelled of spearmint and menthol. “And call me Lilly.”
“Why did you sit next to me?”
A pasty gentleman to Tom’s right stopped jotting notes onto his steno pad and gave them an accusatory look.
“Sorry, Roger,” said Lilly.
“Sorry, Roger,” echoed Tom.
Up on stage, Mayor Lumley wrapped up her remarks and turned the helm over to Pastor Manny Jessup. Both Roscoe Coffey and Bobby Vega had been congregants at his church. He stepped up to the podium, took a deep, steadying breath, and spoke.
The service lasted another hour. By the time it was over, much of the mighty crowd outside had dispersed. Plastic cups and candy wrappers were strewn across the parking lot, as if the fair had just left town.
Tom made his way to his Harley.
“Special Agent Piper…”
Lilly Toro, more than a foot shorter, hustled to catch up.
“I’m in a bit of a hurry, I’m afraid, Ms. Toro…”
“Lilly.”
“Lilly.” He fastened his protective leggings over his slacks, lest he crash his motorcycle, shatter his bones, and accidentally bleed on his clothes. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I gave my statement yesterday at the press conference.”
“Okay.”
Tom offered her a sympathetic shrug and mounted his bike. The engine started with a tiger’s roar. He petted it. Good boy.
“I was just wondering,” she yelled over the roar, “I was just wondering why you haven’t disclosed anything about the shoe boxes!”
Tom sighed. He hated press leaks.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me who your informant is?”
“No,” replied Lilly. “But thanks for confirming his story. Or her story. Maybe their story…”
“You don’t really want to know why I haven’t disclosed that information, because you already know why I haven’t disclosed that information. You understand the principle of withholding key evidence because you’re doing the same thing now with me.”
She lit up a Marlboro, blew smoke away from his face, and grinned.
“Okay, so now, Ms. Toro, I guess I’m going to ask you what your price is for your discretion. What is it your newspaper wants to keep any mention of shoe boxes off the front page?”
“An exclusive.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Not an exclusive on the whole case. I know you can’t give me an exclusive on the whole case. I want to report about your team.”
“Me.”
“‘What’s it like, firsthand, to track down a serial killer?’ I want to be embedded.”
“Uh-huh. That’s very much not going to happen.”
He revved the Harley.
“You know,” she yelled, “once we print the story, you’re not going to have any leverage to tell the difference between the fake leads and the real ones! I imagine that’ll make your team’s lives a lot more complicated!”
He gritted his teeth. Before she even said it, he knew she was right. By keeping some elements of the crime a secret, his team could sift out the crazies and the wannabes. Once those elements became public, his task force would have no easy way of confirming or denying the validity of any call they received. Their time and resources would be wasted while the real killer remained at large.
He really hated press leaks.
He killed the engine. Again.
“Let me give you my number,” Tom mumbled.
“Don’t worry,” Lilly replied. “I’ve already got it.”
“Of course you do.” When he discovered which cop/flunky/politician was slipping information to the press… “Goodbye, Ms. Toro.”
“Special Agent Piper, please. Call me Lilly. After all, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”
On his way to the hospital, Tom grabbed a bite to eat at Whataburger. He ate out in the restaurant’s parking lot. Eating outside, come rain or shine, was one of his private pleasures. The quality of the food itself rarely mattered—right now he was at a fast food joint, for Christ’s sake—but the combination of environment and nourishment offered Tom his few fleeting moments of peace.
As it turned out, by midafternoon the day had become unseasonably warm, and Tom, atop his bike, gratefully shrugged off his heavy leather coat. The breeze tickled at his neck. Although the sun remained hidden behind gray clouds, it was most assuredly up there, somewhere. Trying. One couldn’t help but admire the effort.
Esme still hadn’t called.
Tom was tempted to phone her back, but refrained. If she didn’t want to get involved, she didn’t want to get involved. He had to respect that. He didn’t respect it—just as he hadn’t seven years ago—but he had to at least pretend. Pushing only created distance.
She would be such an asset on this case. There were so many variables, so many questions unanswered. This was a killer who thought outside the box, and Tom knew his capture would only be achieved by a detective who thought outside the box. And Esme flourished outside the box. So what in the hell was she doing in cookie-cutter Long Island…?
Tom washed down the last of his burger with a swig of tangy lemonade and tossed his refuse in a nearby bin. Across the street was a superstore which specialized in hats. Sometimes Amarillo reminded him of his childhood back in Jasper. Only Jasper wasn’t as flat. Nothing was as flat as the Texas Panhandle. The landscape was populated, as it were, with forests of shrubs that rarely rose above Tom’s ankle. The rest was desert, and went on for infinity.
Tom motored up Wallace Boulevard to Baptist St. Anthony’s. Chief Harold Lymon, nicknamed “Catch,” was situated on the fifth floor. Since no one from the hospital had left Tom a message, he assumed the man was still, sixty-five hours after being shot, unconscious. The doctors had insisted that Catch’s condition wasn’t critical, that he had been extraordinarily lucky, that his brain functions appeared normal and he could awaken at any moment. However, that likelihood decreased with each passing hour. Catch—and what he might have seen at the aquarium—was their best hope—their only hope—in identifying the sniper who called himself Galileo.
So imagine Tom’s relief when he received a text message, just as he pulled into the hospital lot. CATCH AWAKE, it read. It was from Darcy Parr, the youngest member of his task force. She’d drawn the morgue assignment, and since the morgue was situated in Baptist St. Anthony’s, it made sense she’d be the first to learn any status change in Catch’s condition.
Three minutes and thirty seconds after reading the text, Tom had locked up his motorcycle, secured his gear, and was riding the hospital elevator up to floor five. Darcy met him at the nurses’ station.
“The doctors are in with him right now,” she said. “They said he may be too weak to talk, but I convinced them to give us five minutes as soon as they’re done.”
Darcy was Tom’s little blond-haired puppy dog—hyperactive, always eager to please, sidling up beside him. She was twenty-six years old. Her youthful energy sometimes drove Tom insane. Today it helped stretch his lips into a cheek-to-cheek grin.
Two different Texas Rangers were stationed outside Room 526. The door was closed. As soon as Catch had arrived at the hospital, the Texas Rangers had stepped up and volunteered their time. Everyone wanted to help. Well, except Esme Stuart.
The Rangers—two tin-starred linebackers topped with cream-colored cowboy hats—stood at attention on either side of the door. Tom offered them a salute. Darcy followed close behind.
“How long have they been in there?” he asked.
“About fifteen, sir,” replied Sgt. Conwell.
“Catch called out to us, sir,” added Sgt. Baynes. “He knew where he was. He knew what had happened.”
Tom’s grin filled his whole face. He paced the hall, eager to chat with his star witness.
“How was the service?” Darcy asked.
“It was nice. Very respectful.”
He glanced at Room 526’s closed door. Any minute now.
“Has his family been notified?” Tom asked her.
“As far as I know,” Darcy replied. “I’m sure they’ll be here soon. I’m sure they’ll want to talk with him, too.”
“Well, then, they’ve just got to wait in line.”
Any second now…
“He’s had a lot of visitors, sir,” said Sgt. Baynes. “We only let immediate family in to see him. And the lieutenant governor.” Perhaps he was just trying to occupy the silence. Perhaps he was crowing his achievements. Tom didn’t care.
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
“There was one reporter who tried to see him a few minutes ago,” Baynes added. “Rude little bastard. Even tried to take a picture of Catch with his camera phone. We got rid of the scamp right quick.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Any second now…
The rude little bastard Sgt. Baynes was referring to was now on floor four of the hospital, in the men’s room. Underneath the sink was a briefcase, secured there with duct tape. He peeled the tape away and hefted the briefcase into his arms. It was not light.
Back on the fifth floor, the door finally opened. Four doctors filed out.
“Two minutes,” the eldest doctor warned. “He’s still weak.”
Tom nodded eagerly and, with Darcy in tow, entered Room 526.
Room 426, in the primary care ward, was occupied by two patients. One was off having tests. The other, a rotund fellow with red mullet named Curly McCue, was watching Jerry Springer on the TV fastened to the wall. The rude little bastard entered Room 426 and wedged the door shut with a small piece of wood from his pocket.
“Hi there,” said Curly, happy to have a visitor, “can I help you?”
“My name is Special Agent Tom Piper,” Tom said, one story up. Although the room’s blinds were drawn (safety precaution), the fire chief’s hazel eyes seemed to glow with daylight and vitality.
“I saw him,” he told the agents. His voice was raspy. He took a sip of water from a paper cup the doctors must have given him. “He was on the roof of a building across the street.”
Tom kept his ever-bourgeoning excitement in check. This was a man who had almost died, whose team of firefighters had been murdered. “Did you get a good look at him, Chief?”
Catch nodded.
Back in Room 426, the rude little bastard was assembling his M107. From barrel to stock, it was twenty-nine inches long and weighed almost twenty-nine pounds. A certain symmetry, that. It could accurately fire .50 caliber rounds at a distance of 6,561 feet, or over one mile. His target today, though, was only twenty feet away. Vertically. Galileo double-checked the snapshot he’d taken on his cell phone to verify the corresponding location in the room of his prey.
Curly McCue didn’t budge. His bed was soaked with urine. On TV, two scantily-clad pregnant women were wrestling. Curly McCue tried to recall the words to the Lord’s Prayer.
Tom leaned into the bed. Catch’s parched voice made his words difficult to understand. Darcy mimicked her boss and stood at the other side of the bed and also leaned.
Catch swallowed down another gulp of water. Smiled at the agents. And then his heart splashed Valentine’s Day blood against the ceiling of the room, across Tom and Darcy’s faces, and the world.
Tom and Darcy recoiled from the bed. Catch’s face still displayed that patient smile, frozen now in time and spattered scarlet. The plastic cup was squeezed in his left fist. Water trickled down the side of his hand and drip-dropped against the tiled floor below. Blood soon joined.
The Rangers burst into the room, pistols at the ready.
“Seal the exits!” Tom demanded. “Go!”
BAM! Catch’s body jumped again. The assassin had taken a second shot, just to be sure. The bullet angled off a rib and nabbed Tom in his left shoulder.
“Stay here,” he ordered Darcy, who was leaning against the wall. Possibly in shock. “Keep everyone outside the room.” In case the shooter fired again.
Darcy nodded, catching her breath. She was wiping Catch’s blood from her nostrils and irises when she noticed Tom’s wound. With his right hand he unsheathed his Glock from its shoulder-holster and dashed out to the nearest stairwell to intercept the sniper. He took the steps three at a time, emerged on the fourth floor, and didn’t have to worry about getting lost—he just followed the sounds of the screaming.
The wound in his left shoulder screamed in unison. He knew it wasn’t just a flesh wound. The bullet was lodged inside his muscle. Blood soaked his inoperable left arm. Tom, left-handed, did his best to ignore the pain and briskly walked to the nurses’ station.
The nurses were on the floor—uninjured, but seeking shelter. The screams came from the patients on the ward. Hospital security wasn’t there—the Rangers had undoubtedly commandeered them to help man the exits.
The door to Room 426 was wide open.
Chunks of ceiling panel crumbled on to Curly McCue’s bed. Curly had a single gunshot wound to the forehead, close range. His eyes were closed. He had known what was coming.
The sniper was gone.
“Which way?” Tom barked at the nearest orderly.
“I…”
“WHICH WAY?”
But no one replied. They either didn’t know—or were too afraid to say. Tom approached the nurses’ station and dialed security.
“Did you get him?” he asked. But he already knew what the answer would be.
6
F or their Valentine’s date, Rafe bought his wife a wrist corsage. He spent most of his office hours in line at the florist’s down the block from the university. Apparently every married man in Long Island was both a romantic and a procrastinator.
“A kelly green carnation,” he requested. That’s what she’d had in her wedding bouquet, so he knew he was on safe ground. He didn’t want to screw anything up, not today, not for Esme. The florist secured the delicate flower, still dappled with water droplets, in its plastic container.
He stored it in the fridge in the faculty lounge. He made sure to stick on a Post-it with his name on it, and hoped that would be enough to dissuade thieves (although he knew in academia no property—especially intellectual—was ever sacred). Fortunately, the corsage remained undisturbed, and by 5:30 p.m. he was carrying it (and a valise heavy with student papers) to his Saab.
It was a long walk. Rafe was out of breath by the time he reached his car. The arctic weather didn’t help; he could feel his ears and bare hands ache with each blast of wind. How peculiar, he thought, that both extreme heat and extreme cold turned bare skin red. He surmised it had something to do with blood. But Rafe Stuart was an associate professor in cultural sociology. He dissected demographics and memes. Anatomy was two quads away, in an oblong, curvaceous building shaped roughly (and somewhat appropriately) like the starship Enterprise.
Rafe tossed his valise in the trunk but very, very gently placed the corsage on the passenger seat. He was a little nervous. Big romantic evenings were not his forte. He much preferred a quiet night at home where he wasn’t under pressure to be Casanova. He loved his wife dearly, desperately, but loathed the typical dinner-and-a-movie rituals that society demanded, especially on days like this. Romance, he always had believed, should be a private affair. But today was Valentine’s Day, and so a corsage (for charm) and Il Forno (for pasta by candlelight). All for Esme. Anything for Esme.
Stuck in traffic on the way home, Rafe adjusted his rearview mirror to verify his necktie’s knot. He’d changed into a suit before leaving campus but hadn’t felt confident about his knot. Sure enough, it canted to the left. As soon as he exited the expressway, as soon as he reached his first red light, he tried to fix it. Loosen—straighten—tighten. Nope, try again. Drive another mile. Next red light. Loosen—straighten—tighten. Close, but still a bit askew, no? Drive another half-mile. He’d reached downtown Oyster Bay. Sophie’s school was to his left. He braked at a red light by the school and gave the knot one last go. Loosen—straighten—tighten. Some of his colleagues in social sciences wore ties year round. How could they breathe?
He angled his Saab into his subdivision. While questions like why one’s skin turned red were well beyond his field of knowledge, the matters of appearances and social perception were very much in his reach and grasp. Although he rarely wore a tie to work, he always wore a long-sleeved, iron-pressed, button-down shirt, even in the summer. Neutral colors, nothing flashy or flamboyant. Respect had to be earned, and man was the most superficial of God’s beasts. When they first met, Esme would have been happy attending a cocktail party in a T-shirt and jeans. He’d shown her the error of her ways.
Butterflies zipped around inside him. Did what was left of his black hair look adequately flat? Were his eyeglasses clear of specks? He shuffled out of his Saab and headed to the front door. He adjusted his tie knot one last time and rang the doorbell to his own house. Their teenage sitter greeted him with a mouthful of braces.
“Hello, Mr. Stuart. You look very nice tonight.”
“Thank you, Chelsea,” he replied. He didn’t want to come in. That wasn’t what he’d planned. Esme would meet him at the door. It would be like a prom date. That’s what he’d planned. That’s what would have been romantic. He was sure of it. But instead here was their brace-faced babysitter—
“Daddy!”
Sophie rushed from her homework to the doorway and slapped her arms around her father’s belly (well, as much of it as she could circumnavigate) in a snug embrace.
“Hi, sweetness.” He kissed her scalp. She gleamed up at him with blue eyes. For a moment, he forgot about his plans, his tie, Valentine’s Day, brace-faced Chelsea, the corsage he’d left in the car, the papers he needed to grade, the chill of the wind, the tilt of the earth’s axis, everything. Rafe’s little girl could induce amnesia, yes, she could. But ah, only temporarily. “Where’s Mommy?”
On cue, Mommy strolled down the stairs. She wore a form-fitting evening dress, red for the occasion. It brought out the freckles on her nose. For the second time in two minutes, Rafe’s mind went ecstatically blank.
Esme, responding to the awed expression on his face, shyly tucked a loose strand of hair behind an ear. Even after eight years, he still found her beautiful. She took his hand, they bid good-night to Sophie and her sitter, and walked out into the night.
They arrived late at the restaurant, but after a minimum of fuss the cheery mâitre d’led them to their table. Il Forno rested on a cliff and overlooked the dark blue Long Island Sound. Esme and Rafe took their seats by the window and stared out through the glass at the undulating waves.
Her right wrist sported the green carnation. She’d almost sat on it when she’d opened the car door, back in their driveway, but a last-minute warning from Rafe averted disaster. Rafe hurried to her side of the car and placed the corsage on his wife’s wrist.
Esme grinned. Was anyone more adorable than her husband? She kissed him full on the lips and whispered into his ear, “Thank you.”
Their tuxedoed waiter introduced himself—but needn’t have, as he was one of Rafe’s Meme Seminar students.
“Great to see you, Professor!” Nate said. “I didn’t know you came here!”
Rafe maintained his friendly smile. Had he known any of his students would be here, no, he wouldn’t have come. If romance couldn’t be a private affair, it at least could and should be shielded from his college girls and boys. While students were often cavalier in class about their personal lives, an instructor’s personal life was sacrosanct.
Once Tuxedo Nate took their drink orders and left, Rafe leaned in to his wife and casually inquired if she’d prefer to go somewhere else. But Esme laughed it off. “Because of our waiter? I think it’s funny. Why—is he failing your class? Are you worried he’s going to poison your food?”
Rafe winced. This was not the evening he had planned. But at least Esme had loved the corsage. And hopefully the food would be good. He gave the rest of the restaurant a cursory scan. No other students, either waiting on table or on dates with their significant others. Good. Il Forno was a little out of their price range, anyway.
Nate arrived with their merlot. He poured each their glass and left them the bottle in its decanter.
“Are we ready to order?” he asked.
They were. They did. He left.
“So,” Rafe inquired, savoring his wine, “what did you do today?”
“Not much. Did some laundry. Finished that crappy novel I had to read.”
“Sounds like a peaceful day.”
“Oh, and Tom Piper called.”
Rafe gently steadied his wineglass back on the table. “To wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day?”
Esme sighed. “Rafe…”
His azure gaze fixated on the waves in the moonlight. They followed the dark water as it lapped against the shore, then back into the void.
“He just wanted to talk to me, you know, about what’s been going on down in Atlanta and Amarillo. Get my take on it.”
“Did he get it? Your take, that is.”
His eyes shifted from the ocean to his wife. Sometimes she could make him forget about the world, true. But sometimes she could make every memory caged in his brain explode at once into searing clarity…
“I didn’t call him back,” she replied, and clasped his thick hands in hers. “My responsibilities are here now. Aren’t they?”
Romance should be a private affair? Fuck that. Rafe reached over and in the presence of the entire restaurant (including Tuxedo Nate) kissed his wife full on the mouth.
When they got home, Chelsea was sprawled across their divan, gabbing on her cell and noshing on carrot sticks. She said her regretful goodbyes to whoever was on the other line (her boyfriend, probably—today was Valentine’s Day) and hopped to her feet.
“Sophie’s asleep,” she said.
Esme nodded. Sleep was not a bad idea. She’d consumed more than her share of the merlot and was feeling its hypnotic tingle all through her body—but especially in her legs. She leaned against the kitchen counter, aiming for nonchalance and achieving full-out drunken goofiness.
If Chelsea noticed, she didn’t say anything. She seemed too intent anyway on the greenbacks Rafe was counting out from his wallet. Not a bad salary for carrot stick noshing and divan sprawling. Rafe offered to drive her home, but she lived only a few blocks away.
And she just wants more alone time with her boyfriend, mused Esme. Oh, to be young and in love. Although being in love in your late thirties wasn’t so bad either…
Esme’s lips stretched into a loopy grin. She wandered toward her daughter’s bedroom and peeked inside. Sophie slept curled up like a corn chip. Her small fists had her pink comforter pulled up to her chin. Esme knew she used to sleep like that, when she was younger. She would wake up with her bed sheet wrapped around her body like a protective cocoon. But Sophie had many cocoons protecting her. Esme suddenly felt the urge to embrace her daughter, but relented. Better to let her sleep, she decided. Sleep, dream and grow.
Esme strolled back into the living room. Chelsea was gone, and Rafe was returning the carrot sticks to the fridge.
“I’m just going to check my e-mail for a minute,” said Esme. She hoped he caught her subtext: and then we’ll retire to the bedroom for some appropriate Valentine’s Day sex games. But if he noticed, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he was sniffing the milk for freshness.
She sat down at her desk. It was time to reply to Tom’s e-mail. As the computer booted up, she went over in her mind how she would phrase her rejection. Above all, she needed to remain compassionate but firm. Of course she recognized how horrible his situation was. Of course she would help if she could—but she couldn’t. Her heart went out to all those victims’ families…but her heart then was obliged to come back here, to her home.