“Come here.”
I took her in my arms, and she leaned against me in a way that made my heart break. And as she did, I thought of Christie, the woman both Tessa and I had loved so much, and of the promise she’d asked me to make regarding the diary.
But now, considering how troubled Tessa had become, I couldn’t imagine that Christie would want me to keep it from her for five more months.
“Hey, listen.” I backed up and gently held her shoulders. I saw that she hadn’t actually started to cry, but she was a girl experienced at hiding her pain. “I’ll give it to you, OK? Tomorrow. I’ll give you the diary in the morning.”
“What?” She looked at me with a mixture of hope and skepticism. “Really? No, you won’t.”
“Yes. I think your mom would understand. I’m sure she never meant for this to be such a big deal, for it to upset you like this.”
Tessa looked past me into my bedroom. “So where is it?”
“It’s not here.” I let go of her hands. “I’ll have to get it tomorrow. It’s at my office at the federal building.”
“Can’t you just-”
“Tomorrow. We’ll do it tomorrow.”
“You’re not just saying this as some kind of manipulative parenting thing to-”
“No. I’ll give it to you.”
She studied my face for a moment and then said softly, “Thank you, Patrick. I seriously mean it.”
“I love you, Raven,” I said.
She smiled at me then, a soft, unforced smile. “I love you too.”
And for a moment, just a moment, the dead bodies in Colorado and the trial in Illinois faded from my mind, and life seemed in sync with the way things should be. Tessa and I were on the same page, and I felt like I was able to give her a pngt, a chance to connect with her mother in a way she’d never been able to before.
But almost immediately, I realized that reading Christie’s diary would undoubtedly bring back Tessa’s feelings of grief and loss all over again, might open old wounds, possibly make her even lonelier than ever.
I tried not to think of those things, and instead I just told myself that this was the right thing, the loving thing to do.
Then Tessa left for her room, but I noticed that the feeling of peace I’d had only a moment earlier had evaporated even before she stepped out the door.
64
45 minutes later
I couldn’t sleep.
In addition to my questions about giving Tessa the diary, my thoughts had returned to the ranch where we’d found Thomas Bennett and almost caught the killer.
Almost.
But we hadn’t.
I tried to put everything out of my mind, but I couldn’t seem to relax, and eventually I gave up and grabbed my laptop, propped some pillows behind my back, and surfed to the online case files.
Read them for twenty minutes.
Didn’t get sleepy.
Didn’t notice anything new.
I checked my email and found, amid fifty-nine junk mails and four internal FBI memos, three messages that caught my attention-one from Kurt, one from Ralph, and one from United Airlines telling me it was time to check in for my 4:04 p.m. flight to Chicago tomorrow.
Oh yes. The trial.
Another thing to think about.
But not at the moment.
I read Ralph’s email first.
Hey,
Why aren’t you answering your cell? I hate typing.
Nothing much here. Officer Fohay’s clean, tho. Prints didn’t match and he had no prior association with Sikora.
Calvin hasn’t left his house all day.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Don’t waste my time. Just answer your phone.
– R
So, nothing earth-shattering. It would have made things a lot easier if Fohay had been the one who’d loaded the gun; but things aren’t usually that simple.
I replied to Ralph, explaining that my phone was dead and that if he needed to get in touch with me to just use my landline or call Tessa’s cell.
It surprised me a little that Calvin hadn’t left his house. After all, he didn’t believe in retirement, worked weekends, and only took Wednesdays off. He’d told me on Friday that he was going to wait and see what happened next. I wondered if maybe something had.
So I emailed him as well, to see if he could pick me up at the airport tomorrow evening to give me a ride to my hotel.
Then I scrolled to Kurt’s message:
Pat,
I’ve attached the video file of the footage you took inside the house. A couple other things:
We found Elwin Daniels’s body in a shallow grave near the house. Preliminary time of death looks like eighteen to twenty-one days ago.
No DNA or prints yet, but animal control verified that one of the aquariums contained toads, not snakes-Colorado River toads. Based on the size of the tank and the amount of droppings it looks like our guy had about ten or twelve of them. Problem is, their skin contains 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin-psychedelic drugs, but when ingested in concentrated doses… you get the idea. Looks like John is getting ready for story number seven.
Nothing yet on any missing priests, but Missing Persons is still looking into it. See you tomorrow. We’ll have a briefing at 1:00, sixth floor conference room. Get some rest.
– Kurt
P.S. Reggie told me you had a date with Cheyenne tonight. Don’t worry. I won’t spread the word.
How thoughtful.
Enough with this. I needed some sleep.
I put my computer away, crawled beneath the covers, and closed my eyes.
65
Sunday, May 186:13 a.m. Sunday did not start out well.
My nightmare of the slaughterhouse and the whispering corpses had returned, and when I eased my eyes open, I saw that the day was going to be bleak.
God had decided to send rain to Denver, and the flat gray sky reminded me more of a November morning in Milwaukee than a Denver day in spring.
I opened the window to check the temperature, and a brush of crisp air with some leftover winter greeted me. The temp had dropped more than twenty degrees from the night before, and by the looks of the clouds and the plummeting temperature, I wondered if we might be in for a late-season snowstorm before the end of the day.
But you won’t be here at the end of the day.
Oh yes.
Chicago.
After a quick shower I went online, hoping to switch to a later flight, but there were no openings, which meant I would need to leave for the airport by 2:30, maybe 3:00 at the latest, and that gave me less than nine hours to make some progress on this case before flying to the Midwest.
I was definitely ready for some coffee.
I’d just sent some freshly roasted Peruvian beans through my burr grinder when my unlisted landline rang. Cordless, but an older model. No caller I.D., and since I’d emailed Ralph last night telling him to call my landline if he needed me, I figured it was probably him.
I picked up the receiver. “Pat here.”
“Congratulations.” The caller spoke in a low whisper, the voice electronically disguised. “On getting to the ranch so quickly.”
My thoughts zoomed in, focused to a pinpoint. “John?”
“That’ll do.”
Play this right, Pat. Play this right.
“I’m glad you called.” Knowing how this guy had toyed with Sebastian Taylor and then killed him in his own house, I pulled out my SIG and made sure it was loaded and had a chambered round.
“Yes, well, I thought it was time we spoke.”
I hurried to Tessa’s room. Eased her door open. Walked to her bed. Yes, she was safe. Sound asleep.
I figured John would be too smart for the “So what’s your real name? Where are you calling from? What would you like to talk about?” routine, so I decided on a different approach and said, “We almost had you at the barn.”
“Yes. Almost.”
“Switching shirts was smart. It might have been the only thing that kept me from shooting you.”