‘A perfect trophy,’ Jayne muttered.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Steelie. ‘These aren’t copies; they’re fresh photos and anyone seeing them thinks they’re legit crime scene or case photos. He can explain them away; after all, he worked for the FBI and who knows what you weird Bureau employees carry around.’
Scott dropped the photos to his side. ‘All right, I’ve got your ride out front. He’ll take you back to your motel, drop you with some dinner, then we’ll be sending an Agent Carter to take you to the airport. He’ll have your boarding passes.’
Steelie detoured to say goodbye to Greg’s students while Jayne preceded Scott into the house. As she mounted the back stairs, she noticed it was getting dark. She turned on her flashlight and felt the chill of that house go into her bones again. She could barely believe she actually knew the person who lived here or was responsible for what was in that yard. That partial hand bothered her. Where was the rest of that person?
She came out the front door of the house and was halted by the scene in the street directly ahead: men, women, and children, dressed in exercise clothes, school uniforms, suits. They were holding lit candles and something else . . . Jayne gradually perceived that they were photographs but only photos of women. Some portraits were big, while others were snapshots; women holding children, women laughing, women looking dubiously at the camera, women in graduation clothing. Women who were alive. Alive but missing.
Then Scott was in the doorway next to her. ‘They already know, Jayne. Or they suspect. I recognize some of the relatives of the women who went missing on my watch.’ He set off for the tent.
Jayne looked at the relatives one last time. She felt they were identical to a group who’d waited for the bodies strapped down in the back of their UN truck in Kigali in 1996 after an exhumation. Everyone is the same, everywhere. Jayne followed in Scott’s footsteps, feeling like she could be in Kigali, walking into the UN’s old morgue tent, then stripping off mask, booties, gloves – just like this. Putting everything into red biohazard bags – just like this. Movements so familiar, she could have done them in her sleep back then. Now, inside this tent, she couldn’t tell where she was, what year it was. She could go out and find that it was 1996 again and Gene would be there; everything was the same and the families were waiting.
She hesitated and Scott said, ‘Follow me. When I stop to talk to the relatives, keep going to my right. The black Suburban down the street has an agent in it, waiting for you. Just get in.’
Jayne followed him out into the deepening darkness. She noticed a television camera when a bright lamp came on to focus on Scott. She heard Scott announce his name and title and tell them that there was no official information yet. She kept walking, focused on the dark bulk of the Suburban in the distance. Then a hand pulled her to the side.
THIRTY
Half-empty pizza boxes sat in the middle of the conference table in the FBI briefing room. Agent Mark Wilson chewed anti-gas pills as he watched the CCTV tape of King’s van pulling away from the airport with Eleanor Patterson in the passenger seat at 5.08 p.m. He had lost track of how many times he’d examined the footage but he kept doing it in the hope that he would glean some clue as to where King was now.
Agent Angela Nicks watched Mark from her seat at the head of the table as she tapped a pencil against the papers in front of her. She had drawn circles around King’s name and the names of the missing women and what they knew about each. She was looking for ways the circles might overlap and give them a lead on where King could be hiding now. So far, it wasn’t working too well. The modus operandi that King had displayed at the airport with Eleanor Patterson appeared to be the only time he had used it. They didn’t know how he might have adjusted the MO when he wasn’t at the airport but he had got the women back to his house somehow. Angie switched to tapping the eraser end of the pencil against the tip of her nose. She knew that sometimes worked.
Agent Scott Houston was temporarily not thinking about King as he used the computer to connect to the Internet and check on the status of the return flight Jayne was due to board that evening with Steelie. The Internet connection was slow and he waited, emptying his brain as he stared at the screen. He was about to ask Angie and Mark if the connection was always this slow these days and then he realized something.
‘Did anyone check the Agency Thirty-two One email account for the messages from King?’
He was met with silence, which was enough to get him to bail out from the airline website and switch to the Web-based 32/1 account. Mark came over with the password that Jayne had left with them and Scott typed it in. After a pause, the inbox appeared.
‘Jesus.’ Scott sat up straighter.
‘What time zone is that stamp?’ Mark pulled up a chair.
Angie and Eric immediately came over.
Mark explained, ‘King sent them a message today. Depending on what time zone the account’s set to, he might have sent it just a few hours ago.’
Scott had clicked on the message, whose subject line was, ‘Hi from SF.’ They read the message on screen.
Jayne: bk yr way nxt wk. Dinner? GK
Angie leaned in closer to the screen. ‘That’s not an email; it’s a text message.’
Scott gestured at the screen. ‘It’s an email. It came on email.’
‘But it came from a cell phone,’ she persisted. ‘Look, hit Reply. See what happens.’
Scott followed her instructions and the ‘To’ field was filled with an email address made up of letters and enough numbers to resemble a telephone number.
‘Angie, can you—’ Scott turned but she had already put her cell phone to her ear.
‘Tech Unit? I need a check on a cell number. This is Priority One.’
Standing at the dressing table in the motel room, Jayne placed the candle in her briefcase and thought about the woman who’d stopped her in the street by Gene’s house. She hadn’t looked very old but her skin had made Jayne think of parchment. She’d been holding a photograph, its subject obscured by her fingertips, and she’d smiled at Jayne but kept a hold on her arm until another woman joined them.
The second woman was the color of chocolate and held an unlit candle, which she offered to Jayne. She’d accepted it with a nod. Then the two smiled and turned away as though their work was done and in that moment, Jayne had no longer felt confused about what year it was or where she was. It was where she always was and where she always would be: halfway between the living and the dead, helping to work a link that transcended time and space because the need for it was timeless and crossed all borders. It existed wherever the living searched for the missing and wherever people died deprived of their names. Jayne had held the candle on the ride to the motel and now she would carry it home to Los Angeles.
She heard the knock at the door that she and Steelie had been expecting. Agent Carter had arrived to drive them to the airport. She glanced at Steelie, who was zipping up her own bag, and crossed to open the door.
The man standing there was dressed in motorcycle leathers and helmet, which was unexpected. He raised the visor and said, ‘Hello, again.’ Even before she heard his voice, she recognized Gene’s eyes.
She abruptly and belatedly shoved the door closed but it bounced back at her fast and she was pushed off balance. As she stumbled backwards, she was aware of Steelie charging Gene with a cry that sounded far away and of him coming across the threshold, and then her vision went gray at the edges, closing down further and further, until there was nothing.
Scott had ceded his seat in front of the computer to Mark, who’d navigated into the Settings page of the Agency 32/1 email account.