"What do you want?"
"I thought, just this once, that we should speak. If not face-to-face, well, phone-to-phone. E-mails and letters are so impersonal, don't you think?"
"I think you've made this very personal, Jack. Plus you're a fucking liar."
He chuckles. The voice alteration makes it sound hideous. "You are talking about my little visitors, aren't you? Well . . . it's true. But it's not a matter of lying. I just got--bored. In many ways, playing my little games with you and yours is as satisfying as my work upon my whores."
I want to hurt him. To do something to break through that arrogant gloating. "Hey, Jack. Did you see my little spot on the news?"
A long silence. When he starts speaking again, I feel a kind of snarling satisfaction as I note that his voice has gone flat. "Yes, Smoky. I saw your lies."
I laugh, a short, mocking bark. "Lies? Why the hell would I lie? You just don't want to own up to it, fucker! That there is no 'legacy,' no Annie Chapman's uterus, no sacred mission. You're the liar, Jack. Your whole life is a lie! Jesus, you can't even follow the Ripper's MO! He killed whores, Jack, not cops. You can't seem to decide which you want more. At least the Ripper picked a victim type and stuck with it! What's the matter, can't face the truth? Can't face just how pathetic you are?"
I hear him breathing, hard, angry. Even this is modified; it sounds surreal.
"You still there, Jack?"
Another long pause, then--"Nice try, Smoky. Hurrah for you, and applause. Why would you lie? Why, for the simplest reason of alclass="underline" psychological warfare. To destabilize me." He pauses, and I can almost feel his rage. "I never said I was the Ripper, you silly bitch. I said I am descended from him. But I've evolved. I'm beyond him. Why do I hunt you and yours as much as I hunt the whores? Because I'm that good. Because I feel like it. For the same reason I amuse myself making my little acolytes. Because I can."
For a moment, just for a moment, I come close to taunting him with the knowledge that we've captured his buddy. I manage to reel this impulse back.
"No, because you're a fuckup, Jack. Evolved? I don't think so. The original Ripper, he never got caught. But I'm going to catch you. Count on it."
A long silence follows. When he starts speaking again, the rage is gone. His voice is calm. Back in control.
"Speaking of the whores--how is little Bonnie?"
I'm fighting for control. I need to keep him talking. I decide to try a different tack. I lower my voice, making it even, reasonable.
"Jack. Why don't we stop pretending? You and I both know who it is you really want, right?"
He pauses. "And who would that be, Special Agent Barrett?"
"Me. You want me."
AD Jones makes cutting motions across his throat. "No! Dammit, Smoky!"
I ignore him. "Am I right?"
He laughs again. "Smoky, Smoky, Smoky . . ." His voice is patronizing. "I want all of it, dear one. I want the whores, and I want you, and I want everyone that you love. Speaking of that--how is dear Callie? Is she going to survive?"
My rage flares up, hot and ready. "Fuck you!"
"You have one day," he says, ignoring my anger. Dismissing it. "And then another whore dies. Oh, and you and yours can expect continued fun as well."
I get the sense that he's about to end the call. "Wait."
"No, I don't think so. I couldn't resist, just this once, but this is a chancy way for us to communicate. For me, that is. Don't expect it to happen again. The next time you hear my voice, it will be in person, and you'll be screaming." A short pause. "One other thing: If Agent Thorne does die, you might want to consider cremating her. Otherwise, I'll be tempted to dig her up and . . . play with her. Just like I've done with sweet Rosa."
He hangs up, leaving his words grating across my bones.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" James asks. The anger in his voice shocks me, and I am dumbfounded at it, here and now, in this place. I look at him and am stunned at the force of the rage I see in his eyes. He's trembling. It's coming off him in waves.
"What are you talking about?" I ask, incredulous.
"You just had to fucking taunt him, didn't you? Couldn't resist."
His words are swollen with venom. "He's after us, and you had to piss him off even more, had to egg him on. What you always do. Tell us we're fucking invincible and tell them the same thing, and it's all bullshit." He's picking up his pace, the words tumbling out of him, inexorable. All I can do is stare at him.
"What? You don't remember? Don't remember going on TV back when we were trying to catch Joseph Sands? Talking about how he was a pathetic limp dick, goading him, hoping he'd take the bait?" He pauses, eyes bright, snarling. "Well, he took it, didn't he? He took it and he killed your family and he almost killed you, and now this psycho is hell-bent on doing the same thing to all of us--and you just won't learn!
Keenan and Shantz are dead--have you learned yet? Does Callie have to die for you to get it?" He leans into me. "That sometimes, when you play tough guy, other people die?" He pauses and I get the sense of a rubber band being pulled back before being snapped, the trembling silence that occurs just before a roar. He speaks into this silence. "Didn't getting your husband and daughter killed teach you that lesson already?"
My mouth falls open at this, and in an instant I am poised to slap him. Not a light slap. A broad, full-body backhand across the face. Something to loosen his teeth and bloody his nose. I want to do it so bad I can taste it, like blood in my mouth. Two things stop me. One is the near-instantaneous flash of shame I see come into his eyes. The other is Bonnie. She's standing next to James, tugging on his hand, hard.
"Wha-what is it?" he asks. He sounds as dazed as I feel. She motions for him to kneel down next to her. I watch him do this, as my body shivers and trembles.
She slaps him for me, flat of her palm against his cheek. And although she's only ten, and small for her age, the sound of the smack is like a whip crack in the waiting room.
James's eyes widen in shock, his mouth forms an O, and he stumbles back, landing in a sitting position on the floor. My mouth falls open. Bonnie gives me a brief look, nods, and walks back over to sit next to Elaina.
Everyone is silent. I can feel their stillness and their dismay. James stands up slowly, hand to his cheek, eyes filled with shame and pain and wonder.
I want to say something, but once again, two things happen before I can. Callie's daughter comes rushing through the door, and one very sweaty, exhausted surgeon appears as well. For a moment I'm torn between the two, but Marilyn solves this for me by moving toward the surgeon.
"First things first," he says, his voice heavy and tired. "Agent Thorne is alive."
"Thank God!" Elaina cries.
I want to stagger in relief, fall to my knees. But I don't. The surgeon holds up his hands for silence. "The bullet just missed her heart. And it stayed in one piece. But it did bounce around a little. It ended up near her upper left shoulder, after, I'm afraid, brushing past her spine."
The temperature of the room seems to drop fifty degrees at the word spine.
"The spinal cord itself wasn't cut. But it was bruised, and there is some swelling. There was also quite a bit of internal bleeding."
"What's the bottom line, Doc?" AD Jones asks.
"The bottom line is that she lost a lot of blood and sustained a lot of trauma. She's still critical. She seems stable, but we're not out of the woods." He pauses, looks like he's searching for a better way to put what he's going to say next. "She could still die. Unlikely, but that's not off the table yet."