I slipped the envelope’s contents into my hand and scanned the pages.
And felt my throat tighten.
The letter was from a law firm representing Paul Lansing.
He was taking me to court to get custody of his daughter.
14
I’d only been in the DC area for a couple weeks, not long enough to get to know any lawyers, but Ralph had lived here for the last decade.
I speed-dialed him, and he answered after two rings. “Yeah?” His voice was hushed.
“You still at the primate center?”
“Naw. I’m at home. Tony’s in bed.” Tony was Ralph’s eleven-year-old son. A boy Tessa called “a Cheetos-eating, soccer-playing, video-gaming fool.”
“Sorry to call so late.”
“What’s up?”
“I think I need a lawyer.”
A pause. I had the sense that he was repositioning the phone. “What do you need a lawyer for?”
I told him about the letter from Lansing’s law firm. “Here’s the thing: I’m her legal guardian, so I don’t think there should be any prob-”
“This guy is her father, Pat.”
“I know, but he was never in the picture.”
“Did he want to be?”
An uncomfortable memory squirmed through me.
Last month Tessa had found an old letter that Christie had kept in which Paul begged her not to abort her unborn child. He’d promised to help raise the baby, but Christie hadn’t wanted him to be a part of their lives and had moved away, then raised Tessa alone.
“That’s not the point, Ralph.”
“The court always favors blood relatives. You know that. And she’s still a minor.” His voice had softened, and I didn’t sense that his sympathy right now was a good sign. “You will need a lawyer,” he said. “A good one.”
Not what I’d wanted to be hearing. “You know of any?”
“Most of the ones I know don’t do divorces, custody, any of that stuff. It’s all criminal law.” He thought for a moment. “Hang on a sec. Let me talk to Brineesha.” I heard him turn away from the phone and exchange a few indecipherable words with his wife, then he was back on the line with me. “Brineesha says hi.”
“Hi, back.”
“I’ll tell her. Anyway, she might have someone for you. One of her friends from work-Tracy-I guess she just went through a divorce, messy custody battle, the whole thing. Whoever Tracy’s lawyer was seemed to be really sharp. Brin says she’ll ask her for the name first thing in the morning when she gets to the bank.”
At least it was a start. “Tell her thanks.”
“Hey, don’t worry about this thing, okay? It’ll work out.” His assurances seemed to be having the opposite effect on me.
“Yeah.”
“See you at 11:30 tomorrow. My office.”
“All right.”
Astrid led Brad down the steps to the basement.
Where they were keeping the woman.
“How was it for you?” she asked him. “Tonight, I mean? Being able to watch?”
“It was everything I’d hoped it would be.”
She’d been watching things too, from a rather unique vantage point. “The video feed to that store was a great idea,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“You got the footage I asked for? Afterward?”
He held up his phone.
“Good.” She took it from him. Slipped it into her pocket.
She had to admit, Brad’s plan was by far their most devastating and brazen one yet. There were a few holes that she would fill in over the next two days, but overall he’d done a satisfactory, even admirable, job, and she was quite proud of him. Two more people would die, and the FBI would never suspect her or Brad of anything.
“How did you learn to reroute the video like that to the television store?”
“Research.”
“Research?”
“A job I had before my accident.”
He left it at that, and she sensed it was awkward for him to go on. He’d never told her how he got his scars, but ever since the two of them had first met, it’d been evident to her that the memory was painful.
She decided not to press the issue at the moment.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and went to the room Brad had recently remodeled.
Last month, he’d asked her if they could move some of their work to the house. She hadn’t liked the idea at first, but he’d been persistent, and when she realized it would be harder to travel after the baby was born, she’d given him permission.
He’d spent the last few weeks working on the room. She’d allowed him free rein, and in the end had been surprised by how thorough he’d been in designing it so that it could serve an array of troubling purposes. He’d even made the room soundproof and added a drain to the floor to make cleanup easier.
For her, the excitement came from the feeling of control, not from inflicting physical pain. Brad, on the other hand, had recently become more and more fascinated with that secondary aspect of their hobby.
His choices for outfitting the room reflected that.
She opened the door.
Brad stood quietly beside her as she made sure the woman was safely tucked away for the night.
When Astrid was done, she locked the door behind them and took Brad upstairs.
Just knowing that the woman was down there, helpless, captive, afraid, only served to add to the thrill, and when Astrid reached the bedroom door, she slid seductively in front of her man. “Ready?”
“I’ve been looking forward to this all day.” And as their prisoner in the basement cried futilely for help, upstairs in the bedroom, the midnight games began.
15
Wednesday, June 11
491 Riley Road
Stafford, Virginia
5:03 a.m.
I woke up irritated, the letter from Paul Lansing’s lawyers on my mind.
And the Mollie Fischer case as well, only a few strides behind it in the race for my attention.
And Calvin’s death.
And Basque, of course, the ghost of flesh and blood from a time in my life I thought I’d left behind, lurking, always lurking, in the background.
“Promise me you won’t let him do it again,” Grant Sikora had begged me as he lay dying.
“I promise,” I’d said.
My thoughts circled around everything, evaluating what was at stake in each case, wondering again how Lansing’s lawyers could have known our address, sorting, analyzing. All of the issues seemed like cables tightening inside of me, tugging my thoughts in opposite directions.
Too many things to deal with.
My life in a nutshell.
Even though I knew Brineesha wouldn’t have arrived at work yet, I checked my messages to see if, for some reason, she might have called with the lawyer’s name and number.
She had not.
I looked over my email-nothing important.
Since I didn’t need to leave for the Academy until about 7:30, I changed, threw myself into a workout-a thirty-minute run, twenty max-out sets of pull-ups on a tree branch at the edge of the property, and then crunches until I could barely sit up.
But it didn’t clear my mind.
A shower.
Breakfast.
After downing some oatmeal and a banana, I grabbed a cup of Lavado Fino coffee from Venezuela and my laptop, and headed for the back deck.
Though barely 6:30, the morning was full of the smells of summer-freshly cut grass, warm sunshine, and steel-blue sky. The slightly fishy smell of a nearby lake.
Songbirds jabbered in the trees.
Steam from my coffee curled, wispy and smoke-like from the cup, then faded away, caught in the soft breath of wind, disappearing into the moment.
I sat there, just being in the stillness, in the gentle opening arc of the day. I’ve never been one to meditate, but I’ve always been drawn to the clarity that solitude brings.
A small touch of calm in the middle of my tempest life.
A chance to think.
When the DEA moved their Basic Agent training to Quantico a few years ago, one of their crime scene analyst instructors and friend of mine named Freeman Runnels had bought this house. Really, it’s more of a cabin-rustic framing, thick oak doors, handmade cherry furniture.