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Thoughts crowded his mind. He knew there was a lockbox high on the shelf of a closet in the bonus room of the new house that held all of her papers, her will, her wishes. He’d never looked at any of that information. She’d told him she wanted to be an organ donor and didn’t want to be kept alive if she was brain-dead, but that’s as far as they’d gotten. Would she want to be buried in Ten
nessee? Cremated? If they didn’t find a body, what would he do for her? Did her will cover provisions for—
“Stop!” he said aloud. “Stop it,” he said again, softer this time. He was getting way ahead of himself. She wouldn’t give up on you so easily.
Bolstered, he made his way to the command table. Mitchell Price was still on scene, waiting for some news. Baldwin approached him, taking the older man’s arm. Price turned to Baldwin, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. His mustache drooped, his bald pate glistened with frosted sweat.
“Captain, anything new?”
Price shook his head. “They aren’t getting any hits on anything down there, Baldwin. The river temperature is too cold to sustain her if she went in. The divers are having a hard time themselves. It’s not looking good, son.”
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Why has everyone started calling me son? Baldwin wondered. First Fitz, now Price. He dismissed the welling anger, knew Price didn’t mean anything by it. It was meant to be a comforting term. It wasn’t their fault that it made his heart shrivel up even more. His dad had called him son, his mom, too. But they’d been gone so long, he could barely remember how their voices sounded. The sweet timber of his mother’s Southern belle diction floated through his mind but was gone the moment he recognized it. Damn it.
Price had turned and was guiding Baldwin back toward his vehicle. “Listen, let’s get back to headquarters. There’s nothing we can do here now. If she went in last night, Baldwin, chances are she’s gone. Let’s go see if we can confirm that she went in at all. Okay?”
Baldwin looked over his shoulder, stared out over the murky water. Price was right.
They buckled in for the short drive back to the CJC. It was time to start fresh.
Twenty-Nine
Nashville, Te
Sunday, December 21
11:00 a.m.
This was turning into a very good day.
Charlotte had rejoiced last night, privately. Word spread like wildfire through the subterranean rooms that housed the Behavioral Science Unit, and her friends had seen fit to call and include her in the news. John Baldwin’s wed
ding had not taken place. His bride stood him up at the altar. To celebrate, Charlotte had opened a bottle of Piper Heidsieck, drawn a bath and masturbated furiously in the warm water.
It wasn’t that she wished him ill. Well, maybe she did. Maybe she was just so damn happy that he was still a free man that she’d drop by his place, console him properly. The whisper campaign had started instantaneously. Taylor Jackson had quite literally disappeared. The limou
sine she’d been riding in was found in the parking lot of the driving service, right where it should be. The driver was 14
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nowhere to be found. There was a vague report about a search at the airport. Later, after sundown, a shoe had been found on the bank of the Cumberland River, one that matched the description of the shoes Jackson had been wearing. Divers were in the river until well after midnight. She had not heard the results when she decided to call it a night.
As Charlotte had drifted off to sleep, she had a deep, satisfying knowledge that she was wanted. They needed her, her men. Both of them. All of them. Call it instinct, premonition, whatever. Maybe she would be able to save them.
Now was the time. She left the hotel room with a bounce in her step, understanding i
Thirty
Snow White was in the midst of a coughing fit when he saw the news on the television. The Jackson bitch was missing. He caught his breath, watched the story unfold. Rubbed his hands together painfully, massaging and mas
saging and massaging.
He knew what had happened, of course. He couldn’t blame the boy. Jackson needed to be silenced. Things were going to come to a head now. It was just a matter of time before his apprentice’s impudence and recklessness flashed back on them all. A systemic cleansing was the only way to assure their safety.
Damn that Charlotte. It was all her fault. If she hadn’t brought the young pup, hadn’t dangled the glory of his past in front of him. She was brilliant, he gave her that. And sentimental. Finagling his ring out of police evidence and back to its rightful place on his right hand was the single nicest thing she’d ever done for him. His crooked finger traced the outline of the magnificent ring, the crest, the ornate, raised F. It used to mean some
thing. It was a badge of honor, of courage. It was his legacy. It gave him immutable strength, an insatiable 14
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desire to feel the life bleed from a body. He wondered about his predecessors, whether when they placed the ring upon their hand, they felt the lifeblood flowing from the metal, felt the nubile bodies calling for release. All he knew was that when the ring was lost, so went his desire for blood. Of course, the ring was lost because he’d begun losing weight, losing strength. The disease was upon him, and he was racked with desire and no ability.
The ring was back on his finger, no danger of slipping off because of the impossible, u
And everything was in jeopardy now. He’d chosen poorly, allowed Charlotte to muddle his brain. His ap
prentice would be the death of him. He no longer cared. He shuffled his way from the room, the cane clunking in front of him, and climbed, higher and higher into his house. There was a girl, he could smell her, taste her, and he wanted her. Nothing would stop him now. He must fulfill this destiny.
Thirty-One
Nashville, Te
Sunday, December 21
6:00 p.m.
The homicide office was bustling with activity. Fitz poured out the dregs of yet another pot of coffee and made a fresh one. They’d gone through four pots in the past two hours. Everyone was wired and cranky, and despite all the artificial stimuli, tired. Marcus, forehead resting on his palm, scrolled through page after page of computer screens. Baldwin was on the phone with the airlines. No one had slept, everyone was fixated on their main lead—
the limousine driver who’d pulled an international disap
pearing act.
Lincoln was on the phone with a contact he had in the Mazatlán area—a man he knew only as Juan. He’d met him at a forensic computing conference four or five years back. His gut feeling told him Juan wasn’t the man’s real name, but that didn’t matter now. He’d sent him an e-mail earlier in the day, asking for help. They were doing the 14
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obligatory catch-up dance before they got down to business.
“¿Hola? ¿Este Juan? Es Lincoln… Sí, hombre, ha sido mucho demasiado largo… No, mi español no es mejor. No tenemos las mujeres aquí digno de practicar encendido.”
A bawdy laugh pulsed through the phone. “And I thought Nashville had a vibrant Latino community.”
Juan’s voice was deep and cultured. Lincoln didn’t know his whole story, but thought that perhaps he’d been some sort of Argentinean or Bolivian spy. He was just too plugged in to be regular law enforcement, though he was currently serving as a chief in Mexico’s fractured police department. No, a spy would be a more romantic notion. Lincoln answered in English, relieved to switch back to his native tongue. “We do have a lot of very fine Latinos, but they smell me out from twenty paces. No one wants to get involved with a cop, you know?”