Blood of Dawn (18 page)

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Authors: Tami Dane

BOOK: Blood of Dawn
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No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
18
The instant we returned to the PBAU, I powered up my uberslow loaner laptop and, after waiting eons for it to connect, started searching the Web. I hit pay dirt literally seconds later. Three little search terms, and I had a profile of our unsub.
I printed out the Web page and raced over to JT’s cubby. He was on the phone, talking low. I set the printout on his desk and returned to mine.
Finally, after working this case for ten long days, we had our profile.
Thank God.
I tried to sit, but I couldn’t. I tried to concentrate, but I couldn’t.
I wanted to talk to JT, figure out our next step.
Why was he still sitting over there in his cubby?
I stood, peering over the top of my cubicle wall to see if he was still on the phone. He was.
Big, heavy sigh.
I opened the word-processing file in which I’d written my preliminary profile and started tinkering with it, adding the details I’d just found.
What felt like ten hours later, JT came strolling over.
He wasn’t beaming. He didn’t look happy at all. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I was talking to Brittany.”
Ah, now the down-in-the-dumps expression made sense. “Is she okay?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
He pulled up a chair and, more or less, fell into it. “I want to help her, but I have no idea what to do. She’s taking this loss so hard.”
“I can’t imagine how bad it is to lose a child.”
He shook his head. “She’s alone. Her marriage is over. It’s all too much.”
I had no idea what to say. My life hadn’t been all magical ponies and National Science Fair wins, but I’d also never experienced such a huge loss. Yes, I’d lost my father. But when that had happened, I hadn’t been old enough to understand or grieve.
“Her doctor’s talking about releasing her already. I don’t think she’s ready for that.” He fiddled with my printout. “Maybe this is crazy, but I’m thinking of asking her to move in with me.”
Those words struck me like a kick in the gut. Not long ago, JT and I had been shoving our tongues into each other’s mouth. Granted, I’d put a stop to it pretty quickly.
But still . . . it was time for some brutal honesty.
Despite this courtship thing with Damen, I’d kept the possibility, in the back of my mind, of JT and me becoming an item. If he shacked up with Brittany, that possibility would never happen.
I gave myself a mental slap to the head. What was I thinking? I was in something of a relationship. Damen and I were courting. What kind of selfish bitch was I, to think I should be able to keep JT to myself as a backup, in case things didn’t work out with Damen?
I decided I would be supportive—as a friend should be. “I thought she was a lesbian?”
“Yeah.” He gnawed on his lip. “She was married to a woman, but I don’t think she was one hundred percent lesbian.”
I didn’t want to know why he thought that. It could have something to do with the fact that he had been, after all, fully capable of reaching the Big O with her, thus impregnating her. It could also be that they’d both enjoyed the act of coitus more than either had anticipated.
“Um . . .”
“Sorry.” JT flipped the pages. “I’m raining on your parade.” His lips curved, but the expression wasn’t a smile. “You’ve done it again, Skye. You’ve profiled our unsub.”
“Yes, and no.” I pointed at the pages. “Did you read those?”
“Er . . . not yet.”
“I kind of thought not.”
He poked a button on his cell. “I’m calling the chief. She’ll want an update immediately. In the meantime, are you going to give me a hint?”
“Sure. In a nutshell, we have a lot more work to do.” I shoved his chair, sending it rolling toward his cubby. “Now go, read.”
 
 
After calling the chief, JT made an attempt to help me draft the final profile while we waited for the rest of the team to come in. I could see him making the effort. Sadly, though, his concentration was shot, and he kept asking me the same questions over and over and over. And when his phone rang, he’d launched out of his chair like a rocket, phone clapped to his ear, as he scurried away to take the call.
Each time, he’d come back, looking a little breathless and on edge. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem. Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t ask.
When Gabe Wagner came in, on the heels of Chad Fischer, I was relieved and anxious, both. JT wasn’t in any shape to help me with the case. I needed some fresh minds.
The chief came in a few minutes later, and we all gathered in the conference room. She took her place at the head of the table. “Skye has some important information to share with all of you.” She focused on me. “Sloan, we’re all ears.”
I began, “After receiving a tip from one of the victim’s neighbors, JT and I visited the location of an unusual sighting. This witness was able to produce a photograph that, combined with some evidence we found at the site, led to my identifying his species.” While I spoke, JT handed each one a copy of Fran Doonan’s photo. “That is an
impundulu
or
thekwane.
A lightning bird. This species is a creature of South African folklore. The lightning bird is able to take the form of a human-sized black-and-white bird. Plus, depending upon which myth you read, it is able not only to produce lightning at will, but it is able to take the form of lightning. It can travel at the speed of light. It is also able to take the form of an attractive man. In this form, he is able to seduce young women.”
Everyone was taking notes.
After letting them get caught up, I continued my presentation. “The
impundulu
is known to act on behalf of a witch or witch doctor, acting as his or her familiar, and enacting revenge against enemies. If we make the assumption that our
impundulu
is doing the same, we are searching for not one but two unsubs. The
impundulu
himself and the witch or witch doctor he serves. The second could be either male or female. We need to generate two sets of motives—one for each unsub. And we’ll need to produce two profiles as well.”
The chief nodded. “Then we are searching for an attractive, confident young man who may be popular among his peers. Sloan, do any of the students you met while attending summer school fit that description?”
“No. Until we had this lead, the most promising person of interest we had was a young man who had the opposite problem. He was overly pushy, due to a lack of success and to compensate for his low confidence. We might consider the possibility that he is the master of the
impundulu
—we’ll call him unsub two. And as far as the
impundulu
goes, he may or may not be a student. He is able to change identities. I had one source tell me the victims were all seen with a young man prior to their deaths, but not the same one. I’m thinking he’s adopting an identity that makes it easy to gain access to the victims.”
“And what would be unsub two’s motivation to kill, then?” Fischer asked.
“Perhaps revenge for having been rejected.” The instant I said those words, a sick feeling knotted my gut. Logic would dictate that if Derik Sutton was the one pulling the strings of the
impundulu,
I could be the next victim—or, at the least, a future victim. I’d rejected Derik Sutton in a big way. A very public way.
“Sloan,” the chief said, eyeballing me with concern.
I nodded, hiding a shudder. “I might have put myself in the path of an
impundulu.
”
The chief slid a glance JT’s way, and I knew what was coming. Once again, we would be shacking up. The timing couldn’t be worse.
One glance at JT and I knew he was none too thrilled about it. Deciding a preemptive strike was in order, I blurted out, “I’d rather stay with Wagner.”
The chief’s brows shot to the top of her forehead, and her skin wrinkled like a rhino’s hide. “Wagner’s not an agent. I can’t place you with Wagner—”
“Fischer, then.”
Fischer’s eyes just about popped out of his head. He shot a look at the chief, and some kind of silent exchange between the two of them played out.
“Fischer has other obligations,” Chief Payton said.
“Then you. I’ll stay with you.”
The chief stared at me. She blinked. Finally she slanted a look at JT and said, “Very well. You can stay with me until the identity of the second unsub is determined.” She gave each member of the team a weighted look. “We must complete our profiles as soon as possible. If there’s another killing, we’re facing heat from the media and my superiors.”
With those closing remarks, she ended the meeting. “Sloan, we’ll be heading out in an hour.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Wondering if I’d made the right decision in putting up a fight, I left the conference room. I made it roughly ten feet before JT caught me by the arm, pulled me to a quiet corner, not far from Hough’s “Cave of Wonders.”
“What was that?” he snapped.
“I thought you’d rather I stayed with someone else, considering. . . what we talked about earlier.”
“Yes, well . . . sure, I do. But do you have any idea how bad that looked for both of us when you, more or less, refused to stay with me?”
“Well, come on.” I tossed my hands, like any girl in my position would do. “You don’t want me to stay with you because that might ruin your chances with Hough. And yet you don’t want me to do something to stop it. Would you like me to go talk to the chief? Tell her I overreacted?”
“Yes.”
I took a step.
He grabbed my arm. “No. Don’t.”
I love reading philosophy. Anyone who reads philosophy can appreciate conflicting thoughts and gray areas. This, I could handle in a theoretical sense. In application, however? No. It turned out that I preferred life to be more black-and-white nuanced.
“Which is it? Yes? Or no?” I asked.
“No.”
“All right, then. I’ll stay with the chief. Good luck with Hough.” Once again, I started to walk away. And yet again, JT stopped me. “You have something else to say to me?”
“Skye, I’m sorry.”
“For what now, JT?”
“For being such an ass. We didn’t start out on the right foot, with . . .” He motioned between us. “You know.”
Oh, did I ever know. I wished I didn’t.
“Anyway,” he continued, “thank you for being so good about everything.”
“You’re welcome.” I leveled a look at him. “Now, am I free to go?”
He released my arm. “Yes.”
 
 
The chief’s home was nothing like I’d expected.
Maybe I shouldn’t have assumed that she would live in a tidy Colonial in the Baltimore burbs. And that she’d have at least a couple of kids a few years younger than me blaring music from stereos or lounging on an enormous sectional sofa, staring at a flat-screen TV. But for whatever reason, that was how I’d pictured her life, outside of the PBAU.
Was I wrong!
Driving my mom’s car, I followed her into a nondescript condo complex about ten minutes from Quantico. The buildings were typical Maryland construction. Adequate. Mid-1980s brick-and-vinyl exteriors. We parked, and I grabbed my go bag and followed her up to the front door.
She shoved her key into the lock, but she didn’t turn it. Over her shoulder, she said, “I don’t have guests, so I apologize for the mess.” And with that, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. I followed.
Once, when we were bored out of our minds, Katie and I had channel surfed, trying to find something amusing to watch on TV. We stumbled upon this show about hoarding and, for whatever reason, had watched it for a few hours.
The chief could be the poster child for hoarders.
My first instinct was to clap my hand over my mouth, do a one-eighty and leave. I squashed that impulse right away. Doing that would insult my boss—the boss who was kind enough to take me in, especially when it was my fault that I was in danger in the first place.
Stepping among stacks of boxes and clothes, I tried not to notice the filth on the narrow path of poop-brown carpet under my feet. In my head, I was listing all the possible contaminants I was exposing myself to. Rodent droppings—bubonic plague, salmonella, leptospirosis. Insect excrement—dysentery, typhoid, gastroenteritis. Completely oblivious to the possibility that she might be walking in a disease-riddled minefield, Chief Peyton was a few feet ahead of me, pointing out landmarks: “The half bath is down here. The kitchen, over there.”

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