Blood of Dawn (22 page)
Authors: Tami Dane
“I realize some of you may have some doubts on this case,” I continued, “but our profile is based upon the study of dozens of similar cases, known profiles of convicted offenders, and a knowledge of human behavior. We are convinced it is entirely accurate.” I glanced at the chief, who was nodding in agreement. “That concludes our profile. Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact anyone on our team. We want these two stopped as much as you, and are here to help you.”
I hurried toward JT, passing Chief Peyton, who was heading toward Commissioner Allan for a little tête-à-tête.
He gave me a little smile. “You did great.”
“Thanks. But I think they’re having a hard time with this one.”
“I’ve done plenty of studies on antisocial personality disorder and have profiled my share of psychopaths. I can say, with a great deal of certainty, your profile is spot-on.”
“Well, thank you. At least I have that. I can profile a murderer, human or not.”
Commissioner Allan took my place at the front, clearing his throat. “I’d like to thank the FBI’s PBAU for its assistance in this case. At this time, we’ve ruled out several persons of interest. Mike Barnett is clear. He was under surveillance when Walker was killed. And we also checked out Ben Gardener’s story. Several students were able to confirm his whereabouts when Roberts was killed. We’ve run a background on Hollerbach. It’s clear. But we’re still investigating him. His whereabouts were unknown when Wu was attacked. He’s still a person of interest—our only person of interest at this time. And, unfortunately, it seems he doesn’t fit the profile.” His gaze swept the room. “Which means we have a lot of work to do. I don’t need to tell any of you how vital it is we wrap up this case now. These individuals are dangerous. They need to be stopped. And I don’t give a damn how many hours it takes—we’re going to stop them.”
The officers applauded.
JT gave me a bump with his elbow. He whispered, “Come on, let’s head out.”
“Sure, I’m so excited about getting back to my cubicle.”
He waited until we were in the hallway to say, “We’re not going to Quantico. So sorry to disappoint you.”
“Where are we headed, then?” I asked as we walked toward the exit.
“Fitzgerald. Something you said struck me. I want to check it out.”
“Okay, lead on. I’m just a lowly intern. Your wish is my command.”
“Your wish is my command?” Two steps ahead of me, he sent a smirk over his shoulder. “Now those are words to live by, Sloan Skye.”
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
—Albert Schweitzer
22
“JT, before we go to the school, do you think we could make a little detour?”
JT was driving. He laughed. He laughed some more. “What happened to ‘your wish is my command’?”
“I meant that. But I want to check on Jia and see how she’s doing. She called me yesterday and said she was being released.”
“She was released a little bit ago. BPD has a man on her, watching for any signs of lightning strikes.”
“Can we go see her?”
“I guess. I haven’t had a chance to interview her.”
“Excellent.”
We pulled up in front of the Wu house and parked. JT put in a call to the chief, letting her know where we were. I headed up to the front door while he hung back, still talking on his phone. A woman answered on the second knock. She was petite. Roughly late thirties. Asian. I was guessing she was Jia’s mother. I offered my hand. “I’m Sloan Skye, a friend of Jia’s.”
“You’re the one.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You broke into our house.” She had an accent. I guessed Mandarin was her first language, and English her second.
“I did. And I’m sorry for entering your home without permission. But your daughter called me, and I believed she was in extreme danger.”
“I think you’re lying. You were the one who attacked her.” She pushed the door, narrowing the opening. “What do you want?”
“I’m here with an FBI agent. I’d like to talk to Jia, ask her about the attack.”
“What agent?”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “He’s on the phone. He’ll be here any second.” I glanced back, wishing I’d waited for him. He was loping up the front walk. “Here he is.”
JT stepped up. He glanced at me; then he glanced at the suspicious woman hiding behind the front door. “I’m Agent Thomas.” He passed a card through the opening, and the woman snapped it away, squinting at it.
“What do you want, Agent?” she asked.
“I’d like to interview your daughter.”
“What for? The police are investigating.” Her gaze jumped to me and stayed there. Her meaning was clear.
JT said, “Miss Skye is part of a team of professionals who are working with the police department, attempting to capture the individual who attacked your daughter.”
Mrs. Wu glowered at me.
“Her?”
“Her?”
“Yes, her.”
“Jia said she was a student. Failing student.”
“She was working undercover.”
“She is not a student?”
JT shook his head. “No,
Ms.
Skye has just completed her Masters degree and holds two bachelor’s degrees. She graduated from high school a long time ago.”
Ms.
Skye has just completed her Masters degree and holds two bachelor’s degrees. She graduated from high school a long time ago.”
The woman studied me for a moment. “Still, I heard policeman say she is dangerous.”
“No officer would say that. Nobody has reason to believe Dr. Skye is the person who attacked your daughter. And if she had been, why would she call for medical? Now, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d like to interview your daughter so we can continue with our investigation.”
The woman didn’t move for several long, painful seconds. Finally she opened the door and stepped aside. “This way.” She ushered us into the living room. “Wait here. I will get Jia.”
JT and I exchanged relieved looks as we waited. I scanned the room. All the furnishings looked like antiques. Asian. And the wall to ceiling bookshelves running the full span of one wall were loaded with old books, top to bottom. I recognized the writing on the spines, though I couldn’t read it. Upstairs, we heard chattering. Jia’s mother was speaking Mandarin—I was right—warning Jia not to trust us, or get too close. I translated for JT, and he sighed.
“I know why you did it, Sloan, but if you’d called for backup before coming here in the first place . . .”
“I know. I thought I was good with Wagner.”
“He isn’t an agent,” JT pointed out.
“I was worried. She’s a nice girl. A smart girl. I didn’t want to see her hurt.”
“I know. I get it.”
Jia walked slowly around the corner; her mother followed closely. She looked like she’d been sleeping. Her long hair was tied into a sloppy knot on the top of her head. She was wearing a huge T-shirt that could probably fit two JTs. And a pair of shorts.
“Sloan?” She glanced at JT.
“You look tired.” I motioned to the closest seat. “Please.”
She sat and stared up at me. “What’s going on?”
“This is Agent Thomas with the FBI. I . . . work with him. In an effort to aid in the identification of Stephanie Barnett’s, Emma Walker’s, and Hailey Roberts’s killer, I went undercover, pretending to be a student, hoping I’d gain some information leading to his arrest.”
“And . . . did you?”
“No. If I had, you wouldn’t have been attacked.”
“You’re a cop?”
“Not exactly.”
Now, she was looking at me with the same squinty eyes her mother had been. “You pretended to be my friend, just so you could get information from me?”
I could hear the hurt in her voice.
“No, I didn’t pretend.”
“How old are you?” she snapped.
“Not much older than you. Maybe . . . three years? I graduated from high school early.”
Her lips thinned. “You used me.”
I wanted to say I hadn’t, but the truth was, I had. “We’re doing everything in our power to capture the person responsible for your attack. We don’t want another girl to die. Isn’t that worth lying for?”
“I don’t know.” Her gaze hopped back and forth between me and JT. “What do you want now?”
JT stepped in. I moved back to let him take over. “We’d like to ask you some questions about your attack.”
“Okay.” She flopped one knee over the other, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Go ahead.” Her mouth said yes, but her body, no. Her gaze flicked to me, then to her mom.
“Did you see your attacker?” JT asked.
“Yes. I told the police detective I saw him, and I provided a detailed description.”
“Could you describe him for me?”
“Yeah. I guess so. He was”—she glanced up, and to the left—“tall and really good-looking. With blond hair.”
I wondered what she was lying about. When I’d first found her, she’d said she’d been attacked by a male. And he’d kissed her.
Her mother broke in, speaking in Mandarin, “It was a man? You didn’t tell me!”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she answered in English. “I was ashamed.”
JT asked, “Did this man have any unique characteristics? Tattoos? Birthmarks?”
“None that I saw. He was just really good-looking.”
She’d said that twice. Clearly, our unsub preferred to take the form of extremely good-looking young men. I’d always been a little leery of men that attractive. Now, after this case, I’d never look at a man that gorgeous the same way again.
“Was he old? Young? Your age? Did he seem familiar? Had you seen him anywhere before?” JT asked.
“Maybe a little older than me, and no. I didn’t know him.”
“Did you see how he entered your home?”
“No. He just . . . appeared. As strange as it sounds, it’s the truth.”
“We believe you.” JT nodded. “Did you wonder why a strange man was standing in your . . . ?”
“Bedroom,” she finished for him.
“Bedroom,” JT echoed. “Were you shocked to find a stranger in your room?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything to you? Did he touch you anywhere?”
“Jia,” I broke in, “You didn’t tell me about the rumor that Derik killed someone. Why? Was it him? Are you afraid to tell us?”
“No. It wasn’t him. Derik’s creepy, but that rumor’s a lie.” She leaned forward, her shirt slumping slightly. I noticed a scattering of small red marks sprinkled across her chest. Was it a rash of some kind? Her arms tightened, and she began visibly trembling. “Why did he attack me? Why? What did I do?” Her eyes reddened. She lifted her shaking hands to her mouth. I knew he’d kissed her, at least. Possibly more. “I’m so scared. Is he going to come back?” She started crying, quaking harder. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I know I’ve brought disgrace to our family. So sorry.”
“That’s enough, Agents.” Her mother wrapped her arms around Jia. “My daughter cannot answer any more questions today.” She started ushering her from the room.
JT slid his notebook into his pocket. “Thank you for your time.” He jerked his head toward the door.
We left.
I didn’t say a word until we were in the car.
As I was buckling myself in, I said, “I think she lied when she was giving the unsub’s description. Why would she do that? I already knew it was a male. Attractive.”
JT cranked the key. “I have no idea. Maybe . . . she was just looking to the left for no reason? Now that you’ve seen she’s okay, let’s get to the school. Like you said in your profile, we need to focus on the other unsub. And someone has seen his or her dark side. We need to find that someone.”
The car zoomed away from the curb. We were zipping toward the high-school parking lot and conversing along the way.
“Before we get to the school, Skye, I just need to ask—”
“What? That I don’t do anything stupid? Like assault another student?” I smiled, letting him know I wasn’t taking this personally, though I kind of was. I had never kneed a man in the crotch before. Of course, that was because I’d never been in a situation where I’d felt so threatened—not even when I was being bullied back in high school.
JT merely sighed. “I’m not trying to insult your intelligence, I swear.”
“Let me guess, it’s procedure, right?”
“Exactly.”
That slightly awkward conversation over, we were both prepared, hopefully, to find that someone who had indeed glimpsed our unsub’s ugly side.
“I want to share some of our profiles with the principal,” JT explained ten minutes later as we were parking in the school’s lot. “But we can’t share the information about the paranormal nature of unsub one.”
“Of course not.”
He steered the car into a spot. “We haven’t talked about this directly, but I thought I should explain how we can discuss the fact that our unsubs are mythical beings with the BPD, but we can’t mention it to anyone else.”
“I’m assuming the BPD has seen so much evil, both the human and nonhuman, that it was easy for them to accept the fact that mythical beings really do exist. In contrast, the average Joe hasn’t?” I asked as I unbuckled.
“You’re right. Kind of. Have you noticed we haven’t done a lot of profiling in other districts?”
“I have. And I also realize most FBI agents think we’re a joke. So . . . ?”
JT unbuckled, but he didn’t open the door. “The BPD’s connection to the paranormal dates back to the mid–nineteenth century. At that time, a certain well-known and respected poet and author lived in Baltimore, and it was he who brought to the Baltimore PD’s chief the truth about mythical beings. That chief was quietly asked to retire shortly after he started telling his officers about the vampires and other unmentionables walking among them. But there was no stopping the spreading of the truth. The officers began to see and accept what they had witnessed, and they soon came to believe there were such beings walking among the humans. Both law-abiding and criminal entities.”
“And let me guess.... That poet was . . . Edgar Allan Poe.”
JT nodded. “None other.”
“Interesting. But why hasn’t the truth spread beyond the BPD?”
“The officers, fearing they’d be laughed at, or worse, started taking a vow of silence upon joining the force. To this day, I believe they still take that vow.”
“And so they keep their secret. But somehow, we have to spread the word.”
“That’s not our job, to spread the word about Mythics. That’s for the risk takers, the poets, the authors, the movie-makers, the press. Our job is to profile the unsub and provide support where it’s wanted and needed. Nothing more. It took a long time for the FBI to form our unit, though there was a similar unit back in the ’60s. That one’s focus was more on researching reports of alien visits and abductions. But it was disbanded after word was leaked to the public. The backlash was ugly, reports that taxpayers were footing the bill for frivolous projects. We have to protect the FBI’s reputation, or it’ll happen again.”
“Okay, I get it.”
JT pushed open his door. “Now let’s go in and see if we can get this profile wrapped up.”
“I’d love that. With a roommate in danger, I’m not going to sleep until both of them are caught.”
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