Color Blind (23 page)

“What did he
say
exactly?” Yancy asked, impatient.

Might as well tell him. He was helping, after all.

“I thought I’d rattle his cage some, see if I could shake something loose. He called me on it, said it wouldn’t work. But it did. Sort of. When I said that he and the ferry shooter probably had a homoerotic relationship, he got upset. Might’ve been for show. Either way, he told me the guy lived in dreamland. It didn’t escape me, of course, that Dreamland is the part of the theme park where the castle is. The part Isaac shot from.”

“Okay. So he gave you a lead.”

“No. I don’t think he did. I . . . I think he’s too smart for that. I believe he
meant
for me to think it was a lead.”

Yancy fiddled with the clip of his seat belt. “You said he did something to make you assume this?”

“Like I said, Isaac didn’t answer me directly when I asked if the sexual relationship made him feel secure in sharing his kills with the ferry shooter. He didn’t deny it, but he spun out that random comment,” Jenna explained.

“And from that you got that he wants you to think you have a lead?”

Explaining this one was going to be precious. “Well, those things combined with the color.”

Yancy smirked. “So I get to hear about the famous colors?”

“Not if you call them ‘the famous colors,’” Jenna replied.

Yancy lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. What about the color?”

Jenna swallowed hard. The damn things could be so helpful, but they could also be such a pain in the ass. “When he said the words, something about the way he was talking made fuchsia pop into my mind. It’s a color I tend to get when I’m interviewing a subject who’s being disingenuous.”

“So he was lying?”

If someone didn’t have the synesthesia phenomenon, delineating the particulars was like describing sight to a person who had been blind since birth. They might be able to fathom it, but they didn’t have any experiences to connect the thoughts.

“Not lying,” Jenna said. “Lying is more of an orange color. Kind of brown. The fuchsia is more of . . . intentionally misleading.”

Yancy stared at her from the passenger’s seat. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

A dry chuckle escaped Jenna’s throat. “That’s the great thing about grapheme-color synesthesia. It doesn’t have rules. That’s why I have to put together the colors with other things I know. They help me narrow down the location on a map, but I have to find the exact coordinates myself.”

“Sounds tedious,” Yancy replied.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Okay, so not denying something, making a random comment, and fuchsia. Is that all?” he asked.

“No. A few more things. He emphasized the word ‘lives.’ Usually, a liar emphasizing a word indicates a true statement.”

“Are you saying the ferry shooter lives in Dreamland? What does that mean? He doesn’t pitch a tent every night and camp out.”

“No, not literally, but I think Isaac wanted me to chase that thought. He wants me to think the ferry shooter escaped because the guy works at the theme park.”

“But you think that’s not true? I thought you said fuchsia didn’t mean a lie,” Yancy said.

“It doesn’t. But Isaac himself is a liar. That’s why the fuchsia tells me something. If it was straight up burnt orange like a lie, I wouldn’t be overthinking his statement at all. But the fuchsia—he’s not lying, but he’s not telling the truth, either.”

“Isaac is that self-aware? That he knows to emphasize words to make you think a lie is true?” Yancy asked.

“I doubt it. That’s what’s bugging me. My gut says he lapsed into that speech pattern because that part of the statement
is
true. I just don’t think he’d give me that huge of a lead that easy.”

“We’re talking double meanings now?” Yancy asked.

Jenna nodded. “Yes, but I don’t have a clue how to prove it or what the hell the other meaning could’ve been.”

•   •   •

T
heme parks might close at night, but they apparently weren’t empty. The employee lot Yancy’s ex-girlfriend directed them to was packed, and they had trouble finding a spot.

Finally they squeezed the Blazer into a space between two industrial vans and hopped out. Jenna followed Yancy toward a slim girl with coppery ribbons streaking throughout her lengthy banana-blond hair.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” the girl whined. She pulled him into a tight hug.

Something angry bubbled inside Jenna’s chest. The girl hadn’t been worried enough to visit Yancy in the hospital when he was
shot
. He’d told Jenna as much.

“Oh, yeah. No permanent damage done. I might need years of therapy to get over this, but lucky for me, I’ve already got some under my belt.” Yancy returned the chick’s hug as halfheartedly as a middle-schooler on a first date.

The ex-girlfriend pulled back from him and slapped his arm playfully. “Yancy! You do not!”

Gag.

“Who’s this?” the girl asked, catching a glimpse of Jenna.

As if Yancy hadn’t told her about Jenna when he called.
Wow
.

“This is Dr. Jenna Ramey. She’s part of the FBI investigation,” Yancy answered. “Jenna, this is Phoebe.”

Jenna offered a hand. “Nice to meet you, Phoebe.”

Phoebe returned the shake like a queen offering her hand to a gentleman to kiss. “Ditto. Yancy says you need some information about workers.”

So he did tell you I was coming.
“I’m trying to find out if a certain person worked here . . .”

Jenna’s voice died away. Telling Yancy about the case was one thing, but this girl seemed a few Cheerios away from a full box. Trust-inspiring, she wasn’t.

“This lot isn’t easy to find if you don’t know where to look. Are there other places like that for workers only?” Yancy cut in.

Phoebe twisted her hair off her neck and fanned herself with her hand. Then she released her locks to cascade down her neck again. “Sure. Lots of them. Which ones do you want to know about?”

“All of them,” Yancy said.

“Sure. Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

Phoebe swooped her arm to hook Yancy’s elbow with hers and dragged him alongside her. Jenna trailed behind them.

Through the park gates, they first stopped at the employee locker room, which wasn’t very interesting, especially if the ferry shooter
didn’t
work there. Yancy asked Phoebe to move on, and next, they toured the cafeteria and the costume department. Also unremarkable.

However, when Phoebe led them down a flight of stairs into a fluorescent-lit area about fifteen feet wide, Jenna’s ears perked up. Underground crew passages.

“So most of the cast members get around down here. It’s less crowded, easier to move fast than trying to weave through tourists taking pictures of snotty-nosed kids. Cooler, too. Sometimes we have to walk the park if we’re in costume and on duty, but if not, we can take these,” Phoebe explained as they wandered the tunnel.

“Are there surveillance cameras down here?” Jenna asked.

“Good question,” Phoebe said.

If the ferry shooter
did
know about the crew passages, they were a prime way to leave the fray and exit on, say, the other side of the park to throw suspicion. Jenna made a mental note to check on the surveillance cameras with Irv once she was back aboveground and in cell range.

“Does the Enchanted Kingdom keep
any
records from these tunnels? Like an ID card you have to swipe to use them, or can anyone get in?”

“Now that you mention it, anyone can technically get in, I guess. They can’t
leave
, but they could get in,” Phoebe answered.

“What do you mean? They have to swipe a card to come out in a different place in the park?” Yancy prodded.

Phoebe changed direction and motioned for them to follow. In a little while, they came to an alcove off the main tunnel labeled
SOUTH EXIT
.

“You can come out of any of the crew passages still
in
the park without a pass. However, if you leave
the park
in the passages, you have to scan your thumbprint. That way on-the-clock employees can’t sneak out early without someone knowing. Otherwise they’d have no clue. There’s way too many of us for them to keep track of at a given time. But the outside gates won’t open without a thumbprint scan.”

Excitement rose in Jenna’s stomach. In other words, if the employee bull Isaac implied was true, the ferry shooter had to have scanned his thumbprint to exit. All of the employees who were still in the park after the shooting had checked out. It was the only way he could be an employee and have gotten away.

Jenna looked to Phoebe. “Where’s your HR department?”

A
s they journeyed across the park, Jenna marveled at how a place that had been a crime scene only days ago could now look like no one had died there. Groups of maintenance workers filled the park, conducting routine test runs of all the rides and attractions. Cleanup crews swept and placed new trash bags in bins. The FBI had fought to keep the park closed a few days longer, but even a governmental investigation agency couldn’t compete with one of the biggest corporations in the country or their even bigger law team.

Phoebe led them up a set of metal stairs to a brick building off the beaten path. She knocked on a door. “I doubt the HR manager’s here this early.”

Nevertheless, a voice came from the other side. “Enter.”

Phoebe shrugged and pushed the door open. Jenna followed her inside the dingy room, Yancy on her heels. Hank was going to kill her for this.

Inside, a woman younger than Phoebe sat at a card table, laptop at her fingertips. For a place that spent millions on everything the public saw, the desks left something to be desired.

“Hi. I’m Dr. Jenna Ramey. I’m working with the FBI task force regarding the shootings.”

“Oh, not again! Haven’t I answered enough questions? I thought working here was supposed to be relaxing and fun. Now I’m questioned by the FBI every ten and a half seconds. I’ve given you guys every record I have! That’s why I’m here at this butt-crack-of-dawn hour. Reprinting my paper records. I told you all I’d give you every computer file printout on earth, but could you wait? No! You had to have the ones in my
cabinet
. It’s not enough that I’m trying to run a staff of hundreds here. Good grief!”

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Miss—”

“Wyche. Tori Wyche. But apparently
you
don’t have the records, since you don’t know who I am. You need copies, too? Want the fresh batch I just printed for my files?”

The FBI might need to work on its people skills. “No, Miss Wyche. I really
don’t
mean to bother you. I’m
not
actually an FBI agent. I’m a consultant, a forensic psychiatrist. I need five minutes of your time.”

The brunette pushed back from her table, and her rolling chair scooted a few feet with the force. She folded her arms, the chair teetering as she leaned back. “What’s five more?”

“Thank you,” Jenna said.

She glanced around for a chair to sit in, but there was none. Instead she dropped to her knees at the folding table and pulled out the paper she’d sketched on in the tunnel. The only time the ferry shooter had to escape was between when the shooting started and thirty minutes later when police locked down the entire park. During that half hour only a certain number of access points existed that the shooter could’ve reached from the ferry bridge. He couldn’t get to the outer parks without taking the ferry itself or the monorail.

Jenna snapped her pen from where it was clipped to her pants and circled the spots in question, then passed the paper to Tori Wyche.

“I know you’ve already given the cops your records of everyone who entered that morning, but did anyone leave through these access points in the crew passageways between nine thirty-three and ten forty-five the morning of the shootings?”

“The
crew
passageways? But—”

“Can you access those records?” Jenna asked before Tori could protest. The girl already looked panicked at what Jenna was implying.

“I . . . sure,” she said, her eyes wide.

Tori’s feet pedaled the carpet until her chair was back to the folding table, and she pecked a few keys on her laptop. Several clicks later, the girl shook her head. “No. No one left through those passages until well after the park was out of lockdown.”

•   •   •

W
hen they’d said good-bye to Tori Wyche and Phoebe, the Blazer’s clock registered 6:40 a.m. Jenna hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and all she really wanted to do was go home, take a long, hot shower, and sleep for about ten days. But no sleep for her yet. She still had a few chores to do, the least of which was dropping in to visit the DA.

As soon as they were in with the doors shut, Yancy blew out a heavy breath. “You were right. He’s not an employee.”

“Nope, but now I have to figure out what he
did
mean if the Dreamland reference wasn’t theme park–related. His speech pattern said truth there. I just know it. Dreamland
has
to have a double meaning,” Jenna said, distracted. As much as the burnt orange of Isaac’s lying clashing with the fuchsia that screamed misleading bugged her, other things tugged at her attention. Her eyes flitted toward the clock, then from the clock to the road again. She jerked the steering wheel hard to the left to keep them from running off the right shoulder.