Color Blind (9 page)

If she thought Hank called because he assumed Ay wouldn’t be asleep, this wouldn’t be half as annoying. But seeing as how he had no clue she didn’t normally sleep like an average toddler, the call made her want to pummel his face with the phone until he begged for mercy. “No big deal. News on Grogan?”

Silence.

Finally, Hank answered. “Not exactly. Isaac Keaton made another move. I’m not sure how to tell you this.”

Jenna gripped the phone, frustrated. She could eat the entire contents of her refrigerator right now, and trashy TV hadn’t seemed so enticing since she was on pain meds post wisdom teeth removal. Her entire family was under the same roof right now, so whatever Keaton had up his sleeve couldn’t be
that
bad. “Just spit it.”

“All right. Keaton sent a letter. To Claudia.”

“What?”
Isaac hadn’t been indicted, wasn’t even an official inmate yet. How could he send letters? And what in God’s name could he have to write to Jenna’s mother about?

“When was it mailed?”

“I’m looking into it,” Hank replied. “I debated on whether or not to call, but I knew if you got in there and he told you first, he’d have a serious advantage.”

“You haven’t told me what it said,” Jenna shot back.

“Jenna, you don’t need to do this. He’s messing with you, trying to distract us—”

“What did it
say
, Ellis?”

The phone crackled with the heavy breath Hank blew out. “It said, ‘In regards to our previous discussion, I have one further question. If you could do one thing over, where would you say you failed?’”

J
enna blew past Hank at the police department and headed toward the box. “Don’t even try to talk me out of this, Hank. Bad idea.”

She’d left Charley with a screaming Ayana, no time to catch him up with what her ex had told her on the phone. No need to anyway. Her brother worked too hard
not
to think about Claudia to have to hear that in one fell swoop, this evil son of a bitch had drawn her right back into Jenna’s life. She wanted to know what the hell Isaac knew about her mother, and how he’d managed to talk to her.

“Jenna, you know better than I do that this is what he
wants.
You go in there ready to strangle him, he takes one look at your face and knows he got a reaction. He feeds off this bullshit, and—”

Jenna whirled around. “Say one more thing to me, Hank, and you won’t have to worry about all that pent-up anger he’ll see, because I’ll take it all out on
you!
”

He stared at her, stern, but said nothing. He didn’t have to. His eyes scolded her enough. Accused her.

Knew her.

Back when she’d worked at the BAU under him, she’d felt those same eyes. The ones that had once viewed her as the most fascinating woman he’d ever met. Where, later, the spark of respect would dim, replaced by a cloud of shame.

She’d gulped in deep breaths of oxygen as the Butcher of Anaheim fell to the ground at the mercy of her bullet. Then she herself had fallen to her knees into the cold, wet dirt. The threat past, she dropped her gun beside her and keeled forward, catching herself with her palms. On all fours, heaving precious air, she thought of Ayana, and how moments before, Jenna had charged into the darkness of the forest, unwilling to wait for the rest of the team. She knew he was there. The color in her mind had pointed the way, and if she waited for even another minute, another girl could’ve died. A girl that now would be going home to her mother, a woman Jenna had watched cry and beg in the same way Jenna would for Ayana. As she hunted this hunter, with every step, she hadn’t known if her little girl would ever remember her.

A yell from behind her had told her the others had heard the commotion. She wasn’t alone.

A hand grasped her forearm, yanked her upward. But no embrace came. No relief.

The firm hand released her, and she spun to face Hank.

“What the hell were you doing, Jenna? You know the protocol!”

“He was here, Hank. She’s here. Back there.” Jenna pointed to the place in the forest where they’d find the Butcher’s last attempted victim tied topless to a tree. “She’s okay. Needs fluids, food. But she’s alive!”

Hank didn’t make a move for the trees, nor did he smile or even breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, he squared his shoulders to her as the other team members came racing into the backyard from various points in the home they’d been searching. As her team leader, he had the authority to manage her, but while technically superior, the team leaders in the BAU usually tried to stand as on par with the team as possible. A cohesive unit flourished in this environment where everyone had their place and everyone held each other’s respect.

“Jenna, you knew the plans, and you know the rules. You don’t go into an unknown situation without backup,” he’d barked.

Her face flushed, adrenaline still rushing through her veins. She wanted to draw herself up to full height, to stare him down, scream in his face that because of her, a girl would live. That she’d made the right decision.

But in her peripheral vision, her teammates’ forms loomed. She couldn’t do it to him even if he could do it to her. Maybe that was what made him a good leader. Who knew.

But in that moment, standing in the dark, spurned by the eyes that used to have such confidence in everything she was, Jenna had known that even if that quality made him a great Special Agent in Charge, it made him a really, really shitty boyfriend.

Now she looked down, exhaled the fiery breath she’d been using to berate him, and felt her shoulders droop. After one more calming lungful, she clenched her fists and looked up at Hank again. “Listen, I know the same things you know. Trust me to be smarter than him.”

Hank frowned. “I
do
trust you, Jenna. I don’t trust the situation. This is your family.”

Jenna raised an eyebrow at him as she stepped toward the interrogation room. “Claudia is
not
my family.”

She pushed through the door to confront the monster.

•   •   •

S
he’s b-a-a-ack.

Isaac sat still as he watched Dr. Jenna Ramey bolt through the door to come and pick his brain again. Only the red-splotched patch of skin where the neck of her T-shirt dipped into a soft V told him news of his little surprise was what brought her back to the precinct so late this evening. “Dr. Ramey. Always a pleasure.”

She slipped a picture out of a file folder she carried, but she laid it on the table facedown, the folder on top of it. “Who’s Thadius Grogan, Isaac?”

Despite himself, Isaac smiled. She didn’t want to give an inch, did she? “Are you really here to talk to me about Grogan, Dr. Ramey?”

“You pointed us toward him for a reason, Isaac. I’m playing the hand you dealt.”

“Do you actually think I’ll answer that question
for
you? I knew you guys had it easy, but you’ve at least gotta
try
for it, Jenna.”

Her eye twitched. “We’re on a first-name basis now?”

His mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “You’ve been on one with me for hours now.”

She didn’t answer, but he could smell the perspiration under her arms through the cheap deodorant she’d no doubt swiped on haphazardly this morning. He pictured her in her bathroom, freshly out of the shower, standing in her sensible bra and panties in front of the mirror and checking out her towel-dried hair. She’d scrub her teeth with the kind of abhorrent-tasting toothpaste made by a company that manufactured baking soda and cat litter.

Jenna plucked the picture from under the folder, flipped it over, and slid it across the table toward him. “Know her?”

A striking picture of a girl met his vision. Even as gray as the morgue table beneath her, she was prettier than half the girls Isaac had taken to bed. He leaned in toward the photo, then away, squinting. “I don’t have my glasses, of course, but I’d venture to say no.”

“You don’t wear glasses.”

“And you already know I know who she is.”

Jenna leaned back and folded her arms. “If you know her, why’d you lie about it?”

I didn’t.
“You’re the psychiatrist. You tell me.”

The good doctor didn’t know what to say to that, so her response was to push back from the table and pace. “How do you know Emily Grogan?”

Isaac leaned back, tapped his toes. Question-and-answer sessions entertained more when you answered with more questions. “Don’t you already know enough from showing me the picture,
Doctor?
You
were
showing me the picture to see if I’d salivate over her dead body, right? Get excited, pupils dilate? Maybe start humping the table? Well, no, Dr. Ramey. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not excited by Emily Grogan’s death pictures, because they don’t help me relive a thing. I had nothing to do with her murder.”

Her lips pursed a second in annoyance before she controlled them. So fun and easy to make people wiggle, wonder.

“Does the other shooter have anything to do with Emily Grogan, Isaac? With Thadius?”

“Now,
that’s
a good question, Jenna! Gold star.”

Jenna plopped back into the chair, slid the picture of Emily Grogan back toward her. “Any chance you’d like to tell me how?”

Not on your life.
“We haven’t even talked about why you really came here tonight, Jenna. It was a good question, yes, but if I told you everything now, it’d ruin all the fun.”

“Right! Of course! What was I thinking?” Jenna said loudly, her voice just the right cocktail of gusto and sarcasm.

Come on, Dr. Ramey. Take a bite.

“Maybe you’ll tell me how you know Emily Grogan if we talk about why I really came. You seem to be into that sort of thing.”

Isaac licked his lips. Tricky. “Don’t put
too
many words in my mouth, Doctor. But sure, let’s talk some about why you came to visit. You’ll have to ask me, though, because I must say, I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about. Everything isn’t always as it seems, so I want to make sure I clarify . . .”

Jenna leaned forward. “You contacted my mother. You said you’d talked to her. How?”

“By letter, Doctor. You know that.”

Jenna sighed. “I mean before that. How had you talked to her before that? When?”

Isaac rubbed his chin with his thumb and pointer finger. “You know, it was a while ago. I may not quite remember the details. Perhaps you should ask your mother. She might pass on a thing or two.”

“Got a mother, Isaac?” Jenna asked, elbows on the table, head propped in her open right palm.

Isaac cocked his head, searched her eyes. Green, intense. “What? You suppose reptiles like me are hatched?”

“Mommy issues, too, huh?” she retorted.

A distant memory flashed in, and he promptly cataloged it, neatly folded it, and placed it back in the compartment reserved for such things. “Yeah, I think you should ask your mother. That visit might be more educational for you than this one. And who knows? Maybe you’ll get something out of it. You never answered me about revenge against your own family, after all. I realize you’re on the right side of the law and all that, but you know how it is, don’t you, Jenna? When it’s dark—when
you’re
dark—sometimes nobody’ll see.”

“T
houghts?” Hank asked as Jenna exited the box.

“I hate this job? I don’t know. He’s definitely trying to steer my attention away from something. The old ‘look over here so you don’t look at the real action’ sort of trick. Question is how much of a truth line there is in his game.”

Hank shrugged. “Most sociopaths have a truth line in there somewhere. Still doubt he actually talked to your mother. Wouldn’t hurt to check records just in case, but odds are, he’s bluffing.”

“Yeah,” Jenna said. “Odds.”