Vail, expert marksman, daring NYPD detective, and crack FBI agent, couldn’t hit the most significant target of her life.
When Deacon was relieved of his job because of repeated incidents of road rage, it was the final brick in the wall. He sat at home and drank beer, his anger slowly turning toward his wife in the form of verbal abuse, which built over six months to the one and only time he struck her. She walked out the door with a swollen lip and a deep sense of sadness she never imagined possible.
She served Deacon with her application for divorce five days later.
Vail shook her head. The fuse had been lit, and now this. Her son lay in a hospital bed in a coma. How could this have happened?
The rhythmic vibration of her BlackBerry invaded her thoughts and woke her from her semisleep. She lifted her head and realized she had drooled on Jonathan’s forearm. She wiped it away, then looked at her watch. It was seven thirty in the morning.
The text was from a private line at the Behavioral Analysis Unit. She dialed in and was routed to Thomas Gifford’s office. Her boss had no doubt just learned of the arrest. With all that had gone on, she had forgotten to call him.
“Mr. Gifford wants to see you in his office ASAP,” the secretary said.
“Tell him I’m on my way, be there in about forty-five minutes.”
She gave Jonathan a kiss on the forehead, knowing there was nothing she could do sitting by his side. “I love you,” she said, then left.
VAIL ARRIVED at the commerce center and parked. She looked in the rearview mirror and tried to fix herself up, but she had to admit, she looked like hell. She still had Robby’s car, no purse, no makeup, and she still had not been home to shower and change.
She took the elevator up to the second floor, punched in her ID code, and wandered down the hallway toward Gifford’s office. It was three times the size of her own cubicle, with a huge picture window view of the surrounding Aquian foliage.
Vail knocked on the open door. Gifford looked up and motioned her in. A phone was stuck to his ear and he was nodding. “I know, but that’s just the way I want it. I don’t care if he thinks he’s the fall guy. . . . You know what? Fine, then he is. Tell him whatever you want to tell him.” He grunted, then hung up.
“If this isn’t a good time—” Vail started.
“No, no. Sit down. Any time’s a good time to meet with one of my agents who’s been—how should I put it . . .
“Sir, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the embarrassment to you, to the Bureau—”
“You’re supposed to be working on a task force. Dead Eyes, remember him?”
“Sir, I was going to call you when I got out of jail. Things dragged on, and I didn’t get out till almost two this morning. I was on my way to the task force op center to get my car and my purse, and to leave a message on your voice mail. We got texted en route by Paul Bledsoe. There’s another vic.”
Gifford sat back in his leather chair. “Another Dead Eyes vic?”
Vail nodded.
“Shit.” His eyes roamed his desk for a moment before coming to rest again on Vail’s face. “You look like crap.”
“I know, sir. Haven’t been home yet. While at the vic’s house, I got word my son was in the hospital—” She felt the urge to cry again, but fought it back into her throat. Took a deep breath. “His father pushed him down the stairs. He’s in a coma.” She turned away, wiped at the tears beneath her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
She nodded. “I will beat these charges against me, sir.”
He picked up a pen from his desk and stared at it. Vail knew what was coming. The fact he didn’t make eye contact with her made it all the more inevitable.
“I hope you realize that I’m truly sorry about what I have to do. But I’ve got to place you on paid administrative leave, effective immediately. You can keep your creds and gun. But you need to stay away from work. I spoke with OPR a little while ago. They’ll be here at eleven to interview you. Cooperate with them. Remember, they’re on your side in this. Internal review is a formality. At the moment, this is obviously a personal matter. Once they’ve opened their file, they monitor the situation. They’ll only act if the charges stick.”
Vail was looking at the floor. “I understand, sir.”
“Why don’t you go wait in your office, get your desk straightened up. When OPR is ready for you, I’ll let you know.”
She stood from her chair and headed for the door. “Thanks,” she said, without turning to face him. Then she walked out.
Straighten up her desk, that was what Gifford had told her to do. But her desk was neat. She looked around her office, wondering just how serious this OPR review would be. She was, after all, arrested for assaulting her ex-husband. How would that play out? She was innocent, but was it merely a matter of giving Gifford an excuse to let her go? Did he want her gone? He was sometimes hard to read. Vail challenged him, sure, but she was damn good at what she did. That counted for a lot, didn’t it? She knew the answer to that was,
Vail needed to clear her mind, stop stressing over what might happen. She opened Outlook and downloaded her email, not knowing if they’d allow her to keep accessing her Academy mail while on leave. She paged through the unimportant messages, dashed off a quick reply to a prosecutor on another case that was going to trial, and was about to close down when she saw one that caught her attention. The subject read “It’s in the”—and sent a shiver through her body.
She glanced down at the preview pane, where the text hit her like a brick across the forehead. She opened the message and read:
The hiding place smells like some musty box I once opened when I was looking for his cigarettes. It’s strong and kind of burns my nose. And it’s small and dark, but it’s mine. He doesn’t know I have it, which means he can’t find me here. And if he can’t find me, he can’t hurt me. I can think here, I can breathe here (well, except for the smell) without him yelling. I sit in the darkness, alone with myself, where no one can hurt me. Where he can’t hurt me.
But I watch him. I watch everything he does through little holes in the walls. I watch him bring home the whores, I watch what he does to them before dragging them upstairs to his bedroom. Sometimes I even hear what they’re saying, but most of the time I just see. I see what he does.
But I really don’t have to see. I already know. I know because he does the same things to me.
She looked at the sender’s name: G. G. Condon. She knew that would be a dead end, that it was easy to obtain an email account with fake information. She tried forwarding the message to the lab, but nothing happened. She clicked File/Print, yet the page came out blank.
“What the hell?”
She pressed the PrtScn key to take a “picture” of the screen—everything that was displayed on her computer desktop—and pasted the image into a Word document.
Vail lifted the phone and dialed CART, the Computer Analysis Response Team, and informed the technician,
