The 7th Victim

“How would you know?”

“Read a review.” He indicated the screen, zoomed in on the photo. “I determined, through a little chemical analysis of the paper and the approximate age of the automobile fender in the background, that this was taken around 1959 or ’60.”

Vail looked up at the ceiling and did the math. “That’s probably about right.”

“Thought so.” A self-satisfied smile thinned his lips. “So, working on that assumption, I first enlarged your mother’s face to this,” he said, then clicked the mouse. “Then I began aging it. Here’s about age twenty.” The computer morphed the facial features and a mature woman stared back at her. “Then, if I keep going, we can see her age through the years.” He struck another series of keys and the image subtly shifted, changed, evolved.

“What a horrible thing to see. Bad enough watching the aging process in the mirror. At least it happens gradually. This thing makes it happen in a matter of seconds.”

He looked at her. “Happens to all of us. Wrinkle here, sagging there, some age spots thrown in for flavor.”

She frowned. “See this one?” Her finger found the exact spot on her cheek without having to look in a mirror. “This isn’t flavor, Tim. It’s aggravation.”

The computer beeped and they turned to look at the screen. “Ah, very good. There she is. That’s your mother, aged to about sixty.”

Vail stared at the screen. She immediately recognized the face. “Holy shit. . . .” She pried her eyes away and rested them on Meadows, who was smiling at her.

She swallowed hard. Her eyes were pulled back to the image as if drawn by an unseen force. “Can you make a print of that?”

“You betcha.” He clicked with his mouse. “It’ll take a few minutes.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Thought you might.”

“How accurate is this thing?”

“You questioning my work?”

She didn’t answer.

“Pretty accurate. But not a hundred percent. Things happen to people, stress and other environmental factors come into play that influence the result. I’d use it as a guide.”

But Vail knew the answer before he’d responded. It was a very accurate result.

“By the way you’re looking at the screen, I take it you recognize her. Shit, I recognize her.”

Vail nodded, but couldn’t pull her gaze from the screen.

“Whatcha gonna do?”

The Andreas Vollenweider CD ended just as she was about to answer, and an eerie silence permeated the room. “I’m not sure.”

VAIL’S FIRST COURSE OF ACTION had been to return to the FBI Academy. It was now approaching midnight, but she still felt no signs of fatigue. She was a bloodhound, nose to the ground, sniffing her trail. Her prey was near, so near she’d actually seen it. Now it was a matter of gathering information before going in for the kill.

There was no one around this time of night, other than a few new agents sitting in the commemorative hall, telling stories of their days as a beat cop or detective or attorney . . . now in training to become one of the elite law enforcers in the world.

Vail found the maintenance engineer and sweet-talked him into letting her into the library for a while. She told him the truth about locating the mother who had abandoned her, and being the sap that he was, he felt sorry for her and pulled out his ring of keys. That was forty-five minutes ago, and rather than stopping to read through the results popping up across the screen, she printed the pages to make the most efficient use of her time. Even at that, it was taking longer than she had anticipated.

While waiting for the computer to finish the last search, she pulled her cell phone and dialed the hospital. Nothing new to report, she was told by the desk nurse. Jonathan had continued to open his eyes, and had moved them a bit—more “incremental improvement”—but that was all she could tell her. Vail thanked the nurse and watched the last of the search results flicker across the monitor.

She hit PRINT, then waited by the mammoth HP LaserJet for the document. As the papers emerged, a wide yawn spread her lips. Fatigue had finally set in. She would go home, get some sleep, and review the paperwork in the morning.

There was nothing else demanding her time at the moment.

thirty-six

Go ahead, grab her hair and stab the eyes. Stab, stab, stab! Do it!

Grasp a handful of straw dry hair, lift the head, then plunge the knife down into the eye. Squish!

Look at yourself, don’t be blind. Look up, into the window, and see. See for yourself.

After letting go of the knife, the slime from blood and eye juice spatter trailed off the fingertips like saliva from a hungry wolf salivating over its prey. Straightened up . . . looked into the dark window across the room. It was her. Again. Karen Vail in the reflection.

You killed your mother. How does it feel?

Vail craned her head down and tried to look beyond the knife protruding from the right socket, but she couldn’t see the face. She moved closer for a better angle. She killed her mother?

Yes, the bitch had to die. You did it, you did it, you did it. . . .

THE MORNING SUN burned away the clouds that had been hovering over the region the past couple weeks. Vail couldn’t help but think the lingering haze had become a symbol of her misfortune. Perhaps the break would bring the promise of new opportunities, of a reversal of her bad luck.

Of course, first she had to get past the image of having murdered her mother. She needed to do something, talk to someone about it. These dreams had to stop.

While driving to the hospital, she called her Aunt Faye, who had taken on the task of finding an assisted care facility in the Alexandria region. Based on Emma’s long-term care coverage, Faye had narrowed the list of possibilities to three, and it was now in Vail’s hands to investigate each one to determine which would best accommodate her mother’s needs. In the meantime, rather than move Emma out of her familiar surroundings, Faye’s three daughters were taking turns staying at the house to make sure Emma ate regularly and did not wander off. With a backyard as large and wooded as hers, she could get turned around fifty feet from her house and forget how to get home.

Vail arrived at Fairfax Hospital and carried in with her a sampling of Jonathan’s favorite childhood books: The Hobbit, Old Yeller, The Phantom Tollbooth, and one he had been in the middle of when he was hospitalized: the seventh Harry Potter tale. She brought a thermos of coffee and sat beside him, at first just looking at him, his eyes opening and closing, tracking back and forth, as if his brain was taking in the surroundings but not processing what it saw.

She read to him for an hour, then took a break and dove into the task of making screening calls to the three assisted care facilities. Based on the attitude of the staff and level of service provided, she immediately eliminated one of them. The other two would work, subject to a records search for pending complaints and violations.

She gave Jonathan a kiss, told him she loved him, and headed out for lunch with Bledsoe. They met at a Subway restaurant a mile from the op center. His face was long, but when she walked in his expression brightened. He stood as she approached the table.

“Whatever you want, it’s on me,” he said.

“Tuna on wheat, everything on it.”

He nodded, turned to the counter person and put in the order. Bledsoe watched through the display case glass as the woman slapped on tomatoes and sprinkled oil. “How was your visit with your mother?”