'At the office. We're getting ready to go to the scene, going on a private jet in an hour and a half.'
I sense something through my shock, a heaviness at Callie's end. I realize that there's something else she's not telling me.
'What is it, Callie? What are you holding back?'
A hesitation, and then she sighs again. 'The killer left a message for you, honey-love.'
I sit for a moment, silent. Letting these words sink in. 'I'll meet you at the office,' I say. I hang up before she can respond. I sit on the edge of my bed for a moment. I put my head into my hands and try to weep, but my eyes stay dry. Somehow, it hurts more that way.
It's only six o'clock by the time I arrive. Early morning is the best time to drive in LA, the only time the highways are uncrowded. Most of the people driving are up to no good, or on their way to no good. I know these early mornings well. I've driven through fog and the gray light of breaking dawns many times, toward scenes of bloody death. As I am now. All the way there, all I can think about is Annie. Annie and I met in high school, when we were both fifteen. She was a soon to be ex-cheerleader, I was a reckless tomboy who smoked pot and enjoyed fast things. In the hierarchy of high school, our paths were not destined to cross. Fate intervened. At least I always thought of it as fate. My time of the month arrived in the middle of math class, and I had put up my hand, grabbed my purse, and rushed out the door to the bathroom. I was blushing as I went down the hallway, and hoping that no one else was there. I had been getting my period for only eight months, and the whole thing was still an excruciating embarrassment to me. I peeked in, saw with relief that the bathroom was deserted. I ducked into one of the stalls and was preparing to take care of my problem when a sniffling sound made me freeze, pad in hand. I held my breath, listening. The sniffling repeated itself, only this time, it broke into a quiet sob. Someone was crying, two stalls over from me. I have always been a sucker for things in pain. When I was young, I even considered being a veterinarian. If I came upon a hurt bird, dog, cat, or any other walking, crawling, living thing, it would end up coming home with me. Most of the time, the things I brought home didn't make it. But sometimes they did, and the few victories in this regard were enough to keep my crusade alive. My parents thought it was cute at first, but it went from cute to annoying after the umpteenth trip to the emergency vet. Annoyed or not, they never discouraged me from these Mother Teresa-like efforts.
As I got older, I found that this concern extended to people as well. If someone got bullied, while I wouldn't step in and rescue them from the fight, I couldn't keep myself from going over afterward to see how they were. I kept a small first-aid kit in my backpack and handed out any number of bandages during the eighth and ninth grades. I was not self-conscious about this quirk in my character. It was a strange thing: I was mortified by having to leave in the middle of class to handle menstruation, but no amount of teasing, or being called 'Nurse Smoky,'
ever bothered me. Not even a little. I know that this characteristic is what led me to the FBI. The decision to go after the source of pain, the criminals who enjoyed causing it. I also know that what I saw in the years that followed changed it in some way. I became more careful with my caring. I had to. My first-aid kit became me and my team, and the bandages became a pair of handcuffs and a jail cell. This being the case, when I realized that someone was crying in the bathroom with me, I placed my pad as a hurried afterthought, all embarrassment forgotten, pulled up my jeans, and rushed out of the stall. I paused in front of the door the sobs were coming from.
'Uh--hello? Are you okay in there?'
The sobs stopped, though the sniffles were still audible.
'Go away. Leave me alone.'
I stood there for a second, trying to decide what to do.
'Are you hurt?'
'No! Just leave me alone.'
I realized that there wasn't any pressing physical injury to attend to, and I was about to take the voice's advice when something stopped me. Fate. I leaned forward, tentative. 'Um, listen . . . any way I can help?'
The voice was forlorn when it responded. 'No one can help.' There was a silence, followed by another one of those awful, poignant sobs. No one can cry like a fifteen-year-old young woman. No one. It is done with all of the heart, nothing held back, the end of existence.
'Come on. It can't be that bad.'
I heard a scuffling sound, and then the door to the stall slammed open. Standing in front of me was a puffy- faced, very pretty blond girl. I recognized her right away and wished I'd listened when she first asked me to leave. Annie King. She was a cheerleader. One of those girls. You know, the snobby, perfect ones who use their beauty and flawless bodies to rule the kingdom of high school. I couldn't help it, that was what I thought at the time. I had her pigeonholed and judged, the same way I hated being judged myself. And she was mad.
'What do you know about it?' It was a voice filled with fury, and it was directed at me, full on. I stared at her, caught flat-footed and flabbergasted, too astonished to be angry back. Then her face crumpled, and the rage vanished faster than it had appeared. Tears ran down her face. 'He showed everyone my panties. Why would he do something like that, after everything he said to me?'
'Huh? Who--what about your panties?'
Sometimes, even in high school, it's easiest to talk to a stranger. She talked to me then, while it was just the two of us in that bathroom. The quarterback of the football team, a David Rayborn, had been dating her for almost six months. He was handsome, smart, and seemed to really care about her. He'd been pushing her for a few months to go 'all the way,' and she'd been resisting his advances. But he'd been so sincere in his romance of her that a few days ago she'd finally given in. He'd been gentle, and caring, and when it was over he'd held her in his arms and asked her if he could keep her panties to remember the moment by. He said it would be a little secret between them, something they knew but no one else did. A little naughty, but also kind of nice. Somehow romantic. Looking back at it now, as an adult, it seems silly to think of it in that way. But when you are fifteen . . .
'So today I'm walking off the field after practice, and they're all there. The guys from the team. David is with them, and they're all pointing at me, and hooting and making these nasty faces. Then he did it.' Her face crumpled again, and I winced, realizing what was coming.
'He held them up. My panties. Like a trophy. And then he smiled at me, winked, and said it was the best addition to his collection yet.'
And this cheerleader started crying again, except that now she gave herself over to it in the fullest sense of the word. Her knees gave, and she fell against me, and she was weeping like her heart was broken and would never be whole again. I hesitated for a moment (but only a moment), and then I wrapped my arms around her and held her as she cried. Right there on the tile, I hugged this stranger and whispered into her hair, told her it'd be okay.
After a few minutes, the sobs died down to sniffles, and then the sniffles stopped as well. She pushed off me and wiped her face. She couldn't look at me, and I realized she was a little embarrassed.
'Hey, I have an idea,' I said. It was a from-the-hip decision, unexplainable, but somehow undeniably right. 'Let's get out of here. Cut the rest of the day.'
She looked at me, and squinted. 'Play hooky?'
I nodded and smiled. 'Yep. Just a day. I think you've earned it, don't you?'
I've always thought her decision in response was probably as sudden as mine had been in asking her. I mean, she didn't even know my name at that point. She smiled back at me, a slight smile.
'Okay.'
That's how we met. She smoked her first joint that day (something I introduced her to), and about a week later she quit being a cheerleader. I'd like to say that we got revenge on David Rayborn, but we never did. Despite his reputation as an asshole, girls continued to fall for him, and he continued to take their panties as trophies. He went on to become a star quarterback, which continued through college and even a few seasons second-stringing for an NFL team. One could say this was proof of no justice in the world, but you could also say that he brought Annie and I together, something that was to have such beauty and value that I could almost forgive him for what he did. We'd bonded at the molecular level, the way only combat soldiers and teenagers do. We spent all of our time out of school together. She encouraged me to quit smoking pot, advice I followed, since my grades had been dropping. I got her to start dating again. She was there for me when Buster, the dog I'd had since I was five years old, had to be put to sleep. I was there for her when her grandmother died. We learned to drive together and spent time getting into and out of scrapes, growing up, becoming women.
