Shadow Man

'Geeky-looking guy,' Oldfield notes.

Unkind, but he's right. Ronnie Barnes is a pimply-faced, only-justpostadolescent, with a scrawny chest and thick-lensed glasses. The kind who draws jeers from shallow women. He'll masturbate thinking about them even though he hates them for the things they say. He'll despise them even more for being desirable, despise himself for desiring them. I know all of this not because he's scrawny and pimply, but because he holds a knife in his hands, and it's giving him a hard-on. He looks toward something we can't see, off camera. 'You want me to do it now?' he asks. I don't hear a response, but he nods and licks his lower lip, excited. 'Cool.'

'Who is he talking to?' Alan wonders.

'Two guesses,' I say.

Barnes bends over, seems to gather himself. What he proceeds to do next is so decisive, so brutal, that we all recoil in shock.

'Fucking cunt!' he screams. He raises the hunting knife and brings it down point- first, with all the brutality he can muster. It almost seems to disappear into her. He doesn't just pull the knife out, he yanks it, savage and furious. He raises it high above his head, again, and brings it down, again.

He is putting his entire body into it, all his muscles; his neck is corded with the effort.

Again.

This is not the methodical method of Jack Jr. This is the out-ofcontrol mindlessness of a madman. Again.

'Cunt!' Barnes screams. Then he just keeps screaming.

'Mother fucker!' Leo says. He jumps and runs for a trash can, vomiting into it. None of us begrudges him this.

As soon as it has started, it's over. The woman has ended up on her back. She's barely recognizable as human. Barnes is on his knees, leaning backward, arms out, eyes closed, covered in blood and sweat. Hyperventilating in his bliss. His erection is gone. He looks off again. His expression is worshipful. 'Can I say it now?'

He turns to face the camera, looking right into it. He smiles, nothing human or sane evident. 'This one's for you, Smoky.'

'Oh, man . . .' Leo moans.

I say nothing. Some part of me has shut down. I keep watching. Barnes looks off again. 'Did I do good? The way you wanted?' I see his expression change. First puzzlement. Then fear. 'What are you doing?'

When the gunshot comes, blowing his brains out, I jump up without meaning to, my chair falling behind me.

'Fuck!' Alan yells, just as startled.

I lean forward, gripping the sides of the desk, arms trembling. I know what's coming. It has to be. He wouldn't miss the opportunity. He doesn't disappoint. That hooded face is in front of the camera, eyes crinkling because of the grin we can't see. He gives us a big thumbs-up. The video ends.

Everyone is shocked and silent. Leo wipes his mouth. Sergeant Oldfield's hand has strayed to his weapon, an unconscious reflex. My mind feels like an empty, hollow place. Tumbleweeds blowing through it, pushed by the wind.

Getting a grip on myself is almost a literal thing. My voice is full of heat when I speak. Tight and smoking. 'Back to work,' I say.

They all look at me like I'm nuts.

'Come on!' I snap. 'Pull it together, guys. This is just one more fucking distraction. He's messing with us. Get a grip, and get back to work. I'm going to call this Agent Jenkins.' My voice sounds firm, but I'm still trembling.

It takes them a minute, then my words get through. They start moving. I pick up the phone, call the switchboard, and get them to dial me into the New York FBI headquarters, all on automatic. My head is spinning. When reception answers, I ask for Agent Jenkins. Surprise, surprise, he's in NCAVC Coord too. The phone rings, is picked up. 'Special Agent Bob Jenkins.'

'Hi, Bob. This is Smoky Barrett, from NCAVC Coord Los Angeles.'

The normal tone of my voice surprises me. Hi, how are you, just watched a woman get eviscerated, what's new with you?

'Hi, Agent Barrett. I know who you are.' His voice is curious. I would be too, if our roles were reversed. 'What's up?'

I sit down. Take a breath. My heartbeat feels like it's coming back down to normal. 'What can you tell me about Ronnie Barnes?'

'Barnes?' He sounds surprised. 'Wow, that's an old one. About six months or so. Killed and mutilated five women. And I mean mutilated. To be honest, it was a grounder for us. Someone noticed a smell and reported it. Cops went into his apartment, found one of the dead women, and him with a self-inflicted hole in the head. Case closed.'

'I have news for you, Bob. It wasn't self-inflicted.'

A long pause. 'Do tell.'

I give him a synopsis of Jack Jr. and the package he'd just sent us. The video. When I'm done, he's quiet for a while.

'I think I've been doing this for about as long as you have, Smoky. You ever run across anything like this before?'

'Nope.'

'Me neither.' He sighs. It's a sigh I find I recognize. An acknowledgment that the monsters just continue to mutate, and seem to get worse every time. 'Anything I can do?' he asks.

'Can you send me a copy of the case file on Barnes? I doubt anything's there. My guy is very, very careful. But . . .'

'Sure. Anything else?'

'Just one more thing. Out of curiosity. When did Barnes die?'

'Hold on.' I hear him tapping on a keyboard. 'Let's see . . . body was found November twenty-first. . . . Based on decomp and other factors, the ME estimates he died on the nineteenth.'

I feel like the air has been sucked from my lungs. My hand on the phone is nerveless.

'Agent Barrett? You there?'

'Yes. Thanks for the help, Bob. I'll look for that file.' My voice sounds far away to me, and mechanical. He doesn't seem to notice.

'I'll courier it out tomorrow.'

We hang up, and I stare at the phone.

November 19.

I can't believe it.

While Ronnie Barnes was destroying that girl, Joseph Sands was destroying my life. That very night. Not just the same date a year or a decade later, but that very same day.

Was it a coincidence? Or was there some other meaning there, something I couldn't see?

34

THE REST OF the day passes like a dream. Callie has come back; Marilyn is fine. Sergeant Oldfield lets me know before leaving that there is no way he'll let Jack Jr. do to Marilyn what we saw Barnes do on that video. Everything is set up for the delivery of Jack Jr.'s package tomorrow. We continue to do what we do.

But I am wobbly as I drive toward Alan and Elaina's. I keep coming back to the coincidence of those dates. I feel like I've been put into a time warp. Knowing that as Ronnie Barnes was smiling at the camera, I was screaming, and Matt was dying. That as he put a knife to that poor woman's body, Joseph Sands was putting a knife to my face.

As it was happening, Jack Jr. was already hard at work. And he already knew about