The Face of Death

At least you're not being a crybaby.

She realized that this was true. What she was feeling wasn't grief. It was anger.

As she began to fall asleep again, the words Kirsten had said came back to her.

I'm the strongest.

A final flare of anger.

Not forever.

She fell into the blessed black.

Hey, there. Me again, back in the here and now. Looking back at it, Kirsten wasn't completely wrong, you know. That's the truth of the group home: The strongest ones rule over the weaker ones. She taught me that, although I wasn't thankful then. Hell, I was only six. Now I'm older, and I know the truth.

Someone had to do it.

I learned that lesson good.

I put the diary down again as the rising sun greets me through the windows. There's no way I can finish this before I have to go in to work, but at least I have my answer: No one believed her because he covered his tracks when he killed the Langstroms. No one was after Sarah, they'd probably thought, she was just having a run of really bad luck. This was borne out by the events that followed with her first foster-family.

That being the case, a new question arises: Why had The Stranger decided to come out into the open now?

I ignore all of the other questions, the ones about Sarah and the landscape of her soul; those edges are far too sharp for such a beautiful sunrise.

B O O K T W O

Men Who Eat Children

30

I CURSE THE RAIN AND READY MYSELF FOR THE RUN TO THE front steps of the Los Angeles FBI building.

Southern California had very little rain and a whole lot of sun for nearly a decade. Mother Nature is making up for lost time with a heavy rainstorm every three days or so. It started in February and it's been going on for two months now. It's wearing thin. Nobody carries an umbrella in Los Angeles, even if they should. I'm no exception. I stuff the copy of Sarah's diary into my jacket to protect it, grab my purse, and poise my thumb so I can hit the lock button of my key fob on the run.

I open the door and sprint, cursing, cursing, cursing. I'm drenched by the time I arrive.

'Rain got you good, Smoky,' Mitch remarks as I pass through security.

No response beyond a smile or a grimace is expected. Mitch is the head of security for the building, a grizzled ex-military man; fifty-five or so, fit, with hawk eyes and a certain coldness to him. I drip-dry on the elevator as I head up to the floor my office is on. Other agents ride up with me, looking just as bedraggled. Everyone got drenched; each region has its own piece of stubbornness. This is ours.

The current incarnation of my position is known as NCAVC

Coordinator. NCAVC stands for 'National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime' and it is headquartered in DC. Every bureau office has someone in charge of being the local 'rep' for the NCAVC, a kind of Amway network of death. In sleepier, slower places, one agent covers multiple areas of responsibility, NCAVC Coord being just one of many hungry mouths he or she has to feed.

We're special here. We get some of the best psychos around, in a volume that justifies a full-time Coordinator In-Charge (me) and a multiagent team. I have been in charge of my team for almost a decade. I hand-selected everyone; they are the absolute best around, in my notso-humble opinion. The FBI is a bureaucracy, so there are always rumbles and rumors about changing the name or the composition of my squad. For now, we are here, and we are generally more than busy. I head down the hallways, turning right and then left as I continue to drip on the thin, tight-woven gray carpet until I get to the NCAVC

Coord offices, known within the building as 'Death Central.' I enter and my nose twitches at the smell of coffee.

'Good grief, you're drenched.'

I give Callie a baleful look. She, of course, is dry and perfect and beautiful. Well, not perfect, maybe. Her eyes are tired. A mix of pain and painkillers? Or just a lack of sleep?

'Coffee ready?' I mumble.

The need for caffeine is great.

'Of course,' Callie says, pretending to be offended. 'You're not dealing with an amateur here.' She indicates the pot. 'Freshly brewed. Hand-ground this morning by yours truly.'

I go over and pour myself a cup. I take a sip and shiver in mock delight.

'You're my favorite person ever, Callie.'

'Of course I am.'

Alan comes ambling in from the back part of the offices, cup in hand.

'Thought I was your favorite person,' he rumbles.

'You are.'

'You can't have more than one favorite person,' Callie complains. I toast her with my cup and smile. 'I'm the boss. I can have as many favorite people as I want. I can even have rotating favorite people. Alan on Monday, you on Tuesday, James . . . okay, James is a stretch. But you get the idea.'

'True enough,' Alan says, toasting me back and returning the smile.

We all share a comfortable silence and sip Callie's divine coffee. Letting the morning creep through us at a decent pace. It's not always like this--in fact, it's rarely so. Many, many mornings the coffee comes in Styrofoam, is far from divine, and is drunk on the run.

'Did everyone get here before me?' I ask. 'Geez. I thought I was being an early bird. The conscientious boss and all that.'

'James isn't here yet,' Alan offers. 'I couldn't sleep last night. Started reading that diary.' He gives me another toast with his cup, a bit sarcastic this time. 'Thanks for that.'

'Likewise,' Callie says.

'Then we're a club,' I reply. I rub my eyes with one hand. 'How far did you guys get?'

'I got to the arrival at her second foster home,' Alan says.

'I'm not there, yet,' I say. 'Callie?'

'I finished it,' she says.

The door opens and James enters. I nurse a secret satisfaction that he's as soaked as I am. Later in arriving too. Ha ha. He doesn't say anything to anyone. Just marches past us toward his desk.

'Good morning,' Callie calls after him.

'I finished the diary last night,' he calls back.

That's all he says. No 'hello' or 'good morning.' James is all business.

'That's our cue,' I say. 'Let's get to work.'

I'm facing everyone. They're seated, I'm standing.

'Let's begin with the diary.' I tell them where I've gotten to.

'James, you finished it. Fill me in. Anything immediately probative past what I've already read?'

He considers this. 'Yes and no. She goes into another foster home, and that doesn't end up well. She has some bad experiences in the group home. Oh, she intimates at one point to having been sexually abused.'

'Great,' I mutter.

'From a purely investigatory standpoint,' James continues, 'there are three areas of immediate follow-up based on what she wrote. There's the original crime scene--the murder of her parents. There's the cop who took an interest in her. Cathy Jones. Jones disappears later, and Sarah doesn't know why.'

'Interesting,' Alan notes. 'And there is his mention to her of prior victims. The poet, the philosophy