The Darker Side

something in between. Lisa liked wood, I think. I've seen very little metal in the furniture here.

There's a file cabinet next to the desk. A six-foot high bookshelf leans up against an opposing wall, more dark wood. I glance at the titles on the book spines. They're almost all travel guides with a gay/

lesbian emphasis. Gay Travel in Italy, Madrid--Simply Fabulous, stuff like that.

A check of the file cabinet reveals nothing of immediate interest. We'll have to go through it all, but that's not why I'm here right now. I'm looking for something, anything, that jumps out, that could help put us on the right path.

I examine the desktop. It's clean, just a slate cup-coaster and a pen. I close my eyes, try to imagine her morning routine. I slip off my shoes, because that's how she'd have walked around in here, that's why she had these plush carpets.

I imagine her waking up, walking to the coffeepot, pouring a hot cup of coffee and heading over to sit, bleary-eyed, in front of the computer . . .

No, that's wrong.

There had been a crucial difference between Lisa and me. When I wake up in the morning, my hair might be a mess, I may have bags under my eyes, I might even think I need to wax my upper lip, but I never have to worry about someone coming to the door unannounced and finding out I'm not a woman. Lisa would have had that worry, a constant concern. I close my eyes, and retrace my mental steps.

I imagine her waking up. First stop would have been the bathroom. Shower, shave her legs if needed, brush her teeth. Do her hair. Do her makeup--nothing fancy, just making sure that it is a woman's face looking back at her. We're all slaves to the mirror in some fashion, but it would have had a whole new dimension for Lisa. Clothes could have remained casual, a T-shirt and sweatpants were fine, but she would have done her face before getting her coffee. She would have woken up and prepared for the possibility of being seen by the world.

Now the rest of it feels true; cup of coffee, walking into this office in her bare feet.

I sit down in the chair and start up her computer. Her wallpaper is a striking photograph of the pyramids of Egypt silhouetted against a cloudless blue sky.

I open her browser and look through the history to see what sites she visited. It's a mix of business and shopping. I find her own website, Rainbow Travels. There's a photograph on the first page. Lisa, smiling, beautiful. I'd never know, from this picture, that she hadn't started her life as a woman.

Pictures . . .

I stand up, walk out of the office, and go back through the living room, the bedroom. I was right--there are no photographs on her walls. No pictures of her family, of Rosario or Dillon, or even of herself. There's a Picasso print and an Ansel Adams black and white, but that's it.

I wonder about this. Why no photographs? Had the idea of seeing her parents' faces every day been painful to her? Or was it simply a continuation of her protecting them from her life, of keeping visitors from making the connection?

I walk back into the office and continue going through her computer. I check out her e-mail. Lots of business e-mail, e-mail relating to online purchases, but again, the oddity--nothing personal. It's the cyberspace version of no family photos.

I'm starting to get an idea here that belies Rosario's vision of Lisa's contentment. The condo was nice, Lisa ran her own business, she had her flat screen and her weed and baby oil and that was all great, but I think this was a place of solitude, of daily routine and loneliness. I don't see any e-mail to or from friends, any visits to dating sites, no evidence of any outreach at all.

I sigh and lean back in the chair. I feel dissatisfied. Where is Lisa in this place? Where's her soul?

My foot kicks against something underneath the desk. Frowning, I move the chair back, crouch forward, and pick it up. When I see what it is, my heartbeat speeds up a little.

It's a brown leather book, embossed with the gold letters Journal on the front.

'Now we're talking,' I murmur.

The first entry is dated about a week ago. Lisa has nice handwriting, a looping, legible script. I read. I'm not sure why I keep these journals. Maybe to record my own loneliness. I don't know.

It helps, I guess, just to sit here every now and then and write the words: I'm lonely, I'm lonely, I'm so damn lonely. I was reading Corinthians yesterday in the Bible. I read it and started weeping. I cried and cried and cried. I couldn't help it. Here's what it said:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always pro- tects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

I read that and I felt for a moment like I couldn't breathe. Like I hurt so hard I'd fly apart.

It was the question, you see, that it brought to my mind: Will I ever have someone to say those words to? Will I? Will anyone ever feel that way about me?

Is there a man out there who's going to kiss me and find out what I am and keep kissing me anyway and forever? And if there is, will I rec- ognize him when he appears?

I know, I know, I'm on a journey, and it's a marathon, not a sprint. But sometimes, I doubt. I doubt myself, I doubt my decisions. Some- times, I'm ashamed to say, I even doubt God. How could I doubt God? God is the only one who's always been there for me.

I'm sorry, God.

Sometimes I just get so damn lonely.

I finish this passage and clear my throat. I move to the next, written two days after the first one. Nana's dead. No surprise, but still, it hurts. Nana was a racist, Nana wouldn't have accepted me the way I am now, but I loved her anyway, I just can't help it. After all, Nana always kept my secret. THE secret. She kept on loving me even after that terrible thing I did, the most shameful act I ever committed, when I frown. It ends there. I run a finger along the inside and realize that pages of the journal have been removed, ripped out. I flip through the later pages.

Then I see it.

And I freeze.

My hands tremble a little bit as I open the journal wider to look, to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing.

At the top of one page, a hand-drawn symbol.

A skull and crossbones.

Below that, a single line:

What do I collect? That's the question, and that's the key. Answer it soon, or more will die.

I drop the journal onto the desktop. My heart is racing. Him. He'd been here. The man on the plane.

The man who killed Lisa.

Alan phrases it as a statement, and not a happy one.

'And he's set a clock. Catch me or I kill again.'

The moment I know, for certain, that a killer is serial, everything stops. It's a moment of total silence, an indrawn breath. The earth stops rotating and a low hum fills my head and thrums through my veins.

It's a terrible pause, a necessary minute where I accept the burden of my profession: until I catch him (or her or them), the killing rolls on. Anyone who dies now is my responsibility.

It's one thing to know that they don't stop until we catch them. It's another thing entirely for them to say outright that they're already homing in on the next victim. A whole different level of pressure.

'Fuck.' He sighs. 'I sure get tired of these guys. Don't they know they'll never be original?'

'It's always new to them.'

'Yeah. What do you want to do?'

I'd called Alan first, without really giving it too much thought. I'd needed to talk to someone, to tell them what I'd found. The shock of adrenaline is fading now.