The Darker Side

trying to be secret.'

I remember my original words to AD Jones about the Preacher. I'd said he would have used a disguise on the plane, something simple with perhaps a single striking feature.

Something shutter clicks inside me.

I've tried to describe this phenomenon to others, the thing that always seems to herald a sudden realization on my part. It's like losing time, as though some part of my consciousness grays out, for just a millisecond. I'm left wondering what happened in that millisecond. What did I miss? The answer is simple: the thing I needed to see came into view, but I was not yet ready to understand it. I regain that lost time when I do.

That's what just happened, and I'm left to wonder: What is it that I need to understand? What's that thing that wants to be seen?

'Talk to me, James,' I murmur. 'List out the component parts of the problem one by one.'

He doesn't ask me why; we've been down this road before.

'He chooses his victims based on their confessions. He's able to do this because he's been bugging confessionals in churches that cater to the more troubled sections of society. The congregations of these churches tend to be tight-knit communities.'

'Stop there. Why do they tend to be so tight-knit?'

'Common experiences.'

'Simpler than that,' I say. 'All they have in common is each other. No one else accepts them as they are, faults and all.'

'Fair enough--which leads us back down the same road: people are watched closely when they come into a group like that, and noticed when they leave. No one remembers a guy leaving around the same time as the victim's disappearance.'

Plain sight, plain sight, plain sight . . .

The words roll through me like waves that never crest. It's maddening. I try to be the moon, pulling them toward me with my gravity. They come close, but vanish before they ever hit the shore.

'Go on,' I say.

'He needed access, so he had to be there. But no one remembers him being there.'

I bolt upright.

The waves hit the shore.

Plain sight . . .

'Because he wasn't there, ' I say, excited. 'He understood the mechanics of a group like the ones he needed to infiltrate.'

The intimacy created when you admit that you're a fuckup and the people you admit it to accept you anyway, because hey--they're fuckups too.

'Someone working with him, you mean,' James says. 'How is that any different? They'd still be missed if they left when the victims did.'

'That's exactly right. But they didn't disappear when the victims did. They waited for a while, maybe a few weeks, maybe even a month, and then they slipped away. They'd never need an alibi because they were right there with the rest of the congregation while the victim was being kidnapped and killed.'

James frowns. 'A lot of supposition.'

'Logical supposition, though, don't you think?'

'It makes sense,' he allows. 'We need to make the same calls again, but this time we need to broaden our questions. Ask about men that left not long after the victims went missing, but not immediately.'

'And who had been close to the victims,' I add. 'It'd be a part of it for them. Gathering intel, getting familiar with the victim's life.'

'You know,' Alan says, 'it'd make the most sense for them to be linear in their actions.'

'I don't follow,' I say.

'Their victim pool is going to be filled with people who tend to be transient or unstable. They'd need to plant the bug, find the victim, and make their move. They couldn't afford to leave and come back, they'd run the risk that their chosen victim had moved on. They'd need to stay focused and remain on-site until the deed was done.'

'So?'

'So there should be a lot of time between murders, right? Pick a vic, grab her, film her, kill her, move on to the new locale. That's a lot of logistics. But we have three dead in less than two weeks. Lisa Reid, Rosemary Sonnenfeld, and Valerie Cavanaugh. Seems to me it's possible he would have had to pitch in directly on at least one of those in terms of gathering intel, don't you think?'

'It's a good point,' Callie says, 'but which one?'

'Lisa Reid.' James says it as I think it. 'Has to be. She's the one departure, the only victim who wasn't born a woman. She's also the one he used to get our attention.'

I feel the excitement rising in me again. The waves are rolling, moving, cresting, and they all threaten to reach the shore together.

'We need to focus on those two, right now--Lisa and Rosemary. How did he choose Lisa, anyway? How'd she come on his radar? She wasn't in his usual stomping grounds, he went after her, she didn't come to him. So how'd he even know about her? Rosemary is one of our most recent victims and we have an in with Yates. He'll remember something, someone close to her who--'

I stop talking as a big wave, a huge wave, comes crashing into shore, roaring for what seems like forever.

Hiding right in plain sight . . .

'He told me early on,' I whisper.

'What is it?' Callie asks.

'Yates. We asked to talk to Rosemary's known associates. She only had one. Andrea.' I swallow. I look at Alan. 'Call Yates. Find out Andrea's last name and check into her background. I have a feeling we'll find it's bogus and that she's long, long gone.'

36

'LISA REID WAS A BIT OF AN INTERNAL SCANDAL FOR THE church,' Cardinal Ross tells me. 'The priest running that particular church is a younger man, Father Strain. He's part of a small but growing group of priests who are young, smart, and willing to disagree--

albeit respectfully--with Rome on certain issues.'

'I assume taking confession from a transsexual would fit the bill?'

'Yes and no.'

I frown. 'Sounds complicated.'

'The church's stand on homosexuality remains as it has been. Homosexuality is regarded as a sin. Transgendered individuals are considered to be effeminate, i.e., homosexuals who have used the benefits of modern technology to change their outward appearance to match their inner desires. The fact of that change is not considered by the church to remove the truth that they were born as God created them.'

'So a transgendered person is basically considered to be a homosexual.'

'Yes.'

'You said 'effeminate.' What about women changing to men?'

'Both are held to the same standard. Homosexuality is a sin.'

'So what does a homosexual who wants to be a Roman Catholic do?'

'They can receive confession, and are urged to do so, until such time as they change their ways and become as God created them and the Bible demands. If they're unable to become completely 'straight'--

to marry a member of the opposite sex, for example--then they are expected to practice chastity. Until either of these things happen, they are not to take part in Holy Communion or various other sacraments.'

'Then . . . I don't understand. Where's the conflict with Strain?'

'Twofold. Strain was giving Communion to Dexter Reid, for one.'

'And the other?'

'Parishioners complained. It can be a different experience depending on where you are, Agent Barrett. A homosexual walking into a church in Los Angeles might expect different treatment than one walking into a church in