So why did Zoe still feel sorestless?
She thought about discussingthings further with Flynn, but he was already next door in his own room,preparing himself for the next day. He was probably studying the files, writingdown a list of possible questions and techniques, working his way up to it. Itwas his first case, after all. He would be nervous about getting it right,especially on his own. Zoe didn’t want to disrupt that and shake hisconfidence.
Not even to point out that she hadbeen right all along to follow pi, and he still hadn’t apologized for brushingher off.
But still, something didn’t quitesit right with her. Zoe lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, eventhough it was too early for sleep. She should really pick up the phone, ordersome takeout that she could have before it got too late in the evening. But shecouldn’t get out of her head for long enough, because something kept bringingher back.
She replayed the scene over andover again in her mind. At first, her concern had all been for the rookie—whetherhe was going to shoot, why he had wanted to, what it would mean if he did. Butnow that it was over and they had at least discussed it, a different view ofthe scene was emerging in Zoe’s head. She was thinking about Pitsis, and hisactions, and how they hadn’t seemed quite to measure up against theunderstanding she had in her mind of this killer.
First, there had been hisknee-jerk reaction: the madcap exit through the back door and over the fence,and then his punch to Flynn’s face. It was unplanned, inelegant. There was nograce to it, and Pitsis certainly hadn’t seemed like a vicious killer in thatmoment. The pi killer was an expert at taking his victims out in differentways, based on what was on hand: drowning them in water, beating their faces tosmush, strangling them. His actions in those cases had to be reactive, and theresponse had to be ultimate. There was no room for error. He struck to kill.
There hadn’t been any reports ofescaped assaults or attempted murders, which likely meant that the killer didn’tmake that kind of mistake. His victims didn’t get away. He targeted them withimmediate brutal force to ensure that they met their end at his hands. A punchto the face, especially one that didn’t even knock his opponent down, seemednot to fit the pattern.
Not only that, but his behavioronce he was down on the ground also seemed odd. Flynn had a gun to his head,ready to shoot. His finger was on the trigger, the safety off. And Pitsis hadlain there and looked up at him and told him to pull the trigger. Told him thathe had nothing left to lose.
From Pitsis’s perspective, pi hadtaken everything from him. His job, his old lifestyle and home, hisindependence, and his relationships. It had turned him from a talented theoristto an alcoholic with multiple arrest records and warrants against his name.
He didn’t worship pi anymore. Didn’tfeel like it was the meaning of everything. It didn’t even seem that he waspursuing it any longer—not if he was spending every day drinking heavily.
And could a habitual drunk evenmanage to work on such complex equations?
The more Zoe thought about it, themore didn’t it add up. The killer seemed to be honoring pi. The carving of thesymbol was like a signature, a sign to their identity. They believed themselvesclosely wrapped up with pi in some way, and not a hateful way. They weren’ttrying to destroy pi or what it stood for—they were reminding people of itsexistence.
Zoe couldn’t be sure if she wasright, or just paranoid. She’d been too relaxed once before, believed tooreadily that the killer was put away and there was no longer any danger. Thatcomplacency had cost her partner’s life. She never wanted to make the samemistake again. Was that what was coloring her judgment? Making her see shapeswhere there were only shadows?
She covered her eyes with the backof her hand, impatient and unable to lay still. She wanted answers to all ofthis. But not only did she have to wait until morning—if she left, she mightnever find out. Flynn would finish the case on his own. The interrogation wouldbe his, and Zoe might only be called up in the case of a trial. Maybe not eventhen.
But what was she supposed to do?Muscle her way back onto the case and go against her agreement with Flynn? Shewould be lucky to get away from this without legal action being taken, if shejust went back and quietly quit the FBI and Flynn never had to make his report.If she stayed, there could be deeper consequences. She might never get hercareer back on track, even if she sacrificed everything to try and keep it.Just like everything else—Shelley, John, even her therapy—her career would beone more thing she had lost hold of.
Zoe sighed with frustration,rolling over and grabbing hold of the pillow. Squeezing it tightly, evenviolently, gave her a little bit of relief. It was just that she had no handleon human body language, on the meanings that gestures and words could revealunder the surface. She had never been good at that.
That had been Shelley’s area ofexpertise.
As little as she wanted to eventhink about Shelley, the very brush of a thought against that memory far toopainful, Zoe had to do something. She had to go deeper. It was like Dr.Applewhite had said: what would Shelley think about the case? What would shesee when she looked at this suspect?
There was a way to try to getthere. It was the one thing Zoe hadn’t wanted to do, above all else: to try toget inside Shelley’s head. To remember the things Shelley had taught her, tosee Shelley’s way of thinking. It would hurt like hell. It would
