Dead Sleep

“Look at her arms, John.”

“What about them?”

“No scars.”

“What?”

A wave of vertigo throws me into a spin, though I know I’m standing still. “Jane was attacked by a dog when she was little.”

“Dog?”

The photo begins to quiver in my hand as realizations clamor for attention. I’ve seen this photograph before. But the copy in my hand isn’t a true photo print; it’s an ink-jet facsimile printed on photo paper. Fighting tears, I press the picture to my chest and close my eyes.

“Careful,” John warns. “There might be fingerprints.”

“Look!” Dr. Lenz says over John’s shoulder. “There’s something written on the back.”

John leans forward and studies the back of the print. “It’s an address. Twenty-five-ninety St. Charles.”

“That’s Jane Lacour’s address,” says Lenz.

“There’s a phone number, too.”

“Seven-five-eight, one-nine-ninety-two?” I ask.

“No,” John says softly. “It’s a New York number. We need to trace this right away.”

He reaches for the picture, but I push his hand away, turn over the photo, and read the number: 212-555-2999.

“I know this number,” I whisper.

“Whose is it?” John asks.

“Just a second.” I try to think back through a haze of scotch and Xanax. “Oh my God… it’s Wingate’s gallery. Christopher Wingate. I dialed this number from the plane back from Hong Kong.”

“Jesus,” John says under his breath. “That’s everybody tied in the same knot. Wingate, the UNSUB, and de Becque. They’re all tied together now.”

“Wingate’s number on a victim’s photo,” muses Lenz. “That could mean Wingate selected Jane Lacour.”

“How could he?” asks John. “He hasn’t been in New Orleans for years.”

“He didn’t choose Jane,” I whisper. “He chose me.”

22

The causeway across Lake Pontchartrain is the longest bridge in the world built solely over water. The twenty-three miles of humming concrete and traffic push me inward like a mantra, toward the dark vortex of my fear and guilt. Somewhere on the other side of this shallow lake, amid the exploding construction caused by white flight from New Orleans, stands the house of John Kaiser. The man himself sits beside me in the passenger seat of my rented Mustang, the seat fully reclined so that he can stretch out his wounded leg.

Thirty seconds after he read Christopher Wingate’s number off the back of my photograph, John’s leg gave way and he collapsed in Mrs. Pitre’s driveway. Baxter ordered him back to the hospital, but John argued that he was only tired, that he should have used the walking cane, and that he had to return to the field office to work the new connections between the UNSUB, Wingate, and Marcel de Becque. Baxter gave him two choices: go back to the hospital or go home and rest for the night. John chose the latter, but as we picked up my Mustang from the field office, he called upstairs and had an agent bring down a thick folder filled with the latest Argus-generated enhancements of the abstract Sleeping Women. He’s like I used to be when I got my teeth into a war story – unstoppable.

The picture he pulled from the Ziploc bag floats in my mind like a grayscale emblem of guilt. I’ve placed the photo now. It ran in several major newspapers two years ago, when I won the North American Press Association Award. Wingate must have accessed some database that contained that picture, printed it on photo-quality paper, and sent it to the UNSUB in New Orleans.

“Do you want to talk about it?” John reaches out and touches my knee.

“I don’t know.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Jordan. A little survivor guilt is normal, but this is crazy. You’re forcing everything to fit a predetermined result. And the result you’re reaching for is that Jane died because of you. I don’t know why you want to feel that guilt, but that’s not what happened.”

I squeeze the wheel, trying to control my temper. “I don’t want that guilt.”

“I’m glad. Because that would be really fucked up.”

I grip the wheel still harder to bleed off my exasperation, but it does no good. “Will you call and see if they’ve compared the handwriting? If it’s not Wingate’s, I’ll admit I’m being paranoid. But if it is, we’ll know Wingate mailed or gave the UNSUB my picture.”

John takes out his cell phone, calls the field office, and asks for the forensic unit. “Jenny, John Kaiser. Have you guys heard from New York on that handwriting yet?… What did they say?… I see. One hundred percent sure?… Right. Thanks.” He presses End, then lets his head fall forward and sighs.

“What is it?”

“The phone number on your photo was in Wingate’s handwriting.”

My stomach goes hollow, and I slam the wheel with my open hand. “There it is. Somebody outside New Orleans chose me as victim number five, and it got Jane killed.”

He bites his lower lip and shakes his head. “If I had to pick someone, I’d pick Marcel de Becque.”

“What if he ordered me, John? The way you’d commission any painting? He’s known who I am for years. He tells Wingate he wants me in the next painting, but since I’m traveling all the time, Wingate finds an easy way to supply what de Becque wants. He takes Jane instead.”

“There’s one big hole in that theory.”

“That de Becque didn’t have Jane’s painting? That’s easy. Wingate sold it out from under him. That’s the source of their bad blood.”

“I was talking about coincidence. Every other victim lives in New Orleans. But for some unknown reason, de Becque chooses you – a world traveler based in San Francisco – as victim number five. To fill de Becque’s order, Wingate decides to use your twin sister as a substitute. And that substitute just happens to live in the same city as all the other victims? That’s a statistical impossibility.”

A low pounding has started at the base of my skull. I reach down to the floor and unzip my fanny pack, looking for my pill bottle.

“What’s that?” John asks as I bring it up.

“Xanax.”

“ Tranquilizers?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Xanax is a chemical cousin of Valium.”

“I know that. Look, I need to calm down.”

He looks out his window at the lake, but I know he’s not going to let it drop. “Do you take them regularly?”

I pop off the lid, shake two pills into my hand, and swallow them dry. “This has been a bad day, okay? I watched Wendy die. I watched you get shot. A guy tried to kidnap me, and I just found out I’m responsible for my sister’s death. You can put me in rehab tomorrow.”

He looks back at me, his hazel eyes filled with concern. “You do what you have to do to get through this. I’m just worried about you. And me. We’ve got another fifteen minutes in the car. You’re not going to fall asleep at the wheel, are you?”

I laugh. “Don’t worry about that. Two of these would put you out, but they’ll barely dent me.”

He studies me for a long moment, then faces the causeway again. “Sooner or later, we’re going to break through the wall, Jordan. We’re going to find those women. All of them.”

Sooner or later. It had better be sooner. Later is like the horizon; it recedes as you