circuits of human memory are inflamed with carnal images, they can never be erased. More often they grow and metastasize until they take on more passion than mortal bodies could ever experience, and flay the soul of the betrayed with pain as unbearable as any physical torture.
Of course, keeping back a guilty secret has its own consequences, as I know too well. It is a slow poison, and thorough. Yet it does its work primarily on the betrayer. If one bears up under the strain, almost everything can be salvaged.
My reasoning is simple. Every time in my life I ever confessed anything, no good came of it. The truth was known, hallelujah, and everybody was miserable. The lesson was plain: deny, deny, deny. And two minutes ago, when put to the test I’ve feared so long, I held true to my belief. I did the best thing for everybody.
So why do I feel like shit?
Drewe and I never finished our sandwiches. We never even started them. When I climbed onto the bed with the plate, she pushed aside the covers and without words pulled me under them with her. She was naked, she quickly made me that way, and for the first time in months I had not the slightest suspicion that her desire had anything to do with her quest to become pregnant. All I sensed was a desperate flight from everything conscious, a willful narrowing of the external world, a plunge into the only fire that can truly expunge grief and pain.
Drewe was not Drewe. She was a woman who looked like Drewe, yet moved and urged and cried out without any of the baggage Drewe carries through everyday life-duty and self-reproach and second-guessing and obligation to family-only wide green eyes and pale smooth skin and the unruly auburn hair she was born with. All through it, I knew that this intensity so long withheld, this energy repressed, was what I had always been drawn to in her, had believed that I could bring out in time. But I never did. It took the shattering of routine to do it. An eruption of violence and fear into her rigidly defined existence. A shock sufficient to cut her moorings and force her into uncharted water.
And it will not last. For all the power of her latent passion, Drewe is a creature of equilibrium. Even now, her regular breathing fills the room like the sound of an organic clock measuring the half-life of dreams.
I’ve rested fitfully, in desultory lapses of consciousness that never quite dissolve into sleep. A while ago, I had an absurd dream. I was a young whale thrashing in the shallows near a volcanic beach, kicking and rolling toward deeper water, yet unable to reach the ledge of the great rock shelf and drop into the blue-black haven of peace and forgetfulness. I’m only thankful the air conditioner is holding its own against the night heat.
The ring of the phone stuns me like a klaxon, and I grab for it, hoping to keep it from waking Drewe.
“Cole?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Daniel Baxter.”
“What is it? You got Brahma?”
“Brahma?”
“The killer. The UNSUB.”
“No. We didn’t.”
I sit up on the edge of the bed, a strange buzzing in the back of my head. Drewe’s clock reads two a.m. “You missed him?”
“No, we got the guy we were watching. He was the wrong guy.”
“But you said you traced the plane.”
“We did. And it was owned by this doctor. Right identification numbers, everything. Only this plane hasn’t been off the ground for six months. This guy’s a classic doctor. Takes up a new hobby every six months, buys all the best equipment, then gets bored and moves on to the next one. Right now he’s into high-tech scuba diving.”
“You’re sure it’s the wrong guy?”
“Absolutely. We nailed him as he was walking up to a house. Turns out he was best man at a wedding inside. His brother’s wedding. He had alibis for every single murder. He’s also got one of the best lawyers in New York, and he’s already said publicly that he’ll sue for wrongful arrest.”
“I don’t get it. What explains the plane?”
“Here’s what I think. The UNSUB has his own plane. He wants to use it to get to his killing sites, but he doesn’t want it traceable to him. He could try using fake registration number decals, but in real life that kind of stuff never works. So he asks around, and eventually he finds a guy who has the same model plane he does, but doesn’t fly much. Like a doctor. Then he finds an out-of-the-way airstrip to house his plane. The first time he takes it there, it’s already painted with the numbers of this doctor’s plane. Not only that, he’s dummied up a license in the doctor’s name as well. See? Once the original scene is played, he doesn’t have to fake anything. Whenever he goes to that strip, he’s Doctor So-and-So, not himself. You there, Cole?”
Fully awake now, I speak softly so as not to wake Drewe. “I can see that working. But can’t you just search airports until you find another Beechcraft with those numbers? Or trace every sale of that model for the past twenty years?”
“We’re trying now. I’m calling because my people say you never faxed us the printouts of your sessions with the killer.”
I feel a wave of confusion like the one I felt when Drewe startled me awake in the living room. “Jesus, I’m sorry. When you told me you practically had the guy, it just knocked out all the tension of the past week. I crashed.”
“I know how you feel. But I need everything you have. Right now.”
Glancing back at Drewe, I memorize the fax number Baxter reads off. “If the stuff he told me is true, you might have enough to ID him just from the printouts.”
“I hope so. One other thing, Cole.”
“What?”
“Where’s Miles Turner?”
I sigh angrily. “I don’t know and I’m tired of being asked.”
“Don’t make it worse on yourself. You hid him out. You aided and abetted.”
“You’re right. I aided and abetted a friend who has nothing to do with these murders. He was trying to solve the goddamn things for you, and he still may do it.”
“What does that mean? What’s he doing?”
“Whatever it is, it’s over my head.”
“Is he the one who came up with the tissue donor network angle?”
“Not for now. Just fax that stuff through.”
“You’ll get it. What about EROS? You going to leave it shut down?”
“We’re discussing that right now.”
“I’m out of it now, Mr. Baxter. Just remember that.”
As lightly as I can, I get up from the bed and go to my office. It’s still a wreck. I remove the Brahma printouts from the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet, where I’d hidden them in case Drewe broke her own rule and entered the office. Walking to the fax machine, I notice that I forgot to edit out the details of Erin’s liaison with “her sister’s husband.” Baxter may not recognize the truth behind that story, but eventually someone in the Unit will put it together, even without Lenz’s help. With a black magic marker, I blot out the lines that contain my personal revelations, then gather up the mess and begin loading pages into the fax machine.
It takes a while to feed them all through, long enough to develop a cramp in my back from bending over the machine. When I’m done, I realize I promised to fax copies to Miles as well. I stretch my back and repeat the process. As the last group of pages starts to go through, my office telephone rings. Normally I’d let the machine get it, but it’s late enough now that the possible callers are pretty limited.
“It me,” says Miles when I pick up the cordless.
“You safe?”
“Going with the flow.”
“What’s up?”
“The Trojan Horse didn’t work.” He says this as though his best friend just died.
“Design flaw?”
