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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon.
The Third Highway Series Part 1:
A Better Mouse Trap
Chapter 1
Witch 1
Gladwyn
Philadelphia, PA
It is a peculiar fact of life that even those events which would, under normal circumstance, horrify and paralyze us, can become, with familiarity, quite mundane and trivial. So it was that, squatting beside a vast and sticky pool of blood on an antique oriental carpet that had no doubt cost more than the entire house he lived in, Detective Michael Neely was much less conscious of the blood than of the carpet. The blood he had seen before, too many times to count. But it had mostly been spilled on the black macadam streets of Philly's worst neighborhoods--another "drug-related" killing, a domestic "quarrel" gone really bad, a fight in a bar turned into murder--not within the hushed rooms of one of the cities' most lavish homes. And of course there was the fact that the victim--or alleged victim, until they actually found the body he supposed she must remain that--was an eight-year-old girl. That was different too, especially since she wasn't a black eight-year-old caught in the crossfire or killed by a drugged-out relative but the daughter of one of the mayor's closest friends and political allies. Still, there was an awful lot of blood, he thought, wondering just how much blood a little girl had in her body, anyway. He would have to ask the M.E. about that, he decided, standing up.
The movement in the doorway caught his attention and he turned as a tall, slim, dark- haired man in a very conservative dark suit entered with his partner, Tom Hetch.
"Just when we had given up all hope, Mikey, the cavalry arrives," Hetch said in his usual sarcastic style.
"Ah," Mike responded, extending his hand to the stranger, "gotta be the FBI."
"Special Agent Jarod Hoover," the new arrival answered, "Detective Neely?"
"Mike, just Mike."
"Right. Call me Jarod."
"And in this neighborhood, you can call me Mr. Rogers," Hetch added quickly, causing Jarod to hide his perplexity at the comment. "And just who was it that called in the FBI, Jarod? Because it wasn't me--that's the kind of thing I would have remembered--and Mikey here says it wasn't him . . "
"The call came in from Captain Lewis. That's all I know. I got here as soon as I could," Jarod answered matter-of-factly.
"Really," Hetch said slowly. "Lewis. Interesting. You know he left this morning on vacation? Missing the chance to hobnob with the Bureau. How unfortunate. By the way, I thought you guys always came in pairs, like socks--lost your partner in the dryer?"
"He couldn't come. Family illness. How long at this point from the estimated time of murder ?" Jarod asked, trying to deflect Hetch's constant questions and getting more and more puzzled. Why would his partner have been in a dryer?
"Rudy--that's our M.E., you just missed him--he's saying 18 hours more or less, from congealing of the blood. That puts it at around 2 am. The little girl was last seen--" Mike consulted his pocket-sized notebook --"8:00 last night. By the live-in nanny. Put her to bed, read part of a book--about rabbits, she tells me--turned out the lights to the kid's room, went to her own room, watched TV until Leno was over. Fell asleep. Heard nada. Found the blood this morning--no kid. That's it." He flipped the notebook closed.
"The parents?" Jarod asked.
"Yes, the parents. When we hear anything from the despondent parents you will absolutely be the first to know," Hetch said.
"No one has spoken to the parents yet?" Jarod asked, clearly surprised.
"Well, actually no. But we've tried. We've all tried," Mike answered. "The got their very, very expensive lawyer and they are not talking to anybody. And that means anybody. Right now we sure as hell don't have enough cause to subpoena anybody. As for the story so far: the nanny says both parents went to bed early. Got in from the airport exhausted-- the father's got his own plane--they were at their house in Maine for the past week. We're checking all this out right now. The little girl stayed here, went to school yesterday like normal. Private school, of course. The nanny says both parent's went right upstairs, said they didn't want to be disturbed--when she went to take the kid to bed their lights were already out. There's a live-in housekeeper, too--pretty hysterical right now, but she confirms the parents being away. That's what we got. That, and no body. No ransom note. No suspect. No motive. No sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle. No sign of somebody walking out of here carrying a dead kid dripping blood--no bloody footprints, no open doors or windows. No blood on a window sill, no blood on the lawn, the driveway, the street. No blood anywhere so far but right here. A lot of it here, though, we got a lot of blood right here."
Jarod looked again at the pool of blood. He'd come as soon as he could patch together a story and an FBI badge. The newspaper accounts had intrigued him--the missing child, presumed dead, the uncooperative parents. At the time, it had seemed a simple matter, really. He'd thought he would be able to see something that the police were missing. But the silence of the big house and the awareness of how much might depend of his actions weighed on him oppressively. For the first time since he'd left the Centre and begun his own private war against injustice he felt in over his head. He knew he could handle the cops--at least for as long as he would be staying. Mike was friendly enough and seemed glad to have help in this baffling matter. Hetch could pose problems if he starting asking too many questions, but, again, Jarod wasn't planning on sticking around very long. But he wasn't sure, at that moment, just what to do next.
Mike was right. A lot of blood. No answers.
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"What I'm saying is, you don't have a fucking homicide if you don't have fucking a body and we all know you have no fucking body so it's no fucking homicide!"
Jarod blanched slightly as he entered the squad room with Mike, just as this shouted exclamation thundered out from a small room in front of them across the large, cluttered space.
"OK, sure--we've got--according to Rudy--enough blood of the little girl's blood type to account for 99% of what was in her body all over the floor, we've got parents that won't talk to us, plus we've got our own personal FBI genius telling us it's a murder--not afraid, I might add, to use the despised "M" word--but you'd really rather we let some traffic cop handle the case, is that what you're saying?" Hetch yelled back inside the room.
"FBI?" a third voice, calmer than the other two, asked. "And just who called in the FBI?"
Jarod looked at Mike, who only shrugged. "Should I go explain . . " Jarod began.
"Whatever floats your boat, G-man", Mike answered, "makes no never-mind to me, personally. But I'd just a soon let the Chief and Hetch fight it out themselves. Evidently there is some concern we jumped the gun on this thing. So the guys from upstairs want an explanation. You want some coffee?"
"Coffee sounds great," Jarod responded, "but why will that 'float my boat', exactly?"
"What, you never heard that, 'it floats your boat'? Where you from, anyway? But I suppose the FBI is a whole lot more professional than this sorry lot around here. Sometimes I think we are literally the dregs of humanity, man--who else you gonna get to do this job, though, some genius?"
Jarod smiled. "This case is starting to feel like you need a genius."
"Yeah, I'll look in the paper under 'genius' and see if there are any listed. Never can find one when I need one. Not in this precinct, not in Philly," Mike said.
In the background, Jarod heard Hetch's nasal voice raised in anger again, but muffled now as he and Mike entered another small side room that was host to an ancient, battered coffee maker, a few equally beat up tables and chairs and what appeared to be the world's oldest water cooler. They each made themselves a cup of coffee and sat facing each other at one of the tables. Jarod stirred his pensively, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in this latest role.
"So, G-man, what's your take on this thing, huh? We got a murder for sure, or a kidnapping maybe, or some third possibility the brass upstairs is about to spring on us?" Mike asked.
"That was a lot of blood. Could the little girl survive losing that much blood? Frankly, I think not. Certainly she would be in shock, even if she didn't die immediately. You're checking doctors, hospitals--and pharmacies to see if we've got a panicked attacker trying to treat her wounds himself. We have no weapon. The nanny and housekeeper have reported nothing missing from the house that could have been used as a weapon. The parents remain silent. That is the most troubling part of this case, so far." Jarod looked off across the room for a moment, imagining parents so uncaring as to not offer to help in any way possible. His own past mysteries nagged at him. A child missing, odd circumstances, no motive. What next?
"What next?" Mike asked, jarring Jarod out of his thoughts. "I'm thinking background-- gotta find some kind of freaking angle here. Motive? For what--kidnapping, murder? Was mommy or daddy beating up on little Rebecca? It went too far? Then what--panic, hid the body, both in it together? Or kidnapping. The parents are loaded, man, money coming out the wazoo. Plus political connections. So who did daddy piss off, right--ex-business partner, ex-employee--hell, ex-wife? "
"Ah, yes, ex-wives!" Hetch's voice: he had just walked into the room and stood beside them. "That's my angle, right there. With three of my own I am the expert! They are. . . " he paused for affect and lowered his voice to menacing growl . . ." unpredictable. Treacherous." His voice lightened, "Unfortunately, in this situation we have a distinct and unexpected paucity of ex-wives. None. Likewise no ex-husbands on the Mrs' side. Mr. Caspari, however, does own a very large, very prosperous, rather mysterious business. As you said, Mikey, the money is coming out his wazoo. 'The Caspari Group'. Now what do you suppose The Caspari Group does, exactly? Not much of a hint in the name, is there? What happened to great, old-fashioned business names, like 'Jake's Towing', 'Guido's Bakery', 'McKensys Rip-Off Loan Sharks'? There was a time, you knew what a business did. So, I am off to find out what the fuck 'The Caspari Group' does. I will leave you, Special Agent 'Hoover', whatever, in the capable hands of my esteemed partner. "
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, here, hold on!" Mike exclaimed, his voice rising, "Maybe we should decide together what we do next. We're partners, right?"
"What, and take all the fun out of it? We can't have that, now can we, Mikey? We both know what avenue you wish to pursue. I leave you to challenge the professional judgment of our own personal Special Agent with your plan. I am, as they say, outta here!" Hetch made a theatrical gesture indicating his departure and left the room, heading toward the exit.
"Least he could have done was told us how the argument with the brass came out. 'Course I'd know if we was off the case, I suppose, and if they decided this was something other than a possible homicide, like an alien abduction or something," Mike mused. "You believe in that stuff, Jarod, that alien abduction shit? I hear you Feds got a special branch that goes around checking into that stuff."
"Only on TV, " Jarod answered.
"But what do you think, you know, personally: you think there's anything to it?"
"I try to keep an open mind," Jarod said thoughtfully.
"Well, that's good news, G-man, because Hetch was hinting about my next move and we are about to find just how open your mind really is."
"Really," Jarod answered, intrigued.
"Oh, yeah. We are going to visit a very, very special lady. A friend, more or less--a colleague. Right, 'colleague': I like that. Hetch disapproves. Hetch is a skeptic."
"A skeptic about what, Mike?"
"Well, my friend, she's helped before with cases like this. Not just for me, lots of times, all over the country, I bet even worked with the FBI--hardly anyone likes to admit it, though. Not me, I'm not proud, I take any help I can get. You, Hetch--I'm not particular. But I'm not saying you got to come with me. Maybe this is were the Bureau stops being so open- minded," Mike paused and looked Jarod right in the eye. "She's a psychic."
"Really," Jarod answered. "Whatever floats your boat, Mike, whatever floats your boat."
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Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Mike drove, heading north out of the city on increasingly less-traveled roads. Once they had left Route 95 and began driving the winding two-lanes, Jarod saw a land in transition from rural to suburban, with condo developments and strip-malls abutting grand old estates and a few remaining working farms. Clearly nervous about their destination, Mike talked the whole way, and Jarod learned that he had been born in the worst building in the worst block of public housing in the worst section of Philadelphia and had lost one brother to drugs, another to jail for gang activities, and a sister to a secession of awful choices: too many bad boyfriends, babies and drugs. He found himself liking Mike a great deal, but puzzled that this seemingly tough as nails street kid would wind up relying on a psychic to solve a crime. And although Mike seemed willing to speak at length about anything else, he would only hint that he owed some great debt to the woman they were about to visit, and that he felt a deep respect for her--and for her abilities. After almost an hour and a half of driving, they finally pulled off a poorly maintained country road into a long gravel driveway that curved out of sight between mature shade trees in their full blaze of fall coloring. The grass had recently been cut and the rich smell of it filled the air. There were glimpses of brightly colored gardens just out of sight between the trees, and then quite suddenly a massive iron fence blocked their path, complete with a huge double gate. Mike pulled slowly up to the gate and just waited patiently, silently. The panels hinged open after a brief pause and they drove on as the gates shut behind them without sound.
The house, when it finally came into view, was not as imposing as Jarod had anticipated from the well-kept grounds. An old stone farm house with cedar shingles on it's steeply angled roofs, it had a simple elegance enhanced by a two story greenhouse addition to one end. There were several scattered out buildings--garages, a tall wooden barn, a woodshed in which firewood was neatly stacked, and a slatted structure Jarod assumed had once been a corn crib. Flowers grew in beds along the curving driveway and brick walkways, but there was a pervasive casualness to it all, as though it all had happened without plan or effort--certainly not as though some huge staff of gardeners had slaved over it all. The front door was painted bright red, the shutters a dark green. And as they walked toward that red door, it swung open before them, just as had the iron gates. Entering the dark hallway, they saw no one.
Mike pushed the door shut behind them. "Spooky, huh?" he said, raising his eyebrows. A smallish dog--some sort of terrier mix--no doubt, came loping out of a room to their right, along with a rather husky woman's voice.
"That you, Mike, or did I just let in trouble?"
"Hell, Laura, you got me, you got trouble, too," Mike laughed.
They followed the voice through one room filled with unpretentious antiques into the greenhouse addition, followed by the dog, now wagging it's tail furiously.
Jarod stopped and bent down to pet the dog, which rose to lick his face. He then followed Mike, who was standing beside a tall, tan woman wearing a white tee shirt, a short khaki skirt and sandals. He noticed that she was nearly his height even before he saw the well defined muscles in her arms and legs. She had dark auburn hair, cut short and slightly tousled, as though she had just run her hands through it to style it, large, expressive brown eyes and full, slightly smiling lips. The greenhouse around them was filled with colorful flowering plants and she stood in a patch of bright sunlight. She was, he thought, hardly the stereotypical crystal ball-gazing, fortune-telling gypsy he had half expected.
She held out her hand. "The FBI was expecting something different, I believe," she said, smiling more broadly. "I hope you are not too disappointed in a poor gypsy woman?" she added in a thick, phony Eastern European accent.
"Jarod", he said, meeting her firm handshake, but was startled when she pulled back for an instant at his touch and quite suddenly lost her smile, looking him intensely in the eyes.
She seemed to catch herself just as quickly, turning to Mike with a laugh, "Did you tell him I was scary, Mike, or a haggard old crone? "
"This is Laura Greggor, Jarod. And the only thing scary about her is how beautiful she is."
Jarod looked closely at Mike, who was staring quite openly at Laura, and saw all the hunger this poor kid from the projects felt for this tall, tanned, beautiful woman. Clearly wealthy, as well. And Jarod thought he understood why Mike would use any possible excuse to make this long drive into the country.
"So?" she asked, "what can I do for you?"
"Laura, what we have here is, we have a situation. We have a crime, definitely, and a little girl who is missing, or maybe worse. Also we have parents that are no help. Won't talk to us. Won't talk to the FBI, Jarod here. I don't know. We need to know, first off, what we have--a murder, a kidnapping, what. You can tell, right, if someone is dead or not?"
"Well, that depends. Usually, yes, I could tell that. In a sense I look for them--if I can't find them we can figure they are dead, " she answered.
"'Look for them', how?" Jarod asked.
"Well, that's not easy to explain. Easier to show you. Mike, I'll need access to the crime scene."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. Jarod doesn't have his partner with him, and everybody knows FBI always travel in twos, so how about we say you're his partner? That way the uniforms on the scene aren't wondering who you are. Who knows, maybe the parents will even talk to a G-lady, as it were. When can you do this?"
"We can leave as soon as I change," she said.
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Laura had disappeared upstairs for only a short while, transforming herself--with the help of a no-nonsense, flax-colored power suit--into the very picture of a female FBI agent. She'd followed them all the way back to the city and the Caspari's house in her black Jaguar, leaving it parked around the corner so as not to cause suspicion with a very noticeably non-FBI vehicle. If Jarod had been expecting any theatrics he was disappointed--she had simply looked over the house, standing for quite some time over the pool of blood, then said she was ready to leave. Sitting together in a booth at a restaurant close to the police station where Mike was evidently well-known, they ordered a meal and drinks and began to discuss what Laura could tell them about the case.
She had ordered a glass of dry red wine and Jarod, who sat directly across from her, found himself watching her take slow, clearly pleasurable sips of the dark liquid. Now that she had taken off her long-sleeved linen jacket he could again appreciate her strong, deeply tanned arms and mused about that smooth, honey-colored skin, which seemed to almost glow with warmth. He thought to himself that he was merely picking up on Mike's desire for this woman, that this was some primitive male competitiveness, inspired by a rather intimidatingly self-assured woman. Still, he could not stop watching her lips as she sipped the wine. There was something else, equally primitive but beyond his experience, stirring, as well. The feeling of being in over his head kept returning and he found himself rather enjoying the unfamiliar sensation.
Mike had just finished running through all they knew at this point in the case to catch Laura up on it when Jarod heard a nasal voice--a bit too loud--behind him. "Ah, if it isn't my favorite witchy woman! Tell me, Laura, what would it take to make you the new future ex-Mrs. Hetch?"
"Well, a flame thrower pointed at my heart would sure help, Hetch," she answered. "Care to join us or would you rather just spoil our evening while hovering behind Jarod like an apparition?"
"Oh, sweet mistress of all apparitions, can I have your permission to sit?" Hetch mocked.
"Do as you damn well please Hetch, just get out of the lady's face," Mike said with an edge in his voice.
"Take it easy, big guy, I'm just making small talk. You know," Hetch continued, sitting beside Jarod, "I've never seen a lady with muscles like that. It's just a bit scary, don't you agree, Mr. Special Agent Man? One night, Laura, you and I are really going to have to arm wrestle."
"Who's holding the bets?" Jarod asked, pleased to be trying out a bit of slang he had picked up on his last adventure.
"Ain't you never heard that 'strong is beautiful', Hetch?" Mike asked, leaning forward across the table toward his partner.
"What would be really 'beautiful' right now would be a lead on this fucking case," Hetch answered. "I have been down town, as they say, girls and boys, and what I've got is a big fat zero. Nobody is telling ole' Hetch a damned thing. Mr. Saintly Fucking Caspari has no enemies, no nasty little secrets, no hidden agenda, nothing. In fact, 'nothing' sums it up pretty well right now. What we've got is nothing!"
"No," Laura said quietly, "what we have is a puzzle inside a puzzle. I don't think any of us are getting this. There is something missing, something we are just not seeing."
"You saw nothing at the Caspari's house, Laura?" Jarod asked.
"Well, no, I saw something--I'm just not sure how to put in perspective. "
"So, do we have a dead kid or what?" Mike asked.
"I hate to say this, but I'm just not sure. I've only rarely encountered this sort of --well-- problem. Where I can't tell at least that much immediately. I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure anything happened at that house--or at least, not what it looks like happened. "
"And the blood, dear lady, the voluminous, vast and unmistakable sea of blood--a nose bleed perhaps, a cut finger?"
"Hetch, you don't get what I'm saying. It's not what it seems. There's something else happening here than we think, and I definitely don't think that's Rebecca Caspari's blood all over the floor," Laura answered slowly and calmly.
"What have we got on the blood so far, Hetch?" Mike asked.
"Rudy says it could be hers, it could not be hers. A match as of now, but only with the most basic of tests. Gentlemen--and lady--we have got ourselves a genuine mystery. And we are getting no where fast!"
"We all think that," Jarod said. "Look, I'm not used to working with other people--except my partner of course--but I think it's clear we all feel something is just basically wrong with this whole case. Too many loose ends, too many dead ends. Maybe we need to start over from the beginning."
"Well, count me out, tonight," Hetch said. "What I need is alcohol, in more massive quantities than I could possibly afford here, however charming the company. I move on, alone, unloved, into the night! With just about zero chance of getting laid--but please, please: no tears for me. The sun has long since set like a bloated melon and this particular cowboy has watched it dip beneath the yardarm----"
"Hetch, if you don't stop mixing metaphors we will be arm wrestling, and I'm warning you, I take no prisoners!" Laura laughed as Hetch got up, stretched and turned to go.
"Ah, madam: promises, promises!" he said in parting, walking out the door.
Mike stood up as Hetch departed. "I, too, gotta go," he said. "Four beers--gotta go home."
"To your lovely wife, " Laura added.
"Yes," Mike said, "to my beautiful, wonderful, if-I-come-home-sloshed-she'll-kick-my-butt wife. Bless her! She's saved my unworthy ass more times than I want to admit." Mike draped an arm over Jarod's shoulder. "And I am trusting you, G-man, old buddy, to take good care of the second most beautiful woman I know. Now, you wouldn't let me down, FBI, would you? You wouldn't destroy my faith in the goddamned mother fucking FBI?"
"You can trust me completely, Mike, " Jarod said, meaning every word literally.
"Right!" Mike said, shaking his head, "right! He's a fucking blessed saint! And a genius! Right!"
And with that he left.
"I didn't even know Mike was married," Jarod said, watching him leave, slightly amazed that although he had talked for an hour and a half straight both ways to Laura's house Mike had never mentioned his wife.
"Guys!" Laura said in answer, "they can talk to each other for hours and never say one real, important thing."
"Unlike women . . ?" Jarod questioned.
"Yeah," she answered, looking him straight in the eye, "unlike women, who will tell you straight up you're no fucking FBI agent."
"Oh," Jarod answered, trying what he hoped was a charming smile, "do I have to show you my badge?"
"Look, I know you're not FBI. And I know you're being pursued--or stalked, or whatever- -by this woman you keep thinking about, and her friends--a group of people, anyway, I clearly see several people. Chasing you, not sure why. Ex-wife? I think not, though. Also, something else--your past. Prison, maybe? A locked door, clearly. You feel so free now. For the first time in your life. I just keep getting that, 'for the first time in my life.' Like a mantra. What the hell are you, Jarod, where did you come from? And why are you here?"
He took a quick, deep breath. He realized his heart was pounding. He made an effort to relax, to steady himself. Always in the face of being caught in one of his many disguises before he had managed total calm, total control. This time it was just so unexpected.
"Where's this from, Laura?" he managed to say with what seemed to him complete control.
"Where indeed, Jarod. You're lying to Mike, lying to me, lying twenty-four fucking hours a day. I don't really get it, except I understand it's what you think you must do, for self- protection. Also, you feel it's simply what you do--what you are, something like that. Fate? Karma? Whatever. You're in a great deal of personal danger, do you know that? This woman--she's close to you, closer than you think. I mean physically, literally close-- not some emotional baggage between you. She wants to kill you. That's her mantra. Or at least lock you away again. For her, for her own sick satisfaction. She's thinking it's what SHE must do. Very, very kinky, by the way. Sexy, in a sick way. Who is this bitch, anyway?"
Jarod looked at her more closely, with a sudden and unsettling respect. She knew things no one could know. Was there more? What else did Laura know about him?
"So maybe you're really psychic," Jarod said. "I never thought that was possible. I was taught it was. . . an unlikely explanation. How does that happen? I mean, is it like you just know something suddenly, completely, or it comes to you little by little or ---"
"So now you're a believer?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure," he answered. "What do I need to know to understand this? How you could know about Miss---about what you know?"
"You want my advise: have a drink," Laura said, quite seriously. "What you need is to let go a little. Relax a bit. You're wound sort of tight--didn't anyone ever tell you that before? You are safe right now, right here, with me. Trust me on that. Do you trust me?"
"Why not," he answered, not quite sure of it. "You think I need alcohol?"
"Well, you need to shut down about 99% of your brain, so I guess alcohol would help. It always works for me. It's the second most fun way of relaxing I know."
Jarod went to the bar and asked for two glasses of red wine--what the lady was drinking. He carried them back and then sat staring at the thin, delicate glass in his hand, wondering what the number one "most fun way to relax" Laura knew about was. The dark and somewhat mysterious fluid looked vaguely ominous. Perhaps the other way would be a better choice. He pondered the concept of letting go.
Looking across the table at her as he tried his first tentative sip--bitter but not unpleasant, after all, he only sputtered and choked a bit--and thought about what it meant that Laura knew the things she knew. She was either genuinely psychic, or she was sent here from the Centre to trap him. And Miss Parker was waiting outside. With a big gun and handcuffs. He smiled a bit at the thought. And took another sip of wine. That he might run so hard, so fast, so very cleverly--only to be caught like this. Because of a beautiful woman. Make that two beautiful women.
"It's acidic," he said, taking yet another sip of wine.
"An acquired taste," she answered, "like all the best things in life. Like garlic. Like trust. Like the truth. Like rough sex and loud music. Get used to it." She shrugged.
"Part of me thinks you're a trap, that you're setting me up," he told her with a candor he found unexpected. He hadn't actually meant to say that, at all.
"Because you can't fathom how I would know what I know, because it's just too weird. Because it destroys your tidy, complacent, narrow, black-white little view of reality ---"
"You know, I do sometimes get angry," he heard himself say. "Many people have found out the hard way it's not wise to--what is it they say: to 'piss me off'." He surprised himself again--he also hadn't planned on saying that.
He felt a bit light-headed and noticed that the dim lights in the bar seemed suddenly brighter and more intense. Also, oddly enough, that Laura's mouth had a truly remarkable, very sensuous curve when she smiled. In fact, her realized he was staring openly at her mouth. And that it felt good to do that.
"Jarod," she said, leaning forward, "actually, what I'm trying to do is that exactly, just a little. I need you to help me tonight, to do something rather risky, rather scary--something Mike couldn't do, but which could open this Caspari thing open for all of us. I want you to let down your guard a bit. To let go a bit. Because I need the rational side of you to make it work, but doubt that side alone would let it happen."
Jarod took another sip of wine, recalling the deeply sensual look on Laura's face as she drank, feeling a reciprocal, unfamiliar warmth throughout his body. And he felt a bit more alive than he ever had before. 'In over my head,' he thought again. Enjoying that feeling, savoring that thought.
"I could possibly do that, whatever it is," he told her. "Many things seem possible right now . . . But of course I need an explanation. Also, an answer."
"Ask away," she said in a husky voice, and he sensed there was some coded message in her simple words that he simply wasn't getting. Her foot brushed lightly--just for a moment--against his leg under the table and the sensation was like an electric shock.
He nearly spilled the small amount of wine remaining in his glass.
It took him a moment to collect his thoughts. His brain seemed oddly unresponsive. "Could you tell me more, more about myself, about my past?' he finally asked her. "I have questions, questions no one can answer--or, those who could answer, won't. There are areas where, well, where I know too little . . . "
"Yes, perhaps," she answered slowly, thoughtfully. "That would take . . . well, it would take some effort on both our parts but it's certainly possible. I would, I think, be willing to try."
"Effort? What sort of effort?" Jarod asked.
"Complicated," she answered. "Finish your wine. We can talk later. What I know about you now, to tell you the truth, I got all at once, when we shook hands, when you touched me. That's often how it happens. Like just a sudden burst of knowledge. Most often with physical contact. The sort of questions you're asking--well, it would take a more . . . well, just 'more': more contact. Between you and I. Um, like, a lot more, very physical, contact. . . which I would be willing to try. Absolutely. If you wanted to."
Once again he was sure she was trying to tell him something, but in some sort of obscure code. He was at a complete loss as to how to respond. She was leaning quite close to him, watching his eyes intently, her lips slightly parted. He knew she was expecting an answer of some kind from him, but had no idea what the question was. He decided to try to distract her.
He reached across the table and suddenly took both her hands in his, feeling the smooth, soft skin, warm beyond expectations, and the firm flesh beneath. And was jolted by another electric shock, or whatever the hell it was. "What can you see about me now?" he asked after a moment, "tell me what you can see."
Laura gasped a bit and tried at first to pull her hands away from his grasp, then relaxed, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. Whatever she saw evidently had disturbed her. Or, perhaps, she felt the electricity between them, as well--he wasn't sure what to think.
"I see a child who is alone. And tormented. I see darkness and longing and no way out. No way out! That repeated over and over. And a sense of loss--loss of innocence, loss of trust--someone betrays you, deeply, deeply wounded. Anger, where there had been acceptance. And then, more recently: that woman. What is it with her, exactly? She looks at you like--like she wants to literally eat you up." She opened her eyes, "Oh--and I see that the feeling is mutual."
"You misunderstand," Jarod told her, "the nature of the relationship."
A Better Mouse Trap
Chapter 1
Witch 1
Gladwyn
Philadelphia, PA
It is a peculiar fact of life that even those events which would, under normal circumstance, horrify and paralyze us, can become, with familiarity, quite mundane and trivial. So it was that, squatting beside a vast and sticky pool of blood on an antique oriental carpet that had no doubt cost more than the entire house he lived in, Detective Michael Neely was much less conscious of the blood than of the carpet. The blood he had seen before, too many times to count. But it had mostly been spilled on the black macadam streets of Philly's worst neighborhoods--another "drug-related" killing, a domestic "quarrel" gone really bad, a fight in a bar turned into murder--not within the hushed rooms of one of the cities' most lavish homes. And of course there was the fact that the victim--or alleged victim, until they actually found the body he supposed she must remain that--was an eight-year-old girl. That was different too, especially since she wasn't a black eight-year-old caught in the crossfire or killed by a drugged-out relative but the daughter of one of the mayor's closest friends and political allies. Still, there was an awful lot of blood, he thought, wondering just how much blood a little girl had in her body, anyway. He would have to ask the M.E. about that, he decided, standing up.
The movement in the doorway caught his attention and he turned as a tall, slim, dark- haired man in a very conservative dark suit entered with his partner, Tom Hetch.
"Just when we had given up all hope, Mikey, the cavalry arrives," Hetch said in his usual sarcastic style.
"Ah," Mike responded, extending his hand to the stranger, "gotta be the FBI."
"Special Agent Jarod Hoover," the new arrival answered, "Detective Neely?"
"Mike, just Mike."
"Right. Call me Jarod."
"And in this neighborhood, you can call me Mr. Rogers," Hetch added quickly, causing Jarod to hide his perplexity at the comment. "And just who was it that called in the FBI, Jarod? Because it wasn't me--that's the kind of thing I would have remembered--and Mikey here says it wasn't him . . "
"The call came in from Captain Lewis. That's all I know. I got here as soon as I could," Jarod answered matter-of-factly.
"Really," Hetch said slowly. "Lewis. Interesting. You know he left this morning on vacation? Missing the chance to hobnob with the Bureau. How unfortunate. By the way, I thought you guys always came in pairs, like socks--lost your partner in the dryer?"
"He couldn't come. Family illness. How long at this point from the estimated time of murder ?" Jarod asked, trying to deflect Hetch's constant questions and getting more and more puzzled. Why would his partner have been in a dryer?
"Rudy--that's our M.E., you just missed him--he's saying 18 hours more or less, from congealing of the blood. That puts it at around 2 am. The little girl was last seen--" Mike consulted his pocket-sized notebook --"8:00 last night. By the live-in nanny. Put her to bed, read part of a book--about rabbits, she tells me--turned out the lights to the kid's room, went to her own room, watched TV until Leno was over. Fell asleep. Heard nada. Found the blood this morning--no kid. That's it." He flipped the notebook closed.
"The parents?" Jarod asked.
"Yes, the parents. When we hear anything from the despondent parents you will absolutely be the first to know," Hetch said.
"No one has spoken to the parents yet?" Jarod asked, clearly surprised.
"Well, actually no. But we've tried. We've all tried," Mike answered. "The got their very, very expensive lawyer and they are not talking to anybody. And that means anybody. Right now we sure as hell don't have enough cause to subpoena anybody. As for the story so far: the nanny says both parents went to bed early. Got in from the airport exhausted-- the father's got his own plane--they were at their house in Maine for the past week. We're checking all this out right now. The little girl stayed here, went to school yesterday like normal. Private school, of course. The nanny says both parent's went right upstairs, said they didn't want to be disturbed--when she went to take the kid to bed their lights were already out. There's a live-in housekeeper, too--pretty hysterical right now, but she confirms the parents being away. That's what we got. That, and no body. No ransom note. No suspect. No motive. No sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle. No sign of somebody walking out of here carrying a dead kid dripping blood--no bloody footprints, no open doors or windows. No blood on a window sill, no blood on the lawn, the driveway, the street. No blood anywhere so far but right here. A lot of it here, though, we got a lot of blood right here."
Jarod looked again at the pool of blood. He'd come as soon as he could patch together a story and an FBI badge. The newspaper accounts had intrigued him--the missing child, presumed dead, the uncooperative parents. At the time, it had seemed a simple matter, really. He'd thought he would be able to see something that the police were missing. But the silence of the big house and the awareness of how much might depend of his actions weighed on him oppressively. For the first time since he'd left the Centre and begun his own private war against injustice he felt in over his head. He knew he could handle the cops--at least for as long as he would be staying. Mike was friendly enough and seemed glad to have help in this baffling matter. Hetch could pose problems if he starting asking too many questions, but, again, Jarod wasn't planning on sticking around very long. But he wasn't sure, at that moment, just what to do next.
Mike was right. A lot of blood. No answers.
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"What I'm saying is, you don't have a fucking homicide if you don't have fucking a body and we all know you have no fucking body so it's no fucking homicide!"
Jarod blanched slightly as he entered the squad room with Mike, just as this shouted exclamation thundered out from a small room in front of them across the large, cluttered space.
"OK, sure--we've got--according to Rudy--enough blood of the little girl's blood type to account for 99% of what was in her body all over the floor, we've got parents that won't talk to us, plus we've got our own personal FBI genius telling us it's a murder--not afraid, I might add, to use the despised "M" word--but you'd really rather we let some traffic cop handle the case, is that what you're saying?" Hetch yelled back inside the room.
"FBI?" a third voice, calmer than the other two, asked. "And just who called in the FBI?"
Jarod looked at Mike, who only shrugged. "Should I go explain . . " Jarod began.
"Whatever floats your boat, G-man", Mike answered, "makes no never-mind to me, personally. But I'd just a soon let the Chief and Hetch fight it out themselves. Evidently there is some concern we jumped the gun on this thing. So the guys from upstairs want an explanation. You want some coffee?"
"Coffee sounds great," Jarod responded, "but why will that 'float my boat', exactly?"
"What, you never heard that, 'it floats your boat'? Where you from, anyway? But I suppose the FBI is a whole lot more professional than this sorry lot around here. Sometimes I think we are literally the dregs of humanity, man--who else you gonna get to do this job, though, some genius?"
Jarod smiled. "This case is starting to feel like you need a genius."
"Yeah, I'll look in the paper under 'genius' and see if there are any listed. Never can find one when I need one. Not in this precinct, not in Philly," Mike said.
In the background, Jarod heard Hetch's nasal voice raised in anger again, but muffled now as he and Mike entered another small side room that was host to an ancient, battered coffee maker, a few equally beat up tables and chairs and what appeared to be the world's oldest water cooler. They each made themselves a cup of coffee and sat facing each other at one of the tables. Jarod stirred his pensively, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in this latest role.
"So, G-man, what's your take on this thing, huh? We got a murder for sure, or a kidnapping maybe, or some third possibility the brass upstairs is about to spring on us?" Mike asked.
"That was a lot of blood. Could the little girl survive losing that much blood? Frankly, I think not. Certainly she would be in shock, even if she didn't die immediately. You're checking doctors, hospitals--and pharmacies to see if we've got a panicked attacker trying to treat her wounds himself. We have no weapon. The nanny and housekeeper have reported nothing missing from the house that could have been used as a weapon. The parents remain silent. That is the most troubling part of this case, so far." Jarod looked off across the room for a moment, imagining parents so uncaring as to not offer to help in any way possible. His own past mysteries nagged at him. A child missing, odd circumstances, no motive. What next?
"What next?" Mike asked, jarring Jarod out of his thoughts. "I'm thinking background-- gotta find some kind of freaking angle here. Motive? For what--kidnapping, murder? Was mommy or daddy beating up on little Rebecca? It went too far? Then what--panic, hid the body, both in it together? Or kidnapping. The parents are loaded, man, money coming out the wazoo. Plus political connections. So who did daddy piss off, right--ex-business partner, ex-employee--hell, ex-wife? "
"Ah, yes, ex-wives!" Hetch's voice: he had just walked into the room and stood beside them. "That's my angle, right there. With three of my own I am the expert! They are. . . " he paused for affect and lowered his voice to menacing growl . . ." unpredictable. Treacherous." His voice lightened, "Unfortunately, in this situation we have a distinct and unexpected paucity of ex-wives. None. Likewise no ex-husbands on the Mrs' side. Mr. Caspari, however, does own a very large, very prosperous, rather mysterious business. As you said, Mikey, the money is coming out his wazoo. 'The Caspari Group'. Now what do you suppose The Caspari Group does, exactly? Not much of a hint in the name, is there? What happened to great, old-fashioned business names, like 'Jake's Towing', 'Guido's Bakery', 'McKensys Rip-Off Loan Sharks'? There was a time, you knew what a business did. So, I am off to find out what the fuck 'The Caspari Group' does. I will leave you, Special Agent 'Hoover', whatever, in the capable hands of my esteemed partner. "
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, here, hold on!" Mike exclaimed, his voice rising, "Maybe we should decide together what we do next. We're partners, right?"
"What, and take all the fun out of it? We can't have that, now can we, Mikey? We both know what avenue you wish to pursue. I leave you to challenge the professional judgment of our own personal Special Agent with your plan. I am, as they say, outta here!" Hetch made a theatrical gesture indicating his departure and left the room, heading toward the exit.
"Least he could have done was told us how the argument with the brass came out. 'Course I'd know if we was off the case, I suppose, and if they decided this was something other than a possible homicide, like an alien abduction or something," Mike mused. "You believe in that stuff, Jarod, that alien abduction shit? I hear you Feds got a special branch that goes around checking into that stuff."
"Only on TV, " Jarod answered.
"But what do you think, you know, personally: you think there's anything to it?"
"I try to keep an open mind," Jarod said thoughtfully.
"Well, that's good news, G-man, because Hetch was hinting about my next move and we are about to find just how open your mind really is."
"Really," Jarod answered, intrigued.
"Oh, yeah. We are going to visit a very, very special lady. A friend, more or less--a colleague. Right, 'colleague': I like that. Hetch disapproves. Hetch is a skeptic."
"A skeptic about what, Mike?"
"Well, my friend, she's helped before with cases like this. Not just for me, lots of times, all over the country, I bet even worked with the FBI--hardly anyone likes to admit it, though. Not me, I'm not proud, I take any help I can get. You, Hetch--I'm not particular. But I'm not saying you got to come with me. Maybe this is were the Bureau stops being so open- minded," Mike paused and looked Jarod right in the eye. "She's a psychic."
"Really," Jarod answered. "Whatever floats your boat, Mike, whatever floats your boat."
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Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Mike drove, heading north out of the city on increasingly less-traveled roads. Once they had left Route 95 and began driving the winding two-lanes, Jarod saw a land in transition from rural to suburban, with condo developments and strip-malls abutting grand old estates and a few remaining working farms. Clearly nervous about their destination, Mike talked the whole way, and Jarod learned that he had been born in the worst building in the worst block of public housing in the worst section of Philadelphia and had lost one brother to drugs, another to jail for gang activities, and a sister to a secession of awful choices: too many bad boyfriends, babies and drugs. He found himself liking Mike a great deal, but puzzled that this seemingly tough as nails street kid would wind up relying on a psychic to solve a crime. And although Mike seemed willing to speak at length about anything else, he would only hint that he owed some great debt to the woman they were about to visit, and that he felt a deep respect for her--and for her abilities. After almost an hour and a half of driving, they finally pulled off a poorly maintained country road into a long gravel driveway that curved out of sight between mature shade trees in their full blaze of fall coloring. The grass had recently been cut and the rich smell of it filled the air. There were glimpses of brightly colored gardens just out of sight between the trees, and then quite suddenly a massive iron fence blocked their path, complete with a huge double gate. Mike pulled slowly up to the gate and just waited patiently, silently. The panels hinged open after a brief pause and they drove on as the gates shut behind them without sound.
The house, when it finally came into view, was not as imposing as Jarod had anticipated from the well-kept grounds. An old stone farm house with cedar shingles on it's steeply angled roofs, it had a simple elegance enhanced by a two story greenhouse addition to one end. There were several scattered out buildings--garages, a tall wooden barn, a woodshed in which firewood was neatly stacked, and a slatted structure Jarod assumed had once been a corn crib. Flowers grew in beds along the curving driveway and brick walkways, but there was a pervasive casualness to it all, as though it all had happened without plan or effort--certainly not as though some huge staff of gardeners had slaved over it all. The front door was painted bright red, the shutters a dark green. And as they walked toward that red door, it swung open before them, just as had the iron gates. Entering the dark hallway, they saw no one.
Mike pushed the door shut behind them. "Spooky, huh?" he said, raising his eyebrows. A smallish dog--some sort of terrier mix--no doubt, came loping out of a room to their right, along with a rather husky woman's voice.
"That you, Mike, or did I just let in trouble?"
"Hell, Laura, you got me, you got trouble, too," Mike laughed.
They followed the voice through one room filled with unpretentious antiques into the greenhouse addition, followed by the dog, now wagging it's tail furiously.
Jarod stopped and bent down to pet the dog, which rose to lick his face. He then followed Mike, who was standing beside a tall, tan woman wearing a white tee shirt, a short khaki skirt and sandals. He noticed that she was nearly his height even before he saw the well defined muscles in her arms and legs. She had dark auburn hair, cut short and slightly tousled, as though she had just run her hands through it to style it, large, expressive brown eyes and full, slightly smiling lips. The greenhouse around them was filled with colorful flowering plants and she stood in a patch of bright sunlight. She was, he thought, hardly the stereotypical crystal ball-gazing, fortune-telling gypsy he had half expected.
She held out her hand. "The FBI was expecting something different, I believe," she said, smiling more broadly. "I hope you are not too disappointed in a poor gypsy woman?" she added in a thick, phony Eastern European accent.
"Jarod", he said, meeting her firm handshake, but was startled when she pulled back for an instant at his touch and quite suddenly lost her smile, looking him intensely in the eyes.
She seemed to catch herself just as quickly, turning to Mike with a laugh, "Did you tell him I was scary, Mike, or a haggard old crone? "
"This is Laura Greggor, Jarod. And the only thing scary about her is how beautiful she is."
Jarod looked closely at Mike, who was staring quite openly at Laura, and saw all the hunger this poor kid from the projects felt for this tall, tanned, beautiful woman. Clearly wealthy, as well. And Jarod thought he understood why Mike would use any possible excuse to make this long drive into the country.
"So?" she asked, "what can I do for you?"
"Laura, what we have here is, we have a situation. We have a crime, definitely, and a little girl who is missing, or maybe worse. Also we have parents that are no help. Won't talk to us. Won't talk to the FBI, Jarod here. I don't know. We need to know, first off, what we have--a murder, a kidnapping, what. You can tell, right, if someone is dead or not?"
"Well, that depends. Usually, yes, I could tell that. In a sense I look for them--if I can't find them we can figure they are dead, " she answered.
"'Look for them', how?" Jarod asked.
"Well, that's not easy to explain. Easier to show you. Mike, I'll need access to the crime scene."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. Jarod doesn't have his partner with him, and everybody knows FBI always travel in twos, so how about we say you're his partner? That way the uniforms on the scene aren't wondering who you are. Who knows, maybe the parents will even talk to a G-lady, as it were. When can you do this?"
"We can leave as soon as I change," she said.
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Laura had disappeared upstairs for only a short while, transforming herself--with the help of a no-nonsense, flax-colored power suit--into the very picture of a female FBI agent. She'd followed them all the way back to the city and the Caspari's house in her black Jaguar, leaving it parked around the corner so as not to cause suspicion with a very noticeably non-FBI vehicle. If Jarod had been expecting any theatrics he was disappointed--she had simply looked over the house, standing for quite some time over the pool of blood, then said she was ready to leave. Sitting together in a booth at a restaurant close to the police station where Mike was evidently well-known, they ordered a meal and drinks and began to discuss what Laura could tell them about the case.
She had ordered a glass of dry red wine and Jarod, who sat directly across from her, found himself watching her take slow, clearly pleasurable sips of the dark liquid. Now that she had taken off her long-sleeved linen jacket he could again appreciate her strong, deeply tanned arms and mused about that smooth, honey-colored skin, which seemed to almost glow with warmth. He thought to himself that he was merely picking up on Mike's desire for this woman, that this was some primitive male competitiveness, inspired by a rather intimidatingly self-assured woman. Still, he could not stop watching her lips as she sipped the wine. There was something else, equally primitive but beyond his experience, stirring, as well. The feeling of being in over his head kept returning and he found himself rather enjoying the unfamiliar sensation.
Mike had just finished running through all they knew at this point in the case to catch Laura up on it when Jarod heard a nasal voice--a bit too loud--behind him. "Ah, if it isn't my favorite witchy woman! Tell me, Laura, what would it take to make you the new future ex-Mrs. Hetch?"
"Well, a flame thrower pointed at my heart would sure help, Hetch," she answered. "Care to join us or would you rather just spoil our evening while hovering behind Jarod like an apparition?"
"Oh, sweet mistress of all apparitions, can I have your permission to sit?" Hetch mocked.
"Do as you damn well please Hetch, just get out of the lady's face," Mike said with an edge in his voice.
"Take it easy, big guy, I'm just making small talk. You know," Hetch continued, sitting beside Jarod, "I've never seen a lady with muscles like that. It's just a bit scary, don't you agree, Mr. Special Agent Man? One night, Laura, you and I are really going to have to arm wrestle."
"Who's holding the bets?" Jarod asked, pleased to be trying out a bit of slang he had picked up on his last adventure.
"Ain't you never heard that 'strong is beautiful', Hetch?" Mike asked, leaning forward across the table toward his partner.
"What would be really 'beautiful' right now would be a lead on this fucking case," Hetch answered. "I have been down town, as they say, girls and boys, and what I've got is a big fat zero. Nobody is telling ole' Hetch a damned thing. Mr. Saintly Fucking Caspari has no enemies, no nasty little secrets, no hidden agenda, nothing. In fact, 'nothing' sums it up pretty well right now. What we've got is nothing!"
"No," Laura said quietly, "what we have is a puzzle inside a puzzle. I don't think any of us are getting this. There is something missing, something we are just not seeing."
"You saw nothing at the Caspari's house, Laura?" Jarod asked.
"Well, no, I saw something--I'm just not sure how to put in perspective. "
"So, do we have a dead kid or what?" Mike asked.
"I hate to say this, but I'm just not sure. I've only rarely encountered this sort of --well-- problem. Where I can't tell at least that much immediately. I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure anything happened at that house--or at least, not what it looks like happened. "
"And the blood, dear lady, the voluminous, vast and unmistakable sea of blood--a nose bleed perhaps, a cut finger?"
"Hetch, you don't get what I'm saying. It's not what it seems. There's something else happening here than we think, and I definitely don't think that's Rebecca Caspari's blood all over the floor," Laura answered slowly and calmly.
"What have we got on the blood so far, Hetch?" Mike asked.
"Rudy says it could be hers, it could not be hers. A match as of now, but only with the most basic of tests. Gentlemen--and lady--we have got ourselves a genuine mystery. And we are getting no where fast!"
"We all think that," Jarod said. "Look, I'm not used to working with other people--except my partner of course--but I think it's clear we all feel something is just basically wrong with this whole case. Too many loose ends, too many dead ends. Maybe we need to start over from the beginning."
"Well, count me out, tonight," Hetch said. "What I need is alcohol, in more massive quantities than I could possibly afford here, however charming the company. I move on, alone, unloved, into the night! With just about zero chance of getting laid--but please, please: no tears for me. The sun has long since set like a bloated melon and this particular cowboy has watched it dip beneath the yardarm----"
"Hetch, if you don't stop mixing metaphors we will be arm wrestling, and I'm warning you, I take no prisoners!" Laura laughed as Hetch got up, stretched and turned to go.
"Ah, madam: promises, promises!" he said in parting, walking out the door.
Mike stood up as Hetch departed. "I, too, gotta go," he said. "Four beers--gotta go home."
"To your lovely wife, " Laura added.
"Yes," Mike said, "to my beautiful, wonderful, if-I-come-home-sloshed-she'll-kick-my-butt wife. Bless her! She's saved my unworthy ass more times than I want to admit." Mike draped an arm over Jarod's shoulder. "And I am trusting you, G-man, old buddy, to take good care of the second most beautiful woman I know. Now, you wouldn't let me down, FBI, would you? You wouldn't destroy my faith in the goddamned mother fucking FBI?"
"You can trust me completely, Mike, " Jarod said, meaning every word literally.
"Right!" Mike said, shaking his head, "right! He's a fucking blessed saint! And a genius! Right!"
And with that he left.
"I didn't even know Mike was married," Jarod said, watching him leave, slightly amazed that although he had talked for an hour and a half straight both ways to Laura's house Mike had never mentioned his wife.
"Guys!" Laura said in answer, "they can talk to each other for hours and never say one real, important thing."
"Unlike women . . ?" Jarod questioned.
"Yeah," she answered, looking him straight in the eye, "unlike women, who will tell you straight up you're no fucking FBI agent."
"Oh," Jarod answered, trying what he hoped was a charming smile, "do I have to show you my badge?"
"Look, I know you're not FBI. And I know you're being pursued--or stalked, or whatever- -by this woman you keep thinking about, and her friends--a group of people, anyway, I clearly see several people. Chasing you, not sure why. Ex-wife? I think not, though. Also, something else--your past. Prison, maybe? A locked door, clearly. You feel so free now. For the first time in your life. I just keep getting that, 'for the first time in my life.' Like a mantra. What the hell are you, Jarod, where did you come from? And why are you here?"
He took a quick, deep breath. He realized his heart was pounding. He made an effort to relax, to steady himself. Always in the face of being caught in one of his many disguises before he had managed total calm, total control. This time it was just so unexpected.
"Where's this from, Laura?" he managed to say with what seemed to him complete control.
"Where indeed, Jarod. You're lying to Mike, lying to me, lying twenty-four fucking hours a day. I don't really get it, except I understand it's what you think you must do, for self- protection. Also, you feel it's simply what you do--what you are, something like that. Fate? Karma? Whatever. You're in a great deal of personal danger, do you know that? This woman--she's close to you, closer than you think. I mean physically, literally close-- not some emotional baggage between you. She wants to kill you. That's her mantra. Or at least lock you away again. For her, for her own sick satisfaction. She's thinking it's what SHE must do. Very, very kinky, by the way. Sexy, in a sick way. Who is this bitch, anyway?"
Jarod looked at her more closely, with a sudden and unsettling respect. She knew things no one could know. Was there more? What else did Laura know about him?
"So maybe you're really psychic," Jarod said. "I never thought that was possible. I was taught it was. . . an unlikely explanation. How does that happen? I mean, is it like you just know something suddenly, completely, or it comes to you little by little or ---"
"So now you're a believer?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure," he answered. "What do I need to know to understand this? How you could know about Miss---about what you know?"
"You want my advise: have a drink," Laura said, quite seriously. "What you need is to let go a little. Relax a bit. You're wound sort of tight--didn't anyone ever tell you that before? You are safe right now, right here, with me. Trust me on that. Do you trust me?"
"Why not," he answered, not quite sure of it. "You think I need alcohol?"
"Well, you need to shut down about 99% of your brain, so I guess alcohol would help. It always works for me. It's the second most fun way of relaxing I know."
Jarod went to the bar and asked for two glasses of red wine--what the lady was drinking. He carried them back and then sat staring at the thin, delicate glass in his hand, wondering what the number one "most fun way to relax" Laura knew about was. The dark and somewhat mysterious fluid looked vaguely ominous. Perhaps the other way would be a better choice. He pondered the concept of letting go.
Looking across the table at her as he tried his first tentative sip--bitter but not unpleasant, after all, he only sputtered and choked a bit--and thought about what it meant that Laura knew the things she knew. She was either genuinely psychic, or she was sent here from the Centre to trap him. And Miss Parker was waiting outside. With a big gun and handcuffs. He smiled a bit at the thought. And took another sip of wine. That he might run so hard, so fast, so very cleverly--only to be caught like this. Because of a beautiful woman. Make that two beautiful women.
"It's acidic," he said, taking yet another sip of wine.
"An acquired taste," she answered, "like all the best things in life. Like garlic. Like trust. Like the truth. Like rough sex and loud music. Get used to it." She shrugged.
"Part of me thinks you're a trap, that you're setting me up," he told her with a candor he found unexpected. He hadn't actually meant to say that, at all.
"Because you can't fathom how I would know what I know, because it's just too weird. Because it destroys your tidy, complacent, narrow, black-white little view of reality ---"
"You know, I do sometimes get angry," he heard himself say. "Many people have found out the hard way it's not wise to--what is it they say: to 'piss me off'." He surprised himself again--he also hadn't planned on saying that.
He felt a bit light-headed and noticed that the dim lights in the bar seemed suddenly brighter and more intense. Also, oddly enough, that Laura's mouth had a truly remarkable, very sensuous curve when she smiled. In fact, her realized he was staring openly at her mouth. And that it felt good to do that.
"Jarod," she said, leaning forward, "actually, what I'm trying to do is that exactly, just a little. I need you to help me tonight, to do something rather risky, rather scary--something Mike couldn't do, but which could open this Caspari thing open for all of us. I want you to let down your guard a bit. To let go a bit. Because I need the rational side of you to make it work, but doubt that side alone would let it happen."
Jarod took another sip of wine, recalling the deeply sensual look on Laura's face as she drank, feeling a reciprocal, unfamiliar warmth throughout his body. And he felt a bit more alive than he ever had before. 'In over my head,' he thought again. Enjoying that feeling, savoring that thought.
"I could possibly do that, whatever it is," he told her. "Many things seem possible right now . . . But of course I need an explanation. Also, an answer."
"Ask away," she said in a husky voice, and he sensed there was some coded message in her simple words that he simply wasn't getting. Her foot brushed lightly--just for a moment--against his leg under the table and the sensation was like an electric shock.
He nearly spilled the small amount of wine remaining in his glass.
It took him a moment to collect his thoughts. His brain seemed oddly unresponsive. "Could you tell me more, more about myself, about my past?' he finally asked her. "I have questions, questions no one can answer--or, those who could answer, won't. There are areas where, well, where I know too little . . . "
"Yes, perhaps," she answered slowly, thoughtfully. "That would take . . . well, it would take some effort on both our parts but it's certainly possible. I would, I think, be willing to try."
"Effort? What sort of effort?" Jarod asked.
"Complicated," she answered. "Finish your wine. We can talk later. What I know about you now, to tell you the truth, I got all at once, when we shook hands, when you touched me. That's often how it happens. Like just a sudden burst of knowledge. Most often with physical contact. The sort of questions you're asking--well, it would take a more . . . well, just 'more': more contact. Between you and I. Um, like, a lot more, very physical, contact. . . which I would be willing to try. Absolutely. If you wanted to."
Once again he was sure she was trying to tell him something, but in some sort of obscure code. He was at a complete loss as to how to respond. She was leaning quite close to him, watching his eyes intently, her lips slightly parted. He knew she was expecting an answer of some kind from him, but had no idea what the question was. He decided to try to distract her.
He reached across the table and suddenly took both her hands in his, feeling the smooth, soft skin, warm beyond expectations, and the firm flesh beneath. And was jolted by another electric shock, or whatever the hell it was. "What can you see about me now?" he asked after a moment, "tell me what you can see."
Laura gasped a bit and tried at first to pull her hands away from his grasp, then relaxed, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. Whatever she saw evidently had disturbed her. Or, perhaps, she felt the electricity between them, as well--he wasn't sure what to think.
"I see a child who is alone. And tormented. I see darkness and longing and no way out. No way out! That repeated over and over. And a sense of loss--loss of innocence, loss of trust--someone betrays you, deeply, deeply wounded. Anger, where there had been acceptance. And then, more recently: that woman. What is it with her, exactly? She looks at you like--like she wants to literally eat you up." She opened her eyes, "Oh--and I see that the feeling is mutual."
"You misunderstand," Jarod told her, "the nature of the relationship."
