Double Vision (14 page)

Y
ancy drove and drove and drove, all the while thinking about everything he'd been trained to do before he'd lost his leg. He was going to be an agent, just like Jenna. Well, maybe just like Jenna but on a state and not a federal level, and completely aside from the fact that she had a weird human trick and wouldn't compromise every single ethic she'd ever had for someone she didn't know.
You idiot.

The car could be traced, he knew, but it was maybe the only point he couldn't control. Not entirely, anyway. Someone—anyone—could've seen his car at CiCi's. He'd had to leave in it, and he couldn't leave with it inside a giant tarp. Not like they'd had one, anyway.

Heat crept up Yancy's neck as he played the scene over and over in his mind, both doing his best to convince himself there'd been no other course of action and yet trying to find a way he could've done things differently all at the same time. A ring of dirty cops running a high-dollar hooker outfit, one of their own dead with Yancy's hand left holding the smoking gun. CiCi would be dead if they found out, but so would he. In the process, he'd put every single person involved with him in jeopardy. They didn't have to worry about the husband coming home and finding the body. In the blur that had been getting the mess cleaned up, Yancy had ascertained through some of CiCi's traumatized muttering that he'd left her months ago. She hadn't said why and hadn't been in any condition for Yancy to interrogate her about it, even if his mind hadn't been preoccupied with the more pressing task at the time. Maybe he'd left her because she was hooking, or maybe she was hooking because she needed money after he left. Who knew? It didn't matter right now. What did matter was that whatever route he took—leaving the body to be found, calling the police—both options led to the same climax. The cops would eventually come, good or bad. And eventually, the dirty cops would hear. He could confess, but then it was only a matter of time before they came after him. If he didn't and the body was discovered, there would be an investigation. Yancy knew way too much about police and evidence to think something in the kitchen wouldn't lead to him. Not to mention CiCi's frequent 911 calls, his car parked in front of her house . . .

The choice was the only one he had.

Right?

CiCi had met him, as he'd told her to. She'd wanted to come with him, but that was out of the question. The less involved she was, the better. She was going to have too many questions to answer as it was. God help him, hopefully everything he'd set in motion for her when the bad guys came calling would hold up. He'd tried so hard to think of everything, but if he'd thought of everything, he wouldn't even be here.

Goddamnit, asshole!

He tried to force his mind to focus on anything but what he was doing, where he was going. Keeping the car at an even forty-five when the speed limit changed to fifty, he recited children's nursery rhymes he'd heard as a kid, turned on the radio, sang three dozen rounds of “I'm Henry the Eighth I Am” and a full, no-holds-barred rendition of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” When that didn't work, he let his mind drift to the one place he
never
allowed if he could manage it: his godforsaken leg crushed in the elevator shaft, and how bad it had hurt. The hospital afterward, the flood of visitors from the Academy at first, then the way they slowed to a trickle. How they stopped completely.

He revisited the humiliation of rehab, of being fitted for his first prosthetic. Of gradually learning to walk again.

Oboe came to mind, that first day at the shelter when he'd considered the dachshund in the cage next to the German shepherd that looked just like Rin Tin Tin. The German shepherd was young, sleek, the perfect dog. Ten minutes later, he'd left with the dachshund.

The dog had turned out to be a pain, but then again, Yancy was probably a pain to him, too. So, they deserved each other somehow.

Oboe might be an asshole, but he deserves better than to have some common criminal-liar-douchebag for an owner.

He'd get home in time to feed him not too late, right? Yeah. He could get home and be just a couple hours late. Oboe wasn't missing many meals by any stretch of the imagination. The wiener would be okay. Still, he'd throw in an extra scoop for the lateness . . . and for being a murdering, lying scum of the earth. Make it two scoops.

Normally, he'd try to get Jenna to go over and feed Oboe if he was going to be really late, but the thought of talking to Jenna right now . . . geez. His first instinct had been to call her, tell her everything. But if she knew, she'd only be in danger. Besides, if she helped him or even knew what he was doing and
wasn't
in danger, her career would be on the line. He wouldn't put her at risk just because he . . .

Shit, dumbass. You've really done it this time.

He made a right-hand turn. Finally, he was there. The big thing would be to do what he had to, then to handle himself once he left.

T
he break hadn't been long enough, but when Saleda called to say she'd done the impossible and gotten Brooklyn Satterhorne's family to agree to another FBI visit in addition to the one Porter had already paid them—this time accompanied by their own volunteered signed agreement to allow the BAU to perform a second unwarranted search of their home—Jenna couldn't pass it up. She'd kissed Ayana, who had grinned and winked—her newest trick.

“See ya later, alligator!” Ayana had said.

Now Jenna and Saleda padded through the hallway toward Brooklyn's room. The feeling was very different from that of the day before at Diana Delmont's. First of all, this time the mother declined to go with them. Obviously they'd find no daughter inside.

The hall was different from the Delmonts', too. Instead of fruit, it was covered in pictures of Brooklyn. As a baby, a toddler, a six-year-old flashing a toothy smile, an awkward tween with braces and frizzy hair. At graduation with no braces. With friends in bikini bathing suits, her characteristic spiral red curls flat from a recent ocean swim.

The door to the room at the very end of the hall was open, afternoon sunlight streaming inside. A black-and-white floral comforter, satin, covered the four-poster wrought-iron bed, and a matching full-length mirror of black-painted iron stood across from the bed.

“Vanity,” Jenna muttered as the familiar thistle color flashed in.

“You're thinking narcissism?” Saleda asked.

“Not yet,” Jenna replied. “Simple vanity right now. Maybe narcissism later.”

She crossed the room toward the bureau, where a vase of dried roses stood. Jenna had always hated the tradition of drying flowers. Maybe they had sentimental value, but once deprived of their beauty, what was the point?

“Did you ever dry your flowers, Saleda?”

“No. Always thought it was a little creepy. Why?”

Jenna nodded to the vase. “It's always been a certain type of girl I've known to dry bouquets. That's all.”

“What kind?” Saleda asked, shifting a notebook from the desk to look at the binder underneath.

Jenna wandered toward the open jewelry box, which was filled with expensive-looking pieces most college-aged students didn't own. Heck, most thirty-year-olds didn't own diamond earrings that big. Jenna sure didn't.

“Usually the kind of girls who've been programmed to think that's what you're supposed to do. The same ones who end up steam-cleaning their wedding dresses and sealing them in a box in the closet, never to be seen again,” she replied. “Not a bad thing necessarily, just a type.”

Jenna's gaze roamed the pictures on the chest of drawers, all in ornate iron-looking frames. While she'd said it wasn't always a bad thing, this room made her think of all the girls she'd ever known with perfect, just-so clothing, shoes that cost more than Jenna's entire wardrobe. The word “spoiled” came to mind. Based on what Diana had told the team about Brooklyn, that guess probably wasn't too far off.

“I think I've got about the same picture of Brooklyn I expected to have,” Jenna said. Porter and Teva had already collected anything and everything of interest from the room, including the computer. They'd found nothing on it so far. “Any word on the boyfriend?”

“Don't you mean ‘talking friend'?” Saleda asked.

“Yeah, whatever they call it. Kenny.” Though, as she glanced around, the room didn't show any signs of Kenny, if he was involved with her. Or any signs of any other boy involved with her in a way that seemed more than the fleeting, friend-zone type of relationship.

Saleda clicked a button on her phone, read a text. “My sources say he's at work now.”

“What are we waiting for?”

•   •   •

T
wenty minutes later, Jenna and Saleda sat in the Target break room with Kenny Ingle.

“I want a lawyer,” he said for the dozenth time.

Jenna folded her arms as she watched Saleda field the request. Again.

“Kenny, we'll get you a lawyer, but like I said, you are in no way
at all
implicated in Brooklyn's murder. We already have a suspect, and this person was most likely a stranger. You don't fit his profile . . . at all,” Saleda replied.

Frankly, you're not smart enough.

“I don't know nothin'!” Kenny said.

Shocking. I believe you.

“Kenny, we need to know more about Brooklyn and what she was like. It might help us learn more about who might've wanted to hurt her,” Jenna said. The kid might not be a murderer, but for someone whose maybe-girlfriend had just been killed, distraught he wasn't.

“Look,” he said, “I don't know what you've heard, but I don't even know her that well. She wanted to date, but she wasn't really my type.”

“Meaning what?”

Kenny laughed. Great reaction to a murder.

“Meaning she was a bitch!”

Whoa.

“But her friend said you two were ‘talking,'” Saleda said.

Kenny smirked, leaned back in his chair. “She was talking. I was not listening.”

“So she wanted to date, but you told her you weren't interested?” Saleda asked.

“Kinda. She texted me a lot. Bugged the crap out of me.”

“How was she ‘a bitch'?” Jenna asked, miming air quotes with her pointer and middle fingers on each hand as she repeated his words.

He rolled his eyes. “You name it. She was always doing things just to be bitchy. She'd talk about her friends behind their backs, do stuff like take pictures of them without makeup and send them to me. I think somehow it made her feel good about herself, to point out how bad her friends looked.”

Wow. Good insight for a kid exhibiting an amount of mourning equal to that of a bird passing a cat's flattened carcass on the roadside.

“You mean she'd text pictures of friends without their knowledge or consent?” Saleda clarified.

“Not text. She wasn't that dumb. She'd snap them.”

“You mean Snapchat?” Jenna asked, unsure if this was the verb form of the term but going with it. Seemed right, and better to stay in the lingo with this kid since he was already acting like they were only one degree of difference from his own parents grilling him about the hygiene habits of his peers.

Kenny nodded, his face conveying the “Duh” that his mouth somehow seemed to hold in.

Saleda looked at Jenna, questioning.

“Snapchat is an app that lets kids send photos or videos that disappear in a few seconds,” Jenna said. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Kenny answered, sounding annoyed that he was having to tell adults something they should already know.

“And there's no way to access the messages?” Saleda asked.

“You can take a screenshot of the snap, but I think the sender is automatically notified when that happens. Am I right, Kenny?” Jenna asked. She hated that she knew about this at all, but her dad had sent her an article about it as soon as he'd seen it online as a heads-up on a new way people were sending information. He knew anything Claudia could use was important for both of them to be aware of.

“Used to be, but now there's Snap Save,” he said.

“Snap Save?” Jenna asked.

“App you can use to save snaps without the sender knowing.”

“God, I hate technology,” Saleda muttered.

Jenna, however, felt her pulse build. “Did you save any of hers, Kenny? Any of Brooklyn's snaps?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Jenna sat down across from him and folded her hands. She leaned in toward him. “Oh, I don't know, hotshot. Maybe because someone has been
killed
. Anything we know that could've earned her an enemy could be a lead to help us find her killer. Unless, of course, there's some reason you don't want us to find who did it?”

“Hey! You said I wasn't a suspect!”

She leaned back. “You're not, Kenny. But that doesn't mean you can't help us catch who murdered her. You have a mom? A sister?”

He licked his teeth. “Yeah. Both. What does it matter?”

“This guy who murdered Brooklyn, he's killed several women, Kenny. He's going to kill more. Could be someone else you know. Your family. Think about it.”

He stared at the floor for a long minute, his eyes changing from guarded to concerned.

“What do you need?” he asked.

Jenna cocked her head. Who needed the time it took to find a judge to sign off on a search, then perform the thing, when you could have the annoying teenager with a conscience save you all that trouble? “What do you have?”

J
ustice scratched his elbow hard as he stood waiting for the shop owner to retrieve the box of bullets.
Itching. Always the itching.

“You okay, buddy?” the shop owner asked, laying the bullets on the counter and tapping a few cash register keys.

Justice squinted, scratched harder. “Yeah, yeah. My psoriasis, acting up.”

He'd learned long ago psoriasis was a good answer for the itching if anyone asked. Much better than explaining
them.

His nubby nails dug in, clawed at his flesh. It burned inside. He had to get this done. He couldn't help it. He'd seen it, had to do it. He already knew it needed to happen.

“That'll be twenty-one forty-two,” the man said.

Justice dropped his right hand from his left elbow and dug it into his pocket. Two bills, a handful of change. He dumped it on the counter, not wanting to so much as brush the man's hand. Touching other people rarely went well.

Itching. God, the itching!

The shop owner swept it off the counter into his hand, then tipped his ball cap. “Thank you much, sir. Until next time.”

Justice took the box and walked out the door into the afternoon sun, dreading the next part. But he had to keep moving. There was no stopping it now.

•   •   •

T
his time when Jenna and Saleda made it to Diana Delmont's house, Diana was sitting on the screened porch, rocking on a wooden swing slowly, back and forth.

“Diana?” Jenna said, giving warning she was in the vicinity. Diana's mother had told the girl they were coming, she knew, but after a friend's murder, sneaking up on someone wasn't a good idea for more than one reason.

The girl didn't turn. “Do you ever think about waking up one day and realizing everything was all a big joke? Like you're starring in some reality TV show no one told you about, like in that Jim Carrey movie?”

Jenna sat down next to Diana on the swing. “More than you know,” she said truthfully.

Diana tapped her white-tennis-shoe-clad toes on the wood planks of the floor. “I feel like I'm gonna find out this was all a big candid-camera thing. Or Brooklyn playing some awful prank on me or something.”

Jenna blew out a deep breath. The perfect opening, sadly.

“Actually, Diana, I wanted to ask you about something like that,” Jenna said.

The girl didn't respond.

From the large pocket inside her tan peacoat, Jenna produced the printouts of the Snapchats they'd taken from those saved on Kenny Ingle's phone and unfolded the stack of them. Kenny had explained he'd kept them around to send to his friends. The little punk had been doing the same thing to Brooklyn he'd claimed was a bitchy move she pulled on her
own
friends, but then again, after seeing the saved shots, Jenna wasn't sure she blamed him for letting his buddies in on the “crazy” of the girl pursuing him.

She slid the stack of printouts into Diana's lap. “Diana, I need you to tell me if you were with Brooklyn when any of these were taken. If you can try to remember . . .”

Diana glanced down at the top photo: a snap of a test paper belonging to a girl named Effie. Brooklyn had apparently graded it in class during one of those “Pass your paper to the person on your right” exercises.

Jenna had specifically chosen only snaps where the incident shown or talked about in the message could've been seen by others and so had to have taken place somewhat in public at a time when Brooklyn could've been near Diana. The last part was important, since the threes lined up with Diana's books. Brooklyn had to have been with Diana when the Triple Shooter saw her and the alignment of threes.

Diana looked back up quickly. “I didn't see this, no,” she said.

“Were you present, or
could you have been
present, when this was taken?” Saleda asked.

The girl glanced at Saleda. “I don't . . . I don't know. Maybe. What difference does it make?”

You don't want to know.
The survivor's guilt was bad enough. Just wait until Diana found out that her books were what attracted attention to Brooklyn—or sealed her fate, anyway. Jenna hadn't been looking forward to explaining it, but she'd known all along she'd have to at some point. Now was as good a time as any ever would be.

“Diana, this is going to be tough to hear, but it seems as though the killer may have noticed Brooklyn while the two of you were together,” Jenna said slowly.

“What? How could you possibly know something like that?” Diana practically shrieked.

“This killer has a very specific MO, a method of operation so distinct it allows us to qualify that a victim is almost assuredly his victim as opposed to that of another random or even serial shooter. This particular MO always involves the lining up of the number three,” Saleda said.

Diana's hand flew to her mouth, then she started shaking her head. “The Triple . . . you were looking at my books! My Latin and . . . oh, God!”

The girl leaned over and vomited all over the wooden porch.

Jenna looked away from the mess but placed her hand on Diana's back and rubbed, just like she would for Ayana when she was ill. Jesus. One day her daughter would be this big. God help her.

“I'll get some water and paper towels,” Saleda said.

Jenna heard the porch door close behind her. “I know this is a shock, Diana. But you have to keep remembering this is
not
your fault. This was the doing of a sick, demented individual. That your books were present near that individual was a coincidence. You were doing nothing wrong by having them with you, by carrying them. Nothing.”

The girl heaved again, this time spitting out only whatever grossness lingered in her mouth. She coughed, then sobbed. “I know that, but how can I
feel
that?”

I know.
Jenna couldn't do anything or say anything, but she could sympathize more than this girl could ever understand. After all, if she'd never figured out what Claudia was, maybe Dad and Charley wouldn't be in danger now. She knew it wasn't rational—Claudia had already been hurting them anyway. But somehow, in her head, she'd caused the trouble. Should've let someone else come to the rescue. In Jenna's mind, if someone else had been the hero she tried to be, maybe last year wouldn't have happened. Hank would still be here, and Victor would still have his brother. Ayana would still have a dad.

“You might always feel it, Diana. I won't lie to you. But the best way to ease that particular pain is to try to help us figure out who did this,” Jenna replied. Jesus. She'd just told the girl she wouldn't lie to her, then in the next breath, she'd told the tallest tale in her recent memory. She'd had to do it, because they needed to find this guy to save someone
else
in the future from this same fate Diana was grappling with—and worse—but the truth was, assisting the investigation probably wouldn't save Diana in the slightest.

Saleda returned with Mrs. Delmont, who traded places with Jenna and properly pampered her little girl, wiping her mouth and handing her a cup of fizzy liquid. She laid a damp paper towel on the back of Diana's neck and used another to swipe at her daughter's brow.

“I'm sorry, Mama,” Diana said.

“For what, baby?” Mrs. Delmont asked, patting Diana's cheeks and forehead with the cloth.

“For getting sick all over the porch,” Diana said weakly.

Mrs. Delmont pulled Diana into a side hug and held her daughter's head to her shoulder with the palm of her hand. “Oh, sweetheart. It's okay. It's nothing a hose won't fix.” Mrs. Delmont turned to Jenna. “Maybe we need to finish this another time. I think this might be too much too soon—”

Diana stood up and vigorously shook her head. “No, Mama. I need to do this. Now.”

She grabbed up the stack of Snapchat printouts from the porch windowsill, where Jenna had moved them out of harm's way a few moments before, and sifted through them one by one. At about the fourth, she stopped. Her eyes watered, and she bit her lip, fighting more tears.

After a long moment, she handed it to Jenna.

The picture showed a graying man in tattered clothes lying on what looked like some kind of stone pathway. He seemed to be asleep. Next to him sat a yellow shoe box, and a few empty soda cans were strewn on the ground nearby.

“I wasn't there when she took this picture, but . . . I know why she took it,” Diana muttered, looking at her feet.

Ash gray flashed in. Guilt.

“Why did she take it?” Jenna asked.

“Well, maybe she didn't take it because of this, but . . .”

“Go ahead, Diana. We're not here to judge you,” Saleda pressed.

“Or Brooklyn,” Jenna breathed.

Diana glanced at Jenna, then back toward the photo. She wrung her hands. “Earlier that day, Brooklyn had . . .”

Jenna didn't push. She let Diana take her time. Clearly whatever the girl had to say, she wasn't proud of her friend for it.

“Brooklyn had been mean to that guy. He stays there, outside the college pretty much every day. He doesn't bother anyone. He just sits there with his box. Sometimes people will give him a sandwich from inside the dining hall, and some kids even toss their change from buying lunch into his box,” Diana said.

“And Brooklyn?” Saleda prodded.

Diana continued to stare at her feet. “Brooklyn knocked over his shoe box that day. On purpose.”

Several colors assaulted Jenna's vision in rapid succession as she imagined the living, breathing Brooklyn taking an old homeless man to task just for being where and who he was. The plum she associated with hostility flashed in. It morphed into the orchid of superiority.

Jenna closed her eyes, pictured the photos of Brooklyn taken at the hospital morgue. Auburn, rich and bright, flashed in. Then a flicker of green. That was the Triple Shooter's green three, she knew. But the auburn. She'd seen it somewhere recently . . .

She opened her eyes with a start.
Calliope Jones.

“Thank you, Diana. That's exactly what we needed to know. I'm sorry to rush off, but we have to go. Now that you've given us this important piece of information, there's someone else I need to talk to.”