Double Vision (28 page)

J
enna slammed the door and furiously bolted one lock after the other, muttering. “What was he thinking? How could he have . . . ugh! This changes everything. How could he . . .”

“Whoa, now, El Tigre.” Her dad's voice met her ears. “You okay?”

She hung her head, breathed slowly and evenly for a moment. No way could she tell him about this. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“I'm fine,” she said, turning around and putting on her most composed face.

“Clearly,” Vern replied, smirking. “You and Steampunk have a fight?”

Jenna passed him and opened the fridge, not really hungry but unwilling to lie to her dad's face, even by omission. “Not exactly.”

“You know, if our lives are any indication, change isn't
always
a bad thing,” Vern said.

So he'd been listening to her angry rant as she was coming in the door, when she'd thought she was alone. Great.
Mental note: When Ayana is an adult and she has a boyfriend—or girlfriend—don't think you know exactly what's going on, even if you've come to like Prince or Princess Charming.

“Dad, I know you and Yancy get along, but it'd be great if you didn't jump to take his side. I'm still your daughter, you know. He's still an outsider coming in,” she spat, fighting to control the violent reaction.

“Ouch,” he said. “That's kinda harsh, isn't it?”

The deep, rich red of the Japanese maple leaves in the fall outside her and Hank's apartment so many years ago flashed in, the one she'd so long associated with a kindness, an inherent good-hearted nature.

She shook it away. “I'm just saying he's not your flesh and blood. Don't be so quick to think he's got it all figured out.”

Vern let out a loud laugh. “
You
of all people are suddenly using the old ‘blood's thicker than water' cliché? I hate to remind you of this since you rarely forget it for a millisecond of any day when I wish you would, but if blood was any indication of a person's character, I should probably be the one locking
you
out of this house. Then again, by that definition, I'd need to lock myself into a house away from you, Ayana,
and
Charley . . .”

Jenna's face burned. “You don't understand.”

“So make me,” Vern replied. “And close the refrigerator door. You could've eaten every piece of old cheese pizza and drank the entire pitcher of Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid in there by now if you were actually looking for a snack.”

Jenna's jaw clenched, and she slammed the door of the fridge. She turned to face her father. “I can't. You wouldn't get it.”

“Try me.”

She stared into her dad's face, the face that had smiled back at her from the bottom of the slide as he'd waited to catch her, that had been slack and pale as Yancy had carried him out of the safe house just the year before, after Claudia's latest attempt to take him from her. He'd probably understand far better than anyone else what she was feeling at the moment. The problem was, she didn't want to rip that rug of trusting Yancy out from under him like it had been ripped from her. Losing what had been so hard to gain hurt too bad.

But despite the thought, she couldn't help what came out of her mouth. “I'm just not sure I . . . What if we don't know him as well as we think we do?”

Vern frowned. Something in his face changed, a cloud crossing it, like what she'd just said had thrown him. What could be so damned confusing? She'd come in fuming, after all.

“What's that look for?” she demanded, this time unable to keep the frustration out of her voice.

He stayed quiet a long moment, then said, “No one ever knows someone quite as well as they think they do, Jenna. But I'd say your gut has served you well. Wouldn't you?”

Tears bit Jenna's eyes as she thought about the color she'd always seen Yancy as, the salmon of him holding back the truth, and then the moss green lima bean conversation with Ayana that morning. Doubt.

“The colors aren't clear-cut anymore, Dad,” she whispered. “My gut doesn't know what to think.”

A small whine came from the direction of Ayana's room. She must've woken from her nap.

“That's my cue,” Vern said, smiling. “Duty calls. I'll get her up, we'll have a little dinner. Maybe some time with your shortest fan will clear your head some.”

He started toward the hall, but stopped at the kitchen doorway, turned, and looked back at her. “For the record, though, I think you're confusing your gut feeling with your special little superpower. I know they're tied together, but just make sure you don't get so wrapped up in reading colors that you forget to read people, Jenna. The distinction might be subtle, but of everyone I know on earth, you're the one I trust most to separate the nuances.”

And he left to go bring in her daughter.

•   •   •

J
enna handed one of her own plastic, sectioned plates to Ayana, who enthusiastically dried it with the towel Jenna had given her. One day she'd be old enough to realize that this was not a privilege, washing dishes. But for now drying seemed great to her. A pleasure, so simple.

Must be nice.

She looked out the window above the sink and jumped, then relaxed. Victor.

She wasn't sure Ayana was ready to meet her uncle. Not yet. Or maybe it was that with Victor having Hank's eyes, Jenna wasn't ready for it. Either way.

“A, go in and see if Uncle Charley wants to read
Fox in Socks
. Tell him I'll come in after I talk to someone,” she said.

“Okeydoke,” Ayana replied. She put the towel and plate on the counter over her head, then skipped off.

Jenna rested both hands on the edge of the sink, breathing. Then she turned to open the door. After she'd gone through the lock series, she cracked it.

“Hey,” Victor said. “I asked for you when I got back to the scene. They said you'd gone home in a hurry. I was . . . well, can I come in?”

Jenna nodded, opening the door wider.

Victor stepped past her, and she closed the door, taking her time relocking every bolt in the series. She had no clue how to explain her absence from the scene of Eldred's disappearance, particularly since she'd called Victor into it in the first place. Not to mention her reason for calling him in was because she had a personal stake in the case. He knew he was there because of Yancy. How could she excuse her own disappearing act without telling the whole story when he was already aware Yancy was involved? Burning guilt crept up her spine.

I'm not the liar.

“I just couldn't stay anymore,” she said truthfully.

Despite her best efforts, the tears came. Fast. Hot. Painful.

“Jenna, what on earth happened?”

The concern in his voice, its steadiness, pulled at her. She could confide in him. She could ask advice from someone.

For whatever reason, she trusted him.

“Why do you care?” she blurted despite the thought, pushing past him to tackle the remainder of the dishes.

She turned on the water, snatched up a plate. Harder and harder she scrubbed, throwing plates onto the drying rack as she finished them.

“Maybe because if I don't speak up for those dishes, no one will? Seriously, Jenna. They don't deserve to be treated like common criminals . . .”

Her hands slowed at the cup she was now scouring with a brush.
Gut instinct. You trust it everywhere else.

“Victor, if I told you something, would you swear never to tell another soul?” she whispered, closing her eyes.

“Of course,” his voice came back.

A soft melon flashed in. Sincerity.

She reopened her eyes, set the cup back into the sink unfinished, and faced him. “Even if it was the worst thing you'd ever heard, and your conscience told you to tell?”

He studied her, calculating. “What are we talking about here?”

“Would you?” she pressed.

Those eyes of Jenna's ex's met hers, though the lines of his face, his build, and his color were all different. Fixed on her, he nodded.

“I swear.”

“The reason Yancy couldn't call the locals in. I want you to know up front, when I involved you, I didn't know this . . .”

“Point taken,” Victor said. “Mind if I sit?”

She shook her head. “Go ahead. Mind if I wash while I talk?”

“Only if you promise the plates a fair trial.”

She reached for the cup again, this time washing more slowly. Deliberately.

“Victor, Yancy told me tonight that he killed someone.”

“What? When?”

Dear God. A nightmare.

And Jenna told Victor everything. What Yancy told her about shooting the cop, why he'd done what he had, the color she'd seen to know he wasn't telling her everything, how there was a chance this could have something to do with Eldred going missing. How even if she knew it was wrong, she couldn't tell the cops or her team, because no matter how mad she was at Yancy, she wasn't willing to throw him to the wolves. How she didn't know what to do now.

When she finally finished, she turned off the faucet and faced Victor, ready for judgment. Hell, if she were him, she'd judge her, too. She should've told Saleda the moment she found out.

Instead of judgment, however, she got only a grim, set jaw. “Where's the body?”

Jenna blinked. “I . . . uh . . . I don't know.”

In her anger, she'd left without forcing Yancy to tell her the details. She hadn't acted like a cop, but a girlfriend. A pissed one, and for good reason.

Victor held her gaze, a fierce look in his eye. “I need you to be really frank with me here, Jenna. Do you believe what he said? About the people who did this maybe coming after you and Ayana if they were to find out?”

She licked her lips nervously, tried to picture Yancy's face and voice as he'd said it. She'd been fuming when he'd mentioned Ayana, and yet . . .

Yancy's personal genuine yellow flashed in. It wasn't the color she saw in anyone else for sincerity, of course, but it didn't have to be. It was the color she saw as
him.
He'd been himself in that moment. No salmon of holding back or burnt orange of lies. Just him.

“Yes,” she said.

The ding of a text on her phone cut the thick air between them. She tore her eyes away from Victor and picked up her cell from the counter. With the team still working overtime on this case, anything new that came through would come to her. She couldn't afford to ignore the phone, as much as she needed the night off.

Sure enough, the message was from Saleda.

Got hold of the Triple Shooter's old psych and have some leads. Need your brain. You on the way?

She hadn't exactly told Saleda she was coming home, and apparently Porter hadn't, either. As much as she'd love to tell everyone to back off, whoever tried to manipulate the Triple Shooter into killing Molly Keegan was still out there, and Eldred Beasley was still missing.

She typed back.

Be there in twenty.

Jenna looked back at Victor. “They need me at Quantico.”

She wanted to plead with him to help her, to tell her what to do about Yancy and this situation. She needed someone, for once, to save
her
.

He stood. “I can see myself out. Go give the fam good-bye kisses.”

Jenna undid the lock series despite what he'd said. He couldn't see himself out if he wanted to. She opened the door, her heart dropping as what felt like her only ally walked away.

Victor turned just past the stoop.

“Don't tell another person what you told me. I'll talk to Yancy and make sure he doesn't. Don't let on to a single person that anything strange went on tonight or that night,” he said.

“Victor—”

He grabbed her hand, squeezed it.

His hand was so warm.

“Don't think about it again. I'll take care of it,” he said.

And he left, without another word.

J
enna was in the back of the unfamiliar conference room next to Saleda, munching a donut and listening. When she'd gotten to headquarters Saleda had filled her in on the conversation with the psychiatrist Tobias Gray had stopped seeing a year ago. Now that Tobias was dead, it was a lot easier to ask his old doctor questions and actually have him answer. Less worries about doctor–patient confidentiality. Saleda had questioned him about who might've had any sort of influence over Tobias Gray, about anyone who would've known about his mental state. He'd pointed the team to an AA meeting he knew the Triple Shooter had started attending. Tobias hadn't been a drinker, but the principles of self-control and self-forgiveness in AA could apply to schizophrenia recovery. The psychiatrist himself had suggested the idea. It was the only thing he could point them to. Tobias's family had cut him off, no longer sure how to deal with his illness, and his former patient had had trouble making real friends because of that illness.

Lucky for them, that very AA group had a meeting in Alexandria tonight, and Saleda and Jenna had made it in time to slip in the back.

When the current speaker stepped down and the leader asked who'd like to share next, Jenna stood. This wasn't going to be pleasant, but they didn't have time for the normal routes of inquiry. A man was missing, and he might've been taken by someone who told the Triple Shooter to kill a six-year-old.

She made it to the podium and held up her badge. “I'm Dr. Jenna Ramey, part of the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. I'm here to find out what anyone here knows about this man, or anybody who might be associated with him.”

Jenna held up a picture of Tobias Gray's driver's license photo, blown up for just this purpose. “This is Tobias Gray. He used to come to this very meeting, and in recent months or days became involved with a very dangerous person. We don't know who that person is, but we hope someone here can point us in the right direction. We need to know who he was around or what he was doing in the days leading up to now. We have no more leads, and in order to pursue him, we need something—anything you can give us.”

Silence met her, the blank stares of the meeting participants echoing surprise, concern, and a plethora of other emotions. Some even had fear written on their faces.

She'd known this would be difficult, especially since some people here had already faced run-ins with the law they weren't keen to dredge up again. Not to mention, the whole point of these meetings was to remain anonymous, though she knew they all were aware of each others' names, occupations, and more.

“No one?” she asked. “Okay, let me put this another way. I can have some answers here, or I can bring each and every one of you in for questioning. But trust me, this man has done some awful things, and a lot of what he might do from here on depends on us finding out who he was involved with recently. Every law enforcement agency from here to the North Pole would be all right with me dragging in twenty people for questioning if it meant getting the information we need.”

Victor's nickname of “Hardass” popped into Jenna's mind. She hated doing this, because it was always better to win trust. But in some cases, there just wasn't time for that.

A woman in her thirties raised her hand, then stood. She shook slightly.

“He . . . Tobias stopped coming here almost a year ago. Might be doing something totally different by now, but back then, he'd started going to another meeting. A Celebrate Recovery assembly at a church somewhere a town over, I think.”

“Okay. I have Celebrate Recovery. Anybody care to share anything else about that? Someone's gotta know . . .”

No one spoke for a long minute. Then the group's leader stood up.

“I don't know where he went, but I can provide a list of the Celebrate Recovery meetings within a hundred mile radius,” he said.

“Great. Come with us, sir. The rest of you, thanks for your time.”

•   •   •

A
fter the group leader had given them the list and thoroughly berated them for interrupting the room full of fragile, healing minds and bodies, they left the conference hall. Jenna searched online for the nearest FedEx store, and they set out for the print shop to send the list to Irv. Jenna had tried to take a picture of the papers and send them, but between the tiny print and number of pages the list stretched across, faxing the sheets would be easier and faster. It would take her and Saleda days to comb through all these meetings, and time was something they didn't have. They had no idea what Irv might be able to do with the list, but hopefully he could give them a place to start.

“What's he going to do?” Jenna asked as they waited to receive confirmation that their fax had gone through. “Cross-reference Tobias's name with his ass crack? We gave him a list of anonymous meetings in a hundred mile radius. It's not like there's some ritual all alcoholics perform prior to meetings that would show up on electronic records, like depositing checks at the bank next door to the church where they get together.”

“I've never been a drinker, so I wouldn't know. Let's hope there is something like that, though. We're screwed for tonight and maybe all week if not, and Eldred doesn't have that long,” Saleda replied.

Jenna picked up the list again. Maybe they weren't screwed. Not yet, anyway.

“What if we thought like him? The group leader said he asked for this same list, and that's how he found his own meeting when he started turning more religious. If you were the Triple Shooter, how would you use this list to find the one place
you'd
like to go?” Jenna said, not sure if she was talking to Saleda or herself.

“The place with the best donuts?” Saleda ventured.

“Okay, but if you were
Tobias Gray 
. . .”

Jenna was already scanning the list for things that might jump out at her if she were him. Maybe a Celebrate Recovery meeting at the Church of the Hydra or something Greek . . .

Then, she saw it, the green of the Triple Shooter burning bright in front of her eyes.

Three Thirty-three Claxton Street. St. Ignatius Holy Church of the Sabbath.

Sabbath.
Seven.

Jenna pointed to the listing. “It's this one.”

Saleda didn't ask, but instead said, “No meeting until tomorrow.”

“Well, we'll just have to wait then . . .” Jenna said, sarcasm dripping from her tone. Then, “What are you, nuts? We're the FBI! We'll get Irv on the horn, he'll fetch the staff listings, and we'll call up every employee until their phones ring so much they feel crazy enough to answer. When they do, we'll ask for the name and contact information of whoever is in charge of those meetings.”

Saleda stared at her, and Jenna immediately felt herself blushing. Telling your Agent in Charge what to do wasn't just crossing the line. It was downright rude.

“Sorry,” Jenna mumbled.

Saleda nodded. “Me, too. This case has my head in a twist.”

She pulled out her phone and called Irv, and in a short few minutes, they had the name, phone number, and home address of the person responsible for the Celebrate Recovery meetings at St. Ignatius. But from what the church secretary told them before she'd given it to them, they wouldn't need it. The church was only a few blocks away, and the leader of the meetings, “Brother Ozzie,” was there now, volunteering during a drop-in communion and prayer candle lighting.

“Hope God's okay with wrinkled slacks,” Jenna said as they left the FedEx store's parking lot.

“Slacks are the least of my worries. I have a bunch of unpaid parking tickets.”

Jenna's heart panged with the thought of Yancy and what he'd done. Was the situation even fixable? Victor said he'd take care of it, but what the hell could he take care
of
?

“Parking tickets. Right,” Jenna breathed. Best not to think about it right now. “Brother Ozzie, here we come.”