Double Vision (5 page)

Oboe picked up his pace again, and Yancy trudged behind him. Maybe Ayana's birthday party wasn't such a bad idea. Jenna would be off her guard enough that she wouldn't head him off. Dating a profiler sucked. They could always read you, know exactly which unwanted topic you were about to broach. Steer you away.

Yancy kicked a pebble with his metal hook of a foot, but the stone caught the curve of the prosthetic, which sent the rock straight into Oboe's rear end. The dog jumped and did a half turn in the air, looking for the source of attack.

“Sorry, bud. Didn't mean to take my frustration out on you.”

Oboe growled halfheartedly, but faced forward and ambled on. Yancy stared at his feet as they made their way up the next block.
Shoe, thunk, shoe, thunk
. If that stupid foot didn't keep him at a desk, maybe he'd be with Jenna now, working the case. Sure, he'd never made it anywhere past his internship at the Florida Bureau of Investigation, but his imagination could station him anywhere he wanted. All the way at Quantico if he liked, damn it. His brain and that imagination were about
all
he could use as much as he wanted.

He squeezed the velvet bag in his pocket, felt the edges of the stone inside it: a little circle that happened to be the same size as Jenna's finger. Over six months, and even
she
admitted the courting stage was over. So what next? A comfortable toothbrush-at-each-other's-home arrangement, and maybe in a few years they'd adopt a little brother for Oboe together?

If I had both feet and was on the job with her, she wouldn't want to say no.
Yancy dropped the bag inside his pocket and removed his hand, empty. It was a ridiculous thought, but he couldn't help it. Last year when he'd been with Jenna every step of the case, she'd fallen for him. That was when she first wanted him. Needed him. She'd never exactly be a shrinking violet, and he'd never want her to be. But it'd be nice to have to open a pickle jar or kill a spider every now and then. But who needed a spider-killer when you had a fully loaded Glock on hand and every door in your house was bolted five times over?

At the corner of Potter Road, Oboe wound left, their usual route, but Yancy paused. On the next corner came Finch Place, then Waverly a block after that. From there, it was only a couple more blocks to Crowe. If they went down Crowe and took a right onto Baxter, it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to Peake.

No, dumbass. You know the rules. Getting personally involved with a caller is not only prohibited, it's just a fucking bad idea.

And yet, he had no way of knowing if CiCi Winthrop had walked away from the latest skirmish with her husband without a scratch or if she'd left on a gurney. Not knowing what happened after the calls he took was hard, but not knowing on one like this was the worst. One of these days, CiCi would hang up after a call and he'd never hear from her again. If she was lucky, it would be because she got to a safe house of some kind, disappeared where the lowlife could never find her again.

What harm could it do just to check?

He pulled back on Oboe's leash, stepping straight ahead. “Come on, boy, this way.”

Oboe stood stock-still, stubby legs rooted to the spot.

“Look, I
know
it's not where we usually go, but since when do you not like to explore?” Yancy asked, making sure his voice trailed up high at the end, the tone that always got Oboe excited.

The dog's thin tail quivered.

Yancy smirked at him then took his voice up another notch. “Cooome on, Oboe. You know you wanna, big boy!”

Oboe's tail picked up its pace, swishing faster and faster until it seemed to propel him toward Yancy and forward onto the street ahead of them.

“Attaboy,” Yancy said, even though his pitch didn't match the sick feeling in his gut. At best, he was going against protocol and using a caller's address inappropriately to get a cheap thrill and be part of a crisis, kind of like he was last year. At worst, he was borderline stalking.

All he wanted to do was check on her, though. He would never go back after this one time. He just had to make sure she was okay, then he could take the normal left at the corner of Potter again.

J
enna stepped into the small, burgundy-painted room with Molly. The little girl had taken her to see her bedroom, her mother and Liam's room, the playroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, the guest room, and the den, all the while pointing out the little things only a six-year-old would notice: the doggie door exit off the kitchen, a bird's nest in the crook of the back porch roof and its support beam. She showed Jenna the hope chest in her mother's room that was large enough for her to climb into, the perfect hiding spot during a game of hide and seek.

For the entire sightseeing expedition, Jenna had attempted to pick Molly's brain about the grocery store and numbers in general, but the child was so fixated on being the ultimate tour guide, nothing could distract her from her ongoing monologue about the home's furniture, decorations, and the special stories involved with each.

Now, having seen the exercise area of the basement, which was filled with a treadmill, a stair climber, and another strange machine that seemed to Jenna more like a medieval torture device than workout equipment, all that was left in the downstairs of the house was another small bathroom and Liam Tyler's office.

Molly pointed at her stepfather's oak corner desk. “That desk used to be Liam's father's, and it was
his
dad's before that. So it's in its third generation.”

“Wow. That's pretty cool,” Jenna muttered, wandering deeper into the room. She ran a fingertip along the roped edge of the well-crafted desk. “So Liam adopted you when he and your mom got married, huh?”

“Yep. My dad's okay, I guess, but he doesn't really act like a dad. Only seen him a couple of times in my life. He doesn't call or want to
be
my dad or anything. Just met me 'cause Mommy thought I should meet him. Not sure why, but she seemed to think it was important. He was nice enough, but I got the idea he didn't really want a kid. Mommy always says he's just a kid himself. Liam asked if he could adopt me, and I said sure.” Molly crouched in front of the desk where she was using her pointer finger to trace one of the patterns carved into the wood. “Mommy and Liam were going to change my name to Molly Tyler when he did, but they ended up leaving it.”

Jenna examined a piece of abstract brass art atop the desk. “Why's that?”

Molly giggled, her focus still on the desk's intricate etchings as she now traced the scalloped valance that hung down from the front edge. “G-Ma. She made an
awful
fuss about how if they did, she'd be the only Keegan in the house.” She laughed again. “They've never found out G-Ma was doing it for me.”

“You didn't want to change it?” Jenna asked, now curious. The revelation that G-Ma, Raine's mother, and Molly had the same last name hadn't been a surprise to her. She'd read in the file on Molly that Irv had put together that Raine had been using her maiden name when she gave birth to Molly, so Jenna was already aware Molly's parents had never married.

Molly shrugged. “Tyler's okay, but I like Keegan. I was so used to my name having the number of letters it does . . . it might be silly, but I didn't want my letter number to change. It just would've felt weird. Liam's fun, but he never would've understood.”

Jenna looked at her and smiled when she found Molly was staring up at her, eyes hopeful.
Desires validation. Approval.

“Well,
I
get it. You can like your new stepdad a lot and still want to be you at the same time,” Jenna said. She turned to face a wall with some sort of clay or plaster artwork adorning it. Her gaze drifted up the wall and down, skimming the rows of circular plates, each with the impression of something in the middle, the entire plate painted to its own theme. They looked almost like some kind of fossils.

Molly joined her in front of the display. “Aren't they pretty?”

“Oh, yes,” Jenna replied. “What are they?”

“They're rock molds. Volcanic rock molds, to be exact,” Molly said, taking a step toward them. She lifted her finger and, without touching the mold right in front of her, traced the line of its impression. “See how in this one, there's a gap in the print here? That's because these kinds of rocks are formed when magma is erupted from a volcano and becomes lava or gets trapped in a pocket inside the earth. Either way, it cools and solidifies, but sometimes gas bubbles get trapped inside. They leave spaces in the rock, like this one.” She grinned at Jenna, clearly proud of knowing so much about something Liam had taught her.

“Your stepdad has a bunch, huh?”

She nodded, eager. “Oh, yeah. He's an enthusiast. Makes imprints of his favorites.”

Jenna smiled, but on the inside, she was cringing. Sure, everyone had their own thing, but how boring could you get? Rocks as a hobby? Stamps were about as close as anyone she knew had come, and at least
they
were compact enough that you could confine your dull-as-dishwater pastime in a scrapbook or two instead of needing to take up entire shelves and walls.

“So Liam's a rock collector, then?” Jenna asked.

“Well, not to get too technical, but I'm more of a mineral collector than a rock collector.”

Jenna whirled around to see Liam Tyler standing in the office doorway.

“How interesting,” Jenna said. She turned away from the wall of rock imprints toward the large print of Da Vinci's
The Last Supper
hanging behind Liam's third-generation desk. The colors were much more vivid than in any of the versions of the painting she'd seen.

Molly stepped up beside her, grinning. “It's the restored version. Isn't it cool? I like it because of all the stuff to count.”

Liam stepped into the office and put a hand on Molly's shoulder. “Molly, I doubt Dr. Ramey has spent nearly as much time counting the apostles' dishes as you have, hon.”

“The feet don't add up, did you notice? Not as many feet as people in the picture,” Molly said.

The little girl stepped toward the canvas and gestured to each visible foot with her pointer finger, counting them as she went. “Sixteen. But there are thirteen
people
, so there ought to be twenty-six feet. You can see Jesus's easily, though. If you don't count his, you can only see fourteen feet, not twenty-four. And the cups. Eleven cups, twelve men. Other than Jesus, I mean. Thirteen with him. Have you ever noticed that stuff before, Dr. Ramey?”

Jenna smiled. “No, I haven't, but it
is
fascinating, Molly.”

Next to her, Jenna felt Liam stiffen, and she blew out a breath. Contradicting him in front of his stepdaughter didn't make her feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it was in her best interests to make friends with the little girl. And for that to happen, she needed Molly to feel like she was genuinely interested in what she had to say.

“Sorry to disrupt the tour,” Liam said. “I just need to grab a file and I'll be on my way.”

Liam rounded the corner of the desk, pulled the drawer open, removed a manila folder, and closed the drawer. “Molly, show Dr. Ramey around if you must, but don't be too long, and don't touch. The mineral molds and the artwork are fragile, and fingerprint oil will degrade them over time.” He turned to Jenna and smiled. “I'm sorry to be a bit uptight. Expensive hobbies bring out the stickler in a man, I suppose. Let me know if you need me.”

With that, Liam left, and Jenna and Molly were alone again in Liam's office.

“He's protective of his rock imprints,” Molly said matter-of-factly.

Jenna nodded, glancing back to the painting of
The
Last Supper
.

“Do you know about the book
The Da Vinci Code
, Molly?” Jenna asked.

Molly frowned and sighed. “Mom won't let me read it until I'm older. But I did watch part of the movie on one of the paid channels,” she admitted sheepishly.

Jenna smiled, thinking of how the number of cups in the painting contributed to the plot. “You're really going to like that book one day.” Now to tempt her to talk about numbers in
this
case. “What other things have you counted in the painting?”

Molly's toothy smile came out again. The little girl was clearly eager to be asked about her favorite subject. “Well, five people are wearing something blue, and you can only see twenty-five hands, but there should be twenty-six.” She gestured toward the right-hand side of the painting at a man who appeared to be holding up a number one. “He's the only guy who doesn't have two hands.”

The little girl seemed to be right. The figure's left hand didn't show. “What's that one about, do you suppose?”

“The finger?” Molly asked.

“Mm-hm,” Jenna said, examining the painting herself. For everything she knew in the world, the six-year-old had one-upped her this time. Jenna was no art historian.

“It's doubting Thomas, so probably to do with the finger he poked in Jesus's nail holes to test the evidence. That's what Liam thinks, anyway.”

“You and Liam talk about the painting a good bit?”

“Eh, not that much. I've told him stuff I've noticed before. Like the dishes. There are eighteen flat dishes, but only three big ones. So that means fifteen small ones even though only thirteen people. Then there's the one big empty dish in front of Jesus, and the two with food on the sides. Three big dishes could be for the Holy Trinity maybe.”

Purple flashed into Jenna's mind against her will, a royal purple, deep in hue. Strange. She usually associated the number three with an avocado green, not purple.
And yet . . .

She'd seen purple at the crime scene, and every time she thought about the Triple Shooter's spree at the grocery store, a purple nagged her in addition to the similarly jewel-toned blue she'd seen there. The blue she already felt sure was submission to an uncontrollable urge. But the purple . . . That purple was close to the color of impulse or narcissism, but the shade was a bit different.

No matter. She could come back to the color association later. Now that she'd finally gotten Molly on not just numbers, but the number three, no way she was about to waste the opportunity. “Any other theories about the three?”

Molly shrugged. “Threes are used all the time in religious stuff. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one thing, but then Jesus took three days to rise from the grave, too. In fact, the number three is used four hundred and sixty-seven times in the Bible.”

Jenna bit her lip to hold back the laugh. “Did you count those?”

“Googled it,” Molly answered. “Three gets used a lot. Three virtues of Christ, that kind of thing, but that's normal. It's used any time deities come into play in all kinds of religions. Hindu, Buddha, Wicca, everything.”

At this Jenna snorted a little.

“What?” Molly asked, wheeling around to face her.

Jenna shook her head. “It's just that I've never met a six-year-old who knows as much as you do about world religions, that's all.”

Molly flashed her smile again, proud of herself. “Thanks!”

“Don't mention it. So you're saying
The Last Supper
could just as likely be a Wiccan painting as a Christian one?” Jenna asked. The Triple Shooter was obsessed with threes for a reason, and when obsessions took root, religion could very well be the source of them. People tended to fixate on ideas entrenched in something they already had strong ties to, a broader subject they themselves held dear. Politics, sports, religion. All three were big. Even if a person displayed a compulsion such as hand washing, the behavior and the reasons for it often stemmed from beliefs about another core life principle.

Purple flashed in again. Royalty. A color association even people without grapheme–color synesthesia had.

“I doubt it's
likely
,” Molly answered, her voice a bit annoyed. “After all, it
does
have Jesus in it.”

Stupid question.
She'd phrase it better this time, because the more she thought about it, the more she was sure the purple she kept associating, side by side, with the royal blue she saw in conjunction with the Triple Shooter matched the shade she associated with royalty. The jump from royalty to deity wasn't hard to make. “Right. But let's say you saw a painting with threes in it. A new painting you've never seen. Let's pretend you knew the painting was religious but didn't know which religion. What might you think?”

“Could be anything,” Molly said. “Depends on what else was in the painting.”

Duh, Jenna.
The crime scenes of the Triple Shooter's victims flashed in, one by one. This was either a really good idea or a really bad one.

“Just for argument's sake, let's say the painting had the number three involved, then there were women,” Jenna said.

“How many?”

Several.
But no. The Triple Shooter, until now, had killed one at a time.

“Just one, maybe. Let's say there's more than one painting, but they're each of a different woman.”

“Okay. What are they doing?”

Resting in peace?
“Sleeping,” Jenna blurted.

“Okay. Sleeping women, one in each painting. What else is in the paintings?”

What could she tell this kid without giving away important case facts they'd withheld? “How about . . .” The case details flitted through her mind. Each of the Triple Shooter's first three victims had at least one chest wound. “They all have a circle right here.” Jenna indicated the middle of her breastbone.

Molly scrunched her eyebrows, deep in thought. “Geez, Dr. Ramey. I'm not sure I know. Once you take out the numbers, I'm kind of out of it. I mean, there are the Triple Goddesses in Wicca. That's what I thought of first when you said more than one woman, I guess. They correspond to the three phases of the moon, I think. Full, waxing, and waning, but even then some people say there's a fourth unseen goddess. The Celts had three goddesses. Maid, mother, crone. What paintings are these? How many of them are there?”