Flash Point Page 3

  ‘I stood up. We walked to the stairs … went down. Got to the safe. I turned the combination into the lock and opened the door. God. I could hear his breathing behind me.’

  ‘Did he say anything else up to this point?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Just waited. I was so scared he’d stab me in the back. God, it was so fucking terrifying.’

  Now Ashlee shook. She rocked herself a little, unclasped her hands and dried them on her pants.

  ‘When you opened the door, what happened?’ Jenna asked.

  ‘He told me to close myself in the safe so I didn’t get killed. He said I was lucky. That I’d been chosen to “start the dialogue”. Those were the words he used: “Start the dialogue”. He told me it was important to speak carefully when I talked to “investigators”. Said the police would come. That I should pass along their message.’

  The redwood color Jenna associated with attention-seeking flashed in. They had kept a witness alive on purpose to transmit a message to the cops. The bold, chili pepper red of organization replaced the redwood. Then, narcissistic purple. Sometimes killers secretly wanted to be caught on some level. But the pathology of a group of killers? Not so simple …

  A message to pass. An organized group of killers, yet mass murder without robbery motives, so the mafia moving money seemed out.

  A message. Organized. Mass.

  The deep, dark red of sangria blanketed her mind. A color she associated with violence rooted in causing fear. Terror.

  ‘What message did he ask you to pass on?’ Jenna asked, swallowing hard. One of the killers had kept someone alive deliberately to tell her – to tell the police – something. And left a note that they would strike again. It could only mean one thing …

  ‘He said to tell you that you should “treat all trivial things in life very seriously—”’

  ‘Wait,’ Jenna cut in. ‘Which of those were his words?’

  ‘What he said exactly was, “Tell the cops they should treat all trivial things in life very seriously. Tell them it is important to be earnest.”’

  The words caused a wash of lapis lazuli to crash over Jenna, the deep blue permeating her thoughts. Intelligence. Classical intelligence.

  ‘Thank you, Ashlee,’ she said, standing. ‘I may have some more questions for you in a bit, but that’s all I need right now.’

  Jenna left the downstairs conference room of the bank and closed the door behind her. Her eyes found Saleda’s. ‘I want to do another walkthrough. Also, I think you’ll want to get Homeland Security on the line.’

  Jenna passed Saleda and headed down the hallway toward the stairs. She had to see the crime scene again. She could get so much more from it now that she knew what they were dealing with. Sort of.

  In fact, she’d be able to look at each killing individually and learn even more about the group makeup, now that she knew what she was looking for.

  She heard Saleda’s heels clacking on the floor behind her. Her ranking officer fell into step with her. ‘Homeland Security? What the fuck for?’

  ‘Because this isn’t a bank robbery gone wrong or a weird mafia-related hit,’ Jenna said. ‘We’re dealing with a terrorist group.’

  Five

  Ah, visitors’ day.

  Isaac Keaton took a deep breath of the not-so-fresh air of the visiting area, where he was led to a little cubicle with flimsy walls. A few other supermax inmates were already here, sitting behind the fingerprint-covered Plexiglas while they talked over corded telephones to their wives, kids, parents, and legal aides. These men who had committed the worst of the worst violent crimes, who were so tough they were otherwise kept in single-occupancy control units twenty-three hours a day, would reach up to the window and mirror the palms of their five-year-old daughters, sometimes fight tears when their mother showed up for the very rare visit. The more Isaac came to this room ever since he’d started striving for good behavior points from the guards when he first set this plan into motion, the more he noticed that the air outside his cell might not be fresh, but it was full. Full of sweaty nerves, salty tears. The stench of body odor and farts and bad breath clashed distinctly with the need in the air, the hope, and the remorse.

  Isaac shuffled, his ankles still shackled, around the seat of the cubicle and lowered himself into the chair. He adopted his own look of relief and happiness mixed with regret. The little twit would expect it. Need it, even, if she was to keep on track.

  He found her eyes across from him and stared into them, suppressing laughter at the vacant expression staring back at him. ‘Hi, buttercup. Good to see your face.’

  The blonde-haired, green-eyed beauty let out a relieved laugh, flashing a smile so white he’d known the first time he’d seen it those teeth weren’t a natural shade. A tear dripped down her porcelain cheek, streaking it black with her running mascara.

  ‘Yours, too,’ she breathed, and some of the tension in her shoulders relaxed.

  He smiled, closed-lipped. A little bit more show, just to calm her nerves. She needed the reassuring. Always did after something like last time, when he’d been angry with her for diverting from the plan. When his temper bested his control, he had to use a precise recipe to steer everything back on course, get Lynzee in the place he wanted her to be.

  Thankfully, the recipe always worked. He’d solidified their relationship long before Lynzee was fired from the prison med ward for fraternizing with an inmate. He’d been careful, subtle. By the time anyone on staff reported his affair with the pretty young nurse, he’d not only managed to make her believe that she brought the best out in him, but that she needed him desperately. That they were soul mates and she alone understood him. That he was the only person who understood her. That no matter what happened, she wanted to be with him.

  ‘Have you been sleeping better?’ he asked, letting the fingers of the hand not holding the phone stretch toward her as though he wished his hands weren’t cuffed so he could touch the Plexiglas, have his hand closer to hers.

  She lifted a palm to the glass, pressed it to where, if he could reach, his hand might’ve been. ‘Trying.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s good. I want you to get some rest soon so those dark circles will go away. You’re just as pretty with them, but they let me know that you’re struggling.’

  ‘Stupid evidence,’ she laughed, moving her hand from the Plexiglas and wiping her eyes. ‘Isaac—’

  ‘Lynz, don’t,’ he cut in. He shook his head, still smiling. ‘You’re here now, and that’s what matters. We’re here.’

  If I can taste the vomit when I say the words, you’d think you’d at least have a gag reflex when I say them.

  But she didn’t. She drank them up like a little plant in the desert.

  ‘I’ve just been so worried you’d still be upset with me after I messed up—’

  ‘Shh,’ he admonished gently. ‘I told you. It’s OK.’

  The last thing I need is for you to lose your focus and say something you shouldn’t.

  ‘Tell me about work,’ Isaac said, the caring boyfriend. He didn’t exactly want to hear her ramble on about her new job and why it wasn’t the same as when she was here because he wasn’t there. But, the change of topic steered her away from talk not fit to be discussed undisguised around guards, being recorded.

  Isaac counted to one hundred and eighty in his head, careful to tune in just enough so that later whatever she told him wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass. The best plans were ruined, the most brilliant of criminals thwarted because they didn’t pay enough attention to the people weaker than them. Even more brilliant minds than his had been spoiled because they’d failed to keep their generals under control. A target with the attention he or she craved was a happy target – a pawn willing to be manipulated.

  Jenna Ramey’s face burst forth in his mind, and for a moment, he shut out Lynzee’s words. Her mother had been the smartest there was, maybe, and yet, Claudia didn’t properly attend to Jenna. Let her have too many of her
own thoughts. Didn’t color enough of her perception. Claudia had been bested by Jenna, a costly mistake of his stepmother’s he was determined to learn from.

  Sure. His master plan had been stopped by Jenna, too, and Claudia had ended up trumping the system through a ruse he had tried and failed at himself, but his mistake had been different. He hadn’t known Jenna before they met during his interrogation following a shooting last year. His mistake had been to underestimate her.

  But the past was the past, and his tango with Jenna Ramey was far from over. She’d gotten the better of him and thrown him in prison, sentenced to life without parole, but he wasn’t about to accept this as a defeat. Oh, no. It was just the first battle in a much larger war.

  ‘So, did Shelby admit she was the one who took your Dr Pepper out of the fridge, or is she still trying to deny she was in the break room?’ Isaac asked, latching on to Lynzee Gold’s train of thought, fooling her into thinking her workplace squabbles – her life – was important to him. He had to, in order to change the subject and still have her think he cared. He’d let her talk for a full three minutes about herself, but it was for naught if the transition wasn’t smooth. They had twenty minutes to visit, and that time could be plenty for his purposes if he shifted gears easily. It could also tick away fast if she became indignant.

  ‘Of course not,’ she replied, rolling her eyes. ‘Nobody saw her go in there but me. If she ’fessed up now, it’d be worse than it would’ve been to begin with after she told everyone she didn’t do it.’

  ‘Ugh,’ he replied. The response was more his annoyance with her banal bullshit than with the coworker and the case of the missing soda. ‘Well, you just wait. Karma’s a bitch … oh, speaking of … did you talk to your sister about her birthday?’

  He held his breath, waiting for Lynzee’s reaction as he said the words that would make sense to her. Their code to either confirm whether or not she’d taken the next step he’d asked her to or, in this case, to signal that he was about to give her more information.

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I called her, but she hasn’t called back yet.’

  ‘Ah, I gotcha,’ he replied, nodding. Smug satisfaction washed over him following her reply, which let him know she was ready for his directions. He hadn’t seen that little thing in her eyes that flashed when she was perturbed or disappointed. ‘Well, you’ll have to sign the card from me, too. I know I have to miss it, but damn, I wish I could be there. Meet your folks, too.’

  Her face registered sadness, the frown clear as her eyes let go of his and turned downward.

  ‘Lynz. Don’t ever worry that this circumstance will last and that we will never meet. Understand, love. We’ll have so long together, meeting everyone you’ve known won’t even seem hard by the time we’re going through our bucket lists together, checking things off. We’ll be able to forget the last few years of not being together. It’ll just be one more time in our lives. OK?’ he said slowly. Carefully.

  She nodded, but he wasn’t sure she was grasping what he was saying a hundred percent. Couldn’t trust that his words had gotten through to her. She was a ditz, after all.

  Isaac repeated his words to her again, this time adding, ‘Do not get discouraged, Lynz. We will be together.’ For emphasis. For the show.

  Lynzee sat quietly for a full ten seconds before nodding again.

  ‘I know. Deep down, I know. It’s just … hard,’ she said, a tear trailing her nose. She wiped it with the back of her hand. Sniffled.

  Isaac fought the smirk. He’d taught her so well.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said, this time really meaning the praise if not the affection. She did the job so beautifully that he almost hated that, at some point, he’d have to break her at best, kill her at worst. Though maybe killing her was more humane. She had performed a valuable service for him, being the vital liaison he needed and all. Was a valuable asset. Putting her out of the misery she’d suffer when he left and didn’t marry her and have a thousand babies might be a nice reward for the loyalty.

  ‘Time!’ a guard in the doorway called.

  ‘Gotta go, buttercup. Give your sis a hug from me. Maybe tell her the present was my idea,’ he said, blowing her an air kiss.

  She smiled. ‘I haven’t even said what I got her.’

  He snickered, enjoying the way she kept up, played along. The guards would never suspect their conversations were code, because the code was so well masked. Even if they somehow zeroed in on that the talks they had were contrived, they’d never be able to decipher them.

  ‘Still,’ Isaac said. ‘I want credit. I don’t know what you bought, but I do know you have impeccable taste. Bye, buttercup.’

  He hung up the phone, but he didn’t take his eyes off her as he backed out of the cubicle. Better to give her these last few seconds of his attention, let his behaviors stand in her memory in case at any point she doubted him.

  Sheep never see a wolf among them if the wolf looks like a sheep, too.

  He turned away, shuffled toward the door of the visiting room to go back to his cell, thankful his acting gig was over.

  When he reentered his cell, he smiled as the door slammed shut, its lock clicking into place. It was only a matter of time now before he made his move against Jenna Ramey. Showed her that it was him she should be afraid of. It was him who would come back for her.

  He sat on his bed, looked up at the TV in the top corner that was tuned to the lovely televangelist channel the guards used as a torment device. He grinned, shook his head.

  ‘And on the third day, they rolled the stone away only to see that the one they’d put there was no longer inside,’ he said. ‘Oh, Jenna. Doctor Ramey. I’m coming for you.’

  Six

  Back upstairs at the bank, Jenna stood in the lobby, taking in the scene again. This time, she was ready for it, knew to be careful not to look too hard at the different bodies, speculating on how they were killed. Later, it would be worth it, but for now that would only provoke too many colors to make any sense. For the moment, much more was to be gained by assessing the crime scene’s bigger canvas as though it were one giant masterpiece orchestrated by one person. The person that was the leader of this terrorist group, the person who would have been the commander of the force. He or she would have had the final say on what went on here even if the plan had been a collaborative one.

  With that in mind, the colors didn’t seem to fly at her out of control. Instead, the gory scene was much more dilute. A horrible reality, yes, but a cohesive, dim reality rather than the bold, intense colors that had seemed to zoom around the room as if in a pinball machine when she’d first come in.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Porter and Teva approaching from the doorway, but only her eyes roamed the room as she otherwise kept completely still. As her teammates joined her and Saleda, she muttered the only thought she could definitively put into words at that second to help get them on to the same page: ‘Every attacker has a different MO, so the violence level and profile of each individual will be different. The message is the same.’

  How, I’m not entirely sure.

  ‘Do you want to talk about the literature reference now or later?’ Porter asked.

  Good. Saleda had filled them in, by phone, she guessed. She shrugged, though she did know it played a role in at least part of a theory her mind was simmering on the backburner somewhere. ‘Now’s as a good a time as any. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest,’ she said, recalling the lapis lazuli that had washed over her at Ashlee’s words. ‘This scene is chaotic, but the people involved aren’t. Not entirely, anyway. The person at the helm whose vision we’re seeing is smart. Well-educated, if the literary reference is to be believed. Made sure we were seeing everything the way he wanted us to. Wanted to be heard but not caught, I think. Left someone alive to tell the tale, ensured the video was taken away …’ Even though the leader obviously wanted to communicate with investigators …

  ‘That’s contradictory,’ Te
va said. ‘If they wanted us to get a message they set up explicitly, why leave a living witness but pull the video?’

  ‘Maybe the crime scene is orchestrated one way, but the video would show us it took place somehow other than the scene implies,’ Porter said.

  Jenna nodded. ‘Or the video would show too much or too little. Show us identifying information …’ Really, right now, there were too many possibilities for why the group had removed the video but left a live witness.

  ‘No matter which scenario is the right one, they had reasons for doing it how they did, I don’t doubt,’ a voice said.

  Jenna glanced to her right to see Dodd, who had joined them. Where he’d come from, there was no telling.

  ‘Well, terrorist groups run the gamut as far as their intentions, their motives, and the way they operate,’ Saleda said.

  Jenna caught herself shaking her head reactively. Stopped. Realized she was looking at a severed arm on the floor. Again, the sangria of brutality to induce fear flashed in.

  ‘Blades are an interesting weapon of choice for a terrorist group,’ she said. ‘Cause a different kind of devastation entirely from the usual terror tactics like explosives or more biological weapons like poisoned gas or disease.’

  ‘This was a decision made for the group, whether by one individual or a few who led them. So, no, this wasn’t an instinct decision. It was just like every other choice the leadership made; for us to see for one reason or another,’ Jenna said.

  A deep purple flashed in, and Jenna struggled to grasp it. Too blue to be narcissism, even if it felt right. Not purple enough to go into the more pink fuchsia of misleading. But somehow, that was close, too. Indigo was very nearly the color, but still not quite the shade of deliberate intent.

  Then, the color took hold of her, all of the concepts playing with each other to help her near the association, since it was one with a meaning for her, if only subconsciously. Russian violet. Theatrics, actors making deliberate choices to portray something to an audience they want to convey. In a way, mislead …