Page 22 of Twelve
When we’d first started out, the only way we’d been given access to witnesses was through a video feed, courtesy of our FBI handlers.
“Call me sentimental,” Michael continued, “but it would hit me right in the feelings if my favorite deception detector could deal me in for old times’ sake while I’m in transit. Just think about it, Zhang. You, poking around the vigil, asking questions and listening for lies, me on the lookout for anyone who’s not grieving nearly as much as they’d like us to believe.…”
“Be still, my heart.” No one could deadpan like Lia. “I will surely be unable to control the animal attraction this nostalgia will provoke.”
I snorted, but all things considered, Michael’s suggestion wasn’t a bad one. It wasn’t unusual for killers to return to the scene of the crime, or to attend funerals, wakes, vigils, or other occasions marking the passing.And if you are there…
Triumph. Anger. Adrenaline. Guilt.The range of emotions Michael would be on the lookout for was wide—but I had every confidence he could spot it.
“And what is Cassie going to be doing while we take this trip down memory lane?” Lia threw the question out there, as much for my benefit as for Michael’s.
If we’d had the time, I might have joined them. But the clock was ticking. We needed every advantage we could get.
“I’m going to get a feel for the crime scene and start a profile on the killer,” I said.
And that was my cue to call Dean.
“How are you doing, son?”
Dean stares at the FBI agent. What are the chances that Agent Briggs isn’t thinking about how Dean isdoing? What are the chances that he’s thinking about what Dean hasdone?
“Fine.” Fewer words are better. Dean learned that pretty quickly after his father’s arrest.Yes, ma’amandno, ma’am,yes, sirandno, sir, and not causing trouble.
Not that it helps.
“You’re fine,” Agent Briggs repeats, eyeing the bruise on Dean’s cheekbone.
“It doesn’t hurt.” Dean isn’t lying. The pain is there, but it can’t touch him. That’s part of being what he is, isn’t it? A lack of sensitivity to pain? To fear? To feeling?
Dean wonders, sometimes, if that’s how it started for his father. Every day, he remembers the feel of the knife in his hand. The smell of burning flesh.
“You did what you had to do, Dean. If you hadn’t played your father’s game, if you hadn’t convinced him youwantedto play, he would have killed Veronica.” Special Agent Tanner Briggs is awfully forgiving for someone whose wife’s flesh is now branded with Dean’s initials. “You hurt her so that he’d leave you alone with her.”
Don’t tell me I helped her escape. Don’t tell me I’m the reason she’s alive. Don’t tell me I’m the reason my father is behind bars. He’s a monster.
So am I.
“Is someone giving you a hard time?” Briggs tries again. “Because of your father?”
“I should go.” Dean is twelve. He’s not stupid. He knows that people want to say that they’ve done what they can for him.
He knows, even at twelve, that there’s nothing anyone can do.
“Wait.” Agent Briggs doesn’t touch him, but Dean has to push down the instinct to react like he has.
No one touches me. No oneshouldtouch me.If Dean doesn’t let people touch him, if he doesn’t touch back—he can’t hurt them.
He can’t become his father.
“There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Agent Briggs says suddenly. “A case.”
Suddenly, Dean can hear himself think again. “Like my father’s?”
“Not exactly.” Briggs pauses. “The UNSUB—unknown subject—that we’re currently tracking has killed at least three prostitutes in the last eight weeks.”
How?The question echoes in Dean’s mind, again and again until he has to ask it out loud.
“The women were beaten to death.”
