Eleven (23 page)

CHAPTER 22

The alarm went off at five. The last time I looked it was four as I spent most of the night tossing and watching the clock worried about Debbie. I checked the cell phone by the bed, almost expecting to see a missed call or notification of a message. The thought it would have rung without me hearing it was unlikely, but I needed visual confirmation.

I dialed home, and there was still no answer. I repeated with her cell phone and received voicemail there as well.

Where the hell was she?

They say that when we wake up in the morning we are more in tune with our true feelings. Something that you didn’t think affected you can have you waking up with pain in your chest. This morning, I had that pain. It squeezed my chest, limiting the depth of my breaths.

But I had to focus and be logical. I wouldn’t make a good FBI Special Agent if I flitted around on a whim and followed where my gut and heart drove me. Emotions lead to carelessness, and carelessness in turn to error.

Waiting it out until six, I headed to the front lobby. None of the team was even up yet including Jack, which I found ironic given his speech yesterday about tardiness.

A woman about my age held a phone to her ear, “Tell Kate to get out of the bathroom…Nick!” The woman rolled her eyes. “You do it. Your sister can’t hog it all day...figure it out.” Her eyes met mine. “I have to go. Mom has work to do.” She set the receiver down. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Ellen?”

“Yes?” She said it with the arch of a question. Her hair was cut to the level of her jaw and blonde, although dark roots disclosed it wasn’t her natural color.

“I’m Special Agent Brandon Fisher.”

Her eyes read, well good for you.

“You were given an envelope for me yesterday.”

“I remember.” She looked past me to the front door, causing me to turn around. Paige, Zachery, and Jack walked in.

Paige didn’t make eye contact, and Zachery put a hand on my shoulder as the two of them went past headed to the vending machine. Jack stopped beside me.

I gestured toward Jack. “This is Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper.”

Another silent response that I took as,
okay, what do I really care
?

“What did the person look like who dropped it off?”

Her lips pressed downward. “Just an average guy, nothing too noteworthy about him.”

I brought up a photo of Earl Royster on my cell phone and turned it toward her. “Was this him?”

Ellen reached for the phone and accidently brushed my hand. She pulled back. “That’s Earl.”

“So you know him?”

“Yeah. I just said his name.” She passed a glance to Jack.

“Why didn’t you say that to start with instead of describing him as an average guy?”

“Well, he is.” Her arms crossed. “And how would I know you’d even know who the heck Earl was? Is he in trouble?”

I ignored her inquiry. “Did he say anything when he dropped this off?”

“Why are you so interested in him?”

“Did he say anything?”

“Just to give the envelope to you. He went over to the vending machine, bought a bag of Doritos.” She shifted her weight as if bored by the conversation.

“You remember the Doritos?”

“Yeah, I’ve always liked Earl. He liked,” she rolled her hand but didn’t say what she was thinking.

“You knew about his sexual preference?”

“Everybody did. He’s the only one that thought it was a secret. We even know about Quinton. They’ve been lovers for years. I always thought maybe I could turn him around ya know?”

I didn’t want the conversation to become about Ellen and her attraction to Earl. “Was there anything different about him when he dropped this off?”

“He was muttering a lot. Earl’s always been a mumbler though. But yesterday I couldn’t make out more than the odd word.”

“What word?”

Ellen thought for a few seconds. “None of it really made any sense to me. Something about didn’t mean to hurt anybody and don’t cry.”

I slapped my palm on the counter, walked to the front door, and took out my cell.

Ellen asked, “Is he all right?”

“He’ll be fine.” Jack stepped beside me. “We’ll head back to Louisville after breakfast, drop off the SUV, and fly home.”

If that was supposed to be a comfort, it wasn’t. Hours had already gone by in silence. Debbie could have been hurt by now, maybe already murdered if the unsub changed his MO. I pressed the cell tighter to my ear, listened to the constant ringing, and looked out to the road as I spoke to Jack. “Surprised you just didn’t tell that woman that her dreams of turning Earl straight were over.”

I tried to reach Debbie several more times both on her cell and at home.

If she wasn’t captured by the unsub, where the hell was she?

Coffee steamed from the mug in front of me, but it didn’t hold much appeal. I had one sip and it gnawed on my stomach as if it were acid.

Paige hugged her mug and watched me. When I looked at her, she adjusted the direction of her gaze. Jack must have filled Zachery and her in on the situation.

If I put more thought into it than required, maybe Paige felt guilty about her night with Jack because she knew I had found out about them. I also wondered if there was more to it. She had broken her own rule and fallen in love with me. If I didn’t have Debbie there, I might have become a victim of the relationship as well, but Paige didn’t have someone else to go home to. She was a beautiful woman and could easily have her choice of men, but she was deep and complicated. Some men had an issue with that.

“Now the kid and I are going to head back to Louisville and take a flight back to Quantico. I expect the files from Sarasota should be arriving there today too,” Jack said.

It seemed more was necessary than for my wife to be unreachable to justify a return flight home.

“I want you two to visit the members of the church again, this time asking about Royster. Was he close to anyone there or spend an unusual amount of time with anyone besides The Redeemer.”

“Yes, we can do that.” Zachery stabbed his fork into a slice of bacon and slid his knife through, cutting off about the length of an inch which he then put into his mouth.

I found the formal nature of the mannerism odd for a guy like him. He struck me as the type who would pick up the slice and stuff the entire thing in there. “What if everything we think we know about the unsub is wrong?”

“We’ve been doing this a long time, Pending.” Another cut-off piece of bacon went into his mouth.

“And those cases all turned out as originally expected?”

Mouth full, he bobbed his head to the side like a rag doll.

“Exactly. What if Bingham captured his victims, tortures them for a number of days, say eleven, but his followers don’t?”

“We found the book on the coinherence symbol at Royster’s and the pictures of Sally Windermere’s eleven cuts. I’d say torture and the number eleven plays a factor even for the followers,” Paige said.

“For who though?”

“You’re talking in circles, Brandon.”

“I’m trying to analyze this thing. We know Royster was heavily influenced by Bingham. We also believe that he was the submissive when it comes to this other unsub.”

“Okay.” Her eyes looked at me now as if to say,
where are you going with all this?

“Maybe the unsub we’re looking for wasn’t as influenced by Bingham as we think. Maybe they were more independent? They didn’t remove the intestines.”

“Until we know—”

I cut off Zachery, “But why not factor this in? Maybe it’s not a straight-line.” I gestured a straight line with a flattened hand on the vertical. “It could be wavy.” I swayed my hand.

“And you’re factoring your reasoning on what, Kid?”

I turned to Jack. “Thinking outside of the box.”

“Hmm.”

I let out a deep breath. “We’re trained to think like the killer, get inside his head, figure the why and who, but if we’re going to find the who we have to know the why.”

“Circles again, Brandon.” Paige’s voice was soft, but she didn’t offer eye contact.

I knew the words coming out were not necessarily coherent but were more like audible brainstorming. “Listen, I’m just thinking out loud.”

“You’re going through a lot right now.”

I glared at Paige. “Don’t patronize me.”

About a solid thirty seconds passed with none of us saying anything. I released the napkin I had bunched up in my hand out of frustration. “I’m ready to go.”

Surprisingly Jack rose and followed me.

We loaded our luggage into the SUV. My entire bag reeked of cigarette, and it felt like the smell had set up permanent residence in my sinuses.

Jack slid behind the wheel, pulled out a cigarette, and lit up. “All that stuff you were saying back there—”

“Just forget it.”

“We need to keep an open mind. Investigations often do change directions.”

I turned to face him. “You’re saying that I’m right?”

“I’m saying you could be.”

All I could think about was getting to Debbie. I needed to hold her and know she was all right. The clock on the dash read eight-thirty and having left at about seven-thirty, we’d be in Louisville by about nine-thirty if everything went according to plan. Hopefully on a flight by ten-thirty and home by one.