The Poet (64 page)

But these were only details, not answers. They were fragments of the much larger fabric of personality that they could only guess at. I remembered what Rachel had told me once. That it was like trying to put together a shattered mirror. Each piece reflects a part of the subject. But if the subject moves, so does the reflection.

I have stayed in Los Angeles since it all happened. I had my hand repaired by a Beverly Hills surgeon and it only hurts now at the end of a long day at the computer.

I’ve rented a small house in the hills and on good days I can see the sun’s reflection on the Pacific almost fifteen miles away. On bad days the view is depressing and I keep the blinds closed. Sometimes at night I can hear the coyotes whining and barking at each other in Nichols Canyon. It is warm here and I have not had the desire to return to Colorado. I talk to my mother and father and Riley regularly-more so than when I was there-but I still fear the ghosts back there more than the ones here.

Officially, I am on leave from the Rocky. Greg Glenn wants me to come back but I have held off on an answer to him. I have the leverage. I’m now a celebrity journalist-I’ve been on “Nightline” and “Larry King Live”-and Greg wants to keep me on staff. So for now, I am on extended leave without pay while writing my book.

My agent sold the book and film rights to my story for more money than I could make in ten years working at the Rocky. But most of the money, when I get it all, will go into a trust fund for Riley’s unborn baby. Sean’s baby. I don’t think I could manage with so much in my own bank account and I don’t feel deserving of it anyway. It’s blood money. I put aside just enough of the first payment from the publisher for living expenses here in L.A. and the possibility that I might make a trip to Italy after I finished the first draft.

That’s where Rachel is. Hazelton told me. When they told her she was being transferred out of the BSS unit, out of Quantico, she took her own leave and went overseas. I’ve waited to hear from her but there has been no word. I don’t think there will be now and I don’t think I’ll be going to Italy as she once suggested. At night, the ghost that haunts me the most is the thing inside of me that led me to doubt the very thing I wanted most.

53

Death is my beat. I have made my living from it and forged a professional reputation on it. I have profited by it. It has always been around me but never as close as those moments with Gladden and Backus, when it breathed right into my face, put its eye to mine and made a grab for me.

I remember their eyes the most. I can’t sleep without first thinking of their eyes. Not for what was in them but for what was missing, what was not there. Behind them was only darkness. An empty despair so intriguing that I find myself fighting sleep to think about it sometimes. And when I think of them I can’t help but think of Sean as well. My twin. I wonder if he looked into the eyes of his killer at the end. I wonder if he saw what I saw. An evil as pure and as scarring as a flame. I still mourn for Sean. I always will. And I wonder as I watch and wait for the Eidolon when I’ll see that flame again.