THE CLIFFS OF FALL
By wjmtv

* * *
Category: SA, XA

Feedback: [email protected]

Spoilers: Vague ones, mostly from "Empedocles."

Rating: R for strong language and descriptions of 
violence against children

Disclaimers: The characters of John Doggett, Luke 
Doggett, and Monica Reyes belong to Chris Carter, 1013 
Productions and a whole bunch of other people, all of 
whom are not me. The NYPD belongs to the taxpayers of 
New York City.

Summary/ Author's Note: The kidnapping and murder of 
Luke Doggett. We have been given several timelines for 
this event, so I am going with the one in "Empedocles," 
as it appears to be the most comprehensive.

* * *

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, 
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
  ---Gerard Manley Hopkins

I

John Doggett shifted to his other foot and checked his 
watch. Terrific. Exactly three minutes since he last 
checked his watch. On the other side of the car, 
standing behind the other open door, Raul Hertado 
looked as weary as he knew he did. 

If he turned his head just a tiny bit to the left, he 
could see the sniper on the roof across the street, his 
rifle trained at the same front door he was staring at. 
Another rifle waited on the right, and scattered 
between and around the dozen cars parked in the street 
were at least thirty members of New York City's finest, 
waiting on the whim of one man.
	
His name was Al Furness, and he had picked up his two 
sons from their mother's last Friday, come home to his 
apartment here on East 93rd, and locked the door on the 
three of them with a phone in one hand and a gun in the 
other. Now it was Monday, and they'd finally had a 
break. One of the negotiators had gotten him to 
consider giving up, so the call for more bodies had 
gone out shortly after dawn. Four hours later, Doggett 
was starting to think the negotiator had indulged in 
some wishful thinking. For a moment he wished he was 
still on the Child Abduction Task Force-he might have 
something to do here besides wait-but it passed. You 
can only chase after missing kids for so long before it 
starts eating at your insides. Especially when they 
usually turn up, but not always in the condition you'd 
hoped to find them.

A murmur began to build among the officers scattered 
around. He and Hertado bent their heads toward the 
inside of the car, each straining to hear what was 
coming over the radio. Doggett gripped the edge of the 
roof, glancing at his partner. Hertado nodded and they 
both crouched down a little, moving toward the outside 
edge of their respective doors.
	
The left-hand door at the top of the steps opened a 
crack. Doggett lifted himself to the balls of his feet, 
ready to run. Mike was his target; he was the younger 
boy. His brother Scotty was for Raul. The minute 
Furness laid down his gun, they were to grab them and 
get out. If he wasn't ready to do that, the best they 
could hope for was a clear shot from the rooftop.
	
"Take it easy, Al," said a voice a few cars over. No 
bullhorn. Good. That would spook him some more. "Just 
come out slow, and we'll get this cleared up."
	
Silence. No movement. Doggett's toes started to cramp 
and he dropped to one knee, his muscles still coiled 
and ready underneath the kevlar. The wind stirred his 
hair, just a little. The air felt strange, like fall, 
and it was still the middle of August. Hell, not even 
the middle yet. Fall was still a good six weeks away, 
and yet it seemed like the trees were already waiting, 
straining toward change.
	
He and Luke hadn't been fishing once, and summer was 
already winding down. He smiled, half his mind 
wandering down the leafy, green roads upstate to their 
favorite fishing spot. Luke had been four the first 
time he took him there, and when they'd had no nibbles 
after two hours, Luke suddenly ran down the bank and 
into the shallows, splashing and kicking and beating 
the top of the water with his hands. 
	
"What are you doing, Bucko?" he'd called, laughing, 
watching the sunlight catch on the droplets of water in 
his son's blonde hair.
	
"I'm scaring the fish so they'll run away, Daddy! So 
they'll run to the hook!"
	
He stood and followed the boy into the pond, scooping 
him up in his arms. Water ran off of Luke's feet and 
dribbled down the front of his jeans. "Up, Daddy! Up!" 
Luke squealed, and Doggett tossed him in the air. Water 
sparkled, diamonds falling all around.
	
The door swung open, and a boy of perhaps nine stepped 
into the noonday sun. That would be Scotty. Mike was 
seven, the same age as Luke. Doggett raised up onto his 
feet again.
	
A whisper, almost a sigh, passed through the assembled 
officers as Al Furness followed his son onto the steps. 
He didn't look like a man who had held his own children 
hostage for four days. If it weren't for the semi in 
his right hand, pointed at the ground with his finger 
on the trigger, you might have thought they were headed 
for a game of catch at the park. 

But where was Mike? Doggett stretched his neck a 
little, trying to see through the doorway even though 
it was impossible at this angle. Furness said something 
and Scotty stopped, turned to look up at him. Furness 
gestured and Scotty continued down the steps. Furness 
paused,  looked around at the people watching him, then 
followed. Shit. Where was Mike? Doggett heard Raul 
mumbling under his breath, "What the f--?"
	
There. A few feet behind his father, coming through the 
doorway. He seemed to be having trouble with his feet. 
He stopped at the top stair and bent over, his little 
fingers reaching for the lace of his shoe. Furness must 
have heard him stop, or sensed that he wasn't right 
behind him. He turned.
	
No one heard the shot. One moment Furness was standing 
there, suspended between his boys, then he was 
crumpling to the steps, clutching his right shoulder, 
the gun still in his hand.
	
Doggett and Raul exploded from behind the car, running 
like the last ten yards before a touchdown. Scotty had 
just spun around, his hands reaching out toward his 
father when Raul whisked his feet out from under him 
and he let out a small yelp of surprise. Doggett never 
slowed, flying past Furness and scooping up Mike, 
letting his momentum carry them through the still-open 
door and into the darkness beyond. He shoved the boy 
into the corner of the foyer and stood in front of him, 
drawing his gun.
	
"Your Dad's okay," he told the boy softly, trying not 
to frighten him further, glancing down with one eye 
while keeping the other trained on the open door in 
case something went wrong. "He's hurt, but not bad. 
He'll be all right."
	
"We got him!" Came the shout from outside. Doggett 
holstered his gun and turned to kneel in front of the 
child, grasping him gently by his upper arms.
	
"Are you all right?" He asked, peering at Mike's face, 
looking for bruises or cuts. The light wasn't great, 
but the kid looked unharmed.
	
Mike nodded. "I want my Mom," he whispered.
	
Doggett grinned, feeling a sudden, slight burn behind 
his eyes. "And she wants you. She's waiting outside. 
Should we go and find her?" He picked the boy up. "You 
know, I have the boy the same age as you, but I think 
you're bigger."
	
Mike's eyes lit up. "Really?"
	
"Yeah." Doggett winked. "Don't tell him that, though." 
He headed toward the door, pausing a moment to be sure 
Furness truly was out of the way before he stepped back 
into the sunlight to scattered applause and the sound 
of a woman weeping. 
	
He followed the sound, and deposited Mike in his 
mother's arms where Scotty already nestled. 
Straightening up, he scanned the crowd and saw Furness 
on his feet, his hands cuffed in front as a paramedic 
examined his shoulder.
	
"The bullet went clear through," Raul told him, 
pointing to where two officers crouched at the top of 
the steps, poking at the brick. "Superficial damage. 
He'll live long enough to make someone else miserable."
	
"Nice work, folks," rumbled a deep voice behind them. 
Doggett turned to find his lieutenant, looking like 
Columbo's rumpled brother, weaving his way past the 
group now surrounding the reunited mother and sons. "At 
least this one ended happy."
	
"This one?" Raul said, looking uneasy. Like Doggett, he 
knew what was probably coming.
	
Ben sighed. "They found another one. Another girl, 
seventeen. Face down in the woods near Mamanassee Lake, 
her liver and heart removed. They've called in the 
Feds."
	
"Because it's across the line into Connecticut?" 
Doggett asked.
	
"That's the story," Ben said, faint crimps of what 
would have been amusement in someone else, showing at 
the corners of his mouth. "But if the rest of them are 
as frustrated as Chang and Johnston, it's probably also 
because they don't know what else to do."
	
Doggett swore under his breath. Three kids in three 
weeks, each one disappearing on a Tuesday. Found 
several days later in the woods, organs missing. Word 
on the street was the bodies had also been drained of 
blood, but that tidbit came from watching too many 
Stephen King adaptations. Besides, they didn't need 
help from the fantasy world for this one. It was too 
much a nightmare on its own. And now another parent 
would be burying a child.

"Since this mess is over," Ben was saying, with a 
pointed glance at both of them. "We're going to have to 
give Chang and Johnston a hand. We'll meet with the 
Feds at 0700. They'll likely have us canvassing by 
nine."

Doggett groaned silently. Tomorrow was his day off, or 
at any rate, it had been. Karen wouldn't be pleased, 
but she was rarely pleased these days. Luke was 
supposed to practice soccer with some friends in the 
afternoon and he'd been looking forward to playing 
coach all week. Now Luke would have to ride over with 
Jerry from Day Camp, and Karen would have to pick him 
up. She'd been planning to work late, and now he was 
going to get to listen to how his job was "more 
important" than hers.
	
"It isn't more important," he'd told her. "It's just 
less understanding." There had been a time when the 
death of someone's child might have eased her hatred of 
his profession at least a little, but that day was 
gone. Along with so many other things. It seemed like 
all they had in common was Luke.
	
He knew that wasn't healthy; what that thing was they 
called a marriage. Every two weeks when he got his 
paystub and looked it over, and saw the money that had 
been routed into the savings account for the day when 
he would retire and they could leave that crappy 
apartment and get a real house, he'd feel a twinge at 
what else it would mean. Luke would be away at college 
by then, and that real house would hold only two 
people. Two people who seemed to have precious little 
to say.
	
"Jesus, L.T., it's our day off," Raul said, whining for 
both of them.
	
"Not any more," Ben responded. He sighed. "Welcome to 
the glamorous world of police work."
	
A shout brought their heads up together. Furness broke 
away from the two officers holding him and took a few 
lurching steps before a half-dozen bystanders swarmed 
him like ants on a dying grasshopper. He struggled, his 
hands still cuffed and Doggett winced, knowing how that 
shoulder felt. Two cops took each arm and began pulling 
him toward a squad car. He was yelling. 
	
"They're mine!" He cried, twisting in their grasp and 
pointing at the boys, who still huddled with their 
mother. "They're MINE!"


II
	
"Hold that right there," Doggett said, directing his 
son's fingers to the edge of the wing, while he applied 
a pinhead-drop of glue. "The Spirit of St. Louis" was 
shaping up nicely.
	
Luke frowned, concentrating hard. It was unusual to 
find such quiet in a kid his age, but then, he took 
after his dad. Doggett often hoped he'd be a bit better 
at finding his tongue when he needed it, though. "Where 
are you putting this one?" he asked. "You're running 
out of space."
	
"On top of the dresser," Luke said. "I'm gonna hang the 
'Enola Gay' in the window and put this the 'St. Loius' 
in her spot."
	
"I wouldn't want to be an air-traffic controller in 
your bedroom," Doggett muttered, spreading the glue 
with a straight pin.
	
"Hey, Dad," Luke said, sounding like he suddenly 
remembered something.
	
"What?" he looked up briefly, curious at the change in 
his son's tone.
	
"Did you know Captain Lindbergh believed in ghosts?"
	
Doggett raised an eyebrow, but kept spreading glue. 
"You don't say."
	
"He said when he was getting close to France, he was 
getting really sleepy. He said a spirit was in the 
plane with him, keeping him awake so he wouldn't crash. 
He called it a 'gremlin.'"
	
"I call it sleep deprivation," Doggett said. He'd heard 
the pilots talk about gremlins back in Lebanon, 
leprechauns who either drained their gas tanks, pinched 
them as they took aim, or told them where they could 
land safely, depending on their mood that day. Sounded 
like the products of exhausted minds.
	
"Speaking of sleep deprivation," said a voice behind 
them. Luke moaned, loudly. Doggett looked up to see 
Karen leaning against the door frame, her arms folded. 
She looked tired, limp. Even her hair didn't have its 
usual golden shine. "It's time to get ready for bed, 
Luke."
	
"Looks like he's not the only one," Doggett offered, 
testing her with a half-smile. If she was still mad 
about tomorrow, he didn't relish the idea of another 
fight once the bedroom door closed behind them.
	
She didn't respond. "Don't forget to brush your teeth," 
she said to Luke, pushing away from the door and 
disappearing down the hall.
	
"Like I'm gonna forget," Luke grumbled. "She reminds me 
every night."
	
"Hey," Doggett warned. 
	
"Sorry."
	
"Besides, if she didn't, you know you'd miss it. Okay, 
let go." Luke released the wing and they both waited. 
It held. "Good job. We've worked enough for one night."
	
"Think we'll finish it tomorrow? Think you'll get home 
in time that we can work on it?"
	
Doggett squinted, trying to guess what tomorrow might 
bring. If he had to be in the office at seven, there 
was a chance he'd be out by five or six if nothing else 
came up. "I'll try," he said, screwing the cap back on 
the glue. "Leave this for now. After the glue sets, 
I'll clean up."
	
"Thanks, Dad," Luke said, scooting back his chair. It 
scraped on the kitchen tile.
Doggett watched him leave, wishing his wife were as 
understanding of his position as his seven-year-old 
was.
	
He knew that there were people in the world who 
believed that aliens walked among us. That they had 
come to earth in their spaceships and taken on the 
appearance of men, and the only way you tell they 
weren't human was by their hollow eyes.
	
Some mornings, as he faced Karen across the breakfast 
table, he knew exactly how they felt.
	
He would watch her hands curve around her coffee cup, 
watch the faint lines between her eyebrows as she 
scowled at the paper, and say to himself, "Who is this 
woman? What did she do with the laughing girl I 
married? Why has she hidden the body I once worshiped?"
	
Most of the answers were easy. It had begun not long 
after their wedding, when he told her he was applying 
to the NYPD after his discharge from the corps. She had 
only agreed to marry him after he promised not to be a 
career Marine, but she'd given no indication her hatred 
of the military extended to other jobs in uniform. 
	
"I quit the Corps," he'd told her. "I didn't want to, 
but I did. Now you don't want me to do the only other 
job I'm fit for?"
	
"It's not the ONLY job," she shot back. "There are 
plenty of jobs."
	
"Name one."
	
"I'm not going to play games with you. It's your life. 
You find a job you like."
	
"But one that will satisfy you."
	
"John, that's not fair."
	
"And you are? YOU'RE demanding that we live in New York 
City so you can be near your folks. YOU'RE demanding 
that I leave the only job I've ever had. YOU'RE 
demanding that we live in a part of town that I'm going 
to need a damned good-paying job to afford. I thought 
marriage was supposed to be about compromise. When were 
you planning to start?"
	
He'd taken the job. After awhile she seemed to soften 
and they settled into a quiet routine, a routine that 
had worked for a while. She stayed home with Luke until 
he was four, then went back to work. Her new job, at a 
larger bank, was both more insistent and held more 
opportunity to move up the ladder. She wanted to move 
up, and as the titles on her business cards changed, 
she did too. Sometimes he wondered if her job was more 
important to her than her family, but he knew if he 
asked he'd just have the same question flung back at 
him.
	
Of course it looked that way to an outsider. An 
outsider couldn't understand, even after she'd been 
married to you for eleven years, that human passion and 
betrayals and the blood that comes with them, don't 
typically happen between the hours of eight and five.
	
He ran his hands through his hair. He needed to get it 
cut, it was sticking up too high. He also needed to go 
to bed. Standing taut on concrete for four hours was 
hard on a body, and he'd likely be pounding that same 
concrete tomorrow. That wasn't much better.
	
Somewhere in the city, two people a lot like him and 
Karen were probably hunched on their sofa, surrounded 
by family, talking in low stuttering voices about what 
the funeral home wanted to know. Three deaths in three 
weeks-the Big Apple appeared to have another serial 
killer on her hands, and this one wasn't leaving any 
clues except his victims. He'd heard Chang talking on 
the phone to a priest, asking questions about Satanism, 
and wondered what else was being done to the bodies to 
get her wondering about that. But he hadn't had a 
chance to ask. Perhaps he'd hear about it tomorrow. If 
they were briefing the Feds, they'd likely be telling 
everyone else at the same time.
	
Luke was probably in bed by now, waiting to be told 
good-night. He stood and turned off the kitchen light 
and headed down the hall to his room. 
	
The only light came from a small plug-in near Luke's 
bed. He could see his son's body under the covers, and 
even from the doorway smelled the soap he used to wash 
his face each night. 
	
"Mom already came in," Luke said.
	
Doggett nodded. They used to tuck him in together. What 
happened to that?
	
"She said she has some papers to look at tonight," Luke 
continued. 
	
Yep. That's what happened. Why did so much have to be 
bound up in a career? Why couldn't it just be what you 
did, and not so much who you are? "I won't let her stay 
up too late," he promised. He held up his right hand 
and Luke rested his palm flat against it. "Catch you on 
the flip-flop," he recited. It was their good-night 
routine.
	
"Flip-flop," Luke said. The light from the hallway 
caught in his eyes. "G'night, Dad."
	
"Good night, Bucko."
	
He pulled the door shut save for an inch, and headed 
down the hallway toward his room. He passed the office, 
where Karen sat at the desk bent over a stack of paper 
nearly three inches high. Pausing in the doorway, he 
watched her for a moment, then straightened his 
shoulders and walked in.
	
"Hey," he said softly, coming to a stop behind her 
chair.
	
The muscles in her back tensed a little; he could see 
them through the thin knit of her t-shirt. She said 
nothing, but raised her head and leaned back in the 
chair. She didn't look up. He tried again. "Gonna be up 
late?"
	
She nodded. "We have a big meeting tomorrow. It'll 
probably take most of the day, and I'm supposed to know 
everything in this folder."
	
He stared over her shoulder at the desktop. Why did he 
feel like a high school freshman trying to ask a girl 
to dance? "I'm sorry about tomorrow," he said. "If 
there's any chance I can get out in time, I'll call 
you."
	
"I'll be in the meeting until the minute I have to 
leave. I won't be able to take any calls."
	
"I'll call Andrea, then."
	
"She'll be at the doctor." Karen sighed and finally 
turned. "Face it, John. You aren't Superman."
	
His left hand clenched at his side. "Dammit, Karen, I'm 
offering what I can!"
	
"And it isn't enough." She stared at him blandly, 
almost through him, as though it didn't matter if he 
was there. "It hasn't been enough for a long time, and 
you know it."
	
"What do you mean?" He stared at her, the light in the 
room going sort of funny all of a sudden.
	
"You know that too." She sounded so tired. "Tonight 
isn't the night for us to talk about what we both know. 
I have a lot of work to do." She turned back to the 
desk.
	
Part of it was exhaustion talking. Part of it was 
nerves. He needed to remember that. She tended to 
overreact when she was nervous, and he knew what a file 
that thick could do to a person. He stepped back, 
flexing his fingers, then leaned forward. For a moment 
his hand hovered above her head, then lowered to touch 
her shoulder. She moved. Maybe another sigh, maybe a 
flinch, he couldn't tell. But he could wait until after 
her meeting tomorrow. He could show her that he 
respected her work, whether she believed it or not. 
"I'll see you in bed," he whispered in her ear, and 
kissed her hair. "Good luck."
	
"Thank you," she said, her voice flat. He left the room 
and went to take a shower. Maybe once he got the dried 
sweat washed off from the morning's exercise in 
authority, he'd feel more human and less like the 
asshole he was apparently being.


	Fifteen minutes later, he padded back down the 
hallway to the kitchen, his bare feet whispering on the 
wood floor. The glue on the plane was dry and he raised 
it to the light, feeling a slight rush of air as the 
wings lifted past his cheek. A spool of thread lay 
among the glue tubes and straight pins and he picked it 
up. With it in one hand and the plane in the other, he 
returned to Luke's room and pushed open the door.
	
Luke was asleep, curled around the teddy bear who 
waited on the bookshelf headboard during the day, and 
snuggled in his arms at night. Doggett laid "The Spirit 
of St. Louis" carefully at the foot of Luke's bed and 
picked up the "Enola Gay" from the dresser. He strung 
the thread through her wings, pulled a thumbtack from 
the bulletin board beside the door, and dragged the 
desk chair over to the window, nearly tripping over the 
Louisville Slugger that lay on the floor. He stood it 
up in the corner and climbed carefully onto the chair, 
raising his hand and thrusting the thumbtack into the 
ceiling. The "Enola Gay" swayed a little as he stepped 
down to check his work. Looked good.
	
He picked up "The Spirit of St. Louis" and put it in 
the Gay's old spot. They'd finish her tomorrow, but for 
tonight she could watch over Luke. She had seen 
Lindbergh safely across the Atlantic; she would see him 
safely through the night.

Whoever those parents were, the ones preparing to 
bury their daughter, he hoped they were holding hands.
 	

III
	
Doggett was almost grinning as he sat down at his desk. 
It was barely six-thirty, but Karen had smiled at him 
when he came into the kitchen, and Luke was bouncing 
around like only a seven-year-old can. "The Spirit of 
St. Louis" was the first subject on his mind; he'd 
spotted it setting on the dresser the minute he got up. 
Doggett had to chuckle: the kid had so many of those 
frickin' planes in his room, it was a wonder he even 
noticed another, let alone got so excited about it. 
They'd high-fived as he left, and Karen had offered her 
cheek to be kissed. He wished her luck at her meeting, 
and she thanked him. She'd sounded sincere.
	
Raul was already at his desk, studying a file that 
appeared to require all his concentration. He'd nodded 
good morning without looking up. Doggett had just 
picked up his coffee cup for the first sip, when Linda 
Chang walked into the bullpen with a stranger at her 
heels.
	
The woman was tall and young, with shoulder-length dark 
hair and a nice suit. For a moment he thought she might 
be a relative of the latest victim, then she leaned 
forward and said something to Linda. Both women laughed 
softly, and he 86'd that idea.
	
"Morning guys," Linda said. Raul looked up and he and 
Doggett nodded. "This is Special Agent Monica Reyes of 
the FBI, come all the way from New Orleans to give us a 
hand."
	
Doggett and Raul both stood, extending their hands in 
turn. Agent Reyes looked him in the eyes as she shook 
his hand, and her grip was firm without being the 
punishing squeeze so many women seemed to think they 
needed nowadays. 
	
"Guess our weather is cooler than you're used to," Raul 
was saying.
	
She nodded, grinning widely. "Getting out of New 
Orleans in August is always a good thing." As soon as 
she said it, she seemed to remember why she had "gotten 
out," and her smile deepened in apology, accompanied by 
a faint blush. Doggett saw she was even younger than 
he'd thought at first, but any hesitation her age might 
bring to a new acquaintance was offset by the sharpness 
of her gaze. He doubted she missed much.
	
"Hey, Linda," called a voice from the doorway to the 
conference room. Cal Johnston, Linda's partner, 
beckoned to the women.
	
"Scuse us," Linda said.
	
Agent Reyes nodded to Raul and Doggett. "See you 
inside."
	
They bobbed their head in response. Raul waited until 
they'd disappeared through the door before muttering to 
Doggett, "Is she old enough to drive?"
	
He reached for his coffee cup, grinning. "Could be 
iffy."


"Agent Reyes has a Master's in Religious Studies, 
specializing in Ritual Crime and Abuse. We have reason 
to believe her expertise will help us here."
	
Doggett raised one eyebrow at Ben's words. "Ritual 
Abuse" had been all the rage about ten years ago, when 
first the McMartin Preschool case and then a slew of 
others had electrified the country, leaving parents 
quaking at the thought of sending their children to 
daycare where they might be forced to watch rabbits 
tortured, participate in Satanic bloodletting rituals 
or, worst of all, be sexually abused. In the last few 
years sanity had regained at least a toehold, and many 
of the poor daycare workers thrown behind bars thanks 
to the colorful-and coerced-testimony of four-year-
olds, had been released. Ritual Abuse was generally 
considered dead in the water, but he knew that didn't 
stop a few psycho-nuts from trying to resurrect it in 
their own "work." Suddenly, Linda's phone conversation 
of a few days ago made a bit more sense.
	
Linda stood up and moved over to an easel with some 
blown-up photos on it. "We'll just do a quick overview 
this morning," she said, "and address a few questions. 
We need to bring Monica up to speed, and then we're 
good to go."
	
She pointed to the top photo, which showed a young girl 
lying on her back, twigs and leaves caught in her long, 
blonde hair. More leaves intermingled with her 
intestines, which spilled across her lap and hung over 
the opened waistband of her jeans, stained maroon with 
blood. More blood than you would think a human body 
could contain, had soaked into the ground around her. 
Her t-shirt had been slashed open along with her chest, 
and her barely adolescent breasts lay buried in the 
same scarlet shroud.
	
Ashley Whitman, age seventeen. Disappeared on her way 
home from St. Martin's Academy on the Upper West Side, 
at three o'clock in the afternoon. A busy city street 
she'd walked a hundred times, and no one saw a damned 
thing. They found her face down in the woods near the 
Connecticut border, and rolled her over to snap the 
photo.
	
Next photo. Joey Ciccone, eleven. Doggett didn't know 
if it was because he was younger, or because he was a 
boy, but that one was harder to take. Same injuries. He 
had a tough time looking at the picture, and pretended 
to be very interested in what Chang had to say. It 
wasn't much: Joey had been excused from classes that 
morning for a dentist appointment. He left the 
dentist's office at ten-fifteen, headed to school only 
two blocks away. He never arrived.
	
Victim number three was Tina Josephs, another teen-aged 
girl. She had left her mother's apartment, just after 
school, to get milk at the corner store. She'd run into 
a girlfriend on the short walk back and chatted for 
awhile, then said she'd better get home before the milk 
got warm. She was to call her friend at eight so they 
could go over their math homework, but that was the 
last anyone saw of her until yesterday, when they found 
her on her split-open belly in the woods, just over the 
line into Connecticut.
	
Everybody knew they were looking at one man. Everybody 
had read enough John Douglas to concoct a sketchy 
profile of their own: white male, late 20s, highly 
organized, with solid gold balls. They knew this 
because the victims were white, they were young, and 
their organs had been removed with near-surgical 
precision suggesting he brought exactly the tools he 
needed for the job. His chutzpah was explained by the 
disappearances: all three, in daylight hours on New 
York City streets, and no one remembered seeing 
anything suspicious. This guy was more than just 
psychotic: he was smooth.
	
And he was smart. Smart enough to draw pentagrams in 
the dirt near his victims' heads. Smart enough to know 
the heart was crucial to any so-called Satanic ritual. 
Whether he was in fact a Satanist didn't matter. What 
mattered was that he wanted the world to think he was. 
The question was why. 
	
"So why is she here?" asked Reggie Composto, nodding at 
Reyes. Doggett didn't know him too well. He was from 
the 15th Precinct; he and his partner Danny Warren had 
caught the Joey Ciccone case. "I don't mean any 
disrespect, but if he isn't a Satanist, why bring in 
someone who specializes in Satanic Crime?"
	
Linda opened her mouth to respond but Reyes beat her to 
it. "I don't exactly 'specialize in Satanic Crime.'" 
She smiled, disarming what otherwise might have sounded 
like an invite to a pissing contest. "What my 
supervisor, and yours," with a nod to Ben, "is hoping, 
is that I can provide suggestions for what he might try 
to do next. He's probably only dabbled in Satanism-I 
mean, read a few books and thinks he knows enough to 
run with. He'll lay down the expected signs and think 
he's got us wondering. I'm looking for any breaks in 
his pattern."
	
Doggett hid an agreeing nod, listening carefully as she 
talked about the media attention the case was getting 
and how much of what he did was playing to that. She 
was forthright and clear in her statements, and the 
shadows he'd seen in her eyes as she studied the photos 
of Joey were gone. He suspected a lot of people 
initially looked at her as he had, but if they were 
paying attention realized that unassuming haircut hid a 
sharp mind. For a moment his own mind wandered, 
wondering if he might have a chance to test her on the 
subject of joining the FBI. Once a Fed, always a Fed, 
he figured, and maybe Karen would relax a little if he 
could get assigned to some small field office in 
Virginia or something. The FBI might be pretty 
interesting. If they hired young women with degrees in 
Religion, they might have a spot for a former Marine 
with a Public Administration diploma on the wall .
	
With the thought of Virginia came thoughts of his 
sister. Melanie lived there, just outside D.C. with two 
kids and her husband, a career Marine. He'd introduced 
them. The minute he met Larry Sheehan when he arrived 
back from Lebanon, he had thought of her. She still 
thanked him every year on her anniversary. Even after 
eight years together and a miscarriage in the seventh 
month of her second pregnancy, they were the happiest 
couple he'd ever seen. It was the yardstick he held his 
own marriage up to, even though he knew that was a 
mistake. No one could live up to a track record like 
that, but some days he dreamed he might at least clock 
a decent lap.
	
Melanie. After Luke, she was his pride and joy. He'd 
just turned four when she was born, and his earliest 
memories of her were as a diapered toddler, running and 
squealing as he turned the hose on her in their back 
yard. If he closed his eyes, he could see the sunlight 
flashing on her fire-red hair, hair the passing of 
thirty-plus years had done nothing to dim. She was so 
tiny, she liked to say that if her hair hadn't been 
that color naturally she'd have had to dye it, 
otherwise she'd disappear in a crowd. She thanked God 
on a regular basis that their mother's devotion to 
"Gone With the Wind" had netted her the name she got, 
and not the more unfortunate but logical choice of 
Scarlett. "That would have been a disaster," she liked 
to say.
	
She'd been as pleased as Karen was angry when he called 
her to say he was joining the force. "An Irish Catholic 
cop in New York City," she'd giggled, her voice warm 
and close even over the phone line. "What a concept." 
At graduation from the Academy, she'd presented him 
with a medallion of St. Michael, the patron of police 
officers and firefighters. He could feel it even now, 
resting against his chest. He never took it off.


For perhaps the hundredth time, Monica found her 
eyes straying to Detective Doggett. It wasn't just that 
he was good-looking, although he was. Or that he had 
the most striking blue eyes she'd ever seen. There was 
a watchfulness, a quiet strength about him that kept 
sucking her in no matter how hard she tried to 
concentrate elsewhere. She couldn't deny it: if she 
were raped on NYC's lovely streets, he was the cop 
she'd want handling the case.

The details of these murders, the photos, 
surprised her. She 'd had a dream the night before they 
called. A body, lying face-down in the woods in a 
strange fall dawn. She'd stood over it, looking down to 
see it wasn't a body at all: just a body-shaped pile of 
ashes. When Director Twayne of the New Orleans field 
office called her in the next morning and handed her a 
plane ticket to La Guardia, she'd expected ashes were 
what she'd find.

Her first dream had come at twelve. Before that, 
she'd experience fleeting moments-when she'd reach for 
something, or hear a few words, and know that it wasn't 
the first time. It wasn't just the queer d�j� vu 
everyone gets; she was sure of that. Just as she was 
sure that there was a reason why, when the dreams 
started a few years later, they always came true. Years 
of practice had taught her to toss off references to 
her visions like other people mention a visit to the 
grocery store, but they still made her uneasy. Partly 
because of the smirking reaction that usually followed 
when she mentioned them to someone. Partly because she 
never knew when they would strike, leaving her shaking 
and often on the edge of tears. If she was lucky, she 
could go a whole month without one, but that didn't 
happen too often. Sometimes she thought maybe if she 
turned in her badge and became a candlemaker they might 
ease up somewhat, but that would never happen. Law 
enforcement was exhausting, aggravating and 
occasionally got her crying until there was nothing 
left, but it was her job and she loved it.

Detective Doggett's partner had asked her a 
question. "I'm sorry." She shook her head a little to 
clear it, and smiled at him. "I didn't quite catch 
that."

"You really think most of it is for the papers?" 
Detective Hertado repeated.

"The Satanic stuff?" He nodded. "Yes. He wants 
attention, and knows the media can't resist a good 
devil story. As if being a serial killer weren't 
enough," she added softly, more to herself than anyone 
else. "Seeking attention would also explain him 
snatching the kids in the middle of the day. He's 
taunting us, daring us to prove we're as gutsy as he 
is."

Detective Doggett shifted in his chair. She saw 
his left hand tighten to a fist, and guessed he had 
something of his own he'd like to prove on their 
unknown killer, preferably in a closed room away from 
lieutenants and other interruptions.

Linda Chang moved over beside her and picked up a 
small stack of papers from the tabletop. "Quantico has 
faxed us a profile incorporating the information from 
this latest victim. We're going to have to go through 
the neighborhoods again, see if anybody has a memory 
triggered by either time or new ideas. I don't guess I 
need to remind any of you that today is Tuesday. We may 
be in even deeper before the day is done." She handed 
the stack to Johnston and it made its slow circle 
around the table. Once everybody had a copy and a few 
moments to look it over, she continued, naming the 
teams and the streets they would need to beat.

"It's showtime," Detective Cohen said, rising from 
his chair. Detective Hertado caught Monica's eye as he 
stood and slipped on his coat, and shot her a furtive 
smile. A nice one. She smiled back.


"So, what do you think of her?" Raul asked, as 
they climbed the steps to the precinct house at a 
little after noon.

"Who?" Doggett glanced over at him.

"Agent Reyes. She seems pretty sharp."

"The FBI don't hire dummies." Raul didn't respond. 
Doggett tried not to grin as he held the door open for 
his partner. "Unless you aren't really talking about 
her brains."

Raul jostled his arm sharply as he passed through 
the doorway. "Oops. Sorry about that."

"I bet you are."

"Hey!" Called a voice just as the door swung shut. 
They both looked up, blinking a little in the gloom 
after being outdoors. Sergeant Barry Kozlowski was 
coming down the stairs from the second floor at a 
pretty good clip, struggling with the velcro on a 
Kevlar vest. "You guys busy?"

"Yes," they chorused, knowing what he was about to 
say. 

He said it. "Narcs have a raid at a warehouse up 
in the Bronx. Going down in about thirty minutes. It 
should only take an hour. We could use more bodies."

Doggett glanced at his watch. Their canvass hadn't 
taken long. "One hour" raids meant two hours, but that 
would still get him out in plenty of time to watch most 
of Luke's practice. And if he hit the redial button 
often enough on his cell phone, he might be able to 
catch Karen on a potty break and let her know she could 
stay at work after all.

"I'm in," he said.

Raul sighed. "So much for an afternoon in front of 
the television."

Doggett bumped his shoulder. "It's summertime. 
Oprah's in reruns."

"Fuck you," Raul grumbled as they turned and 
followed Barry back outside. Yesterday's strange 
feeling persisted in the air, and as he drove to the 
warehouse, Doggett studied the occasional tree, certain 
that they looked less green. They parked around the 
corner from their target, amidst a small gathering of 
unmarked Fords that still managed to scream "Police!" 
to any observant passerby. Doggett took off his jacket, 
tucked the cell phone into the breast pocket and laid 
it on the back seat, then stripped off his dress shirt 
and locked the doors. Raul had the trunk open and 
handed him a vest as he shrugged into his own. As he 
always did, Doggett lightly kissed his index finger and 
pressed it to the medallion inside his t-shirt, then 
pulled the Kevlar on over his head.


"Shit," Doggett said as they got back to the car, 
once he finally caught a glimpse of his watch. "One 
hour, my ass." Five-fifteen. So much for the soccer 
game.

"Trust the narcs to think a warehouse full of 
cocaine wouldn't also be full of stolen televisions, 
VCRs, and fur coats," Raul replied. "That place looked 
like an explosion at Macy's."

Doggett unlocked the doors. He picked up his 
jacket and pulled out the phone, flipped it on and 
checked for messages. There was only one.

"John, it's one-fifteen. The president of the 
corporation flew in from Chicago for this meeting and I 
can't leave. Do you understand? I can't leave. You're 
going to have to get Luke. He's finished at four-
thirty. Tell your lieutenant you put in your damned 
eight hours and you have to pick up your son."

He immediately hit the speed-dial for Karen's 
office. No answer. His hands started to shake before he 
even closed the phone, and he looked up to see Raul 
looking at him oddly. "What happened?" Raul asked. "You 
look like you're about ready to take a header."

He told him. Raul held up his hands, placating a 
little. "Hey, it's only forty-five minutes ago. He's 
probably waiting for you, cussing like a truck driver 
because he doesn't think you'll get to finish your 
airplane tonight."

Doggett threw his jacket back onto the seat but 
kept the phone. "I'm taking the car."

"You want me to come with you?"

"No. Can you catch a ride to the station?"

"Sure." Raul knew better than to push. "I'll call 
the local precinct house. Have 'em send a car."

"Thanks," Doggett mentally swore for not thinking 
of that. "He's at Longfield Park."

"Got it. Call me when you find him. I'll tell him 
I got to see his Dad fall apart."

Doggett grunted, barely registering his friend's 
attempt to calm him down. He got in, slammed the door 
and took off with screeching tires and some choice 
words for bank presidents who thought they were Jesus 
Christ.

After fifteen minutes of merely suicidal driving, 
he slapped the portable flasher on the dashboard and 
turned it on, setting down the phone to pull his badge 
from his pocket in case he had to wave it at anybody as 
he swerved by. It took nearly forty minutes to reach 
the park, thanks to the rush-hour cabs that clogged the 
streets until they looked like writhing yellow brick 
roads. The sun had settled into its late-afternoon 
glow, his favorite time of day, when he pulled into the 
small asphalt parking lot beside a marked car and got 
out to find an empty soccer field.

His pounding pulse grew panicked. All the way 
over, as he'd dodged cars and run red lights, he'd told 
himself that Luke wouldn't be there; that he would have 
gone home with one of his friends. He expected an empty 
field. He didn't expect a little blonde-haired boy to 
be waiting for him in the slanting sun, hoping for a 
few final kicks back and forth before they got in the 
car and went home. He really didn't expect that.

The uniformed officer climbed out of the other car 
and came toward him. "You Doggett?" He nodded. "I got 
here about fifteen minutes ago and there was no one 
here. I've been watching, but I haven't seen any kids."

Doggett glanced at the name below his badge. 
"Thanks, Minelli."

"Want me to call in a missing person?"

"Let me make a few calls."

"Okay." He leaned against his car and folded his 
arms. He was an old guy, had probably seen this a 
million times. He knew better than to make chit-chat.

Call Karen first. He tried her cell twice and got 
no response. Call Jerry. He was Luke's best friend, and 
Doggett had dialed the number from memory for months. 
As the phone rang he dug his address book out of his 
breast pocket, knowing it contained the names of three 
other boys who were supposed to be there that 
afternoon.

"Hello?"

"Sheila? It's John."

She must have caught the off note in his voice 
immediately. "Is everything all right?"

"I'm sure it is," he found himself slipping into a 
certainty he didn't feel. It was the voice you used to 
tell a parent or spouse that you were doing everything 
you could, when you were pretty sure their loved one 
was sleeping with the fishes. "Karen got caught up at 
work and she was supposed to pick up Luke. Is he with 
you?"

He heard her quick breath. "No, John, he isn't. He 
and two other boys were still there when we left. That 
was at about a quarter to five. He said his mom was 
picking him up."

"Which two?"

"Craig and Brandon. Do you want me to call them?"

"No, I will. I have Craig's number here. Do you 
have Brandon's?"

"Just a minute. Jerry!" A few moment's silence, 
while he listened to Sheila breathe and his heart try 
to fling itself from his chest. Finally, clattering 
feet. "Do you have Brandon's phone number?"

"What for?" Came a faint voice. 

"Answer the question." Her voice grew sharp.

"Yeah. It's in the school directory."

"Oh, of course." Now she was talking to him again. 
"How stupid of me." Rustling pages. "Here. Here it is." 
She read him the number. 

"Thanks, Sheila."

"Call me the minute you find him."

"I will." 

He called Brandon. No, Luke and Craig were still 
waiting when they left at five minutes to five. At 
Craig's house, his older sister answered the phone. 
She'd picked Craig up at five-ten, and offered Luke a 
ride home but he said he'd just wait for his mom.

"And you left him there?" Doggett blurted. 
"Alone?"

The girl faltered, then turned defensive. "He 
didn't want to come! Besides, it was only five o'clock. 
I figured his mom would be there any minute."

Doggett gritted his teeth. The kid was stupid, but 
she wasn't his. He had no right to give her the lecture 
she needed to hear. He thanked her and hung up, tossed 
the phone back into the car and without speaking to 
Minelli, strode to the middle of the field. There, he 
turned in a slow circle, studying the woods, looking 
for the flash of the red jersey that Luke had been 
wearing that morning.

But his son wasn't hiding in the trees, peeking 
out from behind one in a latent game of hide-and-seek 
his dad didn't know they were playing. Suddenly, a 
cold, steel sweat broke out on his forehead. The trees. 
Pictures of other trees, other woods, and the things 
they'd been finding in them for the last three weeks-
things that had disappeared the last three Tuesdays.

A teen-aged girl, then a young boy. A teen-aged 
girl-he looked at the calendar on his watch, although 
he knew what it would say. Tuesday.


IV
The pager screamed. Monica automatically rolled 
over and reached for the phone, but it wasn't there. 
She pried her eyes open and saw faint light coming 
through unfamiliar drapes, then she remembered. This 
wasn't home, it was the Franklin Hotel in New York 
City. She flapped her hand around on the night-table 
for a moment before it connected with the pager and she 
lifted it, hitting the button. The tiny screen lit up, 
telling her a phone number and the time. One-fifteen. 

She sat up, turned on the light, pulled the phone 
into her lap and dialed.

"Hertado."

"This is Monica. You paged me?"

There was a silence, then the sound of Detective 
Hertado taking in a deep breath. "We've had another kid 
go missing in the middle of the afternoon. Linda asked 
me to call you."

She closed her eyes and leaned against the 
headboard. "Same scenario?"

"Yeah. This time it was a city park. No 
witnesses."

"What can I do?"

"We have officers on-scene. I'm headed there. I 
can swing by your hotel."

"That would be great, thanks. Give me about twenty 
minutes."

"It'll take me at least that long to get there. 
But there's one other thing."

Her joints dissolved. "Tell me."

"The kid's name is Luke Doggett. He's my partner's 
son."


He hovered over the technicians, trying to see 
what they were seeing in the beams of their 
flashlights. Nothing. What was taking the god-damned 
sun so long? Any other morning, it showed up way too 
soon. Around him he could hear murmured voices, 
crackling radios and the tread of two-dozen pairs of 
feet. Other flashlights cut the darkness, and it seemed 
as if he was watching it all from up above and far 
away. Like the sniper yesterday, he was a part of the 
action and yet apart from it; his body was here, but 
his mind was... 

Was what? Stuck in a rut. Caught in an LP groove, 
something Luke wouldn't know anything about. All he 
could hear was the same two sentences, played over and 
over like the guitar riffs in bad rock-and-roll.

Why didn't she make sure I got the message? Why 
did I go on that raid? Why didn't she make sure I got 
the message? Why did I go on that raid? Occasionally 
the constant drone was broken when his head flew up, 
expecting to see Luke step into a flashlight's gleam 
and say, "Dad, what are you doing here? I've been 
waiting for you. I've got the kitchen table all set up 
to finish the plane."

Someone touched his arm and he jumped. It was 
Raul. "L.T. wants me to take you home."

"No."

"He wants us back at the station at two-thirty. 
Monica will be briefing the Third Shift, then we're 
having a conference to go over what we know so far. I 
talked him into letting you sit in."

Vaguely, it registered that this was a huge 
concession. A perk of the job, he thought without 
humor. This victim's father gets first dibs on 
everything the cops can find. He also knew that the 
slightest misstep would have Ben kicking his ass into 
the hall, father of the victim or not. So he nodded, 
and turned to follow Raul to the car.

Agent Reyes was standing by an open car, her face 
visible in the light from inside. She was talking to a 
patrol officer he didn't know. As he opened his own car 
door, she glanced over and gave him a hesitant but 
encouraging smile. He was surprised to feel a touch of 
comfort in its grace.

Raul said little as they drove through the still-
dark streets. This was the only time of day you could 
negotiate them with any speed. The doubts returned with 
the silence. Doggett wanted to tell Raul to drop him at 
a hotel, but his tongue couldn't form the words. Now he 
was remembering what had happened once he got home 
after the park.

He'd driven back with his thumb constantly hitting 
the redial button. She never answered. When he burst 
through the door to his empty apartment and was forced 
to see she hadn't picked Luke up after all and brought 
him home, he'd thrown it into the hallway mirror. It 
had shattered, pieces spinning across the tile as a 
crack diagonaled across the corner of the glass. The 
phone was probably still laying there.

When he heard her opening the door, he'd cleared 
the distance between the kitchen and the hall in what 
felt like three steps. She was alone. His last shred of 
hope disintegrated and he reached out, bracing himself 
against the wall with one hand, clutching at his 
forehead with the other.

"Did you get my message?" She asked.

His hand froze in mid-grasp. He raised his head 
and looked at her, hysterical laughter bubbling in his 
throat. He fought it, nearly strangling. "Not in time," 
he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

A shadow crossed her face. "What do you mean?"

His fragile control shattered. "I mean," he said, 
his voice louder now, "I didn't get your god-damned 
message until five-fifteen, and by the time I got to 
the park at nearly fucking six, he was gone."

"Gone where?"

He shoved away from the wall and grabbed her arms. 
"Gone, Karen. Gone. Gone like three other kids in the 
last three weeks. GONE." He was shouting now.

Her knees buckled, and only his fierce hold above 
her elbows kept her standing. "He's dead?" she 
whispered, beginning to tremble. 

Bile surged in his throat as he shook his head. 
Her body wobbled with him. "We don't know where he is."

She stared at him as though she'd never seen him 
before and didn't know why he was clutching at her like 
a long-gone dream. "But I called at one. You had plenty 
of time," she said, slipping into the same denial that 
had sucked at him. Seeing it made his anger boil anew.

"Fuck the time, Karen! What the fuck were you 
thinking?" All the things he'd wanted to yell at 
Craig's sister came pouring out. "You, of all people, 
know the dangers out there. How many times have you 
complained when I try to talk about work, about how all 
that ever happens down there is the worst mankind has 
to offer? How could you make one fucking phone call and 
think everything was fine and dandy? I'm amazed you 
tore yourself away from your god-damned meeting to do 
even that much."

Her confusion vanished and flames shot from her 
eyes. "Don't you dare blame me! You're the one who's 
always trying to save everybody's ass, whether they 
want it saved or not. This time, I asked you to! I 
swallowed that pride you seem to think I'm choking on 
and asked for your help and where the fuck were YOU?" 
She jerked out of his grasp and backed away toward the 
bedroom, taking a few steps before crashing against the 
wall and sliding down into a heap on the floor, 
sobbing.

He left her there. He grabbed a framed copy of 
Luke's latest school picture off the wall and headed 
back out to the car. It wasn't until he was halfway to 
the station that he realized they hadn't been talking 
about their son.


The apartment was dark when he staggered back 
inside. He didn't touch the light switch, afraid of 
what might happen if he caught a glimpse inside Luke's 
room. The door to his own bedroom was closed, and as he 
paused in front of it he heard a noise behind him and 
turned to see Karen's mother framed in a faint light 
from the guest room. She was in a nightgown and robe, 
but he could tell by the look on her face that she 
hadn't been sleeping.

"Ruth," he said. Suddenly the anger was gone and 
in its place the most awful emptiness.

She came toward him and looked up, searching his 
face in the dark. "Any news?" 

He shook his head. She pressed her hands to her 
mouth and he saw his hand reach for her shoulder, clasp 
it gently. She sobbed once, then choked, and leaned 
into him.

"My baby," she moaned, her voice muffled against 
his shirt.

He put his arms around her and held on, waiting 
until the weeping eased. "How is Karen?" he asked after 
awhile.

Ruth wiped her eyes and fished a tissue from her 
pocket. "I fixed her some tea after I got here. I 
slipped in a sleeping pill."

Doggett nodded. "You probably should have slipped 
yourself one, too."

She tried to smile but it was shaky. "I thought 
one of us should be awake in case-" She stopped.

He knew what she meant. In case the phone rang. 
"Well, I'm here now, so you go to bed and try to rest. 
I don't want to disturb her. I'll take the sofa." Ruth 
probably knew what he meant too: he wouldn't be 
sleeping. He hoped she didn't also know the real reason 
why he wouldn't open the bedroom door.
	

"Tell me about Detective Doggett," Monica said. 
She was sitting in the chair beside Linda's desk, both 
of them holding mugs of what was at least their 
eighteenth cup of coffee. She felt like New Orleans on 
Ash Wednesday, and it wasn't even noon.

Linda frowned and reached up, tucking a strand of 
straight black hair behind her ear. "He's a good cop, 
good detective. Smart. Loyal to a fault. Don't ever ask 
him for the shirt off his back, because he'll give you 
his jacket and shoes too. Kind of quiet, especially 
with women, but if you're patient he'll open up to you. 
I think he has to be sure he can trust you first."

"He's from the South?"

"Yeah. Georgia. You catch it every so often in his 
voice."

"And his manners."

"That too."

"Raul told me he'll be coming in for the briefing 
at three."

Linda sighed. "I can't imagine what he must be 
going through."

Monica could. Easily. But she didn't want to. 
"Think he'll make a scene?"

"That's a tough one. He has an innate dignity, but 
when things have to get ugly, I've never seen him hold 
back. And he definitely has a temper. If I had to 
guess, I'd say he'll hold together all right unless 
somebody does something stupid."

"I noticed a wedding ring."

Linda nodded, the wrinkle deepening between her 
brows. "I think they're having some trouble."

Monica winced. She'd seen good marriages destroyed 
by stuff like this. If theirs was already rocky, they 
didn't have a prayer.


Consciousness came slowly, followed by a glorious 
moment before Doggett remembered why he was lying on 
the couch. Then his stomach turned over and he caught 
his breath, sitting up slowly and dropping his head 
into his hands. It felt like about ten o'clock; somehow 
he'd managed to sleep about five hours. No phone calls 
in the early dawn. No knocks on the door. No nothing.

He stood up to go to the phone, but stopped 
halfway there. How many times, when he was on the Task 
Force, had he had a parent calling every ten minutes, 
asking if there was any news? How many times had he 
sworn in response that they would be the first to know?  

But now he knew why they called. It had barely 
been twenty-four hours and he was starting to grasp the 
special horror everyone described that came from not 
knowing and not being able to do anything. Passivity 
went against every fiber in his being. He knew when to 
fight, and he knew when to run, but at least those were 
actions. Pacing in his living room wasn't.

A tiny sound came from the kitchen and he 
recognized the sound of a coffee cup being set down on 
the table. Ruth must be up. Suddenly, he needed to see 
Karen. He walked down the hall in his sock feet and 
laid his hand a moment on the knob before turning it 
and gently pushing the door open.

She lay on her side, curled into a ball so tight 
she looked no bigger than a twelve-year-old. The lace 
edge of her favorite summer nightgown, a pale blue he'd 
bought her years ago, peeked out from underneath the 
sheet. He stood beside the bed, watching her. She 
probably wouldn't wake up for hours yet; downers had a 
strong effect on her. When Luke was born-something 
surged in his chest and he had to sit down in the chair 
beside the dresser. When Luke was born, she'd had a 
real reaction to the painkillers they gave her, and it 
was three days before she said her head didn't feel 
like it was stuffed with cotton balls. She'd slept so 
much, and he had let her. They put Luke in a crib 
beside the bed because she was breastfeeding and at 
every cry, every whimper, he was the one who'd shot out 
of bed and scooped him up, bringing him to her and 
touching the wisps of his hair as nursed. Then he would 
carry him around, patting his back and telling him 
about the wonderful things they would do when he was 
older.

Karen stirred. One hand went to her cheek and 
scratched the skin a little, then her eyes opened. She 
looked around, then saw him and bolted upright, 
starting to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. 
"Has anyone called?" 

He shook his head and she fell back against the 
pillows, collapsing in on herself as he watched. Her 
face sort of folded, her eyes went dim. In that moment, 
he was able to push last night's words away. He sat 
down on the edge of the bed and took her hand. She 
didn't return the gentle pressure of his grasp, but she 
didn't push him away either. "He'll come back," he 
said. "We'll make it through."

"What if he doesn't?" she whispered. "What if it's 
like you said last night? It was Tuesday."

His hand clenched and he saw a spasm of pain cross 
her face. He eased his grip but raised her hand and 
shook it. "He'll come back. He will. He has to."

She stared at the ceiling, her eyes starting to 
tear up. "Because he's all we have."


"There is just nothing new to report." 

Sergeant Barbara Dixon of the Child Abduction Task 
Force managed to inject a world of sympathy into those 
few words, and Monica watched Detective Doggett for any 
sort of reaction. The look on his face reminded her of 
photos she'd seen of shell-shocked soldiers from World 
War I. Like those long-ago young men, he'd been thrust 
unprepared into a hell no one could imagine or hope to 
escape from. There was no preparation that could be 
made.

"We started knocking on doors at seven in a half-
mile radius clear around the park. We've contacted the 
Parks Department and spoken with the groundskeepers. We 
just sent Third Watch out to widen the canvass of the 
neighborhood." Sgt. Dixon didn't mention the county 
deputies and state troopers who had gone out that 
morning to scour the woods on the Connecticut border.

Sgt. Dixon opened the table for discussion, and 
many of the twenty or so people ranged around it had 
things to say. Monica listened, but added nothing to 
the conversation. Her specialty in cases like these, 
unfortunately, was reading dead bodies, not tracking 
live ones. She desperately hoped her skills would go 
unneeded this time.

After awhile the dialogue died down. Lt. Ben 
Cooper glanced over at Detective Doggett and cleared 
his throat, then asked if he had anything he needed to 
know. 

Doggett raised his head from where he'd been 
staring at the table top. He hadn't touched his coffee. 
Looking straight at Sgt. Dixon, he said, "What about 
Connecticut?" His voice was flat, almost without 
emotion. Only the rough edge to its already husky tone 
gave him away.

"We're checking it out," she said, softly but 
directly. "No news."

Doggett nodded a little, his lips thin. After a 
few moments of silence, Lt. Cooper nodded at Sgt. 
Dixon. "I guess we're finished here, then."

Chairs scraped as the company stood up. Monica 
knew that normally there would be a burst of 
conversation now as everyone shared with a neighbor 
their own theories of what had happened, was going to 
happen, and what so-and-so had done wrong. There was 
none of that. A few whispered words between pairs was 
the only sound other than hard-soled shoes on linoleum 
and the occasional clink of a watchband against a 
pistol grip. One or two men touched Doggett briefly on 
the shoulder as they passed his chair, but no one spoke 
to him. She couldn't tell if it was because they had 
nothing to say, or they knew he would prefer it.

She hung back from the crowd, watching through the 
open door to see how long he'd continue sitting there. 
After about three minutes he roused himself and stood, 
then froze. Color copies of Luke's school picture lay 
in a pile on the table. They were holding them up to 
whomever answered the apartment doors, and handing them 
out to store owners as they questioned up and down the 
streets. He reached for them, his hand hung in the air 
above them, shaking a little. Then he lifted a dozen or 
so, rolled them up and stuck them in the inside pocket 
of his coat. 

He raised his head too quickly for her to look 
away, and their eyes met. She was hit with a desire, 
almost a need, to go to him and give him a hug, offer 
him the comfort no one else seemed able to, but his 
reticence held her at bay as well. So she settled for a 
smile, even though it brought tears to her eyes, and he 
responded with a nod and turned away.


On Thursday he had to take the subway to the 
station, and the rocking rhythm lulled him into the 
same trap he'd struggled out of the Tuesday night. Why 
had Karen only left the message? Why hadn't she made 
sure to speak with him? He would have walked out of the 
raid. He would have told the lieutenant to go to hell 
if he had to. He would have done a hundred-no, a 
million things, if it meant he could hold his son 
again.

The subway slid to a stop and he exited, not 
knowing where he was or how far from his stop. He just 
couldn't stay down there any more, riding hollow-eyed 
with the other hollow people, people who would never 
know his pain and he hated them for it.

He climbed the stairs to the sidewalk and began to 
walk without looking, until he found himself passing 
St. Patrick's Cathedral. Luke had been baptized there, 
and a small smile crossed his mouth as he remembered 
the majesty of all those pinnacles and spires, reaching 
to heaven that morning on behalf of such a tiny human 
being. He didn't have time to go inside, but in a few 
minutes was standing in the aisle. 

Others were in that quiet place, but he didn't see 
them. His instincts knew they prayed silently around 
him, but he was aware of just two souls: his own, and 
the only One who could help. Crossing himself and 
slipping into a pew, he knelt on the bare stone floor 
and buried his face in his hands, but he didn't pray. 
He begged.


V
Monica went to the window and looked out at the 
street below. Annoyingly, it hadn't changed a bit since 
she looked at it three minutes ago. Today was the 
funeral of Damien's latest vicitim, and they'd just 
gotten the report that confirmed it was indeed the work 
of the same killer. Detective Cohen had dubbed him 
Damien, after a devil kid in a movie she'd heard about 
but never seen. They had to call him something. You 
can't talk about a person and analyze his methods and 
motives, all the while calling him, "the killer."

Damien knew his stuff. They had gone through the 
park with a nit comb and still came up empty. The three 
bodies yielded nothing but bits of thread and specks of 
dirt that could have come from precisely anywhere. It 
would take one of two things to catch this guy: a 
miracle, or time. Miracles didn't come for the asking, 
and she wasn't sure how much longer Doggett was going 
to last. The shadows under his eyes were so deep you 
could hide a truck in them, and she was willng to bet 
he'd had the equivalent of two pieces of dry toast and 
a cup of water since Tuesday afternoon. 


He stood in a forest, and something urged him 
forward. There was no sound. The light was faint, as 
though filtering through fog. Then a voice shouted, and 
another. People flew past him, jackets flapping and 
still he stood, frozen. The trees began to spin and 
then there they were: a small group of people in a 
circle in the woods. Looking at something on the 
ground. Something small.

One of the people with their back to him turned 
around. It was Agent Reyes, a thousand sorrows drifting 
in her eyes. He looked nowhere but at her face until he 
stood beside her, trying to get his head to drop so he 
could see what was lying on the ground.

"Dust to dust," whispered a voice in his ear, in 
his head. He looked down at last, seeing a red jersey 
and a pair of black shorts, covering a tiny body. He 
blinked, and the body turned to ash.

A hand gripped his shoulder, flinging him awake. 
Doggett flew up, slamming his shoulder into something 
hard and cursing before he realized the something hard 
was the end of a pew in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and 
the hand belonged to a priest with black hair and wire-
rimmed glasses.

"I-I'm sorry, Father, " he stammered. "I must 
have fallen asleep." He tried to find his bearings, his 
heart pounding from the dream. It was just a dream, he 
told himself fiercely. It's still Thursday, and no one 
has called. He stood up and blinked, reorienting 
himself to the echoing chamber, where the only light 
came from the votives in the corner and the dim 
chandeliers high above. It might be midnight, it might 
be noon.

"It's eight-thirty, my son," the priest replied, 
though he looked about Doggett's own age. "We're 
getting ready to close the doors." Doggett winced at 
the reference, and rubbed his eyes. The priest stepped 
back as he stood up, watching him closely. "Is 
something troubling you?" he asked.

I'm beyond trouble, he wanted to say. I'm not 
troubled. I'm damned. But the thought of the sympathy 
in those eyes ready to be directed at him was more than 
he could stand. Never mind if it was the man's job to 
listen to other people's grief. No one's job could 
ready them for this. His sure hadn't.

He shook his head. "I guess I'm just working too 
hard. I only came in to sit down for a minute." At 
three o'clock, he added silently.

The priest nodded, not believing him. "Well, you 
are certainly welcome."

Doggett nodded. "Thank you, Father."

They walked to the foyer and Doggett pushed the 
door open. The air was cool, still too cool for August. 
The priest looked up at the darkening sky. "It almost 
feels like fall," he said. Doggett nodded, and started 
down the steps. "God bless you," the priest called 
behind him.

He did, Doggett thought. And now I'm afraid He's 
taken it away.


Monica dropped her cigarette in the bucket of sand 
by the door and stepped inside the coffee shop, drawn 
by the subdued lighting and sparse clientele. There was 
now more coffee than blood in her veins, but going back 
alone to her hotel room to wait and worry for the third 
night in a row, was something she needed even less. 
She'd spent as much time as she could at the station 
finishing up her field notes for the day, but it didn't 
take long to say "No further information," no matter 
how fancy you tried to word it.

She paid too much for a cappucino and took it to a 
booth by the window so she could watch the theatre 
crowd go by when the shows let out in a little while. 
Friday night, and Broadway was bustling. How wonderful 
it must be to be a seamstress or an accountant or a bus 
driver; some job that didn't require you to stuff your 
heart into your chest every morning so it could be 
ripped out again by the end of the day. She took a sip 
of the coffee and had lifted the napkin to wipe the 
foam from her lips, when her beeper went off.


Doggett stared unseeing out the car window. It 
would be turning light before they reached Connecticut. 
Raul drove silently, concentrating on the road. He'd 
already extended his sympathy.

They had agreed that if anything happened, Raul 
would page him. He was still spending the night on the 
sofa, and that way the ringing phone wouldn't wake 
Karen and Ruth. So when the pager finally buzzed, he'd 
sat up alone and held it a moment, wondering if maybe 
he didn't look, the number it carried wouldn't really 
be there.

A moment later, before he could even get to the 
phone, there had come a soft knock at the front door. 
If that was Raul, then the news was bad enough he had 
to give it in person. He stumbled to the door and 
opened it to find his partner standing there, hunched 
and suddenly small.

"Jesus, John," was all Raul could say. He reached 
out and gripped Doggett's elbow.

"Where?"

"Danbury."


Monica wiped her eyes and leaned against a tree. 
She needed a cigarette. She'd been out here for six 
hours while cops set up floodlights and took photos and 
pressed small fingers against an ink pad to get prints 
to fax in for identification of what they already knew. 
Shit. She'd given Raul the go-ahead to call Doggett two 
hours ago; they would be arriving soon. 

If circumstances and geography were different, she 
and Raul might have-she dug in her pocket, caving to 
the need for nicotine. The momentary brilliance of the 
lighter blinded her, then she sucked in a lungful of 
smoke and returned to Raul from another angle. His car 
was getting quite a workout tonight. He'd driven her up 
here, then gone back for his partner. During their hour 
alone together they had talked a lot, mostly about 
Doggett, and she had a clearer picture of him now. But 
she still couldn't tell if the anguish she felt was 
over the death of a child, the death of a fellow cop's 
child, or the death of his child. All she knew for sure 
was that if she met his eye again, she probably still 
wouldn't be able to think of anything to say.


A gray mist filtered through the trees as Doggett 
followed Raul into the woods. It was cold, too cold for 
August. He could feel fall in the air. They came to the 
edge of a clearing and Raul stopped, turned back a bit 
to look at him.

At the far edge of the clearing stood a group of 
people in a circle, standing and staring at something 
small on the ground. He spotted a dull red among the 
leaves and his breath went ragged. Dust to dust. He 
stumbled and Raul reached out for him, but he 
straightened up and continued forward. 

The clearing seemed to stretch away from him, no 
matter how far he walked. Someone hurried past on his 
right. His cheeks were wet, his vision blurred, and he 
felt the dizzy uncertainty you get at a precipice, as 
you stand there and fight the urge to step off into 
nothing. He was still hovering on the rim when one of 
the people in the group, a tall woman with dark hair, 
turned and looked over her shoulder at him. Monica 
Reyes. 


He came and stood beside her, Raul just behind 
them both. The sheet had completely covered Luke's body 
until a little while ago, when she had pulled it down 
just past his shoulders, so his father would see his 
unmarked face and not have to wonder any more.

Doggett stood there a moment, staring down as they 
all had. Then he slowly knelt in the dirt beside the 
body and extended a hand toward Luke's hair, stopping 
just short of touching him. She bent toward him, ready 
to clasp his shoulders if she needed to. 

"He isn't ashes," he whispered. 

Her blood froze as the dream came flooding back. 
Woods. People. A body burned to ashes in the dim 
morning light. What did he mean? She literally had to 
bite her tongue to keep from asking. She got down 
beside him just as he reached for the edge of the 
sheet, and touched his wrist. "No," she said softly. 
"Don't move the sheet."

He jerked his hand away as if he'd been burned. 
"You aren't finished with the scene yet? What the hell 
are we doing standing here?"

She swallowed hard, trying to get around the golf 
ball in her throat. "Yes, we're finished. But you don't 
want to move the sheet."

Recognition dawned in his expression as he must 
have remembered the photos of the other victims and 
what had been done to them. "He's-he's-" he stopped. 
A wave of something passed over his face, a pain so 
acute it made her stomach roil. She needed to get him 
away from here.

"John," she said. No response. "John." She leaned 
forward so she could see into his eyes. "Lieutenant 
Foster of the Danbury Police is waiting to talk to you. 
We've found a witness."


VI
Raul took him to the local police station, and now 
they sat on metal-framed chairs holding styrofoam cups 
of coffee and waiting. He'd let Raul put a hand on his 
shoulder as he led him to the car, and he had resisted 
the urge to look back and see them loading his son's 
body into the ambulance. The last frayed filaments of 
his control had twined themselves around Agent Reyes' 
meager offering of a witness, and he was now forbidding 
himself to pace the narrow office as they waited for 
Lt. Foster to show up. Where the hell was he? Where was 
the witness? What had he seen? Was it something they 
could use, or would he have to spend today as 
impotently as he'd spent the last three? Which is 
worse: knowing your child is dead, or knowing you did 
nothing to stop it?

A tall, thin man entered the room with a sheaf of 
papers in his hand. "Detective Doggett?" He said. 
Doggett nodded. The man extended a hand. "Lt. Foster. 
I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," he mumbled. How many times had he 
said that, meaning it as sincerely as Foster did, and 
how many times had the answer been a barely-heard 
"thanks" and haunted eyes? Foster introduced himself to 
Raul and they all sat down.

"We had a call just after dark last night from a 
young man out on a hike in the woods. He'd seen 
something strange through the trees and sneaked up for 
a closer look. It was exactly what he thought it was: a 
New York City taxicab."

Doggett caught his breath. Raul swore. "The trunk 
lid was open," Foster continued, "and there was someone 
standing at the back." A pause while he skipped over 
some passages he probably didn't think Doggett needed 
to hear. "Luckily for us, before he finished what he 
was doing and drove away, our witness made out the 
number of the cab and a fair description of the 
driver."

Deep in his belly, Doggett felt the flicker of a 
tiny flame. For the first time in three days, he had 
something to grasp besides his hair. He looked over at 
Raul. "A taxi. How fucking brilliant. No wonder he 
could snatch the kids off busy streets at three 
o'clock."

Raul nodded. "The damned things are everywhere. 
You see them, but you don't even realize they're 
there."

Doggett turned back to Foster. "Who is he?"

Foster tapped the papers on his desk. "That's the 
information I was waiting on when you got here. His 
name is Bob Harvey. Your officers just picked him up at 
his apartment."


"Absolutely not."

"Lieutenant-"

"NO."

Monica watched as Doggett and Lt. Cooper stood 
with noses practically touching. Doggett radiated a 
power she wouldn't enjoy going up against, but Cooper 
had rank on his side. He wasn't backing down.

"You can watch from the observation room, and 
that's pretty fucking generous of me, if you want the 
truth. But if you get within twenty feet of that man, 
I'll have your badge!" He suddenly seemed to remember 
who he was talking to and why, and softened a little. 
"Jesus, John. If this is our guy, and we do anything to 
compromise the case, then where will you be?"

That did it. Doggett deflated a little and stepped 
back, shaking his head. "Who's going to talk to him?"

"Johnston and Chang. Since they already had the 
Whitman case, Gordon has given them yours as well. If 
they don't get anywhere with him, we'll let Cohen and 
Gardner have a try." 

Doggett glanced at Monica. "What about you?"

She shook her head. "I'm better off watching what 
transpires when others talk to him." She also knew from 
experience that it was a much better move politically 
to let the locals handle suspects. This instance was 
going to be tough, though. It was hard to concentrate 
on a suspect when you also needed to keep an eye on the 
guy beside you in the observation room. His comment in 
the forest kept running through her mind. Somehow, she 
had to find a way, a moment, to ask him why he'd said 
that. They wouldn't be alone in the booth, but she 
might still have a chance.

Cohen appeared in the doorway. "They've brought 
him in. They're ready to get started."

Doggett's face turned white, but he didn't flinch. 
Merely turned and waited for her to exit the room 
before he did. They walked down the hallway single file 
to where Gardner waited for them. The observation booth 
was small and dim. It would be a close fit for five 
people.

They lined up against the glass, arms folded. 
Doggett stood beside her and she knew that if she 
closed her eyes, let herself give in, she would feel 
his pain as palpably as she now felt the sleeve of his 
shirt brushing against her jacket. So she kept them 
open as Gardner reached out and raised the blind.

All the hair on the back of her neck, slowly rose 
and stood at attention. Harvey sat in a wooden chair 
facing the two detectives across a wide, battered wood 
table. He was a big man but sat quietly, his hands flat 
on the table before him as if he had nothing to hide. 
So why were all her nerve endings flashing red? 

He had answers for everything, and they were 
invariably polite. After a while his calm started to 
wear on her, and she became less sure of her original 
reaction. It was as if he was weaving some sort of 
spell. Everyone else seemed to be under it too. 
Johnston and Chang had tried every trick they knew in 
there, from hostility to confusion to friendliness to 
despair, but his manner never changed. They were 
starting to wear down, when Cooper seemed to raise 
himself from his lethargy.

"Cohen. Think you should give it a try?"

Both men nodded, and turned to leave. Cooper 
followed them. "Be right back. I'm going to see if we 
have any prelims from forensics."

She nodded. Doggett continued to stare through the 
glass as Linda started leading the ever-patient Mr. 
Harvey through his whereabouts over the last four weeks 
for about the seventh time. She waited until the door 
closed, then turned and leaned against the wall beside 
the window so she could face him.

"Detective Doggett?"

He didn't seem to hear her, but as she opened her 
mouth to speak his name again, he tore his gaze from 
the other side of the glass and looked at her. "You 
called me John out in the forest. You can call me that 
now."

She cleared her throat. "Thanks. Actually, that's 
what I wanted to talk about. Out in the forest." There 
was no innocent way to word this. Best just to say it. 
"Out in the forest, when you saw L-when you saw him, 
you said something about ashes. Do you remember?"

He nodded slowly, swiveling his head back to watch 
the interrogation. "I had a dream. That when we found 
him, he'd turned to ashes." His voice quavered just a 
little.

She noticed he didn't say "burned," then plowed 
on. "Do you remember anything else from the dream?"

"I remember everything else. It was in the woods, 
in a clearing. Early morning. People dashing past me. 
Exactly like we found him."

He was describing her dream. Her heart started to 
pound. She'd never had this happen before, never met 
someone-"Doesn't that strike you as strange?"

"Doesn't what strike me as strange?" In the 
interrogation room Harvey leaned forward, gently 
tapping his index finger on the table as he spoke to 
Linda, their voices subdued.

"That we found him exactly as you dreamed."

"We didn't. He wasn't in ashes."

"But other than that-"

Doggett turned back to her, looking annoyed. 
"Other than that, the dream was exactly what I knew 
from the other three bodies: face down in the woods, 
miles from nowhere. Every body-in-the-woods I've ever 
been called out on, there were people running around. I 
don't know how you could expect me to dream of anything 
else."

"But the ashes."

He nodded, not quite as patiently as Harvey. "In 
the dream, as I saw his body, I heard a voice say, 
'Dust to dust.' Since I'd fallen asleep in a church 
when I had the dream, it makes sense. Exactly why are 
you so interested in my sleeping habits, Agent Reyes?"

Shit. She'd muffed it. He was obviously one of 
those people who had a rational explanation for every 
odd happening, and weren't interested in hearing about 
anything else. The police world was full of them. "Do 
you fall asleep in church often?"

He almost smiled. "I try not to, but sometimes it 
can't be helped. Especially if a case pulled me out of 
bed late Saturday night."

She wanted to smile too, but hid it. So many of 
those show-me-then-maybe-I'll-believe-it cops were God-
fearing souls, and she had never been able to figure 
that one out. How can you refuse even to acknowledge 
the possibility that there are things out there like 
precognitition and intuition, and yet wholeheartedly 
subscribe to the notion of an all-powerful Being who 
created the universe from nothing and hovers out there 
still, reading our minds and knowing our hearts and 
waiting for us to screw up in exactly the ways He 
already knows we will?

Cooper came back, shaking his head at the 
questions in their eyes. "Nothing."

"What's taking them so long?" Doggett growled.

"I mean, the tests are coming back clean. They've 
practically stripped his cab down to the chassis. 
They've gone over the trunk until Martha Stewart 
couldn't find a speck of dust if she tried. Nothing. No 
fiber, no dirt, no tools. Even the tires look clean." 
Doggett swore. "Granted, that's just sketchy. The final 
results will take weeks. But I don't have to tell you 
it isn't looking good."

"How long can we keep him?" Monica asked.

Cooper frowned. "Given the severity of the crime, 
we can stall. Work slowly, tell the DA we aren't 
finished with his apartment yet, stuff like that. But 
I'd say we'd be lucky to get 72 hours unless we charge 
him."

"And we have nothing to charge him with," Doggett 
said. He seemed so calm. Monica wondered what had 
happened to the fire-breathing cop she'd seen that 
morning when Harvey's name first came up, but the next 
words out of his mouth gave her the answer. "I don't 
think he's our man."

Monica's eyebrows went practically to her 
hairline. She'd shoved the sense of oppression she'd 
felt when she first saw Harvey to the edge of her 
consciousness while she talked to Doggett, but it was 
still there, waiting to break out and swamp her again. 
She turned and looked into the room. Through the open 
door opposite she could see Linda and Johnston talking 
to Gardner. Harvey sat quietly at the table as if he 
had all day. Then, as she watched, he turned his head 
and looked at her.

Her heart leaped madly, taking her stomach with 
it. She gasped and stepped away from the glass, even 
though she knew he couldn't possibly see her. So, why 
was he staring through the glass, staring through her? 
A tiny smile curved his mouth and she could almost hear 
him saying, "Tsk tsk tsk. Don't go digging where you 
aren't invited, little one."

Linda stepped into the room and gestured to 
Harvey. He stood and walked toward her, dwarfing her 
tiny frame as he approached. They both disappeared 
through the doorway and Monica reached out a shaking 
hand to steady herself against the wall.

"You're right," Lt. Cooper was saying. Apparently, 
neither of them had been paying any attention to her 
and she was glad. She took a deep breath and looked at 
them.

"Right about what?" She asked.

"About why I don't think it's Harvey," Doggett 
replied.

"And that is?"

Doggett rubbed his face. "Have you been listening 
to that conversation in there?"

No, she was ashamed to admit. Not really. Between 
fighting the stench of evil that hovered around Harvey, 
and dancing in the ashes with Doggett, she'd missed 
most of what had gone on. She tried to cover. "What is 
it that you think is relevant?"

"He has alibis, Agent Reyes. He can explain every 
place he's been and give the names of people he's been 
with. He plays Bingo every Friday night, for Christ's 
sake. Now, it looks like we aren't going to have any 
forensics to tie him in there either. And the longer we 
sit around here waiting for him to flip on something he 
ain't going to flip on, the further away the real guy 
gets."

"But what about the witness? He saw Harvey's cab."

"The witness lives here in the city. Maybe Harvey 
pissed him off last week and he's looking to get even." 
Her amazement must have shown on her face, because he 
held up a hand. "I'm not saying we should cut him loose 
just yet. I'm saying I'm finished here." 

Lt. Cooper scowled. "What are you up to?"

Doggett opened his mouth, then shut it, finally 
looking more like a grieving parent and less like a 
cop. "I'm going home," he said softly. "I should be 
with my wife right now, even if she doesn't notice I'm 
there."

Monica flinched. That was too much information, 
although Linda had already told her something similar. 
"You'll be in my thoughts," she told him.

He nodded. "Thank you, Agent Reyes."

"Monica."

He ducked his head at her. "Monica."


He opened the apartment door, then almost slammed 
it shut and ran back down the stairs. A hum of voices 
spilled into the hall, and the place was filled with 
light. Obviously, the relatives had been called. He 
knew Ben had sent two of their squad members to the 
apartment that morning to break the news to Karen while 
he was still talking to Lt. Foster up in Connecticut. 
Now, dusk was coming on and if he wanted to see his 
wife, he was going to have to wade through hugs and 
tears and hot casseroles. 

Slinking down the hall, he peered into the living 
room. There were about eight people ranged around on 
chairs and the sofa, talking softly and sniffling into 
tissues. Karen was not among them. Ruth looked up and 
saw him, and stood from her chair.

She came to him and he accepted her embrace. 
"Where's Karen?"

"I talked her into taking another sleeping pill." 
Her eyebrows nearly touched. "I'm worried, John. She 
isn't handling this well." He opened his mouth to ask 
her what the hell she expected, but she held up a hand 
to stop him. "I lost a child too, and a husband. I know 
grief. I see it in her, but I see something else too. I 
see blame. It's going to make her sick, if it hasn't 
already."

"You think she blames herself for this?"

"Either that, or-"

"She thinks I blame her."

Ruth looked up at him, her eyes shrewd yet kind. 
"Do you?"

He couldn't answer that, then he saw he didn't 
have to. Ruth touched her fingers to the corner of her 
eye. "Give her some time, and yourself a little too. 
Your feelings are too raw right now. But while you're 
waiting, there's someone else who would like to see 
you."

"What do you mean?"

Ruth smiled and again wiped her eyes. "In the 
kitchen." She gave a gentle push against his chest. "Go 
on."

He walked toward the kitchen, trying to think who 
would get such a reaction from Ruth. She seemed almost 
pleased, or as if she knew he would be pleased. But 
there was no one who would please him now to see, 
except his son. Unless-

His steps quickened. He entered the kitchen to see 
someone bent over in front of the open stove. 
"Melanie?" He whispered, afraid if she heard him 
she'd vanish like another dream. 

She stood up, and he caught the fire of her hair 
before she saw him and launched herself forward, 
flinging her arms around his neck. "Oh, Johnny, oh, 
dear God." She pressed her face against his chest, a 
few sleek strands of her pageboy getting caught against 
the corner of his mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she 
whispered, as he encircled her with his arms and held 
on, feeling her start to shake and the sting of tears 
in his own eyes. All day, he'd held himself together 
through will alone, but with her he didn't have to 
pretend because she'd see through it anyway.

"When did you get here? How?"

"Ruth called me, just after your officers left. I 
drove up." 

"The kids?"

She pulled away and looked up at him. "They're 
with Larry. God, Johnny, I'm so sorry. Why didn't call 
me sooner? I could have been with you." Tears spilled 
down her cheeks.

He pulled her back up against him, grateful she 
had come. She felt so small and fragile, huddled 
against him, it was a surprise how much solace she 
gave. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to worry you about 
something you couldn't help. Have you talked to Karen?"

She nodded. "A little. She's holding together, but 
just barely."

He wanted to ask if she'd mentioned him, but 
suspected what the answer would be. Since their 
conversation the first morning they'd barely spoken, as 
the pain pulled her toward her mother and him in toward 
himself. It was as if that talk had never happened, and 
they'd gone back to the accusations of the night 
before. He had some vague notion that he should try to 
speak to her, but Ruth had said she was blaming 
herself, and he didn't lie well enough to tell Karen 
she was wrong.

Melanie pulled away from him and headed for the 
cupboard. "Do you want some coffee?"

He shook his head. "Been drinking it all day."

Her eyes took on an uncertain cast, as though she 
wanted to know something and wasn't sure how to ask. 
"The detectives this morning said something about a 
suspect."

"Yeah," he said, turning toward the kitchen table 
and pulling out a chair for her. When he sat down, the 
first thing he saw was a drop of epoxy on the wood 
surface, a bump in its smooth top. He dug at it with a 
thumbnail, knowing what Karen would say if she saw it. 
Maybe one day he would learn to spread newspapers 
before he and Luke worked on one of the planes-

His hand stopped moving. Why bother? Let the 
fucking glue sit there. "Yeah, we spent the afternoon 
talking to a guy, but it was a waste. Looked like a 
good lead, too, but nothing panned out." 

"So they let him go?" 

"Not yet. They're going to hold him for a few 
days, check some stuff out. But I think they're wasting 
their time."

Her badge got her into the holding cell with 
little fuss and less bother. She approached Harvey 
slowly, watching him sit motionless in his chair with 
"I've been waiting for you" written all over his face. 
It was hot, hot enough the air in the tiny hall seemed 
to press against her. She stopped just short of the 
bars separating them, and folded her arms. He spoke 
first.

"You look like you're ready for battle."

She dropped her arms, trying to find a sign of 
weakness in him that she could focus on and gain the 
upper hand. There was none. His eyes were a strange, 
amber color that unsettled her more than anything else, 
so she concentrated her gaze on his forehead.

"I just wanted to talk to you for a minute." Her 
voice came out surprisingly strong, with none of the 
hesitance she'd expected to hear. Good. She lifted her 
chin. "Try and figure out how you've managed to fool 
everyone so completely."

Harvey smiled and stood. She gulped, then silently 
cursed herself. Don't show fear. "Not completely 
enough," he said, continuing to smile. "I'm still 
here."

"They'll let you go soon."

"Too soon, Agent Reyes?"

How did he know her name? She automatically ducked 
her head, looking to see if her badge was still in 
view. No, she'd tucked it in her breast pocket. You're 
a frickin' federal agent, she told herself. Start 
acting like one.

She pulled a tape recorder from her jacket pocket. 
"Mind if I turn this on?"

"Be my guest."

Once the little wheels started turning, she looked 
back up at him. "Mr. Harvey, what do you know of the 
crimes we're investigating here?"

"Quite a bit, now. You learn a lot after having 
such nice chats with detectives for six hours."

"Do you resent that? Being held without charges? 
Having to answer the same questions over and over?"

He shrugged. "Not much I can do about it. You're 
the cops."

"You seem pretty philosophical."

He moved his head, juust a fraction of an inch, 
but it was quick enough she didn't have time to react 
and for a second found herself staring into those 
golden eyes. They seemed to glow and she felt herself 
falling into them, unable to speak or move. Sweat began 
to form along her hairline.

"They have their job to do, and I have mine."

Trapped in his gaze, she struggled to get away, 
finding her voice at last. "And that is?"

He replied in a whisper. "You know what it is." He 
was now only inches away, and as he curled one hand 
around the iron bars, she realized the heat was coming 
from him. She backed away and saw him smile again.

The smile annoyed her and she grabbed the anger. 
She needed it. Curling her fingers around the tape 
recorder until she could feel the tiny hum of its 
working, she squinted at him. "I have my ideas."

He nodded. "I imagine you do. But are they based 
on anything you can take to court, or just those funny 
feelings and dreams you get every so often?"

Adrenaline flooded through her, turning her knees 
to jelly, her resolve of moments ago now in ashes. "Why 
are you doing this?" It came out a whisper.

"Doing what?"

"All of this."

"I told you. It's my job. We all have orders to 
follow."

"Whose orders? Is someone making you do this?"

He chuckled. "Yeah. The devil made me do it."

"Who are you?"

The laughter stopped, and he regarded her with 
extreme patience. "Agent Reyes, you know who I am. 
You've been following me for years." His hand shot out 
and grabbed her wrist. She almost screamed, the heat of 
his grip was so great it felt as if her hand were being 
thrust into a fire. He pulled on her arm until her face 
was right against the bars and said softly, "Go home. 
You're wasting your time here. Go back to New Orleans. 
I'll see you soon enough."

He let go, thrusting her back. She looked down at 
her wrist, expecting to see the red, mottled flesh of a 
burn. It was unmarked. "See me where?"

Spreading his hands wide, he smiled at her like 
some enigmatic shepherd overseeing his flock. 
"Wherever. We seem to end up in the same places, you 
and me."

All she could do was nod, needing to get out 
before he saw too much. "I guess we're finished, then," 
she said, holding up the recorder and hitting the stop 
button.

"We're never finished." He turned and walked 
toward the cot at the back of the cell. "Pleasant 
dreams, Agent Reyes."

She got through the outer door without looking 
back and leaned against it for several seconds, 
breathing hard. Raising her hand, she hit the rewind 
button on the recorder and stopped it after a few 
moments, then depressed the play button and held it up 
to her ear. Nothing. She fiddled the volume wheel. 
Still nothing. She rewound and played, forwarded and 
played, went back to the beginning and played. Nothing. 
The tape was blank.


VII
Doggett exited the limousine and stood looking up 
at the stone facade of his parish church. He held out a 
hand to Karen, who barely touched his fingers as she 
climbed out of the car. She seemed to have shaken off 
the devastation of the last three days, rising to the 
occasion of appearing in public before their friends, 
but she continued to avoid him. Ruth accepted his hand 
and joined them. They stood a moment on the sidewalk, 
each one waiting for the other to take the first step 
toward what awaited inside.

He moved, reaching out to clasp Karen's elbow. As 
if on a signal, Ruth came  around and took her other 
one and thus fortified, they started up the steps. 
Inside it was dark and suddenly quiet, the space beyond 
the foyer filled with the silent, waiting forms of more 
people than he ever dreamed he knew. They each in turn 
paused a moment at the basin, dipping their fingers in 
the holy water and signing the cross. The touch of it 
was strange upon his hands, as though all the times 
he'd done it before had been in another life, the feel 
of the liquid cool against a different body, not his.

He wasn't sure where the last three days had gone. 
While the rest of them diddled with Harvey at the 
station house, he'd gone back out, knocking on doors, 
showing his son's picture, asking question after 
question until his voice dropped to a whisper and 
oculdn't be raised. Then he went back to the park and 
combed the lot, the grass. Walked through the trees at 
the edge, knowing there was nothing there to see. He'd 
driven to Danbury twice, practically alone on the 684 
at three a.m., no one but himself and a few produce 
trucks. He'd walked the dirt by the glow of his 
maglite, and waited where they'd found Luke for the sun 
to rise on the spot again, surprised when the gray mist 
parted to reveal he was the only one there.

Melanie had quietly taken charge at the apartment, 
working with the funeral home and addressing the 
hundred questions neither he, Karen, nor Ruth could 
form the words to answer. She was staying with a 
college friend a few blocks away, showing up every 
morning while he and Ruth ate their breakfast alone. 

He followed Ruth and Karen up the aisle. Before 
them, banked by candles and watched over by a marble 
statue of the Virgin Mary, stood a coffin, steel gray 
and far too small. He turned his head away, 
concentrating on getting Karen into a pew and sitting 
down beside her. She clutched her mother's hands in 
both of hers, leaving him alone and uncertain what to 
do when he felt a touch on his shoulder and looked up 
into his sister's eyes. 

"May I?" she asked, indicating the space beside 
him. He scooted over a little closer to Karen, who 
moved away, and Melanie slipped in beside him, tucking 
her hand into his.

Father Andrews appeared before them, looking 
dazed. He glanced over at the coffin and Doggett 
thought he saw in his face the same surprise at its 
littleness that he had felt. The priest cleared his 
throat and began to speak, and Doggett looked around.

Where was he? What was this place? Hadn't he 
always come here before and found peace, no matter what 
horrors the week had thrown his way? Hadn't he always 
been able to leave the ugliness behind and gain comfort 
in these walls? Why wasn't it working now? Why wasn't 
He doing His job?

On the wall to his left hung a crucifix, a life-
sized Christ nailed and suffering on the cross. "For 
God so loved the world, He gave his only begotten Son-
"

No. He couldn't give. No parent would do that. 
They might have the child ripped from their torn and 
grasping hands, but they would never give. It went 
against everything we are taught, everything we feel 
without being told. What sort of father are You?

Had he said the words out loud? He held his 
breath, waiting. Melanie sat focused on Father Andrews, 
her left hand in his and her right resting lightly on 
his wrist. Karen's head was bowed, a rosary clenched in 
her fist. No. No one had heard him. Nobody except the 
One who needed to-

There was movement in the aisle. Music filled the 
air. Six men, Raul among them, gathered slowly around 
Luke's coffin and lifted it to their shoulders. It was 
over. So quickly. They were taking him away. 

Nausea washed through him, leaving him weak. The 
coffin began its slow movement from the church and now 
Melanie was tugging at his hand. He stood, steadying 
himself against the pew in front. He moved into the 
aisle and let Karen and Ruth file out in front of him, 
then followed the slow procession to the back of the 
church. Once outside in the too-bright sunshine, he 
pulled Melanie aside first.

"I'm not going to the cemetary."

A look of surprised concern crossed her face. 
"Why?"

"I can't do-I just can't. I'm going home. I 
haven't slept in three days."

"Should I come with you?"

He shook his head. "Stay with Karen. I'll see you 
tomorrow. When do you have to leave?"

Melanie sighed. "I want to stay a few days, but 
Susie has a special program at her daycare on Wednesday 
and-"

"You have to be there."

She blinked. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

He put an arm around her. "Those special programs 
are rare, Mel. Don't ever miss one."

Tears pooled in her eyes and she nodded. "I'll see 
you in the morning, then. Try to sleep."

They walked down the steps and he stopped beside 
Karen, who was talking to some neighbors he hadn't 
known would be there. Mel waved and kept walking, 
headed for Raul, who stood waiting beside a dark blue 
Ford. The neighbor backed away from Karen and he caught 
her sleeve before she moved to get back in the limo. 

"I'm going home," he said.

"You can't."

"I can, and I am."

"John, you can't run out on your son's funeral. 
How would that look?"

"What the hell do I care how it looks?" He 
whispered fiercely. Her eyes widened. "I'm sorry. I 
just-have to go home." I can't watch them put my child 
in a hole. I can't stand to know that there will be six 
feet of earth between him and me.

Karen said nothing and he thought maybe she 
understood, then he saw she had something to tell him. 
He waited.

She stood in the open door of the limousine, her 
gaze focused on the sky beyond his left ear. "I'm going 
to stay with Mom for awhile," she said.

"Why?"

"You know why."

He took a deep breath. "I don't think that's a 
good idea. We have to talk. We haven't talked since-"

"Since when, John? Don't say since Luke 
disappeared."

"I know it's been longer than that. But there are 
things I need to tell you. I've barely seen you."

"I've seen you. In my thoughts, in my dreams, 
you're always there, and you've been telling me every 
minute. I hear you loud and clear. You're the quiet 
man, John, but you scream with your eyes. I can't bear 
to have them screaming at me any more."

This was his chance. This was the moment where he 
had to say he didn't blame her. She stood there, 
waiting for him to gather his senses. The silence 
stretched between them and in it he heard the screaming 
too. Then, she turned away and climbed into the car.

She closed the door, the limo pulled away. He 
stood on the curb and watched it go, followed by a slow 
line of cars fall that disappeared down the street. The 
worst part wasn't that she was leaving, or that she was 
leaving now. It wasn't even that they both knew she 
wouldn't be back. The worst part was that he didn't 
care.

The last car hit its headlights and fell in line. 
Doggett turned and stared at the church's stone fa�ade, 
then started back up the steps. 

Ignoring the basin this time, he went straight 
into the nave. It seemed bigger now, the pews no longer 
crowded with friends. His steps echoed on the stone 
floor, and sunlight slanted through a stained glass 
window, turning the light to red and gold. The candles 
still burned at the front of the pews; Mary still stood 
sentinel over Her flock's pleadings and prayers. He 
turned left and stopped at the foot of the crucifix. 
Jesus gazed at him, His head sagging a little between 
His shoulders. Blood and tears poured down His face as 
He accepted the agony of all the world. 

He hadn't wanted to. "Let this cup pass from me," 
He had said. But where had it gotten Him? Where had it 
gotten any of them? Knowing your child is safe in the 
arms of the Lord is poor consolation when all you can 
think about it how you'll never again hear his laugh, 
or feel that little hand grasping yours.

"Both my parents died too young," he said softly, 
speaking to those tormented eyes. "My sister lost a 
baby she didn't even get to name. My wife is in some 
secret hell I don't know where to begin looking for, 
and now You've taken my s-" his voice cracked and he 
bowed his head a moment. "Every day I see more misery 
than most people will in a lifetime. I see broken bones 
and broken bodies, broken promises and broken lives. 
But through it all I continued to believe that it still 
had meaning. I had to believe that or I couldn't go on, 
and I had to go on. We were trying to build a life 
together, the three of us."

He looked up. His eyes were dry, unlike the tear-
streaked face of Christ. The statue wept, but he 
couldn't. "If this was a TV show, I'd be giving You my 
big Emmy-nomination scene now, where I rail against You 
and Your bright ideas, and tell You to kiss my ass. But 
this isn't television." 

He reached between the buttons of his dress shirt 
and caught the collar of his tee. Hooking his index 
finger around it, he pulled it down and took the St. 
Michael's medallion in his left hand, giving it a swift 
yank. For a moment felt the chain cutting into the back 
of his neck, burning before it broke. He held the medal 
out toward the statue's feet, letting the chain dangle 
between his fingers, then let go and looked up as it 
hit the stone floor with a tiny, hollow clink. "I won't 
be back."


Monica hung back from the procession, having told 
Raul there was something she needed to do here. When 
John went back inside, she didn't follow him, knowing 
whatever he did in there was private. She found a 
shadow to stand in a few doors down and was still 
there, waiting, when he came back out into the empty 
street and flagged down a taxi. She hailed one and 
followed him, not surprised when he climbed out and 
disappeared inside a bar on East 91st Street.

After paying her fare, she waited a few minutes, 
then went inside. It took a bit for her eyes to adjust, 
then the long oak bar, its myriad of bottles and a 
half-dozen back booths began to take shape in the 
gloom.

He was standing at the edge of the bar, handing 
the bartender a bill. He replaced his wallet, picked up 
the bottle of Jack Daniels and glass setting in front 
of him, and walked over to the farthest booth. She 
chewed on her lip, watching him go. Every female inch 
of her demanded that she follow and see if she could 
help, but the detective inches knew better. If she sat 
down to face him now, she might end up with that bottle 
aimed at her head. This was more of what he'd done 
inside the church. Why else would he have let go of 
that woman at the funeral-the redhead he'd been 
hanging onto so tightly she was amazed the girl's 
fingers hadn't cracked.

She'd known she was his sister well before they 
got close enough for her to see the resemblance. He had 
let his guaard down with her in a way he wasn't even 
showing to his wife. When was the last time he'd let it 
down even half as much? Hard to imagine. She'd always 
felt great admiration for people who could keep 
everything bottled up inside, mostly because it was 
something she could never do. Time and again she'd 
sworn to keep her mouth shut, only to have the promise 
shatter within moments of being uttered.

It was a stupid admiration, she knew. Such a show 
of strength was misleading because the stoic outside 
hid a crumbling interior that didn't become visible 
until it all caved in. That's what she was waiting for.


Her last cigarette had just burnt down between her 
fingers, when his head slowly tilted forward to rest 
between the two bottles. He drank the way he did so 
many other things: methodically and surely, with a 
specific purpose in mind. Now that he'd achieved that 
purpose, she would need help to get him home. She 
pulled out her cell phone.

"Hertado."

"Hey, Raul, it's Monica."

"Well, hey. Where are you? It sounds noisy."

"I'm at the Gotham Tavern on 91st. Your partner 
needs a favor and I can't do it alone."

She didn't have to explain any further. "I'll be 
right there."

The bartender laid his towel down and came out 
from behind the counter. He'd just gotten to John's 
table when Monica worked her way across the room and 
slid into the other half of the booth.

"You with him?" The bartender asked. "I thought 
you were sitting over there."

She nodded. "I was. I have a friend coming. We'll 
get him home."

The man shook his head, not too puzzled. He'd 
likely seen stranger things. "I didn't want to give him 
that second bottle, but even more I didn't want to tell 
him no."

"It's all right. He's been through a lot this 
week."

"Drinkin' won't solve it." He gave her a little 
smile. "That probably sounds funny, comin' from a guy 
like me."

She smiled back. "Not at all.

He looked at John, back at her, then shrugged and 
returned to his post. Monica reached out and lifted the 
empty glass from John's hand, having to tug a little. 
She took it and the bottles over to the bar, then went 
back and sat down, turning a little so she could see 
the door.


Raul lifted him over one shoulder and staggered up 
the steps to John's building. Monica had dug the keys 
from his pocket while they were in the taxi, and she 
held the door open then followed him to the elevator. 
John's sister had told Raul at the cemetary that Karen 
wouldn't be there, so she kept the keys out to unlock 
his apartment door.

They eased him onto his bed and stepped back, Raul 
rubbing his neck. "He's one big sonofabitch," he 
muttered. She could see him grinning in the dim light 
through the curtains. They returned to the front door.

"Thanks," she said.

"No problem. Why don't you let me stay? You can go 
back to your hotel."

She hesitated. How to explain why she needed to 
stay? "If he wakes up, I think it might be easier for 
him if he doesn't have to face someone familiar. I'll 
just hang around a few hours and then go."

Raul sighed. "Far be it from me to argue with a 
Fed." He reached for the door, then looked back at her. 
"I hear you're leaving tomorrow."

"Yes. You folks are looking at a serial killer, 
not a Satanist, and you have as good a handle on things 
as anyone would. You don't need me, so we may as well 
stop wasting the taxpayers' money."

"Maybe-" Raul paused and stuck his hands into his 
pockets. "Maybe I could meet you at the airport? Have a 
cup of coffee?"

"I'd like that."

"I'll call you tomorrow then." He smiled, then 
just as suddenly turned solemn again. "He'll probably 
never know you were here, so I'll say thanks."

"There's no need. It's just another part of our 
job."

"Helluva way to make a living." He opened the 
door. "Good night, Monica."

"Good night, Raul."

She closed the door and went back to John. He lay 
where they'd left him, and offered no resistance as she 
removed his jacket, tie and shoes. Returning to the 
living room, she settled down in a corner of the sofa 
to wait. Give him a while, make sure he isn't going to 
be sick, then lock the door and leave.


VIII
Something jerked her from sleep with the force of 
a blow. She jumped to her feet, whacking her shin on a 
low table of some sort and remembered where she was 
just as the sound of breaking glass filled the air. 
Cussing, she stumbled down the dark hall, feeling her 
way to the open door the noise was coming from.

She peered around the corner. The draperies had 
been torn from their hooks and moonlight filled the 
room, outlining John in silver as he levelled the bat 
in his hands at a small group of model airplanes on a 
dresser.

The bat plowed through them, sending all but one 
sailing on mute, doomed flight. John turned, 
shouldering the bat, then swung at one hanging in front 
of the window. The bat whistled and the plane went down 
but he never slowed, pivoting on one foot to sweep 
clean the night table beside the bed. The force of the 
swing knocked him off balance and Monica moved forward, 
knowing surprise and his unsteadiness were the only 
ways she'd get the bat from his hands.

He stumbled, letting go with one hand to catch 
himself against the bed. She grabbed the bat as it 
hovered in mid-air, wrenching it from his hand and 
flinging it into the hallway and out of his reach. She 
held up her hands where he could see them. "John. It's 
Monica. You're at home. No one else is here."

"Get out." The words were so slurred she barely 
understood them. He turned, his gaze lighting on the 
dresser and its sole remaining plane. A terrible sound 
swelled in the room and she realized it was him. He 
leaped forward, his hands aiming for the plane, and 
suddenly she needed to save it. She grabbed his arm 
with both her hands and swung him around to face her.

His other hand came with him, striking her cheek. 
Her eyes burned and for a moment she staggered herself, 
but didn't let go. The look on his face changed from 
anger to a second of surprise, then both expressions 
dissolved in a wash of agony and he fell to his knees 
in front of her.

She knelt, reaching out to lay cautious hands on 
his shoulders, ready to duck if a fist came her way. 
"Let it go, John." She whispered. "You have to let it 
go."

His fingers latched onto the sleeve of her jacket. 
"Oh, God," he moaned, his voice the whimper of a lost 
and frightened child. She pulled him up against her, 
stroking his hair and rocking a little, as seven days 
of anguish and impotence and loss washed over them 
both, leaving them trembling and drained.


He woke up crouched on the floor, his cheek 
against something that smelled like flowers. He felt 
like an elephant had shit on his head. Opening his eyes 
slowly, he found himself looking at Luke's dresser. Its 
top was nearly bare, the mirror shattered. 

Bits began floating back. Shouting and swinging, 
the bat in his grip. The crash of breaking glass and 
even that not enough, then hands upon his and a soft 
voice in his ear. He'd collapsed and she had gone with 
him, offering what comfort she could as he tried to 
understand good-bye. Slowly, he turned his head and 
looked down. The scent of flowers came from her hair as 
she slept on, curled into his side with her temple 
against his shoulder. 

Shit. He'd known last night was coming; that was 
why he'd sent Melanie home. He hadn't wanted anyone 
here. Apparently, things hadn't quite worked out that 
way, and now this stranger had seen moments he wouldn't 
remember for years.

He eased his arm out from behind her, driven to 
stealth both by her presence and the pounding in his 
head. She moaned but didn't wake, and he propped her up 
carefully against the footboard of Luke's bed and 
stood, weaving a little. What had he done? Luke's 
precious planes lay in splinters on the floor, the 
"Enola Gay" crumpled against a pair of battered shoes 
by the chair. A sob started in his throat and he choked 
it back as he saw that one plane remained at the 
dresser's edge. "The Spirit of St. Louis" had nearly 
fallen prey to the rampage, but something had stopped 
him in time. He turned and stared at Monica. She looked 
almost fragile, all hunched up and sleeping, but last 
night she had got a hand over a madman. 

That memory brought heat to his face. He needed 
water and soap and time to think, that's what he 
needed. Once he finished in the shower, he'd try and 
apologize to her. 

But when he came out, she was gone. 


She had awakened when he first moved, but decided 
to pretend sleep. Those first few minutes wouldn't be 
easy for him as he saw the fruits of his night's labor, 
and she didn't think he'd appreciate going through them 
under someone's watchful gaze. So she'd stood and 
stretched once he disappeared, and headed for the front 
door as the water started running in the shower. She 
couldn't wait to reach her own bathroom; although still 
on the green side of thirty, her body wasn't meant for 
spending a night sitting up against the foot of a bed.

The clock now said two-fifteen. She needed to 
leave if she was going to meet Raul in time for coffee. 
Maybe the plane ride would be long enough to figure out 
what of this case she was going to put in her report, 
and what would go unsaid.

Her conversation with Harvey would remain between 
the two of them. She had no proof of his claims, and as 
the days went by her own memory of the event grew 
hazier. There were already moments when she wondered 
whether it had happened at all, or had merely been 
another vivid dream. Sometimes it was hard to tell. But 
whether he'd really said those things or not, she 
remained convinced he was their man, and it surprised 
her that John had let go so readily. He might have 
scoffed at her visions if she'd mentioned them, but 
every cop worthy of the title gets gut feelings, and 
her gut still told her Harvey belonged where she had 
left him, in that cell. Of course, if he really said 
the things she thought he'd said, perhaps she'd have 
another chance. That idea was not exactly comforting.

"Then again-" she said aloud, stopping when the 
phone rang. "Reyes."

A moment's silence, then a voice edgy and 
uncertain. "It's John. Doggett. I was hoping to catch 
you before you went to the airport."

She sat on the edge of the bed, smiling into the 
phone. This was unexpected. And good. "Well, you did."

"You left before I could thank you."

"I thought it was better that way."

"Well," silence, then, "thanks, Monica.  You're a 
good friend to have around."

She could guess what it cost him to realize that, 
and wanted to say that his secrets would remain secret. 
She settled for, "Let's keep in touch, okay?"

"Okay."

"You know, you'd make a good fed."

He chuckled softly. "Is that a suggestion?"

She waved a hand in nonchalance, even though he 
couldn't see it. "Sure." The hand fell. "You would, 
though."

"I'll remember that. Have a safe flight."

She hung up, still smiling. He may not have been 
her first one-night stand, but he would be her most 
memorable. When she turned to pick up her briefcase, 
she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her eyes 
were suspiciously bright as she studied the dark-haired 
girl staring back. "Then again," she resumed the 
conversation she'd been having when the phone rang. 
"You took this job because you wanted to help people. 
Sometimes that means more than just catching the bad 
guy."


IX
Doggett stood a moment on the balcony, breathing 
the soft spring air. Behind him on the floor, in 
various stages of packing, stood the boxes of his life. 
Filling them was slow work, because it seemed like 
every other thing he lifted carried a memory and his 
hand would linger, the object hovering before his face 
as thoughts took hold. Mercifully, more often than not 
they brought a smile. 

The buds had just started straining on the 
branches when his phone rang exactly four Saturday 
mornings ago. It was Melanie.

"Hi, Johnny! Is it spring there yet?"

"It's thinking about it. You?"

"Oh, we're always way ahead of you. The cherry 
trees will be swamping DC with blooms any day now."

"You sound pretty cheerful."

"I have good news!"

He sat down on the sofa. She could keep him on the 
phone longer than anyone else on the planet. "I'm 
listening."

"Larry's getting promoted!"

He slapped his thigh. "Well, hot damn. Our very 
own Lieutenant Colonel. Put him on."

"He isn't here." She paused a moment, and he could 
tell by her breathing that there was more news where 
this came from. "He's taken the kids to get passport 
photos taken."

Doggett's stomach cringed. Melanie didn't say 
anything, so he did. "He's being transferred."

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Okinawa."

"Shit. For how long?"

"At least five years. Probably longer."

"Ahh, hell."

"I'm sorry, Johnny. But it's such a huge step. 
He's wanted it for so long."

Doggett finally realized what she was doing. "No, 
Melanie. I think it's great."

"Do you really?" She asked. What she meant was, 
Can you handle being alone over here?

"Of course I do." Of course I can. "I'll come see 
you at Christmas."

She gasped. "Do you think you could?"

He grinned. "If my new boss will let me." Dead 
silence. "See? You aren't the only one with good news."

Melanie squealed loudly enough he had to hold the 
phone away from his ear. "The F.B.I.?"

"I report to Quantico in six weeks." He yanked the 
phone back from his ear again. When it was safe to 
return, he continued. "I was hoping to bunk with you 
guys until I found a place."

"I have a better idea."

"What's that?"

"Take the house."

Now it was his turn to be speechless. "You aren't 
going to sell it?"

"You know we want to live here after Larry 
retires." She was starting to pick up speed as she took 
his idea and ran. "Oh, Johnny, you have to stay here. I 
would feel so much better knowing it's you living here, 
and not some sub-leasing stranger putting their feet on 
my Craftsman coffee table."

"How do you know I won't put my feet on your 
coffee table?"

"Because you know what I'll do to you if I catch 
you at it. And then there's Betty."

He felt all the blood drain from his face. "You 
wouldn't."

"I can't take her with me!" He could picture her 
pacing in her sunfilled kitchen, the phone tucked under 
her shoulder as she waved both hands in the air. "She'd 
never survive the voyage."

"She won't survive me."

"Don't be silly. She's just a fern."

"'Just a fern?' You're the one who named her."

"Oh, Johnny, this is going to be perfect."

He groaned, but it was the good-natured sigh of a 
big brother who still thought the sun rose and set on 
his baby sister's smile. He didn't welcome the idea of 
her being so far away, but living among her things 
might make it easier.

So he'd put in his notice and called Karen to tell 
her he was leaving. The divorce wouldn't be final for 
another two months, but there was really nothing left 
to decide and no reason to stay. She had wished him 
luck and he wished the same to her, then silence came 
between them and she said good-bye first. He'd held on 
to the phone for a minute, wondering as he often did if 
there were magic words out there and what would happen 
if he said them, or if maybe any word could be magic 
just because saying it made it so.

The wind sucked the drapes out through the open 
door and he turned to go back inside. "The Spirit of 
St. Louis" sat on the end table, waiting to be packed 
into a boxful of styrofoam peanuts he'd bought 
especially for her. He touched the wing and bent down 
to see her from eye level. She was a good-looking 
plane, especially at that one joint where Luke's 
fingers had slipped and it ended up a little crooked. 

He wondered sometimes why this was the plane that 
remained. Monica would say it was Captain Lindbergh, 
who had himself lost a son, extending a comforting hand 
across the years, but the only hands he remembered were 
hers, grabbing him just in time.

Another breeze stirred his hair and he stood up to 
slide the door shut, then paused. It was a beautiful 
day, hard-won after a bitter winter whose darkness 
seemed greater than just short days and long nights. 
Luke had been Damien's last victim. He had either left 
town or been arrested somewhere. His new job might 
offer opportunities to find the bastard that he'd never 
have in NYC, and he planned to take advantage of every 
one.

The street was quiet. Everyone must be at the park 
or even outside the city. It was that sort of day, warm 
and very green. The fish were biting by now. He looked 
around at the boxes, arguing with himself for about 
three seconds that he needed to stay here and get this 
done. But then he decided the boxes would probably 
still be waiting when he got back, and headed for the 
closet where his tackle was still gathering dust. It 
was barely ten o'clock. He could drive up to their 
stretch of the river, toss out a line, and maybe Luke 
would scare some fish his way.