Thirty-One
Erin took a long last look at her copy. This was a confession, more than anything. The problem was that she had no idea who she was supposed to pin it on. She didn't recognize the handwriting on the paper, nor did she recognize the handwriting on the envelope. But they spoke of two completely different individuals. People who were so completely separate on the scale that someone might wonder if they were, strictly speaking, the same species.
Erin knew better. Or at least, she certainly thought she did. There were bad people out there, and there were uneducated people out there, and there were people out there who had unsteady minds. This guy was all of those things.
She took a deep breath. There was one question that had been in the back of her mind, and now it came forward again. Why all the specifics? There was something fetishistic to the murders. Seven, exactly seven. Why exactly seven? Nobody knew.
Well, this was a confession. Stabbed seven times. It felt good. Blood on my hands. Most of all, a young woman. Erin had trouble believing that there was anything that would make the guy who she'd shot describe her or her sister as 'young' women.
They were the same age. If anything, Ryan looked a year or two younger than them. They weren't young to him. This person had described her as a 'young' woman, sometimes even as a 'girl.'
Which raised more difficult questions about who had written this diary. This journal. This confession. Confession to a murder.
Without knowing more, she couldn't begin to look into the murders. Not effectively, anyways. She took a deep breath. That meant taking this in to the station, and that meant having to see Roy. Schafer was head on this investigation. Taking it somewhere else would have been an insult, and as much as she wanted a clean break, she respected him as a cop.
She wanted to stop feeling anything for him—not to insult him in front of his coworkers. So she was going back into the lion's den again, after all. It took her a minute before she felt ready, then she dressed in professional clothing, slipped her wallet into her trousers pocket, and started off.
It took her exactly ten minutes and twenty-eight seconds to get there, though she wasn't timing it and didn't know. But for those six-hundred twenty-eight seconds, she was feeling exactly how long the trip was. Every one of those seconds, she thought about how much she didn't want to go inside that station.
She ignored that tugging, the same way that she was ignoring the niggling feeling that she should apologize and beg for Roy's forgiveness. The feeling that he was all she had left. Maybe he was all she had left, or maybe he wasn't, but that didn't define her. He was a colleague, and he was a man she'd spent some good times with, but he wasn't the end of the line for her, and it wasn't going to underscore her whole career.
Erin made it through the door moving fast enough that she could ignore her doubts. As long as she kept up her forward momentum, it didn't matter that she wasn't one damn bit certain if what she was doing was going to help or if she was being played like a damn fiddle.
The elevator opened with a ding and Detective Green turned. His desk was right by the elevator and he had a bad habit of looking to see every time someone came up. It was a distraction.
"I thought you were out of here for a while."
"I am," she answered, already moving towards Schafer's office.
"If you're looking for Agent Schafer, he's gone."
"Gone?"
"Out."
"Out where?"
"Out of here."
Oh. Erin swallowed hard and tried to think. He needed to see this, and if he was gone…
She turned and headed for the door. If she hurried, she could make L.A.X. before they departed, she hoped. It burned her ass, but she pulled out her phone as she slipped back into the Jeep and dialed Roy's number.
It rang twice before going to voicemail. She called again. No rings this time. He'd turned the phone off.
She might have done the same thing in his position, but now it was God damned important that she got in touch with him before he left the ground. Why did he have to pick right now to be a hurt child? Why had she picked that exact moment to piss him off?
She put her foot down harder. How long had he been gone for? An hour? Two?
A question hit her. Why would they leave? Had there been something new? Had they been pulled out?
At some point, sure. They'd go back to Quantico. But there had been a murder here less than twenty-four hours ago. They'd just arrested a suspect in the murder, but that left at least one more. Likely two.
Without being able to reach Schafer, she couldn't begin to guess what the hell had happened, and nobody in the station would want to tell her about it, even if they knew. After all, she was on leave. She wasn't involved in the case in any official way, and that was how it had always been. Why would it be any different now that Schafer and his suits had left?
She took a breath. She needed information, and she needed to cooperate with the F.B.I. to get it. How was she supposed to do that?
The thought occurred to her a minute after it came through. The field office might at least be able to hand information like the page in her hand. If it looked useful, they could at least get in touch with Schafer or one of his boys. Maybe before they took off, or maybe they would be able to head back.
She turned the Jeep around and got back on the gas. She didn't know where the F.B.I. field office was in California, but it couldn't be too far. She jabbed it into the G.P.S. while she drove, and started following the directions. It took five minutes to get there, another minute to find parking, and a seventh to get inside.
"I need to speak to someone."
"May I ask you what this is regarding?" The man behind the counter looked like a kindergarten teacher more than a law-enforcement agent. Thin and bookish and retreating.
"I've been given evidence in an ongoing murder investigation."
The man nodded to himself, clicked his mouse a few times and tapped a few keys. "Can I have the details?"
"I need to get in touch with Special Agent Roy Schafer. It's with regards to a series of murders committed across the country."
"What's your evidence?"
"A confession. Someone slipped it under the door of my hotel room."
"May I have your name?"
"Erin. E-R-I-N. Russo. R-U-S-S-O."
"Can you give me the paper?"
"What? Uh." She'd been building up the moment that they were forced to see each other again. The moment she handed him the paper. It was one last chance to make her apology in the end. It should have occurred to her that the office would want to take custody of any evidence involved in an ongoing investigation. "Sure."
She handed it across. The man smiled and set it aside, got on an intercom and asked someone to come take it into evidence, along with her transcription. Then he tapped another few keys, looked up at her as if he was surprised to see her standing there.
"Thank you very much." She let out a breath. "We'll be in touch if we need to reach you."
Thank you very much, indeed.