A Long Line Of Family

A LONG LINE OF FAMILY By

Kim Bellard

Copyright © Kim Bellard 2005 All Rights Reserved

A Long Line of Family Prologue Allison Collins woke with a start. It was nice and warm inside her sleeping bag, safe inside the tent she shared with her boyfriend. But something had woken her and she couldn’t remember what. She listened for a few seconds to the small sounds outside the tent, trying to decide if they were unusual outdoor sounds or if her imagination was simply being overactive. She knew the campsite was in a very isolated area, and one of the most amazing things to her, a city girl, was the quality of the silence. The recent snows added to that, creating a stillness that was almost as pure as the whiteness of the snow. This morning, though, there was a new sound, a sound she couldn’t quite identify. Much as she wished that it was just her imagination, eventually she concluded there was something out there. “Tommy,” she whispered, poking him as well. “Wake up.” Tommy Staley grudgingly opened his eyes. He and Allison had been camping for three days now, and his new beard made him look the part of the outdoorsman. It did not, however, help him wake up any faster. He was most definitely not a morning person, which was especially unfortunate on this day, which was to be his last on earth. “What?” he mumbled, not quite awake. “What time is it?” “Shush,” she whispered again. “Do you hear that?” She nodded her head outside. From the look on her face, he knew she was serious. They had been going out for almost a year, and had gone camping several times. He knew she was not easily spooked, and that she was not kidding now. So he forced himself to listen intently, wide awake now. The sounds were quiet but steady. They’d gone to bed with several inches of snow already on the ground, and more might have fallen overnight, so the snow was muffling noise from outside the tent. Still, by listening intently both of them knew something was moving outside the tent. They looked at each other. “Bear?” Allison speculated. It was their worst fear, something that they knew was possible when camping in this territory. They took all the prescribed cautions, and most of the bears should be starting to recluse

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A Long Line of Family themselves for the winter by now, but there was always that chance of an errant encounter. Tommy listened for a few seconds longer before replying, his brow furrowed with concentration. He was listening to a new sound. “I don’t think so,” he said at last, shaking his head. His face relaxed into a grin. “Not unless the bear is making a fire.” Allison now heard the unmistakable crackling sounds of sticks igniting into flame. At first they were small, as the fire started out, but quickly grew as she pictured the flames growing. “What the hell?” she exclaimed, her voice still soft. “Who would that be?” They had told friends they were going camping, but they’d been changing campsites as they hiked through the vast expanse of the park. Their SUV was parked several miles away, in the park’s parking lot. No one knew exactly where they were, so they had to rule out any of their more adventurous friends coming by to join them. They stared at each other in silence. “Another hiker, I assume,” Tommy concluded, rubbing his beard. “He probably saw our tent and thought he’d join us for breakfast. That’s why he’s being nice by starting the fire. Hell, maybe he’ll make us some coffee.” Allison looked at him, hoping he was right but not entirely convinced. She chewed distractedly on her lip. She glanced around at the inside of the tent, aware of how thin it was against the world. It served as adequate protection against the weather, but it was no fortress. She felt terribly vulnerable. Tommy watched her, feeling protective. They’d met at a party late in their junior year at Boise State, and had gotten to know each other over the last year. She was pretty but not delicate, enjoying hiking, climbing, and mountain biking as much as he did. He’d never seen her spooked before. “Well,” he said calmly, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, “I guess I should go see who it is.”

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A Long Line of Family Allison wasn’t too sure she wanted him to go, but also knew they had to investigate. “Want me to come with you?” she offered, her face betraying her lack of desire that he take her up on the offer. Tommy was already out of his sleeping bag, pulling on his jeans and boots. He shook his head. “Naw, let me check it out first,” he told her, affecting a nonchalance he wasn’t sure he felt. It was practically unimaginable to him that anything truly bad could happen to them, but it was not totally impossible. Still, he felt confident in his ability to take care of himself. He threw on a flannel shirt and unzipped the tent flaps, then stepped outside. A figure in a long parka sat by what was now a healthy fire some twenty feet from their tent, sitting between the tent and the stream. A hood covered the stranger’s head with a furred edge hiding the face. A collection of wood sat by the fire, evidently gathered by the stranger to keep the fire alive for some time. They’d situated their camp in a large clearing, next to a stream that still flowed vigorously. In another few days, the cold would close off many of the sources of water, reducing the volume and speed of the flow and forming a sheet of ice over the surface, but it was still early enough in the season to not be substantially diminished. It was a beautiful setting and Tommy felt annoyed that the stranger had interrupted their solitary enjoyment of it. “Can I help you?” he said loudly. The stranger looked up, and Tommy was surprised to see that the intruder appeared to be a woman. Perhaps that explained it, he thought to himself. She was out on her own or got separated from her party, and when the snow came she got nervous and took the opportunity to join up with the first other campers that she ran into. He relaxed and took a few steps closer to her. “Are you lost?” “Nice campsite,” she complimented, gesturing round while not answering his question. “Beautiful setting, and very isolated.”

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A Long Line of Family “Thanks. What brings you here?” He edged closer, but still did not come all the way to the fire. He was surprised that she did not act at all apologetic about waking them or about making herself at home in their site. She pulled the hood down, and stood up. She was not as young as he might have expected, possibly late thirties or early forties. He wasn’t very good about gauging women’s ages much older than his own. She was tall, though, almost as tall as he was and several inches taller than Allison. He saw but did not understand something in her hand, held at her side. “What is your name?” she asked, moving a step closer to him. “Tommy Staley. What’s yours?” “It won’t really matter,” she informed him. Before he knew what was happening, her hand came up and he saw it was some sort of pistol, aimed at him. She fired and, instead of bullets, several wires shot towards him, there was a flash of blue light, then suddenly he was on the ground twitching and unable to control his movements. She came over to his side to satisfy herself that he was incapacitated. She looked towards the tent. “Come on out, honey.” Allison had been peeking out of the tent, thinking she was hidden, and now was terrified. She reluctantly stuck her head outside. The women shook her head disapprovingly. “No, come outside. Now.” Her voice brooked no dissent. Allison warily stepped outside, clad only in her long underwear and thick hiking socks. She bit back a sob as she looked at Tommy. “What did you do to him?” She could see he was breathing, but otherwise was not really moving. “I merely stunned him, my dear. Now be a good girl and bring your sleeping bags outside.”

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A Long Line of Family That did not make sense to Allison, but after a little prodding she did as she was told, and helped roll Tommy into the sleeping bag. The stranger zipped the bag up so that only Tommy’s head showed, then reached into her mouth to extract a large wad of chewing gum. She applied this to the zipper, and Allison knew that even once Tommy regained the ability to move he would have a hard time getting free. He was starting to come around, moving his head wildly. “Now come here,” the stranger commanded. Allison grudgingly complied, afraid that she, too, would be stunned into submission. Instead, the woman attached a leather band to her wrist, the band too tight for her to slip off even if she had had the nerve to try. The band was connected to a long leash that the women held. Allison stared at her restraint in confusion. “What are you going to do to us?” “Come here. I want to show you something.” Her voice was firm, brooking no argument, and Allison found herself automatically following her. The stranger led her over to the stream. Allison could not imagine what in the world she had in mind. The women put her arm around Allison’s shoulder in an almost motherly embrace. Allison was aware of her feet getting cold from the snow, even with the thick socks on. The temperatures were close to freezing, and she was getting cold. “What is it?” she asked petulantly, her eyes searching the water. “Leave her alone,” Tommy yelled, having at last regained his ability to speak. The stranger looked back at him with amusement, then pointed towards the water. “There,” she announced dramatically. Allison still could not see anything, and leaned closer. “What? I don’t see anything.” “It’s you, my dear,” the stranger said, pushing Allison into the water.

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A Long Line of Family Had Allison immediately jumped back out of the water, things might have been different. She was not as big as the stranger, but she was younger and had more cause for desperation. She might have been able to overpower her captor. However, she was too stunned to react, and thus lost her chance. Equally numbing to her were simply the surprise of having been thrown into near-freezing water, and the shock of the ice-cold water itself. The stream was only three or four feet deep, but the force of the current knocked her off her feet. “Allison!” Tommy yelled, his voice betraying his fear. She belatedly regained her senses made her way to her feet and attempted to scramble onto the bank, but the woman easily pushed her back in. Allison tried a second time, this time much more feebly. In the distance, she could hear Tommy’s screams, but she could no longer comprehend what he was saying. She might have screamed herself but couldn’t be sure. She floundered in the water, her blood starting to feel as cold as the water around her. Gradually, her efforts begin to lessen. It must have seemed like hours to Tommy’s horrified eyes, and an eternity to Allison, but it was actually only five or ten minutes before the stranger judged that Allison had had enough and hauled her in like a game fish. She dragged her over towards the fire and efficiently cut off her wet clothes. Allison was shivering so badly that Tommy feared the knife would end up in Allison, but soon enough the stranger had a naked Allison tucked into her sleeping bag next to the roaring fire. “You’re insane!” Tommy yelled at her. “Why are you doing this? Just leave us alone!” He had regained his mobility but was quite unable to extricate himself from the sleeping bag. The woman merely smiled at him, turning to watch Allison. It took almost a half an hour for Allison to begin to regain anything approaching normal, her shivers becoming less intense. The fire was quite warm and gradually won the battle against the cold. When the stranger had seen enough, she smiled. “That’s good enough.

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A Long Line of Family She stood up, threw open the sleeping bag, and dragged Allison upright. Allison’s brain was not quite able to comprehend what was happening, but it soon became aware that she was being led back towards the water. Before she could protest, the stranger had thrown her back into the water, Tommy screaming madly as he realized that the nightmare was happening again. This time Allison was unable to even attempt to get out of the stream. She laid in the water, barely floating. If not for her leash, she would have drifted down the stream like a log. This time the stranger had to pull in her in after less than five minutes, all the while Tommy was yelling himself hoarse. She again pulled her to dry land, and put her back in the sleeping bag. Allison was sobbing, although she was probably not aware of the fact. Tommy continued to try to call out to her, then turned his attention to the stranger, shouting out the vilest curses he could think of. Both he and Allison shared the condition of not being capable of any truly rational thought. This time it took almost an hour for Allison to come back to some semblance of life, although she was a shell of her former vibrant self. The stranger looked at her sympathetically, and turned towards Tommy. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she? Such a nice face, and quite a nice figure too. Did you two make love last night? I certainly hope so, because it was the last chance she’ll have. Her life is draining out of her, degree by degree as her body loses the ability to recover.” She let out an appreciative sigh. “Go to hell, you bitch,” he growled. He realized he was in no position to further antagonize her, and his voice changed to a pleading tone. “Please, just let us go. We won’t say anything. Just let us be.” She looked at him, as if considering his suggestion. She nodded thoughtfully – then turned and dragged Allison out of the sleeping bag. While Tommy screamed in horror, she pulled her to the water’s edge, and pushed her in. She watched Allison moan in

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A Long Line of Family dismay, a sound of such despair that could not be adequately described to anyone who didn’t hear it directly, and feebly moved her arms to try to keep afloat. Then even that effort became too much. The stranger watched for a long several seconds, then let go of the leash. Allison floated downstream, submerging within a few yards. “I’ll kill you!” Tommy screamed, his face a mixed mask of horror and fury. “Goddamn you! I’ll kill you.” The stranger looked back at him, as if she had quite forgotten about him while she was tormenting Allison. She walked over to him and squatted in front of him. He continued to struggle with the zipper of the sleeping bag, but the gum was long solidified into glue. With enough time, he might be able to rip the zipper loose from its seams, but time was not something that Tommy had much of. “My guess is that they won’t find her body until spring. By then who knows what condition her body will be in. No one could ever tell how she died. They might wonder why she had no clothes on, but they may conclude that she was swimming or taking a bath, or perhaps they simply rotted off.” The look on his face was not entirely human. He was practically frothing at the mouth. “I’ll know. I’ll tell them exactly what happened, you psychopathic bitch. And I’ll kill you. I’ll hunt you down and kill you.” She simply smiled at him, tolerating his venom as if he was a small child having a temper tantrum. She reached over to take hold of the corner of his sleeping bag, then stood up still holding onto the corner. “I don’t think that’s very likely, do you? Besides, how could you live with yourself after letting that happen to your girlfriend?” She clucked her tongue, and dragged him over to the stream. Tommy realized what she intended, and started – too late – to beg for mercy. The stranger rolled him into the water, and watched him float downstream. She sighed, wishing she knew if the cold would kill him before he drowned. Then she started to break down their camp, removing all evidence of their having been there at all.

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A Long Line of Family Chapter 1 Joe Russell saw the woman walking towards him while she was still far away. He didn’t stare at or study her for any length of time, but there was something distinctive about her gait and bearing that identified her for him long before he could see her face. He was standing in a small knot of other parents on the sideline of a soccer field, one of many in the park, surrounded by a beehive of activity from the enthusiastic, if not skillfully played, matches going on around him. He continued to watch his daughter’s soccer match, shouting encouragement along with the rest of the parents. The woman ambled along directly towards him, taking her time, and once she got within a hundred yards others had noticed her as well. She was striking, a tall African American women with a muscular but still feminine body. She moved with the grace of an athlete and the confidence of a queen, and she was turning the heads of all the men – and many of the women – who were present. She walked through one of the other soccer fields where a group of boys were playing a pickup game, initially unmindful to her presence. They, too, ceased their play to watch her pass, then resumed their game with more distracted enthusiasm. Joe turned towards her once she had come to within a few feet of him. Both of their faces were impassive, and those around Joe edged away, feeling that theirs was a private conversation. “Detective Kincaid,” Joe said politely. She raised her eyebrows. “Detective Kincaid, is it now, Joe Russell?” He broke into a warm smile. “Juanita, then.” She smiled as well and they embraced, apparently feeling slightly awkward about it. They broke off and retreated to a more comfortable space. “What brings you here?” he asked. “On my way to Washington.”

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A Long Line of Family He nodded, taking this in. “You know, this isn’t exactly on the way to D.C.,” he pointed out. She laughed. “From where I come from, Philadelphia and Washington are practically next door. We westerners have a larger sense of distance than you East Coast folks do.” Joe didn’t respond, but a flurry of action on the field caught his attention. “Way to go, Melissa!” he shouted in encouragement. She looked out to the game. “That your girl, Joe?” He confirmed the fact, and pointed to one of the boys on the field she had passed through. “And that’s Doug. His game was before Melissa’s, so he organized a little game with some of his friends while she’s playing. I tell you, I wish I had his energy.” They watched Melissa’s match for a few minutes. The girls were old enough to understand the point of the game but not really old enough to play it well. Still, they made up for it in enthusiasm, spurred on by the crowd of cheering parents. Melissa was a decent player, but hardly the star of her team. Kincaid found herself watching the boy’s game behind her, where Doug was clearly one of the best players. “He must get that from you,” she told Joe. Joe glanced over at Doug, and accepted the compliment with a small smile. He yelled some words of encouragement at Melissa, who looked up and smiled happily at her father’s voice. “Oh, she’s a daddy’s girl, isn’t she?” Kincaid observed. “Ahh, they’re both good kids,” Joe admitted. “But they get all their good traits from their mother.” Kincaid looked around. “Yes, is she here?”

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A Long Line of Family “Somehow I kind of suspect you know she’s not. Speaking of which, how did you know I’d be here?” He looked at her directly. She shrugged modestly. “I am a detective, you know.” This caused them both to laugh, but Joe filed away that she had not only known he’d be at a soccer game with his children on a weekday afternoon but also how to find the fields, which were a couple miles away from the train station that he assumed she had come from, since he hadn’t seen her park a car anywhere close. “Oh, hey, thanks for the Christmas cards,” she said. “I haven’t quite gotten mine out yet.” It had been two years since they’d met during the course of the investigation into the murder of Joe’s brother. They had formed a bond during that time, but once he had returned home there had been little reason to stay in contact. He’d called a couple times, had included her on his Christmas card list, but otherwise let things be. Joe had always known Juanita Kincaid would show up here one day, and now she had. They watched the game a while longer. “You’ll stay for dinner?” he asked. “I know Debbie would like to meet you.” Kincaid shook her head. “I have a train to catch. I’m just killing some time here, catching up with an old friend.” If Joe was disappointed or surprised, he didn’t let it show. “Let me at least give you a lift to the train station. That is, if you don’t mind riding in a minivan with some sweaty soccer players. I’m the carpool driver today.”

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A Long Line of Family She looked at him and laughed. “Thanks, but I don’t mind the walk. I don’t want to intrude on your life.” Joe protested but she quieted him. “There is one thing you could do for me.” “What’s that?” Joe looked at her curiously. She eyed him. “You know anyone in the FBI that you trust? I mean, really trust?” He thought about it for a few moments. “I could probably come up with a name or two,” he allowed. She nodded, sure that was the case. “Well,” she said, starting to move away, “I don’t need them right now. But I’ll let you know when I do.” With that she walked away, again drawing the attention of many of the parents. Joe watched her go, no longer paying attention to the game.

The Russell house was busy once they got home. Debbie had arrived shortly before the rest of them. Joe got the children off to their showers, and helped Debbie start dinner. They quickly talked about their respective days, using the kid-free time to talk about boring adult topics. They had been together a long time now, and were both comfortable yet intensely appreciative of each other’s presence. The energy of the kitchen increased exponentially with the reemergence of the two children. They family settled down at the kitchen table for a meal of hot dogs, macaroni & cheese, and some steamed vegetables that Debbie insisted upon to remove the guilt for giving in to the basic fare the children delighted in. Both Melissa and Doug chattered on about their games. Melissa’s team had won, while Doug’s had lost but he had scored three goals and assisted on two others. It gave them

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A Long Line of Family each much to describe, and both vied for their parents’ attention and approval in recapping their exploits. It took more effort to get them to talk about their day at school. Doug was in fourth grade, while Melissa was in second. Debbie offered to help Doug with a science project after dinner, although he was more interested in playing on his PlayStation. Given all this to discuss first, it took almost ten minutes before the novelty topic of the day came up. “Daddy, who was that woman you were talking to at the game?” Doug asked, playing with the remaining vegetables on his plate and desperate for anything that might delay his having to eat them. This caught Debbie’s attention, and she cocked her head slightly at her husband. “Yeah, daddy, who was she?” Melissa chimed in, holding her half-eaten hot dog in both hands. “She was pretty.” Debbie’s head tilted a millimeter more. “I thought you were too busy playing to notice her, Melissa,” Joe teased, not looking at his wife. “Yes, Joe, who was this woman?” Debbie added sweetly. Joe looked at her. “It was Juanita Kincaid. You remember -- Detective Kincaid” “Oh,” Melissa said, taking a bite of her hot dog while she absorbed this piece of information. Her face was impassive. “Who’s that?” Doug asked, looking even more intrigued. He watched enough television to know what a detective was, and that it usually meant excitement. Joe and Debbie locked eyes. She knew exactly who Detective Kincaid was; what she did not yet know was why she was here, but she was sure to find out.

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A Long Line of Family “Well, Detective Kincaid is the policeman who caught the men who killed your Uncle Ian. You guys remember Uncle Ian.” Both children nodded vigorously, their faces suddenly a curious mix of pride and sadness reflecting what they knew was grown-up stuff, serious business. It had been two years since Ian’s death. They had been young when it happened, and it had been pretty traumatic for them. Despite the fact that Ian had lived two thousand miles away and they hadn’t seen him very often while he was alive, they had cared deeply for him. Ian had been a special kind of uncle. He’d always had a great time playing with them, had been more like a big kid than an adult, and the children had loved him dearly. Joe and Debbie had worked hard to ensure that his memory didn’t become lost as they grew older. “Is she here to catch another bad guy?” Doug asked. He had stopped playing with his food and was intent on this new topic. Debbie, too, had ceased to eat while she absorbed this information. Melissa looked at the two of them, more interested by their interest than any curiosity on her own part. She wasn’t exactly sure what a detective was anyway. She started eating again, wanting to finish so she could go instant message with friends. “She was on her way to Washington and just stopped by,” Joe told them. He looked at Debbie. “I asked her to join us for dinner but she said she had to get going.” “Well, that’s too bad,” Debbie asked, sounding as though she meant it. “She just stopped by to say hello?” The children were puzzled at this, not sure what a detective would want with their father. Her job seemed infinitely more interesting and exciting than their parents’ jobs. Joe shook his head. “No, not really. She just was sort of in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by.” That satisfied the children, who turned their attention back to the remnants of their meals. On the other hand, Debbie continued to watch him closely. She knew Joe better than to

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A Long Line of Family think he would actually lie to her, but still she had the sense that there would be more to this than he had admitted. If so, it wasn’t dinnertime conversation. She kept her own counsel as well or better than anyone Joe knew, and he knew that she wouldn’t prod him about what he wasn’t telling her, but she wouldn’t forget about it either. “Well, she said at last, standing to start to clear the table, “next time she’s ‘in the neighborhood’ you’ll have to insist she come for a real visit.” He smiled at her until she smiled back. “I’ll do that,” he promised.

Chapter 2 Kincaid was getting worried. She had been held in this dreary interrogation room for several hours now. They’d taken her watch along with her other personal effects, and there was no clock in the room, so she had a hard time judging time. About an hour ago she’d finally convinced them to let her go to the bathroom, more as a way of finding out more about her situation than a true physical need. Her brief trip had confirmed her fears: they’d taken her to a small cell, handcuffed one hand to a bar next to the toilet, and stood – backs turned – outside her cell while she relieved herself. She’d seen several other guards and some impressive electronic security measures along the way, as well as some corridors that she suspected held other, longer-term residents. This place was serious about security. The day had started off much better. She’d been attending a conference the FBI was holding on psychological profiling at a hotel in downtown Washington. She was professionally interested in the topic, but she’d paid her own way to the conference mainly as a pretext for meeting some of the FBI staff associated with ViCAP, the computer database that helped police forces across the country track and compare violent

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A Long Line of Family crimes. She’d hobnobbed, attended some sessions, and managed to corner several FBI staff to ask some questions. Then shortly after the lunch finished up two men in suits had appeared in front of her. She didn’t need them to flash their ID badges to know they were FBI, or, at least, with some government agency. They very politely – but firmly – asked her to come with them. They escorted her to a service hallway, walking on either side of her. Her antennae were up by this point, but she was still surprised when they’d grabbed her, spread-eagled her against the wall, then handcuffed her hands behind her back. They then hustled her out the back to a waiting van, where they put a black hood over her head and forced her in the back, strapping her in. The van had driven for some time, and Kincaid had suspected that some of it was aimless circling back to ensure that she could not keep oriented, which hadn’t been really necessary because she found Washington easy to get lost in. When the van had stopped they did not remove either the hood or the handcuffs, but instead moved her out of the van and marched her along to this room. There they had removed the hood but not the handcuffs. They had intermittently questioned her. She’d repeatedly protested that she was a police officer – which they must know if they had inspected her credentials in the purse they had confiscated – and offered to assist them, but they had been strangely unmoved. There was no good cop/bad cop manipulation here; they were both playing bad cops. It seemed like they were angry at her. The younger one seemed angrier, but the older one seemed to be enjoying her helplessness in a way that made Kincaid more uncomfortable, as if he couldn’t wait to get her alone and do something really vile to her. Their questions seemed to have as a premise that she had been stalking FBI personnel with the intent to harm their families. She had been unable so far to dissuade them of this absurd notion. It was not lost on Kincaid that they had neither read her any rights nor booked her in once arriving at this facility. She was outside the system. In this post-Patriot Act

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A Long Line of Family environment, she wasn’t quite sure what, if any, limits they had over how long they could keep her here, or even what they could do to her while here. The agents were now back. The younger agent was perhaps in his late twenties. He was good looking and in fighting trim. Everything about him looked meticulous, from the razor sharp crease in his suit to his closely cropped hair. She hoped that his desire to not get blood on his neat suit might outweigh any desire to spill hers. The second agent was much older, late forties or even early fifties. If he had ever shared his colleague’s personal fastidiousness, it appeared as though it had long deserted him. He was twenty or so pounds heavier than he really should be and was already showing a five o’clock shadow, although for all Kincaid knew it was five o’clock by now. On the other hand, something in his eyes made her think that he wouldn’t mind getting some blood on him; he might even look forward to it. “Listen, you piece of trash,” the younger agent said, his face near hers, “tell us how you were going to do it.” He slammed one hand down on the table in front of her. The second agent watched her coldly, standing against the wall across the table from her. “Who else were you working with? You’re going to tell us or you’re not leaving this room.” He stood up and moved behind her, knowing she was helpless to prevent a blow or even a quick feel, if that was how they wanted to try to humiliate her next. At first she’d simply been stunned, then gradually increasingly bewildered. It wasn’t until the bathroom incident that she had begun to really worry, and she now had to force herself to stay calm. Once she started to give in to panic or intimidation, they’d sense it and be on her like sharks smelling blood in the water. The door opened, and all three of them looked up in surprise. It occurred to Kincaid that the agents appeared more surprised than she did; she was expecting a second wave of interrogators at some point, but she found it interesting that they weren’t expecting anyone, at least not quite yet. However, when the new person came in the room her jaw dropped.

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It was Joe Russell. He strode into the room casually, seemingly perfectly at ease. He was dressed comfortably in slacks and a sports coat, and he stopped to let the door close behind him. He coolly took in the situation in front of him, and Kincaid felt immeasurably more optimistic about her chances. “So what’s going on here?” he asked the agents, his tone conversational rather than confrontational. He appeared friendly yet curious, not surprised by or worried about what he saw. The two agents gaped at him, clearly having no idea who he was or what he was doing there. The younger agent regained his initiative first. “Who the hell are you?” he asked belligerently. Russell looked at him thoughtfully, but instead of answering moved towards Kincaid. “You OK, Juanita?” “You know her, mister?” the older agent asked suspiciously, moving off of the wall but not drawing closer. Meanwhile, his partner took a step towards Russell. Russell looked down at her hands, shaking his head in apparent disbelief. “My, my. Two big, tough guys like you and you still have to handcuff her. I’d almost think you were worried about her.” He looked at them with an amused stare. “You’re probably right,” he told them with a laugh. “She could kick your asses even with her hands tied behind her back.” The younger agent came to an arm’s length of Russell, glaring him at furiously. “I asked you who you were. Don’t make me ask you again.”

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A Long Line of Family “You’d be Agent Olmstead,” Russell noted. “Lyle Olmstead.” He looked at the older agent, whose jaw had dropped again. “Which makes you Frank Shaw. Frank, why don’t you tell me what the heck is going on here?” Olmstead quickly looked at Shaw, who met his eyes and shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know what was going on either. Olmstead took a step closer to Russell, his eyes narrowing and his hands unconsciously balling up into fists. “I’m going to ask you again, then I’m not going to be so nice. Who the hell are you and why are you interfering with our investigation?” Russell smiled pleasantly at him. “Actually, Agent Olmstead, you can’t ask me that second part again, because you never asked me that before,” he pointed out helpfully. “You only asked me who I was. It’s the first time you said anything about interfering with anything.” Blood vessels were beginning to show in Olmstead’s templates, and his face was turning red. “Goddammit, I’m going to –“ “Tell you what,” Russell interrupted. “I’ll trade you. You tell me what’s she’s charged with and I’ll tell you who I am.” Olmstead’s eyes went wide, infuriated by this new audacity. He started to sputter, and Shaw took the opportunity to speak up. “We haven’t charged her with anything -- yet.” His voice was edged with menace. Olmstead looked at Shaw as if he had been betrayed; clearly, he was not in favor of making any deals in this situation where he felt they held all the cards. Russell nodded thoughtfully, his suspicions confirmed. He regarded Olmstead with disdain, and moved back towards Kincaid. “My name is Joe Russell,” he said, leaning over behind Kincaid’s back. From somewhere he produced a key and, before the agents could react, unlocked her handcuffs.

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“Hey,” Olmstead shouted once he realized what Russell was up to. “You can’t do that.” He started towards Russell, who held up a cautioning hand. Olmstead halted and looked towards Shaw for some direction. “Mr. Russell, if that is really your name,” Shaw started, “may I ask what you are doing here?” Russell stepped away from Kincaid, moving closer towards Olmstead. Kincaid took the opportunity to rub some feeling back into her wrists. She also discretely edged her chair away from the table; from the look on Olmstead’s face, things might get very interesting. She wanted to be ready. Russell looked at the two of them in turn, then nodded towards Kincaid. “I’m here for her,” he said, stating the obvious. Olmstead’s brow wrinkled in confusion, and he and Shaw exchanged glances. Once again Shaw shook his head. “Like hell you are,” Olmstead responded angrily, turning back towards Kincaid. “She’ll go when we say she’s ready to go, and that’s not now and that’s not with you. Got it?” “May I ask who you are with, Mr. – what was it?” Shaw asked politely. He had already figured that strangers didn’t just walk off the street into this interrogation room, and it was likely another agency must be involved. He didn’t know why. “Russell,” Russell confirmed. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a card. He offered it to Olmstead, who ignored it, preferring to keep his hands clenched at his side. Russell pushed the card across the table. Shaw took it and looked at it carefully. “I don’t understand,” he said at last. “What organization is this?” “We’re an accounting firm,” Russell informed them. Seeing the disbelieving looks on their faces, he added, “I’m an accountant. A CPA.”

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A Long Line of Family “Like hell,” Olmstead growled. He’d had enough of these niceties. He stepped closer towards Russell, scowling darkly. He was in Russell’s face now, scant inches away. “Maybe you and I should have a little remedial accounting of our own.” Russell was unfazed. He spoke directly to Olmstead’s face, eye to eye, his voice calm. “You know, Agent Olmstead, I don’t think your record really could use another excessive force report, not after those two other incidents. Maybe you should step away.” They stood like that for a few seconds, and it could have gone either way. Russell was relaxed, seemingly unconcerned about the explicit sense of violence that Olmstead was projecting. Then Shaw stepped closer. “Back off, Lyle.” His eyes stayed with Russell, cold and calculating. Olmstead didn’t react immediately, continuing his stare-off with Russell. An errant blink or smile from him could have set him off, but Russell was carefully neutral. He stepped back. “Is this really your card, Mr. Russell?” Shaw asked, holding Russell’s card delicately. “Go ahead and call the number. It will check out.” Shaw nodded. “Somehow I don’t doubt that’s the case, Mr. Russell.” Olmstead looked back and forth between Shaw and Russell, unsure how he’d lost control of the situation or why his partner was exchanging pleasantries with this intruder. He turned his attention back to Kincaid, his temper flaring again at seeing her free hands. “Hold out your hands, Kincaid. I’m putting the cuffs back on.” He started towards Kincaid but Russell put a hand on his chest. “I don’t think so, Lyle.” Olmstead glowered at Russell, amazed that he dared touch him. “Get your goddamn hand off of me.”

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Russell smiled but did not remove his hand. Agent Shaw was about Russell’s size, perhaps an inch or so shorter but making up for it with some extra muscle bulk. Moreover, he not only had the badge – and the gun – but also an air of belligerence that Russell did not, an attitude of intimidation that Kincaid was sure he’d used successfully before. Except that it wasn’t working in this case. Russell’s smile melted and Kincaid saw a look that she’d seen before, a cold look that chilled the room a few degrees. When he spoke, his voice was flat, hard and without any sign of doubt. “I tell you what we’re going to do. I’m taking Detective Kincaid, and you’re going to let us walk out of here.” Before Olmstead could respond – either verbally or physically – the door opened again. A young woman stepped into the room, carrying a small bag. She paused uncertainly once she sensed the tension in the room, but brightened when she saw Russell. “Mr. Russell, here are the things you asked for.” Olmstead gave Russell another open-mouthed look of astonishment and muffled fury. Russell just smiled and stepped away, going over to the woman. “Thanks, Kelly.” He took the bag and she backed out of the room, knowing something was going on and unwilling to turn her back on it but eager to leave. Russell tossed the bag to Kincaid. “Here’s your stuff, Juanita. Let’s go.” Kincaid stood up and Olmstead moved automatically to block her. She looked contemptuously at him and moved around him towards Russell. Russell cocked his head curiously at Olmstead, as if disappointed at his predictability. Kincaid thought it was finally going to come to blows, but Shaw stepped to Olmstead and put a cautioning hand on his arm. “Let them go, Lyle,” he urged softly. “This is way over our pay grade.” Olmstead looked at the hand on his arm, and Kincaid could practically see him consider throwing it off and starting towards them. If he started something Shaw would have to back him up, and things could get pretty hairy. She liked their chances in a fair fight, but inside a secure federal facility she wasn’t so sure. At the last moment Olmstead calmed

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A Long Line of Family down, and looked at Russell with murder in his eyes. “You and me got something to settle, Russell. It’s not over,” he promised. Russell didn’t seem too threatened. He simply smiled and nodded at Olmstead, then took Kincaid’s arm and escorted her out of the room.

Chapter 3 “Retired, eh?” Kincaid said sarcastically once they’d made their way outside, giving him a snide glance to help mask her relief. Joe Russell might tell people he was an accountant, but Kincaid knew that he had a more shadowy past. He had once been at the very least a Special Ops kind of guy – maybe SEAL, maybe Delta, maybe something that was so secret it didn’t even have a name – and quite possibly had been a spook of some sort, such as the CIA. She had been able to confirm that the firm he worked for was a real company, but she still harbored doubts that it might be a front. If he was retired from that world, he still had the contacts and the moves. He’d demonstrated that two years ago and had done so again tonight. Russell grinned at her, unfazed. ‘It’s amazing how easy it is to get in places if you just look like you belong.” He unlocked the car door and gestured for her to get in. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Kincaid asked Russell once they were headed away. She looked around at the surprisingly crowded set of buildings around them. Despite her having imagined herself to be in some isolated prison, they appeared to be in the midst of nondescript office parks and light industrial complexes. “Where the hell are we anyway?” Russell was unruffled by her outburst. “We’re on the outskirts of Arlington. As for what’s going on, well, I was hoping you’d tell me that.”

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Kincaid scowled and looked out the window. Much to her surprise, it was only early evening and still light outside; she’d feared it would be in the middle of the night by now. “It’s a long story.” “Yeah, well, I’ve got some time,” he replied easily. He looked over at her apologetically. “I hope I didn’t ruin your plan back there, you know, breaking in on you like that.” She suppressed a smile as well as a shiver. “Nah, I think I got about as much out of them as I was going to. By the way, how did you find me? Heck, I couldn’t have found me.” He glanced over at her and gave her a quick smile. “Tell you what. Let’s go someplace and trade stories.” She told him where she was staying, and suggested they return there. It wasn’t so much that she felt safe there as she wanted to ensure that the documents she’d brought were still there; for all she knew, the two agents had sent out some colleagues to procure them. Besides, she needed them to explain things to him. It took another half hour for them to return to D.C., park the car, and make their way to her hotel, the Capital Hilton on K Street. “Nice place,” Russell commented as they walked through the hotel lobby. “It’s where the conference was,” she explained, pointing to one of the signs in the lobby. Russell nodded. Her room was small but comfortable. Russell walked over to check out the view. If he leaned just right he could make out a small portion of the White House. “Good, looks like it’s still here,” Kincaid exclaimed with relief, pulling a pile of folders out from a box under the bed.

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“Under the bed?” Russell asked her quizzically. “Great hiding place. What, is that the best you could do?” She scowled. “I didn’t expect to get picked up by some rogue FBI agents.” “What did you expect?” Kincaid looked away and exhaled in frustration. She looked back at Joe. “I was hoping to keep you out of this. Why don’t you just tell me how you found me then go home to your family?” “Kind of late for that now, don’t you think?” he said lightly. She blushed. “I haven’t really thanked you, have I? Those guys were definitely on about something. I don’t know what they would have done if you hadn’t come along and rescued me.” He looked at her with a twinkle in his eye. “I didn’t come there to rescue you. I came there to rescue them. Like I told you, I was afraid you’d kick their asses.” She stared at him, then broke into an embarrassed smile. “You think so?” she asked in a small voice. He nodded in confirmation. She looked away. She wanted to admit to him that she’d been scared, but she didn’t want to admit that to him of all people. She had a hard time imagining Joe getting rattled like she had. He laughed. “You looked a little pissed off.” That got her to laugh a little as well. She looked back at him. She was glad that he hadn’t seen her fear. “Maybe I was a little pissed off, now that you mention it.”

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A Long Line of Family Russell sat down on the desk chair, slouching with a relaxed air. “I don’t think they would have hurt you. Not too bad, anyway. I think they would have harassed you until it was time for them to go home, then iced you there for a day or two. They would have let you go after a while.” She stared at him suspiciously. “Why do you say that?” “This was strictly off-the-books for them. They didn’t have any written orders to pick you up, and they didn’t check you into the system once they had. They just wanted to find out what you knew and put a scare in you.” He sat up and leaned towards her. “So – what do you know that makes them so nervous?” He nodded towards her folders. “Is that it?” “So if I was so off the books, how did you find me?” she asked again. He looked at her with that steady impenetrable gaze of his. “Let’s just say I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you stopped by.” He looked at her with a conspiratorial smile. “That is why you stopped by, is it not?” Kincaid blushed slightly. She really had not intended to involve him in this, but she had to admit that she had wanted him to know she was in the area. “Are you sure you want to know more? Judging from my reception today, this may be even bigger than I’d thought. I don’t want to get you involved in something so messy.” “I’ll take my chances,” he told her. She studied him carefully, not wanting him to be gallant just to be gallant but suddenly very glad he was here. The events of the last few hours had been a roller coaster ride, and she hadn’t let herself fully feel the relief of his presence until just this moment. She sat down heavily on the bed, her head downcast. She sighed and made up her mind. “Take a look at these,” she said, raising her head and holding out a handful of folders.

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He reached out and took them with due gravity, knowing it was a big deal for her to give them to him. He opened them up and began to read. The folders were police reports. Homicide reports. They were not the full reports but summary reports for each murder. He looked at the box she had taken them from and had the strong suspicion that the more complete versions of the files were there as well. He quickly skimmed through the reports, knowing that at this point she just wanted him to get an overview of the crimes involved. “OK,” he said some twenty minutes later, having quickly but carefully skimmed through them. “What’s the connection? Different locations, different ages of the victims, different causes of death, no consistent ‘signatures’ or physical evidence that would suggest a connection.” “You didn’t see anything unusual in them?” she asked. Each murder was worse than the last. All of them involved some kind of terrible cruelty to the victims, each of whom had died in agony over some long period of time, undoubtedly knowing they were going to die but not quickly enough. But that was not, in itself, so unusual; Russell knew that people were capable of this type of depravity and more. “Not anything unusual enough to bring you here,” he told her, holding her eyes with his level stare. She broke away first. She nodded. “You’re right. Looking at those alone wouldn’t raise any suspicions. Now look at these.” She handed him another set of folders. “What are these?” “These are the ViCAP summaries of these crimes.”

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A Long Line of Family He again worked through the reports. It didn’t take long for him reading the first file before he had to stop and check again the original report. He subsequently found himself doing so for each of the homicides. When he had finished he looked up at her with a questioning expression. “That’s odd.” She nodded. “Very odd. In fact, extremely odd.” He looked down at the folders, then back at her. “So where do you come in?” She got up and came to the desk. She picked out one folder from the pile. “Amanda Ford. She was my niece. When the Kansas City police didn’t make much progress I started to poke around. Much to my surprise, I found that the ViCAP summary didn’t match the original reports, the reports they sent the FBI.” Russell nodded. “So how did you find the rest of them?” “Well,” she said, perching on the edge of the desk. “No one at the FBI could explain why the two didn’t match. They attributed it to input errors. No one – not even me – really thought there might be some kind of systemic fraud going on. But I like to be thorough. I got a bright idea. First I called a few detectives I’d met in other cities, you know, guys that had moved on or that I’d met at conferences and such, and asked to see reports on some of their most gruesome cases. A few blew me off, but after a couple dozen calls I got lucky and found another one that didn’t match. Then I knew I might be on to something.” Russell regarded her, impressed. He had a good idea of the resistance she must have run into making such odd requests, many of which must have gone to detectives she didn’t know all that well and to whom she probably had been unlikely to explain what she was looking for. “Then what?”

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid smiled sadly. “At that point I wasn’t sure what to believe – the FBI reports or the local ones – so I got the bright idea to use the Internet to look for the kinds of cases I was looking for. Then I started making lots of cold calls and visits.” “So how many cases did you have to go through to get this, what, ten cases?” “About a hundred,” she admitted, laughing ruefully. “Maybe a hundred and fifty. It took me over a year. I found another ten that looked suspicious as well but that I wasn’t as sure had been deliberately screwed up.” He whistled, picturing the time it must have taken her, time away from her job and her personal life. No wonder she hadn’t sent Christmas cards. She laughed again, watching his face. “Yeah, I’ve pretty much been on leave of absence the last six months. Catching this guy means something to me.” He nodded in agreement, thinking through some things. He got up and wandered over to the window. It was getting dark now, evening falling. Outside the traffic was moving slowly. “The thing I can’t figure is why those guys picked me up, what set them off like that,” Kincaid said curiously. “I hadn’t even brought these cases up. I was just asking if people knew some of the analysts that had worked on the ViCAP reports. I don’t see why that triggered anything.” Russell looked at her with a daredevil smile. “Let’s go ask them.”

Chapter 4 Agent Lyle Olmstead pulled his car into his garage. He lived in a small ranch house in College Park, on a street of uninspired tract homes that had seen better days but still

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A Long Line of Family maintained a comfortable if worn sense about them. He didn’t spend too much time at home, but when he did he made sure the yard was mowed, the hedges trimmed, and everything was neat and orderly inside. Not that he had too much to become cluttered inside; his furnishings were sparse. Most of them came from shopping expeditions his sister forced him to go on when she visited; she kept waiting with patient exasperation for him to acquire a steady girlfriend who might start to domesticate him, but so far her wait had been in vain. It was more a place to come home to than a home, more of a way of sheltering his income from taxes than sheltering himself. He probably would have been just as well suited to the studio apartments he had lived in when he first graduated from the FBI Academy. He was tired. He’d gone back to the office after the afternoon’s debacle, catching up on some reports and other paperwork Shaw had happily delegated to him. He was still brooding about the encounter with Russell, wishing he’d had a chance to play it differently. It bothered him that Russell had backed him off the way he had. If Shaw hadn’t been there it might have gone better; at the very least, he’d have made sure Russell had the appropriate authority to remove his suspect before he just let her go. He didn’t quite know what to make of her either. In addition to being attractive, she was an usually cool customer. She hadn’t wavered or gotten flustered no matter how much pressure he and Shaw had put on her, had stuck to her innocence and her story despite the pressure they’d put her under. Olmstead had started to believe that she might really be the detective she claimed to be. Shaw had just been about ready to really put it to her – more physical, perhaps more degrading – when Russell had come in, and Olmstead had to admit he was just a little relieved that he hadn’t had to decide if he was ready to take that next step. He was a little distracted when he came into the utility room, but an instinct triggered a sense that something wasn’t quite right in the house. He stopped and listened for sounds that didn’t quite belong. He slowed his breathing to the bare minimum, hearing normal house sounds, then he caught a low noise that sounded like a voice. He unclipped his pistol and took it out of his holster, edging quietly and with extreme caution towards the

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A Long Line of Family door into the kitchen. He paused, considering his options. Whoever was there must have heard the garage door opening and closing, must know he was here. They might not know if he was going to come in this way or through the front door, so he might have a chance of surprising them. He thought back to whether he’d seen any suspicious cars parked on the street, but could not recall anything that had attracted his attention. None of his neighbors had a key to house, and he wasn’t expecting his sister to be in town. So it had to be a stranger, and that wasn’t good news. He might have stumbled on to a burglary in progress, in which case the would-be-burglars might be trying to flee, or it could be something related to one of his cases. The one thing he did not do was consider calling anyone for help. He steeled himself, put a hand on the doorknob, then took a deep breath. Mentally counting to three and psyching himself up, he flung the door open, his gun at the ready. “Hello, Agent Olmstead,” Juanita Kincaid said sweetly, sitting at his kitchen table. Sitting at her side was Joe Russell, who looked up at him with some amusement. Russell gave him a wink. Neither appeared surprised at his sudden entry or concerned about his weapon. “Get your hands up!” Olmstead shouted pointing the gun at them. He noticed that the table was strewn with papers that had not been there when he had left. Neither Kincaid nor Russell moved. Russell shook his head in disappointment. “Listen, Lyle…” he began. “Shut-up!” Olmstead yelled, his anger rising. “Get your hands in the air where I can see them! NOW!”

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A Long Line of Family Neither of them moved. “Agent Olmstead, we just want to talk to you,” Kincaid said mildly. She patted the papers that were spread out in front of her on the table. “There are some things we want to ask you about.” Olmstead couldn’t believe his ears. He pointed his gun at each of them in turn. “You two are under arrest. Now shut up and put your hands up in the air!” He didn’t know how to make it any clearer to them, and if they pissed him off any more he might just have to shoot one of them – in the leg, perhaps – just to get their attention. Russell looked once at Kincaid, shaking his head again, but instead of putting his hands up, he stood up. Olmstead covered his move with the pistol, worried that this was not going to turn out well. “Your door was open,” Russell informed him, nodding towards the back door that led to his small patio. “We were just waiting here until you got here to make sure nothing bad happened. Now put that gun away.” The patently untrue lie made Olmstead boil over even more. “Like hell it was open. You broke into my house and you’re under arrest. Now put your goddamn hands up before I start shooting.” Russell looked disappointed. He sighed, shaking his head. “Look, either I’m going to have to take that gun away from you, in which case you’ll be embarrassed, or you’ll have to shoot me in your own kitchen, in which case we’ll both be embarrassed. If we wanted to hurt you we’d have done it by now. So why don’t you put it away and listen to what we have to say.” It was a suggestion, not a question. Olmstead was deeply suspicious. Russell was still five feet or so from him, but something in his tone made him think that Russell thought the odds of his taking the gun away were much higher than the odds of him getting shot. And there was something in the way that he stood that made Olmstead believe that there might be something to that confidence. Lyle Olmstead was a man who had the utmost confidence in his own

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A Long Line of Family abilities, yet at the moment he wasn’t too sure he could get a shot off before Russell got to him. He risked a look at Kincaid, who caught his eye and discretely shook her head. It was her more than Russell that dissuaded him from escalating the already tense situation. She looked at him with a silent urging in her eyes, eyes that earlier in the day had viewed him with suspicion but now seemed concerned – not for herself, but for him. Without really understanding why, he lowered his gun. Russell sat back down at the table, and beckoned at him to join them. Reluctantly, Olmstead went over to the table and took a seat to Kincaid’s right, keeping the table between him and Russell. He kept the gun in his hand. “What’s all this about?” Russell looked at Kincaid, who accepted the responsibility. “Why did you pick me up today, Agent Olmstead?” He stared at her. “I was told to.” “Did they tell you why?” Olmstead was uncomfortable at the way she was looking at him. He could believe she was tough enough to threaten someone, but she didn’t seem like a psychopath. “I understood that you were threatening the families of FBI personnel. We take that kind of thing very seriously.” “Do you normally handcuff people you’re questioning and take them to terrorist holding facilities?” Russell asked. “Especially when all you have is some unsubstantiated hearsay? You didn’t log her in, you didn’t read her any rights – you really violated procedure here, Lyle. Why was that?”

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A Long Line of Family Now Olmstead was definitely uncomfortable. It wasn’t just that it had, indeed, been against procedure; it was more that this wild card knew about the top-secret holding facilities. Not only did he know about them, he’d shown up unimpeded in one to rescue Kincaid. Olmstead needed to know more about who he was and how he was involved. “Can I get you guys something to drink?” he asked, standing up. He holstered his weapon as a sign of peace. Russell shook his head, but Kincaid responded. “I’ll take a soda.” He went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water for himself and a can of soda for her. He showed it to her for approval; she nodded, and he suddenly flipped it to her. If he thought he’d catch her off guard or demonstrate that her reflexes were not quite up to snuff, he was disappointed. She caught it with aplomb. He stayed by the refrigerator, leaning against the counter. “It was a little unusual,” he conceded, in response to Russell’s question. “But not so unusual that I was going to question it.” “Who reported that I was making threats?” Kincaid asked. “Thanks for the soda, by the way.” He nodded. “Well, I don’t have that information. I was just told that you were and briefed on the kind of threats you were, umm, allegedly making. I take it you still insist these allegations were unfounded.” She smiled and nodded. Russell watched them, and sat back. “So you didn’t take the report directly? Did Agent Shaw?” Olmstead eyed Russell warily. “What is your interest in all this? Who the hell are you?” “We’ll get to that,” Russell assured him. “Let’s go down this path first.” Olmstead didn’t like that the pair of them were taking control of the conversation, even though they were sitting in his house and he had the only apparent gun in the room.

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A Long Line of Family There was a lot he wanted to know. But he didn’t see the harm in giving up this piece of information. “No, I didn’t get the orders directly. Shaw got a call and filled me in.” Russell nodded thoughtfully and looked at Kincaid. She picked up the questioning. “Did Shaw tell you who ordered you two to pick me up?” “No.” It had bothered Olmstead at the time. He’d asked for more information, but Shaw had told him this was something he should just keep quiet about and not ask too many questions. It was increasingly looking like bad advice. Russell and Kincaid exchanged glances, as if they were deciding what to do next. Olmstead was worried that they were losing interest and would try to leave before he got more information. He was tired of other people playing this game above his head. “So what is this all about?” There was a pause. Kincaid looked at Russell. “Think we should tell him?” “I don’t know. He’s been kind of hostile and all.” “He’s just a kid,” Kincaid said in his defense. “I think we should tell him.” Russell shrugged. “It’s your case.” Olmstead was annoyed that they talked about him like he wasn’t there, treating him like a child. He thought Russell was a few years older than himself but Kincaid seemed close to his age. He looked at her. She beckoned him over to the table. “Sit down.” He resumed his previous seat, putting his hands on the table – away from his gun -- to show his good intentions. He took note of the piles of papers and folders on the table. “What’s all this?”

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A Long Line of Family So Kincaid told him the same story she had told Russell early. Olmstead was incredulous that the ViCAP reports had been in error, until she showed him, case-by-case, the inconsistencies between them and the original reports. He watched her tell him the story as much as he listened to what she was telling him, and he studied the reports she showed him. She was quite convincing, her initially dry professional demeanor shifting into something much more personal – and more convincing – as she recounted the horrors that had been inflicted on the various victims. She seemed personally outraged, not only at what had been happened but also at her belief that the FBI had been complicit in covering it up. It took almost an hour for Kincaid to brief him. When she was through, he sat back and thought about her story. Either someone had spent a lot of time forging one of the sets of documents, or something was very wrong. If she had told him this story when he had been interrogating her earlier, he might have thought the former. Now, sitting with the two of them, Kincaid telling her story with such passion and concern – well, he didn’t think she was lying to him. He wasn’t sure she was quite telling him the truth, either, but he thought she was telling him the truth as she knew it. He wasn’t sure where that left him. “So where do you fit into all this?” he asked Russell. Russell had been quiet throughout the story, showing no emotion but observing the two of them closely. “I’m just a friend.” Olmstead stared at him. “How did you know where I lived?” He wasn’t sure why he directed the question at Russell instead of at Kincaid, but somehow he suspected it was appropriate. Russell didn’t flinch but also didn’t reply. He simply waited for the light to go on in Olmstead’s head, which it eventually did. “Oh, of course. It’s in my file. That’s how you knew about those two incidents – which, by the way – were bogus.”

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A Long Line of Family On the way over to Olmstead’s house – and Kincaid wondered but did not ask how Russell knew where it was – she’d asked why he wanted to question Olmstead instead of Shaw, given the bad start they’d gotten off to. Russell had laughed, suggested that that was actually part of it, as he might be easier to rattle and thus make him easier to read. He’d also told her his conclusions from his perusal of the files. “Olmstead’s a good agent, but he’s still young. The trouble he’s gotten into has come from him being overzealous, not because he likes being cruel. Shaw, on the other hand, is a guy who I get the impression gets in trouble but not for the record. I want to know a little more before we tackle him.” Now Russell just nodded, his face neutral. “And how did you get my file, or get inside the secure facility?” Olmstead asked, eying Russell with open-faced curiosity. “You must be connected.” Russell looked at Kincaid, smiling modestly. “I just know a few people.” Olmstead looked closely at the two of them in turn. Kincaid seemed not surprised but impressed nonetheless by Russell’s access, so he figured that she was pretty much who she said she was – a homicide detective from out west. How that connected her to Russell still didn’t make sense. He began to see why Shaw had let Russell walk out with her without a protest; there were some deep waters here. “So what now?” “Now we want you to talk to Shaw,” Russell told him.

Chapter 5 Olmstead called Shaw on his mobile. Shaw was not too happy to hear from him in the evening. Olmstead persisted, and asked him several questions, the conversation getting more pointed and heated as he went along. After a few minutes of the intense discussion,

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A Long Line of Family he hung up and looked at Russell and Kincaid. “Well,” he began, “Shaw says he doesn’t know who called it in. He did it as a favor to a friend, and he insists he’s not saying who.” Olmstead recounted the rest of what Shaw had said. Shaw admitted that he was the one who had made up the story about Kincaid threatening other agents’ families, and all three of them knew that Shaw had known that particular story would push Olmstead’s buttons and make easy for him to be manipulated. In fact, Shaw had told him, a friend of a friend had told him that Kincaid had been stalking him, and wanted a very clear message sent to her. Shaw had laughed about it, telling him doing favors like this was the way the world worked and that he should just chalk it up to experience. “I can’t work with him again,” Olmstead told them, his head down. He was unable to meet Kincaid’s eyes, and his blood was boiling. “He used me.” “Everybody uses everybody,” Russell said curtly. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to use him one of these days.” The three of them sat in silence for a few moments. Russell was studying Olmstead, and Kincaid was watching Russell. Olmstead was uncomfortable, and stared at the reports Kincaid had briefed him on. All of the murders were not only gruesome but also extremely cruel, as though the taking of the life was not enough in itself. This killer got off on the victims knowing they were dying and doing so with as much agonizing slowness as possible. Stopping people like this was why he had become an FBI agent. He began to nod his head. “Look, Shaw’s my business, and I’ll deal with him. But that’s not really important.” He tapped one of the reports with a forefinger. “You’ve got a sick killer here, and he’s got to be stopped. How can I help?” He raised his head and looked Kincaid straight in the eyes. Kincaid smiled just slightly, and looked at Russell. He held her eyes for a moment, communicating in the kind of mental telepathy that Olmstead had seen long time partners

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A Long Line of Family have. It made him wonder again about who Russell was to her. Whatever thoughts they were exchanging didn’t take long. Russell looked at him. “We’ll let you know.”

Russell drove Kincaid back to her hotel, and they talked about Olmstead on the way. They agreed that he might be of some use, but they were divided about what to do about his partner. She wanted to confront him, even advocating another home incursion before they called it a night, but Russell dissuaded her. He wanted to learn a little more before they tried to get anything out of Shaw; he would not be as forthcoming as Olmstead, and tipping their hand too early might not be a good idea. Russell thought it would be a good idea for her to switch hotels, and after some negotiation they settled on a Residence Inn in nearby Roslyn, not too far from the Metro stop. It was almost ten when they got her settled in. Russell looked at her luggage, much of which consisted of case folders. “Planning to stay a while?” “As long as it takes,” she told him, trying to make it sound light but not quite succeeding. Russell looked steadily at her. “What is your plan now?” She took a deep breath and looked out the window, thinking to the days ahead. “I got what I came for – I got a few of the names of the profilers who worked on these cases. I was hoping it was all from one person -- he’d be my main suspect -- but that already doesn’t appear to be the case. So I’ll talk to all of the ones I’ve identified, find out who worked on the rest of the reports, and I’ll try to find out who could have altered them. Either there is a bigger conspiracy than I’d feared or it’s easier for one of them to change other people’s reports than I’d thought.” She shook her head ruefully. “Just the usual homicide drudgery, beating the pavements.” “Except that you don’t have any official standing here, and you’re talking about interrogating FBI personnel,” Russell noted. “Those doors are not too easy to knock on.”

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A Long Line of Family She looked at him. “I didn’t expect it was going to be easy. Did you think I’d just give up because it’s hard?” He held her stare, his mouth curling in a suppressed smile. “No, I didn’t think that. Look, I have a couple ideas. Let me make a couple phone calls.” Kincaid wrinkled her brow. “Calls to who?” “Maybe I can open a few doors. It’s worth a shot – what do you have to lose?” “I guess I owe you that much,” Kincaid agreed dryly. She only had a vague sense of Russell’s reach, but the day’s events had made her come to believe it was even wider than she had previously suspected. She didn’t mind if he called in a few favors. She looked at the clock and realized he was far from home. “Hey, it’s getting late. How long will it take you to get home?” She also realized that she had no idea how he’d gotten to Washington -- if he’d driven, taken the train, or flown. And if he hadn’t driven, then she wondered whose car he was driving, as it bore no obvious rental car stickers. Russell laughed. “Too long. I better stay here tonight, especially if I can arrange a few things for tomorrow.” Kincaid wasn’t quite sure she’d heard him right. She looked outside, then back toward Russell. “You mean, stay here?” she asked tentatively. Her mind started racing down paths that she didn’t trust it to go. Russell was impassive, letting her twist in her uncertainty. Kincaid colored like a schoolgirl. “I mean,” she clarified, “it is a suite, and you could crash on the sofa. Or I will. I don’t want to get you into any trouble at home.”

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A Long Line of Family Now Russell’s mouth twitched impishly. He reached over and patted her arm. “Thanks for being worried about my domestic tranquility, but I have a few things I want to try to do yet tonight.” He looked out the window. “Maybe some other night I’ll need to take you up on your hospitality.” She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed, or maybe both. She looked down into her lap without replying. “Listen, I’ll call you in the morning and let you know what I find out,” he said. She looked back at him. “Let me give you my cell phone number. It’s changed since the last time you had it.” He shook his head, and told her a number that was, indeed, her most current number. She stared at him in surprise. He smiled at her, enjoying her surprise. “I told you I keep tabs on you. Get some sleep and I’ll call you in the morning.”

Chapter 6 She came to him as she usually did, late at night and in the dark. He had been expecting her, but still had let himself doze off in his chair. He was rudely awakened by a rolled up magazine slapping hard against his forearm, like he was a dog being punished for crapping in the wrong place. “Wake up,” she commanded, stepping back. He shook his head to clear it, wishing he’d not let himself drift off. She liked to surprise him like this, and he always suspected that she waited until he was not expecting her just so that she could. He knew enough about her to know that she liked to have the advantage at all times. In his case, that seemed to always be the case. “Why did you contact me?” she asked harshly.

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A Long Line of Family Earlier in the day he’d placed a message in the private Internet bulletin board she had established for them. He didn’t have a phone number or address for her, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted one. In fact, he wished he’d never met her, wished she was no longer any part of his life. He wished she wasn’t even a bad memory, because all of the memories he associated with her were of things he wished he could forget. Walter Henderson was not a bad man. At least, he did not think of himself as such. He was a highly respected forensic psychologist, with a distinguished career in the FBI. He now supervised a number of other professionals. The thing was, after his wife divorced him, he took the opportunity to indulge himself in some private fantasies – nothing too outrageous, nothing that would make for XXX-rated pornography, but still nothing that he would have ever dared ask his wife to engage in. He had first tried out a few S&M websites, which had led to a few chat rooms, which had led to two ambiguously unsatisfying encounters with some similarly inexperienced partners. Then he had met her. She had hurt him on that first occasion, hurt him in ways that still made him shudder. That had led to things even worse that made him blanch every time he let himself think of them. He wasn’t sure which drove him more, the shame or the fear. Right now, looking at her standing less than five feet from him, he pondered his helplessness. She was as tall as he was, and – as he had learned – much stronger. It rankled him that she dominated him so easily. He felt as though he should stand up to her more, should do something to stop her. He did not know all of the evil things that she had done, but he knew enough of them, was complicit in enough of them, to know that she must be stopped. He should try to kill her or at least report her, but the former seemed inconceivable to him and the latter was too fraught with danger. He was afraid to even entertain such thoughts, for fear that she could somehow divine his intentions. He involuntarily trembled, wondering what awful instruments she might be hiding in her pockets. He stared at her in utter subjugation.

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A Long Line of Family “I asked you a question, Walter,” she said in a tone that brooked no indecisiveness on his part. “There was an, umm, incident today,” he said, lowering his eyes. She stepped toward and hit him across his knees with the magazine, which was rolled tightly enough to make it as solid as a stick. The blow stung. “Get on your knees.” He lurched out of his chair and quickly got on his knees, waiting anxiously for the next blow. She walked around behind him, and he began to fearfully picture what she might be planning for him. “What kind of incident?” His breath was coming in short bursts. “There was a woman asking questions at the conference today. Questions about some of the, umm, cases you know about.” Without thinking, he started to turn his head back towards her, only to be almost knocked down by the magazine driving into his ribs like a spike. “Don’t look back,” she warned him. “Keep your eyes on the ground.” He heard her step back, and he drilled his eyes into the floor below him. He braced himself for the next strike, imaging where it might come from. He could not hear her moving around him, but that meant nothing. He’d learned that she could be as silent as a ghost. Indeed, sometimes he wondered if she was a supernatural being of some sort – a devil, no doubt. Sometimes he imagined that he saw her; on the Metro, walking down the sidewalk, at the grocery store, even at work. They may just have been women who vaguely resembled her, or she might follow him just to ensure his obedience. He never knew; all he knew is that she dominated his existence, his every moment. He was not even safe in his own home, as tonight demonstrated. Anything was possible with her. “Who was this woman?” Her voice came from his left, just outside the edge of his peripheral vision. She sounded quite calm, but he knew that calmness did not protect him

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A Long Line of Family from her wrath. In her case, though, wrath was not truly accurate, because she never seemed angry. She used pain as a tool, a sharp instrument of her will. “I don’t know,” he admitted fearfully. He expected another blow, or jab, or some other unpleasant surprise. It did not come, much to his relief. “Did you talk to her?” she asked, her voice now directly behind him. He had not heard her move. He shook his head warily. “No. A couple of my staff mentioned that she’d been asking them questions, and I realized what she was asking about and got worried.” “Then what did you do?” she whispered, her mouth inches from his ear. At first he froze, half-afraid she might bite his ear off. But he also knew that not answering was not an option. “I called in a favor to get rid of her.” He expected an immediate reply, but it was several seconds before she spoke again. When she did, her voice came from several feet away. “What kind of favor did you call in, Walter?” Her voice was silky. “I know a guy, a field agent who owes me. I asked if he could have someone take the woman away, scare her off. I asked him to make sure she stayed away.” This time there was an even longer silence, as she processed this information and, Walter imagined, tried to decide whether to praise or punish him for his initiative. When she spoke next, Walter was surprised to hear what he thought might be a trace of concern in her voice, although she was trying to sound nonchalant. “And did they?”

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A Long Line of Family “All I know for sure is that she wasn’t there after lunch. I heard someone say she’d seen two guys in suits walk her out, but I don’t know if that was because of what I asked or not. And even if it was, I don’t know what they did to her.” He heard her pacing behind his back, not making any attempt to be silent. Then she came to a stop. “You were right to be concerned about this woman, Walter,” she told him in a decisive tone. “I would like to know exactly which cases she was asking about, and I would like to know what she was asking about them. Do you think you can find that out for me?” His heart leapt; he might go unpunished. “Yes, I’ll ask around. I can find out for you,” he babbled excitedly. “Be quiet, Walter,” she told him sternly. “You need to be very careful.” “I will be,” he assured her. “And I would like to know what happened to this woman, if she was scared off or more permanently discouraged.” His face fell. “I don’t know about that. The guy I asked was going to call in another favor, and for all I know he asked someone else for a favor. It might be difficult to trace what happened back to her.” “I know it won’t be easy, Walter,” she whispered, dangerously close to him again. “But I’d really like to know if she is still a danger or not. Remember that if she is a danger to me, she’s a danger to you as well, Walter.” He nodded vigorously to show his total understanding. He hoped that she was satisfied and would leave him alone, until the next time she came to him expecting answers to the

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A Long Line of Family questions she had requested of him. He was to be disappointed in this hope. “Now take off your shirt, Walter. I need to remind you to be more thorough.” Walter Henderson began to whimper as he started to unbutton his shirt.

Chapter 7 Russell called Kincaid around seven the next morning and told her to be ready in an hour. She was already up and had worked out in the hotel’s exercise room, working the treadmill and the weights but wishing she could work the heavy bag her own club offered. She had some tension that nothing relieves like some good punching. She quickly finished getting ready, grabbed something to eat at the breakfast buffet, and was out in front of the hotel at five to eight. Russell was waiting outside, dressed in a suit. “Where’d you get the suit?” she asked. He just smiled tolerantly. “For that matter,” she continued, “where did you end up staying last night?” He laughed and gestured at his new clothes grandly. “My company has an apartment in town. I keep a change of clothes there for occasions like this. Now, are we ready to go?” “Where are we going?” He looked at her, shaking his head. “To FBI headquarters, of course.” It was a nice day out, cloudy but not too hot, and Russell suggested they walked the few blocks to the Metro stop. There they joined the mass of commuters streaming into the nation’s capitol. Kincaid had never ridden the Metro – or any subway, for that matter – but tried to follow Russell’s lead and not look too much like a rube. He seemed to know what he was doing, and she recalled that he must have lived in the area for at least some of his military career. They crowded their way onto a train, packed in shoulder to

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A Long Line of Family shoulder. Russell didn’t seem inclined to tell her more about their upcoming meeting, so Kincaid amused herself by watching all the other people, trying to figure out who was a federal bureaucrat, who was some special interest lobbyist, and who was some working class stiff. She figured the elected officials wouldn’t be riding below ground, but kept an eye out for any shifty looking riders who might be either terrorists or undercover FBI agents. She figured she’d spot the latter by how neatly their beards were trimmed. Russell led them off the subway and made their way to the massive FBI building. He negotiated both the security screening and the reception desk with aplomb, securing for them two visitor badges and making Kincaid glad she hadn’t brought her gun. They had to wait at the reception desk for an escort to come. The lobby was busy, a mixture of some obvious tourists and people with identification badges that walked with purpose, ignoring the tourists as though they were invisible. Kincaid was impressed by the surroundings despite herself, and maybe just a little intimidated. She kept staring around them like a gawking teenager. Russell arched an eyebrow. “Hey, if you play your cards right maybe we’ll take the tour when we’re done. Maybe even stop at the gift store and get you a t-shirt,” he kidded with a straight face. “Yeah, well, maybe one of your kids would like a cap, old man,” she retorted with a scowl. “Are you going to tell me who we’re going to see, or do I need to be surprised?” Russell’s face got serious. “Guy named Ashton Dobbs. He’s the Deputy Director who is in charge of the Critical Incident Response Group. ViCAP is part of his organization.” Kincaid cocked her head. “He a friend of yours?” Russell shook his head, keeping an eye out towards the elevators for their escort. “Never met him.” “We’re just going to drop in on the guy?” Kincaid asked, surprised.

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A Long Line of Family “He’s not the kind of guy you just drop in on. We have an appointment.” Kincaid put a hand on his forearm, distracting him momentarily. “How did you get an appointment with him, then? When did you have time to make it?” She’d been with him until late the night before, and hadn’t noticed him calling anyone. A well-dressed young man came heading towards him. His suit looked so sharply pressed that Juanita wondered how he could sit down, if, indeed, he ever did. He made Lyle Olmstead look like a slob. “Mr. Russell?” he asked when he came within a few feet of them. “Detective Kincaid?” He did not introduce himself or offer his hand. When they confirmed who they were, and had inspected their badges, he turned on his heel and led them to the upper floor where Deputy Director Dobbs had his office. At that point he told them to sit and disappeared into a side office. They had to wait five or ten minutes in the outer office, under the wary eye of Dobbs’ middle-aged assistant sitting behind her desk. Acting on some signal or prior agreement they were unaware of, she turned to them and told them they could go in. Ashton Dobbs was in his early fifties, and was the clear inspiration for their escort’s grooming habits, except his suit looked to be considerably more expensive and his hair not quite so short. He wasn’t wearing the suit jacket, but his shirt looked starched and his braces belonged on a Wall Street trader instead of a member of the FBI. His hair looked darker than it had any right to be at his age, and Kincaid suspected some careful dyeing was involved. His office was impressive, with expensive furnishings and wood paneling that looked old but well maintained. Dobbs sat behind a large desk that was, nonetheless, suspiciously clear of paper. Dobbs did not stand or offer to shake hands, nor did he steer them over to the separate seating area that featured a couch and two easy chairs around a small coffee table. A very serious looking middle aged man stood to the right of Dobb’s desk, but neither he nor Dobbs felt it important to know who he was. Russell sat casually in one of the chairs on the visitor’s side of the desk. Kincaid followed suit, her blood starting to

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A Long Line of Family increase in temperature under Dobbs’ stony gaze. “You must be Russell,” he told Russell needlessly. He looked dubiously at Kincaid. “Making you Kincaid. Well, folks, you got my attention, getting in to see me like this. Want to tell me what this is all about?” Kincaid looked at Russell, wanting him to break the ice. Russell kept his gaze on Dobbs. “Deputy Director Dobbs, Detective Kincaid has uncovered some very troubling cases that suggest some complicity on the FBI’s part. We’re talking about a serial killer here, and he’s been using ViCAP to cover his tracks.” Dobbs returned Russell’s stare with one of his own, his face impassive. If he was hoping for Russell to break first and offer more, Russell wasn’t going to accommodate him. After a moment he spoke. “That’s a pretty serious charge.” “Yes, sir, it is.” “Can you back up your allegations?” Russell nodded towards Kincaid. “Detective Kincaid has done a thorough preliminary investigation, and we need your help to find out where the problem is.” Dobbs looked at Kincaid. “Detective Kincaid, can you tell me what the hell we’re talking about here?” Kincaid gave a ten minute summary of what she had uncovered, starting with her own case and how she had found the other cases. She described the kinds of discrepancies she had caught, giving several specific examples. When she was done Dobbs was silent for several moments, but Kincaid noticed he was making a steeple with his fingers, tapping the fingertips against each other as he processed her story. He finally cleared his throat dismissively. “Sounds like some clerical errors to me. You went through how many cases to find these?”

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A Long Line of Family “Over a hundred.” He looked relieved. “See? That sounds like poor quality control to me. The analysts put in thousands of cases a year. It’s not surprising that every once in a while you run across errors like these.” He leaned forward in his chair and put his hands on his desk. “I appreciate your spotting these for us. I assure you we’ll check out our processes and do what we can to make sure these are corrected and won’t happen again.” It was clear they were being dismissed, but Kincaid noticed Russell wasn’t moving. She was getting increasingly annoyed at Dobbs. Did he really think she couldn’t tell the difference between a mistaken keystroke and blatant distortions? She hadn’t asked for this meeting, but she damn well wasn’t going to apologize for bothering this stiff shirt. She was about to snap back with a nasty retort when she noticed Dobbs was watching Russell’s lack of reaction very carefully. “Mr. Russell, I’m told you are someone I should take very seriously,” he admitted somewhat grudgingly. “Am I to believe that you share Detective Kincaid’s beliefs in this matter?” Russell held his stare for a few moments before replying, Dobbs starting to grow uneasy. “I trust Detective Kincaid’s judgment,” he replied. Dobbs narrowed his eyes slightly, the wheels turning in his head. He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers again. He studied Kincaid carefully, then looked back at Russell. “What is your role in this matter?” he inquired. “I’m trying to make sure Detective Kincaid has the cooperation she needs to take her investigation to the next level.” “This is not, ah, a matter of active interest to you directly?” Dobbs asked delicately, appearing nervous for the first time. He did not meet Russell’s eyes.

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid was not sure what kind of response he was hoping for, if Russell’s involvement would be an indication of the seriousness with which he should take the matter or if he was hoping Russell would stay out of it. “I have faith in Detective Kincaid,” Joe replied with a touch of steel in his voice. He waited until Dobbs looked up to meet his eyes, then held them in his own solid gaze. “But if I need to get involved, I will.” Dobbs’ eyes shifted to Kincaid for a long moment, then broke away. He stared at Russell. “What is it you want from me?” Russell held the gaze, cooler than ice, and let a moment of silence pass before replying. “I want Detective Kincaid to have full access to your personnel, free to pursue the investigation as far as she thinks she needs to go.” Dobbs’ mouth literally dropped, and he broke the stare. “That’s preposterous,” he said, fairly sputtering. “She has no standing to do an internal investigation of the Bureau!” He turned to Kincaid with fury in his eyes. “Are you even here on an official inquiry, Detective Kincaid? The channels you came through make me think not – they are highly irregular.” “Nonetheless,” Russell said quietly but firmly. Dobbs eyed him carefully, with thinly disguised fury. “I’ll have the Office of Professional Responsibility look into the matter. I assure you they are quite competent.” He sounded final, and put his hands on the desk to indicate that the conversation was over. There was a long moment of silence, and Kincaid was ready to leave. She hadn’t expected any official assistance from the FBI, and it wouldn’t really stop her from continuing if they left here without it. She appreciated and was impressed by Joe’s effort to get inside, but not surprised it had been declined. Still, she noticed Joe continued to stare at Dobbs, until the latter began to shift in his chair. “That won’t be good enough,”

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A Long Line of Family Russell said softly. “But we would agree to having an FBI agent assist with the investigation.” Dobbs sat back, surprised at Russell’s suggestion. “Do you have anyone in mind?” he asked sarcastically. “Yes, we do,” Russell said, smiling slightly and looking at Kincaid. We do, Kincaid asked herself silently, wishing she were telepathic. She looked at Russell and noticed he seemed equally amused by her reaction as by Dobbs’. Then his face grew serious as he turned to Dobbs. “Agent Lyle Olmstead.”

Chapter 8 Lyle Olmstead was not having a good morning. He got to the office before seven, as usual, and worked through his emails while he waited for his partner to come in. Agent Shaw didn’t arrive until almost eight thirty, by which time Olmstead had had enough time for his aggravation level to rise to the previous night’s level. Kincaid and Russell had told him not to press Shaw further, but he viewed the incident as a fundamental breach of trust that no partnership could tolerate. “I need to talk to you,” Olmstead said tersely when Shaw got to his adjoining desk. Shaw eyed him carefully. He could see that Olmstead was upset, and it didn’t take much for him to figure out why. He sighed. “Not here,” he said. “Let’s go get some coffee down the street.” Olmstead would have preferred to have the discussion in the office, perhaps in one of the conference rooms, but he acceded to his partner’s suggestion. They didn’t speak as they walked from the office to the nearby coffee hangout, a diner that had seen better days – or, perhaps, had always been this rundown but only now was so noticeable as Starbucks

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A Long Line of Family and other upscale emporiums made its seediness so obvious. The two agents, in their suits and ties, were out of place with the other patrons. Two of them, both of them in oversized t-shorts and baggy pants, eyed the agents suspiciously as they entered and took a booth, and hurried out once the door was clear. The remaining customers studiously avoided doing anything to draw attention to themselves. Shaw insisted on actually ordering some coffee, and Olmstead bided his time impatiently until they each had a cup of coffee and were sitting across a small table from each other. Shaw seemed relaxed and unworried. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re still upset about the thing yesterday.” “Damn right I am. You had no right--” Shaw put his hand up to stop Olmstead’s tirade before it went to full force. He shook his head in disappointment. “Listen, Lyle, it’s just how the world works. You do a favor for a friend, and they do a favor for you when you need one. After you get a few more years you’ll realize how important this stuff is.” Olmstead shook his head vigorously. “That’s not what I’m upset about, although you could have used better judgment about what kind of favors you do for your friends. That woman was a police officer investigating a crime.” “She was a local on a personal crusade, way I hear it,” Shaw drawled, unruffled. “What we did doesn’t bother me a bit.” “It’s what you were prepared to do that I’m worried about, and what you were prepared to have me do without letting me know what was going on.” Olmstead’s face was red and his voice was getting louder. “You should have given me a choice.”

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A Long Line of Family Shaw took a sip of coffee and studied his young partner. “It’s not a big deal. Nothing too bad was going to happen. That broad was pretty tough. We were just going to shake her up a bit, then we would have let her go. No big deal.” “It’s a big deal to me. It was wrong.” Olmstead was appalled at Shaw’s casual attitude towards abducting and interrogating an innocent person who also happened to be a fellow law enforcement officer. Shaw smiled disarmingly. “It was a bit over the line, OK, I’ll give you that. But wrong – no, not really.” Olmstead stared at his partner in amazement. “You really believe that? You didn’t even really know if she was on the level or not when you agreed to do this favor for your friend, then you lied to your own partner to get me to go along with it. And you think that’s just ‘a little’ over the line, Frank?” Shaw sat back, his left hand holding his coffee cup. He took another sip. “You going to stay steamed about this?” he asked at last. “Damn right. What’s more, I’m going to file a complaint against you.” Olmstead stared belligerently at Shaw. Shaw watched him for a few seconds. “I don’t think you want to do that, Lyle,” he said calmly, his expression flat and his eyes hard. “Well, I think I do,” Olmstead told him defiantly. “Not only what you did was wrong, but if that detective files one and I’m not on record about it, my ass is even more on the line than it already is.” Shaw studied Olmstead carefully. He knew Olmstead was stubborn and he knew that he was very upset. It seemed unlikely that he could be talked out of his intentions at this

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A Long Line of Family point. He took a deep breath and made up his mind. “Listen, there’s something I didn’t tell you,” he said in a low voice, looking around the coffee shop to see if anyone was listening to them. The few other patrons seemed lost in their own worlds and unlikely to listen in, but Shaw seemed apprehensive about someone surreptitiously overhearing them. “What?” Olmstead asked suspiciously. Shaw shook his head furtively. “Not here. Let’s go around back.” He edged off his seat and waited for Olmstead to rise. Olmstead was dubious but felt obligated to see what additional information his partner might offer. Shaw ushered him towards the back, through the small kitchen. Two cooks were working, sweating in the hot conditions. They eyed the two agents warily, evidently having had enough experience with the law to suspect they were trouble, possibly even INS. The cooks tensed until they saw that the two men were simply passing through and not looking for either of them. Shaw pointed a doorway and let Olmstead go first. The door opened into an alley, and Olmstead stepped outside, pausing to look around at the squalor. The dumpster was open and overflowing, and Olmstead saw several rats scurry to safer hiding places as he came outside. Shaw stepped outside and let the door close behind him. He guided Olmstead to his left, looking in both directions as he did. “Where are we -- ” Olmstead began to ask when Shaw suddenly hit him on the back of the head with a sap he had taken from his coat pocket. Olmstead’s knees buckled and his eyes glazed. Shaw hit him on the head once more, then brutally kicked the back of one of his knees to drive him to the ground. He added several kicks to Olmstead’s mid-section for good measure. “You’re going to rat me out, you little turd?” He kicked him again. “You little wet behind the ears baby crying to mommy. Well, you’re in the big leagues now, sonny boy, and you fight your own fights, not go reporting your partner.”

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead was simply too stunned to respond, barely able to understand what Shaw was saying to him. Shaw knelt down beside him, having replaced his sap with his pistol. He put the pistol against Olmstead’s forehead. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just waste you right now, before you do something stupid in the field that might get me killed instead. It’d be a preventive measure on my part.” Muddled though his thinking was at the moment, Olmstead understood clearly that he might die in the next few seconds, and held his breath in a lame effort to be as unobtrusive as possible. His vision was blurred but he knew well enough what Shaw was holding to his head. If he had been capable of more rational thought he might have prayed or thought of his parents, but all he could think of was the pressure of steel against his skin. There was a long moment, then Shaw suddenly stood up. “Ahh, it’s not worth the trouble that it would be to make up a story about how some punks ambushed us in the alley or something. I’ll promise you this, though – you ever think about ratting me out and I won’t be so forgiving.” He spat at Olmstead. “Go clean yourself up.” Shaw walked away, leaving Lyle Olmstead to gasp for breath until he could stand up and stagger out of the alley.

Chapter 9 Kincaid waited until they were outside before she started to give Russell a piece of her mind. “Lyle Olmstead?” she asked incredulously. Russell glanced briefly at her as he started walking down the broad sidewalk along Pennsylvania Avenue. Kincaid wasn’t sure if he was just walking to avoid the conversation or of he had a destination in mind, but she had to scurry to keep up. “Thousands of FBI agents you could pick from and you pick one of the two who have harassed me? I mean – I know some FBI agents that I’ve

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A Long Line of Family worked with. I could have made some suggestions.” She gave him her hard look, which rolled off of him like water off a duck’s back. Russell walked for a few more paces before replying. It was a pretty day out, not too warm yet, and the sidewalks were already starting to be crowded with tourists heading towards the Mall or the National Gallery, as well as groups of business types -- men and women -- in business suits, their briefcases attached to them like an extra appendage as they headed towards meetings. “It’s one less person you have to show the files to.” Kincaid stopped suddenly, forcing Joe to stop and come back half a stride. “Come again?” she asked curiously. He gave her a weary smile. “You’re going to have to start watching your back. You’re inside now but I don’t know exactly who you can trust. I’d be real careful about how much you share with anyone. And I’d get backups for all those files you discovered. You don’t want your guy going back and correcting them at this point in the game.” “We’re going to have to correct the entries,” Kincaid pointed out. “That’s the whole point of ViCAP. It might tell us something that would help us.” Russell nodded, and started walking again, Kincaid reluctantly following along. “It might,” he agreed, “but you still want to make sure you have your source evidence.” They walked a block before either of them spoke again. “So you don’t think I can trust Olmstead?” Kincaid asked. “That’s going to make this more complicated.” “I think the odds are that’s he’s OK,” Russell told her judiciously. “His file looked clean, and I was pretty convinced that he was telling us the truth last night. He seemed pretty shaken by what you showed him. I don’t think he was faking that.” “But…” Kincaid probed mildly.

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Russell looked over at her quickly. “But there’s an inside person involved with all this, and they got to him once. You don’t know how or when they’ll try to do that again, or what he’ll tell someone who’ll tell someone else until it gets to someone it shouldn’t. I’m not saying he’d do it on purpose, but you better start thinking about who knows what.” She thought carefully about what he’d said. She wasn’t a particularly trusting person to begin with, until that trust had been earned, as it had with Russell. “Maybe I can use that,” she said thoughtfully. He smiled at her and stopped. “That’s the spirit.” Kincaid noticed that Russell had stopped outside a Metro stop. The stream of people going in and coming out of the station flowed around them, creating a wake on either side of them. She looked at him. “Where are we going?” “You’re going to catch the Metro to the D.C. Field Office. I’m going to see a client, then catch a train home later today.” Kincaid felt a sudden and irrational sense of disappointment. “So soon?” she managed to say. Russell nodded. “You call me if you need help, but I figure you and your new partner have a lot to catch up on, a lot of planning to do. I do have a favor to ask you, though.” Despite her disappointment, she made a face of mock astonishment. “A favor? You want to ask me a favor?” “Yeah,” he said, grinning. “Yeah, I do. I want you to come to dinner at the house.” Now her face showed genuine surprise. “Are you kidding me? With your family and all?”

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“Take a day or two and get acquainted with your new partner. Get some traction on the investigation, get him running some stuff down for you. Then take a break. I know Debbie wants to meet you and I think you’d enjoy spending more time with the kids.” “Well, OK,” she agreed, not sure how she felt about it. She had a hard time picturing fitting into his domestic life but she didn’t see how she could decline his request, not after what he’d done for her in the past twenty-four hours. He gave her a train schedule that he conveniently happened to have with him, producing it from the inside of his suit jacket, along with a round trip Amtrak ticket that he also had thought to have ready for her. “You could come up in the afternoon and catch one of the late trains back,” he concluded. “Or you could stay overnight. We have a nice guestroom.” He smiled winningly at her. “And your wife won’t mind?” she asked. She realized this might sound presumptuous on her part. “I mean, I don’t want to intrude and all.” “No, she definitely wants to meet you,” he told her with a straight face. “Catch you later.” With that he started heading down the street, leaving her to watch him walk away with his distinctive stride. He walked confidently, with no arrogance or flamboyance but with a strength and grace that revealed no hesitation. She shook her head ruefully, and looked over at the Metro entrance. Well, she thought to herself, let’s go check out my new partner.

Chapter 10 Olmstead cleaned himself as best he could before returning to the Field Office, but he couldn’t restore his suit to its normally neat status. His white shirt was no longer spotless either. At least Shaw hadn’t hit him in the face or someplace else that would visibly

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A Long Line of Family bruise; Olmstead realized that Shaw had known exactly what he was doing when he’d attacked him. Still, Olmstead noticed the furtive stares as he walked through the office, and noticed that his trail was followed by faint murmurings. They’d probably noticed that Shaw had not returned with him, and it wouldn’t take a genius to put two and two together to start the rumor – an unfortunately true one – that Shaw had kicked his ass. What would be interesting was what they attributed the fight to. When he got closer to his desk one of the secretaries caught him. “Mr. Gnassi is looking for you,” she told him nervously. “What does he want?” Olmstead asked. Surely word of the fight couldn’t have reached him yet. She shook her head quickly. “I don’t know, but he wanted you there ten minutes ago.” Olmstead stood still for a moment to collect himself, then headed off to Gnassi’s office. He was the Agent In Charge of the largest and most prestigious FBI office, and Olmstead had only had a few opportunities to meet him. Gnassi was a legendary agent, as feared for his toughness as he was admired for it. The trip there was long enough to allow him to build up an unhealthy amount of trepidation, but not long enough for him to prepare a sufficient explanation for his altercation with his partner. He identified himself to Gnassi’s assistant, who looked him up and down dubiously but immediately announced him to Gnassi on the intercom. “Send him in,” the voice commanded gruffly. Gnassi’s office made for a stark contrast to Deputy Director Dobbs’ office -- not that Olmstead had ever had the opportunity to see the latter in order to make such a comparison. Gnassi already had his sleeves rolled up and papers spread across his desk. His walls were covered not by any fancy artwork but by a myriad of commendations and

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A Long Line of Family citations for bravery. Gnassi was, Olmstead noticed, evidently an excellent marksman. It took Olmstead a few seconds to realize that the commendations were all for other agents, most likely partners or agents in his charge. Olmstead had no doubtrs that Gnassi had no shortage of similar awards for his own actions, and thought it telling that Gnassi didn’t feel the need to display those to visitors. “What the hell happened to you?” Gnassi barked, peering over his reading glasses at Olmstead’s still disheveled appearance. He was holding a file in his hands. Olmstead debated throwing himself on Gnassi’s mercy, but realized that if Gnassi knew about his fight with Shaw he wouldn’t have been surprised by how he looked. He decided to bluff it out a little longer. “I fell down on the street, sir. Damnedest thing.” Gnassi eyed him skeptically, not really buying his story but evidently deciding to not press him on it. “Do you know what I’m reading here, Olmstead?” He waved the file that he was holding in his hand. “No, sir.” “Well, son, it’s your personnel file.” The hair on the back of Olmstead’s neck rose. Maybe Shaw had already filed a complaint against him. He couldn’t think of any other reason why Gnassi would have any interest in his file. “Something wrong, sir?” he asked cautiously. Gnassi laid the file on his desk and looked at Olmstead with a calculating expression. “You’re young but you’ve made a good mark in your career so far, Olmstead. I wouldn’t have let you transfer to my office otherwise. But what I’m scratching my head at is who at Headquarters you’ve managed to impress.” It wasn’t making any sense to Olmstead. “I’m not following you, sir.”

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“I got orders a half an hour ago. You’re detached to work with a --” he paused to look at a paper he had sitting on the desk next to Olmstead’s file – “Detective Juanita Kincaid.” He looked up at Olmstead. “Detective Kincaid is a homicide detective from somewhere out west.” He gave Olmstead a searching look. Olmstead could only shake his head helplessly. He was as surprised as Gnassi that Kincaid was involved in all this, and didn’t understand how she had managed to produce the kind of orders that Gnassi was referring to. Then he remembered how her friend Russell had waltzed into a high security holding center, and suddenly didn’t seem so implausible. “Work on what, sir?” he asked as innocently as he could muster. Gnassi fixed him with a burning stare that underscored his reputation. Olmstead pictured himself being a suspect and being fixed with that stare. Then, again, he now had two things to hide from Gnassi – the fight with Shaw and the cause of that fight, both of which led right back to Kincaid and the apparent source of Gnassi’s ire. He kept his face as impassive as possible and hoped that the thoughts swirling around in his head weren’t too obvious. “Well, son,” I don’t really know,” Gnassi said with a drawl. “I’m just supposed to release you and extend you every cooperation. No questions asked.” From the look on his face he was not happy about being out of the loop. “I see,” Olmstead replied. Gnassi studied him for a few seconds that seemed to last a lifetime, x-raying him to his core. Olmstead was tempted to break down and tell him everything he knew, which wasn’t much, but something held him back. Olmstead couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but it had something to do with the look in Kincaid’s eyes when she showed him the murder files the night before. Strange as it seemed, he was more worried about disappointing her than his own boss, fierce reputation or not.

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A Long Line of Family Gnassi pushed the file away from him and sat back. “You better get going, Olmstead. You wouldn’t want to keep Detective Kincaid waiting.”

Olmstead wasn’t really even surprised when he came back to his cubicle and found Kincaid waiting for him, her bright visitor pass clipped to her belt. “What happened to you?” she asked, standing up as he approached. “Nothing,” he muttered. He threw himself down in his chair. She evaluated his appearance, and managed a quick smile. “We told you not to say anything to Shaw,” she chided him in a low voice. He gave her a sour look before glancing around to see if anyone was close to overhear her comment. If they were, no one let on. “What’s this all about?” Kincaid suggested they go someplace with more privacy than his cube, and Olmsted grudgingly led her to a small conference room nearby. The staff around them was more than mildly curious about what was going on. By now, most had heard about Olmstead’s visit to Gnassi’s office, as well as his tousled appearance. A few were also keeping tabs on Shaw’s failure to return from his coffee break as well. Mindful of these inquiring eyes, Kincaid closed the door to the conference firmly behind them. She took a seat at the table. “So I just met with the AIC,” Olmstead began, too agitated to sit down. “What’s that?” Kincaid interrupted. “The Agent In Charge. The head of the whole office.” “Got it. What did he want?”

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Olmstead did his best imitation of the intense stare Gnassi had just used on him. “He wanted to give me my special orders. You know, the ones that reassigned me to you.” Kincaid’s eyebrows went up. “So soon?” It was not lost on Olmstead that she was not surprised by the fact of these new orders, just by the timing of them. He continued his glare at her. She didn’t seem too concerned, and eventually Olmstead realized she was going to make him ask for information. “You want to tell me what this is all about?” She took a deep breath and looked at him with something like sympathy. “I think you know what it about, and I think you have a pretty good idea of how you got assigned to help me.” “Yeah,” he agreed, stopping in front of her. “What I don’t understand is why you picked me. I don’t guess that I made a very good impression yesterday.” She laughed and sat back in her chair, making herself comfortable. “Well, I guess you’d be wrong. Here you are.” “Here I am,” he agreed forlornly, and took a seat across the table from her. He wasn’t too sure that all this was going to be too good for his career. Some hick woman detective had a bug up her ass about some murders and found herself someone with friends in high places, and now it was his ass on the line. “Where’s your big friend?” He unconsciously looked around, as if Russell might suddenly appear from the ceiling or perhaps through the wall. “He’s letting us run with it,” she explained. “Us?”

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She looked at him appraisingly. “You’re my partner for the duration – until we catch the son-of-a-bitch that’s killing all these people.” He frowned. “And you think it’s someone in the Bureau? You’re crazy.” Kincaid shook her head. “Someone tampered with those ViCAP records. I don’t figure it would be too easy to hack into the system from the outside, so someone inside has something to do with it. Plus, someone sent you and your partner after me. So, yeah, the first place I think we should look is here.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. I know the people who work here and I can’t see anyone doing anything like…that.” Memories of the atrocities she had let him read about the previous night haunted him. “Maybe not. Maybe the guy is blackmailing someone inside, or maybe it’s someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend. I don’t know. All I know is, we’ve got to find this guy.” He stood up and paced on his side of the table for a few seconds, thinking about what she’d said. He supposed he could turn down the assignment. He could march out of here, go to Gnassi and tell him the whole story. They could certainly find a team of more qualified people to assist with the investigation. That would be the smart thing to do, instead of getting involved in a quasi-clandestine investigation. He stopped and studied Kincaid closely. She was watching him as well, a serious look on her face, undoubtedly aware of the turmoil he must be facing. She was a tough lady, Olmstead thought. No, a tough cop. It had taken a lot of brains and dogged determination to get to where she had gotten. She wasn’t going to stop until either she was dead or she had her killer put to rights. And the killer deserved to be put down. This was why he’d joined the FBI – not to protect his career, not to impress the higher-ups. He made up his mind. “What do we do next?” he asked.

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Chapter 12 Kincaid and Olmstead made up a list of things to do. Kincaid wanted to set up a war room with all of the information they had on the cases – in addition to the summaries she’d shown him, she had boxes with the complete files sitting at a UPS Store in Arlington. “I could probably get us a conference room here,” Olmstead speculated. “No,” she said curtly. He looked at her in surprise, and she smiled sheepishly. “I want someplace where people won’t be stopping by all the time,’ she explained, shading the truth, or at least not telling the entire truth. He accepted this, then suggested that they get a meeting room at her hotel. “I can’t afford that,” she complained. “I can barely afford my hotel, and if we don’t wrap this case up quickly I’m going to be living in the streets.” “Hey, you forget – you’re on the FBI dime now,” he told her. “The Bureau will pick up the tab for whatever we need, within reason, of course. I mean, if you decide we need to start jet-setting over to Europe they might ask some questions.” “How about Bermuda?” Kincaid asked with a twinkle in her eye that grew larger when he glared at her. She requested that he obtain a weapon for her, as her own firearms were back at home – these days security made traveling with them too problematic. They had a nice discussion comparing notes on gun preferences, before deciding on a Sig Sauer for her. “With plenty of extra clips,” she added. He wrote it down without comment. After almost two hours they decided to take a break for lunch. He took her to a small café nearby. The café was in a building that long ago must have been a house. It

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A Long Line of Family wouldn’t have been a very big house even then, yet now was home to two separate restaurants. Down a half flight of stairs was the cafe; upstairs was a more expensive companion restaurant. The café was only open for breakfast and lunch, while its upstairs companion was only open for dinner, and had a bar that stayed open late, according to the sign. “You ever try the place upstairs?” Kincaid asked, stopping for a second to scan the menu. Olmstead practically snorted. “If I’m in town for dinner, it’s pizza or Chinese at my desk.” She eyed him. “Don’t get out much, eh?” He shrugged, appearing somewhat annoyed, so Kincaid let it pass. The café was crowded with an array of patrons. The owners had crammed in as many tables as possible, so close that people at one table practically bumped elbows with the next table. The patrons appeared to be students, other well-heeled lobbyists or businessmen seeking a quaint break from the standard power spots. Or perhaps this was a pre-lunch for them, warming their stomachs up for the lighter but more expensive expense report fare later. Despite the crowd, they only had to wait a few minutes before they were seated at a small table, surrounded on all sides by chatting diners. “Well, I guess we’re not going to talk about the case here,” Kincaid said, having to speak loudly over the constant din around them. “Come here often?” Olmstead studied the menu briefly before putting it down. “I used to. Shaw never liked it so we didn’t come here too much.” “Trying to avoid him?” Olmstead looked away, his face reddening.

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A Long Line of Family “He cold cocked you?” she asked sympathetically. “Something like that.” It sounded lame even to him. He was a big boy and a professional law enforcement officer, and things like that shouldn’t happen to him – especially not by his own partner. “So it wasn’t a fair fight,” she told him. “Next time you won’t be caught by surprise.” “Next time?” Her face grew serious. “Yeah. I mean, if you’re staying in the FBI and he’s staying in the FBI, you’re going to have to deal with him. You can’t get the reputation of letting someone bust you like that without not doing something about it.” The waitress came along and took their orders, Kincaid opting for a steak salad and Olmstead ordering a fried egg sandwich. When she had moved away he looked at Kincaid. “Yeah well, I don’t think Shaw will talk about it. It makes him look bad too.” “Yeah, but it will come out, you know. Somebody always tells someone, or someone guesses. I mean, I don’t even work with you guys and I guessed. You’re going to have to deal with it.” He stared at her harshly. “Think you know about what it’s like being in the Bureau, Detective Kincaid?” She grimaced at his tone, and looked at him coolly. “Buster, I’m a black woman homicide detective in a medium-sized town way out West. Think you know anything about people trying to intimidate you that I don’t know?” He looked away.

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A Long Line of Family “What I do know, “ she continued, “is that you never let someone get away with shit like that. Never. Because if you do, well, then you’re their bitch.” He dropped his head sheepishly, admitting that he knew she was right without having to say it. Thankfully, their food came quickly and they focused their attention on eating instead of talking. “Not bad at all,” she admitted. “Pretty good.” Olmstead took the softening of her mood as an opportunity to ask her something that had been bothering him for hours. “So why isn’t your friend Russell with you?” Kincaid shrugged, and finished chewing before she responded. “He helped me when I needed help. If I need help again, he’ll help me again.” Olmstead thought she sounded pretty confident about him being there for her, and put that away to think more about. Their relationship wasn’t his immediate concern. “He must be pretty connected.” Kincaid developed a fascination with her salad that prevented her from answering him. “I mean, is he a spook or something?” Olmstead pressed, asking the obvious question. She put her fork down and looked carefully at him. “I don’t know,” she said. “He says he’s an accountant and I have to believe him.” Then she picked her fork back up and took a big bite that filled her mouth and would preclude her from answering any further questions.

Russell sat in the office of Bill Carson, the President of Zapdata Interactive, located in one of the many faceless office buildings in Tyson’s Corner. Carson was in his early thirties, and had personally written much of the software that had lead to the formation of Zapdata. Carson had proved to be even better with the moneymen than writing code. On paper, he was personally worth over a hundred million dollars, and his office reflected

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A Long Line of Family lavish furnishings and lots of expressive electronic toys, including a plasma screen television. Still, the chairs were more interesting to look at than they were comfortable to sit in. The firm had grown explosively, driven by several key Defense Department contracts. A few months ago they had become concerned that some of their intellectual property was leaking out. After their own investigations failed to either confirm the loss, or the source, one of their Defense Department contacts had quietly recommended they hire Russell’s firm. It had only taken Russell and his team six weeks to figure out what was going on. “It’s George Cornwell,” Russell told Carson, who was joined by his chief counsel, Hakim Dubois. “George?” Carson repeated, his face showing his disbelief. He glanced over at Dubois, whose face was impassive. He looked back at Russell, shaking his head. “You must be wrong. I’ve known George for almost ten years. He was one of my first employees here. George wouldn’t do anything to hurt us.” Russell didn’t say anything, and his quiet demeanor spoke more than words might have. Carson looked again at Dubois. Dubois raised his eyebrows slightly, signaling that Carson should pay attention to what Russell was telling him. Carson stared hard at him for a long moment, then seemed to slump in defeat. Russell took this as his clue. “He’s got a girlfriend. As it works out, she’s being paid to be his girlfriend. I probably don’t have to tell you who is paying her.” “General Power,” Dubois said in a low voice. Russell nodded. Carson stared back and forth between Russell and Dubois, unable to speak for several seconds. When he recovered his ability he was incredulous. “A girlfriend? I know

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A Long Line of Family George’s wife! George would never betray me, never betray Emily. You gotta be wrong, Mr. Russell.” He was pleading. Russell again simply sat quietly, watching Carson struggle to absorb the news. “Are you sure?” Carson asked at last. Russell nodded. “What do we do now?” Dubois asked, leaning forward and putting his hands together. He wasn’t a techie and had been put in place by Zapdata’s Board to assure a more responsible hand was involved. Russell’s news was a disappointment but not a surprise to him, and his mind was already racing ahead to possible courses of action. Russell leaned back. “Well, if you want to prosecute you’ll need to get the FBI involved. DoD will want to know, given the work you do for them.” “Do you have the proof we’d need?” Carson asked. Russell shook his head. “That’s not what we do. You wanted to know what was happening, and we found out. We don’t promise we can get you anything you could use in court.” He paused, and smiled. “Of course, once you know where to look it shouldn’t be too hard. Pressure him, pressure the girl – I don’t think either of them will hold up, once it’s clear you know about the two of them. How far up into General Power you can trace it, I don’t know. Maybe you can get your ideas back, maybe not, or maybe it’s too late for that and you get damages.” Carson and Dubois were silent, absorbing the task that lay ahead. After a few moments, Dubois asked Russell to excuse them for a few moments, and he and Carson stood up and went over to the far corner of Carson’s office. Russell couldn’t make out the conversation, but from the intense expressions and hand gestures, he had a pretty good idea. Dubois seemed to be trying to quietly persuade Carson of something. After a few minutes of their negotiation they appeared to reach agreement, and returned to the sitting area, remaining standing. Russell stood up as well. “How would you like to help us catch Mr. Cornwall?” Dubois asked politely.

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Chapter 13 In fact, it was four days before Kincaid could keep her promise to Russell. After lunch she and Olmstead returned to the field office to wrap up a few things. He had been given a contact name – Greg Harbor, the mystery man who had been in Dobbs’ office – and Kincaid was anxious to use him to get a list of the ViCAP analysts. Olmstead made the call and began to exceed her expectations. He requested her weapon, along with the necessary permits, as well as the actual personnel files for the analysts. She raised an eyebrow at him as he made this request, which he ignored. It would be an interesting test of how cooperative the Bureau was going to be. When he further asked for the files on the ViCAP supervisors and any other staff with edit authorization into the system, including any IT support staff, she really began to be impressed, wishing she’d thought of that. She couldn’t tell from his expression how such an audacious request was being taken, but when he asked her for her hotel so they could messenger things over, she figured they were playing ball. “Pretty gutsy,” she told him when he hung up. He looked at her skeptically, as if he thought she was making fun of him. “What?” “You know, asking for all those files. I don’t know that I’d have thought of trying that. I’d have been happy just to get their names.” He shrugged. “I figured with the files we could see how long they’ve been there, and rule out any who haven’t been there long enough. Besides, I wanted to see how much juice your buddy Russell has.” She arched her eyebrows at him. “And?” He gave her a deadpan expression. “Let’s go get those files of yours.”

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He drove her to her hotel, not making any small talk on the way. He drove competently, and Kincaid noticed he kept a careful eye on the traffic around them, as he would if he was worried about being followed. She wondered if he was worried about Shaw or if he was normally this cautious. She was further impressed by how easily he commandeered the room next to hers for them to use as their war room, flashing his badge and browbeating the hotel manager into moving the current inhabitants out. They then went to a local UPS Store where she had sent her many boxes of files. The young clerk, who looked like a bored high school kid, led them to a back room that was filled with her boxes. “What, are you moving or something? Be cheaper to rent a van.” Kincaid checked his ID badge and smiled at him. “It’s not that kind of box, Brandon.” He looked at her, then at Olmstead, and put two and two together, squinting his eyes as he thought. He was thin as a rail and looked as though Kincaid could bench press him, and his lanky, unwashed hair did nothing to make him look any tougher. On the other hand, even when he wasn’t flashing the badge Olmstead still looked like an FBI agent – clean cut, dead serious, and a little self-important. Brandon seemed to shrink into himself, perhaps thinking about some illegal substance somewhere on his person, and Kincaid tried to suppress her inclination to smile. He had them sign the manifest and left them alone. It took three trips for them to transfer everything, loading up his car to the brim each time. She thought he might complain about playing pack mule for her or make a joke about what a pack rat she must be, but he simply carried on, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. When they had completed the transfer they stood in their new suite and surveyed the collection. “Maybe we should have taken the furniture out,” she speculated, since there was barely any room to walk around in. He made a face.

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A Long Line of Family It took them the rest of the afternoon to unpack and put the files in some sort of order. They removed the bland pictures from the walls. On one wall they put up a large map of the U.S. that Kincaid had bought, and decorated it with pins for the locations of each of the murders. On a second wall they spread out photos of the victims in the order that they had been killed, with the associated file on the ground beneath it. “What’s in the rest of the boxes?” Olmstead asked her, pointing to a couple dozen more boxes that they hadn’t gotten to yet. “Those are files from cases I didn’t think fit,” Kincaid informed him, remembering the work it had taken to go through them all. He nodded, and eyed them thoughtfully. The personnel files had arrived in the late afternoon, and were sitting unopened on the desk. “Let’s order some pizza or something and get started on those files,” Kincaid suggested. “You start on them,” he replied. He walked over to the photo of the first victim, a young girl who was killed in 1992. “I want to review all these files.” She paused. “I showed you those last night. If we’re going down to Quantico tomorrow we need to study up on the analysts. It was your idea to get these files.” She waved one of the analyst’s files. He looked over at her. “You showed me the summaries of the files. I need to read the full files. We’ll go to Quantico when we’re ready. I’m not just here to hold your hand – we’re partners now. I need to know what you know, OK?” She pursed her lips, considering what he’d said. In fact, she had thought of him more as an official escort than a real partner. She had been at this so long on her own that she wasn’t used to being slowed down by anyone. Still, she liked that he wanted to be thorough. “Pepperoni and mushroom?” she asked, preparing to settle in for a long evening.

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They didn’t get to Quantico the next day either. It took him almost the full day to finish off the victims’ files, by which time Kincaid had gotten familiar with the analysts’ personnel files. It was an impressive group of people, on the whole, but no one had jumped out to her as a suspect, but she hadn’t expected anyone too. She had made copious notes and had tentatively ruled out about a third of the individuals due to their not having been in the positions when the earlier murders had happened. “You about done there, Olmstead?” she asked late in the day. “Yeah, just about. The Miller case, though – it doesn’t fit.” “What do you mean?” she asked. Benjamin Miller was the eighth victim she had identified, having been killed two years ago in a gruesome act of asphyxiation. He had been hogtied, with his arms and legs tightly bound behind him. As he tired he couldn’t hold his arms and legs up, so as they drifted slowly into a more natural position he couldn’t keep the cord around his neck from choking him. The coroner estimated that it took as many as six hours to finally die. The comparison of his case file with ViCAP file had revealed several crucial inconsistencies that seemed unlikely to be random errors or omissions. Nonetheless, Olmstead patiently explained his analysis of both the killing and its treatment in both the two files. They spent almost an hour arguing about it. Kincaid was a persistent and experienced debater, but she found Olmstead was a match, and she grudgingly began to be swayed by his analysis. “Shit,” she said at last. “I think you’re right.” She looked at the photo of Miller and sighed. “Well, Benjamin, I guess someone else will have to find your killer.” It saddened to her that all her efforts were, at best, a finger in the dike; too many killers were likely to get away with their acts. She started to take his photo down from the wall while she talked to Olmstead. “Now are you going to start on the personnel files? We can still get down to Quantico tomorrow.”

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A Long Line of Family “No, now I want to look through the other files.” His tone was very matter-of-fact. She stopped, holding Miller’s picture in her hand, and half-turned to him. “What do you mean?” He pointed to the unopened boxes. “I want to go through those. I told you, I need to catch up to everything you know.” She shook her head. “Those aren’t related to our guy. I ruled them out. There’s no point in going through those. You’re just wasting time.” He made a face, which might have been comical if she wasn’t so impatient. “Yeah, well, I bet you don’t know how to get to Quantico.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Besides, it’s my car. We’ll go when we’re ready, and I’m not ready yet.” She shook her head in frustration. “I’m going out for a walk.” Olmstead was already starting to open one of the remaining boxes. “Pick up some Chinese,” he suggested absently, without looking up.

Olmstead did, indeed, spend the rest of the evening and most of the following day reading through the files she had determined to not be connected. There were over a hundred of them, and had taken her a long time for her to identify the cases and accumulate the files. She had grown depressed at finding so many acts of casual and intense cruelty towards one’s fellow human beings, and frustrated that so many ended up not being on her list of ones she thought she might be able to do something about. The ten – now nine – she had identified were her hope to find some justice for the countless sufferings that had been inflicted.

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A Long Line of Family “I think these five should be on our list,” Olmstead told her when he had finished his review, handing the files to her. “You’re crazy,” she told him, annoyed he would think she would miss something he picked up on. So they spent several hours discussing the cases, and he gradually convinced her on four of the five murders. She didn’t admit it to him, but she was growing very impressed by his attention to detail and by his logical reasoning. Three of them centered on things she must have just missed, and the other two were ones she had been on the fence about but which he now convinced her fit the pattern well enough to be included in their scope. Without verbally conceding defeat she went about putting their photos on the wall, and Olmstead took the hint and starting adding new pins to the map. Kincaid studied their handiwork. “What now?” she asked. It was almost eleven on Saturday night. Other people their age were getting ready to go out, while they had exhausted themselves studying things no one should ever have to know about. He stretched and yawned. “I’m beat. I need some sleep. Then I’ll come back first thing tomorrow and you can fill me in on the personnel files. You’ve been taking lots of notes, so it should only take a few hours to finish them up. We should be done by early afternoon. You could go visit your friend up in Philly.” “We go to Quantico Monday morning?” she asked, feeling tired herself. They’d been putting in sixteen to eighteen hour days, and their war room was beginning to look like they had, indeed, been through a war. Olmstead was scrupulously neat, and the files he had gone through were sitting in neat piles. Still, there were lots of piles, and the files she had been going through were somewhat less neatly arrayed. They had refused to let the cleaning staff in the room – some of the photos were simply too startling for casual onlookers to see – and the room was beginning to take on the atmosphere any room does when two people have been shut in it too long. The remnants of their take out food and cups from Starbucks raids were piled on the kitchen cabinet, waiting for someone with more domestic orientation to take care of them.

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A Long Line of Family He nodded, and began to put his jacket on. She looked around the room, feeling a little claustrophobic. Despite her fatigue, she found herself a little reluctant to see him go. “How about we go out for a cup of coffee?”

Chapter 14 Joe picked Kincaid up at the suburban train station Sunday afternoon. She was looking around the station nervously, feeling out of place, when she spotted him standing near the wall, his arms crossed and a slightly amused smile on his face. He moved towards her once she’d seen him. “Detective Kincaid,” he greeted her in a formal tone of voice, nodding his head at her. She affected surprise. “My dear Mr. Russell, I think you can call me Ms. Juanita or ma’am.” “Yes, ma’am,” he replied meekly. He walked her to his car, a black Chevy Suburban. “What, did you take this off the feds?” she asked. The big SUV was a favorite of FBI, AFT and Secret Service teams everywhere for its ruggedness, size and power. He gave her a reproachful look. “I’ve got two kids and a car pool twice a week. In this neighborhood it’s this or a minivan, and I just couldn’t do the minivan.” They got in the Suburban and started off. “I saw you more as a BMW kind of guy,” Kincaid told him with a smirk. “Like James Bond.”

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A Long Line of Family “Yeah, right, you sure got me pegged,” Joe said without expression. They drove for a few minutes in silence. Kincaid took in the sights, feeling even more out of place by the moment. She was not eager to meet Russell’s family, to see him in his own world. This world was too complacent, too settled. The traffic was steady without being slow, and the area looked established and dense in a way that nothing out West seemed to really pull off. It wasn’t so much that everything was old – there was plenty of new development – as it was that space seemed to matter in a way that it didn’t out where she lived. “You must be making progress on the case,” Joe said, interrupting her reverie. She looked over at him, momentarily startled. “I don’t know. We’ve spent the last few days just getting on the same page.” She described how Olmstead had insisted on reading not just the files she had identified but also all the cases she had discarded. His eyebrows rose slightly when she told him Olmstead had talked her out of one of the cases she had been sure of but also convinced her to add several more to their investigation. He glanced at her thoughtfully. “Sounds like Olmstead is a bright guy.” Kincaid considered this. “Yeah, I suppose so. He told me he went to Cornell, which I guess is a pretty good school.” Joe laughed. “Yeah, kind of.” She reached over and punched him in the arm. “Shut-up. The thing is, I don’t know if he’s any good in the field. I’ll find out tomorrow when we go to Quantico.” “You like him?” Kincaid looked carefully at him, not sure if he meant as a partner, as a person, or as something altogether different. And she realized that she wasn’t quite sure that she knew how to answer any of those questions. She and Olmstead had been so busy focusing on the case that she hadn’t had time until now to step back and think about him as a human

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A Long Line of Family being. She’d been annoyed with him at first – he’d been so stubborn and thorough about prepping before he let her go rushing off to Quantico to start interviewing -- but in thinking about him now she had to admit that he’d handled himself well so far. He’d been handed an assignment that he could have shrugged off as a pain in the ass, babysitting a local. He hadn’t been condescending to her, hadn’t treated her as a junior partner. He’d read everything through thoroughly, obviously thought through each case carefully, and had listened to her ideas and analysis with an open mind. He’d been a complete professional. She’d seen flashes of a softer side of him as well – a genuine compassion for the victims and a not entirely professional obsession about finding the killer that was beginning to rival her own. And, she also had to admit, he was kind of good looking, in a wholesome sort of way, if one liked that sort of look. “We’ll have to see,” she told Joe at last.

Before she realized they were there, Joe pulled up in a driveway. The house was a two story Colonial, on a street of similarly sized houses but none of which looked alike. This was not a planned community; the houses dated from a time when each house was built one-by-one by different builders. At least one of them looked to be quite old, over a hundred years; possibly it was the original farmhouse for the farm that the development had been built on. The neighborhood seemed organic in some curious way. None of the families in it were the original inhabitants, Kincaid suspected, and none of them was likely to be the last. The houses just grew their inhabitants and gradually outgrew them as the families aged and started to disperse, patiently waiting for the new crop. It made Kincaid slightly uncomfortable. The thing was, she figured Joe Russell would have something bigger, or something more distinctive. Maybe a compound, maybe a townhouse in some rich neighborhood in Philadelphia or New York. It wasn’t that he had airs or seemed rich; it was more that she just had a hard time picturing him as just another guy in just another family in just another house in a neighborhood like this. This was too prosaic for how she imagined his life. She wanted there to be more mystery, or at least more glamour.

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Kincaid hesitated, and Joe noticed. “What?’ She looked down. “To be honest, I’m kind of nervous about meeting your family.” “Why?” “Well, I don’t really know your wife and I’m not that used to being around other people’s kids…” He gave her a stern stare. “Come on, what’s bothering you?” She shook her head, embarrassed to admit what she was thinking. “I don’t think your wife really wants me here.” “Why not?” “Look at this neighborhood – it’s all white, middle class, safe and all. I’m a black policewoman, investigating a serial killer. I don’t think your wife wants me bringing trouble.” He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Is that what you’re doing – bringing trouble?” She looked over at him, and had to laugh. “I certainly don’t mean to, Mr. Russell.” “I think Debbie can handle a little trouble. You’ll like her and she’ll like you – OK?” She regarded him skeptically. “OK.” She started to move, then stopped. Her voice took on a mocking tone. “Still, your neighbors may be not happy about seeing me come to your house. I don’t see a lot of persons of color around here. Good thing they don’t know I have a gun.”

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Joe looked at her. “Maybe they’ll think you’re my new cleaning lady.” She punched him again. They both unbuckled their seat belts and got out. She followed him up the sidewalk into the house. “Debbie,” he called out. “Kids. Our guest is here.” He moved towards the back of the house and she trailed in his wake, checking out in the rooms they passed along the way. The house matched its exterior – comfortable but not flamboyant. The furniture looked nice yet comfortable, there were lots of books but also strong evidence of the children through scattered toys and games. She caught a glance of a cozy entertainment center that had a nice wide-screen TV but no plasma screen or fancy sound system, and had a mental picture of them sitting around watching Disney videos. She had to shrug off the thought. They were met by Joe’s wife in the kitchen, which was spacious and modern. Juanita had seen her at the funeral for Joe’s brother two years ago, but they had never actually been introduced. Joe now remedied that. “Juanita, this is Debbie,” Joe introduced. “Debbie, Juanita.” The two women shook hands and exchanged the obligatory statements about how nice it was to meet. Kincaid was struck again by how beautiful she was. Not in a movie star kind of way, but her self-assurance and striking features would draw attention in any crowd. She’d had and was raising two children, all the while teaching at Princeton, yet she looked none the worse for wear. She could have passed for early twenties save for the mature look in her eye. She practically radiated intelligence, and Kincaid noticed how she and Joe seemed to be almost magnetically attracted to each other. They stood close and seemed to inch slightly closer each second they were near each other. Two balls of energy rushed in, and Joe reached out to corral them, putting his arms around their shoulders. “This is Doug, and this is Melissa. Kids, this is Ms. Kincaid.”

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“You’re the detective,” Doug gushed. Melissa peered at her shyly, hiding behind her mother. Kincaid smiled at them. “You can call me Juanita, please.” “Let’s go out on the patio and sit down,” Joe suggested. “Juanita, can I get you something to drink?” The children rushed off to continue their game in the backyard, which seemed to consist mostly of Melissa chasing Doug around unsuccessfully and screaming loudly the whole time. He purposely stayed a step ahead of her – just close enough to torment her with the hope of catching him, without actually giving her a real opportunity to do so. Joe brought Kincaid a light beer, as she had requested, while he had a bottle of MGD. Debbie, Kincaid noticed, was drinking what appeared to be water. Maybe it was vodka, Kincaid found herself hoping. She had to admit, though, that Debbie didn’t look much like a vodka drinker. Joe was dressed in faded chinos and an old polo shirt, while Debbie had on Capri pants with a sleeveless top that showed off her surprisingly strong shoulders. Kincaid was wearing the only pair of jeans she’d packed, with a long sleeved top that she thought she might regret later in the heat of the afternoon. They made small talk – mostly Kincaid saying nice things about their house or Joe telling her funny stories about the kids – until Joe announced it was time for him to start the grill. Debbie let Joe do most of the talking, chiming in periodically to add or correct Joe’s comments, while keeping an eye on the children. Kincaid was starting to feel comfortable about the whole situation but now grew nervous she would be stranded with Debbie alone. She somehow thought Debbie was no more interested in bonding time than she was.

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A Long Line of Family Joe took orders for everyone’s choice of meats – hot dogs for the kids, tuna for Debbie, chicken for Kincaid and a steak for himself -- and he ambled over to the grill to start it up. “I’ve got a few things to get ready in the kitchen,” Debbie announced. She stood up. “Can I help?” Kincaid didn’t really enjoy cooking nor do too much of it, but felt obligated to offer. “No, I’ve got things under control,” Debbie assured her. She looked over at Joe, then out at the children. “You could play with the kids if you want to.” Kincaid looked at Joe, who shrugged almost imperceptibly at her. She thought he was trying not to smile. She figured she could sit here by herself and look like a spoiled princess, go in and be a nuisance with Joe’s wife, or try to make a couple of small children like her. She sighed and stood up to go see what the kids were up to.

As it turned out, it wasn’t too hard to get Doug and Melissa to like her. After an initial period of uncertainty when they weren’t quite sure what to do with this new adult, she proved herself to be agile and adept, willing to throw herself into playing. They ended up shooting baskets, Kincaid using her high school basketball skills to defeat the two of them in an extremely handicapped game of HORSE. Before she knew it, Joe was yelling for them to get cleaned up for dinner. The two kids led off into the house, tugging on her hands and chattering excitedly with their new best friend. Dinner was informal, around the table on the patio. Debbie had complemented her husband’s grilling with several treats of her own – a salad, some fresh mixed vegetables, baked potatoes and rice, and some fries for the children. Conversation was animated, Doug and Melissa holding forth good-naturedly while they scarfed down their food. “So Juanita is a policeman,” Melissa informed everyone. “Policewoman, actually,” Joe corrected her.

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“Do you have a gun?” Doug asked suddenly, hands stopping midway between his plate and his mouth, the hot dog suspended in its bun in mid-flight. Kincaid tried to catch Joe’s eye, looking for a clue as to an appropriate answer, but he was avoiding looking back at her. “Well,” she said, “I do have a gun when I’m on duty.” She didn’t mention that she had one in her bag. “Have you ever shot anyone?” Doug pressed, his hot dog forgotten. “No, I never had to,” Kincaid admitted. She caught the disappointment on their faces. “But I have arrested lots of bad guys.” Their faces grew excited again and Doug pleaded for details. “I don’t think we want to spoil Detective Kincaid’s dinner with all this talk of criminals,” Debbie interjected. “Please!” Doug and Melissa chorused in unison. “Kids, Detective Kincaid captured the men who killed Uncle Ian,” Joe told them. Instantly their faces grew serious, their eyes wide. Kincaid had noticed several pictures of their murdered uncle in the house, set among various other family photos. From some of the shots of Doug and Melissa with him, Ian must have been very popular with them, and Kincaid was glad to see that their memory of him had apparently not diminished. Two years was a long time at their age; she knew Joe and Debbie must work to keep his memory alive. They looked at Kincaid in something akin to awe. Kincaid felt guilty, knowing that her role was at best peripheral to the justice that had been dealt out. She glanced over at Joe, who had paused his eating, then turned her attention back at the two children wanting to give credit where credit was due. “Your dad was the real hero,” she told them. He was --”

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“Just helping out,” Joe interrupted. He and Debbie exchanged a quick glance that made Kincaid wonder exactly what Joe had told her about his exact role in the whole affair had been. “No big deal.” He resumed eating, but Kincaid got the message. Debbie subtly elicited Kincaid’s history, learning that she’d grown up on the south side of Chicago before moving out west with her family when her father went to work for a telecommunications company. Somehow it came out that one of the activities she had learned to enjoy was skiing, which drew the children’s rap attention. “We went skiing once with Uncle Ian,” Doug told her excitedly. “It was so cool!” “Well, you’d have to call it more sledding than skiing,” Joe said. “We thought we’d end up with them while Ian was on the expert slopes – he was a pretty good skier – but he spent both days with them, had a great time.” He glanced at the children, and let a wistful smile escape. “They had a pretty good time too.” “Can we come ski with you?” Melissa asked, pausing from her meal and giving Kincaid a look of extreme seriousness. Kincaid looked at Joe and Debbie looking for clues as to how to respond. Debbie’s face was neutral, but Joe offered a tiny shrug that suggested it was up to her. She flashed a confident smile. “Well, sure, honey. Next winter you and your folks come to visit and we’ll go skiing.” Kincaid tried to shift the subject, and started to ask Debbie a few questions about her life, which required some of her more subtle interrogation skills. It wasn’t that Debbie was unfriendly; not at all. Debbie was just reserved. Kincaid did learn that her father had been a high-ranking member of the Thai embassy in Washington in the late sixties, while her mother was a pioneer woman in the upper levels of the U.S. State Department. They’d met at a function at the Italian embassy, hit it off quickly, and fallen in love over the course of several dates. Debbie reminded Kincaid that the sixties were a more

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A Long Line of Family impetuous time, implying that things had gone rather faster than they might a few years later – and not at all a few years earlier. Debbie had gotten her undergraduate degree at Northwestern, her Ph.D. in international affairs at Georgetown, and had been teaching at Princeton for several years now. Kincaid asked how she and Joe met, and caught the warm glance the two of them shared. Doug and Melissa, on the other hand, were both bored and done eating, so were sitting idly playing with the remains of their supper. “It was at the War College,” Joe explained. “She was doing a guest lecture and this young lieutenant kept asking her these really tough questions. I was just trying to get her attention.” “That you did,” Debbie told him. “I was about ready to smack you, then I started to think about what good questions they were. So after the lecture he came over and offered to buy me a cup of coffee to finish our discussion – well, who could resist this big lug?” She nudged him playfully. Mostly, though, Kincaid felt that Debbie was watching her. There was her hostess side, polite and friendly, and there was her wife and mother side, warm and giving -- then there was this whole other side that Kincaid could only speculate at, a side that had not made up its mind about whether Kincaid represented trouble or not. Joe seemed different than she expected as well. It was almost jarring to see how well he fit into this cozy home life, so distinct from the world she’d met him in. Still, even here she could see the quiet confidence he had about everything. If a knock on the door suddenly occurred, she sensed that he’d be equally prepared to respond appropriately whether it was a neighbor stopping by or a homicidal manic out to kill his family. He seemed like he’d be hard to surprise and harder to rattle.

After a delicious dessert of what appeared to be homemade pie, along with some ice cream, Kincaid was sorry to tell them that she had a train to catch. She was enjoying sitting out in the warm twilight air. She had expected the children to rush off as quickly

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A Long Line of Family as they could, to go watch television or play video games or whatever children did, but they remained at the table even once their plates were cleared, peppering her with questions about all manor of topics – from how she became a policeman to the tallest mountain she’d ever been on, if she’d ever been scared, and so on. She found them endearing -- bright and friendly, just good kids. There weren’t as many stars visible as she was used to but the steady sounds of suburbia were novel and kind of intriguing. Most of all, she liked sitting here among this obviously close family, bound by ties so strong that she was envious. The four of them talked about the next few days, with the myriad of upcoming activities and scheduled to be coordinated. This was familiar territory for them. Kincaid could tell that Doug and Melissa were used to doing lots of activities with lots of different groups of friends, sometimes with their parents present and sometimes without. Yet she sensed that they never had reason to doubt that Joe and Debbie would be there when they needed or wanted them, that home and family were physical presences to them. Her own parents were separated and she was an only child, so she only witnessed scenes like this as a bystander. She usually thought of herself as not being tied down, but at the moment the ties that bind did not seem to bind too painfully. “It’s time for the kids to start getting ready for school tomorrow anyway,” Joe said. “Say good night, kids, before I drive Detective Kincaid back to the train station.” Doug and Melissa protested both her departure – citing the need for a basketball rematch or a chance to beat her at one of their video games – and at being forced to start studying so soon, but Joe and Debbie were firm. Both children gave her big hugs as they said goodbye, although she thought Doug initially seemed uncertain as to if he should be caught hugging a girl. Debbie shook her hand. “It was nice meeting you,” she said. “Nice to put a face to the name.” She smiled warmly and looked Kincaid directly in the eye, gauging her in some way that Kincaid wasn’t sure of.

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid couldn’t help but wonder what Joe had told her, but smiled and returned the firm handshake. “Same here.” She paused for a moment. Joe was out the door already, and the kids had taken the occasion to run out in the yard. She and Debbie were alone. “You have a great family,” she offered. “You know I would never do anything to put Joe or any of you in danger.” They were still holding hands and at that moment mutually stopped shaking them. Debbie studied her with those piercing eyes. “I’m sure you would never mean to,” she allowed, withdrawing her hand. She paused and Kincaid hoped for a moment that they had made their peace. Then Debbie added, “Still, trouble finds you when it’s time, don’t you think?” Kincaid had no reply to that. She nodded meekly and went to meet Joe at the car.

The car ride back to the train station seemed shorter than the one out, and when they got there it was several minutes before the train was due. Joe turned off the car but made no move to help her leave. “You don’t have to wait,” Kincaid told him. “I don’t mind.” They sat for a couple of seconds. It didn’t look like many other riders would be joining her on the long ride back to Washington. “I really liked your family,” Kincaid informed him softly. “Your kids are great, and I really like your wife. She’s really smart.” “Thanks. They liked you too.” “Even your wife?” Kincaid said, partly teasing but also partly uncertain. “I kind of wondered what you’d told her about me.” She paused for a second and looked away. “About what happened with your brother.”

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A Long Line of Family Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Joe’s face soften in sadness. “She knows enough. Maybe not everything, but enough.” “Is she worried about what I’m doing here?” Kincaid asked, turning her head to look at Joe. He smiled coyly. “Not as long as you’re in Washington and I’m here. She might be more worried if she thought you were going to want me to help you.” “Was she pissed when you had to come rescue me?” Joe had to laugh at that. “Ahh -- pissed, no. Let’s just say her interest level in what you were involved with spiked when I had to go down there, and she was pretty relieved that I came back so quickly.” Kincaid laughed for a moment, then grew serious. “You know I wouldn’t do anything to put you or your family in danger, Joe.” He looked at her solemnly. “I know.” “I told that to your wife. She told me trouble finds you when it’s ready.” Kincaid made a face. Joe laughed. “Yeah, sounds like something she’d say. Don’t worry about it -- she’s cool.” In the distance they heard a train whistle, then the muffled track announcement. They both looked away. “I guess that’s my train,” Kincaid admitted. Although she had been reluctant to come here, she was now even more reluctant to leave. “Yep. So tomorrow you’re back at it.”

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Kincaid’s mind had never fully left the case, just as it had not for the past year, and as much as she’d enjoyed this repast her mind was already starting to plan ahead to what had to be done over the next few days. This was the hunt she lived for; she was going to catch this damn bastard. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s not going to be easy.” Joe was silent for a few seconds, and Kincaid wondered if he was, in some strange way, sorry he wasn’t joining her. “You’ve got two big advantages in catching this guy,” he said at last, choosing his words carefully. “What’s that?” Kincaid asked, hurriedly thinking through any potential leads that he might have caught in glancing at the case files. She’d studied them intensively for months and was very impressed with how well the killer had covered his tracks to date, but she didn’t discount that Joe might have seen something she had missed. “Well, obviously, he had to have some way inside the Bureau. It’s possible he hacked his way in from the outside but the people I’ve talked to about don’t think that’s likely.” It did not escape Kincaid’s attention that not only had Joe been thinking about her case, but he’d also been talking to some of his mysterious friends about it. “There’s lots of ways he could have gotten inside,” she noted. “Yeah, well, that’s the drudge work you’ve got to do. Still, you don’t think he’s going to make it too easy, do you? I’m guessing this guy has planned way ahead, and you better be watching out for some dead-ends and misdirection.” She wrinkled her brow at him. “It was a million to one chance someone would pick up on those files. I’m hoping he was counting on staying hidden that way but once he cracked that there are some mistakes we can use to nail him.”

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A Long Line of Family “It was a brilliant piece of work and dedication on your part, Detective Kincaid,” Joe said gently. “I just don’t think he’s likely to have done such a good job hiding without preparing for the day someone like you comes along. So if you get really lucky, be sure to ask yourself if it’s really luck or good detective work – or something he wanted you to find.” The train was in sight now, and Kincaid put her hand on the doorknob. “What the other advantage?” They were both watching the train pull in, knowing it was almost time for her to go. “The killings took place in a lot of different places, over a long period of time.” “That’s an advantage?” Kincaid said dubiously. “That just made it harder to find the guy.” Joe shook his head. “It is an advantage – not too many people were in all those places at the right time. It’s hard to travel all those places without using a credit card or an ATM or showing ID – something. All you have to do is look for the common thread.” The train was now in the station. Kincaid looked at Joe, wishing now there was more time and wishing even more that Joe was, indeed, coming back with her. As impressed as she was with Olmstead, he wasn’t Joe Russell. She sighed. “Hey, thanks for dinner.” Without thinking about it or planning it, she suddenly leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek, then rushed out to catch her train. She didn’t look back, but once seated on the train she looked out the window. He was still sitting in the car.

Chapter 15

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead picked Kincaid up outside her hotel a few minutes before seven the next morning. She was ready, carrying her case summaries and an overnight bag. They had not discussed staying over in Quantico but she figured it might end up that way, given the amount of interviews they had to do. She threw her stuff in the backseat and got in the front seat of his car, a blue Ford Taurus, noting Olmstead had his own bag in the back seat. He handed her a cup of coffee, which she gratefully accepted, surprised at the gesture. Olmstead started the car and they headed off. Initially they didn’t talk much, mostly random comments about the omnipresent heavy Washington traffic and sipping their coffees. Once they’d gotten fifteen or twenty miles south of D.C. the traffic thinned out and they started making better time. “What’d you do yesterday?” Kincaid asked, more making conversation than deeply curious. Olmstead glanced over at her briefly. “Oh, nothing too much. Worked out. Paid my bills. Cut the grass. You know, just normal boring house chores.” “Uh-huh,” she replied, thinking how long it had been since she’d had the luxury of doing such mundane activities. She was a long way from home and didn’t expect to be back anytime soon. Not until this was done. He looked over at her again, this time longer. “What about you? How was your visit to your buddy?” She gave him a dubious look, bothered by something in his tone. “It was fine. It was good. You know, I met his wife and kids and all, had dinner.” “I didn’t know he had a wife and kids,” Olmstead replied, mulling the concept over. “He didn’t seem the type.” “What does that mean?”

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A Long Line of Family He quickly glanced at her, embarrassed at what he said. “Oh, nothing. I didn’t mean anything by it.” “You must have meant something by it,” she said, at this point more teasing than annoyed. She knew very well what he meant. Joe must have seemed anything but a nice family man to Olmstead when he backed him down in the interrogation room. He raised one hand in surrender. “It’s nothing. Forget about it.” She let it drop, but smiled to herself at the impression Joe had made. They drove in silence for a few miles after that, then Kincaid suggested they discuss their plan of attack. It turned out that they both had pretty much the same idea. Many of the people on their list had not been there long enough to be suspects – some of them had still been teenagers when the killings started – so they wanted to start with the more junior personnel. That way they could get a better idea of how things really worked in the organization, so they could be on more equal footing when they started interviewing the more serious suspects. They had files on close to forty employees, and would interview all of them at least once, but that was just doing the work. They had each come up with a small list of people that they thought more likely suspects than others, and discovered that their lists more or less overlapped. They agreed they’d do the first few interviews together, to get into the rhythm, then split up for the second wave. The plan was to regroup and hit the ones on their lists together. “And we don’t tell anyone about how many discrepancies we’ve found, right?” Kincaid confirmed. “We’ll try to let each of them think we’re just talking about the case we talk to them about.”

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A Long Line of Family “We can try,” Olmstead agreed, yawning. “At some point word will get out but there’s no point tipping our hand until we have to.”

They arrived at Quantico sooner than Kincaid expected, and she was impressed by the beauty of the place – the buildings, the forested surroundings. “Brings back memories,” Olmstead told her as he looked around, or perhaps just talking aloud. She looked at him curiously. “You enjoyed the Academy?” He nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah. I mean, it was tough and all, but I came ready for it. I met a lot of people here, made some good friends, learned a lot.” He looked around and nodded again. “Good times.” Kincaid thought about his encounter with his partner and wondered if that had changed his opinion of the Bureau. That and her telling him that there was a serial killer working from inside it. It certainly made her more cynical, but, then again, she’d started out more cynical than it appeared that Olmstead was. He got them through security and drove to the main building. They made their way to the office of Deputy Director Paul Tepford. They were escorted in without delay. Kincaid guessed that Tepford was in his early fifties, with only the gray of his closely cropped hair betraying his age. That and the photographs and certificates that lined his wall, highlighting what appeared to be a long and impressive career. There were even several shots of him with celebrities who must have been through here doing research or even filming nearby. He was dressed casually, and his taut figure suggested he made good use of the training trails on the base. He looked more like an ex-Marine than an FBI bureaucrat. Kincaid introduced herself, but quickly found herself feeling left out as Tepford and Olmstead chatted briefly about some of the people they knew in common, mostly instructors from Olmstead’s Academy days. Tepford didn’t bother trying to bond

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A Long Line of Family with Kincaid, or even acknowledge her presence after the initial handshake, and she thought to herself, so that’s the way it is, eh? “So you want to interrogate my people,” Tepford said amiably after he and Olmstead had finished with the nostalgia trip. “I would say we’re looking for their cooperation, sir,” Kincaid replied. Tepford pretended she hadn’t spoken, looking out the window at his impressive view of the training grounds instead of making eye contact. She wondered if it was the fact of her being a woman, being black, or simply not being in the FBI that caused him to ignore her. The sad thing of it was, she was used to being discriminated against because of the first two factors, but here she was in the belly of the beast, as it were, when it came to the latter. She stared at Tepford defiantly, daring him to look back at her. “At this point we need to find out what’s what, sir,” Olmstead said. “We don’t have any suspects yet.” “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” Tepford asked, drawing his gaze back inside and looking at Olmstead. Olmstead looked over at Kincaid before replying, and she used that to insert herself back in the conversation. “What were you told?” He reluctantly looked at her, pursing his lips as though he was tasting something unpleasant. “Director Dobbs asked me to give you every cooperation. He didn’t tell me why. I was expecting that you would fill me in. Perhaps I can help.” “If we need your help we’ll let you know,” Kincaid said curtly. “Right now we want to talk to your people and we’re wasting time here.” She knew she was risking antagonizing him, but he’d pissed her off. She hadn’t intended to disclose their investigation anyway but the way he had ignored her earlier had really raised her hackles.

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A Long Line of Family He glared at her and she let it slip off her. He could always make things more difficult for them but she suspected he wasn’t going to risk it getting back to headquarters that he hadn’t been cooperative. “We have a list of people we’d like to talk to,” Olmstead offered, wanting to break the tension. He held out their list, and Tepford looked over at it with great interest. He started to reach out his hand for it. “Just point us to the CIRG staff,” Juanita said, stepping forward to cut off Olmstead’s gesture. CIRG was the Critical Incident Response Group, of which ViCAP was a part. “We’ll find everybody we need to.”

On the way over to the ViCAP staff they argued briefly about the way she’d handled Tepford. “You didn’t need to do that,” he told her. “You didn’t need to offer him our list,” she replied heatedly. “He couldn’t figure out why we’re here just from reading the list. He knows we’re going to ViCAP anyway, and he’s going to hear who we talk to.” She stopped short and stared at him. “Yeah, well, at least he won’t hear it from us.” “You got a problem?” “Yeah, I got a problem,” Kincaid said, her voice calm and controlled. “I need you to decide right here, right now – are you on my side or on the FBI’s side on this?” His face clouded in confusion. “For God’s sake, Kincaid, what the hell are you talking about? I work for the FBI. The FBI is giving you its official permission to investigate your case. Tepford’s in charge of Quantico, and he’s not even on our list of people with the right system access, so I kind of think it would have OK to let him in on why we’re

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A Long Line of Family swimming in his pool. You didn’t have to piss in it. Jesus, are you going to suspect everyone in the Bureau? That’s crazy. We’re not the enemy.” Kincaid was not mollified. She poked him in the chest. “Listen to me, Mister Special Agent. Until I know better, I don’t trust anyone in the Bureau except you, and I’m having my doubts about you. Now are you coming with me or not?” She started down the hall, not waiting for him. He didn’t know it, but she was holding her breath to see what he would do, and she was scared she’d pushed him too far, that his loyalties belonged to the organization, not to pursing her idea of justice. They’d spent several days together getting ready for their investigation, and she felt that he had started to grow as outraged and appalled by the carnage this killer had inflicted as she had. She believed he wanted the killer apprehended and was eager to help. Still, he had a career to consider, and that career was with the FBI, not with this case. She had been willing to risk her own career over the investigation, but she was not yet sure that he had come to the same level of commitment. She was relieved when he heard him curse under his breath and move to catch up with her.

Chapter 16 The ViCAP analysts were grouped in a sea of cubicles and a murmuring of noise that was diffused enough to not be distracting. The cubes were spacious and afforded a sense of privacy. The analysts apparently did most of their work on their computers, but each cubicle had no shortage of papers on the wraparound desktops or in the overhead files. Kincaid spotted an array of personalized touches – a calendar here, family photos there, phone lists – in the workspaces, with an occasional grim reminder of the work that was done here. She had the sense that this office had a bunch of serious people doing a very

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A Long Line of Family serious job, and the flashes of humor were morbid ones that perhaps made it more bearable. Sheryl Robinson was the first ViCAP analyst they found. Robinson was in her midtwenties, with a cute face but a body that was already somewhat cubby and that probably wasn’t helped by her desk job here. Kincaid thought that she was probably the kind of girl who probably wore belly shirts a few years too long, either not realizing or not caring that it wasn’t the best way for her to maximize her attractiveness. Robinson was working at her cubicle, hunched over her keyboard and playing unconsciously with her hair. She had numerous papers spread out on either side of her, and Juanita could see there were several windows open on her computer. “Sheryl Robinson?” Kincaid asked. She looked up with a distracted expression that quickly changed to concern. “Yes?” “I’m Special Agent Olmstead and this is Detective Kincaid,” Olmstead said formally. “We were hoping we could ask you a few questions.” Her eyes widened. “They told us you’d be coming. I mean, not you specifically, but that someone would be coming. Sure, ask away.” Olmstead looked around. “We were hoping we could go somewhere more private.” Although the cubicles were well insulated, they were not sound proofed, and their presence there had already garnered some surreptitious attention by the people sitting nearby. Robinson thought for moment. “Well, there’s a conference room we can use.” “Lead on,” Kincaid said. Robinson turned back to her computer and locked it, then scooped the various papers into a file that went into a drawer, which she also locked. Kincaid had to give her points for her attention to security protocols, which just gave her more questions.

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A Long Line of Family They led her to a nearby conference room. Robinson and Kincaid both sat down at the table, while Olmstead remained standing, leaning against the wall where he could watch the conversation. Kincaid slid a case file over to her. “Recognize this case?” Robinson opened the file and quickly flipped through it, her face grimacing as she read through it. “Yeah, I remember this one,” she said after a few pages. “It was a bad one.” The case was a middle-aged man from a small town in southern Kentucky. He had died an agonizing death, as a winch pulled out his intestines one inch at a time, each breath triggering the winch to pull another inch. The coroner reported that he had probably been awake and aware for the initial incision into his abdomen as well as for most of the several hours it took him to die. The killer apparently had sat in a chair and watched him do so. He left the winch and the associated apparatus behind when he left, although none of it had led to any useful clues. Robinson looked up at them with renewed interest. “Are you guys on the case? Is there a new lead? I kept checking to see how many hits the profile got and I’m always disappointed there weren’t any.” “What was your assessment of the killer?” Kincaid asked, ignoring the question for the moment. Robinson stared at Kincaid for a few second, shifted her look to Olmstead for a moment, and looked back at Kincaid, her brow furrowing in confusion. “My assessment? It’s all in my profile.” “Humor us,” Olmstead said dryly. “Oh, I was pretty sure right away this was a serial killer,” she said confidently. “Even before the investigators ruled out that the guy owed money or was involved in drugs or anything else illegal.”

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“Why did you think that?” Kincaid asked. Robinson’s faced showed more confusion, and she looked up at Olmstead for help. She looked like a young girl being questioned by policemen, not an FBI employee talking to colleagues. “Please, just bear with us,” he told her gently. “Just tell us what you thought.” Robinson shrugged, and looked down at the file to gather her thoughts. When she looked up her demeanor was professional again. “This wasn’t the first time the killer had killed someone. He’d done it before, and he liked it. He liked not just the killing but having the victim know he was dying and not be able to do anything about it. Hell, he made it so that the victim was essentially killing himself.” She took a deep breath and looked at each of them directly. “He’d done it before, and he was going to do it again.” The room was silent for a moment. Robinson took the occasion to study each of them closely. “So is that it?” she asked. “Has he done it again?” Kincaid shoved her printout of the ViCAP profile over to her. “Take a look at this.” Robinson knew what it was and started scanning it quickly. Her face soon showed her confusion and she slowed in her reading, her eyes reading and rereading the same sections several times. Finally she looked up. “I don’t get it. What is this?” “We thought maybe you could tell us,” Kincaid said. The profile reported the particulars of the murder, but said nothing about Robinson’s opinions about a serial killer being involved. It also omitted some of the key words that might connect it to similar killings in ViCAP searches. Reading this profile, one would suspect the murder was part of a family or neighbor feud, perhaps revenge for infidelity or some imagined slight.

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“This is not the profile I filed,” Robinson told them emphatically. “This is the profile on file,” Olmstead told her. She stared at him incredulously, her mouth open. “I don’t believe you,” she said at last. “Check it out,” Kincaid offered, pointing to a terminal at the far end of the conference room. Robinson looked at her suspiciously for a second, as though it might be some kind of trick, then got up and seated herself at the terminal. She quickly logged in and rapidly pulled up the profile. Her faced drained as she read through it. Kincaid had been concerned that the file might have been altered back to its original state already, but from the expression on Robinson’s face she saw that her worries were not justified – yet. Robinson sat in silence for several long seconds. Finally she reluctantly turned to them. “What’s going on?” she asked plaintively. “That’s what we would like to know,” Kincaid told her gravely.

They spent almost two hours with Robinson. They had her walk them through everything she could remember about this case – when she got it, how she got it, who else had been involved with it, anyone who had asked her about it at any point in the months since she had filed her profile. Then they asked her more general questions about her unit, from how work was assigned to the quality review processes and follow-ups on profiles analysts submitted. They particularly grilled her on who had the ability to edit profiles. “Well, my supervisor, of course, plus my QA reviewer, but there would be a record of any changes they made.” Her face brightened. “Did you check the edit history?” Before Kincaid could answer she turned and quickly typed at the keyboard, clearly hoping for

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A Long Line of Family some obvious answer they might have overlooked. In fact, Kincaid had already thought of this, and had a printout of the history in her file. It showed what Robinson now found: no one other than her had apparently changed the profile. “I don’t get it,” Robinson said almost to herself. “I know this isn’t what I submitted, but it doesn’t show that. It looks like this is my report.” She looked over at them, her face flushed in anger. “It isn’t fair!” “It’s not fair,” Olmstead agreed sympathetically. “But it is. You have to keep in mind – this isn’t about you.” He stepped over to the table, and tapped on the file she had been looking at. “It’s about him.” Robinson looked crestfallen. She had been so outraged at how someone was making her look incompetent that she had forgotten that this someone was a serial killer covering up his tracks. “You’re right, of course.” She shook her head, then her eyes widened as she realized something. “Hey, you don’t suspect me, do you? I’ve never even been to Kentucky!” “We haven’t ruled anyone out at this point,” Kincaid told her, not wanting to let her know she was off the hook. She needed every bit of cooperation she could get out of her. “What else can you tell us?” Olmstead asked. “Anyone who would might want to set you up? Anyone who would have had a way to pretend they were you on the computer?” Robinson thought hard. “I honestly can’t think of who might want to frame me,” she told them slowly. Her face brightened. “But I know who I’d ask about how someone might do it.” “Who’s that?” “Mark Kiakowski,” she said. “He’s one of the techs. I always call him when something goes wrong with my system. Maybe he could help us.”

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead and Kincaid exchanged glances. Kiakowski was on their list of people to interview, and he fell into the same category as Robinson; he simply hadn’t been there long enough to be a likely suspect. “Call him,” Kincaid suggested. Robinson grew animated, seeing a way she could prove she was innocent. She reached for the phone, dialing the number from memory. “Mark? It’s Sheryl. Hey, I’m in conference room A1. Can you come here and help me with something?” It took Kiakowski less than five minutes to appear in the conference room; either he hadn’t been busy or he made Robinson’s calls a priority. He was a gawky young man about Robinson’s age, and his face betrayed his eagerness to see her when he entered the room. It quickly clouded over when he saw Sheryl had company. “Who are they?” he asked Robinson. Olmstead introduced himself and Kincaid, which just made Kiakowski more confused. Robinson quickly brought him up to date on what was going on, his face growing more and more incredulous as she described the variance in the profiles. “You must be wrong,” he said when she finished. He looked at Olmstead and Kincaid. “This is some sort of test, right? You guys are seeing if I’ll fall for it or something?” “I’m afraid not,” Kincaid told him gravely. He nodded his head unconsciously, then looked over at Sheryl. “Let me see the computer,” he said. She got up and he sat down in front of it, attacking it with a flourish of keystrokes that displayed his easy command of the system. He pulled up a screen, paused, then hit the keyboard with another series of rapid inputs that none of them could follow. He stared at the screen in puzzlement. “I don’t get it,” he confessed. “The only one it shows associated with the profile is Sheryl.” He turned to her. “You’re sure this isn’t the profile you put in? Like maybe you’re confusing another case with this one?”

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A Long Line of Family “It’s not the kind of case you forget, Mark,” she told him. He nodded apologetically as he remembered that her work was directly in touch with the cruelty of humanity, whereas it was all just bits and bytes to him. “How could someone change my profile without leaving a trace?” He continued to nod, but this time he seemed distracted, as he started to mull over the possibilities. “Well, maybe you left your workstation without locking it up. People do that all the time.” “I never do that,” she said firmly. “And no one knows my password.” “Can someone log-in as someone else, like if they have administrator rights?” Olmstead asked. Kiakowski looked at him. “They could, but it’d be tracked. Plus there would be a date stamp on their changes anyway. I looked for both of those and didn’t see anything.” “How else would they do it?” Kincaid asked. Kiakowski rubbed his hands together. He turned and stared at the screen intently. “I don’t know,” he confessed almost angrily. “You’d have to get to the root database and change the tracking logic. I guess it could be done.” He continued to stare at the screen, now fully absorbed by a train of thought that involved a technical language that none of the rest of them could – or really wanted to -- follow. Olmstead and Kincaid exchanged what-now looks, while Sheryl watched Kiakowski sympathetically. “Let’s try this a different way,” Kincaid suggested at last. “Who do you know that could do something like…what you were saying he’d have to have done?”

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A Long Line of Family It took a moment or two for her question to get to Kiakowski, and another moment or two for him to consider it. “There’s a couple guys I know, maybe,” he concluded. He then quickly added, “not that I think they would, mind you.” “Give us their names,” Kincaid requested.

Chapter 17 Henderson went through the bright grocery store distractedly. His refrigerator and cupboard were almost bare, and he reluctantly had decided to stop here on the way home from the office. The store was brightly lit, with wide aisles jammed full of more varieties of more brands of more kinds of food than he could ever try, even if he wanted to. There were plenty of shoppers in the store, but the crowd was so spread out that it seemed in each aisle there were usually only one or two other shoppers with him at any one time. Often it was a mother with a young child or two in tow, the children invariably squirming, chattering incessantly and basically doing everything he or she could to elude or attract the mother’s attention. Sometimes it would be a couple, either young or old, and it made him yearn for the early days of his own marriage, when grocery store excursions where one of the few outings they could afford. Even then they had to scrimp on peanut butter and canned foods to afford the trip, before their careers gained enough steam to move up to fresh meats and vegetables and to eating out once or twice a week. Henderson didn’t really want to think about those days, since he was unable to do so without wondering how he had gotten so far from them, but it certainly was preferable to thinking about the day he’d just had. Walter Henderson was worried. Word had quickly spread throughout Quantico about the unusual mission that Detective Kincaid and Special Agent Olmstead were on, despite their admonitions to all their interviewees that they keep the topic quiet. Even when they refused to disclose what they

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A Long Line of Family had been questioned about – which they usually did – the ViCAP analysts were a bright and observant bunch, and no one could hide that the two strangers were, indeed, questioning members of the team. The buzz began early in the day, and by the end of the day had been widespread enough to reach Henderson. He only needed to catch one glimpse of Kincaid to confirm his worst fear, that it was the same woman who had been pestering people at the conference. The favor he’d called in to discourage her had obviously failed; how or why, he didn’t know. They would come for him at some point, he thought as he paid for his small pile of food. The cashier, a young girl not even out of high school, barely registered him, continuing her conversation with the cashier at the next register. She had multi-colored hair and several visible piercings, and was on her way to being an overweight adult. In the meantime, she could pause at being stocky, and hope that an aggressive attitude and a generous display of cleavage would be enough to get some attention from whatever gender she was trying to get noticed by. He was obviously out of her target age and thus irrelevant to her as a person; he was just a source of cash. The cashier paused in her recount to the cashier at the next station of what had apparently been another damn boring day at school to tell him his total, and stuck her hand out impatiently while he got his wallet out to pay. As soon as he had paid her she resumed her conversation and dismissed him from her world. Henderson walked to his car feeling as invisible as he evidently appeared to the cashier. No one else showed any more interest in him; at least the cashier had spoken to him, if only to tell him how much he owed. He liked work better; there people had to talk to him and he could enjoy a sense of belonging. He could make contributions. People would listen to him, even laugh at his jokes at times. There he was someone. Out here in the world he was all alone, with his memories of what had been and his concerns about what he was become, or was becoming.

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A Long Line of Family He sighed, and unlocked his car. He put the two plastic bags in the back seat, then opened the front door and got in. He turned on the engine and paused for a moment. The door of the grocery looked so inviting. It was bright and warm against the twilight of the outdoors, and the stream of people coming and going all seemed so mundane, in the best sense of the word. Their lives weren’t weighed down by secrets or the kinds of dark worries that occupied his own thoughts. He wished he could trade lives. They would come for him. They would come and ask him questions. What kinds of questions, he was not quite sure. He was even less sure what kind of answers he had for them or what kinds of answers he would be willing to give them. In his job he had to probe the psyche of some very troubling people. He was less willing to do the same for himself. How he had gotten mixed up in all this was something that he should spend significant time on with a therapist, but he knew he could never do that. For better or worse, he would have to hide it for as long as he could. “Hello, Walter.” It seemed to him that he heard the words before he heard the sound of the passenger door opening or saw her slip in. She just was suddenly, as if she magically appeared. He knew that wasn’t possible, but a small part of him didn’t quite dismiss the possibility. He could not avoid the slight gasp that escaped from his lips, and he thought he detected a sign of satisfaction on her face at the sound of it. “What are you doing here?” he stammered. “Why do you think I’m here, Walter?” Her voice was cool and condescending. “I don’t know,” he replied, hoping she could not read the panic that was creeping over him. He could feel the sweat starting to ooze out under his arms, and knew that soon it would start to bead on his forehead. He tried to force himself to appear calm.

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A Long Line of Family “Walter, Walter,” she said with a tone that was simultaneously disappointed and amused. “Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about it?” “Hear about what?” She studied him for a long second, then leaned over and slapped him across the face. It stung more than it hurt, yet tears formed in his eyes. He knew he would not be able to resist her. “Tell me,” she requested softly. “They’re asking questions,” he admitted. “That’s better,” she said, leaning back to her original position. “Now, tell me -- who is asking what kind of questions?” In a rush, he blabbered all that he knew, which was not very much. Yes, there were two investigators making their way through the CSRG asking questions. No, he didn’t know exactly what kinds of questions. No, they hadn’t talked to him yet. And, yes – this he revealed only most reluctantly – one of them was the same woman who had been asking questions before. Her face was impassive throughout his recital, until the latter admission. She clucked and shook her head. “Walter, Walter. Wasn’t this the detective that you were going to discourage? It doesn’t appear as though you were very successful.” She stared at him until he responded sheepishly. “No, it doesn’t.” “And she is now doing it with the evident approval of the FBI,” she continued, no longer watching him. She stared out of the car. It was as though she were thinking aloud, speculating what this might mean in a stream of consciousness. She paused, nodding slightly.

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A Long Line of Family “What are they looking for?” Henderson asked, his fear of being questioned outweighing his fear of her for the moment. She looked over at him, her brow wrinkling in irritation that he had spoken or perhaps in surprise at his still being there at all. She searched his face, looking for signs that he was smarter than he felt at the moment. Then she smiled, coldly. “Walter, they’re asking about the profiles I altered.” He was dumbfounded. “Altered? What do you mean?” She made a clucking noise at him. “You know perfectly well what I mean. You let me in. You gave me access to the system.” He shook his head vigorously. “No, no, no. You said you were just going to look at them. You just wanted to see them.” That was what she had told him that first time. He’d known her for only a few weeks at that point, a month during which he had completely fallen under her spell. He had already become afraid of her, knowing even then he should break it off, not see her any longer, but he had been unable to resist her when she showed up uninvited and unannounced at odd hours. She made him do things that he did not like to think about when she was not around, things that he was powerless to resist doing the next time she deigned to see him. He was then still under the impression that it was not too late, that he could still stop. He thought his life could go back to what it had been, and a large part of him had wished that it would. The small dark part of him kept letting her stay. And then she asked him to show her some ViCAP profiles. He did not find this so surprising, curiously enough. He thought he knew the kinds she would want to see, thought she was looking for a vicarious thrill of reading the terribly disturbing things humans can do to each other that ViCAP specialized in. So he snuck her in the office one Sunday, let her have access to a computer, and let her browse. It gave him a sense of

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A Long Line of Family power that he otherwise lacked in their relationship, but as time went by it was clear that it was yet another example of her power over him. She smiled brashly at him, terribly amused at his stupidity. “You said you were just looking,” he whispered at last, stunned by her statement. She laughed, a cruel sound of mockery that had no invitation for him to join in. It was directed at him, at his foolishness and naivety. “Walter,” she said, overcoming her laughter. “Walter, you knew it was more than that!” She was right, in a way. He honestly had no way of knowing what she had done with the files, but if there ever had been any doubt in his mind that she was a casual voyeur of depravity, that doubt had been fully erased one night a few months later in San Francisco. He had been there visiting the field office, and she showed up at his hotel at two in the morning. He had, of course, been asleep when she started banging on his door, and she swept into the room fully charged while he was still trying to wake up. His being dressed in boxers and a t-shirt added to the disadvantage he felt, as she was fully dressed, in jeans and a long t-shirt under a dark windbreaker. “Let’s go, Henderson,” she had ordered him, like a drill sergeant rousing a sleepy recruit. Over his protests, she got him dressed and out the door, into a car. She refused to say more, driving for a half an hour to a quiet suburban house. Henderson had been curious and fearful at the same time, not able to imagine where she was taking him but already suspecting it was somewhere he did not want to go. She backed up the driveway of an otherwise nondescript ranch. The house was dark, as were the neighboring houses. All these innocent people sleeping in their beds, he had thought sadly, not knowing the wolf was outside their doors. The door of this house, though, was open. She had led him into the house. She moved fearlessly through the dark, while he had stumbled his way through the kitchen, past the dining room, and down the long hall to what he expected were the house’s bedrooms. There was a dim light at the end of the

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A Long Line of Family hall that led him towards it like a moth to the flame. She had paused in front of a partially ajar door, waiting for him to join her. The light was leaking out of it as if it was trying to escape the other kind of darkness that even then Henderson knew the room contained. With a wordless smirk, she had pushed open the door. The scene was tranquil with the important exception of the bed. He had tried to keep his eyes from going to the figure that was prone on the bed, but the impulse eventually overcame him and he was forced to look. It was the body of a young woman. She was, not surprisingly, naked. It should have been surprising, but in some twisted way it wasn’t, not even then, to discover that she was quite dead. She was lying in a pool of blood, and her torso appeared to…not be entirely intact. “Oh, my God,” he moaned, before bolting out of the room into the adjoining bathroom to vomit. “Oh, my God,” he had kept repeating over his gagging, as the memory of that sight refused to leave him. She had waited several minutes for him to regain some portion of his strength, leaning against the doorway with a satisfied expression on her face. “That’s enough, now, Walter,” she had said at last. “We have work to do.” He had looked up at her in shock. “Oh, my God,” he said again, this time more softly. “Please, let me just go. Please!” Of course, she hadn’t. She had forced him to help her wrap the body up in the bloody bedsheets, depositing the body into the trunk of the car. Then they had driven for several miles, until she found a secluded spot where she had him dump the body over the side of the road. He had been expecting that she would want to bury the body, but instead she had him just dump it in the drainage ditch, where it would most likely be discovered in the morning. He didn’t understand why.

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A Long Line of Family She had driven him back to the hotel and dropped him off without another word, but this had just been the start. Since then, she had made similar appearances, with similar outcomes. It didn’t matter if he was traveling on business or pleasure, or where in the country he was. He never knew when to expect her but came to know what to expect from her. The scenes grew more and more gruesome, and in recent years the victims had not always been completely dead by the time she summoned him. He had tried to reduce traveling, but a certain amount of it was necessary in his position, and in any event his efforts were of no avail. She had simply appeared at his house instead, and he knew that was far worse. She had turned him into his unwitting and unwilling accomplice, deadening both his soul and his hope of ever escaping her. Now this. He was in hell. He had been in hell since he’d met her, and he was going to be in hell as long as he knew her. Even if he killed himself – something he had considered periodically over the years – he would be going to hell, he felt quite sure. It was a concept he once thought was quaint and old-fashioned, but now one he believed in whole-heartedly. He snuck a glance over at her. She was a striking woman, no doubt, but nothing about her had hinted at the evil she represented. She could blend into the crowd if she so chose, and he suspected at a dinner party she was quite capable of pretending to be just another everyday person. He’d met her and hadn’t thought twice about her at first; he thought the S&M thing was just a charming idiosyncrasy, much as he used to fancy his own was. It had taken the incident with that first victim to make him realize how outside of the normal world’s comprehension she truly was. “Why did you do it?” he moaned. “What were you doing to the files?” She looked at him in surprise. “Why, Walter, it wouldn’t do to have them catch me too easily, would it? I wouldn’t want you smart FBI shrinks figuring me out and putting a stop to my little hobby.” “How many…”

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A Long Line of Family “You don’t really want to know, Walter,” she told him with absolute certainty. “Trust me. Now, I need you to find out what you can about these two – who they are, what they know.” That seemed implausibly dangerous to Henderson. How could he do that without attracting attention to himself? Then a more threatening thought occurred to him. “Did you do anything to any of my profiles?” She smiled at him, that calculating smile that was somehow full of menace, and reached over to pat his leg. “Walter, I didn’t alter any of your profiles,” she said playfully. “Silly boy.” The enormity of that hit Walter Henderson only after a momentary relief. “Did you leave anyone else’s profiles alone?” She seemed entirely pleased by this. “Well, of course, I can’t control how the cases get assigned, but, yes, pretty much everyone else is affected, except for a couple of the newer analysts.” She looked out the window and put her hand on the door handle, evidently ready to leave. He was so upset about the bombshell she had just dropped on him that, without thinking, he foolishly grabbed her arm. She couldn’t just leave him exposed like that. Still, touching her like that was a terrible mistake. Her head immediately snapped back at him, her face filled with such venom that he involuntarily drew back, terrified. “If I were you,” she hissed. “I would do my best to make the detectives suspect someone else.” With that she got out of the car and disappeared into the parking lot.

Chapter 18

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid and Olmstead worked steadily for the rest of the week, interviewing ViCAP staffers. They split up for some of the ones they viewed as more background interviews – people with neither the tenure nor the clearance to make them plausible suspects – but stayed together for the more critical interrogations. It didn’t take long for them to get into a rhythm, their styles complementing each other. Kincaid was more direct, more confrontational, while Kincaid was surprised to find that Olmstead had a very smooth and effective style. He let them talk, got them to trust him, and found the right questions at the right time. Her opinion of him as an investigator went up several notches. They were interviewing one of the final people on their list. Holly Culpepper was in her mid-thirties, and had been with the FBI since earning her doctorate in psychology. They viewed her as a possible but not really viable suspect. For one thing, she was a woman, which made her statistically so improbable as a serial killer that the rest was almost irrelevant. The rest was the fact that she had been with the FBI merely weeks before the first killing that they knew of – she had not even been out of training – and had not even had clearance to ViCAP at that time, she was married, and her performance reports painted a picture of the model employee. Still, she had been at the conference Kincaid had attended, which made them doubly interested in talking to her. A secretary ushered Culpepper into the conference room where Kincaid and Olmstead were waiting, her file sitting in front of the seated Olmstead. By mutual agreement, Kincaid planned to let Olmstead take the lead, so she was leaning against the wall. She wasn’t aware of her foot tapping the floor. Neither moved to greet her as she walked in. Culpepper was trying to appear calm, but she was visibly nervous. Olmstead suggested she take a seat, and she sat across from him. “I’m Special Agent Olmstead and this is Detective Kincaid,” he informed her, nodding towards Kincaid.

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A Long Line of Family “I’ve seen you around,” she agreed, shifting her eyes nervously to Kincaid and then back to Olmstead. She dropped her gaze to the table. “So, Ms. Culpepper, I see you are a Tar Heel,” Olmstead said, looking at her file. “I got my Ph.D at UNC, yeah,” she cautiously agreed. She paused, then flashed a small smile. “I did kind of become a fan.” Olmstead allowed as he was a University of Kentucky fan, so UNC was not one of his favorite schools – although better than the hated Duke – and they bantered about basketball for a few minutes. Kincaid noticed how much more relaxed she seemed to become, even when Olmstead casually led her to telling him about how she came to work for the FBI. One of her professors consulted periodically for the Bureau, and she got involved in a profiling analysis as part of her dissertation. Her work had impressed the FBI liaison enough that she had a job offer before she had finished. “Enjoy the job?” Olmstead asked. He glanced quickly at Kincaid when Culpepper looked away to think of her response. “Yes, most days,” she allowed. She hesitated, and took a deep breath. “I mean, you see some weird shit, you know, but I feel like what I’m doing is important.” “And, from what I read, you’re pretty good at it too.” Olmstead tapped her file as evidence. Culpepper blushed slightly and thanked him. “So what have you heard about why we’re here, Holly?” he continued. She looked up at him, and couldn’t resist stealing a quick look at Kincaid as well. “Well,” she started uncomfortably. “I understand that there are some problems with some of our profiles.”

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead slid a file over to her. It was a savage murder case from seven years earlier. She read it quickly. “It sounds familiar,” she concurred after a quick review. “But I’m not sure. I see a lot of cases.” He slid a second file over towards her. ‘Take a look at this.” The second file was a printout of the profile she had entered into ViCAP at the time. It was substantially and inexplicably different than the original case file. She read it with a growing expression of dismay on her face. She was only half way through before she looked up. “This can’t be right. I would never have done this.” Without saying a word, he leaned over and pointed to her name on the form. She looked down, then put a hand to her mouth. “I don’t understand,” she stammered at last. “I was a lot newer then but I would have known better than this.” Olmstead explained that hers was not the only such incident, that there had been several similar anomalies with other analysts. He did not say which analysts or how many others, but leaned back. “So, Ms. Culpepper, you understand ViCAP fairly well. How can you explain these discrepancies?” She thought hard for a minute or two, then suggested that someone must be logging in and changing the original entries. Olmstead was ready for this; he pulled out the tracking log and showed it to her. It did not show any record of anyone altering her original entry. Her face crumbled. “I don’t understand,” she admitted, and began to sob. Olmstead let her cry for a few seconds, then pulled his chair closer to her. “Holly, Holly – we don’t understand either. We’re hoping you can help us. We need you to be sharp now. Don’t give up on me now.” His voice was quiet and curiously seductive, and Kincaid had to give him points for the smooth transition from interviewer to confidant. She looked up hopefully. “How can I help?”

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Olmstead reached out and took one of her hands. “Do you remember Detective Kincaid?” She seemed startled. “You, you introduced us earlier. And I’ve seen her around the office over the last few days.” “That’s right,” he said reassuringly. “But what I’m interested in is the first time you saw Detective Kincaid.” Culpepper wrinkled her brow in puzzlement at this. “I don’t know. I guess it was Monday or Tuesday.” Olmstead sat back, letting go of her hand and shaking his head in disappointment. She seemed surprised, having gotten used to him holding her hand. She didn’t know how to take his withdrawal, and was embarrassed that she had let him hold it for so long. She looked at him with concern. “Holly – I’m not talking about this week. I’m talking about last week, at the conference.” “The conference?” She sounded genuinely confused. “In D.C. You aren’t going to try to tell me you weren’t there, are you?” Olmstead shook his head, as if disappointed in her. Culpepper admitted to having attended the conference, but maintained she had not met or seen Kincaid, or heard anyone talking about her. Olmstead sighed nosily, and expressed his wonder at this, making it seem as though she was personally letting him down. From the expression on her face, he had the instinct that there was something she wasn’t telling him. He looked at her with sorrowful eyes until she couldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s not like that,” she said at last, her voice barely a whisper.

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A Long Line of Family He scooted his chair next to her, facing in opposite directions so that his mouth was near her ear. “What is it like, Holly?” he asked softly. She paused, then covered her face with her hands. She confessed that she had not attended the conference sessions; she had only gone to meet an old friend from graduate school. It turned out that this old friend was actually someone she had been carrying out a long distance affair with since that time, using professional conferences as the opportunity to hook up. Once she had admitted all this, she broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. Olmstead looked over at Kincaid, who raised her eyebrows. This wasn’t what they had been looking for, but neither was it the first admission of hanky-panky that had unexpectedly come out of the interviews. Kincaid shrugged at Olmstead, who turned his attention back to Culpepper. He told her that they’d have to have her lover’s name and have him verify her story. She clutched him arm frantically, telling him that word of her affair couldn’t get out, that it would ruin her marriage. “I’m pregnant,” she admitted in tears. “I told Peter that this was the last time, that I couldn’t keep carrying on. Not now that I’m going to be a mom.” He patted her arm reassuringly. “It doesn’t have to get out, Holly, not if you cooperate. Are you sure you didn’t hear anyone talking about Detective Kincaid at the conference?” Her eyes were full of pleading. “No.” Culpepper also reaffirmed that she had no idea how the profiles could have been hacked without leaving a track, and had no opinions about who could even do such a thing. She vowed to let them know if she had any ideas or heard anything unusual, and they let her go. She hurried off, giving them a worried look over her shoulder as she rushed away. “There she goes, a chastened woman,” Kincaid said wryly. “Do you believe her story?”

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A Long Line of Family “I do, yeah,” Olmstead told her. “But we’ll check out her friend just in case.” He looked at Kincaid, who was watching him with a bemused expression. “What?” She shook her head, not quite masking her smile. “Nothing.” Olmstead thought she was laughing at him, and his expression grew defensive. “What?” he repeated more gruffly. She laughed. “Well, you handled her pretty well. You weren’t that nice when you were interviewing me.” He paused before responding. “That was different,” he said, trying to shrug it off but blushing slightly. “I was trying to scare you, not trying to get you to tell me anything.” Kincaid nodded sagely. “Oh, is that what it was?” She patted him lightly on the shoulder and jauntily exited the conference room.

They wrapped up the rest of their interviews and headed back to D.C.

Chapter 19 Russell knew Cornwall’s routine, and picked his morning coffee stop at Starbucks to make his approach. Cornwall liked to start his workday at a Starbucks about halfway between his northern Virginia house and the Zapdata offices. He would order his latte, sit and read the morning papers, sometimes work on his laptop. He occasionally chatted with some of the other regulars, but generally kept to himself. That was typical of Cornwall’s life; he was no raging extrovert. It was only his success at Zapdata that gave him any external confidence at all. His dalliance with Ellie Kushkin was quite an anomaly, but Russell had seen Ellie and understood the appeal. Cornwall’s wife was

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A Long Line of Family cute, and they made a good couple, but Kushkin was a whole different kind of woman, the kind that Cornwall probably always pictured the cool guys getting. She was way out of his class in terms of looks and style. The fact that she was, essentially, a prostitute certainly would have colored that impression, but Cornwall wasn’t aware of that fact, despite his own paying for her apartment and various gifts of jewelry, even a car. He thought he was just being generous. Russell approached Cornwall’s table and slid into the chair across the table from him. Cornwall looked up from the paper in surprise. “Hi, George,” Russell said easily, as if they had known each other for years. The expression on Cornwall’s face was one of polite confusion. He clearly did not recognize Russell – and had no right to, since they had never met – but, given the circumstances, he was willing to give the stranger the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps this was someone he had met at an industry conference, or possibly one of his neighbors. He didn’t have a good memory for faces. Emily kept track of their acquaintances much better than he did. “I’m sorry,” he confessed after he concluded he wasn’t going to be able to dredge up a name. “I can’t remember your name.” “That’s not too surprising, since we’ve never met,” Russell told him, smiling cheerfully. “But I know all about you.” Cornwall’s face was transparently puzzled. “I don’t understand. How do you know me?” “You’ve been a bad boy, George,” Russell said, his voice mildly scolding. “I know what you’ve been up to.” Russell could see that Cornwall was ready to bolt. Cornwall wasn’t used to being confronted, and his fight-or-flight instinct only had one viable option. Cornwall tensed,

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A Long Line of Family glancing around the Starbucks, where no one was paying any attention to the two of them. To freeze him, Russell simply said, “General Power.” Now Cornwall’s eyes widened in terror, but he tried to bluff it out. “I, I, I don’t know what you mean. What about them? I don’t have anything to do with them.” He was not convincing in the least. “I know you’ve been selling Zapdata software to General Power. I know Tom Foster is the guy who talked you into doing it.” Russell leaned in closer and lowered his voice, causing Cornwall to unconsciously lean as well. “And I know about Ellie Kushkin.” “Ellie?” He seemed as though he was going to try to deny knowing her, but realized the futility of it. He adapted a bold tone. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this.” That was a sign of progress, Russell thought in satisfaction; he wasn’t trying to deny knowing Tom Foster or selling software to a competitor. He was more concerned about protecting his girlfriend than his career, not realizing that both were fruit of the same rotten tree. Russell sighed. “George, what does Ellie do for a living?” Cornwall stared at him in surprise. “Umm, she’s a consultant.” Russell patiently explained that she might be a consultant, but not in any field remotely like what Cornwall might imagine. Cornwall believed Kushkin lived in Chicago, traveled extensively doing image consulting for Fortune 500 clients, and that he had fortuitously met her at an airport bar. In fact, she worked for a very expensive escort service in New York and their meeting had been no accident. General Power was paying her a very handsome amount to make Cornwall believe that she liked him for himself, and that she even enjoyed the sex. Once she’d lured him in, of course she subtly let him know how much she appreciated little gifts, which lead to him starting to give her increasingly expensive gifts, which very soon caused him cash flow problems. When Tom Foster ran into him at a conference and started trying to seduce him with offers of

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A Long Line of Family cash for little nuggets of information about Zapdata, Cornwall was a receptive audience. Before he knew it, he was selling entire software programs, while using his newfound income to buy not just jewelry but also paying for a D.C. apartment for Ellie so that their trysts could be more easily accommodated. He even thought she was planning to move to D.C., and he was seriously considering leaving his wife. “I don’t believe you,” Cornwall said weakly. “Which part, George? Think about it logically. Doesn’t it all seem a little coincidental to you? Did you ever try to look up Ellie in the Chicago phone book?” “She’s not listed,” Cornwall protested meekly. “I have her cell.” “Yeah, and as soon as Foster doesn’t need you that cell number will be dead and you’ll never see her again.” “But she loves me.” Tears were forming in Cornwall’s eyes. Russell shook his head firmly, while feeling sorry for Cornwall. “No, George, she doesn’t,” he said softly. Cornwall put his head down to hide his embarrassment, his shame. He started sobbing quietly. It didn’t take long for the other shoe to drop. Once Cornwall had recovered from the shock, at least marginally, he went the route of defiance. “You can’t prove anything,” he asserted, his assertive tone belied by the red and watery eyes. Russell shook his head in disappointment. “George, George,” he said. “You’re not really thinking this through.” “What do you mean?”

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A Long Line of Family “Zapdata isn’t going to need me to prove anything before they fire you. The IRS isn’t going to take too much convincing before they audit you big-time. And your wife – well, maybe she has complete confidence in you, but usually when someone tells a woman that her husband has a girlfriend, it takes more convincing to prove that he doesn’t than it does to prove that he does.” Russell smiled. “But I could be wrong.” Cornwall’s face was a mass of confusion and fear. He struggled to think his way clear. “If I cooperate with you, you won’t tell anyone? I can keep my job and you won’t tell the IRS or Emily?” Russell looked as though he was genuinely sorry, which he would have been had he had any respect for Cornwall. Cornwall’s bad choices had led him down this path. Still, this was almost too easy, and he reminded himself that he had a job to do. “George, you’re going to lose your job, lose the money, and probably your wife too. I don’t know.” Cornwall started to cry again, whimpering softly. “You still have some options here, George.” Cornwall looked up hopefully. “I do?” Russell nodded. “Yeah. Right now your worries aren’t Zapdata, the IRS, or even your wife.” “They’re not?” It seemed an impossible concept to him that there could be worse problems than those three, and his face was skeptical. “No. You have to worry about if you’re going to jail – or how long you’re going to jail, or how bad a jail it might be.” “Jail?” Cornwall wailed, already terrified.

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A Long Line of Family “Or,” Russell continued, as though the thought had just occurred to him, “Your friends at General Power might decide that it is safer for them if you’re not around any more.” Cornwall stopped his whimpering to look at him. “What do you mean?” Russell leveled his gaze. “You aren’t a threat to them if you are dead.”

Russell was waiting in a Panera Bread in downtown Washington. He liked watching the ultra-cheerful and almost universally attractive workers behind the counter, and thought that even the patrons were a cut above the norm. Perhaps the reflected glow from the workers helped make everyone seem more attractive, or perhaps the trendy menu attracted a certain class of customers that was healthier and better looking. Maybe it was the neighborhood. He didn’t spend too much time thinking about it; he just enjoyed the view. Russell knew Cornwall really had two options: try to do the right thing or fall further in the hole with General Power. He wished he could believe Cornwall would find his morals amidst the sea of easier choices, but he doubted it. Zapdata had worked with the FBI to tap Cornwall’s phones, and he expected this morning’s wake-up call had triggered several incriminating calls to Tom Foster. After scaring Cornwall, he had given Cornwall his number, so when Cornwall had called later in the morning to request another chance to talk, Russell had insisted on meeting in a public place. He was supposedly waiting for Cornwall but was actually expecting a visit of an entirely different sort. As a result, he was not surprised when Tom Foster sat down across from him. Behind him, two larger men stood on either side of him. From Russell’s research, he knew that Foster acted in a murky role within General Power. In theory, he was part of their security staff, but from his investigation he suspected Foster spent more time undermining competitors’ security than strengthening their own security. He was in his early forties, an ex-Ranger and proud of it. His hair was short and starting to turn gray, but his physique was still impressive. The two men with him were younger and had the stocky build of people who spent most of their spare

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A Long Line of Family time pumping or practicing kicks and blows. Their faces were expressionless, partly because they both wore dark sunglasses. “Mr. Russell,” Foster announced easily. “Tom Foster,” Russell replied lazily, watching the small sign of wariness cross Foster’s face at the recognition. He hadn’t expected Russell to know who he was, at least not by sight. Foster recovered his poise almost immediately. “Well, so you know who I am. And you probably know why I’m here. So let’s get down to business. In the first place, who the hell are you?” Russell smiled, not meaning it. “I suspect you’ve checked up on me, or you wouldn’t be here.” “You’re an accountant. I’m guessing you were doing some work for Zapdata and stumbled across something you didn’t expect.” Foster eyed him with some small degree of respect. “What I need to know is who you’ve told. I mean, maybe it’s not too late to work something out.” Russell sat back, noticing the two bodyguards tensing as he moved. “Like what?” Foster flashed a conspiratorial grin. “Well, you apparently have a pretty good idea of what we’re offering George Cornwall, so you can draw your own conclusions about your options.” “Gee, Tom, you going to give me a hooker too?” Foster’s eyes glinted at this. “Fuck you.” Russell lost his smile. “I mean, why would you pay me off? I don’t have any secrets to sell you.”

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Foster’s face lost any remaining pretense of good will. He looked around the Panera, whose customers were oblivious to their little drama, and took a deep breath. “Why don’t we go talk someplace more private?” he suggested in a calm tone of voice. “I’m pretty sure we can work something out, make everyone happy.” “Well, everyone but Bill Carson, you mean,” Russell said lightly. Foster’s face darkened again, and his accomplices seemed to be barely containing themselves, like dogs waiting to be released from the ease. Which, in a sense, they were. Russell sighed, knowing the way things were going to go now. “OK, let’s go. But first let me hit the head.” Foster and his two companions exchanged meaningful glances at this, Foster nodding at them in an unspoken agreement or direction. Russell caught the look and widened his eyes in mock surprise. “I mean, that’s all right, isn’t it?” “Maybe my friends here will go with you,” Foster suggested with an evil grin. The other two men stood back quickly, looking mildly excited about the chance to take some action. Russell took into account the bulges at their waist that indicated they were carrying guns. “Yeah, keep me company, like a bunch of women going off to the ladies room together to gossip,” Russell remarked straight-faced. Foster’s friends did not like the implication, but Russell figured their agenda already didn’t have much bonding on it. He also figured they weren’t coming with him to take a bathroom break of their own or to allow him to take his own, which was all right with him because he didn’t need one anyway. He had plans of his own for their little excursion. They walked him down a small hallway towards the men’s room, bracketing him between them without saying a word. “So I guess you guys are the guys people cross the

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A Long Line of Family street for when they see you coming, huh?” Russell hazarded, trying to provoke a response. Neither said anything, or even gave any indication they were listening to him. They were focused on getting him to the restroom, where Russell didn’t think they were planning to wash their hands. His suspicions were confirmed when one of them – he was evidently slightly higher on the pack order, not quite as buff as his companion but with a harder look to him, partly attributable to a scar on his left cheek -- put a hand on Russell’s chest to stop him outside the door while the second man went inside. A few seconds later a scared looking young man came rushing out, and Russell idly wondered what the goon had told him to make him leave so suddenly. The frightened man was still zipping up his fly as he ran out. Russell didn’t wait to find out what they were going to “talk” to him about. As soon as the restroom door started to open again he kicked it hard, catching the one inside full in the face. At the same time, he reached around for the man behind him, grabbing him and launching him into the restroom. The man recovered almost immediately, bouncing off the opposite wall and spinning around to face Russell, but he was a half step too late. Russell ducked under the intended punch and hit him in the abdomen with a devastating blow that took his breath away, doubling him over. Russell helped him down with a hard punch to the kidneys. The first man was starting to recover from the blow from the door, so Russell hit him with an elbow to the neck that temporally incapacitated him as well, kicking his legs out from under him almost simultaneously. He joined his companion in a sprawl on the floor. Russell crouched next to them and used that moment of inaction to grab a gun from the closest one. He left it dangling from one hand, as though it was some toy he had idly picked up. “OK, enough fun and games, boys,” he said casually, not even breathing hard. “Who has some handcuffs?” They were starting to come around, but found themselves frozen. The way he was sitting was like they were ants that he could choose to continue to torment or simply crush them at will. The one with the scar recovered his bravado first. “He’s not going to shoot, Jack,” he told his companion urgently, while watching Russell intently. “Shoot him!”

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A Long Line of Family Showing no sign of concern, Russell turned his gaze to Jack, casually placing the muzzle of the gun against Jack’s knee. Jack immediately grew rigid. “What’s it going to be, then, gents?” Russell asked with interest. He seemed equally accepting of them making a fight of it or acquiescing. The duo looked at each other, and Russell saw the fight go out of their eyes. Within a few seconds Russell had handcuffed them facing each other, their wrists connected but looped under the stall’s metal railing to prevent them from standing up. Russell didn’t figure it would hold them long but long enough. He also took the second gun, plus several other items he found on them, including a nasty looking knife, a small sap, their General Power IDs and their drivers’ licenses. He didn’t need the latter to remember their names but figured it couldn’t hurt. The two men were now angry, but still trying to figure out how the tables had been turned on them so easily and so quickly. “Do you guys practice this stuff at all?” Russell asked, sounding slightly astonished, and perhaps disappointed, at their ineptitude. “I mean, there were two of you, it was a closed space, you had guns and you should have had the element of surprise.” They glared at him. Russell shook his head. “Maybe you two should find a different line of work.” He stood up, and told them to stay quiet for five minutes. He gave them a meaningful look to let them know he was serious, and they got the clear impression that it would not be good for them if he had to come back. They pretended to not be intimidated, but they stayed silent as he walked out of the bathroom. Russell walked back out to where Foster was waiting. Foster’s face drooped almost comically at the sight of him, walking towards him not only unmarked but also without his two escorts. He knew what that meant. Russell didn’t bother to sit down, and Foster stood up slowly facing him. “So that’s how it’s going to be?” Russell asked.

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A Long Line of Family “Oh, no, my friend,” Foster said in a cold voice. “That’s just the beginning. I can make trouble for you like you can’t believe.” Russell poked a finger into Foster’s chest, causing him to flinch in anticipation of a much harder blow. “Listen, Foster, the ship is sinking and the rats are starting to jump off. You better decide if you’re going to be one of the ones that goes down with the ship or not.” Russell shook his head in disgust. “If you decide you want to control your own destiny instead of letting shit just happen to you, give me a call. I bet you already have the number.” With that he walked off.

Chapter 20 It was the middle of the afternoon when Kincaid and Olmstead got back to the Residence Inn. They had spent the drive back discussing their week of interviews, and their opinions of the most likely suspects based on what they knew. It was not too promising. They were still talking when they entered their war room. Kincaid used her key to open the door, so she first caught sight of the figure standing at the wall. It was a tall man and he started to turn towards the door as he heard it open. At first she was surprised by the presence of someone in their room, but she quickly recognized the figure and relaxed. Olmstead, a half step behind her, did not have as much time to take in who the intruder might be. “Juanita!” he shouted, dropping the files he was holding and brushing her aside with one arm as he drew his pistol with the other. Kincaid was thrown to the side while Olmstead advanced a step, his gun pointing at the man. “Freeze!” he shouted. It took him a second to draw the same conclusion as to the identity of the man as Kincaid had already done.

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A Long Line of Family Joe Russell looked at Olmstead skeptically. “Special Agent Olmstead,” he drawled, a faint smile on his face. “You seem to have a problem with pointing guns at people.” Olmstead lowered his gun. “And you seem to have a problem showing up places you’re not invited.” He wasn’t smiling, and that little smile on Russell’s face was really annoying him. Russell nodded towards Olmstead’s gun. “Are you going to put that away, or are you reserving the right to shoot me again?” Olmstead holstered his weapon, feeling slightly sheepish but not willing to admit it. “Maybe later,” he said curtly. “You never know. What are you doing here?” His hand unconsciously remained on the butt of his gun, a fact that Russell noted but did not remark on. “I invited him,” Kincaid said. She walked over towards Russell, but stopped short instead of giving in to her impulse to give him a hug or even shake his hand. She couldn’t resist smiling broadly at him. “I’d ask how you got in here but I suspect I don’t really want to know.” “Yeah, well, security is not really top of the line here,” Russell said. “I wouldn’t suggest keeping anything here that you can’t afford to lose.” Olmstead was still standing near the door, several feet away, and feeling somewhat left out. “What, are you checking up on us?” Kincaid responded. “Joe told me he was going to be in town today, so I told him he should stop by this afternoon. I thought we should bring him up to date.”

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead frowned at her. Kincaid gave him a look. “What, like you haven’t been keeping Dobbs informed of what we’ve been doing?” she said hotly. “Joe’s my friend, and I thought he could help. So cool down.” Russell looked over at the walls, which were covered with their posters full of details about each victim. “Looks like you guys have done a lot of work. How did the week in Quantico go?” Kincaid plopped down on the couch, which broke the tension. Olmstead moved to sit at the desk, while Russell remained standing near the posters. She started describing the results of their interviews. At first she did all the talking, while Olmstead sat there glowering at the two of them with his arms folder over his chest. Kincaid felt deeply conflicted. On the one hand, the investigation had become Olmstead’s as well as hers, although she still believed he could not feel as deeply about it as she did. She had begun to appreciate and possibly even enjoy working with Olmstead, if one could be said to enjoy such a situation. Every second that passed she knew that their quarry might be sucking the life from a new victim; every second she wasn’t working towards catching him was a second he was closer to the next kill. On the other hand, she was glad Joe Russell was here. He was a comforting presence. As smart as she thought herself to be, as good an investigator as she believed she was, and as much as she was coming to have confidence in Olmstead, she thought Joe Russell might see something they might not, that he might help. And, dammit, she was just glad to see him. Then there was Olmstead, pouting in his chair. It was as if he resented Russell’s presence, that he thought Russell was superfluous at best and at worst potentially intrusive. “Lyle is the one who figured out that the perp has to be using a backdoor into the system,” Kincaid said, wanting to give him some credit. As she had come to understand it, a backdoor was a way into a computer system that avoids the standard

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A Long Line of Family security systems, and was apparently not uncommon for programmers to use while they were writing the code. It should have been removed when the coding was complete, but sometimes people forgot to do so, or kept them as a way to allow future changes. “Yeah, well, the IS guy is the one who thought of it,” Olmstead replied, squirming uncomfortably in his chair. “I didn’t even know what a backdoor meant,” she said. “At least, not in this context.” “We’ll just let that one go,” Russell observed. “So what do you know about this backdoor?” He looked expectantly at Olmstead. Olmstead responded, at first reluctantly but eventually more openly. As Kincaid had hoped, once they got started talking about the investigation he put aside any resentments he might feel about Russell. He even relaxed his arms. It wasn’t quite a truce but at least the atmosphere no longer seemed like the cold war any longer. The truth was that they had not found much. “So, basically, we found a couple of intraoffice romances, a few affairs, a guy running his own business on his Bureau computer, another storing some pornography – er, ‘art’ – and I think we could pretty much map the cliques of the department,” Kincaid reported. “But no smoking guns.” There were only eight people who had been in the Bureau long enough to have altered the earliest profiles; six analysts and two systems techs. There had been five staffers at the conference Kincaid had crashed, but only three of those overlapped the eight: Holly Culpepper, Walter Henderson, and Victor Darrach. “Culpepper has a pretty plausible alibi,” Olmstead conceded. “Henderson seemed a little squirrelly, but not dangerous. He actually suggested a few people he thought were most likely to be suspects, and Darrach was on his list.” “What did Darrach have to say?” Russell asked.

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Kincaid shook her head. “He didn’t point any fingers, and he came up with the backdoor theory all on his own. He seemed intrigued by the differences between the profiles and the files, and I had the feeling he was going to go back and do some research.” “I had the feeling a bunch of them were going to do that,” Olmstead added with a sour smile. “I would hope so,” Russell told them. He thought for a few seconds. “I suppose neither Henderson nor Darrach admitted to hearing about Juanita asking questions at the conference.” “Henderson said a couple of the others mentioned that someone was asking strange questions, and he gave me a few of the names he remembered. Most of them were too new to be on our list. Darrach claimed he presented a paper and pretty much didn’t hang around long after that,” Olmstead informed him. “None of the three of them came together or left together, so they all are consistent that they didn’t really talk much to each other.” “I did recognize Darrach,” Kincaid chimed in. “I had talked to him, but I asked him about the wrong cases so I didn’t get very far with him at the time. He’s been with the Bureau forever, is in his sixties, and has a pretty solid reputation.” “He’s seen it all,” Olmstead theorized. “Maybe he decided reading about the stuff wasn’t enough; he wanted a taste for himself.” “What are Henderson and Culpepper like?” Russell asked. Olmstead consulted his notes. “Henderson has been there for going on twenty years. Well respected, well liked.” Kincaid thought for a moment. Maybe not so much well liked as no one particularly dislikes him. He’s kind of a nervous guy, kind of mild-

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A Long Line of Family mannered. Not the kind of guy you see taking these kinds of chances. Forties, divorced. Culpepper is in her late thirties, married but having an affair.” “Maybe she and the boyfriend do something else besides having sex,” Kincaid said. “Maybe her husband has gotten too freaky for her and that’s why she’s having the affair. On the other hand, Henderson is kind of a loner, and not just in ViCAP.” Olmstead looked at her; he had never married, but it made him wonder about her marital past. He continued. “No one has a bad word to say about him, but he doesn’t seem to buddy up with his coworkers either. I understand he’s kind of a chess wizard.” “That fits,” Russell observed thoughtfully. “How so?” Kincaid asked. Russell walked over to the window and lifted the drapes to look outside. “I think this guy is playing games with us, and he’s mapped out his moves pretty far in advance.” Olmstead snorted. “You’re giving this guy way too much credit. I bet the guy never suspected we’d pick up the pattern. Who could have guessed there would be some local cop like Juanita to figure out there was a problem?” “So I am a genius,” Kincaid teased. “Don’t let it go to your head quite yet,” Russell advised her. “First let’s catch him. You two have made some good progress but still seems like you’ve got more questions than answers.” “Yeah, especially because they all seemed pretty surprised about the profiles being altered,” Kincaid complained. “Someone would have to be a pretty good actor.”

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A Long Line of Family She and Olmstead looked momentarily depressed. Russell took it upon himself to keep them from losing track. “So you have four paths. There’s the guy who created the backdoor, the guy who’s using it--” “You don’t think it is the same person?” Kincaid interrupted. “I don’t know yet,” Russell told her. “It’d be easier if it was but I don’t think we should assume that. It’s going to be easier to find who built the backdoor; not too many people will have had the right skills and the right opportunity. We just have to hope that it’s either the same guy or he can tell us who he told about it. Anyway, then there is the person who called someone to get Shaw after you.” Kincaid and Olmstead were quiet as they processed Russell’s suggestions, and thought about how to operationalize them. “What’s the fourth?” Olmstead asked at last. “We figure out who was in the right place when the victims were killed,” Kincaid offered. “Plane tickets, ATMs withdrawals, credit card – you know the drill. We can get that started tonight.” Olmstead nodded, thinking about what paperwork that was going to require. He sighed at that thought of that; there went the rest of his evening. “Where do we start?” Russell looked at Kincaid, then at Olmstead. “I think someone should find out who talked to your old partner.”

Chapter 21 Joe didn’t get home until early evening. He walked into the kitchen, where Debbie was busy at the stove. He’d called her from the train station to let her know he was on the way, and she’d offered to start cooking. She had something in the microwave and two

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A Long Line of Family pots going on the stove. He put his arms around her from behind her and nuzzled her neck. “What’s say we run away and get married?” She laughed. “Too late.” She turned around in his arms and kissed him. “Besides, I’m expecting my husband at any minute.” He stepped back and looked around the kitchen. He asked what the plan was for dinner, and asked if he could help. She told him they were having chicken breast with pasta and stir-fry vegetables, but declined his offer of assistance. She told him to get changed and go round up the kids, whose whereabouts were unknown – either doing their homework in their rooms or in the backyard. He found them in the family room playing a video game on the PlayStation. Actually, Doug was playing and Melissa was watching intently, talking incessantly and pleading for him to let her play. He was ignoring her but took note of his father’s arrival. Melissa let out a squeal of delight when she saw him, running over and jumping up into his arms. “Oh, my, you’re getting big!” he told her affectionately, giving her a hug and a kiss on the forehead. Doug was torn, wanting to say hello but not wanting to interrupt his game or admit to such affection. “Hey, dad,” he said, trying to be casual. “Hey, champ.” Joe asked if Doug had been letting Melissa play, as he knew he was supposed to, and inquired after the state of their homework. Doug hung his head and complained about her poor skills, and Joe had to remind him that he had to let her practice if she was going to get better. Both claimed to be finished with their homework, so Joe chided them gently for staying inside instead of going outside and playing. Then he told them dinner was ready, knowing that by the time they were actually ready it would actually be ready. He went to the kitchen to help Debbie finish cooking. After dinner they cleaned up, everyone pitching in. They played some games in the family room – boys against the girls, father/daughter versus mother/son, age versus youth – until it was time for the kids to go to bed. Joe read Melissa a bedtime story, and

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A Long Line of Family checked in on Doug, who was playing a game on his handheld under the covers. “Nice try, champ. Time for bed.” He promised to practice baseball with him in the morning. Finally Joe and Debbie had some time to themselves. They settled into bed with the TV on across from them. Joe had a book on his lap and Debbie had her laptop in front of her, as she graded some papers. “How was your trip?” she asked. He told her that his client meeting had gone well, that it was part of the industrial espionage case he’d been working on. He didn’t mention that he was now in a phase that involved some increased risk, or that he’d had some interesting encounters earlier in the day. It was all part of the job, and he had made sure that Zapdata was paying a premium for this new hands-on part of the assignment. Debbie only half-listened, splitting her attention in the way that working parents learn how to do. “That’s nice,” she said absently. “Did you see that detective friend of yours?” Joe conceded that he had, and told her that he had met with both her and Olmstead to get briefed on their efforts. He shook his head and described their war room – without going into detail of the nature of the images freely visible throughout that room. It was better left to her imagination, and he hoped her imagination could not picture the acts that the crime scene photographs had captured. “Is she going to need more of your help?” she asked, not looking up from her screen but no longer typing either. “She didn’t ask for any,” he responded, by way of not answering. Debbie looked up at him with a small smile. “I take that as a yes.” He put his book on his chest and tilted his head at her. “It’s a tough case.”

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A Long Line of Family She tilted her head at him at the same angle. “I think maybe Detective Kincaid has a little crush on you.” “You do, do you?” He resisted smiling, but just barely. He nudged her playfully. “Well, I mean, who wouldn’t?” She reached for a spare pillow and smacked him with it. “Ouch,” he yelped. “Careful – you break it, you buy it.” “Too late for that.” She looked down at her computer, then reached up to close the cover. She put it down on the floor and looked at him reproachfully. “What’s that look mean?” he asked, setting his book on the nightstand just in case. She smuggled over close to him. “It is Friday night,” she noted. She looked up at him with something that, in a man, might have been called a leer but on her simply looked suggestive – and sexy as hell. “Date night?” he asked hopefully, putting his arm around her and touching her face with his free hand. “Hmm, ‘date,’” she repeated thoughtfully, trying out the word as though it was a strange flavor she once knew. “Date? Aren’t you supposed to take me out for dinner and maybe a movie or something to qualify as a date?” Her face held a reproachful yet, at the same time, hopeful expression. “I had a busy day. Can I get a rain check on those?” She rolled over and sat on top of him, her hands on his chest. “So you’re probably pretty tired.”

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A Long Line of Family He put his hands on her hips to steady her, and to simply to touch her. He liked the feel of her, his hands on her form body. “Not so bad.” She grinned conspiratorially at him. “I bet this would make Detective Kincaid jealous.” “Let’s leave her out of this,” he suggested, looking at her lovely eyes and remembering all the reasons he had fallen in love with her. She was a beautiful woman, and he found it constantly amazing that he was lucky enough to have her in his life. With a quick move she pulled her short nightgown off and leaned over to kiss him. “Turn out the lights,” she whispered.

Chapter 22 Olmstead and Kincaid worked in the war room for a few hours after Russell had left them. They had a brief but heated discussion about following up with Olmstead’s former partner. Kincaid felt it was the most logical course of investigation, but Olmstead had thought it was premature. He argued that, even if they could get Shaw to admit who had alerted him to Kincaid’s presence at the conference – which Olmstead doubted – it was premature, that they should wait until they knew more about what they needed to know. Kincaid found it puzzling that Olmstead was being so cautious, and decided it was either some weird partner loyalty thing, or that Shaw had just spooked Olmstead so badly with the surprise beating that he was afraid to try him again, even with backup. She hoped she was wrong, and she eventually stopped nagging about him it. During the week at Quantico they had found a rhythm even in clerical times such as these, throwing observations and suggestions at each other even when they were working on their computers. Kincaid had had a few partners over the course of her career, but none whom she had gotten off to such a quick start with, despite their rocky beginning.

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A Long Line of Family Still, if he was afraid to confront Shaw that would be a problem for her. She didn’t mind his being afraid but she minded if he would let that interfere with the investigation. There often came such times in the course of a case, sometimes with much more immediate threats of personal danger, and if someone was going to be her partner she had to know that person could do what it took, whatever it took. Like Joe Russell. They brainstormed how to narrow down who might have created the backdoor that had – intentionally or unintentionally -- made covering up the series of murders possible. “We talked to all the programmers,” Olmstead noted. “None of them really jumped out at me. We can look into their backgrounds further, see if anyone has something to hide.” “We talked to all of the ones who are still there,” Kincaid said thoughtfully. They looked at each other, letting the impact of those words sink in. Olmstead started nodding, and got up to pace around the room. “Ten years is a long time,” he said. “People change jobs, retire.” She watched him move around her. He stopped. “I bet I know someone who could help us.” She smiled sweetly at him. “I bet you do.” Olmstead called Harbor, his contact in Dobbs’ office. The man listened silently to Olmstead’s request for information on all of the people who had IS clearance on the ViCAP rewrite project who were no longer with the Bureau. “Get the names of any analysts who were there then too,” Kincaid suggested as well. Olmstead added it to the request. There was a long moment of silence. Olmstead was actually expecting Harbor to flat out refuse him, or at least to insist on typical Bureau paperwork before proceeding. “Give me an hour,” Harbor told him. “I’ll email you the details.”

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It actually took only a little more than a half an hour for a packet of data to arrive in Olmstead’s email account. Kincaid looked over Olmstead’s shoulder as he opened up the attachments. They discovered that there were several additional names, both systems personnel and profilers. Almost all had locations in the D.C. area. “You weren’t hoping for a quiet weekend, were you?” Kincaid said. “I guess not,” he concluded glumly. Olmstead looked up suddenly, breaking her chain of thoughts. “You want to get something to eat?” he asked. Surprised, she checked her watch and found it was almost seven, later than she thought. She wasn’t really hungry, but she thought they needed to get out of the room, away from the case. She agreed, and he suggested a place he knew, without offering any more information or soliciting her opinion on type of food. She didn’t much care. They took the Metro from Roslyn to Metro Center, moving against the stream of commuters coming out of the city. People rushing to get home, people rushing to meet up with other people, people wanting to be someplace other than where they were now. Older people worn down by the effort of the week and by the burdens they worked so hard just to be able to support. Young people having the time of their lives, so caught up in this time of their life that they had not learned yet to either look ahead or behind in their lives. Kincaid envied them that lack of reflection, not sure she had ever been so young and hoping she would never be so old that the weights outweighed the anticipations. Olmstead led her along the street, walking slowly. He paused outside a restaurant, whose bar was crowded while its restaurant was only half full. It didn’t look like anyplace special, nor did it appear to offer any unique cuisine, so Kincaid did not immediately know why he had brought her all this way to eat here. He looked up to her and she saw something in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. Call it resignation, call it apprehension – call it determination.

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A Long Line of Family She understood at once. “He’s here?” she asked softly. Olmstead looked through the picture window, and nodded his head slowly. Kincaid didn’t know how he could see through the mass of patrons to confirm that Shaw was there, but she was willing to take his word for it. “Shaw and some of his friends come here every Friday after work to drink,” he told her. He checked his watch. “They should be there by now.” Kincaid went into professional mode. “What’s the plan?” she asked briskly. He looked blankly at her. “You stay here,” he informed her, as though it was obvious and anything else was out of the question. Kincaid’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “The hell I will.” Olmstead shook his head, reaching out and touching her arm gently. “I need to do this myself, Juanita.” Kincaid was touched by both his obvious sincerity and by his use of her first name. The only other time he had done that was back at the hotel, when he thought Russell might be a threat and he had pushed her out of harm’s way. He must still think he was protecting her now. She shook her head. “You’re my partner. I’ll back your move.” Olmstead looked inside, his face grim and distant. “Stay here.” His voice was flat, and it was clear that the discussion was over. He looked back at her, just once, and it looked as though he was sorry about something. Then he went through the door.

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Kincaid waited exactly five seconds before she followed him in. She knew that he wasn’t expecting her to, and she thought he might truly believe that he didn’t want to her, but she also knew that if there was going to be trouble she was going to be there for it. She thought it unlikely that Shaw could spot her through the crowd, but just in case as soon as she entered she angled off to the outskirts of the crowd, watching for either Shaw or Olmstead. She spotted Olmstead first. Kincaid saw he was heading towards a knot of three men, one of whom Kincaid identified as Frank Shaw. Shaw was sitting on a barstool, his elbow on the bar with one hand holding a beer and a cigarette in the other. He looked to be in the middle of a story, his face and his gestures animated and expansive. His two companions were standing next to him, one against the bar and the second standing just outside of the other two. They all looked like FBI agents, even with their ties loosened and with drinks and cigarettes in their hands. Shaw noticed Olmstead just before he reached them, and watched him approach. “Well, Lyle Olmstead,” he said mockingly, his eyebrows arched. “Investigator of crazy rumors. Doer of odd-jobs.” Olmstead halted. “Frank,” he replied. He looked at the other two men, both of whom he knew slightly, but did not acknowledge their presence. Shaw did a quick scan of the room, and Kincaid ducked her head just in time to avoid his gaze when it passed her way. “Where is your new partner, Lyle? The black hick detective chick that started you on the wild goose chase?” Olmstead clenched his lips together. “Shut up, Shaw,” he said tersely. “You want to come outside with me or you want to talk to me here?”

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A Long Line of Family Shaw affected surprise. He leaned back on his stool. “I don’t want to talk to you anywhere. You’re spoiling my view here, with that stupid look on your face. Why don’t you turn around and get the hell out of here before I get up and make you?” His voice was conversational but the tone of menace was clear. The two men around them were smirking, figuring Olmstead was in for a humiliation at best and a beating at worse, and it didn’t really matter to them which. They’d enjoy watching either, maybe help out with both. Olmstead was silent for a long moment, glaring at the unruffled Shaw. He tensed briefly, which Shaw seemed to find amusing. “Boo!” he teased. Olmstead hit him. The blow knocked Shaw off the stool onto the floor. It took the bystanders a second or two to figure out what had happened, and they drew back a few feet to give them enough space to let happen whatever was going to happen. Kincaid used that diversion to edge around to the bar, behind Shaw’s companions. Shaw wiped some blood off his face and looked up at Olmstead with some amusement. “Pretty good punch, Lyle. Sucker punch, of course, but pretty good anyway. Better than I would have expected.” His face grew serious. “I’ll give you that one for free. Now I’ll give you until I stand up to turn tail and run, or else when I get up I’m going to kick your ass.” He started to slowly pick himself up. Olmstead leaned over and hit him again, hard. Shaw sprawled out back on the floor. This was too much for his companions. The one on the stool quickly slid off and the second one moved forwards towards Olmstead’s back. Kincaid had her pistol out. She clipped the one closest to Olmstead on the head – not hard but enough to get his attention. Both turned towards her in surprise and she waved the gun at them, not pointing it but letting them know she had it. “What do you say we

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A Long Line of Family let the boys sort it out themselves?” she suggested in a reasonable tone of voice. Her expression and her tone both hardened. “I don’t play nice like Lyle does.” They must have been convinced, as they both edged back against the bar. The fight was a short, ugly one. Shaw was more experienced, especially in bar fights, but Olmstead was younger and in better shape, plus he had the advantage of landing the first punches. Shaw never made it up off the floor, as Olmstead pounded him each time he started to move. Finally Shaw stopped trying to get up. Kincaid was watching both of the other two agents as well as the crowd, waiting for some do-gooder to try to intervene or call 911. “Let’s go, Lyle,” she urged, pushing her way through to him. “He’s had enough.” Olmstead looked back at her in surprise, not aware of her presence until that moment. In a glance he took in the gun covertly held in her hand, and the curious reticence in Shaw’s friends that it explained. “Not yet.” He crouched over the moaning Shaw, and took out his own gun, which drew a gasp from the crowd. For a moment Kincaid thought he might be going too far. “Lyle,” she warned him. He didn’t look back. “I got this.” Kincaid felt back in the rhythm. Something in his voice let her know that whatever rage had driven him to beat Shaw almost senseless had passed, and he was now himself. “Official business, folks,” she announced to the murmuring crowd in her best policeman’s voice. “Nothing to see here. Stand back.” She stared around the room for emphasis, her hard gaze landing on Shaw’s friends. Below her Olmstead was holding the gun to Shaw’s throat. “I want the name, Frank. The one who called you about Detective Kincaid. I’m giving you five seconds to tell me or so help me God I’ll blow your fucking head off. And if you lie to me I’ll come back and make all this seem like a friendly chat.”

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“Fuck you,” Shaw spat out, his voice thick with blood. Olmstead grabbed Shaw and pulled him closer, so he was staring Olmstead in the eyes. He jammed the gun harder against his throat. “You think I’m bluffing, Frank? You really ready to take that chance?” One could hear a pin drop in the room. Kincaid knew he was bluffing – well, she thought she knew he was bluffing – and she found herself holding her breath. Maybe it was the look in Olmstead’s eye, or maybe it was the edge in his voice, or maybe it was the gun against his throat, but Shaw was somehow convinced. He gave Olmstead a name.

Chapter 23 Kincaid and Olmstead grabbed a cab outside the restaurant, wanting to get away in case Shaw and his friends decided to pursue then. Olmstead mumbled an intersection in Georgetown to the driver. They didn’t talk during the ride; fortunately, their driver was not one of the chatty ones, sullenly weaving through the busy traffic. Kincaid watched Olmstead, while Olmstead distractedly looked out the window. They had things to talk about but both had concluded this was neither the time nor the place. When they arrived, Kincaid threw a twenty at the driver as they got out of the cab and told him to keep it. “Where to?” she asked, and Olmstead nodded towards a small bar just off Wisconsin on one of the side streets. The bar was crowded but not full, and they were able to find a corner table to settle into. It was dark in the bar, which they both took small comfort in for the moment. A waitress came to take their order, a slender young woman who was pretty in a sunny sort of way.

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A Long Line of Family She smiled at them, and took note of Olmstead rubbing his hand, which was already swelling and showing signs of bruising. “Did you hurt it?” she asked sympathetically. “Nothing too much,” he replied. He flashed a weak smile. “Ran into a door.” She nodded sagely. “Let me get some ice for that. You guys want a couple of beers?” They agreed that would be good, and the waitress came back a few minutes later with two bottles of beer and a dishcloth full of ice. “Here you go,” she told them cheerfully. “Take care of that hand.” Olmstead wrapped the dishcloth around his right hand, wincing gratefully at the cold. Kincaid waited until she was out of range – which wasn’t long, given the noisy crowd – before remarking to Olmstead. “Wow, they must cater to the fight crowd. Ice on tap.” Olmstead looked at her. “We’re four blocks from Georgetown. They get a lot of drunk students here. So, yeah, they’ve seen plenty of people who’ve been in fights.” She studied Olmstead carefully. There was something in his voice that sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Olmstead noticed her look, and essayed a smile. “I went to GU for law school. So I used to come to places like this every once and a while.” They took a drink of beer. “Law school, huh?” Kincaid asked thoughtfully. “What the hell are you doing in the FBI?” Olmstead smiled ruefully. “I always wanted to be in the FBI. I only went to law school to help me get in, to help my career. I was never going to be a lawyer.” “You’ve done pretty well – I mean, if you went to law school you couldn’t have been in the Bureau all that long, and here you are in the D.C. FO. Pretty impressive.”

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead shrugged, playing with the dishcloth. He seemed troubled or distracted, or both. Kincaid figured he was replaying the fight in his head, remembering the violence, the fear, maybe the rush of knocking a man to the ground and keeping him there. “Forget it, Lyle,” she said softly. “He deserved it.” Olmstead nodded, his mood not visibly altered. “I told you to stay out of there,” he said absently. Kincaid snorted. “Like I’m not going to follow my partner through a door.” “I didn’t want to get you in trouble.” He appeared sincerely troubled. She took a long sip of her beer. “What was your plan then?” she asked at last. “You were going to take on all of them all by yourself? Hell of a plan.” He looked up sheepishly. “I didn’t really think about his friends. I guess I figured someone would break it up or call the cops before things got too bad. I never thought about asking you for help.” “That’s what partners are for,” she said, her voice carefully light. He seemed to grow somber again, and tugged at the dishcloth nervously. “Would you trust me to follow you through a door?” he asked, his voice so soft that she had to strain to hear him. Kincaid wasn’t quite sure what to say. She had become impressed with his investigative skills, as well as his dogged earnestness. He’d been effectively brutal with Shaw just a short time ago, but until then he had seemed very reluctant to avenge his own beating, and he hadn’t shown much tactical sense in telling her to stay behind when going into a tough situation. She paused, and Olmstead saw it. “I didn’t think so,” he concluded. He

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A Long Line of Family studied her curiously. “I suppose you’d trust Joe Russell.” His tone was neutral but there was a hook beneath it. Caught by surprise at this, Kincaid flushed, something else Olmstead observed. He nodded. “I thought so. Why do you trust this guy so much?” She thought for a moment. She had never actually seen Joe handle himself in a fight. What she had seen, though, was him in a room facing a stone cold killer who had come to take him out. Unlike Joe, the killer had a gun, although it was not pointed at him when Kincaid had burst in, drawn by Joe’s warning. She had had the drop on the killer, catching him by surprise, her gun out and trained on him. Yet he had been utterly unworried about her appearance or by her gun. He had only been worried about Joe. She didn’t say any of this to Olmstead, and she couldn’t have really have explained why. Instead she sighed and drank more of her beer, noticing that Olmstead had barely touched his. She tried a different tact. “You ever walk down the street and be on the same line with someone walking the other way?” He seemed startled. “Sure.” “And you know how you go one way, only to see them start to go the same way, so you go the other way, and so does the other person??” Kincaid looked at Olmstead, knowing she was not saying this well, that she must sound stupid. He looked baffled. “Yeah?” he said slowly. She plunged on. “So you do that kind of little dance, each of you just trying to move out of the way but ending up continuing to block each other, and just making things worse?” He shook his head. “Yeah, but so what? What does this have to do with Russell?”

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She smiled wryly, wishing she could explain better. “I can’t see Joe Russell doing that. He’d wait to see which way he wanted to go, and then just go. None of these feints and tentative moves. It’d be decisive, whatever he did.” He looked at her dubiously. “Huh. And because he can walk down the street without dodging people you’d trust him to have your back?” She shrugged ironically. It sounded lame even to her but it was as good as she was going to be able to explain right now. “Something like that, yeah.” “I bet I could take him,” Olmstead stated with all the bravado he could muster. “You’ve seen me fight.” Kincaid just stared at him. “I could,” he pleaded, his bravado weakening. She shook her head slowly. “No, Lyle, you couldn’t. Don’t ask me why, but I don’t think so.” Olmstead shook his head and finally took a long drink of his beer. He looked around the room, checking it out, or perhaps simply not wanting to meet her gaze. The crowd was a typical Friday night Georgetown crowd, a largely young, largely affluent, and generally attractive bunch. It was early yet but they were already in full pitch, talking intently and making connections. In most cities, near most college campuses, one would expect them to be working on hooking up. Here one had to suspect them of trying to figure out who might be helpful later in their careers. There were probably a few future millionaires or maybe even a Senator or two. Definitely at least a few members of the House. “You asked me how I got to the D.C. FO so quickly in my career,” he said, apropos of nothing in particular.

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid nodded, although she hadn’t exactly asked, she had merely observed. She hadn’t really thought too much about it, figuring that he was a bright guy, he probably deserved the assignment. Olmstead grimaced. “I was three years in Pittsburgh, then got assigned here.” “Well, that’s good, right?” Olmstead nodded, and took another drink of beer. “Yeah, that’s good. Lots of guys in lots of FOs would kill to be assigned here. But, you know, my dad, he’s a big contributor to the Administration.” He left the rest unsaid. Kincaid reached out and put a hand on his forearm. “I don’t care how much your dad gives to someone, the Bureau isn’t going to assign you to D.C. if they didn’t think you could handle it. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Olmstead studied her suspiciously for a second, then softened. Now he reddened in embarrassment. “Thanks.” Kincaid put her hand back on her own side of the table, but not sorry she had touched him. She had a flash of insight into his life: probably prep school, then Cornell, then Georgetown, then the FBI, trying to impress a dad who was hard to impress and who probably thought his son should be practicing law or running a business somewhere. Going through a door with a partner probably wasn’t on the top of his dad’s list. “So how do you want to handle our new lead?” Olmstead asked at last, obviously trying to redirect the conversation. The person Shaw had named was another agent, a friend of Shaw’s that Olmstead had met once or twice but hadn’t really known. They added his name to the list of people they planned to talk to over the weekend. They also decided to order some food, and asked the pretty waitress for some menus. The menus proved to have several pages of options, but Olmstead warned Kincaid not to stray too far from the burgers and nachos. Kincaid decided to risk a barbeque chicken sandwich nonetheless.

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The food arrived reasonably quickly, along with a second round of beers. There came a few minutes of comfortable silence while they ate. Olmstead broke that silence when he was halfway through his burger. “You never told me why this case was so important to you. You know, coming all this way, willing to make so many waves.” Kincaid paused in mid-bite, then finished chewing before responding. She shrugged. “It’s not enough just knowing that there’s some crazy guy out there torturing people to death? Catching people like that is my job.” He shook his head. “Uh-uh. Catching serial killers who work across the country like this guy is our job. You’re a local homicide detective. Whatever this is, it is most definitely not just your job.” Kincaid dropped her gaze, again struck by his good insights into people. She just wished he wouldn’t point that insight towards her. Still, when she looked up her eyes were clear and her voice was steady. “Amanda Frost.” He had to think for a moment, placing the name and recalling the particulars of that one case. His brow wrinkled. “She was in Kansas City, right? Why were you investigating her?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t assigned to the case,” she clarified. She paused, then finished. “She was my niece.” Olmstead’s mouth dropped. He put down the remainder of his burger. “Oh. Then this is personal.” He did not appear happy with this new fact. “You could say that.”

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A Long Line of Family Chapter 24 Kincaid and Olmstead showed up at the suburban Virginia home of Special Agent Paul Scott around nine Saturday morning. It was one of a span of similar houses in a relatively new development, the lawns all well tended but the neighborhood still denuded of trees. Olmstead pulled his car in next to the Dodge Durango parked in the driveway. “You sure about this?” Kincaid asked. Olmstead nodded, and they got out of the car. Olmstead didn’t know much about Scott. He’d met him on a few occasions through Shaw, working briefly with him and his partner on a case once. Scott had been around for almost thirty years, and Olmstead had the definite impression that Scott hadn’t had much use for him, considering him still a rookie. Still, Scott appeared at the door almost as soon as they rang the doorbell. Olmstead and Kincaid exchanged a quick glance; he’d been waiting for them, which could only mean that Shaw had talked to him. “Lyle,” he drawled in recognition. He turned to Kincaid. “Which means you must be Detective Juanita Kincaid.” He gave her a long slow look up and down, trying to make her feel uncomfortable. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, young lady?” “Why don’t you stop checking me out and invite us in, Special Agent Scott?” she suggested curtly. Scott smiled and opened the screen door, allowing them in. He pointed them to a small den, which he apparently used as a home office. He took the seat at the desk, and indicated they should sit on the couch. Kincaid suspected it was a sofa bed, and wondered if Scott spent some nights here. The entertainment center facing the couch suggested someone liked options for diversion while in the room; it came complete with a large TV, DVD player, and a sound system. Kincaid also noted several family pictures on the bookcases, and heard the presence of other people in the house, although no one appeared to see who the visitors were and Scott did not bother to introduce them.

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A Long Line of Family “What can I do for you two on a lovely Saturday morning?” Scott asked expansively, leaning back in his chair. Kincaid looked over at Olmstead, indicating that he should take the lead with his follow FBI compatriot. “Cut the crap, Scott,” Olmstead said, perhaps a touch harshly. “You know damn well why we’re here.” Scott raised his eyebrows, as if in surprise. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Special Agent Olmstead.” Olmstead seemed ready to retort, but before he could say anything Kincaid leaned forward. “A couple of weeks ago Agents Olmstead and Shaw escorted me out of a conference and took me to a holding facility, where they gave me a hard time about why I was asking questions about some FBI personnel.” “Really?” Scott asked. He gave her a serious stare. “Well, you do look suspicious.” “Shaw got a phone call from someone asking him to pick her up,” Olmstead said, struggling to remain calm. “We think you are the one who made that phone call.” Scott appeared to consider this. “As I said, I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said at last. He flashed a phony smile at them. “Sorry.” “We want to know who called you,” Kincaid told him curtly. He looked at her again, and smiled a different kind of smile at her, not as phony but much more creepy. “I already told you – I don’t know anything about this.” Upon further probing, Scott admitted to calling Shaw periodically, possibly even on the day in question, but adamantly denied knowing anything about Kincaid or asking such a favor from Shaw.

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid sighed and decided to share some of the story with Scott. “Special Agent Scott, we believe the person who asked you to do this may be a serial killer, responsible for over a dozen deaths. We’re investigating those deaths and we could use your help. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be responsible for harboring such a killer.” Scott rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Gosh, I certainly wouldn’t want to protect a killer, but I really don’t know what you are talking about.” Olmstead glared at him. “You don’t have an option here, Scott. This is an official investigation, and you are required to assist us. Unless you want to take the Fifth, in which case we’re going to get a lot more interested in checking out your alibis for the murders.” Olmstead paused and looked at him more appraisingly. “Maybe you’re our guy.” Kincaid did not believe that Scott was personally involved in the killings, but she knew why he was stonewalling them. It was CYA; he’d run the odds and figured that the downside of admitting any involvement were worse than the odds that they could prove any involvement. “Just give us a name, Mr. Scott,” she asked softly. “No one ever has to know where we got it. We just need that name.” Scott studied her impassively. He’d been in the Bureau for a long time, and was used to people pleading with him. Usually he was the one asking the questions, but he’d been the subject of more than one investigation of his conduct, and he could stonewall with the best of them. He looked at her, then at Olmstead, and back to her. “Here’s what I see, Detective Kincaid. I see a junior agent from the FO, and a local cop from some dinky town out west. What I don’t see is an official investigation into this so-called serial killer. I think you have a hair up your ass and somehow wrangled junior G-Man Olmstead here into helping you harass innocent people on your idea of an investigation.” He shook his head dismissively.

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A Long Line of Family “You’re wrong, Scott,” Olmstead said. “I’m here straight on the orders of DD Dodds. This is an official investigation and you better start talking.” Scott met Olmstead’s fierce gaze. “Or what, Agent Olmstead? You’ll beat me up too? In my own house, with my family here?” He shook his head and stood up. “I don’t think so. Now I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Olmstead was fuming as they drove away. “I should have hit him. That arrogant SOB would rather let the guy get away than risk getting his name mixed up with this.” Kincaid looked at him. “We could get his phone records, see who called him or prove he called Shaw.” Olmstead shrugged. “We could try, but we’d have to get OPR involved, and then Scott is going to have his say. Besides, he’s probably smart enough not to have used his cell. If he called from the trunk line there’d be no way to prove who called who. I was hoping he’d give us the missing link.” They commiserated on how investigations always seemed to hit roadblocks like these, witnesses refusing to help for the smallest or most selfish of reasons. They hadn’t given up on Scott, but they needed time to figure out the best way to get some leverage on him. Then they did what good investigators always did, went on to the next thing on their list. Over the next two days they hit almost all the names on their new list, staff that had been present at the time of the ViCAP rewrite. There were seven people they were looking for, four of the IS staff and three former profilers. Amazingly, they found five of them, although not generally on the first try. One was at home cutting the grass when they found her. Another was out running errands when they stopped by his house, but his wife told them he’d be back within an hour, so they tracked down a local McDonalds and waited for his return. Two others were away each time they stopped by on Saturday, but were home on Sunday.

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It was the last person they found on Sunday that proved most helpful. Edgar Bristow had been a profiler since the seventies, and had retired only five years ago. He lived about forty-five minutes north of Quantico, in an old farmhouse that had been gentrified over the years. Several of the neighboring properties – some of which might have been on the original farmland for this property -- had large new houses on them, a sign of the encroaching suburbia even this distance from D.C. Kincaid wondered if he had done the work himself or if he’d purchased the house after it was done. Bristow answered the doorbell after two rings, wearing jeans and a very worn long sleeved shirt. “Yes?” he asked politely. Bristow was a healthy looking man in his late sixties, mostly bald and showing a dark tan. He was tall, and carried twenty or thirty pounds more than he probably wanted to, mostly in a small paunch. Olmstead explained who they were, although not why they were there, and Bristow invited them in. He escorted them to a comfortable living room, with well-worn but still respectable furniture. He sat in a old easy chair that Kincaid guessed was his, given the several books and reading glasses sitting next to it on an end table. She and Olmstead took seats on the edge of the couch. “What can I do for you two?” “We’d like to ask you a few questions from your time in CID,” Olmstead began. Bristow’s face brightened. “Oh, my, yes. Do I have stories I could tell you!” Kincaid cleared her throat. “Well, Mr. Bristow--” “Please, call me Edgar,” he interrupted. “All, right, Edgar. We’d love to hear your stories, but right now we have a few questions to as you.”

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A Long Line of Family Bristow looked at them carefully, and they briefly explained the problem they were trying to understand, how someone could alter the records without leaving any sign. They also asked for any opinions on any of his coworkers who might have been capable of doing such a thing. They did not mention the killings. He listened intently, and when they stopped he leaned back in his chair, gripping the arms of his chair. “So you’ve got a serial working in the Bureau,” he said, more ruminating than asking. He shook his head. “This wouldn’t have happened in my day.” “With all due respect, sir, it did happen in your day,” Olmstead corrected him. “This goes back at least ten years.” Bristow put his fingers together thoughtfully. “Yes, yes, I see.” He nodded his head, and stared off into the distance. “So it would have to be someone with continuous access for all this time. I presume --” looking sharply at them for confirmation “—that these acts were continuous over that period.” He leaned his head back and appeared lost in thought. Kincaid looked around the room. There were numerous pictures scattered throughout the room. They all featured a striking woman, either with Bristow or the two of them together. Their ages in the photos ranged from their twenties until a few years ago; none seemed quite recent, judging by Bristow’s current appearance. Unlike Scott’s house, though, Kincaid sensed no other presence in the house, heard no noises that would indicate Bristow’s wife was there. She wondered at that. “You’ll have talked to the old-timers, I suppose,” Bristow speculated, emerging from his reverie. “Walter, Vic, some of the rest. I must say, though, that I cannot see either of them killing someone, especially not several people.” “We never said we were looking for a serial killer,” Olmstead noted. “We’re just trying to figure out how a bunch of records got altered.”

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A Long Line of Family Bristow grinned at them. “Please give me a little credit. I was very good at what I did, and I did it for a long time. I know you didn’t drive out here for some innocent discrepancies.” He took a deep breath, and his face grew serious again. “Tell us about Walter Henderson, Victor Darragh, and Holly Culpepper,” Olmstead suggested. “They’ve been there a long time.” Bristow studied Olmstead carefully, no doubt wondering why he was asking about those three instead of some of the others who had been there when he was. “Well, I honestly can’t picture any of the them being killers, I’ll say that. I know them all.” He smiled, no doubt remembering times past. “I guess one never really knows, do you? If there’s one thing I learned in my career, it’s that you can’t always tell what’s in a man’s heart.” He coughed and smiled apologetically. “Maybe you can’t ever really tell. Funny thing for someone in my line of work to admit, I suppose.” He seemed genuinely sorry about it. Kincaid offered that they’d settle for knowing how it was done, which lead to filling Bristow in about their efforts to similarly track down the systems staff involved with the ViCAP revisions that happened around the same time the record discrepancies started appearing. He asked who they had talked to, and looked over the list of the Bureau staff they were trying to track down. “Oh, Henry is in California,” Bristow exclaimed about one of the two names they had not been able to track down. “He left the Bureau to strike it rich in the Internet boom. His company got gobbled up by a company that got acquired by Microsoft. So he’s doing OK.” “What about the other name, this Marissa Nash?” Kincaid asked. Bristow wrinkled his brow, and Kincaid could practically see him going through his mental Rolodex trying unsuccessfully to place her. Olmstead handled him the security photo they’d downloaded, and his face brightened. “Oh, yes, of course.” “You remember her?” Olmstead asked.

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“Yes, yes. I didn’t remember her because she was a contractor, not a Bureau employee. She was only there a couple months.” Kincaid and Olmstead looked at each other. Trying to track down a contract programmer would be more difficult than a Bureau employee, even an ex-employee. ‘I don’t suppose you know where she is now?” Kincaid asked. Bristow smiled sadly. “Well, not exactly, no.” Kincaid and Olmstead weren’t surprised; it would have been too easy. They shrugged at each other and started to rise. “It’s more of a theological question than a practical one, I’m afraid,” Bristow continued. “You see, she’s dead. She died working on the project. I don’t think she even finished her part of it.” Kincaid and Olmstead stared carefully at Bristow and at each other, before turning back to Bristow. “Died how?” Kincaid asked. He went on to say that he wasn’t exactly sure. He hadn’t worked directly with her, and wasn’t sure of anyone who might have. She apparently kept mostly to herself. He had hardly not noticed that she wasn’t around any longer, until someone mentioned it, then the rumor mill began to run rampant about the fact of her dying. Her car had apparently been rounding a curve too fast for some slick roads, and had run off the road into a tree. Bristow did not recall if there had been alcohol involved, but was fairly sure no one else had been in the car. “What was her part of the project?” Olmstead asked.

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A Long Line of Family “Something to do with databases. I’m afraid that’s about all I know.” Bristow shrugged himself, using the opportunity to tell them a few other stories from his time in the department. Nash’s death wasn’t remotely the most interesting death in the department he was aware of. He told them about a murder-suicide in the seventies and a drug overdose in the eighties, and was starting on a story involving open heart surgery when Kincaid judged that they had been patient long enough. They made their excuses and walked to the door, Bristow trailing them and continuing his monologue. Something about the woman in those pictures kept nagging at Kincaid. When Olmstead said his goodbye to Bristow and started towards the car she paused at the door. “How long has she been gone?” she asked quietly. It was a long shot but she had a hunch. Bristow didn’t seem surprised or offended; he seemed as if he had been expecting the question. His eyes grew moist almost at once, confirming her suspicion. “Four years,” he admitted with a choked voice. “What was it?” “Cancer. Bone and brain. She got the diagnosis two weeks after I retired.” His face grew weary, more tired of it all than sorrowful, as though he no longer had the energy to grieve properly, as though too many nights alone grieving had worn him down until there was nothing but the pain left. Kincaid touched his arm tenderly. “I’m so sorry.” Bristow looked at her forlornly. “She always hated my job, you know. She didn’t like the world I had to deal with, the things I had to see. She would have been happy for me to be a gentleman farmer or something quiet. But I liked my job. I was good at it, and I always thought I was making a difference.” “I’m sure you did,” she murmured.

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A Long Line of Family He smiled sadly. “We were going to spend our retirement here, enjoying the peace and quiet. Now the quiet is more than I can bear sometimes.” A solitary tear ran down his face. Kincaid reached up to wipe it away with one hand. He patted her hand. “Now go catch yourself a killer, Detective Kincaid.” Kincaid walked away, feeling his sad eyes watch her go.

Chapter 25 They didn’t agree about Bristow. Kincaid felt sorry for him, believing that he was simply a lonely old man who had retired for a life he was fated not to be able to lead, a life his wife could no longer share with him. Olmstead didn’t see it that way. “I think he liked the weird shit a little too much,” he told her in the car on the way back. “He misses it. And he was around when the killings started, so it could he had motive, means, and opportunity. That makes him a suspect in my book.” Kincaid pointed out that he hadn’t had inside access to ViCAP for several years, and they debated whether he might have had some sort of continued guest access to it even after he retired. Kincaid reluctantly agreed they should check it out, although she still could not see him as their killer. What they did agree upon was that Marissa Nash interested them greatly. Olmstead used his cell phone to make a call to Harbor, telling him what they were looking for. It didn’t take long for him to call back with an update. It turned out that Nash had died in a car accident on a rural road between Quantico and Washington ten years ago, right before when the first killings had started. Harbor had given them a number at the Virginia State Police. Olmstead then called them, identified himself, and asked to be put in touch with someone who had access to the accident records. After some bureaucratic shuffling, he was told that it was a county issue, and was directed to the appropriate sheriff’s office. Kincaid and Olmstead agreed that a small detour was called for.

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A Long Line of Family The building that housed the sheriff’s office was newer and larger than Kincaid expected; evidently the county taxpayers were generous. Kincaid wasn’t sure if that meant they were worried about crime or if the county just had plenty of money. She and Olmstead made their way inside the brightly lit, very neat building that was nicer and certainly cleaner than any police station Kincaid had ever been in, and found their way to the duty officer. He was an older man, with the gut and the suspicious eyes that spoke of many years in a patrol car. He eyed Olmstead’s credentials skeptically, and only after some prolonged discussion did he agree to let them see the accident report on Nash’s death. He made them wait several minutes before returning with the file; Kincaid suspected he had stopped for coffee or maybe to check up on Olmstead. When he returned and produced the file both Kincaid and Olmstead looked at each other. From the size of it, they knew at once that there had been no homicide investigation, that the locals had treated the death as a simple accident. He let them sit in his office while they looked at the file, and it didn’t take long to see why. The car had run off the road, into a ravine, and then had burst into flame. Nash had not been wearing a seat belt, and probably had been killed by the impact. The subsequent fire and explosion simply added insult to injury. As best the coroner could determine, she had not been drinking or otherwise been under the influence. Nor were there any signs that there had been any other cars involved. They asked to speak to the patrolman who had been first on the scene. The officer laughed. “He’s off duty, and I’m not going to call him in to talk to the two of you about an accident from ten years ago. He probably wouldn’t even remember anything about the accident – we get five or ten of these a year.” He snorted in disgust at their request. “Were you here then?” Kincaid asked quietly. He nodded somewhat grudgingly, and she held the file out to him. He looked hard at her, but eventually reached for the file. He put on a pair of reading glasses, which Kincaid thought made him look more vulnerable somehow, and started

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A Long Line of Family flipping through the file. It didn’t take him long to look up. “Yeah, I was here. I remember this one because I live near where it happened.” He denied that there had been anything suspicious or unusual about the accident. No question of a malfunction with the car, no indication there had been other vehicles, and no dispute about the victim’s identify. “I figure maybe a deer ran across the road, and she swerved to avoid it. Happens all the time out here, just usually not this bad. She was probably going little too fast and just lost control when she swerved.” Olmstead and Kincaid looked at each other, deciding if they were done or not. “Who ID’ed the body?” Olmstead asked at last. The officer shook his head, then paged through the report. “Her parents, and the dental records. The body was burned pretty bad but it all confirmed it was Nash.” Kincaid asked if the parents were local, thinking they might talk to them, but the officer simply shrugged his ignorance. He clearly was losing his patience with them, but they prevailed upon him to let them make a copy of the report before they left. They didn’t think he was sorry to see them go.

They went back to Quantico the following morning, with the goal of tracking down people who might have known Nash. The handful of systems staff who had been there initially could not place her, but with some prodding and a copy of her security badge photo, two of them were able to recall her. Each told the same story: she was a contract programmer who had a very specific task – she had not had general access into the system, for example – relating to the database structure. Neither had spent any real time talking to her, and neither recalled seeing her spend any significant time with anyone else. Apparently she had fit the stereotype of the introverted nerd even among other such nerds. One of them vaguely remembered hearing that she had died, but could not recall any of the particulars, while the other just had assumed that she had gotten another

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A Long Line of Family assignment and had moved on. Neither Kincaid nor Olmstead felt the need to inform them what had actually happened. Similarly, none of the analysts who had been there when Nash had been had any recollection of her presence. That is, until they showed her photograph to Walter Henderson. He had seemed genuinely blank when they brought up her name, even when they described what she had done there, but he visibly blanched when he saw her picture. “You know her?” Olmstead nudged. Henderson continued to stare at the photograph, then shook his head nervously. “She looks like someone I know, that’s all,” he muttered. He clenched and unclenched his hands. “I don’t think so,” Kincaid told him politely. “She’s dead.” Henderson looked up a trifle too eagerly. ‘Dead?” “She died ten years ago, in an auto accident,” Olmstead said. “While she was working here. Sure you don’t remember her?” Henderson looked back and forth at the two of them, down at the photo for a long moment, then stared off into space. He seemed pale and troubled, and possibly a little confused. He shook his head. “No, she just looks like someone I know, but I didn’t know this woman and the person I know is still alive. It’s just a bad coincidence, I guess.” They pushed him a little while longer, but he had recovered his balance and they weren’t getting anything more from him. They walked away from his office and settled into a vacant conference room. “What do you call that?” Olmstead asked. “I call that a lousy story,” Kincaid said derisively. “He knows something.”

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“I thought he was squirrelly the last time we talked to him,” Olmstead agreed. “This caps it.” They batted it around for a few minutes, agreeing that he hadn’t appeared to recognize her name or her role in the ViCAP system rewrite. It was only the photo that had shaken him. “Maybe he’d seen her around and didn’t know who she was,” Olmstead suggested. “Maybe he picked her up at a bar and had a little fling,” Kincaid replied. “Maybe they had a bad break-up and that’s why she was driving so recklessly the night she died.” They thought about this for a few seconds, and agreed that Henderson deserved a deeper look, just as Nash’s death did. They were starting to brainstorm a plan of action to that effect when Sheryl Johnson poked her head in the door. “Could we speak to you for a few minutes?” “We?” Kincaid asked. Johnson stepped in the room, revealing Mark Kiakowski trailing her closely. He furtively closed the door behind them. They were both carrying a large number of folders. “What’s this all about?” Kincaid asked. Johnson took the folders and spread them out on the table, putting them in ten separate piles. “A few of us got together and decided we couldn’t sit back and let someone continue to subvert ViCAP the way you say he’s been doing it. So we spent the past few days checking the original files against what’s in ViCAP.” Kincaid had a bad feeling. She glanced at Olmstead, who was staring in fascination at the folders on the table. “What are these?” she asked, already guessing at the answer.

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A Long Line of Family Johnson cleared her throat. “We went looking for cases like what you told us you had found. Cases where the victim had been tortured to death, and yet the ViCAP summary somehow missed them as being noteworthy.” Kiakowski nodded vigorously. Olmstead looked at Kincaid, who looked down at the files and then back at Johnson and Kiakowski. She knew how hard it had been for her to track down the cases she had, and she could tell there were far more here. “How many?” “Almost three dozen,” Kiakowski chimed in. “I stacked them by year. There’s up to four per year, and I’m guessing that the years there are less than four are ones we just missed or that never got reported. I think he kills once a quarter, like clockwork.” Kincaid looked down at the table. She was having trouble grappling with the evidence that the reign of this killer might have been even worse than she had discovered. She felt sick at the thought of it. “It must have taken you a long time to find all these.” “Well, once you told us what you had found we knew what we were looking for, and we had access to all the source files,” Johnson admitted. “Still, we had to work every night and all weekend. Mark and I were glad to see you this morning; otherwise we were going to call you anyway.” They were all quiet for a few seconds, their attention drawn by the folders. Each was a brief story of a great theft, of a life not only stolen but even that taking carefully camouflaged from discovery that might allow justice for that life. It placed the burden of action on them. “Who else knows about this?” Olmstead asked at last. He looked intently at Johnson and Kiakowski. “There were only five of us,” Johnson said. “We only picked people we knew really well, and only people who have been here a couple years. So none of us could be the perp.” She nodded meaningfully at the folders.

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A Long Line of Family “I can’t believe that someone we work with could be responsible for this,” Kiakowski said, almost in awe. It was hard for him to be subdued for long, but so far the gravity of the situation was holding. Kincaid got hold of herself. “You guys have done a great job,” she told them in her best official voice. “Now let us take a look at what we’ve found and see how it helps us.” “We’re working up a profile on the guy,” Johnson offered. “We should be done by tomorrow.” She paused, and her face grimaced apologetically. “We’re going to have to report this.” Kincaid nodded. “I know.” Much as she wanted to keep running her own private investigation, things had dramatically expanded. There were too many people involved now, and more would become involved. What she was afraid of was that the person she was looking for would hear about what they knew too soon, and bolt before he could be caught. She feared that it might already be too late. “Give us a couple days.” Kiakowski seemed startled, while Johnson appeared to have expected this request. She shook her head firmly. “I can’t do that. I’m going to be in enough trouble as it is. I should have gotten permission from my supervisor to look through all those old cases anyway, and now that we’ve proved your theory was correct we can’t keep it a secret.” “A day,” Kincaid bargained. Johnson hesitated. “A day,” she compromised. “Until tomorrow morning.”

Chapter 26

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid and Olmstead spent the rest of the day burrowed in their war room – the extra hotel room at the Residence Inn – reviewing the files. It was grimly depressing work, exhausting them physically and emotionally. “I got a five year old kid here,” Olmstead said, not taking his eyes from the report he was reviewing. “The bastard took the boy from his bedroom, went to the zoo and let him loose in the lions’ enclosure. They ate him alive – after playing with him for some time, like cats with a mouse. By the time the night watchman heard the noise there was virtually nothing left.” He snorted in disgust and threw the file down. “The poor kid,” Kincaid offered softly. “Think how terrified he must have been.” She waved the file she was reading in the air. “But I don’t get it. I’m reading about an eighty year old woman he tortured. I never heard of a killer with such a wide range of victims.” “There’s no pattern,” Olmstead agreed, frustration evident in his voice. He stood up, walked over to the wall, and pined what must have been the boy’s school photograph on the wall, in its proper chronological sequence. Many of the photographs were autopsy pictures, but in the boy’s case this had not been an option. They’d had to rearrange their walls of infamy due to the new cases. The photos and brief summaries, which included the ones they had previously identified, now spilled into the bedroom, but at least the previously puzzling gaps in time between the killings had largely been filled. They now knew to leave a hole for any quarter with no killing; it wasn’t that the killer had taken a break, it was that they hadn’t yet found whom his victim had been. “Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, old, young, men, women,” Kincaid said thoughtfully. “From all over the country. No demographic niche, no regional territory.” The room was filled with ghosts, the dead staring at them from the walls and stories of their grim endings filling up the many pages in the files arranged around the rooms. The living area and the bedroom were not large to begin with, but, between the two of them and their unfortunate guests, it was crowded and beginning to feel claustrophobic.

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“He’s got to have made a mistake somewhere along the line,” Olmstead said. He walked along the wall for a few feet, stopping at each photograph along the way. “No one’s that good.” Kincaid scanned the wall from her seat at the desk. “Yeah, but what is it? We don’t know why he chooses the ones he does, how he gets around. Every one has been flawless – no witnesses, no DNA samples. Or if there were, by the time anyone found the body it was too late.” “We’ll find something,” Olmstead promised.

It was close to ten when the phone rang. By then they’d both read through all the files and were fairly familiar with all of the new victims. They didn’t yet know them as well as they’d come to know the people on their original list, but they would come to know them in time. It had been a long day, a frustrating day. They might have preferred a more measured approach to the information, but Robinson’s timeline left them with little chance to absorb it. What they hoped to accomplish in those hours was still not yet clear. It was all they could do to remember the names and key details. They had initially hoped that a clearer pattern of the killer’s M.O. might emerge, but, if anything, the picture was even murkier now. They looked at each other at the sound. “You expecting anyone?” Kincaid asked. She had long since taken her shoes off, while Olmstead had finally given in and loosened his tie and shirt collar. He shook his head. The call was on the hotel phone, not one of their cell phones. She picked it up. “Hello?” There was a short pause. “Detective Kincaid,” the voice said, curiously flat and without emotion. She looked at Olmstead and shook her head to indicate they didn’t know who it was. “Speaking.”

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“You have caused me some trouble, Detective Kincaid. Or may I call you Juanita?” Kincaid urgently motioned for Olmstead to pick up the second phone. He quickly moved to the bedroom to pick it up. “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said. “Who is this?” The caller must have heard the small click when Olmstead picked up. “Ahh, and that must be Special Agent Olmstead. How nice of you to keep the detective company, especially so late at night.” “OK, you know our names,” Olmstead said, shrugging his shoulders at Kincaid. “Why don’t you return the favor?” The caller made an odd, humorless sound that was evidently supposed to be a laugh. “I don’t think so. Detective Kincaid here has been trying to learn the smallest fact about me for the last several months, and I don’t believe she has made the slightest progress, have you, Juanita?” “We’re getting closer all the time,” she replied, her face flushing. “You just don’t know it yet.” “I think not. You only have the slightest idea of my activities.” He seemed amused by her bold claims. “We know more than you think,” Olmstead told him. “We’d like to hear more about why you are doing this. Why don’t you come in and talk to us about it?” “Special Agent Olmstead, do you really think it would be so simple?” “How do we even know who we are talking to?” Kincaid challenged. “You could be some nut.”

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“Excellent point, Detective Kincaid. I knew you were intelligent. Let me relieve your doubts.” He went on to describe details from some of the deaths, picking victims seemingly at random and describing how they died in gruesome detail. It was one thing to read the words on the page, another to see photographs of the outcome, and although quite another to hear the killer tell the story in his own words, abbreviated though they may be. “You’re a sick bastard,” Olmstead said at last. There was silence. When he spoke, there was no amusement left in his tone. “I have allowed you to go this far without interference, just to see what you might learn. But my tolerance is finished.” “Your tolerance?” Kincaid interrupted. “Yes, my tolerance. You only live because I have not decided to take your lives. I’m giving you fair warning right now: give up the investigation or you will suffer the consequences. And I think by now you should have some glimmering of an idea what those consequences might be.” There it was. The threat was out in the open. Kincaid and Olmstead stared at each other, surprised by the killer’s audacity. They were silently trying to decide how to play. Olmstead shrugged his shoulders questioningly, and Kincaid shook her head to indicate she didn’t have any good ideas. “You both have been very diligent, but it’s not your job to die over it,” the killer said in an avuncular tone of voice. “Don’t be stupid.” “You really don’t understand what our jobs are, do you, man?” Olmstead said dismissively.

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A Long Line of Family The man laughed. “Oh, how noble! It’s one thing to tell people you’ll die to see justice done, but it’s another thing entirely when all you’d be doing is throwing your life away.” His voice grew very cold indeed. “Which is what you’re doing if you keep after me.” “You really expect us to just give up?” Kincaid asked. “No, I expect you to be pig-headed and foolish. Especially you, Juanita. But I wanted to offer you a chance to walk away.” “You son of a bitch,” Olmstead said, deciding to play it aggressively. “We’re law enforcement officials, and you’ve just threatened us. You better--” The caller made the odd laughing sound again. “Or what, Lyle? Do you really think that I’m worried about threatening you? You both know that I’m far more dangerous than simply making threats. And you both know what you would suffer if I turn my attentions to you.” Kincaid was getting angry. “I’m going to track you to the ends of the earth. I’m going to see you locked up in a little hole until they fry you. And I’ll be there to watch.” Kincaid saw Olmstead give her an encouraging nod. “Your days are numbered, pal,” he added gruffly. “Give it up now and save us all some time.” There was no immediate response. They looked at each other and Olmstead shrugged at her again, neither of them knowing quite what to expect. Sometimes killers reached out like this when they were ready to give up, and sometimes they progressed to taking ever more risky chances as an unconscious cry for help, but it was hard for them to believe that this particular killer was going to make it that easy for them. “Well,” the caller said at last, “you can’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” He hung up.

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It was hard to go back to the files after that. Instead, they started discussing the call and what they’d learned. Kincaid made some coffee and brought Olmstead a cup, sitting down on the chair. They agreed that he must have been using a voice synthesizer to mask his voice, as it sounded oddly neutral. They debated if that meant that they knew him, or simply a precaution. Olmstead made a call to the Field Office to get a record of all incoming calls to the hotel, but they did not have high expectations for it. It was a trunk line, so connecting any particular call to their call was virtually impossible. The best they could hope for was that there had been few other calls at that time, but even if that were so they suspected that their killer would have been too careful. Maybe a payphone, maybe a disposable cell phone; they’d do the work, but it would most likely be futile. “We must be scaring him,” Kincaid decided. “Why else would he call? I mean, all we had before was a theory.” They debated if it was, in fact, the killer. “He could be one of the profilers who read the files,” Olmstead suggested wearily, slouched on the couch. Hell, for all I know it was Shaw screwing with us.” “Yeah, well, maybe. There was just something about the way he talked about killing those people – I just think this was him.” They did their best to recreate the call, transcribing the words as best they could. They tried to remember any tones, any inflections that might be important. “I could kick myself for not trying to record the damn call,” she said glumly. Olmstead told her to forget it, and instead tried to match up speech patterns with any of the suspects they had – especially the Henderson, Darragh, and Culpepper – maybe her husband – as well as Bristow. Kincaid was not convinced about Bristow but Olmstead insisted that they consider him as one of the primary suspects.

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid found it oddly comforting to be around Olmstead. Their lives had just been threatened by the worst killer she had ever heard of, they had no solid leads to his identify, and she was exhausted from being on an adrenaline high for too long. She thought he looked different somehow. Perhaps it was the loose tie and out-of-place hair that made him look more human, more like the young man that he was. When she found herself dwelling on this instead of listening to him talk about the killer, she decided she had better turn in. She sat up and told him she was going to bed. He seemed surprised. “You should get some sleep,” she told him, her voice softer than he’d heard it. He grimaced. “Naw, I want to take another look at the files for the victims he talked about, see if I can figure out anything special about them.” He watched her stand up. “You know we’re going to get some help on this, whether we like it or not.” She nodded. The FBI would no doubt form a task force, now that their own people had found additional cases and the killer had actually surfaced with the call. It was going to get out of her control. Part of her resented that, while another part was a little relieved. “I’ll deal with that tomorrow. Listen, if you’re going to stay up a while longer you could always crash here when you’re ready to go to bed.” Olmstead rubbed his eyes. “Maybe.” He looked at the bed, which was covered with files, as was the rest of the couch he was sitting on. She had to laugh. “OK, it’s a little crowded. Tell you what – I’ll keep the connecting door open and you can use the couch in my room if you want to.” It sounded odd to both of them. Her room had always been separate from this, and he had never felt invited to cross that boundary. Her invitation felt like it might mean something, that something might have changed between them. Or it might have simply been that it was late at night and his house was miles away.

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A Long Line of Family He thanked her and watched her as she went into her room. He heard the door to her bedroom close, and tried to start looking at the files again.

Chapter 27 Kincaid had a hard time getting to sleep. She knew she needed to get some rest, and she was usually able to put the day’s events behind her when it was time to go to bed. Tonight, though, she couldn’t. She kept replaying the phone conversation in her head, and she mentally reviewed the new cases they’d received today. And, she had to admit, she kept listening for Olmstead, waiting for either the door to close as he went home or for there to be sounds of him coming to sleep on her couch. She told herself that she didn’t care which of those options he choose – or, if she did, it was only because she worried about him driving home this late. She kept listening, and did not hear either sound. Around two o’clock in the morning, still awake, she decided she needed to find out what he was doing. Perhaps he’d simply fallen asleep in the war room. She got up, opened her bedroom door as silently as possible, and confirmed that Olmstead had not slipped into her room and onto her couch without her hearing it. She walked quietly to the connecting door, and stopped in the doorway. Olmstead was sitting where she had left him. There were more files scattered around him, indicating that he’d been busy. He had actually removed not only his tie but also even his shoes, and his shirt looked like it was slowly escaping from his pants. He looked up when she appeared in the doorway, surprised at her appearance. “I thought you were going to sleep.” Kincaid was suddenly aware that she was only wearing a long t-shirt and panties. It wasn’t especially revealing, and the former covered the latter, but it certainly wasn’t professional attire. If Olmstead let himself think about it, he’d be aware that she didn’t have a bra on. “I couldn’t sleep, and then I thought I heard something out here,” she told

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A Long Line of Family him. The latter part was not true, but she found herself somehow reluctant to tell him that she’d come out to check up on him. He raised his eyebrows. “And if I was an intruder, you’d what? Karate kick me?” Olmstead shrugged reluctantly. “Yeah, well, it’s late. Listen, time for you to get some sleep. We’re going to have a long day ahead of you and you need some sleep.” Olmstead rubbed his face, tacitly admitting that he was, indeed, beat. He was actually a little relieved at the admonition to stop, because he hadn’t found a good excuse to stop himself. Those silent faces on the wall – some of them still showing the rictus of the agonized death they had suffered – spoke to him, urging him to bring justice to them. “Maybe you’re right,” he agreed wearily, and looked over at her. His gaze took in her attire, seemingly noticing for the first time what she was wearing. Kincaid had lived in a co-ed dorm in college, had had male roommates, and had worked in a largely male police force, so believed that what she was wearing was not all that unusual. But she felt curiously exposed, especially when Olmstead looked, averted his gaze quickly, then – as if drawn by a force of attraction he was powerless to resist – allowed it to return to her. “Come to bed,” she said, holding out one hand. Looking back at that moment, as she would come to do many times over the months and years ahead, Juanita Kincaid could not have said what she meant, whether she was urging him to her couch or inviting him to her own bed. As soon as she’d said it, though, the latter thought became visible to her conscious mind for the first time. She was not someone who simply jumped in bed at the first chance, especially not with coworkers. It had been several months since her last relationship, but she wasn’t exactly at a point in her life where she was looking to get involved with someone. Yet here she was, standing

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A Long Line of Family in a skimpy outfit and extending a very ambiguous invitation to a man in her hotel room late at night. Perhaps she just needed to get laid. Perhaps it was because she was tired and it was last call for the night. Perhaps it was because they had both been threatened by a common enemy, a man who stopped at nothing to inflict pain and suffering upon his victims. Or perhaps it was because he seemed both vulnerable yet brave in a way he had not seemed until this very moment. Olmstead was taken aback, and found the proposal intriguing yet fraught with risks. He had never dared to think that she might be attracted to him, never stopped to imagine such a situation as he found himself in at this moment. Still, he found himself fully awake and instantly aroused, even though he wasn’t convinced her invitation was intended to come out the way it sounded. He lurched to his feet unsteadily. “I suppose I should stay,” he agreed tentatively. Juanita found that not only had she not lowered her hand, but also that her hand seemed to raise itself towards him even more invitingly. He looked at it for a long moment, then at her, and stepped forward. He took her hand. In that moment, both of them knew he would not be sleeping on the couch. She led him into her bedroom, thoughts of sleep disappearing from both of their minds. She let go of his hand when she reached the bed, and turned to face him. She nodded towards his shirt, and he started fumbling with the buttons. He quickly shed the shirt, his pants, and his socks, leaving him in his t-shirt and boxers. She slipped under the covers and he went around to the other side to get in as well. Then they rolled on their sides looking at each other nervously. He reached out and touched her face tenderly. “Juanita,” he whispered, his voice betraying his amazement and appreciation. The nervousness had vanished. She leaned in towards him and they kissed.

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A Long Line of Family It was a long kiss, and quickly their arms and legs wrapped around each other, holding tight and beginning the mutual exploration of each other’s body. Their clothes disappeared quickly. Both of them were young, healthy and in good shape, and it had been far too long for either of them. They greedily reveled in each other’s touches, frantically feeling all over each other, and before they could form about any reservations about what was happening Olmstead was inside of her, both of them panting and making moans of pleasure given and pleasure taken. It was fierce, it was urgent, it was desperate, as though they each feared it might be the last chance either of them would ever have. It was mutual lust too long subdued. It was over far too quickly. Olmstead rolled off of her and she rolled into his arms. Kincaid wasn’t sure why she had done it, but it had felt right, at least for the moment. She doubted that the morning would find them in a new relationship, but neither did she think she would second-guess allowing what had happened. She smiled contentedly. Olmstead was more racked with doubts. He shook his head. “I thought you’d save that for Joe Russell,” he said softly. She jabbed him playfully in the ribs. “That work for you with women generally, talking about other men?” He essayed a sad smile. “Not much works for me with women,” he admitted. “It’s always a mystery to me.” Kincaid propped her head up on one elbow so she could watch him more closely. “Why did you say that about him? Jealous?” He grimaced slightly. “You talk about him like he’s superman. You look at him like – I don’t know.” She rolled onto her back at stared up at the ceiling, thinking. “I do, do I?” she asked, more to herself than to him. “Well, there’s nothing between us. He’s happily married.”

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Olmstead laughed bitterly. “Yeah, that old story. I figure you could get just about any man you put you mind to.” “Well, you certainly were easy.” He looked over at her sharply, not realizing at first that she was teasing him. He smiled. “I guess I was. And I must say, it was well worth it. You’re really something.” He took an appreciative inspection of her body. “Really something.” “Well, thank you, sir. You’re not so bad yourself.” She rolled back into his arms and he held her closely for a few minutes. It didn’t take long before they were both aroused again, and this time they took longer with their lovemaking, paying attention to every inch of each other’s bodies and making the act last as long as possible. Both of them climaxed, Juanita several times. When it was over they took a shower together and jumped back into bed together, this time considerably more relaxed than they had first entered the bed. Olmstead couldn’t let the topic drop. Without thinking about it, he found himself asking, “So what is it with you and Russell?” “This again?” Kincaid said, surprised. She was enjoying lying in his arms, feeling safe and comfortable. Talking about Joe Russell seemed curiously out of place. She looked at Olmstead and saw that she couldn’t just brush the question off. “There’s nothing between us.” Olmstead shook his head. “There’s something between you. I can see that.” Kincaid sighed. “It’s not sex. We shared some pretty intense moments a couple years ago. Because of that, I trust him, I know he’s got my back, and I hope he knows I’ve got his.” She rolled over to look at him. “Like when he came and rescued me from you and

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A Long Line of Family Shaw. I didn’t know he was coming, but when he walked through that door if it was going to be anyone I figured it would be him.” “I always did wonder how you guys did that. How did he know where you were, much less get through all the security?” She laughed. “I don’t know. That’s just like him. You don’t know how he does some of the stuff he does; he just does.” Olmstead looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and looked away for a longer and even more thoughtful few seconds. She nudged him playfully. “Hey, handsome,” she said. He looked back at her and shrugged. Then he reached out to stroke her back. She cooed appreciatively. Still, he couldn’t quite let it go. “Still, if you put your mind to it I bet you could get him. Married or not.” Kincaid took a deep breath before answering. “I’ve seen the way she looks at him. She’s beautiful, she’s super-smart, and she’s very much in love with him.” “Still, you’re pretty amazing yourself,” he said, enjoying the touch of her and feeling her body pressed against him. Yet he felt curiously sad, knowing she was someone he could not hope to hold on to. “A man would have to be a fool to not pick you if he had a choice.” His voice betrayed a longing he hadn’t known he was feeling. She sighed. “Thank you, my dear, but it’s not as easy as that.” “It’s not?” “I mean, here I am in bed with you, having allowed you to ravish me repeatedly and all you can talk about is some other man,” she told him in a carefully light tone of voice. “Doesn’t say much for my ability to hold onto a man.”

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A Long Line of Family “That’s different. That’s about my ability to hold onto a woman, something I don’t have much luck with. I figure if you put your mind to it you’d get Mr. Joe Russell away from his wife and she’d be just a tiny memory.” Juanita Kincaid smiled at him tenderly. “I don’t think I’d easily forget about you, Lyle Olmstead. And Joe Russell isn’t going anywhere.” “How do you know?” “You see, it’s not just how she looks at him.” Her smile pretended to be carefree, but she couldn’t quite pull it off. She sighed. “I’ve seen the way he looks at her.” With that she turned her back to him, pulled his arms around her, and did her very best to fall asleep. It took him much longer to do the same.

Chapter 28 It hadn’t taken too long for Joe to find George Cornwall. He’d gone to ground after choosing Tom Foster over Russell’s offer, but he wasn’t very good at it. Joe figured out he’d holed up in the apartment he rented for Ellie Kushkin, but he wanted to wait until Kushkin showed up before making his move. Indeed, from the taps they had obtained for his phone, they knew that Foster made a call to her soon after his run-in with Russell. Foster wanted her to ensure that Cornwall keep silent. It took some shouting and some promises of additional payment on Foster’s part to convince her to continue her recurring role until she eventually agreed. However, she could not come to Washington until Monday night, which was why Joe had showed up at her apartment building early Tuesday morning. Her building was just off Wisconsin Avenue near the Zoo, in an older building that had recently been renovated as part of a condominium conversion. It was a nice

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A Long Line of Family neighborhood, with tree-lined streets and upscale residents. Still, it didn’t take much for Joe to bluff his way past the doorman, and less for him to slip the locks on her door. He moved silently to the bedroom door, where Cornwall and Kushkin were still sleeping. She slept with her back to him, with Cornwall lying on his back with an arm over his face as if shielding it from the sun. Russell had seen her from a distance, as well as in many photographs, including some very provocative ones on her escort service’s website. Up close and in person, and without her makeup, she looked younger and less hardened. Russell remembered that Kushkin was only twenty-six, although she had been on the job since she was nineteen. She was quite beautiful, with the sharp cut cheekbones of a model and long brown hair. He cleared his throat discreetly. It took a moment, but she shook her head and looked up, her eyes widening. “Who the hell are you?” she asked loudly. She shook Cornwall, pulling the sheet up to her neck with her free hand. Russell pointed at Cornwall, who was taking longer to rouse. “I’m a friend of George’s. Maybe he didn’t mention I’d be stopping by.” Kushkin shot Cornwall a hard stare. He was awake by now. “Oh, no,” he moaned, catching sight of Russell. “Not you. Leave me alone!” He shook his head and looked pleadingly at Kushkin. “I swear I didn’t know he was coming. I didn’t even know he knew where your place was. You have to believe me.” She didn’t appear too convinced, but returned her attention to Russell. “So answer my question – who are you and what are you doing in my apartment? You have ten seconds to explain it to me before I call the cops.” Russell smiled at her, as if she’d told a not-very-funny joke. “Well, Ellie, go ahead. I suspect that when we explain your real occupation, plus the fact that the name that

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A Long Line of Family George here put on the lease for you isn’t your real name, things will get real interesting. Is that what you want? You and George are in enough trouble. Go ahead and call.” He nodded towards the phone on the nightstand. Her eyes narrowed and he again saw the professional in her, that more innocent part of her having already slipped under her Ellie Kushkin persona. It didn’t take long for her to run through the odds. She smiled at him and even let the sheet slip down a few inches, resting tantalizingly close to her impressive cleavage. “Let’s start over. You’re a friend of George’s?” Russell shook his head. “Not really. I am trying to help George out, though, and he doesn’t seem to understand that.” She really was too pretty for Cornwall, he thought, and Cornwell should have realized that he was neither good looking enough nor rich enough to attract such a beauty. No wonder he’d found her hard to resist. By now Cornwall was sitting up, rubbing his face with his hands. He was practically in tears. “Maybe George didn’t explain to you that we know all about his deal with Tom Foster,” Russell continued. “Maybe he forgot to tell you that he was going to be prosecuted and his only choice was to cooperate. And I kind of guess he didn’t tell you that we know all about you too.” Russell had to give her credit. She absorbed all this without any expression, rapidly running through the odds. She evidently decided she needed to win him over. “Can’t you even tell me your name?” she asked coquettishly. “Joe Russell.” Cornwall started to warn her off, but she shushed him with a quick hand gesture. “Now, Joe, this sounds like something between you and George. Why don’t I let you two talk about it?” She swung her legs to the side of the bed, letting the sheet slip and reveal her nude figure, strategic parts of which looked to have been enhanced. She stood up to

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A Long Line of Family allow a fuller view, and took her time strolling over to the chair where her robe was. Russell enjoyed the walk and waited until she had casually put the robe on, not pulling it very closely together. She then started to move to the bathroom. “It’s not going to be that easy, Ellie,” he told her regretfully. “Like it or not, you’re in this too.”

He gave them a few minutes to get cleaned up and dressed, and sat everyone down at the small dining room table. The room had the impersonal decorating of a furnished apartment, which it probably was. Russell marveled that Cornwall had never noticed this before. Perhaps he had simply conveniently ignored it, part of the fantasy he had let himself build up. Cornwall appeared nervous, while Kushkin had passed from trying to seduce him to trying to figure out her angle. “Why did you sic Foster on me instead of cooperating, George?” Russell asked patiently. Cornwall’s face was ashen, and he hung his head. “I, I – I couldn’t give everything up.” He looked up hopefully at Kushkin. “I couldn’t give Ellie up.” She continued to ignore him, watching Russell intently. She had stayed in her robe but had brushed her hair and put on a little make-up. One suspected that being clothed was not her preferred state. Russell explained what the outcome of Cornwall’s calling Foster had been, briefly describing the encounter with Foster’s goons. Cornwall’s eyes widened, suggested that the concept of violence occurring was new to him. “And now that he knows he’s not going to scare me off, who do you think he’s going to go after, George?” he concluded. Cornwall looked like he was going to cry. This caused Kushkin to give him a withering look. She turned her attention back to Russell. “What does this have to do with me? I should let you two work this out.” Russell looked at her steadily. “Ellie, Foster bribed George to steal secrets from Zapdata. That’s illegal. Zapdata looks unkindly on this, and so does the Defense Department. Now that we know all this, it looks pretty likely that he could go to jail, especially if we

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A Long Line of Family can get George here to testify. So Foster has every reason to stop him. Now, we know that he also paid you off to get involved with George here. Once he knocks him off, you’re the only other person who can link him to all this. So you figure it out.” His tone was the tone of a teacher patiently explaining something obvious to a slow child. Ellie Kushkin was neither slow nor a child. Her eyes narrowed. “Foster knows I wouldn’t say anything. We’ve done business before. He knows he can trust me.” This amused Russell. “Trust doesn’t have anything to do with it. Any way you look at it, he’s safer with you dead than he is with you alive. He’s got more to lose than George here, and I figure he wants to go to jail even less.” They ended up talking for another hour, Kushkin trying every angle on Russell, with Cornwall first trying to pretend he wasn’t there, then making a weak attempt to back her up, and ending up finally pleading with her to cooperate. Whether it was his words or Russell’s implacable logic, she eventually relented and agreed she would testify against Foster. Russell advised them both to get lawyers, telling them that they should make a deal that would reduce their own punishment. He then made a couple phone calls to arrange for the Zapdata executives and DoD investigators to come, and waited until they arrived to make the necessary introductions. By then Kushkin had put on jeans and a sleeveless top, and was looking more like a scared twenty-six year old than the hardened pro she had pretended to be. “It will be OK, Marcia,” he told her gently. She looked up at him in surprise at his casual use of her real name, a name she had not used in many years and that she had thought no one knew. It brought tears to her eyes, and he patted her back tenderly. His cell phone rang. It was Kincaid.

Chapter 29

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Kincaid heard a phone ringing, but it took several long seconds for her to realize that she was not dreaming the sound. She woke and found that Olmstead was blearily doing the same. “Mine or yours?” he asked, still groggy. “I don’t know.” They both stumbled out of bed, Kincaid slipping on a t-shirt as she did. They sorted through the pile of clothes. “It’s mine,” Olmstead announced, grabbing his mobile phone from his pants and hitting the receive button. “Hello?” Kincaid watched his side of the conversation. She knew immediately it was serious, and quickly concluded it was official rather than personal business, especially when he looked up at her with a grim expression. When he started looking around the room, she was ready with a pad of paper and pen. He accepted them gratefully and quickly scribbled something down. He listened for a few more seconds, then looked at her. “I will,” he told the caller, and hung up. “What’s up?” “There’s been a murder. Two murders, actually – a couple. Dobbs want us to come to the scene.” He looked at the address. “This is only a couple of blocks away. We can walk.” “Dobbs? Why does he want us there? Does this have something to do with our guy?” Olmstead looked at her. Part of him was still back on the previous night, almost not able to believe that he had actually slept with her. The rest of him was back in the present and thinking ahead to what was at the address he had written down. “He didn’t say.”

It took them less than twenty minutes to get dressed and ready to go, and another ten minutes to walk to the scene. They didn’t have a hard time determining which house

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A Long Line of Family they were looking for. The Arlington police had created a perimeter, with a small early morning crowd of onlookers gathering around the crime scene tape. Several uniformed officers stood by watching, a few sipping cups of coffee. Two cruisers blocked off the street, parked at angles to each other to block off the street from traffic. Olmstead and Kincaid paused to check each other out before crossing the line. Both of them looked straight out of bed, with Olmstead’s clothes looking particularly wrinkled, since there had been no time for him to go home and change. “If anyone asks, we’ll tell them you worked late and fell asleep in the war room,” Kincaid suggested. Olmstead grimaced. Despite herself, Kincaid smiled at him unconsciously, and couldn’t help herself from brushing a small piece of lint from his jacket. He blushed, glancing over at the nearest officer to see if he’d noticed – which he hadn’t – and looking back at her. He gave her a quick smile in return. “Shall we?” he asked. They showed their credentials to the officer. He radioed for instructions, and was told to let them in. The house was a brick two-story townhouse. The drapes on the large picture window in the front of the house were drawn. They had to climb a small set of stairs to enter the house. They paused once inside, both due to the crowd of people – all law enforcement officials, it appeared, ten or so of them milling around while they carried on their business – who were already in the room and due to the sight that had drawn them all there. There was a man and woman hanging, facing each other. The living room had a cathedral ceiling with a beam crossing the room. A rope had been thrown over the beam, and this is what had been used to hang them. There were several thick phone books underneath the woman. “What happened?” Olmstead asked, looking around for faces he knew. He spotted Dobbs, who was looking distinctly unhappy and who moved over to them, his face darkening as he approached. Gnassi was there as well, and approached with Dobbs. “Do you know them?” Dobbs barked.

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead and Kincaid glanced at each, puzzled. Dobbs nodded towards the bodies, and gestured that they should approach. They slipped on protective slippers for their shoes and latex gloves for their hands, and edged closer to the bodies. The photographers recording every detail of the scene had to stop as Olmstead and Kincaid stepped into the frame. They focused first on the victim’s faces. “No,” Kincaid concluded. “I don’t know who they are.” “Me neither,” Olmstead admitted. “What do they have to do with us?” Kincaid asked Dobbs. Without a word Gnassi reached past them to grab the man’s shoulder. He pulled the man’s shoulder and twisted around to face them. He didn’t need to call their attention to the sign that was pined to the man’s shirt. It said “Special Agent Olmstead.” Kincaid took a quick gulp of air, and reached over to the woman. She twisted the body around so that she faced them as well. This time the sign on the body was not quite so much of a surprise; Kincaid saw her own name on the sheet of paper. She and Olmstead looked at each other, then both turned to Dobbs, who nodded towards Gnassi. Both were watching them closely. “These are the Howells,” Gnassi told them curtly. “Neighbors say they usually keep the drapes open until they go to bed, which is usually eleven or twelve. This morning, though, when the drapes were opened there were two bodies visible. We haven’t found anyone who saw anyone come or go.” He turned to another man who was hovering nearby. “This is Detective Jenkins, with the Arlington P.D. He’s primary from their side.” Jenkins was in his late thirties, solidly built and unhappy looking. His suit looked even more rumpled than Olmstead’s, and with a less good excuse. He seemed to be more

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A Long Line of Family suspicious of all these people crashing his investigation. Olmstead and Kincaid introduced themselves, with Jenkins appearing intrigued by Kincaid’s presence, since she was neither FBI nor local. “As best we can tell,” he began grudging, “the perp put the rope on them so they each could still breath – just barely – if they stayed on their toes.” “My God,” Kincaid said, grasping it at once. Jenkins nodded. “Yeah. So as soon as one of them tired, they’d have to come down from their toes and it would start to strangle the other.” Olmstead stared at the bodies. “How long did it take?” Jenkins shook his head. “Hard to say. It’s not that easy to cut off the windpipe with this kind of arrangement. At first I thought it might be a double suicide kind of situation, due to the kind of homemade nature of the thing, but when we saw those signs we kinda wondered who you all were. So – you want to tell me why these two have your names on them?” Everyone looked towards Dobbs first. “Let’s go into the kitchen,” he suggested. Dobbs, Gnassi, Jenkins and the unintrusive Harbor all walked towards the kitchen, with Kincaid and Olmstead following in their wake. They could see the remaining people in the room watching them closely, doubting they were suspects but not sure what their official involvement might be. Dobbs took a seat at the table, gesturing that Olmstead and Kincaid join him. Jenkins invited himself into the final chair, so Gnassi gracefully perched on the counter. Harbor stood by the door, his hands held in front if him and his face carefully neutral. “Now, Detective Jenkins,” Dobbs began, “we believe this is part of a possible serial investigation that Special Agent Olmstead and Detective Kincaid are heading up. Accordingly, we’re going to request jurisdiction over your homicides.”

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A Long Line of Family Jenkins started to protest but Dobbs held up a hand to cut him off. “I know this is going to be high profile and this is in your turf, so I’m willing to let you play a role in the investigation.” Jenkins eyed him suspiciously. “Mighty big of you. You got any proof this is part of your investigation?” “I’d say those signs are a pretty good clue,” Gnassi said. He gave Jenkins a no-nonsense look. Jenkins gave him a long look in return, trying to appear unimpressed but not entirely succeeding, then turned back to Dobbs. “Funny that your guy would call attention to himself that way, don’t you think? Maybe it’s a copycat.” Dobbs leaned forward. “That might be so, Detective Jenkins, if anyone knew about our investigation.” He nodded towards Kincaid and Olmstead. “They’ve been on their own, following up some hunches Detective Kincaid had from her investigation. Hell, I don’t even know what they’ve found, so I sure as hell hope a copycat hasn’t heard about it.” He paused and looked at Jenkins to see how it would play out. Jenkins thought it for a few seconds, and he and Dobbs quickly negotiated terms, which largely involved what information Jenkins could share with his superiors or the media. Once satisfied, Dobbs turned back to Kincaid and Olmstead. “Now tell us what you know.” Kincaid recounted their interviews at Quantico, as well as with Bristow. Olmstead described their theory about the backdoor, and of Marissa Nash’s now suspicious death. Finally, Kincaid told them of the raft of additional cases that Robinson and her coworkers had uncovered. Dobbs’ face grew darker and darker. “Jesus Christ. How many people know about this?” Olmstead shook his head. “Robinson kept it quiet, and made sure only analysts who don’t have enough tenure to be suspects were involved.”

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“Hell,” Gnassi snorted. “You get some of those old women together and someone’s going to leak it. Do you have any suspects?” “Three guys we’re looking at: Walter Henderson, Victor Darragh, and Holly Culpepper.” “A woman?” Jenkins asked. Olmstead shrugged. “She’s got a husband and a lover, so we’re looking at either of them. And don’t forget Bristow.” Kincaid shook her head but didn’t reply, looking away. No one spoke for a few seconds, so Kincaid took advantage of the situation. “It’s our guy all right,” she said emphatically, looking at each of them in turn. “He sat and watched them die, you know. He picked a way to go that would be a slow death, and so each of them could watch the other suffer. They each died knowing they were literally killing the other.” “There was a chair sitting in the middle of the room,” Jenkins admitted. “Damn, this guy is cold.” He looked at Olmstead and Kincaid. “But it doesn’t fit. Sounds like his MO is altering the ViCAP profile, which he has to know isn’t going to be possible now, especially since he drew attention by putting your names on the bodies. It would have taken a long time to tie these to your guy without doing that.” “Maybe he is getting sloppy,” Gnassi offered. He jumped off the counter. “He could be getting careless.” “Maybe,” Kincaid said, sounding unconvinced. “I just want to know why them, and why he’d put your names on them,” Jenkins said.

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A Long Line of Family “He called us last night,” Olmstead said softly, looking down at the table. He paused, then looked up at Kincaid. “He warned us to stop, and we told him we wouldn’t.” “So?” Dobbs asked. Olmstead looked back at the table, and seemed to lose some of his starch. “So maybe these two were his way of telling us we should have listened.” Everyone was silent for a few long moments, the tension building. “You should have called us last night,” Dobbs said. “It wouldn’t have mattered.” Harbor said in a calm voice. They all looked up in surprise; those were the first words he’d spoken. “He would have killed them anyway.” “How do you know?” Gnassi asked curiously. Harbor shrugged. “It’s what he does, isn’t it?” With that the implicit criticism of Kincaid and Olmstead that had suddenly filled the air just as suddenly dissipated, and they began to focus on what to do next. They quickly worked out a plan, which involved immediate surveillance of the three suspects, matching their credit card and ATM use against the murders, and a review of their calendars for the same dates. Gnassi would take care of the details, using some of his staff, but keeping Harbor informed. Olmstead and Kincaid insisted upon taking the next round of interviews with the three current profilers, but Gnassi wanted to talk to Bristow himself, as they went way back to Gnassi’s days as an agent in the field. Jenkins got the less enviable assignment of looking into Nash’s death, which they all agreed was looking less and less likely to be an accident. “You know people down there, so it won’t be as strange for you to start asking questions,” Dobbs told Jenkins, who only seemed partially mollified.

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A Long Line of Family It took almost an hour for them to sort out the details. By the time they went back into the living room, the bodies had been taken down, but the now-ominous chair remained in front of it, a silent record of the perversion that had occurred here a few hours prior. Kincaid and Olmstead started to walk back to the hotel, their mood unalterably darkened. The sky had even clouded over, as if reflecting their mood. “While we were together…” Olmstead started. “Don’t even think about it,” Kincaid advised. “There’s nothing you could have done that would have changed what happened here. It’s not because we slept together. Don’t go regretting it now.” Olmstead seemed unconvinced, but rather than discuss it further he looked away. She took the chance to pull out her phone and start dialing. “Who you are calling?” he asked. “Joe Russell,” she told him, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Chapter 30 It took Russell less than twenty minutes to get to their hotel room. Olmstead let him in with a brief nod of acknowledgement, but didn’t offer to shake hands. “Hey, Joe,” Kincaid said, sitting on the couch with her feet up on the table. She smiled wanly. She and Olmstead had been discussing their theory of the crimes, which involved their unknown suspect gaining Nash’s trust to get access to the backdoor, then killing her once he had what he needed. They also quickly sketched out their plan for the day, and were already feeling both energized by the hunt and somewhat worried about the work ahead. Russell immediately noticed the raft of additional photographs lining the walls. They had not had a chance to update him on the events of the last twenty-four hours, but it didn’t take him long to draw the appropriate conclusions. “You found more cases, eh?” He

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A Long Line of Family walked slowly along the walk, quickly looking at the victim’s faces. It weighed upon him. “It’s worse than that,” Kincaid told him, watching him pace. She liked the way he moved, his power and grace visible even at slow speeds. She realized Olmstead was watching her watch, and she looked over at him, still standing by the doorway. “Tell him.” Olmstead hesitated for a fraction, but recovered quickly and started to tell him about the most recent murder, concluding with finding their names on the victim’s chests. Russell had stopped walking and was looking at him intently. His eyes were thoughtful. “He called us last night,” Kincaid added. “He warned us to back off. We told him no, and then this.” Russell thought for a moment, his face neutral. “Where were the murders?” Olmstead nodded in the vague direction of the murder scene. “Just a couple blocks away. I mean, we walked over.” On his cab ride over, Russell had noticed the police tape blocking off a house, with the two Arlington police cruisers sitting in front. The cab driver had disavowed any knowledge of what had happened, and Joe had attributed it to just another crime scene, not thinking much about it. Now he was computing distances and lines of sight, and quickly came to a conclusion. “Hey, you guys hungry?” Olmstead and Kincaid were startled by the suggestion, and at first demurred, citing the need to get going on their investigation. Kincaid was a little disappointed that he didn’t seem to be taking the recent findings very seriously, but realized that neither she nor Olmstead had eaten. Russell persisted, suggesting a restaurant/bar a few blocks away, a bland local salad and sandwich eatery that catered to the daytime office workers in the surrounding buildings. Olmstead conceded they should eat, but suggested they order in,

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A Long Line of Family as he and Kincaid had been doing, but Russell was insistent on going out. In the end Russell was more determined to go out than they were to stay in, and they all left to go to Russell’s recommendation. As they got out to the street, Russell told them he had to make a phone call, so he dropped back a few feet to make his call as they walked. The path to the restaurant didn’t pass the murder scene, but Olmstead and Kincaid glanced at each other, still disturbed by what they’d seen there. The restaurant was not very full when they arrived, their being a few minutes ahead of the lunch crowd. They were able to commandeer a circular booth in the back, spreading out comfortably. Russell wouldn’t start any shoptalk until they’d ordered and the waitress was safely away, then carefully had them start with how they’d identified the new cases. They told him about Robinson and her band of like-minded helpers, and recounted the regularity of the patterns the additional killings had helped identify. “Nash is the key,” Olmstead declared, stealing a glance at Kincaid. “Our guy used her, then killed her. I’m sure that when we look closer into her accident that it was no accident.” “Why’d he kill her?” Russell asked evenly. Olmstead shrugged. “We don’t know. Maybe she figured out what he was going to do with what she told him. Maybe he just wanted no loose ends.” “What matters, though, Joe,” Kincaid interjected, leaning closer, “is that we know who to take a closer look at. Somebody knew her, knew who might have been befriending her, and that’s our thread.” “That and we have a lot more cases to work with,” Olmstead added. “Somewhere along the line the creep made a phone call or used a credit card that we can tie to one of them.” Olmstead shook his fist in the air in a triumphal gesture. “We’re going to get the son of a bitch.”

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A Long Line of Family “Uh-huh,” Russell said noncommittally. “Tell me more about this phone call he made to you guys.” He listened very closely as they recounted details of the late night phone call, and made them repeat the exchange as close to word-for-word as possible. The restaurant filled up quickly, with a collection of mostly professional people eager to take a break from their workday. They thought their days were tough, and Kincaid stole an occasional glance their way, thinking how none of them would want to trade even their worst day for what she was going through. She was worried that the neighboring tables might overhear, and kept her voice low as they talked. No one seemed to pay any attention to them, and the background noise of all the simultaneous conversations combined with the noisy sounds of so much rapid eating, made eavesdropping unlikely. “Anything unusual about the voice, the way he talked, anything?” Russell asked at last. Kincaid and Olmstead thought for long seconds. “Hard to say, given the synthesizer,” Olmstead noted. He thought for a moment, thinking about patterns. “Maybe male, middle-aged.” “Not southern, not Northeast,” Kincaid added. “Pretty bland. Like a radio announcer or something. But that could be the synthesizer.” Russell nodded thoughtfully, as though it was another piece of the puzzle. “Now tell me about today’s murder. Run it through again.” Olmstead recounted the murder scene, the slow choking death that the couple had suffered. He described the signs on their chests. The letters were block letters, cut out of magazines to eliminate the possibility of handwriting analysis. The Bureau would investigate the source of the letters, and probably end up figuring out which magazines they had come from, but none of them was optimistic that it would help much.

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A Long Line of Family They had long since finished their food, and their waitress stopped by to top off their drinks – coffee for Olmstead, iced tea for Kincaid, and water for Russell – and ask if they wanted anything else. What she really wanted was for them to leave, but since the restaurant was starting to quiet down again she wasn’t going to push them too hard. Olmstead was starting to grow visibly anxious to get going, sitting forward in his seat with his hands tapping impatiently on the table. Kincaid also thought they needed to be on their way, but also wanted to get Russell’s perspective on all the new developments. “You’re sure the couple had nothing to do with either of you? No one you know, no relation to any of the victims or the FBI staff? Nothing?” Kincaid and Olmstead had each thought about this over the course of the day, but neither had come up with any connection, and admitted so. “Then why do you think he did it?” Russell asked. “It doesn’t fit the pattern, calling attention to himself that way. And so close to the hotel.” He shook his head. “He’s a whack job, that’s why,” Olmstead said with visible annoyance. “He’s getting scared.” Kincaid shook her head. “He warned us last night, and this was his second warning. He’s telling us the next one will be worse.” Her expression was grave. Russell was unconvinced. “Yeah, but why a second warning at all? If he’s after you, why didn’t he just come after you directly?” Kincaid had a sudden thought: that he might have preyed upon either of them separately, but since they’d spent the night together he had found safer targets. She shuddered slightly at the thought, and Olmstead caught it. He looked at her quizzically, then seemed to realize what she was thinking. His eyes widened in shared dismay. Russell caught the exchange but did not remark on it, partly because his phone rang at the moment. He looked at the number, then excused himself to answer it. He listened to the person on the

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A Long Line of Family other end of the line for a few seconds, said thanks, and hung up. He looked around for the waitress. “Let’s get out of here.”

A few minutes later they were back at the hotel. Kincaid had expected Russell might peal off to go back to whatever he had been in town for, and so was surprised that he accompanied them back to the room. In the hall on their floor they passed a middle-aged woman pushing a younger woman in a wheelchair, coming out of a room a few doors down. The woman in the wheelchair was moving spastically, her eyes wild and her face distorted. She seemed unable to control her motions, and Kincaid caught the other’s woman’s eyes in a sympathetic gaze. The woman seemed to shrug, and hit the button for the elevator. She had the blithely optimistic mood that many caregivers have, which Kincaid attributed to either a deliberate attempt to keep their charge’s spirits up or to a blind refusal to see their grim fate. She hoped it was the former, and thought that perhaps her day wasn’t quite as much worse as others as she had thought in the restaurant. “Shoot me if I ever get that bad,” Kincaid muttered to the two men, watching the woman push the wheelchair onto the elevator. “Smother me, whatever. I couldn’t live like that.” “Quiet,” Olmstead hushed. Kincaid started to explain, then saw that Olmstead wasn’t referring to her comments. Instead, he was listening outside their door, his head tied towards the room. “I hear something.” “It’s OK,” Russell started to say. Olmstead was not to be deterred. He took out his gun and readied the key. “Really, it’s not what you think,” Russell cautioned. By this time Kincaid had caught Olmstead’s mood and had her own gun out. They looked at each other, then Olmstead slid the key in the door and flung it open, bursting in with his gun out. Kincaid followed him in closely, spreading to his side once through the door. They both immediately spotted, and trained their guns on, the intruder.

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A Long Line of Family There was a young man sitting on their couch, using a joystick to play a videogame on the television. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and had a long ponytail. He looked momentarily startled when they burst through the door, but turned his attention back to his game without any concern. “Freeze, asshole,” Olmstead shouted. “Put your hands up!” Russell strolled towards the young man, passing in front of Olmstead’s line of fire without any evident concern. That caused Olmstead to curse and have to change his aim to keep the young man in sight. “It’s OK, you guys,” Russell said. “Meet Mike Hedgrin. He’s a friend of mine. How are you doing, Mike?” “Great, Joe,” he replied, keeping his attention focused towards the screen. Olmstead and Kincaid looked at Russell in disbelief. Kincaid was first to put her gun away, with Olmstead following suit only after a long pause and with a disgusted shake of his head. Russell looked at him reproachfully. “You’re going to shoot somebody one of these days if you’re not more careful.” Olmstead shot him a look. “Yeah, you get a serial killer after you and we’ll see how cool you are. What the hell is this guy doing here?” Hedgrin finished off his game with a flourish, everything blowing up in a frenzy of explosions and flames. “Level five,” he said with satisfaction. “Not ten guys that can get there.” He turned the power off. “What’s the story, Mike?” Hedgrin’s demeanor changed somehow, turning more serious and making him seem less like a teenager. “Five. Two in here, one in the bedroom, one in her room’s living room and another in her bedroom.” He stood up and stretched. “Here, here, and there,” he told them, pointing.

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Olmstead and Kincaid were confused. “What are you talking about?” Russell set them straight. “You’ve been bugged. Mike here took care of them.” “Bugged?” Kincaid repeated, aghast. “You’re kidding.” Hedgrin looked at her. “Nah. It was decent stuff, not something you’d buy at Radio Shack but not NSA grade either.” He briefly explained how he had found them, and indicated his confidence that he had found all there was to find. Despite his casual appearance, he sounded entirely self-assured and knowledgeable when it came to his vocation or avocation or whatever the source of his expertise was. He showed them the devices and where they had cunningly been placed. He moved towards the door, pausing near Russell. “You need anything else, Joe?” Russell thanked him. They shook hands and Hedgrin exited the room. Olmstead and Kincaid stared at Russell, not quite sure what to make of the whole thing. “Where did he come from?” “I called him on our way to the restaurant.” “That’s why you were taking so long there,” Kincaid realized aloud. “And you were waiting for him to call before you came back.” Russell nodded. “It didn’t make sense to me, him putting your names on the Howells like that. When I realized where he did it, I figured the only reason he’d do it there was because he knew it would get you out of here for a few hours, give him time to bug the place.” Olmstead was listening to him in amazement, while Kincaid’s expression was more one of admiration. This is why she wanted to keep him involved in the investigation. She

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A Long Line of Family had great confidence in her own abilities, and had gained much respect for Olmstead’s, but this was the kind of thing that Russell pulled off effortlessly – not just figuring out that they might have an observer, but also knowing the right people to get their rooms swept within an hour. Kincaid figured they’d still be waiting for technicians to arrive if they’d called Harbor for help, efficient as he had proven himself to be, and even after they left she’d have been worried they might have missed something. She had a feeling Hedgrin knew what he was doing, or Russell wouldn’t have called him for help. “He knows what we’re planning,” Olmstead moaned. “We were talking about it here while we were waiting for Russell to arrive.” “Shit,” Kincaid cursed, realizing he was right. “You’re right.” They tried to recount their conversation and what they might have given away. They definitely had mentioned the names of their three lead suspects and that they were tracking their movements over the past several years. Plus, they had discussed their focus on Nash and who knew her. “Shit, shit, shit,” Kincaid repeated. The phone rang. They looked at each other, none of them moving. “It’s your room,” Russell said to Kincaid gently. However, it was Olmstead moved first. He picked up the phone cautiously. “Hello?” He listened for a moment, and his face grew animated. He hit the button for the speakerphone. “Well, well, well,” the voice said. It was the same voice as the night before. The man on the phone spoke first. “Special Agent Olmstead, Detective Kincaid – and you must be Mr. Russell. Mr. Russell, I don’t believe I know who you are.” Russell’s face was calm. “I’m a friend of Detective Kincaid’s. And you are?” The voice laughed unconvincingly, not sounding very amused. “It’s not going to be as easy as all that. You took out my toys. And your friends ignored my warning from last

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A Long Line of Family night. I gave you two a fair chance to back out, demonstrated my power to take your lives very clearly with that poor couple, and then you go and remove my only way to make sure you would keep your word. Shame on you. So now you’ll have to be looking over your shoulders, because I will be coming for you.” The voice was full of menace. “Mr. Russell, if you value your health, I advise you to stay out of my business.” “I’ll keep that under advisement,” Russell said dryly. “Why don’t you turn yourself in?” Kincaid advised, regaining her bravado. “We are going to catch you.” “Yeah, and next time you want to kill someone why don’t you come right at us,” Olmstead added defiantly, looking at Kincaid for reassurance. She nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead and take your best shot.” “That’s more like it,” the voice said, sounding satisfied. “I may take you up on your suggestions.” The phone clicked off. “Huh,” Olmstead said, more an exhalation than a statement. “So we’re the bait,” Kincaid noted, watching Olmstead very carefully. She avoided meeting Russell’s gaze, because she was afraid for him. Personally, she wanted him to stick around, to know he had her back. Not that she didn’t have faith in Olmstead, but Russell’s mere presence was a comfort. She could not, though, justify putting him or his family at risk, and she was afraid she had just done so. Olmstead’s cell phone rang. He jumped slightly at the sound, looking first at the hotel phone that they had just been directing their conversation to before realizing that the ring was coming elsewhere. He answered it very carefully, fully expecting it to be the killer again. Kincaid thought the same, but saw the change in his expression after a few

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A Long Line of Family seconds. He listened carefully. “Yeah, we’ll be there in a couple hours,” he said, and hung up. They looked at him expectantly. “Our list of suspects just got a lot shorter.” “How’s that?” Kincaid asked. He looked at her, then at Russell, and back to her. “Culpepper and her husband are in Dallas, and her boyfriend is at work in Chicago. Both of those have been confirmed. Darragh has been at work since seven this morning, so it’s hard to see how he could have gotten back from the murders in time, much less bugged our rooms.” “And Henderson?” Russell asked carefully, suspecting the answer. Olmstead looked at him reluctantly. “No one has seen him since he left work last night.”

Chapter 31 She had left him a private message on their bulletin board, a coded signal she’d established years ago. She’d used it twice over the years, both times as exercises to ensure he would follow the protocol unquestioningly. She would then change the details for the next time. This time he drove straight to Reagan International, leaving his car in a long-term lot. He then took the Yellow line of the Metro to Metro Center, changed trains, and rode the Orange line to the end of the line in Vienna. She had picked him up there in a nondescript sedan, making him wait on the street several minutes before pulling up. Then she blindfolded him and made him lay down on the back seat, out of sight, until the car came to a final stop. She escorted him inside, shoved him down in a chair, and only then removed his blindfold. He felt sick to his stomach the entire way, knowing that one very real possibility was that she was taking him to one of her victims, and would require him to assist in some macabre way. He would rather that she kill him than

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A Long Line of Family witness her torturing another person, and he knew that this was a distinct possibility as well. “What’s this all about?” he asked, taking in his surroundings and trying to pretend he was calm. It appeared to be an old farmhouse. He was sitting in a kitchen with an old woodfired stove. The wood floors were well worn, and the paint on the walls had long faded away. The kitchen table had many scratches and dents on it from long time use. This was not one of those farmhouses that had been gentrified and converted into a weekend escape for some urban couple. This was a place time had passed over, leaving its imprint like a glacier gouging the land beneath it. He had never been here before, and already hoped never to have to come to this desolate place again. The only good thing was that he didn’t see a dead or dying body anywhere, but, then again, there was lots of the house he had not seen. She slapped him, not maliciously but simply to remind him of his place. He resisted the urge to rub his face and sat stone still. “I’m protecting you, Walter,” she told him. He couldn’t resist. He looked up at her incredulously. “Protecting me?” She considered him thoughtfully. He looked unsettled and worried. “Yes, Walter. Looking after your best interests.” She stood up. “Where are you going?” He hated how anxious he sounded, and how he cringed when she pulled her hand back as if she was going to slap him again. She didn’t, smiling cruelly instead, which was, in some way, even worse. “I’m going out.”

He heard her leave, heard the sound of her car leaving. He was not fooled. He knew it might be a test, that she might soundlessly sneak back and wait for him to make a mistake. He did not know what that mistake might be, and he thought about it very

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A Long Line of Family carefully. She had not told him to remain where he was, but she hadn’t told him he could leave the table either, much less explore the house. So he sat, and waited. Hours passed. The house made creaking noises, in the way that old houses do. He tensed at each sound, fretting that it was her moving around. He wasn’t worried about ghosts. Ghosts he could take; how could they scare him when he was waiting for a demon? He could hear the sounds of insects chirping away in the early evening, but there were no sounds of people. No one else moving in the house, and no one outdoors either. No cars, no children’s voices, not even any planes flying overhead. He felt as if he had been transported back in time to the 19th century. He had to go to the bathroom around three in the morning. He seriously considered going in his pants, or using the old sink in the kitchen, but knew those options had risks as well. He waited and waited, hoping she would return to give him permission to move, to do something, but finally the pressure in his bladder drove him up on his feet. He moved cautiously down the hall. The only light was the light from the kitchen, and as he moved further from its circle his sense of dread increased. He opened two doors – one leading down to a cellar, one a small closet – before he found a small bathroom. It had an old-fashioned commode and sink, but both worked, to his extreme relief. He did his business quickly, and returned to the kitchen to resume his vigil. Waiting wasn’t so hard. He was used to it. He spent much of his life waiting. Waiting for developments in cases. Waiting for his wife to return, even though intellectually he knew that would never happen. Waiting for something good to happen, or – more often – for the next bad thing to happen. Most of all, though, waiting for her – to call, to give him instructions. She had trained him well over the years, putting him in odd situations and then letting him stew about it. At first it made him nervous, but over the years he had learned to control it. He was still nervous, but he knew it wouldn’t help; he would just have to be patient until she told him what to do next. At his own work he was a man of some initiative, and he used to be one in his own life. No more.

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She didn’t return until the middle of the next afternoon. When she returned she was pushing someone in a wheelchair, and his heart sank – it was to be another killing after all. At first glance he thought the prospective victim might be the woman detective, but upon closer inspection he saw that she was somewhat younger and thinner, with slightly lighter skin color. Her eyes were wide-open in panic, like a horse sensing fire but restrained from bolting. “Still here,” she observed with satisfaction. “Don’t just sit there. Help me carry her upstairs.” Henderson struggled to put the woman over his shoulder; she was barely breathing. He suspected she could carry her more easily than he could, but it was all part of her little game. As he followed her up the stairs, he glanced curiously around him. No one lived here, he decided, but someone once had. The rooms were still furnished but everything had the air of someplace no longer lived in. She directed him to the last bedroom in the hall, and instructed him to put the victim down on the bed. The young woman’s eyes were moving back and forth between the two of them, not sure which one she had the more to fear from, finally settling on her captor. She now took out a needle from a small bag she carried over her shoulder, and tested it to ensure it was full. She moved towards the woman on the bed, whose face grew more contorted. She seemed unable to move her limbs, which Henderson did not understand at first. He concluded she must be paralyzed, and watched his nemesis expertly give the poor woman an injection. The prone woman let out a small moan, less of pain than of hopelessness. No, not paralyzed, Henderson realized; she was drugged. It was something he’d seen her do before, a way of keeping her victims immobile until she was ready for them. He had never been sure how she decided when that time was. “Now, then,” she told him. “You just have to watch her until I get back.”

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A Long Line of Family Olmstead and Kincaid led the team that served the search warrant on Henderson’s house. After quickly determining he was not there, they started a detailed inspection of their chief suspect’s home. It was not a large house – two bedrooms on the second floor, a study, a small living room, and a kitchen on the main level. It looked to have been built in the 1950s, and Kincaid guessed that Henderson had lived here several years. He was evidently neither a neat man nor an unusually untidy one; the house had the signs of decay that a man without a wife or a cleaning service accumulated. Like dust on the bookshelves and behind the couches, or a kitchen that was poorly equipped with either food or kitchen paraphernalia, and apparently none of it frequently used. They started on the study. A forensic specialist took away the computer, and she promised that she would analyze the files and recent Internet use as quickly as possible. Everyone knew this case had been given high priority. Kincaid and Olmstead started flipping through other papers – bank statements, bills, a few letters and cards. Henderson had a nice collection of CDs, mostly classical, but very few DVDs. He also had a small library of mostly hardback books, as well as a large number of professional journals. Indeed, the journals were piled high in many of the rooms. He appeared to have worked hard at keeping up with his profession, more than he worked at keeping up with current affairs. Kincaid noticed there were no photographs anywhere. She thought that said much about their suspect. “Any sign of a girlfriend?” Olmstead asked. “Or a boyfriend? Or any friends at all?” “No, nothing,” Kincaid replied absently. She was flipping through the clothes in his bedroom closet. The man had conservative tastes. Nice but not overly expensive suits, nothing flashy, as well as cautiously casual clothes he could wear at Quantico. He only had a few pair of shoes, none of which were sneakers or sandals. “I’d say this guy is screwed on pretty tight.”

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She checked behind the clothes, looking for any access panels or secret compartments. “Juanita, check it out,” Olmstead called out from the second bedroom. She joined him. Olmstead was also looking through a closet – this one seemed to have winter clothes – but he was holding a photo album. He gestured towards her with it. “He has a life after all.” He walked over to the bed and laid the album down. “Had a life,” she corrected him absently, starting to flip through it. The photographs were dated. They showed a younger and happier looking Walter Henderson. He was thinner, had more hair, and seemed more alive. There were photographs of him with numerous people Kincaid did not recognize, including several wedding shots with a very upbeat Henderson and his bride. She was pretty, in a conventional sort of way. The rest of the album had pictures of her as well -- sometimes just her, sometimes both of them – for what appeared to be several years. Then the pictures stopped. It wasn’t only the pictures of the two of them that ceased, or even the ones of just her. They just stopped altogether. “Divorce,” Olmstead said matter-of-factly. “We knew he was divorced,” Kincaid responded. “The poor guy didn’t seem to have had much of a life after that.” They agreed they needed to track down the ex-wife, and pin down exactly when it had occurred. “Maybe the divorce flipped him out and that’s what triggered the killings. Or maybe she figured out he had a taste for some shit she hadn’t counted on,” Olmstead speculated.

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Olmstead’s cell rang. He answered it, his face lighting up after a bit. He covered the mouthpiece. “Hey, wasn’t there a fax downstairs?” he asked Kincaid. She confirmed, and followed him downstairs. He read the number to the person on the phone, and hung up. “What is it?” Kincaid asked. “They got some hits on the credit card trace we asked for.” “That was quick.” He smiled triumphantly at her. “See, the Bureau can do a lot when it puts its resources on it.” The fax started to kick on. He waited for it to print out three pages. He started to quickly look through them, and handed them to her with a pleased look on his face. The fax contained a series of dates. One column she recognized as dates of their killings. The other columns showed hits to Henderson’s credit card and ATM, along with amounts, location, and corresponding dates. “My god,” she exhaled. Over half of the murder dates showed Henderson had been in the area of the deaths when the murders had occurred.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Russell told her when she called him later. Kincaid frowned. She and Olmstead had turned up nothing else incriminating at the house, but they were still waiting for the computer analysis. They had also tracked down Henderson’s ex-wife. She lived in Columbia, was remarried. She confirmed that she and Walter Henderson had divorced more than twelve years previously, or two years before the murders started – the ones they were aware of, anyway. It was all starting to come

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A Long Line of Family together, and she had a flash of disappointment that Russell wasn’t more enthused. She wanted to impress him. “What doesn’t?” “None of it. Killing so visibly. The sign around the necks. Calling you to warn you off.” Kincaid shrugged. “Like Lyle said, he’s crazy. It doesn’t have to make sense. What does make sense is that we can tie him to over twenty of the murders. Well, at least we know he was in the right places, that he could have done it.” “Juanita, think about it. The guy uses ViCAP for ten years to launder his killing, and is stupid enough to use his own credit cards when he travels to do the killing? He’s still only a theory and then he practically uses floodlights to show everyone that he exists? It doesn’t make any sense.” There was a long pause. “Joe, can’t I just be right about this?” she asked softly. Russell’s voice was the patient voice of a teacher, or a parent. “I’m not saying that you’re not, I’m just saying that it doesn’t make sense to me. Not yet. The guy is playing a game. He’s been playing games with the FBI for ten years and I think he’s still playing one. I just don’t know what it is.” Russell asked Kincaid to tell him more about Henderson’s ex-wife. She hadn’t sounded particularly angry or upset with Henderson any longer, having moved on. She hadn’t liked his work and the images he brought home with him, but in the end it had just been more mundane issues that had separated them. “She seemed like the kind of woman who likes nice things,” Kincaid reported, thinking about the upper-middle class house she had visited, and mentally comparing it to the less affluent house Henderson lived in. “That and kids. She got married a year or so after the divorce and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had something going before she left Henderson.”

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A Long Line of Family They talked a few more minutes, and Kincaid promised to fax him the credit card comparison the Bureau had come up with. Russell promised to look at it.

Lyle Olmstead got home a little after nine. He was beat but exhilarated, a common feeling when an important investigation is finally making progress. He and Kincaid had danced around the subject of another sleepover. They both wanted to, but they also recognized that there would be more scrutiny on them now that so many others were involved. They had reluctantly agreed to spend their nights apart for the duration. He moved around the house, taking off his shoes and his tie. He put his wallet and his gun on his dresser, and was changing into slacks when the doorbell rang. He paused, and his first thought was that Kincaid had changed her mind. She knew where he lived and could have decided maybe a suburban visit wasn’t too uncalled for. So he was smiling when he walked to the door, although he’d picked up his gun just in case. He still was cautious enough to check the peephole before opening the door, and he was profoundly disappointed to see that his visitor was not, in fact, Juanita Kincaid. He was somewhat surprised at how much he missed her at that second, then put it aside. It appeared he had a delivery. There was a man – he assumed it was a man, from the looks of him – from a delivery service. He was wearing brown coveralls with an insignia and had a hat jammed down on his head. He was holding a small box in front of him, resting on top of a clipboard. Olmstead figured someone downtown had something messengered out to him, and opened the door. “Hey, buddy,” he said in a genial tone of voice. “Late night.” He reached towards the package. “Not as late as it is going to get,” the messenger said, somewhat cryptically. As Olmstead reached for the package, the man shoved the package and the clipboard towards Olmstead, who belatedly tried to reach for it. Only too late did he realize there was

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A Long Line of Family something under the clipboard, and when the characteristically blue light of the Taser flashed he understood what was happening. Olmstead fell back into the house, the messenger following him.

Chapter 32 Olmstead woke gradually, flitting in and out of consciousness and not entirely able to distinguish between the two. He feared it was all part of a bad dream, but finally concluded he was awake, a fact that was difficult to establish because he could not see anything. Initially he had attributed the darkness to the dream, but eventually this hypothesis become untenable as sense of reality won out. He then assumed that he must be in a very dark place, as he was unable to glimpse any hint of light, no matter what direction he tried to look. He could not understand what such place he might be in. Then he realized that he was neither asleep nor in a dark room. It might be a dark room, but he was unable to ascertain the amount of light in the room for the simple fact that his eyes were covered. It didn’t seem to be as simple as a blindfold. He did sense something covering his eyes, but he came to realize that his eyelids themselves were restrained from opening, as if they were taped shut. That wasn’t all. He instinctively tried to use his hands to check out his vision situation, only to realize that they, too, were restricted. He quickly established that his wrists were in some sort of chains, and that he was hanging from them, his full weight held by those chains. It wasn’t painful yet, but Olmstead knew it would be in time. It was worse than that. His feet were off the floor, and similarly bound. He struggled in vain for several minutes to try to free either his hands or feet, but the restraints were solid and showed very little give and no hope of giving way. And, he realized with intense dismay, there was something inserted into his rectum.

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A Long Line of Family Indeed, he seemed to not have any clothes on, although he didn’t seem to be entirely naked either. The faint breeze reached his skin unevenly. He quickly inventoried as best he could. Some of his fingers felt wrapped; some did not. The same was true of his toes. His penis appeared to be covered, but not by his boxers. “Shit,” he muttered, as he grasped his vulnerability. He held his head up. ‘Anyone there? Help!” His words echoed off the walls. He decided that the room he was in was a moderately large room, and that the walls must be cinderblock or some other material that did not damp the sound from reverberating. He supposed it could be worse; he could be in a tiny box, buried alive. “Special Agent Lyle Olmstead,” a voice said from just behind him, startling him. He had not heard a sound to indicate that there was anyone with him. He tried to twist around to face the source of the voice, but of course he couldn’t. “Who are you?” he asked. There was silence. He strained to hear any sounds of the other person, but there was nothing. He began to wonder if it was possible that he was hallucinating. Perhaps he actually was still sleeping and this was all just a bad dream. That would be a relief. Just as he was starting to let himself hope that this were true, the voice came again, this time in front and to his left. “Who do you think I am?” it asked softly. He had no idea. It was not Walter Henderson, he was pretty sure. Nor was it the voice from the phone calls. It took him a few seconds of searching his mental database of voices before he thought to recall the events immediately preceding his emergence here. “The delivery guy,” he said in surprise. “The guy at my door.” “Maybe,” the voice said, with a hint of amusement. There was a hint of something else in the voice, Olmstead realized, something startling in itself. “You’re a girl,” he blurted out. “Maybe. It doesn’t really matter, now, does it?”

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It did matter. For one thing, Olmstead felt even more acutely aware of how exposed he was, knowing he was naked and that she must have undressed him. He felt like he had been molested, not the least of which was whatever had been shoved up his ass. He flushed from a combination of anger and embarrassment. For another thing, he had no idea who the woman could be. “Listen, now – you better let me go before things go too far,” he told her, trying to bluff it out. “It’s not too late to straighten things out.” The voice came from inches away from his left ear. “Oh, but it is, Lyle. I’m going to kill you.” Olmstead tried to control his fear. “You don’t want to do that. I’m with the FBI. If you kill me, it’s a federal offense. They’ll never rest until they track you down.” There was silence. Olmstead started to hope that she was considering what he had said. Even if she just left him there, eventually someone would find him, or he’d get free. Or so he hoped. He held his breath listening for signs that she was there. “So if I let you go, all is forgiven?” she asked him, from close to his right ear. “I don’t think so.” Then, from his left ear. “I’m not too worried about the FBI coming after me. In fact, I’m counting on it. It’s all part of the plan, all part of my work.” Olmstead was worried, and his breathing was coming out in quick bursts. He knew that, in a practical sense, what she said was unfortunately true. All he could do was try to find some way to keep her talking. “Your work?” “My work,” she confirmed, from in front of him. In the small part of him that was not terrified, Olmstead marveled at how silently she moved. It was like she was a ghost. “I

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A Long Line of Family like watching the life slip away from people, of them knowing they are dying and that there’s nothing they can do about it. You can see it in their eyes and the way they hold themselves when they know they are going to die, when they change from trying to keep death away to hoping they will die.” Then, from very close in front of him, “of course, I won’t be able to see it in your eyes, will I?” “You’re a sick bitch,” he hissed. “I especially like to watch people your age,” she told him, right in his face. “Young enough to have their life ahead of them, old enough to appreciate it. Oh, children and older people are interesting in their own way, but I think you’ll be very entertaining.” Then there was silence again. Olmstead moved his head around as best he could, but still could not detect her movements. “At least tell me who you are.” “No, I don’t think so,” she said, from behind him. “I’m going to die anyway. What’s the harm?” Olmstead felt a ray of hope; her not wanting to admit who she was indicated that this piece of knowledge might be useful somehow, that she might be vulnerable. She might not be planning to kill him after all, just scare him. To what end, he wondered. The woman laughed, from a few feet away. “This isn’t one of those movies where the evil villain – that would be me, I assume – tells the handsome hero – I’m assuming you think that’s you – all of his plans, just in time for the hero to escape or be rescued. Well, Lyle, no one is going to rescue you, and I don’t see any point to telling you anything.” Without realizing he was doing it, Olmstead turned his head slightly to one side, straining to hear any noise from the outside that might offer some faint glimmer of hope. “She’s not coming, Lyle,” the woman spoke, a tone of amusement in her voice. “For all you know, she’s already dead.”

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“She better not be!” Olmstead found himself shouting back at her in fury. “Or perhaps she is in the next room,” the woman continued, unfazed by his outburst, “suffering whatever special torment I have in mind for her. The thing is, you’ll never know what happens to her, Lyle.” Olmstead rattled his chains with all of his might, in to avail. “I’m going to kill you myself, you bitch!” He felt all the more furious due to his clear impotence in the situation. “You’re going to be interesting, I think, Mr. Special Agent Lyle Olmstead,” she pronounced with satisfaction. “You’re young and strong, and I’ll bet the FBI has given you lots of training.” Not for this, Olmstead thought to himself nervously. They’d had training to deal with hostage situations, but no one had quite readied him for this. “I’ll even grant that you’ll be brave, although we won’t know for sure until we get into it,” she told him with a jovial tone. “Then again, some of the others, who weren’t FBI agents, proved to be surprisingly brave.” She was silent for a few seconds, and Olmstead was startled when she spoke again, her mouth next to his left ear. “But all isn’t going to be the real distinction. Do you know what is?” Olmstead dared not guess, but didn’t want her to take any satisfaction at how scared he was. “What?” “It’s that you know what’s coming – none of them did. They all could hope that I might show some mercy on them, or that someone might come along and rescue them,” she informed him with some satisfaction. Her voice shifted to his other ear. “You know

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A Long Line of Family better,” she whispered. “You know I’m going to wring every bit of fear and pain out of you before you die, and that nothing will save you.” Lyle Olmstead knew at that moment that she was right, that he was going to die. He felt curiously more sad than frightened about it, and found himself thinking of Juanita Kincaid. What a waste, he thought, not finding someone like her until now, and then losing any chance. The icy tentacles of fear wrapped around his heart as he realized that this crazy woman would go after Juanita next – if she had not already done so. “Do you know what I’ve done, Lyle?” Her voice was silky smooth. He didn’t know what she was referring to. “I’ve seen what you’ve done to other people. You’re sick. I can get you help.” “No, I mean what I’ve done to you,” she corrected him. She was very close to his back. “Do you smell anything?” It seemed an odd question. Now that she mentioned it, he did smell an odor. It was familiar but it took him a few seconds to place it, because it seemed so out of place. With a sinking heart, he understood why he could not open his eyes. “Glue.” “Yes, glue.” The voice traveled as she moved slowly around him. “I’ve glued dozens of small patches of cotton balls on your body. There’s some up your nose, around your penis and testicles, over your eyes. I filled a special tube to insert – well, you know. I’ve already put the glue in your hair. Eventually I’ll put them in your ears, and in your mouth.” There was a small pause, and when the voice resumed Olmstead judged that she had stepped back a few inches. “Now, why would I do all that?” “Because you’re crazy,” he blurted out.

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A Long Line of Family “Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. What you should be more worried about is what the warning is in the sides of glue containers.” Olmstead went cold. He decided to try to hide his fear. “Dangerous if inhaled?” She laughed. “There is that, but I rather think getting high is not going to be your problem. No, Lyle, you have something else to be worried about.” With that she lit a match and quickly applied it to one of the patches on his back. It burst into flames immediately and burned intensely. Olmstead shrieked, half in surprise and half in pain, as it burned down through his skin. “Damn you,” he cursed, frantically kicking and trying to free his hands, to no avail. Again, there was silence. His senses were acutely aware now, on heightened alert to the next attack. He still could not hear her move but thought he might be hearing the faint sounds of her breathing slightly more heavily. “Anything you want to tell me?” she said at last. Now Olmstead felt he understood. She was bargaining with him. This was a game he understood and could play. “What do you want to know?” he asked, stalling. “Oh, anything,” she told him in a careless tone. “Maybe about your friend Juanita Kincaid. Maybe about her friend Mr. Russell.” “You must be worried about getting caught if you are looking for my help. Maybe we can work this out.” Before he quite realized it, she lit another match and applied it, this time to the back of his calf. He jerked his leg uselessly, unable to do anything to diminish the pain. He clenched his jaw to avoid crying out.

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A Long Line of Family “Very impressive, Lyle, but I have a lot more matches and eventually you’ll be crying like a baby. And you’ll tell me anything I want to know.” Olmstead was still fighting back the tears of pain and frustration. “So is that it? If I give up my partner you won’t kill me? You want me to sell her out?” “Oh, no, Lyle,” she said softly, very close to his left ear. “I’m going to kill you in any event.” “Fine. You’ll kill me more mercifully then,” Olmstead said in disgust. He hated that she was playing with him, and he was determined not to help her. He was afraid to die, a fate that now seemed very likely, but he was even more afraid of letting Juanita down. His life for hers? It would be an acceptable trade-off. “No, I’m going to kill you as slowly as I can no matter what happens.” Olmstead snorted in disgust. “Lady, you have a lot to learn about getting people to talk. I’m telling you that because I’ve had a lot of experience at that, and you don’t know shit about bargaining.” “You’re probably right, Special Agent Olmstead,” she replied. Her voice was curiously calm. “But then, you see, I’m not bargaining. You’ll tell me anything I want.” “The hell I will!” Olmstead shouted defiantly. “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of telling you anything.” Her voice was more than calm; it was ice cold, with a cruel certainty that underscored her words. “This is an area I have a lot of experience in. Everyone breaks, sooner or later. Fear and pain create cowards out of anyone, given time. You’ll tell me anything I want. Detective Kincaid’s phone number. What she knows about me. Where she sleeps. Where she keeps her gun--”

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“--Goddamn you, I’m not telling you anything!” Olmstead interrupted. “Sensitive, are we?” she noted. “Detective Kincaid must mean something personal to you. Then perhaps you’ll be able to tell me what she looks like in the morning, or what sounds she makes when you make love.” Her voice was almost hypnotic in its assured tone. “You’ll tell me about your first love, your PIN number, your mother’s maiden name. You’ll tell me anything that comes into your head, hoping that you can come up with something that will stop me from hurting you any more.” She was very close to his head now. “But nothing will stop me. I’ll hurt you until you can’t bear it any more, and then I’ll keep hurting you. And you will eventually die. The only question is if you’ll go mad first. That will be my problem, trying to sort out which of what you’re telling me is true and which is fantasy.” “I won’t tell you anything,” Olmstead told her, his confidence already weakening. “Oh, yes,” she assured him. “You will.” He heard her moving in front of him, and he knew that she must be letting him heard her, as she had been so silent previous. She walked to one side, then the other. “You know, Lyle, perhaps my special treat will be to not quite kill you.” He perked his head up at that. “Yes, it might be interesting if your special Juanita Kincaid would be the one to find you, if she could see you after I’m finished with you and have left you as, well, you’ll soon start to realize the horror that you’ll be by then.” He stared sightlessly at the direction of her voice, tensing at first against the chains before sagging as he visualized the scene she was proposing to him. He let a small moan slip as he thought of Juanita finding him used up and pitiful.

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A Long Line of Family “That’s more like it, Lyle,” she told him with satisfaction, her voice coming from only inches away. “Now, what’s say we get started?” She lit another match.

Chapter 33 Russell pulled up to the building, a small warehouse in a deserted industrial park on the outskirts of Washington. There was a lone Virginia State Police car parked by the door, a trooper leaning against the hood smoking a cigarette. He straightened as Russell’s car pulled up, waving him off and throwing the cigarette away. Russell ignored him and turned off the car. He got out and approached the trooper, who was in his mid-twenties and fresh-faced. “You’ll have to leave, sir,” the trooper said politely but firmly. Russell stopped. “I’m looking for Detective Kincaid.” The trooper looked more closely at him. “You a friend of hers?” Russell nodded solemnly. The trooper shook his head wearily. “Yeah, she’s in there all right. You here to get her?” Russell explained that he was helping her work on the case, without being very specific about the unofficial nature of that involvement. If the trooper concluded he was with the FBI, it was his own inference. Russell told him he was going to go talk to Kincaid, and the trooper felt compelled to warn him. “You don’t want to go in there, buddy.” “Bad?”

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A Long Line of Family He nodded his head, a little wide-eyed. “I think she’s pretty shaken up. You couldn’t pay me to go in there right now. She’s got a gun, after all.” Russell smiled tightly at him. “I’ll risk it.” He started to move towards the door, then stopped and turned back to the trooper. “Were you one of the first responders?” The trooper shook his head vigorously. “No, thank God. Nah, the FBI sent one of their TAC teams in, and I guess Detective Kincaid went in with them too.” He made a face. “Pretty bad?” Russell asked sympathetically. “Yeah.” He shook his head again, his face troubled. “I heard from one of the paramedics that some of the TAC guys came out throwing up. I guess they’re not used to seeing shit like that.” “The way I hear it, no one is.” The trooper nodded his agreement, and Russell went inside. The trooper seemed relieved to stay behind.

It wasn’t hard to find Kincaid. The warehouse was divided into two large work areas, and one of them was cordoned off with yellow police tape. He approached cautiously, and saw Kincaid sitting on the floor against the wall, staring at the middle of the room. From the stains on the floor, and from the cables hanging down from the ceiling, it was clear where Olmstead had suffered his end. The scene showed signs that the forensic team had done their work already, but the clean-up crew must have not made their appearance yet. Russell thought that perhaps they had come and Kincaid had chased them off. She had a scary look on her face, a thousand yard stare that gave the impression that she was capable of almost anything.

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid did not seem to notice his arrival. “Juanita?” Russell said softly. He crouched next to her. She didn’t change her intense gaze, as if she could still see the spirit of Olmstead hanging there. She might have been a statue. If she had been a statue, the artist would have become famous for capturing such an expression. It was a face that had lost all hope, for which hope was no longer a concept, something no longer possible. Her pain and her loss were carved into her expression, while somehow also highlighting the strength and beauty of that face. Whatever she was thinking, wherever she was, at the moment nothing else mattered to her but the memory of what had happened to her friend here. Russell waited for her. There was no clear change, no sudden sign of recognition of his presence. She just began to speak. “He was still alive when we got here.” Her voice was dull, touched with the faintest sense of amazement. “I mean, we didn’t realize it at first. We took one look at him and assumed he was dead. We were sure no one could be alive after all that. It took us a while to figure out how to get him down – we were afraid his body would crumble up if we weren’t careful. He was burned to a crisp. It wasn’t until the paramedics started lowering his body that he made a sound. That’s how we found out he wasn’t dead yet. You wouldn’t believe the noise he made. He couldn’t talk – his tongue was burned off too – and it was this unholy sound that sounded like someone in hell. I guess that’s not too far off, was it?” She stopped and Russell saw the tears in her eyes. “We should go, Juanita,” Russell told her quietly but firmly. She didn’t respond, continuing to stare off into space. “Juanita,” he reminded her.

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A Long Line of Family She looked over at him with the tears starting to run down her cheeks. “Go where, Joe?” she asked, sounding like a little girl who has lost her family. He reached out and took her hand, then stood up and pulled her up.

He drove her back to her hotel and helped her pack a small bag. They stayed away from the war room; Russell didn’t need anything else to remind of her the demon they had been chasing, and who had found one of them first. He told her he was taking her back to his house for a few days. “They’ll need me to help with the investigation,” she protested, rousing from her near-trance but still sounding very disturbed. “We’re not giving up, Juanita,” he promised her. “We’re just getting you away from here for a bit. Give you some time to sort things out. I told Gnassi we’d be in touch in a couple days.” She paused, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I can face your family. I don’t think I’m very good company.” She ran her hand over her hair unconsciously, as if feeling unkempt. Russell assured her that it would be fine. She finished throwing some clothes and her toiletries into her bag, then sat heavily on the bed. “I can’t put you at risk, Joe. I can’t risk your family. He went after Lyle and he’s coming after me. He’ll come after you if you get involved.” “It will be fine,” Russell assured her. Kincaid’s cell phone rang. She wrinkled her brow and looked around, unable to remember what the sound might be. She realized what the noise meant, and looked dully at her purse. Russell reached into her purse and took the phone out.

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A Long Line of Family The caller ID indicated that it was Olmstead calling. Russell showed it to Kincaid, whose eyes widened in confusion that quickly turned to fear. Russell answered the phone without saying a word. “Now, who is this?” the same voice from the previous phone calls asked. “Why don’t we start the introductions with you?” Russell suggested. “Ah, Mr. Joseph Russell, if I’m not mistaken,” the caller said, sounding pleased. “You’re a puzzle, Mr. Russell.” “Is that so? I’d be happy to explain things to you – why don’t you meet me someplace?” “In due time,” the voice promised. “You’re a hard man to find out much about, and, believe me, I’ve tried. Some tantalizing hints about you – some curious gaps in your service record, the amazingly coincidental way your brother’s killers all died – but nothing very definitive. I get the feeling there is more to you than meets the eye.” “I’m just an average guy.” He kept an eye on Kincaid, whose expression was starting to change as her temper started to rise. “Perhaps,” he agreed, not sounding at all convinced. “Put Detective Kincaid on the phone.” Kincaid had been listening as best she could from next to Russell. He looked at her with a question in his expression, letting her know she didn’t have to do this. She did not hesitate; she took the phone. “I’m going to get you, you bastard,” she spat. “No matter what it takes.” “Now, now, Juanita,” the caller said with satisfaction. “That’s the spirit. We’ll see who gets who first. I’ll tell you what, though. I’ve given you two warnings. Three if you count Lyle. Now I’ll let you stay until Olmstead’s funeral, then you high tail it back to

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A Long Line of Family where you came from. If you are lucky maybe I’ll leave you alone there. You’re in way over your head – be smart, Juanita. Now put Mr. Russell back on the phone.” For once Kincaid had no quick reply; she was way too shaken. Silently, she handed the phone back to Russell. “What is it?” The caller’s voice was cold. “I warned her, and I’ll warn you. Stay out of this, or I’ll be coming for you as well. And you’ve got a family to think of, Joseph. You wouldn’t want any harm to come to them.” Kincaid watched a transformation come over Russell’s face. His outward expression did not change in the slightest, but there was an icy coldness that filled in. If the caller could have seen his face, Kincaid was convinced he would be scared. “Are you threatening my family?” he asked softly. ‘I’m just giving you some good advice. For your own good, take it. Stay away from me and stay away from Detective Kincaid. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are lots of people who want you dead, Joe Russell. One of these days someone is going to find you and your family dead.” The phone went dead. Kincaid stared in dread at Russell, who regained his normal placid demeanor. She sighed heavily. “I guess I better stay here.” Russell shook his head and stood up. He pulled her up. ‘Don’t be silly. We’re not going to start getting told what to do by him. That’d be playing into his hands.” “But your family…” “They’ll be fine,” he assured her. “But we need to figure out what his game is.”

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A Long Line of Family She looked at him angrily. “Game? This is no fucking game! We got the pictures of three dozen victims hanging on the walls in the other room, and now Lyle is dead in about as horrible a way as there is. Game?” Russell nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a game to him, Juanita. We haven’t figured out what his game is or how’s he’s playing it, but he’s doing everything with some purpose.” “So?” she asked belligerently. “So what I want to know is, why did he called on a line that the Bureau was sure to have tapped by now?”

Chapter 34 Kincaid was silent on the train ride, as well as one the short car ride to Russell’s house. When they arrived, Debbie met them at the door. She gave Kincaid a long hug. “You poor dear,” she said, patting Kincaid on the back. “I’m so sorry.” She pulled back, holding onto Kincaid’s hands. “Please come in.” Kincaid looked back at Joe warily. He nodded and she went inside. They took her up to the guest room and left her bag. It was a small but tidy room, with a view of the tree lined street and surrounding houses. Kincaid walked over to the window and looked out absently. Debbie asked her if she needed anything, and Kincaid just shook her head. “I’d just like some time alone, if you don’t mind.” The Russells agreed and backed out. Down in the kitchen they looked at each other. “She’s taking it very hard,” Debbie observed. Joe nodded. “Was it bad?” Debbie asked softly.

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A Long Line of Family Joe exhaled heavily. “Yeah, it was. Poor guy must have suffered like hell. Now she’s going to feel guilty or responsible. Plus, the guy called her and told her he was coming after her, so she wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t scared too.” Debbie watched him closely, sensing there was more. “What else did the guy say?” Joe looked her in the eye. ‘He warned me off too.” She raised her eyebrows. “He threatened you?” “He warned me my family might be harmed if I didn’t keep out of it.” She studied him carefully. Other women might have simply been worried for themselves or their children, but she was no ordinary woman. “Is Juanita going to step aside, let the FBI take it from here on? I’m sure they are going to make this even more of a priority now that it’s one of their own.” He smiled a sad smile. “She’s pretty shaken up, but I’d be pretty surprised if she backed off. Now it’s even more personal for her.” Debbie reached out and touched his hand. “Well, she’s going to need some help then, isn’t she?” She squeezed his hand and let go, turning around to open the refrigerator. “Now what will we do for dinner?”

Kincaid did not join them for dinner. Joe and Debbie told their children that she was visiting, explaining the situation as best they could without telling them more than they felt was appropriate for their ages. They both seemed excited and a little frightened, although Doug was manfully trying to mask his feelings. They promised to not bother her, and Doug offered to take her a plate of food. He went upstairs, knocked on her door. She opened it. “Hello, Doug,” she said, trying to sound normal. Had Doug been older he might have noticed her red eyes and slightly puffy face, as she had been crying off and

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A Long Line of Family on, but he was too nervous about not saying the wrong thing to take those signs into account. “I brought you some food.” He handed her the plate, which she accepted. “I’m sorry you don’t feel like eating with us tonight. Maybe tomorrow?” He looked at her hopefully. She told him maybe, and he returned to the family dinner table with a breathless recount of his conversation, feeling pleased with himself about how he had handled the whole affair. Debbie thanked him, and the meal went on, subdued at first but gradually becoming more normal as the children forget their reticence. Joe and Debbie smiled in quiet appreciation of each other’s presence, almost appreciative of how easily the children’s concerns focused on their own lives. They cared about Juanita Kincaid, but she was not at the table to remind them, and her pain was something they could not really understand. Joe almost wished it could stay like that.

The evening was quiet. Melissa was hoping that Juanita would come and say goodnight to her, perhaps even read her a story, but the door stayed closed as she and Doug went up to their rooms. Once the children were safely to bed the adult Russells could relax in the family room downstairs. After exchanging some necessary catch-ups about the children’s upcoming schedules, Joe told Debbie that he was probably be spending a good deal of time in Washington over the next several days. He didn’t appear happy about the prospect, but neither did he show any sign of doubt that it was what he needed to do. Joe had learned that Olmstead’s funeral was in three days, and told Debbie that he expected Juanita would stay with them until then. Debbie took all this in without visible expression, but her eyes were full of concern. “Do you think she needs your help?” Joe took a long moment to respond. “I don’t think she’d ask.” She nudged him. “That’s not what I asked.”

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A Long Line of Family He playfully pushed back at her, smiling slightly. “I know. I’m sure that both she and the Bureau will be devoting a lot of resources to catching this guy. And he’s a bad one; he needs to be stopped.” There was a “but” in the sentence, and they both knew it. Debbie let it go unsaid.

Debbie stopped in to see Kincaid before bedtime, carrying her some towels. “I brought you some clean towels,” she said unnecessarily. Kincaid was sitting at the window, her arms crossed over her chest and her feet up on the windowsill. There was a nice view of the Russell’s back yard, and through the trees one could make out the lights of the houses on the next street, each with their own little stories of domesticity. It was the 21st century version of Norman Rockwell, albeit undoubtedly with a somewhat more diverse set of families, each of which had more material processions than their original counterparts could even conceive of. Still, from this view, everyone was happy, healthy, and cozy in their homes. Kincaid saw none of this; she was staring outside at nothing at all. It looked as though she had been in that position for some time. She roused herself enough to look over and attempt a faint smile. “Thanks. I’m good for now.” Her voice was so soft that Debbie had to strain to hear it. Debbie paused, and closed the door behind her. Kincaid’s expression registered the slightest confusion, and perhaps dismay, at the realization that her company was staying. “How are you doing, Juanita?” Debbie asked. Kincaid looked back out the window. “It’s tough,” she admitted. She didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t have to. Debbie waited a few seconds. “I’m sure it is,” she said eventually. “If it’s any comfort, you’re among family now.”

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A Long Line of Family If Debbie thought this would be comforting, she was mistaken. Kincaid turned to her with a bitter expression. “You shouldn’t say that.” “Why not?” Kincaid looked back outside, fighting back tears. “I’m putting you in danger,” she said hoarsely. “I shouldn’t be here, and I can’t have Joe help me any more.” She put her face in her hands and started to sob quietly. Debbie sat down on the bed. “Why would you say such a thing?” Kincaid sobbed for a few more seconds, then raised her head, wiping the tears from her face as best she could. Debbie handed her one of the hand towels, which she gratefully accepted and started wiping her face. Once she felt more presentable, she moved to face Debbie, planting her feet on the ground and leaning forward. “This guy scares me. I mean, I knew he was bad but I really didn’t think he’d come after Lyle. Or, at least, I didn’t think he would be able to kill him. Lyle would have been on guard. He was well trained, he was young and in good shape. How did he get to him?” She shook her head in frustration. “What he did to him – it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have pulled him into the investigation, I should have been there to watch his back, I should have--” “Stop it,” Debbie interrupted firmly. “You can’t be blaming yourself. I didn’t know Lyle but I’m sure he believed he was doing his job. He knew the risks. You can’t always protect everyone.” “He was my partner.” Kincaid’s voice had an undertone of anger, that the killer had done this not only to Olmstead but also to her. Debbie shrugged. “I know, I know, but you can’t always be there, even for your partner. The best thing you can do is find this madman before he kills again.”

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid could not meet her gaze. “He warned us,” she said softly. “He told Lyle and me he would come after us, and then he did. I didn’t believe he could but I was wrong, and now Lyle is dead because of it.” Debbie was quiet, because she knew Kincaid wasn’t through beating herself up. Kincaid worked up the nerve to look at Debbie again. “He warned us again today -- Joe and me – that we should leave him alone. He threatened all of you, your family, if Joe gets involved. I can’t have that. Joe can’t help me. I can’t back down now, no matter what, but I can’t put you guys in danger like that.” Debbie shook her head compassionately. “It’s not up to you. Joe’s a big boy; he’ll make up his own mind. He’ll do the right thing. It may not be what I would choose for him, and it might not be what’s best for me. He will listen to what I have to say, or what you would have to say, but he’ll make up his own mind. And you can be sure that he’ll do what the right thing is, not the safest or the best for just a few special people.” Kincaid leaned further towards her, more worried than ever. “You have to help me. You can convince him to let it go, to keep out of it. Please.” Her voice carried a desperate urgency. Debbie studied her with those eyes so full of intelligence and feeling. Kincaid couldn’t read what she was thinking, but she didn’t detect any fear, and she felt totally exposed herself. “Juanita, Joe isn’t the kind of man who would not help a friend, and I wouldn’t ask him to,” Debbie told her. “You’re part of his world -- part of our world -- and he doesn’t abandon people he cares about.” Kincaid looked intently at her. “Debbie, I’m really flattered, but we both know that I’m not part of your family, and that he has to protect you above all costs. I am a threat to you guys. I can’t let that happen.”

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A Long Line of Family The look on Debbie’s face was sympathetic, but wise in a way that was years older than her actual age. She patted Kincaid’s arm gently. “Juanita, to Joe – to the Russell tribe – family isn’t just blood, it isn’t just marriage. They have their own code. You can’t buy, bluff, con, or inherit your way in. They have to judge you deserving, and they’re very discriminating about who belongs.” She smiled reassuring. “But once you’re in, you’re in. And you’re in, whether you realize it or not.” If this was meant to reassure Kincaid, it had the opposite effect. Tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head doggedly. “I can’t be responsible for putting you and your children in danger. I’d rather die.” Debbie shook her head again, and stood up. She smiled kindly at Kincaid. “You wouldn’t be.” The implication was clear; it was Joe’s decision, and they both knew what that would be. Kincaid exhaled heavily and looked out the window. “You want to know what’s really funny?” she asked. Debbie thought the question was rhetorical, and did not respond. Kincaid continued, shaking her head. “Amanda Frost wasn’t my niece.” “She wasn’t?” Debbie responded, surprised. Joe had mentioned the connection to her, and it had help explain her passion. “No, she wasn’t,” Kincaid continued in a monotone. “I was in Kansas City visiting a cousin, and I spotted a small article about her murder. It had been a week since her death, and even from the article I could tell they weren’t really making any progress.” Kincaid took a deep breath. “So I went to the homicide detective who was the lead on the case. I told him I was her aunt so he’d let me look at the files, and, well, one thing led to another.” Debbie waited a second. “Why did you care so much?” she asked quietly. Kincaid shook her head sadly, and looked at Debbie. “Because no one else was going to. She had no family, no one who cared about her. I wasn’t going to let her die like that.”

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A Long Line of Family She looked out the window again, knowing that this small thing had ended up to her being here, and to Lyle Olmstead being dead. They were both quiet for almost a minute. Debbie broke the silence. “When I met Joe I was, well, let’s say I was intrigued,” she told Kincaid, smiling fondly at the memory. Kincaid thought it was a curious change of subjects, but let Debbie continue on blithely. “I mean, he was obviously very bright and good looking to boot, but there was no way I was going to get involved with a military man. But he persisted, and as I got to know him I got more confused.” That got Kincaid’s attention; she looked over towards her. “What do you mean?” Debbie smiled. “The more I got to know him, the more thoughtful and gentle he seemed to be. But I also realized that there was this other side to him, this warrior type. I didn’t know much about that side, but I could see that even the toughest soldiers didn’t risk pushing him. I knew there had to be a violent side to him, and I kept thinking that I couldn’t get involved with someone like that.” Kincaid tried to put herself in that position. She couldn’t imagine many women resisting Joe’s appeal, especially when he was pursing them. “What convinced you?” she asked. Debbie’s face grew serious. “There was, um, an ‘incident’ at a party, between one of the other visiting professors and one of the attendees. He was a SEAL, I think, so he was a pretty formidable guy. He’d just had a little too much to drink. One of the women said something mean to him, or made fun of him, or rejected him – I never did quite hear what started him off. But he was angry and wanting to hurt someone. It could have been the woman or anyone who tried to step in between them; I doubt he really cared. “Joe didn’t know the kid, because that’s what he was, really, just a boy, and he could have let things happen. Maybe someone who knew him would step in, maybe the MPs would show up. Either way, it could have turned into a big deal. Instead, well, let’s say

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A Long Line of Family he interceded, in a way that was subtle but unmistakable, ‘persuading’ him to calm down and preventing what could have been a very bad situation.” “Why did that convince you?” Kincaid wrinkled her brow. Debbie looked away and smiled a tender smile of remembrance. “I realized that these weren’t two sides of him, that the sweet, gentle man I had come to know was indeed the real person. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. But he was someone who you could always count on. No matter what it costs him, no matter what it takes.” She looked back at Kincaid, wanting to ensure that Kincaid understood the gravity of what she was telling her. “Now, I abhor violence. I certainly don’t condone it, and I know that there are times when he is called upon to use it. But I also know that he’s always thinking of what the right thing to do is. It may not be the thing that I would choose, but I trust his moral compass and that he will always use it.” Debbie waited for a long moment watching Kincaid absorb what she’d told her. She wasn’t sure if Kincaid was going to speak again or not. “You’re a lot like him,” she said, and started to move towards the door. “It must be nice,” Kincaid said quietly. She was looking blankly out the window again. Debbie stopped. “What’s that?” “Knowing he’s there. Knowing he’ll watch out for you. Knowing he’d risk his life taking care of you. Knowing he’s so good at what he does, whatever he does.” Debbie’s smile was tender and pensive at the same time, although Kincaid could not see it. “Yes, it’s very comforting. But it’s a big responsibility as well.” That caught Kincaid’s attention. She turned her face back towards Debbie. “What do you mean?”

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A Long Line of Family The look on Debbie’s face was mysterious and wise at the same time. “I mean if you know that someone will do anything for you, it’s a great responsibility to make sure that you only ask for the right things.”

Chapter 35 Russell spent the next morning finishing up some loose ends on the Zapdata case. They were wrapping up the indictment against Foster, and he wasn’t really needed much further. The FBI and Zapdata felt sure that Foster would eventually cave once he understood their case against him, and roll over on General Dynamics. Then the big damages would start to look more likely. He spent the rest of the day in Kincaid’s war room. He had to familiarize himself with the flood of new cases, trying to put them into some context with the ones he already knew about. It was depressing to read through the cases, and shocking to see the creatively cruel ways the killer had found to do away with his victims. There were lots of ghosts in the room, not the least of which was the one for whom there was no file – Lyle Olmstead.

Debbie picked the kids up from their after-school program. She noticed they were standing together at the curb waiting for her to pick them up, and were holding hands – both of which were unusual. Her suspicions were heightened by how quiet they were once in the car. She tried to ask them about their day, but they seemed distracted and answered in monosyllables. Normally she might chalk it off to a mood, but she decided she needed to take this on directly. She pulled into the parking of a strip mall, surprising the kids, parked the car, and turned around to face them. “OK, guys, what’s going on?” Neither would meet her gaze. Doug pretended to play on a hand-held game, while Melissa developed an intense fascination with the fabric of her jumper. “You might as

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A Long Line of Family well tell me now,” Debbie told them, “because we’re going to sit here until you talk to me.” Doug broke first. “Is Juanita in trouble?” “You mean Detective Kincaid,” she corrected him. Melissa looked up at that. “She said we could call her Juanita,” she protested stubbornly. Debbie decided to let it go. “All right. No, Juanita isn’t in trouble. She’s just staying here a few days, until her friend’s funeral.” The mention of a funeral seemed to weigh upon them. They weren’t old enough to have much experience with death, but what they knew was painful. They looked at each other furtively, and Doug had to take the lead. “Mom, is Juanita going to die?” His voice cracked at the question, and both he and Melissa looked terrified at the prospect. Debbie took a deep breath. “Everyone dies someday, but don’t worry -- Juanita isn’t going to die anytime soon.” “Is she going to catch the bad guy?” Melissa asked meekly. “I think the FBI will catch him,” she told them matter-of-factly. “Juanita’s friend was an FBI agent, so they’re going to do everything they can to catch him.” “Will she stay with us until then?” Doug asked. Debbie shook her head. “She’ll just stay with us until the funeral. Then she may go back home.” Debbie doubted Juanita would give up quite so easily, but she wasn’t quite sure they needed to worry about her sticking around and staying at risk.

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A Long Line of Family The kids were quiet for a few moments, but Debbie knew them well enough to know they still had something on their minds. “Will dad take care of her?” Melissa asked hopefully. “Of course he will, stupid,” Doug told her, as only older brothers can talk to their little sisters. “He always takes care of us, doesn’t he? He’d never let anything happen to Juanita.” His tone was fierce. Melissa looked unconvinced, and a little frightened. She looked intently at Doug, trying to read the truth in his eyes, and her face slowly softened. The protective shadow of her father cast a comforting presence around her. “I’m glad dad will take care of Juanita,” she said at last. “I like her.” “Will dad kill the man who killed Juanita’s friend?” Doug demanded. Debbie was startled by the suggestion, and wondered if Doug knew more about the fate of Ian Russell’s killers. She had to wait a long moment before replying. “Dad will do what has to be done,” she replied levelly. “He’ll do the right thing.” “What’s the right thing?” Melissa asked, the concept being too abstract. “That’s something that everyone has to learn for themselves,” Debbie explained. “You take care of the people you love, you help people who need help. You try not to hurt people.” “Even people who hurt people?” Doug demanded. “People who kill people?” He was torn between being incredulous and defiant. “What if the bad people are trying to hurt you?” Melissa asked, fearful again.

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A Long Line of Family “I can’t tell you,” Debbie admitted. “Knowing what the right thing to do is can be very difficult. All I know is that your father won’t let anything happen to you, or to me, or to people we care about, like Juanita.” It wasn’t a simple answer, but it wasn’t a simple question. It seemed to put their minds more at ease, or at least put an end to the questions for the time being. She watched them for several more seconds, then put the car back in gear and pulled out.

Joe made it home in time for dinner, and was pleased to have Kincaid join them. She wasn’t very talkative, although she did admit to taking some long walks and going to the gym to workout, but she seemed pleased to be in their company. The children were thrilled to have her back among them, not just hiding in the room upstairs. Kincaid had spent most of the day brooding. She watched the normalcy of the neighborhood – the parents going off to work, driving kids to school or activities, running errands. Or simply the sounds of children’s voices, lilting in laughter or play, so intense in their self-absorption. Their world was here, and no harm could come to them in it. She was the odd one here, she knew. In their world, there were no serial killers; their friends and neighbors weren’t tortured to death. They were wrong, of course; danger lurked around them, hidden from view. The killer she sought might live in such a neighborhood, his neighbors believing he was just another resident. But people liked to create their fantasies of safety, that harm could not come to them in their suburban havens. Most of the time they were right, but her presence in the Russell’s neighborhood was a cancer, a reminder that the dark forces existed. Worse than that, she stood the risk that her presence might draw the attention of those dark forces; rather than protecting these people, she was endangering them. She was glad for the respite, from the direct reminder of Olmstead’s death and her mission to catch his killer. The quiet streets, those cheerful children’s voices, were a

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A Long Line of Family balm to her troubled psyche. She especially enjoyed the Russell household. It was so friendly and comfortable, its family members all so happy to have her there. Kincaid used her time here to harden her pain and frustration into something sharper and more pointed, into grim determination that would not allow her to stop until this killer was dead or she was. She had to catch the killer; she had to stop him. The future of these safe places, of these happy families or ones like them, depended on her. She could not count on the FBI’s assistance; she would be happy to use it, but she was going to stop this man from killing more people. It was this renewed resolve that allowed her to sit comfortably at the Russell’s table. She didn’t have much to say, and where she once might have laughed out loud she was more inclined to smile mildly, but at least her presence at the table didn’t put them all more on edge. The kids dominated the conversation. At first they were tentative due to not being certain of Kincaid’s mood, but once they saw she wasn’t obviously brittle they gradually relaxed and soon were chattering away energetically about a variety of their enthusiasms. They even persuaded her to join them in some online games after supper, which she proved to be good at once she got the hang of them.

The following morning Joe again returned to the war room. Now that he had a better sense of the murders that they were aware of, he wanted to try to understand the patterns. He tried to forget everything they knew about Henderson or the other, more remote suspects and focus on what the series of killings themselves were telling him. There was no obvious pattern, aside from the mind-numbing regularity with which they occurred. Roughly speaking, every quarter, although even there it was not exactly according to a set pattern. They happened with as little space as a few days, and as long as a few months – but never as long as six months. Aside from the frequency, nothing was regular. The victims were of all ages, genders, races, socioeconomic, and geographies. One quarter it might be a senior citizen in South Dakota, while the next was a child in Miami. It made no sense from any serial killer he was aware of.

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In the afternoon he went over to the FBI's own war room, which had been established in the D.C. Field Office. He stopped to see Gnassi, who neither looked surprised nor pleased to see him. “How’s it going?” he asked. Gnassi looked tired, his tie loosened and his face showing the strain. “We’ll get him,” he promised gruffly. He went on to explain that they had traced Henderson’s movements up to the airport, but had not found any credible sightings after that. They had sent agents to follow-up on all of Henderson’s movements around the dates of the known murders, with special attention on his out-of-town trips that they had correlated. And they had broadcast his picture to the law enforcement community, as well as the cab companies, trains, airlines, and local motels and hotels. “Someone will see him, something will turn up.” He seemed to be trying to convince himself. Russell studied him for a few seconds. “Did you know him?” Gnassi shook his head. “Not well. We worked together on a couple cases, but it was mostly just phone calls or some video conferences.” “What was your sense of him?” Gnassi exhaled loudly. “Ah, hell, who knows? I wouldn’t have picked him as a suspect but do you ever really know someone? He fits some of the profile and there sure are a hell of a lot of other signs pointing towards him. Plus he ran once we started to get close. So, yeah, right now I like him for it a lot. He’s the best shot we have.” Russell thanked him and went to see Sheryl Robinson. She was on indefinite loan to the investigation for the duration, and was obviously thrilled about it. She was working at one of the many desks that had been set up around the room. Russell introduced himself, having to explain who he was, and his relation to Olmstead and Kincaid. Her face fell at the mention of Olmstead, and she put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, wasn’t that

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A Long Line of Family horrible? I knew him! I mean, I didn’t know him all that well but he was someone I’d talked to. He’d asked me questions. He seemed like a really good guy.” Her eyes started to tear up. “It’s OK,” Russell told her gently, pulling up a chair and sitting close to her. He ignored the curious stares from the other Bureau staff around them. “He was a good guy. The best thing we can do for Lyle now is catch the guy who did this.” She nodded solemnly at him, her eyes wide. “So tell me – what do you think about Henderson?” he asked, his voice inviting. She wrinkled her brow and shook her head. “Can you believe it? I was so surprised when we got confirmation that he’d been on the scene for so many of the murders.” “So you wouldn’t have picked him as a likely suspect before that?” Robinson shook her head slowly, uncertain. “At the time, no. Even when we were looking for someone inside the team I didn’t really consider him all that seriously. But in retrospect, it’s not as strange as it seems.” She went on to explain that Henderson’s divorce and lack of a wide circle of friends fit the profile, as did his job dealing with death and sociopathic behavior. “I’d guess those fit a lot of the analysts, wouldn’t you say?” Russell asked, his voice carefully light but not entirely teasing. She looked at him nervously. “I suppose so.” Their job tended to attract not the most extroverted or typical personalities. Walter Henderson had not been the most average person in the group, but neither had he been the oddest. She felt aware of her own foibles at this moment, and had the sense that Russell was somehow aware of them.

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A Long Line of Family “But what was your sense of him? Did he seem like the kind of guy who would do these things?” She thought long and hard, chewing on her fingernail. He pressed further. “Did he like to boss people around, did he say cruel things? Could you see him pulling wings off bugs or hurting kittens?” She had to laugh, almost immediately stopping and looking guilty that she had. “Walter? Hurting kittens? No, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. And he hated bossing people around. He liked working on teams with people but he got real uncomfortable when he had to criticize them.” She thought for a long moment. “I guess he was a little strange, yeah, we all probably are. But, you know, in these kind of killers you look for some signs of hidden anger, an ability for cruelty.” “And you didn’t see that in Henderson.” Robinson shook her head slowly, remembering images of Walter Henderson, times she’d sat across a table from him or waited while he fixed a cup of coffee. “No,” she said at last. “If anything, he seemed more sad. Sad and, I don’t know, maybe a little scared.” This interested Russell. “Scared of what?” “I don’t know,” she confessed, her face troubled. “Getting old? The creeps we profile? I never really thought much about it; it wasn’t like it was real obvious or anything. But knowing what I know now, I don’t know. Maybe it means something.” She grew concerned. “Do you think that rules him out as a suspect?” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m not sure yet.”

Chapter 36

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Henderson was frightened, and he was tired. She left him for long periods of time. Sometimes she would take the paralyzed victim with her, making him help load her and the wheelchair into her vehicles, which themselves varied. He would wait and he would wonder, dreading being alone but dreading her return even more. Worst of all were the times she left him alone with the poor woman. She didn’t explicitly instruct him to stay with her, and he tried not to, but somehow he ended up in the room where she lay, stranded on the bed like a beached fish. She was clearly growing weaker. He wasn’t allowed to give her any food, only brief sips of water, so her strength was fading. Sometimes she slept, which was almost all right. He could watch over her like a parent with a child. Except that even in sleep she struggled. Breathing was a chore and her terror kept her from falling into a deep sleep. He could see the movements of her eyelids, reflecting whatever dreams she might be having. Henderson knew that any nightmares could be no worse than the nightmare that waited her when she awoke. When she was awake it was terrible for him. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything except look at him with pleading eyes. As she grew weaker those pleas grew more desperate, staring at him as if he was her only hope left in life. And, Henderson knew, she really didn’t have any other hopes left. What Henderson knew that she did not yet, or could not admit to herself yet, was that he could offer her no hope. It was not that he was physically incapable. He had already had practice helping transfer her to her captor’s car or van, so he knew he could move her. And there was always a vehicle outside the house, with keys on a hook in the kitchen. It was as if his nemesis was taunting him, letting him know that he had the means and the opportunity to save this one. What he lacked was the will. He asked her what her name was, but of course she could not respond to him. Sometimes she seemed to hear him, and occasionally she tried to make noises that might have been attempts at speech, but it was never anything he could understand. He searched her gently when she was unconscious, hoping that she might have some identification – a

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A Long Line of Family driver’s license, a credit card, even a key chain, but if she had had some her captor must have removed them. To her, this woman was not a person; she had no name, no life. All she was now was part of the plan. In fact, her name was Naomi Franklyn. She worked for the telephone company, and had a promising future. She had a young daughter, an ex-husband with whom she had maintained a cordial relationship, a sister, and loving parents, all of whom were frantic with her disappearance. None of that mattered now. She was part of something that she had no control over, and from which nothing was going to save her. Henderson could save her, but he wasn’t going to. She had left him with her victims before, but never for this length of time. Usually it was only for an hour or two, a half day at the very longest. Henderson did not know her plans for this one, how she was planning to kill her or why she was not only waiting so long but also making him wait with her. He doubted that she planned to simply allow her to languish like this. As bad as it was for this young woman, it wasn’t quite cruel enough. Henderson had seen enough of the other deaths to know that she liked them more difficult, and liked her victims to be able to express their anguish. This one could do nothing but watch him with those sad eyes, and try to breath.

After two days Henderson could take it no more. He paced around the young woman’s room nervously, having made up his mind to speak up when she returned. Franklyn could not follow him very well as he moved about. She tried to track his movements but could not turn her head to follow him. She did the best she could but it was clearly difficult for her, using up strength she could not afford to squander. Henderson felt bad about this, too, but being out of her sight gave him at least a moment’s relief, with abandoning her entirely by leaving the room. He had never crossed her captor before, but he had reached his limit.

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A Long Line of Family “She’s doing it to both of us, don’t you see?” he told Franklyn. He sat on the edge of the bed next to her, and gently took her hand. “Torturing us. She put me here to give you some hope, to make you think I might help you.” He paused to laugh sarcastically, and patted her hand. “But I’m afraid she put me here to remind me that I don’t have the will to defy her, to rub my nose in how easy it would be to help you.” Franklyn looked at him with eyes that might have been wild had she had more energy, and so were only able to silently plead. He looked away, and abruptly stood up. “I can’t, you see,” he whispered more to himself than to her. “I’m so sorry, I really am.” He snuck a glance at her, those frightened eyes watching him, silently begging him with every particle of her being. The room seemed to close in on him, and he ducked out of the door, standing in the hallway in the dark. He wanted to go back to the light of the kitchen, but couldn’t make himself. He stood and listened to the almost inaudible sounds of her labored breathing, his will cracking and reforming with each breath.

He heard her car around midnight. He looked in at Franklyn, who was asleep. “I’ll do what I can,” he promised her under his breath, and went downstairs to meet the monster. She looked at him with an amused expression. “Up late, are we?” she asked, hanging the keys up on the board. “How’s our friend? You didn’t let her go, now did you?” Her tone was light-hearted, knowing full well he was too afraid of her to do anything of the sort. She sat down at the table. “She’s still alive, but just barely.” He sat down across the table from her, hands held nervously in front of him. “I’ve been thinking.” She put an expression of mock surprise on her face, amused at the concept. “Now, who told you to do that?’ Her gaze grew cold.

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A Long Line of Family It took all of Henderson’s will to not wilt under her look. Still, he dropped his eyes, like the good dog he was. “I think you should let her go,” he said in the smallest voice possible while still being audible. She laughed. It was not the reaction Henderson was expecting, and he raised his eyes cautiously. “Excuse me?” she asked. She crooked her index finger at him, motioning him to move in closer. He half-stood to lean in closer to her, and he was starting to repeat his bold statement when she suddenly viciously slapped him. The surprise of the blow sat him back down hard in his seat. She did not continue her attack. Instead, she regarded him thoughtfully. “Let her go, Walter? That’s what you think?” He rubbed his cheek tentatively, not sure how to take her question. “Yes,” he confirmed. He kept his face down, waiting for another blow. He waited for several long seconds, then peeked up at her. She was watching him with the patient interest of a cat watching a mouse that it is playing with. One knows that its patience is only temporary, and that mercy is not in the cards, but still the mouse feels it must make at least the pro forma attempt to escape. Henderson knew he was being given such an opportunity, but for once in his life he could not back down. “The FBI is onto you now. They’ll get you, eventually. Why make it worse by letting her --” his eyes pointed to upstairs “-- die? Let her go.” She looked at him, evaluating something he couldn’t read. She might have been thinking about his pleas, or plotting how she would kill him; there was nothing in her expression that might distinguish between those two. “Maybe you’re right, Walter,” she said agreeably, surprising him. “You’d have to go to jail too, you know? You’ve helped me, all these years.” “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he protested. But it sounded flimsy even to him. Maybe after the first time or two he might have convinced someone that he was an

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A Long Line of Family innocent party, but he had too much blood on his hands by now. He hadn’t actively helped her kill any of them but his passivity had allowed her to continue her resign of horror. No, he was not an innocent, but he was sick of it. The eyes of the woman upstairs watching him for the last two days had been the eyes of all of her victims over the years, asking for justice. He had had enough. She nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps you are right.” Henderson thought he detected a weariness in her voice, encouraging him that she might listen to reason. “Please,” he implored. “She doesn’t have much longer.” She studied him again, and Henderson sensed that she was making a decision. She rose. “Well, then, let’s go.”

She had him carry Franklyn down, but instead of loading her into the van she made him store her in the trunk of her sedan. He thought it cruel but he didn’t want to press her any further, so he dutifully complied. He put the wheelchair in the backseat. Then she told him to drive, directing him not to the closest police station but to a seedy motel near Route 1. “I can’t face it today,” she told him. “We’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning.” She directed him to get a room. The night manager paid him no mind. Henderson realized that this was the kind of place where the rooms were rented by the hour, and assumed he was there with a hooker. Henderson gave him forty dollars for a room until morning. The man handed him a key and kept watching his television, whose flickering screen was showing him some porn action that idealized was what most likely going on in the few rooms that were occupied. Henderson went back to the car, and she got out. “Let’s go to the room.” He looked at the trunk. “What about her?” She just smiled at him and told him they’d be back for her.

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A Long Line of Family The room was nothing to look at. A television, bolted down on an iron stand, a desk chair and a small wooden desk was the victim of too many bored customers, who had left their mark by scaring it with cigarettes and, it appeared, knives. And, of course, taking up most of the space was a double bed, whose thin bedspread that looked as though it had been hastily made. Henderson shuddered at the thought of what scars the bed linens themselves carried, wondering how often they were changed or cleaned. He stood inside the doorway, unwilling to touch anything. “Why are we here?” he asked. She pushed him further inside the room, closing the door behind her. “Don’t you remember, Walter? You’re a wanted man. If we checked into a nice hotel they’d be likely to storm the room.” “We’re giving up anyway, right?” he asked nervously. “What does it matter?” She sat down in the chair, indicating he should sit as well. He tentatively took a seat on the edge of the bed. The bedsprings were old and very worn, making the bed groan with his weight. “They’ve probably got orders to shoot to kill. You don’t want them to kill you before you can explain everything, do you?” He reluctantly agreed. She stared at him with bright interest. “What do you intend to tell them, Walter?” He paused, suddenly afraid he was walking into a trap. “I’ll tell them about you, and about the things I’ve seen with you.” She smiled impishly at him. “Tell them about me, Walter? You know I’m dead, don’t you? Who is going to believe that?” “You’re not dead,” he told her stubbornly.

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A Long Line of Family “No?” she asked in mock surprise. “You saw the pictures. They told you I was dead, didn’t they?” “But you’re not dead,” Henderson insisted. “Well, then,” she said thoughtfully, “who has seen me with you?” Henderson realized that she was right. She had been very careful about when they were together. It was usually late at night, in the dark, in quiet areas. No one would vouch for his crazy story, should she choose to not come with her. She smiled at him. “Who is going to believe your story?” she prodded him gently. He stared at her in confusion. “I mean, honestly,” she continued. “A dead woman, making you help her with all these horrible crimes, covering her tracks in ViCAP, and no one saw us together? Do you really think anyone would believe you?” He stared at her, his hope draining away like the tide rushing out. “I thought you were coming with me,” he admitted in a defeated voice. She regarded him with an almost tender look. “Did I say that?” He tried to remember exactly what she had said, whether it had just been wishful thinking on his part or if she had, indeed, promised him that only to renege now. She cleared her throat and looked at him seriously, with as much compassion as she was capable of pretending to have. “Walter, have you ever considered that I’m just a figment of your imagination? That it’s been you all along?” Henderson stared at her in horror. “No, it was you! I was just…”

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A Long Line of Family “You were just what? Helping?” It didn’t sound much better, put like that. Helping this monster was not so far removed from being a monster. But he had to draw the line somewhere, and he drew it there. He could not hurt people the way she had. He might allow them to be hurt, and he might make it possible for her to hurt more of them, but hurting them himself was not something that he could do. Or so he had to believe, else all was lost. He struggled visibly. She let him stew on this for several seconds before she laughed. “Oh, Walter, I’m not going to leave you on the hook like that! Would I do that?” Henderson believed her capable of almost anything, but did not confess this to her. He trembled in relief. She watched him with a smile on her face, something he was not used to seeing. It didn’t look quite right. She looked at the table, and found what she was looking for. She pushed the small pad of paper with the motel’s name on it towards him. “I want you to practice.” “Practice what?” he asked, puzzled. He took the pad of paper, along with the cheap pen. “I want you to write ‘I am so sorry.’ That will help get you ready for your confession.” She looked at him with a suddenly serious expression. “You are sorry, aren’t you?” More than I can say, Henderson thought to himself. He simply nodded, and wrote the words with shaky hands. He gave her back the pad, and she read it over for several seconds. Then she got up and went into the bathroom. He heard the water running in the sink and thought she might be washing her hands. He felt as though he wanted to as well, and could only imagine how dirty he’d feel in the morning after several more hours here. He was surprised when she returned with a glass of water. She handed him the glass, and he sat there not knowing what to do with it. “Drink,” she instructed him.

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A Long Line of Family “But I’m not thirsty,” he protested. She stood over him, staring down at him with that commanding presence he knew all too well, the one that brooked no opposition. “Drink.” He knew, at that moment. He took in the slowly settling particles in the water, which he otherwise would have attributed to minerals from the old plumbing but which now carried far greater significance. He realized that she was wearing thing latex gloves, which would cover any fingerprints or sweat residue. She had no intention of giving herself up, or of letting him surrender. He had always wondered why she had let him live all this time. At first he thought she wanted someone to witness her macabre exhibitions. Then he flattered himself that she needed his help, to ensure her cover-up. Now, after all these years, he realized that she had always planned to set him up. His face didn’t display any change as he took all this in. She had ruined his life for so long that this last little indignity hardly mattered. What little chance there had been for him to salvage at least a small part of his reputation was gone now, as well as the chance to stop her spree of killing. The poor paralyzed woman was beyond his help, as she always had been. He had been fooling himself to think that he had the power to change any of these things. With this realization, something in him – a small thing, but which had kept a flickering flame until that instant – died. He smiled wanly, and drank the poisoned water.

Chapter 37 Olmstead’s funeral was at a cemetery in Quantico, reserved for FBI personnel, active and retired. The Bureau was going all out, giving him a funeral with full honors. The Director himself was making an appearance, sending Olmstead off personally. Several hundred FBI agents and other law enforcement officials were expected, along with the

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A Long Line of Family media. The story of his death was a hot story, and Gnassi was under intense pressure to break the case quickly. The details of his gruesome demise were not widely known, but rumors had spread like wildfire. The media had been very helpful in plastering Henderson’s face to the general public. Russell and Kincaid caught an early morning train to Washington, then took a car to Quantico. Kincaid had gone out with Debbie to buy an appropriate outfit, in this case a black pantsuit with a white blouse. She looked very somber, but also well dressed. They rode largely in silence, until Kincaid perked up as they got closer to the funeral site. Her determination was sharpening into something hotter now, a white-hot anger that was burning fiercely in her. She knew she needed to release some of it before she did something really rash, and kept her eyes open. “Let’s stop and get some coffee,” she suggested. “We’ve got a little extra time.” They passed several fast food restaurants, a Denny’s, and a Cracker Barrel, plus a convenience store or two, before Kincaid saw a place that suited her. It was an old roadhouse that looked worn down. Its sign was missing a few letters, and its parking lot was uneven gravel. The two pickup trucks outside were testaments to their durability, while the three motorcycles looked of more recent vintage. Russell looked over at her. “You sure? Here?” “Yeah, this is fine.” She kept her face impassive. Russell gave her the benefit of the doubt, crediting that she didn’t feel like being with tourists or happy young families out for an early lunch. If so, she was right that it was unlikely they would be here. He pulled over and parked the car. The inside was no more promising than the exterior. It was dimly lit, but not so dark to let them see that it had seen better days, or that those days had been long ago. There were only a few patrons. A couple of old timers sitting at the far end of the bar, hunched over glasses of beer, one duo sitting at a table playing cards, and a trio of young men trying to look tough were standing at the bar with bottles of beer in their hands. They were evidently the owners of

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A Long Line of Family the bikes outside. All talk ceased when Russell and Kincaid walked in, although country music was playing loudly on the jukebox. “Two coffees,” Russell casually told the grizzled bartender. He checked with Kincaid before adding, “black.” They took a table as far from the bar as possible. The bartender came over with two steaming cups of coffee, then nervously hurried back behind the bar. Conversations began again. “Nice place,” Russell told Kincaid quietly. “I take you to all the best places,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. It didn’t take long before the comments to start. The trio at the bar had not stopped staring at them, shooting them disdainful looks. They became bolder over the next few minutes, and their comments grew louder. “Looks like we got ourselves a pimp with his nigger whore,” one of them snickered. “Wonder how much she costs.” “Fred, she ain’t his whore, that’s his girlfriend,” another chided him. “She brought him in here because he can’t satisfy her. She’s looking for some real men.” The three of themselves laughed and slapped each other’s backs. “We don’t have to stay,” Russell told Kincaid. “I don’t mind,” Kincaid replied, her eyes bright. “Hey, yo, African princess,” one of the men called out. “Come over and give us some of that brown sugar.” Kincaid looked at Russell, who shook his head. This seemed to further embolden the three. The largest of them – easily two hundred and seventy five pounds of mostly muscle, topped with a face whose tattoos could not disguise several scars – took out a twenty and waved it in her direction, making a lewd suggestion.

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A Long Line of Family The man in the middle slapped the hand with the bill. Russell guessed he was the leader of the crew, from his position and his attitude. He was not quite as big as the larger man but his wife-beater t-shirt showed off both some impressive muscles as well as some disturbing tattoos. “We don’t got to pay for it,” the man said. “Today we’re taking it for free. Mister, you might want to just leave now, before we have ourselves a party with your girlfriend there.” They looked at Russell, wanting him to react. Instead, he looked at Kincaid, his face impassive. “There’s going to be assholes anywhere. No reason we have to stay here with these.” “Too late,” Kincaid noted. “I don’t think they’re going to let us just walk out.” The men must have heard some of their conversation. “Oh, no, you ain’t walking out, bitch. Unless your man there intends to come over and make us.” Kincaid looked at Russell, smiling with a warrior’s smile. “Last chance,” he cautioned. “We could just leave.” “Not today,” she said fiercely. She stood up and moved a step closer towards the bar. “Maybe I’ll make you myself,” she warned the trio. The three men howled with laughter. “A whore with attitude,” the leader chuckled. “I like that. Gentlemen, we got ourselves a filly. We’re going to have ourselves a good time with her.” Kincaid started walking slowly towards the men. “Now, Fred, you go over there with her sissy man,” the leader instructed the large man. “Hank and I will have some fun with her first, and I don’t want him making any trouble. Or trying to leave. He’s missed his chance for that. Now he’s going to have to watch.”

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A Long Line of Family Fred walked over towards Russell’s table, passing by Kincaid and eying her with some pleasure. Russell stood up as the man approached. “Sit down, my man,” Fred instructed him, trying to be charitable. “Nothing you can do now.” Russell continued to stand, but flashed a smile at him. “I’m not getting into it. I just want to get a better view of my friend kicking your buddies’ asses.” Fred seemed surprised. He looked over at his friends, who initially shared his surprise, then broke out laughing even harder. “Kick our asses! Who-ee!” Hank chortled. “Dale, he thinks she’s going to kick our asses. Boy, he must be whipped.” “I heard it,” the leader confirmed. “I heard it but I can’t believe it.” “In fact,” Russell continued, his voice calm, “my ten against that twenty of yours that she takes them.” Fred’s eyes grew large at the chance to make some easy money. Kincaid paused, still a few feet from the two men. She looked back at him with an offended expression. “Joe, are you betting on me? And giving him odds? Come on.” She sounded aggravated. “There are two of them,” Russell reminded her. “Still, it’s not really fair to them. Even money at the least.” She stared pointedly at him. “All right,” Russell told Fred,” even money.” He took out a twenty and placed it on the table. The three men looked at him with disgust. To them, Russell was an overdressed suburban embarrassment of a man – coming into their place with a black woman, letting them talk trash about her, and especially for letting her try to defend herself without lifting a finger to help. They were going to beat him up, after they were done with his woman. They thought he was hoping he might escape injury, even at the cost of his girlfriend’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Fred saw that Russell was not a

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A Long Line of Family small man, and wasn’t in bad shape; he probably worked out in some gym. But Fred saw no signs of toughness, and so he could hardly be considered a man. He’d enjoy beating this one up. “I’ll take your money.” “Let me in on that,” Hank added. “Me too,” Dale said. He moved away from the bar. “Now, honey, get your ass over here.” Kincaid sauntered a few more feet, sizing them up. Then, without warning, she moved quickly, kicking Hank in the side of the knee. The kick was hard, and it was well placed. Hank’s knee bent in a way that nature had not intended it to, ruined permanently. Hank went down immediately, screaming in agony. Kincaid followed with a kick in the head, cutting off his screams. Dale’s eyes widened in shock. “Bitch,” he spat out. He whipped out a knife. “You’re going to pay for that.” With that he rushed her, but Kincaid was ready. She easily parried the knife, grabbing the hand and using his momentum to flip him over her hip. He went down hard, and Kincaid didn’t waste any time. She stomped hard – once on his mid-section, and the second on his ribs. The rest of the room could hear the sound of them cracking. Scornfully, Kincaid brushed the knife away from his hand, and patted him down for additional weapons. Fred stood open mouthed, unable to believe what had transpired in a few seconds. Her brutal destruction of his friends had occupied his full attention, and he took a half step towards them when he was reminded of his charge. “Don’t do it,” Russell advised him softly. He turned towards Russell and couldn’t believe the transformation. He was no stranger to bar fights, and had the scars to prove it. Usually, though, it was a fight with drunken louts like himself, with his friends to back him up. Fred saw now that this was something else entirely. Where previously had stood an apparently indecisive

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A Long Line of Family and soft out-of-towner, now before him stood Death. It was as if the Grim Reaper had taken the man’s place and now was here for his soul. The man’s features had hardened in some indefinable way, and the look on his face brooked no doubt that the woman was the kinder of the two of them. “Just walk away, my friend,” Russell advised him quietly but firmly. “It’s over.” Fred stared at him in shock for a second or two, stole a quick glance at the female assassin behind him, and quickly rushed out of the bar. They heard his bike starting up and roaring away. Russell looked at the bartender. “Our friends are paying for the coffee.” The rest of the people in the bar were silent, the country music playing idiotically in the background. They’d seen violence before, but knew they had just witnessed something else, something they didn’t want any part of. Russell and Kincaid left without any further incident.

Chapter 38 The funeral was something of an anti-climax. The small chapel was packed, with overflowing flower arrangements. When Kincaid and Russell arrived, Gnassi offered them seats in one of the front rows. “You go, Juanita,” Russell encouraged her. “I’ll sit in back.” She protested but Russell insisted, so she joined Gnassi and several other of Olmstead’s coworkers. She caught sight of Olmstead’s family. Olmstead’s father seemed lost, his face vacant and wondering, not able to give much comfort to his sobbing wife. There was another young girl, whom Kincaid learned was Olmstead’s younger sister. She was pretty, but appeared very fragile and entirely out of place in such a situation. She’d never suffered a loss before, not of this magnitude, and for the first time in her life she was realizing that the world was not a friendly place. Kincaid peered around trying to catch sight of where Russell had gone and wishing he’d stayed with her.

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A Long Line of Family In truth, Russell was only partly being modest. He didn’t like sitting in the front of a packed room, and he wanted to watch the crowd. He doubted Henderson would show up, even in disguise, but he wanted to be on the lookout for anything unusual. It was a room full of mostly men, dressed in dark suits. The expressions on their faces were somber, mixed with the occasional anger. Russell saw the ViCAP team sitting together, several of them holding hands. Their faces reflected mostly confusion, knowing they or their work had been responsible, at least in part, for the terrible chain of events that had led to this sad ceremony. The atmosphere was as subdued as it someone had lowered the oxygen level, leaving everyone figuratively gasping for their breath and unable to speak normal, unable to even form the right words they so wanted to say.

Russell wasn’t entirely surprised when Shaw walked up to the foyer, Paul Scott with him. He’d met Shaw, of course, and had heard about the altercations with Olmstead, as well as Scott’s role in the matter. No one watching him could have detected any change, but something inside grew cold. Kincaid had vented at the roadhouse, but there had not been suitable opportunity for his own. He moved over to them quietly. “Hey, I know you,” Shaw said affably. “You’re Kincaid’s buddy.” He turned to Scott and nudged him with an elbow. “He’s a friend of that incompetent bitch that got Lyle killed.” He spoke a little more loudly than he needed to, so that his voice carried to some of the other people standing around, drawing their attention. “That’s not the way I see it,” Russell told them calmly. They were eying him with active hostility, and the crowd of passersby started to pay attention. He moved closer to the duo, stopping a foot away. “You have to wonder why he couldn’t trust his own partner to have his back. But that’s pretty typical, isn’t it, Frank? You watch out for your own back, and that’s all.” “Back off, asshole,” Scott warned him.

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A Long Line of Family By now they were drawing a small crowd. No one knew exactly what was going on, and it wasn’t an appropriate place for anything to happen, but they were surrounded by men who knew a pissing match when they saw it and appreciated a chance to be distracted from the reason that had brought them to the chapel. “I think you should go,” Russell told them, feeling no discomfort at giving orders to two FBI agents in the midst of a room full of other agents and inside one of their sanctuaries. He noticed that Gnassi had unobtrusively joined the crowd, standing on the outskirts watching the encounter with an expressionless face. Shaw’s face wrinkled in mock amazement. “Hey, man, we’re with the Bureau,” he said hotly. “You are, if I recall correctly, a fucking accountant. You don’t belong here, so why don’t you leave?” “Yeah, and take that dumb bitch with you,” Scott added. He reached out and poked Russell in the chest. It was a mistake. Russell was prepared for it, grabbing Scott’s wrist and pinching a pain point. Scott gasped, but before he or Shaw could react Russell twisted his arm around his back, then quickly forced his head towards Shaw’s. He banged their heads together like a schoolmaster disciplining two wayward students, and just about as easily. The sound of the heads colliding carried several feet. It didn’t hurt as much as it was simply embarrassing. Normally neither man was afraid of a fight, and over the years they’d accumulated their own array of little tricks to help them through such confrontations. Today, though, something about Russell made them wary. There were two of them, they were among colleagues, and the FBI contingent were all looking for someone to get a little revenge for the murder of Olmstead – all of which should have made them supremely confident. The difference was Russell, with that imposing physical presence and his imperturbable air of invincibility. They quickly glanced at the surrounding crowd, looking for signs that the cavalry would ride in if they started something they couldn’t finish. The small crowd of

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A Long Line of Family other agents paused for a moment, trying to decide what to do. They caught sight of Gnassi, standing silently a few feet away watching the scene. He looked at Russell, who was clearly the outsider in this situation, and at his own two agents. He didn’t know what had gone down between Shaw and Olmstead, but he was smart enough to know something had, and that Olmstead hadn’t wanted Shaw to back him up. Olmstead had kept him apprised of Russell’s periodic involvement; he still didn’t understand exactly who Russell was, but Gnassi knew that he was more than he seemed. It only took him a fraction of a second to decide. Gnassi shook his head slightly, sending a clear message to the other agents to keep out of it, and turned to walk away. The other agents’ faces grew impersonal, not understanding what was going on but knowing that it was something they should stay out of it. Shaw and Scott got the message. They seemed to physically sag, conceding defeat. Russell took their collars in his hands, lifting up just enough to cut off some of the air to their windpipes. “Now, let’s go find your car, why don’t we?” he informed them politely. “You’re leaving.”

The service was subdued. The minister spoke typical words of redemption and condolence, but he hadn’t really known Olmstead or anything of his faith. The Director spoke, as did Gnassi. Both vowing to bring justice for the killing, praising Olmstead’s courage and dedication. They were words Olmstead might have liked to hear, and Kincaid hoped he was hearing them wherever he was. It was important to her that he know they thought he had done his job, and done it well. It was important to her that he know his family heard them say these words as well. Kincaid stole a few glances around the packed hall. The Quantico contingent was there, most of the staff she and Olmstead had interviewed sitting together in shock. This was real life, this had been a man who had sat and talked with them. They knew that the man who Olmstead had been searching for had used their prized system to hide behind, and who had then sought him out and brutally killed him.

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It was a closed casket, of course. Kincaid had seen what was left of Olmstead when his killer had been through with him, and the sight would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. She didn’t know if any of his family had insisted on viewing the body, but she hoped not. The casket bore mute testimony that some things were, indeed, final, and some things were better left unsaid and unseen. But, she vowed grimly, not forgotten. Olmstead’s sister barely made it halfway through her reading before she broke down in tears and had to be escorted off the pulpit. She had never been through anything like this, and Kincaid hoped she never would again. Kincaid wondered if she had ever realized that her brother’s job actually put his life at risk, that this wasn’t like television where bad things only happened to the characters you don’t really like anyway. Kincaid wondered what she would say if she had been called upon to speak. She didn’t know much about his history, didn’t know anything about his life away from his professional life. She didn’t know what kind of music he liked, if he sent his mother flowers for Mothers Day, if he liked to cook. She knew something of his taste in fast food from their days in the war room, but not if he preferred it to dining at a nice restaurant. She could tell them that he was a thorough professional. She could tell them that he was a good partner, that she had come to trust him and like working with him. She didn’t think she would tell them that he was a good lover, that she had thrilled to his touch during their night of passion and heat. If she had to speak, she would tell them that he died for the right reasons, trying to do good, and that she was sure he had died bravely. She hoped that was right.

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A Long Line of Family The graveyard ceremony was equally somber. It was a beautiful day out – blue skies, scattered white clouds, a quiet breeze that fluttered the flags that were standing at halfmast. Kincaid thought the graveyard was so peaceful. It was green and well tended, and the graves lay quietly in their rows. It would be a nice place to come for a walk, or to sit quietly and contemplate life’s vicissitudes. That is, when grief was not so close at hand, when the casket of someone close to you wasn’t being set to eternal rest in front of you. She had been to funerals before, but none had affected her like Olmstead’s. She felt responsible for his death, although she tried to convince herself that she could not have stopped his death, and she felt even more responsible for catching his killer. She did not really want to be here, but if it had to happen there was no way she wasn’t going to miss it. She could take it; she had to take it. The honor guard, members of the Tactical Team, gave three short bursts of rifle fire. The noise broke the silence and seemed shocking in the quiet of the cemetery. Kincaid inadvertently flinched at the sounds. Russell’s hand found hers and gave it a quick squeeze. He didn’t look over at her, so she didn’t have to cover the tears that were filling her eyes. The services were almost through the internment when the noises started. At first it was an isolated ring or two, then a growing cacophony of buzzes, bells, tunes and other noises. People started checking their waists, pulling out their phones and holding them to their eyes. Gnassi was one of the first. Standing in between him and Russell, Kincaid grew cold as she watched Gnassi’s face grow concerned. He spoke quietly in the phone before snapping it shut, already starting to look around for the people he needed next. “What is it?” she asked, fearing that the killer had struck again and wondering who it might be. She could barely breath, fearing the worst, that it had been Joe’s family that had suffered. She noticed he seemed alert but unconcerned, carefully waiting for the news. Gnassi looked at her, his eyes eager. “We found Henderson.”

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The motel room wasn’t any improved in daylight. Indeed, it was all the more depressing, a variety of stains visible that had been hidden by the dark. Henderson’s body lay on the floor, surrounded by vomit and other fluids. Gnassi stood with Kincaid and Russell on one side of the room as the technicians worked the scene, snapping photographs and collecting samples as they waited for the Medical Examiner to finish his assessment. “What was it, doc?” Gnassi pressed. “I’m guessing poison,” he responded. He was in his early fifties, well dressed and carefully groomed. Only his shoes betrayed him, dress Timberlane’s that suggested he was prepared to walk in places where expensive loafers would be a liability. He sat back on his haunches and made a face. “I’m guessing it was in that glass there.” The glass lay on the floor a few feet away from Henderson’s body, having rolled out of his hand when he fell to the floor. “Any idea what it was?” Kincaid asked. He inspected her carefully before responding. She wasn’t wearing an FBI badge around her neck, the way most of the other people in the room were, but her presence seemed to be accepted by the others and no one objected to her question. He decided it was safe to respond. “Hard to say, but it wasn’t quick. Look at his face – you can see the poor bastard suffered.” Henderson’s face was a portrait of agony, frozen in the rictus of a death that he knew was inevitable but which hadn’t come as quickly as he might have wished. They’d seen the note, and it looked like open and shut case of suicide. “The maid found him,” Gnassi told them. “He checked in late last night, paid for a few hours. This place gets a lot of that, so it wasn’t unusual. They don’t have any

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A Long Line of Family surveillance system but we’ve already found the night clerk. After he wasted our time denying he’d seen anything he admitted to checking him in around two.” “Anyone with him?” Russell asked, his voice calm. “He says he didn’t see anyone. He assumed he had a hooker in his car but he couldn’t see the car from where he was, so he didn’t see anyone else.” “They find the car?” Kincaid asked, her voice betraying a slight edge of hope. Gnassi nodded, and told them they were checking the car for any clues. They were hoping for hairs or fibers that tied him to Olmstead, but they didn’t really need them. They had their killer, and they weren’t really unhappy that his end had not been kind. “I guess that’s it, then” Gnassi said. He looked around the room. “Poor Walter. Who’d have thought? It just goes to show you.” Russell and Kincaid didn’t say anything. They just looked at each other, their eyes thoughtful.

Chapter 39 Kincaid and Russell sat in a loose circle in the FBI’s war room on the case, amidst several FBI staff that included Gnassi, Tepford, Robinson, and several of the agents who were now working the case. Russell was sitting in the outer circle, slightly removed from the rest of the chairs, politely having declined offers to move closer. The room was oddly subdued and conversation in it was grim. They were relieved that Henderson had been found, but his suicide was not the kind of closing that was very satisfactory. They were discussing what follow-ups to do. Gnassi wanted to trace back Henderson’s movements from the motel. “Why there?” he wondered aloud. “Someone must have seen him

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A Long Line of Family check-in, and he must have been someplace between the airport and there. Where’d he get the car?” The fact that had to be considered was if Henderson had someone helping him hide. If he had, then he might have had the same conspirator for his killings. There had been no indications before that more than one person was involved, but it was possible. Robinson offered to recheck the files to look for any such indication, while Kincaid suggested Gnassi use the Field Offices to check out Henderson’s movements on the dates they had established he was in the right vicinity for a killing. Russell sat silently, listening but not offering his opinion. It took Kincaid some time to notice his silence, and she started glancing over at him periodically. She knew better than to think that he was intimidated or shy, but she also knew that he must have some useful opinions about what they might do next to tie up any loose ends. She wondered if he had already moved on, concluding his role in the whole affair, but almost immediately dismissed the thought. He hadn’t seemed satisfied at the motel, and she knew how he felt. Henderson’s death was not the sort of ending she had been looking for. No, she decided that it was more like he was waiting than anything else. Waiting for what, though, she wasn’t too sure. Gnassi’s assistant came up and told him he had a call. He looked gruffly at her, and told her to take a message. She persisted, informing him that it was Deputy Director Dobbs. That got his attention; somewhat reluctantly, he stood up and followed her out of the room. Kincaid noticed that Russell leaned back, and had the peculiar sense that this was what he had been waiting for. The conversation in the room continued even in Gnassi’s absence, although with somewhat more tentativeness on the part of the FBI personnel. Russell remained quiet, watching the door for Gnassi’s return. Kincaid became subdued herself, watching him and trying to figure out what was on his mind.

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It was another fifteen minutes or so before Gnassi returned. His normally stern expression was drawn into even more of a scowl than usual, his eyes hard and fiery. Everyone stopped talking when he came towards them. He didn’t take his seat, remaining standing. Kincaid leaned towards Russell. “What’s up?” she whispered. He didn’t take his eyes off Gnassi. “The fix is in,” he told her quietly, not sounding surprised or even upset. She didn’t know what to make of that, but leaned back towards Gnassi. He cleared his throat. “The investigation is over,” he told them. “Downtown wants us to wrap things up, finish the paperwork. The task force is disbanded and you’re all back on your normal assignments.” Everyone – with the exception of Joe Russell -- was surprised, no one more than Kincaid. “What are you talking about?” she protested. “We were just talking about all the followups we needed to do! We don’t even know if Henderson was acting alone.” He glared at her with stony eyes. “Henderson was the sole killer of Special Agent Lyle Olmstead,” he recited, as if reading a script. “The case is closed.” “What about all the others?” Robinson asked meekly, referring to the string of deaths that had preceded Olmstead’s. Gnassi turned his laser stare to her, causing her to shrink visibly. “There is no evidence that there is a single person involved with those cases. They will remain classified as unsolved in ViCAP. I repeat, you are all discharged back to your general assignments. Is that clear?”

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A Long Line of Family There were mumbled noises of grudging assent, although Kincaid could see that Robinson and others were troubled by this unexpected turn of events. Gnassi turned his attention to Kincaid, giving her his best Marine drill sergeant impression. “Detective Kincaid, you are in possession of significant amounts of Bureau files and SA Olmstead’s laptop. You are to return these immediately. I will send an agent with you to retrieve these.” “Like hell you will!” she retorted. “Detective Kincaid accumulated significant amounts of information prior to the Bureau’s involvement, and she and Special Agent Olmstead jointly developed additional leads,” Russell interjected. Kincaid was surprised to hear him speak, but Gnassi seemed to have been expecting him and turned slowly towards him with a stern expression. “It would be reasonable for you to give her a few days to sort out the information and return the Bureau’s property.” Gnassi initially looked as though he was going to argue, but thought the better of it. “I can live with that. Forty-eight hours.” He and Russell locked stares, neither willing to concede. At last, Gnassi looked away. “We’re going to need her weapon too.” Kincaid looked in amazement at Russell, who shrugged at her, shaking his head slightly. “With the files,” he told Gnassi. Again, Gnassi looked as though he wanted to argue, but something in Russell’s resolute manner made him doubt the wisdom of that course of action. The two eyed each other like two gladiators, prepared to fight but realizing they weren’t really enemies and unwilling to do so at the behest of unseen proponents. “Mr. Russell, Deputy Director Dobbs knows you are free to continue whatever course of action you choose but believes that the Bureau’s obligation to you is finished.” The words seemed distasteful to Gnassi. He swallowed and shook his head. He had lost agents before, but it was never easy, and with Olmstead he was especially haunted both by the nature of his death and by the

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A Long Line of Family suspicion that had he given Kincaid more support Olmstead might still be alive. It made him angry. “I’ll let you know,” Russell told him mildly, standing up. He looked to Kincaid. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 40 They went back to Kincaid’s own war room. On the way to the room they again passed the unfortunate woman in her wheelchair, accompanied by her caretaker. The crippled woman looked even worse than she had when they had previously seen her. She was no longer even making the involuntary lolling movements, and appeared to have lost weight. Her skin was dull and her gaze unfocussed. Her companion, on the other hand, seemed as bright and cheerful as ever, giving them a warm greeting as she pushed the wheelchair past them. Kincaid shuddered to herself, vowing again never to let herself get like that. She’d kill herself first, if she had the option. Once inside the room, Kincaid threw herself down hard on the couch, while Russell remained standing, leaning against the kitchen counter. The room was stuffed with remnants of the investigation – files scattered on every horizontal surface, the walls lined with photographs and summaries of each case. It also had the accumulated debris of Kincaid and Olmstead having essentially lived in it for several days – overflowing trash bags, pizza boxes with a few cold remaining slices, empty bottles of water. It was a room Kincaid would be glad to never see again, yet at the moment she wasn’t eager to abandon it. It seemed almost catastrophic and amateurish when compared to the FBI's equivalent room, but it was where she and Olmstead had gotten to know each other as they tracked this sadist, and she felt oddly comfortable here. “I guess you better be heading home,” she said without enthusiasm to Russell, not looking at him.

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“Why’s that?” She looked up at him, wrinkling her brow. “Didn’t you get the message? It’s over. Finito. End of story. We’re done here.” Russell continued to stare at her patiently, not showing any emotion. She squirmed under that relentless gaze. “You should get back to your family.” “So that’s it?” he asked softly. “That’s it,” she confirmed, nodding for emphasis. He pushed off from the wall, but surprised her by grabbing one of the kitchen chairs. He reversed it, and straddled it, his arms over the chair back in front of him. “Funny about that. I don’t think it’s over, and I don’t think you do either.” Kincaid felt a flush. Part of her was relieved to hear him say that – because she didn’t, indeed, believe at all that the case had been put to bed – and part of her was terrified. “Oh, yeah?” she responded weakly. “Yeah.” She looked away, and found herself surveying the silent witness of the killer’s grim work over the years. It was profoundly depressing, and at the same time made her extremely angry at him. “Well,” she said defiantly, “maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but I do think you should get back to your family.” “Is that what this is about? My family?”

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A Long Line of Family She stared at him fiercely, then could no longer maintain it. She felt one tear leak out, then another, and before she knew it they were pouring out. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, suddenly aware that Russell was next to her on the couch. He put his arm around her. “It’s OK,” he murmured, rubbing her arm with his free hand. That just made her cry harder, now adding the indignity of needing him to comfort her to her misery about losing Olmstead. Kincaid only cried for a few minutes before stopping. She wiped her face and excused herself to go to the bathroom, where she washed her face and sternly told herself to get control of herself. When she returned Russell was standing again, studying the pictures on the wall. “It won’t matter, you know.” She stopped. “What?” “If we gave it up.” Kincaid stared at him. “So you don’t think Henderson is our guy?” she concluded. She had come to the same conclusion at the motel. It was hard to say why – some instinct that the killer she had been seeking was not going to meet his end in a sordid motel like that – and nothing she had seen or heard since then had dissuaded her. She might be going against the entire FBI with that instinct, but that was where she had started the case, her instinct against them and everyone else. Only Russell had believed her then, and only Russell appeared to share her belief now. “No,” he said. “Robinson said something to me a couple days ago. She said that, looking back, Henderson had always seemed a little sad, a little scared, to her.” “So?” “So I think our guy was using Henderson. I think he was setting Henderson up the whole time, waiting for the right time.”

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Kincaid shook her head. “Come on, it was a fluke that we connected all these cases. If I hadn’t been so damn stubborn, and if Robinson and her friends hadn’t been so diligent, we’d have never found all these.” She gestured to the walls with their photographs. “He’s a planner,” Russell responded. “He didn’t know that there’d be a you pushing the investigation, but he had to plan that someday the ViCAP thing would be uncovered. It could have been a software upgrade that exposed the backdoor, it could have been an audit that uncovered some of the discrepancies with the files; it could have been lots of things. The thing is, he had to assume that at some point this cover would get blown.” “And he had to have a fall guy ready,” Kincaid said softly, agreeing in amazement at the lengthy foresight the killer had shown. “That’s why Lyle had to be killed, so the FBI would be anxious to catch his killer and close the case.” Russell nodded grimly. It all fit what he was thinking. Kincaid sat down on the chair Russell had vacated. “Joe, who is this guy?” “I don’t know, but somewhere in here is something we’ve missed.” Kincaid shook her head. “Joe, I’ve been through everything. If there was something there, I’d have seen it, or Lyle would have. The key has to be something we don’t know about.” Russell didn’t respond, but moved slowly along the wall, looking over the victims carefully. Wearily, Kincaid got up and started doing the same. Russell was studying the earliest victims, so Kincaid started at the most recent ones – Olmstead not included – looking for anything she might have missed.

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A Long Line of Family Russell broke the silence first, after several long minutes of quiet and intense attention on both their parts. “You know, he started off with victims that’d be easy to control. Two girls under fifteen, the old man, the little boy.” “So?” Kincaid stopped what she was doing and looked over at Russell. “I don’t know. I think he was worried about subduing them. It couldn’t be that he was worried about moving them, because later on the victims included pretty good sized ones that he moved without any problem, so it had to be how he captured them and got control. If he was a bigger guy I think he wouldn’t have gotten off so much on these little ones.” “He did move up on the fifth one,” Kincaid noted. The fifth victim had been a middleaged man in Iowa, a banker who went out to pick up some milk at a Wal-Mart and was found in a field three weeks later. He had been cut up in pieces while still alive, at least for most of it. Russell nodded slowly. “I think he’s a little guy. Strong but not very big.” Kincaid strolled slowly along the wall, looking at the photographs and trying to see them as the killer might have seen them. She stopped when she reached Russell, standing in front of the sixth victim. It was hard to say why it occurred to her. Inspiration is like that; one cannot always understand or explain its source. Standing there, though, she had a flash of insight that she immediately knew was true, without knowing why she was so sure. “It’s a woman.” Russell shook at her in surprise, and she felt obscurely pleased that she had, for once, surprised him. She expected him to argue with her or at least make her explain her bold assertion, but he didn’t. He thought deeply for several seconds, then started moving

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A Long Line of Family along the wall, retracing her steps in reverse. When he finished he looked at her, and their eyes met in mutual recognition. “Marissa Nash,” they said in unison. They both sat down to think through the consequences of this, Kincaid on the couch and Russell back in his chair. “Then who was the body?” Russell asked. “Dental records and the fingerprints – as best they could get them from how badly burned she was – checked out. Her mom identified a birthmark.” Kincaid shook her head. “I don’t know – I don’t see how she could have switched the body.” This gave them pause. “Maybe she switched places with Nash, just for the FBI job,” Kincaid speculated. She flipped through Nash’s autopsy files, and noted that there was no sign that the body had been dead prior to the car crash. “She would have had to keep Nash alive for the time she was masquerading as her.” Kincaid shook her head again. “What was that, six or eight weeks?” Kincaid nodded, thinking hard. “Someone would have noticed.” “I don’t know,” Russell disagreed. “No one at the FBI had met her, and she was away from home the time she was on assignment there. Wasn’t there something in the file that Nash’s parents said they hadn’t talked to her in a while?” Kincaid sorted through some of the investigator’s notes, finally finding the reference and wondering how Russell had happened to notice that small detail. She looked up at him. “Her mom said Marissa told her it was part of the assignment. Hey, do me a favor?” “What’s that?” “Do you have any kind of access to drivers’ license photos?”

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A Long Line of Family Russell smiled at her cryptically. “I suppose I could,” he admitted, seeing where she was going with her question. He pulled the laptop over to him and started keying in some commands. He recalled that Nash was from Illinois, and pulled up the first photo ID on record, from when she obtained a license in high school. Kincaid stood up and walked over, carrying Nash’s FBI contractor file, which included her security photo. She leaned over the desk, her face close to Russell’s. She held the security pass next to the screen. “It’s not the same person,” Kincaid concluded in a flat voice. Russell nodded. She looked over at him, inches away. “So our killer had to know Nash, know she was going to work on an assignment for the FBI, know that no one else would recognize her, have the technical skills to substitute for her on the assignment, kidnap and keep her captive for a couple months, and then rig an accident to kill her after she’d put the backdoor in.” She shook her head in amazement. “This is one cold-blooded person,” Russell said. “Worse than that, it shows how far ahead she was planning everything. Nothing that she has done has been spontaneous.” “So what does she do now?” Kincaid said in frustration. “No one is looking for her. If we looked hard enough at Nash’s past, we probably could find the link, how she got to know her and who she is, but where would she be by then? She’s not going to be sticking around waiting.” Joe gave her a frank look. “Tell me: given what you know, do you think that she will take the chance that you and I will just give up, that we won’t figure this out?” Kincaid was less than a foot from his face. She liked his face, even when he was as serious as he was now. She wished that times were different, that things were different, that she lived the kind of life where these small details were things she could not just recognize but also take time to appreciate. But duty called. “She wouldn’t,” she conceded.

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A Long Line of Family They stared at each other for several seconds. Kincaid stood up and leaned against the couch. “She’s not going to stop,” Russell said, citing the obvious. “She will go on killing, and she can’t afford to assume that we’ll give up. She’ll be coming after us.” Kincaid looked at him with concern. “Joe, everyone thinks she’s long dead. The FBI thinks Henderson killed Olmstead, and they’d think we were crazy if we told them about her. She can’t come after me, because then the FBI would have to wonder why I all of a sudden got killed. But you – your family…” Her voice trailed off. “It’s check,” Russell concluded quietly. “Check?” Kincaid responded, confused by what he meant. “Like in chess. When the king is in danger the other pieces have to move to protect him. That’s why she threatened my family, so that now she thinks I have to leave here to go protect them. She’s moving us around, trying to separate us.” Kincaid looked at him, worried he was thinking of not going. “But you do have to protect them.” She thought rapidly. “Maybe you could warn the local cops,” she suggested. “Or, better yet, do you know anyone in the US Marshall Service? They could take them into protective custody.” Russell shook his head. “The case is over, as far as everyone else thinks.” They regarded each other, Kincaid obviously worried but not able to read Russell’s expression. There were lots of things she could suggest, but she knew there was only one course of action that made any sense. “You have to go yourself.” Russell studied her carefully. “You want me to go?”

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A Long Line of Family “It’s not that I want you to go,” she explained. She felt very tired all of a sudden, the burst of adrenaline that had hit her when she had figured out the truth about Nash suddenly losing its potency. “It’s that I can’t let you put them at risk. They’re safer if you are there.” What wasn’t said was if they would be safer together, or that Kincaid herself would be safer if he stayed with her. And Kincaid was implicitly saying that by coming with him to his home, she would be increasing the risk for his family. By not denying it, Russell was implicitly agreeing with her. “Are you sure?” he said at last. “I’m sure,” she told him with more confidence than she felt. “I’ll be fine here. I’ve got my gun and I’ll stay here until we figure out what we do next. Now go.” He looked at her somberly. “I’ll call you in the morning. Don’t go outside the room, and keep your weapon handy. Don’t trust anyone.” She smiled wanly at him. “Except you.” He returned the smile, weary but clearly. “Except me.” He reached out to pat her reassuringly on the shoulder. Kincaid found herself wishing he would take her in his arms for an even more comforting hug, but nodded bravely at him nonetheless. He watched her for a long second, then left. She was alone, again.

Chapter 41 Marissa Nash pushed Naomi Franklyn into her hotel room, and unceremoniously dumped her into the bathtub. Nash had taken Franklyn in and out of the hotel numerous times over the past several days, inuring the staff and guests to their presence, even at odd

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A Long Line of Family hours. She was not too worried that either she or her victim might be recognized. She did not believe anyone would recognize her, or even be looking for her, but she expected that somewhere Franklyn’s face was on a missing person poster. However, she knew that people tended to turn away from incapacitated people, especially ones in as dehabiltated state as she had caused Franklyn to be in, and that she would be viewed simply as this person’s companion, to be similarly ignored. So far, it had worked. Franklyn was very weak, and Nash no longer felt the need to keep her medicated. The several days of being artificially paralyzed, no food and very little water, and the strain of constant terror had left her almost completely incapacitated. She was so far beyond frightened that the concept no longer had meaning for her. She expected to be killed or worse at every moment, and the suspense of being kept alive like this was draining her away as much as the physical torment. Franklyn laid in the bathtub listening to sounds Nash made in the rest of the room. She wasn’t making much noise, and there was no noise from the television or radio to mask any of them. It was difficult for her to think, but Franklyn concluded that Nash was at a computer, as she heard periodic sounds of a keyboard. She guessed that her captor was on some deviant website telling other twisted souls what she was planning for her, or perhaps planning her escape. In fact, Nash was playing chess, maintaining two games simultaneously. She was a very good player – she might have been Grand Master level had she chosen to play in legitimate competitions – and enjoyed matching wits anonymously with other devotees. Her get-away plans were long made, and she felt everything was proceeding according to schedule. Nash went back to check on Franklyn after a half an hour. She believed that her victim was not capable of offering any resistance, but knew better than to leave the assumption unverified. She walked back and crouched next to her. She poked the hapless woman in

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A Long Line of Family the midsection, pleased with the lack of defensive response. Franklyn’s eyelids barely fluttered. She stood up and started to walk away. “Please.” Nash stopped, surprised to hear the voice, tiny though it had been. She turned around and put her hands on her hips. “Well, well, well. It can speak. Perhaps I’ve misjudged you.” Franklyn was torn between resuming her silence – thus allowing this monstrous creature to leave her alone – and trying to talk to her, in order to try to make her understand that she was a human being. The thought of her daughter was the only thing that gave her the strength to try. “Please, let me go,” she gasped out. It nearly exhausted her. Nash looked at her with amusement. “Let you go? Why in the world would I let you go?” “I won’t tell. I promise.” Nash came back to the bathtub and sat on the side. She took Franklyn’s unresponsive hand, which might have been a gesture of sympathy for most people but was simply a clinical way for her to gauge her status. “I never understand why people say things like that. If I kill you, you can’t talk, but if I let you go there’s always the chance that you will, so why would I take a chance?” She shook her head at what she perceived as other’s inability to do the kind of cold calculus that came so naturally to her. “Please,” Franklyn persisted, surprising herself. Nash had to lean in closer just to hear. “I have a daughter.” Nash patted her hand. “I really don’t care.”

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A Long Line of Family The harshness of the statement penetrated the terror, the fatigue, and the grim reality of her situation. Franklyn stared at this creature, someone so unfathomable to her that she might be an alien. “Why me?” she choked out at last. She was rapidly losing even the strength to speak. Nash shook her head patiently. “It has nothing to do with you, my dear. I didn’t know who you were, and I didn’t really care. I needed someone your size, your color. It just happened to be you, but it could have been someone else.” She shrugged. “It didn’t really matter to me. You’re not important to me, your daughter isn’t important to me. You’ve served your role quite well so far. I just need you for one more thing.” Franklyn muttered something inaudibly. Nash leaned in closer. “What was that?” “Then you’ll let me go?” It sounded pathetic, but it took almost all of Franklyn’s strength even to utter the words. Nash laughed and stood up. “Hmm, I’ll think about it. You hold on to that hope.” Laughing, she went back to her computer.

She was pleased when, not too much later, the picture from the fiber-optic camera she had under her door showed Russell exciting Kincaid’s room. It was too bad that her listening devices had been identified and nullified; she hadn’t expected that so quickly, although it didn’t cause her too much distress. She did not expect that these two would fall for Henderson’s being the culprit, as she knew the FBI would. She expected that they would go on searching for her. She was not sure if they would figure out that the Marissa Nash they were aware of had not, indeed, died in that terrible car crash many years ago, but it didn’t really matter either. Before they could prove that surprising assertion they would both be dead. Russell’s leaving was part of the plan. She had planned that they would assume she was after either Kincaid or after Russell’s family, and she felt

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A Long Line of Family confident that Russell would leave Kincaid to go protect his own. Once he had done that, they both would be walking into her trap. Olmstead had been a disappointment to her, at least in terms of information. He had suffered quite impressively, showing strength and anger right up to the end but never quite breaking down. Still, she had gotten enough to understand that he felt very attached to, and protective of, Detective Kincaid. He had not come out and admitted it, but she felt very certain that they had been involved. She knew that he suffered the most knowing that Kincaid was next in her sights, and she had tortured him by telling him some of the various plans she had for Kincaid after she had finished with him. Russell, though, remained somewhat of a mystery. It had also been obvious that Olmstead had felt both some resentment of and grudging admiration for Russell, but it troubled her that she did not know more about him. There were things about his life that she should have been able to find out about him that she had been unable to. The things she had discovered had done nothing to dispel her deep suspicion that he was not the quiet accountant he professed to be. His simple involvement in this case, the ease with which he had caused the discovery of her bugs, the curious affair of his brother’s killers, and a rash of other tantalizing hints suggested someone much more dangerous. That was why she had taken the unprecedented step of hiring a professional killer to kill him and his family at the earliest opportunity. If Russell was indeed on his way home, he was on his way to a date with his destiny.

Several hours later a cell phone she had obtained solely for this purpose beeped that she had a text message. It read simply, “Target arrived. Tonight.” By that she knew that Russell had behaved as planned, and would be dead by morning. Pleased, she walked back to the bathroom, and nudged Franklyn back into consciousness. There was no real reason to wake her, not yet. Her hired killer probably would not act until Russell had settled in, when he and his family were asleep in what they thought were their safe beds.

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“It’s almost time,” she told Franklyn. “I’ll be needing you in another hour or two.” Franklyn stared at her, no longer able to sum up enough energy to even respond. She did not believe she would survive the night. The fear that consumed her now was that her killer would for some reason go after her daughter next. Nash patted her hand. “You’ve been very helpful. Don’t die on me yet.” She turned on the tap and ran some water run over her hand, which she then wiped across Franklyn’s parched lips. Franklyn found herself panting and trying to lick any hint of moisture from those lips, beyond feeling ashamed or embarrassed about it. Nash watched her with satisfaction, and went back to finish her game of chess. Soon it would be time for checkmate.

He sat in his car, waiting. It was a comfortable out, the heat of the day cooling down. There was a nice breeze, and he had his window down. He’d picked his spot carefully, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and slouching low to lessen the chance that someone would wonder why he was sitting in the car for hours. There were not many people on the streets, and most of the cars driving by were in too much hurry, so the odds of detection were not great. His biggest risk was a patrol car making rounds, but it was a risk he had to take. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was watching for, but he knew who he was waiting for. He knew he was taking a risk. His own life was at stake, and more. But he saw no way around taking that risk. He was not a person who took risks lightly, but nor was he someone who was afraid to take risks when they were necessary. He also knew that it was very likely there would be death tonight; it was just a question of whose death it was to be. He did not enjoy killing. If there was a way to avoid it, he would. Killing was a tactic that was sometimes necessary, and it was better if he was the one doing the killing

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A Long Line of Family than the other way around. He was fairly sure that tonight was going to be one of the nights it would be needed. After several hours of the wait his phone rang. He listened to a terse update, telling him the news he had expected. He thanked the caller, and resumed his vigil.

Chapter 42 Nash waited until three a.m., wanting Kincaid to be groggy and unprepared. She dragged Franklyn out of the bathtub and into the wheelchair. “Time to go, my dear.” Franklyn barely responded, whimpering pitifully. Nash leaned in close. “Your role is almost over. Just don’t die on me yet.” Franklyn didn’t notice the pinprick of the injection. Nash almost had decided that Franklyn didn’t need one, that she would be safe for a few hours without it, but decided to play it safe. She only needed her alive for a few short hours. Franklyn’s breathing became labored as her weakened muscles fought against this additional handicap again, and her gasps were audible. “Excellent,” Nash judged aloud. She rolled the wheelchair of her room, and down the hall to Kincaid’s room. Positioning the wheelchair directly in front of the door, she started pounding on the door. “Help!” she yelled, loud enough to penetrate the room but careful to not be so loud as to attract unwanted attention from the surrounding rooms. “Please help!” Nash heard sounds from inside the room. She knew Kincaid would be suspicious, and undoubtedly armed, so she tried to look as frightened and desperate as possible. “She’s dying,” she added for emphasis. Inside, Kincaid was deciding what to do. She thought it an unlikely coincidence that she receive a late night visitor just as she was on the guard for Nash. She’d been expecting

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A Long Line of Family someone, so was awake and had her gun ready. Still, Kincaid didn’t quite know what to make of the scene in front of her. This was the time of night when people were at their lowest, which is one reason why police raids often take place at this time. It was the knock that had surprised her, rather than either a bolder assault or a more surreptitious one. The safety lock and the chair she had placed under the knob were designed to slow down either type of intrusion, but this was something else entirely. Peering out the keyhole, though, she wasn’t a scene she had expected. Exactly what it was, she was not sure. She tried to take in the scene in front of her. She recognized the woman banging on the door from the times passing her in the hall, and certainly the woman in the wheelchair did appear to be in dire straits. Kincaid decided to risk it, and opened the door a few inches just as Nash was about to knock on the door again. Kincaid was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, and looked tired but awake. She was holding one hand behind her back, and Nash was sure there was a gun in that hand. Kincaid regarded the woman carefully. It helped that she had seen her before, several times, and it helped that she was not alone. Clearly, the woman in the wheelchair was having some trouble. Her eyes were closed and her breathing very ragged. “What’s the problem?” Kincaid asked softly, not opening the door further or moving aside. The woman nodded at her charge. “She stopped breathing for a few seconds a few minutes ago, then this. We need to call 911 – my phone wasn’t working. I need to use your phone. Please, let me in!” Her voice carried her concern and extreme urgency, and it was that more than the words themselves that convinced Kincaid to step aside and open the door. She edged back, aware of her gun and not letting down her guard. The wheelchair rolled into the room, and before Kincaid realized what was happening she found herself cut off in the kitchen area. “Where is the phone?” the woman asked, looking frantically around while moving closer to Kincaid.

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A Long Line of Family “Over there,” Kincaid responded, noticing too late that the woman had something in her hand, something she moved up quickly towards Kincaid’s chest. Kincaid started to bring her gun out, but was a half a second too late. The Taser hit her with a jolt, Nash holding it down on her chest. Kincaid knew what it was, and futilely tried to fight against its impact. Already, though, her grip on the gun was weakening, and her knees buckling. Without taking her attention away from Kincaid, watching with eyes that now seemed almost supernaturally alert, Nash pushed the wheelchair deeper in the room and closed the door using one of her feet. Kincaid seemed to melt, her legs losing the ability to hold her upright. Her gun clattered on the kitchen floor. Her eyes locked into Nash’s, struggling to find something to fight with but knowing there was nothing she could do, knowing she was losing this battle, and hating it. Nash kept the Taser for a few seconds more, until Kincaid’s eyes rolled back. She was pleased with how Kincaid had tried to fight the effects of the Taser, how she glared at her wanting so much to hurt her and hating being helpless. She would take any opportunity to strike back, which was exactly why Nash was planning to leave no such opportunity. She would be an excellent subject, one from whom she believed she would learn much. The thing Nash wondered most at was the seeming flash of recognition in Kincaid’s eyes. Had she realized her identity?

Nash bundled Kincaid up into the wheelchair, strapping her arms and legs to the frame of the chair, then covering her with a blanket to hide the restraints. She dragged Franklyn into the bathtub, depositing her unceremoniously. “Hey, Naomi,” she said cheerfully, nudging the inert body until an eyelid fluttered. “Stay alive for a few more hours and maybe you’ll see your daughter again.” Nash had no intention of allowing Franklyn to see her daughter, although she would be curious to see if having her daughter present might perk her up long enough to be interesting. She sighed; so many potential experiments, so little time. She took a short tour of Kincaid’s war room, impressed at how much they had uncovered, then exited the room closing the door behind her. She

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A Long Line of Family knew that the staff had strict orders not to enter, and as an unintended result her unconscious captive was safe there. “Let’s go, Juanita,” she said. She rolled Kincaid out into the hall and into the elevator. Kincaid was slowly regaining her ability to process her thoughts, and, even more slowly, her muscles. She tentatively tried to move her hands, then her legs, and realized that she wasn’t just weak, she was immobile. She knew that once Nash got her out of the hotel her chances of surviving the night were nil, so she marshaled her strength on the hope of shouting something coherent out once they hit the lobby. She was careful to not show any hints of her emerging strength, keeping her head bowed down. Nash was not so easily fooled. Once the elevator chimed their arrival at the lobby, Nash pressed the Taser against Kincaid’s neck. “Ready for your appearance, Juanita?” she asked rhetorically. Kincaid flinched involuntarily, slumping further into the wheelchair as she lost control once again. Nash hid the Taser in her pocket as she rolled the wheelchair off the elevator and briskly crossed the lobby. She said hello to the night manager, who had emerged from the back room at the sound of the elevator bell. The manager was a student from Ghana, studying during the largely quiet overnight hours. He grudgingly returned the hello, not bothering to question why this cheerful lady was taking her pathetic charge for a walk at this late hour. He’d seen them before, and thought that the woman in the wheelchair was bad luck. He didn’t want to do anything to prolong her presence near him. Nash’s van was parked in the garage, and within minutes Kincaid was ensconced in the back, strapped tightly in, with a blindfold added for good measure. She started the van and headed out, taking Route 66 and heading west. Kincaid gradually regained awareness. At first she panicked at not being able to see, before realizing that she was blindfolded. She did not like not being able to see even more than she disliked being restrained. She attempted to loosen the restraints, but they had no slack and showed no weakness. She even tried tipping the wheelchair over, on the off chance something might break, but it seemed to be locked down. No, she concluded, she was good and stuck.

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She fought against her panic. You’re not dead yet, she reminded herself. There must be something she could do. Until then, stay alive and keep her wits. She tried to get some hint about where they were heading. The traffic noises were light, as might be expected this time of night. Kincaid could tell when they exited the highway, but was unable to get any sense of direction. The van did not seem to be taking any evasive maneuvers, but Nash had no need to keep Kincaid confused about their destination; she was totally disoriented. It reminded her, oddly enough, of when Lyle and Shaw had abducted her, and she had survived that time. She has to transfer me, Kincaid thought; she has to move me from the van. There would be another chance to free herself. She didn’t see how she could avoid the Taser; her only chance was if Nash misapplied it, or it ran down its charge. When the van pulled to a stop Kincaid tensed. Nash opened the door, whistling cheerfully. “We’re here,” she announced as she stepped into the van. She did not remove the blindfold. Kincaid felt herself being lowered to the ground, then wheeled into a building of some sort. The wheelchair stopped, and Kincaid heard a door being opened. It sounded like a metal door, evidently good-sized and heavy from the sounds the creaky hinges made opening. Nash tasered Kincaid again, then loosened the straps. She dragged Kincaid into an old meat locker, then locked her hands and feet into the chains that she had installed there some time ago for just such an occasion. She removed the blindfold and waited for Kincaid to recover.

Fifteen minutes later Kincaid roused herself. The cumulative effect of the stress of the past few days, lack of sleep, and being tasered three times in the space of an hour were all causing her great difficulty, but she forced herself to consciousness. It took her a few moments to conclude that she was no longer in the wheelchair or even the van, but that her arms and legs were still useless to her. Fear almost forced her to panic, and she

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A Long Line of Family fought it off. She told herself to stay calm, to stay alive and watch for her chance. She would only get one, she knew, and had to pray that Nash gave her even that one. Her eyes took some time to adjust to the dim lighting, but gradually she focused on the woman in front of her, who was studying her with the cold observing eye of a biologist about to dissect a specimen – which Kincaid felt like, pined up on the wall as she was. “Marissa Nash,” Kincaid croaked, mustered as much dignity as she could, “you are under arrest.” Nash laughed. “But Marissa Nash is dead. You know that.” Kincaid shook her head doggedly. “Jane Doe, you are under arrest. Now let me go.” “I don’t think so, Juanita,” Nash said. “You and I are going to spend some time together in the next few hours. Quality time. We’re going on a great adventure together, you and I, and you’re going to find things out about yourself that you never wanted to know.” “I’m choosy about who I go places with, thank you very much,” Kincaid told her. “I’ll pass on going anywhere with you, except taking you to jail.” “It’s not your choice, Detective Kincaid.” Nash walked closer to Kincaid, to make sure Kincaid could see her face. “This must be terribly disappointing for you.” Her voice was cold, clinical, her tone not reflecting the taunting that the words themselves conveyed. “I mean, you left your home, your family, your friends, your job – all just to try to track me down. And, in the end, not only didn’t you find me, but here you are. I caught you. And, of course, there is the matter of your old partner. You got poor Lyle Olmstead killed.” She made chucking noises. “Yes, you must be very disappointed.” “Fuck you,” Kincaid said defiantly.

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A Long Line of Family Nash smiled. “I don’t know why these situations bring out such base language, but they often do,” Nash informed her with a disapproving tone. “Frankly, I was expecting better from you.” Stay alive, Kincaid reminded herself. Keep her talking. Don’t let her see how scared you are. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she replied tartly. Nash smiled. “You know I’m going to kill you, don’t you, Juanita? And you know how I kill people, don’t you? So you can guess how we’re going to spend our time.” Kincaid forced herself to laugh. “Killing me would be the stupidest thing you could do,” she said, her tone more confident than she felt. “Don’t you know that? You convinced the FBI that Henderson was the killer – killing me would just tell them you are still out there. I figured out Henderson wasn’t the killer and that you impersonated Nash to pull this all off. If you kill me they’ll take a closer look at everything and they’ll figure it out too.” She stared at Nash defiantly. Nash smiled more broadly at her. “That all sounds very nice, Juanita, except for a couple things. You see, you’re going to check out of your hotel this morning. You’ll use your credit card over the next few days – maybe Miami, maybe the Caribbean. You’ll email your boss and quit your job, and then after a while no one will hear from you. Maybe they’ll think you went native. Maybe they think you met with foul play in some third world country. Maybe they’ll think you just decided to drop out of touch.” She poked Kincaid hard in the chest with her index finger. “But what they won’t do is suspect I killed you.” Kincaid locked eyes with her in a psychic battle of wits. Her anger was starting to overcome her fear. “You won’t get away with it.” Nash smiled pleasantly, as though they were neighbors having a conversation about their yards or the weather. “You’re wrong, Juanita. I’ve been getting away with it for years.

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A Long Line of Family You think you’re the only policeman who ever tried to catch me, Juanita?” Nash laughed, clearly amused. “How arrogant! I knew you were confident, even cocky, but I didn’t know that you were so arrogant.” Kincaid stared at her. “What do you mean?” Nash looked at her, a condescending smile on her face. “Most of the detectives assigned to my little experiments were too stupid to make any progress, but a few did. Of course, if ViCAP had been working as it was supposed to, they might have had a chance, but I took care of that.” She looked at Kincaid knowingly. “But, of course, you know that. Still, there were three – no, make that four – detectives that I had to do something about.” Kincaid’s stomach fell. “What did you do?” she asked, dreading the answer but forcing herself to ask anyway, suspecting Nash would tell her anyway. “Well, let’s see,” Nash recalled cheerfully. “One of them had a young daughter that mysteriously got an exotic infection. It took a year, a leave of absence, and most of her savings before the poor girl recovered, and by them she’d sort of lost interest in me. “Another one got distracted by a series of murders, overwhelming their little police force. Then there was the one whose computer they found kiddie porn on.” Her face gleamed into something that might otherwise be called a smile. “Oh, boy, did that cause a ruckus. He didn’t go to jail, but he lost his job, his family, his reputation. I heard he is a long haul trucker now, when he stop drinking long enough to get work.” “And the fourth?” Kincaid asked dully. Nash nodded. “Yes, they found him in his car. He’d committed suicide. Ate his gun, as they say.” She made sympathetic noises. “Such a surprise to everyone. No one saw it coming.”

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A Long Line of Family Nash delivered these stories with only a slight tone of self-satisfaction, but showed no remorse or regret. Nash obviously thought nothing of destroying as many lives as she needed just to protect her insane killing spree. An extra few murders to cover her tracks, poisoning children, even faking suicides – nothing was too much for Nash. Kincaid forced a cold smile on her face. “So why all the drama for me?” She looked around at the little dungeon. “Why not something more mundane?” Nash raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Because I can. Because you disrupted my little scheme.” “So it’s personal, then?” Kincaid concluded, her tone aggressive. Nash laughed. “Personal? No, I don’t think you.” She turned more serious. “You’re a loose end. I like to take care of my loose ends.” “Like Lyle,” Kincaid said, the words hard to get out of her throat. She shook her head, as if Kincaid had disappointed her. “No, Olmstead wasn’t a simply loose end. He needed to die so that the FBI would go after poor Walter, and stop their little investigation. Which they did.” “So you came after me because you were scared of me,” Kincaid taunted. Nash actually seemed surprised at this? “Scared? Of you? Oh, no, Juanita, I don’t think so.” She shook her head in amazement. “No, I don’t think so at all.” “Then why?” Nash stared at her with those cool eyes. “Because who will come looking for you, Juanita Kincaid? Not the FBI or your old coworkers. They both probably think you were obsessed, and be glad to be rid of you. And not your family. When was the last time you

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A Long Line of Family called them? I’m sure they’ll miss you, in some abstract way, at least at holidays, but will they come looking for you?” She shook her head and stepped back “I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so at all.” Juanita Kincaid raised her head. “Joe Russell will come after you, and he will find you.” The way she said it, it wasn’t a threat; it was a promise. Nash nodded thoughtfully. She had given Joe Russell much thought the past few days, and had been forced into some unusual choices, ones she would have preferred not to have to take. She much preferred to handle things herself. “You know, I think you might be right. I have to admit that your Mr. Joseph Russell is an enigma to me. If I weren’t leaving the country tomorrow I might enjoy the chance to break him, the way I’m going to break you. But instead I’m taking a more expedient course.” She paused, and obviously was going to wait until Kincaid pressed her. Which curiosity forced her to do. “What do you mean?” Nash stepped closer again. “I mean, my dear, that Joe Russell and his little family are going to die tonight.” She made a show of looking at her watch. “In fact, I expect that they are already dead.” Kincaid was horrified, but tried not to let it show. She forced her face to stay calm. “You’re here. How’s he going to die if you’re here?” Nash looked amused. “Well, I have some help.” Kincaid forced herself to laugh, although she didn’t think anything was remotely funny. “I think you might be surprised. I think you’ll find that he’s a hard man to kill. He may be after you right now.”

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A Long Line of Family Nash seemed to consider this, but Kincaid’s threat didn’t seem to have disturbed her very much. “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is a worthy adversary.” She gave Kincaid a disdainful up-and-down look, not so subtly illustrating how easily Kincaid herself had been captured. “That’s why I hired an expert. Ex-Russian Special Forces. One of the very best, so I understand. I don’t quite know what Joe Russell is or was, but I’m pretty sure he is no match for him.” She shook her head regretfully. “Too bad for you.” “You don’t know that he’s dead,” Kincaid said, hazarding a guess. Nash looked at her without saying anything, which encouraged Kincaid to continue. “If he’s still alive – and my bet is that he is – and you kill me, you’ll never be safe. Your only hope is to keep me alive.” Nash seemed to consider this, and Kincaid’s hopes surged. “Yes, I suppose I could do that,” Nash replied, thinking out loud. “I could keep you here, come back every few days to give you something to eat or drink. You could live for a long time like that, and I don’t think you would escape.” She looked around the small room, and walked around the edges, idly running her fingers along the wall. “Yes, I think you’d be safe here.” Kincaid held her breath without realizing it. She didn’t know how, but if she could just stay alive long enough she vowed she would get free and take this monster down. Nash looked suddenly at her. “Of course, then I’d have to stay in the area, and I intend to be far, far away. Your Mr. Joseph Russell may be dead or he may be alive – and I’m very sure he’s dead – but even if he is miraculously still alive, he is not here and he isn’t going to find you in time. Your life is mine.” Now Kincaid’s anger and fear had turned into something else much colder and harder. She rattled the chains around her hands and feet in frustration. “You won’t get away with it,” she hissed. “Someone will still come.”

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A Long Line of Family Nash laughed. “Look at poor Lyle. He was part of the big, bad FBI, who likes to make people think they look out for their own. What I did to him, well, you’d think they’d want revenge.” She sighed dramatically. “Instead, I hand them meek old Walter Henderson, and they take him and call it quits.” She shook her head in mock despair. “Kind of ruins your faith in them, doesn’t it.” “You’re pathetic,” Kincaid said. Nash looked at her with a cold, cold expression. “But I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been watching you for some time, now, Juanita, and I have to say, I’m looking forward to this.” Kincaid almost didn’t want to know why. A small tremor wracked her body, and she had to force her body to calm itself. “Why’s that?” she asked in as calm a voice as she could muster. “The reason you will get to experience some of my most special treats is because you’re a strong one, my dear.” Nash’s eyes were curiously bright with a morbid excitement now. “Your boyfriend was very strong, and it was a pleasure seeing what he could stand. The pain was enormous, and he didn’t crack until the very end. I have something even more special planned for you, and I think you’ll do even better. I’m expecting to learn a lot from you.” She turned and started to walk away. She would have liked to start on Kincaid now, but she’d just have to stop before she was through. She had to wait until the hotel staff changed shifts before she could go back to recover Franklyn’s body, which she would then have to dispose of before returning to a leisurely time with Kincaid. In the meantime, she would to go back to the farmhouse and clean up there. “So tell me,” Kincaid said. Nash stopped and turned to face her, not surprised. She was expecting more bluster, perhaps more bargaining. Kincaid was, instead, looking at her with a curious expression. “Why’d you leave him alive? You like to see them die, don’t you? Why’d you leave Lyle alive then?”

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Nash kept her face expressionless for several seconds, studying Kincaid. Then her face allowed a small smile, as she decided to tell Kincaid. “You know, towards the end, he knew he was going to die. He couldn’t tell me anything more, because he didn’t have his tongue any more. But I knew the thing he feared worst was you seeing him like that.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “So I made sure that you did.” Kincaid had known, as had the FBI, that it had to be Olmstead’s killer who had called in the tip about his body, so Kincaid had feared the worst when she had joined the TAC team in raiding the location. What they found was still a shock, beyond the worst she could have imagined, and she was just now realizing that she hadn’t understood the worst of it. Kincaid let her head drop every so slightly as she realized that Olmstead might have known, must have known, that she’d be in that first wave, that she would see him helpless and broken. It was, indeed, the cruelest thing Nash could have done. Nash smiled in satisfaction, and turned to leave once again. Kincaid raised her head defiantly. “It’s not over.” Kincaid’s voice sliced across the room, and something in its certainty stopped Nash. She turned towards Kincaid again. “How’s that, Juanita?” “I said it’s not over. Not by a long shot,” Kincaid repeated boldly. The only fear she had now was for Joe Russell and his family, not for herself. She was filled with an anger burning so bright that it might have illuminated the room, and she saw things with a clarity she had never felt before. She stared at Nash boldly. “I’m saying it’s all going to catch up with you, sooner than you realize.” Nash stared at her intently, trying to discern if Kincaid somehow knew something that she had missed, something she hadn’t thought of. Then she realized that Kincaid was just bluffing. “I like that,” Nash said, relaxing and laughing. “I like your spirit. That’s why killing you slowly is going to be so interesting. My studies are only interesting until the person gives up, then it’s all really just rather pathetic. I think you’ll last a long time.” She reached up and took Kincaid’s jaw in her hand, forcing it left, then right, studying it.

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A Long Line of Family She smiled triumphantly at Kincaid. “Nothing you can do will save yourself, or Joe Russell, or his precious family. So tell me exactly how you think I’m wrong.” “You assume that no one will come,” Kincaid said, her voice steady. “You assumed no one would come for Amanda Ford, and here I am.” “Yes, here you are,” Nash replied nastily, her pleasant veneer gone. “Trapped and soon to die. And who was Amanda Ford to you? If you had just let her go you’d be alive and so would your friend.” “And if you kill me, Joe Russell will come for me.” Nash started to remind her of the impossibility of this but Kincaid kept talking over her attempted interruption. “And if you kill him, someone who cares about him will come. And they will keep coming until they catch you. There’s a long line of us, people who care about each other and about making sure justice gets done. It’s something that you can’t understand. It means I’m never alone, and it means you’ll never not be alone.” Despite her circumstance, she felt a warm flush of pleasure in her words, realizing that they were, indeed, true, that her friendship with Joe Russell had gained her this most precious thing. Dying would not be so bad, because she would not be forgotten. “We won’t give up as long as you are breathing.” Kincaid looked at her with disdain and disgust. “You are as good as dead, Marisa Nash or whatever the hell your name is.” Nash involuntarily took a step back, not so much to avoid the words as out of a sudden, totally irrational fear that Kincaid’s bonds might not hold her. With a force of will she recovered herself. “You’re the one who’s wrong. You’re alone in the world. We’re all alone in the world. I’m just honest enough to acknowledge it and not depend on anyone. You’re one of those weaklings who can’t admit it and who are going to die because of it.” “I’m not alone,” Kincaid told her. She thought to what Debbie had told her. As frightened as she was, as concerned as she was about what might be happening to Debbie

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A Long Line of Family and Joe at that moment, she was comforted by her words and the promise they held. “I’ll never be alone.” Nash shook her head in disgust. She made a show of looking around the small room, gesturing for effect. “Sure looks like you are alone to me. And you’re the one who will soon be screaming in agony.” She paused, looking at Kincaid with curiosity. “You know, you had the advantage back at the hotel. You had the gun, and you must have been suspicious of me showing up in the dead of night like that. But you couldn’t bring yourself to point it at a poor woman in a wheelchair, and you couldn’t fathom that someone would use a miserable woman in a wheelchair like that just to get at you.” She laughed and shook her head, this time amused. “Justice. Justice is blind, and stupid too. You and your FBI friends can never catch someone like me. Justice is kill or be killed. Whether you believe it or not, you live in the world alone and you die in it alone.” She turned on her heel and strode out of the room. Joe Russell stepped forward and hit her squarely in the face.

Chapter 43 The blow stunned Nash. Had he wanted to, Russell could have knocked her out, or even killed her, but that was not his goal. She involuntarily took a step backwards, surprised by his appearance and momentarily disoriented by the sudden pain of her newly broken nose. She was not fully conscious of raising her hand to touch the blood that was freely flowing down her face. Before she had time to recover any sooner, Russell hit her again, this time a vicious blow to her mid-section. That blow drove the air from her lungs and crumpled her over on the floor. Kincaid could scarcely believe her eyes. She was almost as startled as Nash, and her first reaction was not to let herself believe her eyes, to not allow hope that rescue had come

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A Long Line of Family rise in her. But when Nash hit the floor she gave in to relief. “Joe! How did you find me?” Russell knelt over Nash’s prone body, quickly searching her and stripping off her outer coat. “In a minute,” he responded, not taking his eyes off Nash. He located and transferred Kincaid’s gun to his left coat pocket, and similarly pocked the Taser to the right pocket. He found what he was really looking for – the keys – and stood up. He moved towards Kincaid and very quickly unlocked her chains. As soon as she was free, she threw her arms around him. “Oh, Joe, you came. I thought I was dead. How did you know where I was?” She realized in a sudden flash the implications of his presence, and stepped back. “Joe, you have to get help, your family is in danger,” she told him, her eyes wide open in fear. Russell did not react the way she expected to. “Is that so?” he asked in a mild tone, as if expressing patient interest in the weather. Her heart dropped as she feared that she might be too late, that his family might already be dead or that she wouldn’t be able to convince him in time to send help for them. “She’s right, Mr. Russell,” Nash croaked, pushing herself to a sitting position on the floor. “You and I need to talk immediately.” Russell turned to face her. He took the pistol out of his pocket and handed it to Kincaid. “I’m guessing that’s yours.” She took it eagerly and trained it on Nash, who ignored her. Nash shook her head disapprovingly. Her voice was recovering, as was her arrogance. “Just you and me, Mr. Russell. She leaves so we can have our little talk in private.” “I’m not leaving you here alone with her,” Kincaid said hotly.

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A Long Line of Family “Time is of the essence, Mr. Russell. As Detective Kincaid said, your family is in danger, and the clocking is ticking.” Kincaid was torn. She definitely did not want to leave him alone with this madwoman, even as capable as she thought him to be. She didn’t know what tricks Nash might yet have up her sleeve. Yet she also did not want to add further risk to his family. “It’s OK, Juanita,” Russell said quietly. “But give me a hand her before you go.” He went over to Nash and roughly dragged her upright. He pulled her towards the recently vacated set of chains on the wall. “Wait, I have an idea,” Kincaid told him. She came next to him and took the Taser from his pocket, then applied it to Nash’s chest before she knew what was happening. Nash slumped, making it easy for Russell to hold up her hands while Kincaid locked the cuff around her wrists, then knelt down to do the same to her ankles. Nash glared at her with a look that, if looks could kill, would have vaporized Kincaid immediately. “Wait outside,” Russell told her. He moved back from Nash, and patted Kincaid lightly on the shoulder. “It will be all right.” Kincaid looked at him for a long moment, glanced at Nash’s fierce countenance, then nodded her head. “Be careful,” she whispered. He nodded calmly. They watched Kincaid walk out of the room, each with their own thoughts about her departure, and listened as her footsteps receded. “You were saying,” Russell said to Nash. Her vicious stare was now replaced with a more calculating look. She was no doubt weighting her options. “So how did you find me?” she asked curiously, cocking her head slightly. “I thought you’d be with your family, so I wasn’t really watching for you, but I was keeping an eye out for anyone following me. Did you bug Kincaid? RFID?”

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A Long Line of Family Russell just looked at her. “Trade secret.” “No, seriously, I’d really like to know.” “Maybe you’re not as good at this as you thought you were,” Russell told her. He had no intention of explaining how he had, indeed, been able to spot her and track her on quiet country roads in the dead of night. As only a select few people could have told her, he was very, very good at this sort of thing. “But that’s not what you wanted to talk about, is it?” She looked at him, trying to decide if she was going to learn anything or not. Deciding she was not likely to, she abruptly shifted tactics. “Let me go or your family dies,” she instructed him. Russell showed no reaction. “I think you’re bluffing.” She smiled a cruel smile at him. “Oh, I never bluff,” she said, although she was doing exactly that. She didn’t understand why he was here, much less how he got there. Her contractor had sent the message that Russell and his family were all together and he was prepared to take them out. Still, there would be time to figure that out later. She didn’t know if his family was still alive or not, but neither could he, so she still held the trump cards. “Your family will die in a few minutes unless you let me go and I send the right message.” Russell didn’t respond. He simply looked at her with a neutral expression. Nash was thrown off by this lack of reaction. He might be a cool customer, but she believed that she knew his weak point, and she expected more of a reaction. “You fooled me,” she said, laughing. “I figured you’d abandon Ms. Kincaid to watch over them, leaving her for me. Instead, you were watching out for her. That surprises me. But all you’ve done is leave your own family exposed. There is a man waiting outside your house, ready to do unspeakable things to your precious wife and those darling children of yours.” For

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A Long Line of Family good measure she even told him the address, to illustrate that she knew what she was talking about. “Now release me.” He stared at her with those unreadable eyes. At last he responded. “I don’t think so.” She was surprised. She studied him more carefully. “Don’t tell me there’s trouble in paradise. Maybe things aren’t so rosy at home, and you wouldn’t mind them being gone. Maybe you and Detective Kincaid are closer than I thought.” He shook his head, smiling slightly at her. “Then release me now,” she commanded, “or your family will be dead.” “Let’s say I did release you,” he said in a reasonable tone. “Why should I trust that you wouldn’t come after them again?” Nash finally felt she was making headway. Now they were simply bargaining, and she felt supremely confident that she could outwit him or anyone else. “My goal will be to get as far away as possible. There’s no reason for me to come after you or your family once I’m gone. And even if I did, you’d be there to look out for them – something you are not now.” Russell shook his head again. “You figure you can beat it, don’t you?” He seemed almost amused at the thought. Nash was slightly confused by the apparent turn of the conversation. “What do you mean?” “I mean,” Russell said, casually putting his hands in his pockets, “we really don’t have a lot of proof against you. Oh, sure, you kidnapped Kincaid.”

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A Long Line of Family “She accosted me with a gun,” Nash suggested, shrugging as best she could in her current restrained situation. “I was scared for my life.” She said it like she was practicing her story to the authorities. “And even if we did get you to court for the murders you could always claim insanity,” Russell continued. “What sane person would do all this?” she agreed with an evil smile. “Or even if there was enough to put you away you could trade information about all those victims for special consideration.” Nash nodded. She had never expected to be caught, but these were all escape options that she had considered. She had to give Russell credit for catching on quickly. “All that is well and good, Mr. Russell, but the fact of the matter is that your family is going to die if you do not release me this instant. The man I sent after them is very good, very ruthless, and you cannot get help there fast enough to stop him. So let me go before I demand that you allow me to kill Detective Kincaid in front of your eyes before I give the word to spare your family.” Russell stepped forward. “Your man’s dead.” Nash let a brief moment of surprise flash across her face before she recovered her calm. “You don’t know that.” She shook her head. “You can’t be sure and as long as you aren’t sure then you have to do what I say.” Russell studied her, not revealing anything. “Like I said, I don’t think so.” “Maybe he is dead and maybe he isn’t,” she said defiantly, recovering her nerve. “Even if he is, who’s to say that I didn’t send more than one?”

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A Long Line of Family Russell seemed unconcerned. “I’ll take my chances.” Nash stared fiercely at him. “Can you take that risk? Do you dare risk your family?” Russell nodded. “My family is fine. At any rate, I believe they are, so you don’t have any leverage over me. It’s checkmate.” Nash’s blood went cold. If he was bluffing, then he was very, very good at it. He was calling her on her own bluff, and she didn’t see any point to playing out that particular hand. She again awkwardly shrugged. “Your loss, Mr. Russell,” she said coldly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I guess you’d better release me and take me into custody.” She smiled sweetly at him. “I’ll just have to take my chances in the American legal system.” Russell didn’t move. He nodded his head almost imperceptivity, and Nash again wondered what he was thinking. Russell had long ago made up his mind. He was thinking through exactly what he would do next. He nodded thoughtfully, and slowly started to walk around the room. “You picked a good spot, Marissa,” he said in a conversational tone of voice. He traced one hand along the wall. “Of course, we both know your name isn’t really Marissa Nash, and to call you that dishonors her, but we’ll just keep using that for now. Yeah, you chose well. The building isn’t going to get many unexpected visitors. Your little dungeon here looks pretty soundproof even if someone did stumble inside the building. And, of course, anyone you stash inside here is pretty much stuck here unless you decide to let them go.” He looked at her slyly. “Which I’m guessing you wouldn’t be doing anytime soon.” He finished his circuit and stopped to look at her. “Well, thanks for the compliment, Joe,” she said sarcastically. “It sure means a lot to me.”

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A Long Line of Family He smiled and walked and towards her. There was something cold in his eyes that made her wary. It occurred to her to wonder if he might hit her while she was helpless, get in a little revenge when it was just the two of them. He surprised her by getting very close – his face inches from hers -- and gripping her hands in his own. He could not unlock her from that position, and she had the wild thought that he was going to kiss her, maybe then feel her up. It amused her that he would get his kicks from a defenseless woman, and she quickly started to think about how she might turn this to her advantage. With a sudden squeeze of his powerful hands he broke both of her hands, then stepped away. Nash screamed from both the pain and the surprise. “You bastard!” she shouted at him. She hadn’t expected that. Russell studied her with an icy detachment. “Was that good for you, Russell?” she taunted him, wincing at the pain. She tried to stand straighter to ease the weight on her hands. “Now uncuff me and take me in.” He approached her again, and she found herself tensing again. He suddenly lifted a foot and brought it down hard on her right foot. She screamed, only to have him do the same to her left foot. He stepped away. The pain was intense, and as she tried to ease the pain of standing she found that it increased the pain in her hands. “Goddamn you, Russell. That it? You going to take a few more cheap shots before you let me go?” Russell walked towards the door. He paused in the doorway. Nash was confused, but forced herself to keep her tone fierce. “Afraid to let me go by yourself, Joe? Going to get your little sidekick to make sure you can manage me, even after your broke my damn hands and feet? Why, you’re just a big sissy, aren’t you?” He turned around. “No, I’m not getting Kincaid.” There was something final in his words, and Nash suddenly realized that he meant to leave her there, chained and in pain, hidden away in her own prison. “All right, you win this round. I won with Olmstead and you won this one. Now unlock these chains.”

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A Long Line of Family He shook his head pityingly. “I don’t play to draws. I told you, it’s checkmate. You lost.” She stared at him intently, and saw that there was a cold finality to his gaze, something hard and unflinching that even she was afraid of. “You can’t leave me here!” she yelled, her voice betraying her surprise and fear. He looked at her curiously. “Why not?” She was flustered. “Because, because, I have rights,” she told him indignantly. “I have the right to a trial, to a lawyer, all that crap.” He shook his head. “I’m not a policeman.” Nash knew she was in trouble. She unconsciously glanced around the cell, knowing full well how impossible escape would be if he left her there, especially in her current situation. She licked her lips with uncharacteristic nervousness. “You’re not a cop, but you think you can play judge and jury, Mr. Russell? Think your conscience can live with that?” He looked at her with a totally neutral expression. “I’m not a policeman, I’m not a judge, and I’m not a jury. I’m an accountant.” He nodded thoughtfully at her. “So I will balance the books as best I can.” He started to close the door. She realized now that she had, indeed, most definitely severely underestimated him, but she still thought he was bluffing, wanting to give her a taste of her own medicine. “You’ll be back,” she told him smugly. He stopped the door and cocked his head at her. “Maybe you’re right, Marissa. Maybe I’m just going to get my partner so we can take more care with you.” He stopped for a long moment. “Or maybe Detective Kincaid and I will go get some coffee and talk this

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A Long Line of Family out. Maybe we’ll sleep on what to do with you. Maybe we’ll forget about you; a week or so from now maybe one of us will wake up and think, ‘oh, boy, we forgot about Marissa Nash.’” He shook his head ruefully, then his face lost any sense of humor. “Or maybe it will be quite some time before anyone stumbles upon you, finds your long dead body. Tell you what, though – you just keep watching this door, waiting for it to open. Who knows?” With that he turned and shut the big steel door on her, imprisoning her in darkness before she had a chance to scream.

Kincaid was pacing anxiously outside, her gun in hand. She’d been running through all the different scenarios. What she wanted was for Joe to emerge with Nash in front of him, her hands behind her head like a good prisoner. She didn’t doubt his ability to control her, but she was worried about his leverage in negotiating with her, what with his family’s safety in the mix. So Nash might slip out the back while Joe came out alone. The worst case, though, was that she somehow managed to bring harm to him, and would come out alone. She wouldn’t blame Joe if he had to let her go to assure his family’s safety, but she knew neither of them could ever trust her. Kincaid vowed that if Nash somehow slipped their grasp today, she would keep after her, no matter how long it took. They’d learned a lot about her in the past day, and it would be harder for Nash to hide from them now. She sighed when she thought about the task ahead. She wanted it to end here and now, but she had to accept that it might not. Kincaid had the gun up and pointed when the door opened, but she lowered it when she saw it was only Joe. Puzzled, she looked behind him. “Where is she?” He met her eyes. “She’s staying.”

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid did not quite to know what to make of that, but let it go for the moment, as she was more concerned about something else. “Your family, Joe,” she said urgently. “Are they safe?” He looked at her oddly. “Of course they’re safe, Juanita.” She felt a flood of relief wash over her, mixed with the intense disappointment that Nash had beaten them, that she was going to escape. “Well, you had to do what you have to do, Joe. I’m not blaming you.” He took her arm. “C’mon, my car is around the corner. Let’s get out of here.” The walk was only fifty yards or so, but Kincaid had plenty of time to think things through. They got in the car but Kincaid stopped Joe before he could start the engine. “Joe, why is your family safe so quickly? Did you call the locals?” He looked over at her and smiled gently at her. “They were always safe.” She looked at him with a furrowed brow. “What do you mean? Nash told me that she sent a killer after you and them. Are you saying she lied?” Russell shook his head. “No, she was telling the truth about that.” “Then why did you say they were always safe?” she asked, puzzled. He patted her arm. “Because I figured she’d do something like that. She wanted to separate us, then pick us off individually. So I thought I’d pretend to play along, only I stayed to watch over you. I had some friends watching for my family. One of them came home tonight pretending to be me, so the guy would make his move.” Kincaid gasped. “So he did try to kill them?”

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“My friends are very good,” he told her, looking straight ahead. “He never made it across the lawn.” Kincaid processed this shift in the equations of the situation for a few seconds. “Joe, then what did you mean when you said Nash is staying?” she asked slowly. She stared at him intently. “Joe, did you kill her?” Kincaid wasn’t blaming him; certainly she had that same urge herself. She just wasn’t sure she could have brought herself to do the same. He shook his head and started the car. “No, she’s still alive. But she’s staying there.” His voice was firm. “Oh, I imagine someone will eventually come along, but after a week or so, well, it would be too late.” Kincaid was filled with a jumble of emotions, from relief to surprise to a lingering guilt. She knew what the law required her to do, and what her moral upbringing might tell her to do. But it was less clear to her what the right thing to do was, and she was silent as she tried to think through the complex mess. “Joe, we can’t just leave her there,” she said softly, staring ahead. She turned to him, her eyes uncertain. “Can we?” He looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “She tried to kill you, Juanita,” he said with a tired finality. “She tried to kill my family.” Kincaid held his stare in her eyes for several seconds. She had the sense that if she objected, if she insisted that they let due process run its course, that he would not stop her, but she also knew that he’d already made his judgment. For so long she had been after this killer and had imagined many outcomes, but this was not one of them. It was hard for her to picture simply letting her stay here to die, but Joe seemed untroubled by this fate. She thought of what Debbie had told her about being able to count on Joe to do the right thing, and at last she nodded her acquiescence.

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A Long Line of Family Russell pulled the car out and headed towards the road. They drove for a few minutes, and Kincaid suddenly started shaking uncontrollably. She pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and put her head down, trying unsuccessfully control them. Joe reached over and put a hand on her knee, drawing a quick glance from Kincaid’s wild eyes. She put her head back down and gradually regained control. She looked over at Joe with a sad expression. “I was scared, Joe. I hate it but I was so scared.” He looked over at her with a skeptical expression. “You can say that, but you keep acting pretty brave. Which you are.” She shook her head slowly. “It was all I could do to not fall apart. I really was scared.” “You were being held captive by a madwoman who was going to torture and kill you,” Joe told her. “I’d say being scared was a pretty natural reaction.” She stared at him soberly. “You wouldn’t have been scared. You wouldn’t have let her catch you, would you?” “Don’t go there, Juanita.” He looked over at her for a second, then turned his attention back to the road. “ None of us know how we’d deal with situations like this unless we’re in them. Scared or no, you kept your wits about you. Hell, I think you scared her.” Kincaid had to laugh, at least slightly at this. She shook her head with a wry smile at him, and thought about what he’d said for a few long seconds, watching him. At last she exhaled and unfolded her legs and arms, relaxing her muscles. She looked out at the road. “What now, Joe?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level. He glanced quickly over at her. “I’m going home, Juanita. What you do now is up to you.”

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Chapter 44 It was slightly more than two weeks later when Joe Russell next saw Juanita Kincaid. It was Saturday morning, and he and Debbie were watching Doug’s soccer game. Melissa was playing on the swings with a few friends, Debbie keeping a watchful eye split between the game and her daughter. They were standing in a small huddle of other parents, Joe holding a travel mug of coffee and chatting with one of the other men about the Eagles’ chances in the upcoming NFL season. The weather was hot and sunny, and Joe was wearing shorts, his sunglasses dangling from a cord around his neck. He saw her before anyone else, of course, spotting her ambling along towards them from the road. He kept his attention on the game, cheering Doug’s team on, but it didn’t take long for Debbie to catch sight of her as well. She watched Kincaid approach until she recognized her, then smiled at him. Joe returned her smile and calmly took a sip of coffee, not losing the flow of his other conversation. Melissa eventually saw the person coming across the fields, and once she realized who it was she leaped out of the swings. “Juanita!” she squealed in delight, running eagerly towards her. Kincaid’s face flashed in a broad smile, and she put out her arms as Melissa approached so that Melissa could jump into them. “Hey, darling,” she cooed. “You’re getting big.” She put Melissa down and the two of them walked hand in hand towards the knot of parents.

“Mommy, daddy – look who’s here,” Melissa proudly announced.

“Yes, dear,” Debbie agreed. She leaned in to kiss Kincaid on the cheek. “What a pleasant surprise. Joe smiled, then gave her a quick hug. “How you doing?” Kincaid looked out towards the field, where the action was still vigorous. “Who’s winning?” Kincaid asked.

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A Long Line of Family “Doug’s team is up 10-9,” Joe informed her proudly. “He’s got two goals and three assists. I gather watching it on ESPN wasn’t the same?” She laughed and they watched the game for a few minutes in comfortable silence. Joe made quick introductions to the surrounding parents, a few of whom recalled seeing her from her previous visit to the playing fields. Eventually the currents of the game and of the conversations pulled everyone away from Joe and Juanita, Debbie allowing herself to be lulled into a discussion about the upcoming school schedule with the mother of one of Doug’s friends. Kincaid had an oversized bag slung over her shoulder, and she pulled it around in front of her. She pulled out a thick folder and held it out towards him. Joe just eyed it, without reaching for it. “What’s that?” “This is Lauren Webster.” Joe kept his face blank, so she continued. “You knew her as Marissa Nash.” It turned out that Kincaid had not simply let things end quietly. Joe had dropped her off in the outskirts of D.C., and she had called Gnassi. Her story was that Nash/Webster had kidnapped her, but that she had managed to escape. Gnassi was skeptical at first, but had a car pick her up, then met her back at her hotel room. The presence of Naomi Franklyn helped convince him; Franklyn had been rushed to the hospital, and Gnassi made her walk through what she and Russell had deduced about Marissa Nash. She showed him Nash’s old photo ID compared to her FBI contractor ID, and he began to believe her. Gnassi had never been happy with the way the case had been closed so quickly; there were too many loose ends that he wasn’t comfortable with. Kincaid’s new information gave him the leverage he needed to do something about it. It had taken him a few more hours of arguing with Deputy Director Dobbs before Dobbs reluctantly agreed to reopen the case. They reassembled the task force and began tracking down where and how Nash had met her killer. “Webster went to school with Nash, and they kept in touch,” Kincaid told Russell while watching the soccer game. It seemed strange to mix the two worlds;

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A Long Line of Family her story might be a recounting of a movie she had seen, so far out of place it seemed to this reality. “I think Webster thought that Nash would be of use to her someday, and simply waited for the right opportunity. Somehow she found out about the FBI job, and kicked it off.” “So Webster kidnapped Nash and kept her captive while she was pretending to be her?” Joe asked. Kincaid nodded. “That’s how I figure it. Once she had her backdoor she didn’t need Nash any more, and arranged for the car accident.” She shook her head at the waste of a life. Her face brightened. “On the other hand, it looks like Naomi Franklyn – the woman in the wheelchair – is going to recover. For a couple days it seemed pretty touch and go there, but she’s up and walking now. She doesn’t remember a lot of the time with Nash – er, I mean Webster – but enough to help solidify the story.” Joe looked over at her. “So why are you here today, Juanita?” he asked quietly. She kept her face pointed towards the game. “Well, yesterday – acting on an anonymous tip – they found Webster’s body in an old meat-packing plant. She’d been chained to a wall and starved to death. She seemed to have somehow broken her wrists and ankles trying to free herself.” Joe nodded without expression. Doug rushed by them chasing a ball but Joe didn’t react. He seemed saddened. “So, I was wondering, Joe,” she said tentatively. “What’s that?” “How’d you know it was her? I mean, you know, back at the hotel? How’d you know to follow her? You recognized her from the security badge photos, right?”

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A Long Line of Family Joe watched the flurry of bodies up the field, for once not joining the cheering. He shook his head. “No, the plastic surgery was pretty good. I mean, in retrospect, you can see how they could be the same person, but back then I wasn’t sure. I just waited for something unusual to happen, and her pulling the van out was it.” Kincaid’s eyes seemed a little desperate. “You could see me in the van? Or you had cameras in the lobby or the parking garage?” He shook his head slowly again, and gave her a slightly apologetic glance. “No. I had an infrared viewer so I knew someone was in the van besides her, but I couldn’t be certain it was you.” “So you just gambled? What if she’d tried to kill me in my room? What if she wasn’t the killer at all and she was just going for a late night drive?” He cocked his head, exhaling wearily and not quite meeting her eyes. “I didn’t think she’d try to kill you there. She would have wanted more time, and she would have wanted more noise from you.” He steadied his gaze to meet her eyes. “As for the late night drive, well, it was a pretty strange time for it.” Kincaid held his gaze, smiling tightly. “You know, I checked with the night clerks. It wasn’t strange for her. She’s taken Franklyn out lots of weird times.” Joe smiled. “Well, she was the killer. It was a strange time.” “So it was just a big guess on your part? You didn’t have any facts, nothing definite? Just a hunch?” Her face was pleading for some reassurance, some comfort that her life hadn’t depended on him picking the right car to follow late at night. It was reassurance he couldn’t offer. He gave her, instead, a weak smile. “You know – I’m not that kind of accountant. I’m used to not having all the facts I’d like.”

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A Long Line of Family Kincaid shook her head, and couldn’t control the laugh. Joe watched her, smiling as well. Kincaid’s laughter died away, leaving her with a troubled expression. She started to say something, but stopped and looked embarrassed. “What is it?” Joe asked softly. She hesitated, and looked at the ground for a long moment. At last she raised her head. “I think about it sometimes. Some nights I can’t sleep, trying to figure out what she had planned for me, and how I would have dealt with it.” She shook her head in frustration. “It scares me.” Joe knew the admission cost her. He looked at her steadily, then turned to watch the children at play. He slowly nodded. “You know, I love watching the kids. It makes me think about their lives, and all they have ahead of them, the thrill of it. And it makes me remember that there’s lots of my life ahead, lots of choices left.” He smiled and shook his head again. “There’s lots of ways that my life could have turned out differently, so that maybe I wouldn’t be here, at this minute.” He waited for her to say something, and eventually she did. “You getting philosophical on me, Joe?” she asked, trying to sound like she was teasing but not quite pulling it off. “Nah, not that,” he replied, shaking his head. “I just would rather spend my life looking ahead, not looking back. Looking at the things I have yet to do instead of the things that didn’t happen.” He reached out and touched her forearm. She was surprised, tensing at first to his touch but quickly relaxed. She was oddly comforted at the touch. “I guess you’re right, Joe,” she told him slowly, holding his eyes with hers. Joe smiled and pulled his hand back, giving her arm a quick squeeze as he did. He caught his wife’s eye as he did. As if waiting for such a signal, she moved in closer to them. “So it’s over, then?” she asked. Kincaid looked at Joe, then at his wife. “It’s over.”

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A Long Line of Family “I’m glad,” Joe said. Then, spotting movement on the field. “Way to go, Steve,” he yelled at one of Doug’s teammates. “I think you should join us for dinner,” Debbie told Kincaid. “Melissa has a dance recital this afternoon, if you wanted to join us.” She looked at Joe, who nodded his agreement. “Maybe you could stay a couple days,” he added. Kincaid took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I should get home. Mend some fences, see my family. Figure out what to do with the rest of my life.” Doug’s game ended, and he came running off the field towards his parents and his new friend. “Juanita,” he shouted happily. Melissa also rushed over, not wanting to miss any time playing with her either. Kincaid put an arm around each of them, and smiled at Joe and Debbie, who had their arms around each other. “Maybe I could stay a day or two,” she conceded. The five of them walked off towards the parking lot, with the two children galloping ahead of the adults. She might not be home, Kincaid decided, but she was already among family.

THE END

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