Tess knew exactly what to expect even before she stepped into room 1625. The details of Mobius’s crime scenes never varied. Even the brand of duct tape was always the same.
What she couldn’t anticipate was her reaction. That was what scared her, what set her heart pumping hard as she left the elevator and walked down the hall.
She had not been to a room like this since the night of February 12. She wasn’t sure what it would do to her. Crazily she feared she would throw up or faint or run out screaming.
The door to the room was open. A Santa Monica patrol officer stood guard. Michaelson was inside, along with a crime-scene photographer and an evidence technician from the field division’s crime lab, unpacking his gear as he prepared to bag and tag, dust, and vacuum.
Tess showed the cop her creds, then crossed the threshold. During her bureau-mandated bereavement counseling, she had learned several techniques for managing stress. Among these was a breathing exercise-a slow intake of breath, a pause, and an even slower exhalation. The method helped her sometimes. She tried it now.
Breathe in…
The corpse on the bed, wrists taped to the headboard, head lolling, eyes wide, mouth hidden behind a strip of tape slapped over her lips, a semicircular wound across the throat, a spillway of dark brown blood descending like a bib.
Hold the breath…
The woman was naked, her legs twisted in a pose of writhing. Her complexion was smooth and pale. Even in death, her eyes were oddly bright. She looked determined, somehow. There was a silent, still intensity to her face that made Tess think of that term soldiers used-the thousand-yard stare.
Breathe out…
Patches of purple lividity mottled the exposed portions of her back, where the blood, no longer circulating, had settled heavily. She had lain there for perhaps seven hours, more or less; the medical examiner would give a more precise estimate. Most likely she had died around two o’clock, later than Mobius’s other kills. Tess thought of William Hayde, detained at the field office until after midnight. He might have had enough time to drive over here-it was only a ten-minute trip from Westwood-then slip on a disguise and pick up this woman.
It was unlikely, though. She was probably just getting desperate.
Breathe in…
The woman’s clothes were scattered on the bed in what appeared to be evidence of hectic lovemaking. Tess scanned the sheets for a semen stain but saw none. There would be no semen in the vaginal canal, either. Mobius practiced safe sex.
Hold the breath…
The sheet under the woman was dark with sweat-the residue of sex and, later, fear. Her sweat, not his. He would have been on top throughout the encounter. He needed to be dominant, needed to be in control.
A tremor worked its way through her. She fought it off. She would not yield to some idiot reaction of her body. She would be stronger than her emotions.
Breathe out…
She couldn’t look at the woman anymore. The corpse, the staring eyes, the bloody neck-it was too much like Paul. She turned away and focused her attention elsewhere.
A minibar. She took a quick inventory of its contents. Nothing appeared to be missing.
Notepad of hotel stationery on an occasional table. No writing on any of the pages.
What else? Drapes drawn shut over a balcony door. Armchair. Table strewn with magazines of local interest. Bureau and desk chair. Small suitcase, its contents scattered.
"Her bag, I assume," she said to Michaelson.
The Nose sniffed at her as if deciding whether she was worthy of an answer. "Yes," he said finally, without looking at her.
"When did she check in?"
"Didn’t."
"What?"
He expelled a loud sigh, an audible expression of his impatience with her stupidity. "It’s not her room," he said.
"So whose is it?"
"His. He checked in."
"Mobius took this room?"
"That’s correct, Agent McCallum. He signed for it under the name Donald Stevenson, using a credit card he’d recently obtained for that identity. If you’d been in the lobby when the AD briefed me ten minutes ago, you’d know all this. But I suppose you were off applying lip gloss or something."
Tess didn’t wear lip gloss. "When did Mobius check in?"
"Yesterday morning."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? So he would have a place to do this." Michaelson jerked a thumb at the dead woman on the bed. "Why the hell do you think?"
She wouldn’t be put off that easily. "It doesn’t make sense. If he came here, he was planning to pick up a woman at the hotel bar. Odds are, any woman he met there would be a guest of the hotel. She would have a room of her own."
"Unless she was a hooker."
"This place doesn’t strike me as a hangout for hookers."
"All hotels are hangouts for hookers. And a hooker would use the john’s room. He had to be prepared for that."
"I suppose." It added up, but she wasn’t entirely convinced.
"Anyway," the Nose added, "this lady wasn’t checked in at the hotel."
"Well, she wasn’t a prostitute. Not if she had a suitcase with her. Where’s her ID?"
"Gone. Her purse was here, but the other squad took it."
"Without sharing?"
"I don’t think their mothers taught them to share."
"That doesn’t bother you?"
"Sure, it bothers me. It also bothers me that we’re wasting time talking about it when we have a crime scene to work."
Tess wasn’t interested in the scene. She was interested in Tennant and his DTS squad. "We’re not going to learn anything from this room," she said. "He hasn’t left us any leads. He never does."
"With that kind of attitude"-the Nose was turning his back on her-"it’s no wonder you’ve been spinning your wheels in Denver."
"What does that mean?"
He shrugged, not bothering to face her. "After Black Tiger you were on the fast track, sweetheart. Denver should have been a stepping-stone to LA or New York, then to Ninth Street. Instead you got stuck there. Now I know why."
"Do you?"
"You’ve lost your edge. No surprise. Happens to the best."
"You don’t know a damn thing."
"You let RAVENKIL ruin you. Losing Voorhees was a tough break, I admit. But you should’ve handled it. We get paid to handle tough breaks. Some of us earn our pay. Some of us don’t."
She burned with fury. "You asshole."
"Sticks and stones," he said with casual insolence. "Face it, darling. You flunked the test. You got kicked off the island."
"You call me sweetheart or darling again, and I’ll bring you up on charges."
"Sexual harassment law. The last refuge of the token female."
"You are on such thin ice."
"Save it. Just shut up and stay out of my way. I have a case to run."
Tess stood there trembling with anger. After a long moment she forced herself to look away from Michaelson, toward the woman on the bed.
Blood on the sheets. The faux crucifixion, the paschal lamb of Easter weekend. The innocent sacrifice.
The woman had died in a hotel room that was not even her own. She’d had a valise with her, and she’d been sitting at a hotel bar late at night-yet she wasn’t a guest of the hotel.
The pieces didn’t fit.
Unless she’d been unable to check in. No money? A traveler would always have credit cards. But maybe she had been afraid that a credit card transaction would be traced.
The other squad had taken her purse. Tennant’s squad. Counterterrorist operatives.
Of course.
Tess moved for the door.
"Going someplace?" Michaelson asked.
"I need to get some air."
She thought she heard him chuckle, amused at what he presumed to be her weakness. She didn’t care.
Quickly she descended to the lobby. She found Andrus on the phone in the rear office that had been used as a command post earlier. As she entered, he said, "I’ll be there," and ended the call. He glanced at her. "Any trouble dealing with the crime scene?"
"It’s not the scene I’m having trouble dealing with." She sat down opposite him.
"I’d like to think that insubordinate tone was not meant for me," Andrus said.
"Would you? I’d like to think that if the head of Domestic Terrorism was at a RAVENKIL murder site ahead of me, along with a hazmat team, you would decide to tell me about it. So I guess we’re both wrong, aren’t we, Gerry?"
His face paled, whether in dismay or anger she wasn’t sure and didn’t care. She was past thinking of bureaucratic protocol.
"I saw Tennant," she went on. "And I saw a squad of hazardous materials experts. And I think I know why they were here."
"Do you?" Andrus said.
"That woman upstairs was involved in some sort of terrorist activity. DTS tracked her to this hotel and set up a command post in this room. Then they sent in SWAT to conduct an arrest. They found her dead. For some reason they expected to find a biohazard of some sort-in her suitcase, I assume. But the room was clean, which means either there never was any biohazard, or it’s gone. I’m guessing the latter."
"Are you? Why?"
"The worried look on your face."
Andrus shook his head slowly. "What do you want from me, Tess?"
"I want you to stop holding out. Share the wealth. I shouldn’t have to skulk around in corridors and spy on my own colleagues. And I shouldn’t be forced to make guesses when you and Tennant could tell me-"
"Don’t link me to Tennant," Andrus interrupted. "We’re not a team. Hell, you heard my end of the conversation with him last night."
"It was none of my business last night. Now it is."
"Okay, I concede the point. It is your business. And if you’d just been patient and not gone sneaking off on your own-"
"You would’ve told me? Prove it. Tell me now. Tell me everything."
"I don’t know much more than you’ve already guessed." He held up a hand to ward off her objection. "I don’t, Tess. Scout’s honor. But Tennant has assured me he’ll reveal everything, no more secrets."
"At the briefing?" she said.
"You even know about that? Jesus."
"I know it’s at City Hall East and it starts at eleven o’clock. Sharp. I know you’ll be at it, because you have to be. And I know you’re taking me along."
The AD frowned. "I can pass on whatever I learn."
"I want to be there, Gerry."
"No one from the RAVENKIL task force is invited."
"Why not? That makes no sense. It’s crazy."
"Tennant has his reasons. It’s his show, not mine."
"I don’t give a damn whose show it is. Get me in."
He heard the threat in her voice. "Or…?"
She stood up. "Or I’ll investigate on my own. And whatever I come up with, I’ll share with the local authorities."
"The locals aren’t primary. This is a federal case."
She leaned on the back of her chair and met his eyes. "It’s my case."
Andrus held her stare for a moment, then laughed. "Oh, what the hell. I should’ve known better than to work around you. All right, consider yourself invited."
Tess took his hand. "Thanks, Gerry. And I’m sorry if I’m pushing too hard. I don’t mean to make your life difficult."
He laughed again. "Yes, you do."