I don’t know why I agreed to this, thought Lauren as she entered the restaurant. She could already see the smile on Detective Curran’s face, but kept her own face neutral.
He stood as she got to the table. “You look great.”
Lauren narrowed her eyes. “That’s not usually the type of comment I hear about this outfit.” She ran her hands over the white blouse and gray herringbone skirt. “Most people think I look too much like a school teacher.”
Curran smiled. “I used to have crushes on all my teachers.”
Lauren ignored him, glancing around the room. “Interesting choice for our meeting — pastel pinks and yellows on the walls and stainless steel lighting.”
“This is gourmet Chinese. The owner used to collect art all over Asia so this is something of a gallery for his acquisitions.”
“Gourmet Chinese? What exactly does that mean?”
“Means you don’t have to skirt puddles of grimy water and urine down in Chinatown to get a decent meal. You do eat Chinese, right?”
“Sure.” She noticed him staring at her neck. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all. I was just wondering if that gold cross you’re wearing is something special.”
She fingered the cross, feeling the cool metal against her fingertips. “Special is measured in a lot of ways, Detective.”
“Steve.”
She eyed him again and he looked away. Lauren almost grinned. She knew her gaze could be unsettling when she wanted it to be.
Curran turned his attention to the menu. “The Mandarin beef is excellent here.”
“That sounds fine.”
He put the menu down. “Is something bothering you?”
Should she tell him? Her stomach felt queasy then. She noticed the smells of the restaurant and felt her appetite wane. Lauren took a breath and exhaled. “Why did you ask me here?”
“I told you earlier, to find out some background about your brother.”
She shook her head. “You say that, but I feel like there’s something more.”
“What are you — psychic?”
“Are you confirming my feeling?”
Curran looked at her. “I'm not the enemy here, Ms. Fields.”
“Lauren.”
He smiled. She shrugged. “Seems only fair if I have to call you Steve.”
Curran folded his white linen napkin on his lap. “I’m just a cop trying to figure this whole thing out.”
“Figure what out: my brother's killer or me?”
Curran smiled. “Yes.”
She tried to hide the small grin. “At least you're honest.”
“So?”
She sighed. “There's not a lot to tell. My brother was the only real family I had left. Our parents died a number of years ago.”
“But you don’t seem all that broken up about his death. You said yourself this morning that he caused a lot of heart ache.”
Heartache. If only it had been that and nothing else. If only he’d only caused a fraction of the horror he’d wrought. She sipped some water. “My brother was a complete piece of garbage for the majority of his life.”
“I think we’ve got most of it in his jacket down at headquarters.”
Her stomach churned again. You don’t know any of it, she wanted to say. Nothing! She wanted to yell and cry and vomit then. Even after so many years, the pain could still surge without warning.
“Are you all right?”
She took another sip of water. It slid down her throat, cold against the rising heat within. She felt flushed and wondered if Curran could see the turmoil coursing throughout her. He seemed astute enough.
“I’m fine.”
Curran’s eyebrows waggled a bit but he went back to studying the menu. She felt better with his eyes not boring into her.
“You’re not being entirely up front with me, Lauren.”
“There may be some things I’m not ready to share.”
He looked up again. “Even if they help me catch this killer? Even if they help save the life of another person?”
“It’s not that easy.”
He nodded. “I’ve seen a lot of miserable crap in my life. I know not everything is as it seems on the surface.”
That was the problem. On the surface, Lauren could keep everything calm. But deep down inside she knew the death of her brother would haunt her for years. Just as he had in life.
“I don’t see how what I could tell you would help you catch this killer. And it’s probably better that I don’t.”
Curran set his menu down and stared at her again. She could see his eyes soften, almost like his pupils had expanded. Darkened. They drew her in. She found her breathing relaxing. She felt her shoulders loosen.
“Whenever you want to tell me, that will be fine.”
Even his voice had softened. Deepened. It almost seemed to resonate within her. She felt the heat dissipating.
The waiter came by and Curran gave the order all the while still looking into her eyes. When the waiter disappeared again, Curran broke the eye contact and took a sip of his water.
“Are you all right now?”
Lauren smiled. “Fine. Thank you.”
Curran grinned. “For what?”
“Whatever you just did there. I felt like I was being relaxed. Almost hypnotized.”
“Oh that.”
“Yes. That.”
“You wouldn’t believe the things you pick up being a cop. I learned that from a psychologist one time. I probably shouldn’t have done it with you, but you looked so concerned — no, terrified. I figured it wouldn’t hurt if I took you down a notch.”
Lauren nodded. “It worked quite well.”
“You feel like talking any now?”
“Do we have to?”
“No. We don’t have to do anything except eat. But it would help me out an awful lot if I knew something more about your brother. Especially since I can see there’s plenty that didn’t show up in his file.”
She sighed. Would it ever get easier? Would it ever go away entirely? There was only way to find out.
“You know all about how he started breaking into homes, right?”
Curran nodded. “Sure.”
“And then he worked his way up to stealing cars. He used to get into fights a lot, too.”
“Assault. Yeah, I saw plenty of that in the jacket.”
“Was he suspected of murder?”
“Couple of times. Nothing ever stuck to him. Especially since he got involved in organized crime back in the late 80’s.”
“He killed easily enough, my brother did.” Lauren closed her eyes for a moment, trying to shut out the images of her brother covered in blood coming back one night.
Curran’s voice was a whisper. “What else, Lauren?”
Lauren looked down. Her eyes felt moist. Hot. Her throat closed. She clutched the napkin under the table. Twisting it into knots.
“Have you ever done any reading on the criminal mind?”
Curran nodded. “Most of us cops have.”
“Then you probably know that the experts always say that criminals — the really deviant ones — don’t start out as horrible as they eventually become. They start small at first.”
“An experimentation stage, in other words.”
“Exactly. Experimentation.” The word made her shudder.
The hot and sour soup arrived. Lauren didn’t look at it. Neither did Curran.
“Go on.”
“In order for a creature of habit to become that, he first needs to find a habit he enjoys. Do you follow me?”
“I don’t really know.”
She looked at him. “Evil doesn’t exist solely on its own, Steve. It can’t exist without being nurtured. An evil act cannot stand on its own; it needs roots. It needs time to grow.”
“You’re likening this to a seed.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. My brother didn’t become a monster overnight. He didn’t even become a monster just in the pages of whatever file you have on him down at the police station.” She took a deep breath. “He started a long time ago. Ages before he came to the attention of the police.” She turned away. “He started in the shadows and the whispers of dark scary nights when no one else was around. No one…but me.”
Curran cleared his throat. “Lauren-”
“No. Don’t stop me, Steve. Please.”
“We don’t need to talk about this now. Not here.”
“If not now then when? I’ve kept things to myself for too long.” She smiled around the tears that dribbled out of her eyes. “Believe me, I walked the path of the victim for years. It's a stupid waste of time. Far better to make peace with the past you can't change and forge ahead into the future. That's become my mantra of sorts.”
“That's a tough path to walk alone.”
“It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever done.” She sat silent for a minute before looking at the soup. The swirling contents mirrored the churning deep down in her bowels. The thought of putting any of it into her mouth repulsed her. She bit down on her lip, trying to stem the rising gorge at the back of her throat.
“My brother raped me, Steve.”
He nodded like he’d known. Like he’d been able to see into her soul and feel her torment.
“Was that the start of it?”
The waiter reappeared with the main dishes. Lauren watched the plate of beef, set off with red peppers and broccoli, sizzle on the table. The waiter brought two small rice bowls, each packed with white grains. The Szechuan chicken completed the meal. Curran didn’t acknowledge the food and the waiter looked annoyed as he walked away.
Lauren waited until they were alone again. “It didn’t seem so evil at first. Does that sound foolish of me?” She shrugged. “Maybe it is.”
“It doesn’t.”
She tried to smile. “But maybe that’s what makes evil so potent: in the beginning it’s never easy to see.”
“What happened?”
Lauren looked away from the food. “At first it was the silly kind of stuff a brother and sister might do. Peek-a-boo here and there, you know? We were both young. It could be forgiven by even the most uptight therapist as completely natural.”
“But it didn’t stay there.”
“No.” Lauren sighed. “When it became too much for him — when his hormones became too much for him to control — he forced himself on me. Countless times.”
“You couldn’t tell anyone?”
“It’s funny that everyone who hears about sexual abuse thinks it’s the easiest thing in the world to just tell someone.”
“I wasn’t saying that-“
“But it’s not, you know? It’s the scariest moment in your life when it happens. And when it keeps happening. How could I tell anyone? I thought I’d been the reason why he did what he did. I thought I was to blame.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“But in some way it felt like it was. I don’t expect you to understand that. I doubt very much anyone who hasn’t gone through what victims of those crimes go through would ever understand it. It’s the most horrible feeling in the world. I didn’t feel safe anywhere. I couldn’t hide. I couldn’t run away. All I could do was wait for the next time. And pray every time would go faster than the last. That he’d…finish quicker than before and leave me alone to cry into my pillow again.”
She saw him lower his eyes again. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
“Don’t try.” She sighed. “It happened throughout most of my junior and senior year in high school. Thankfully, he left soon after to live on his own. He found…other playmates.”
“Victims, more likely.”
“That's probably true.” She sighed. “My brother, he was probably one of the most evil people I ever met. Him being my brother didn't make that fact any easier to take. I heard about his atrocities. He used to even brag sometimes about things he’d done.”
“He used to visit you?”
“He tried to. I moved around a lot but somehow he used to find a way to run into me. He never touched me after he moved out, but I could still see the desire in his eyes. There was that gleam. But there was something more — something vile about him. In so many ways, he seemed to bleed lechery like it was the plague.”
“You know if he used to prey on anyone else?”
“He used to brag about his sexual conquests all the time. Whether they were true or not, I don’t know.” She felt her stomach lurch again. “The odd thing is, I can't figure out who would want to kill him. I mean, sure he had enemies, but the kind of enemies he had wouldn't have killed him in such a nondescript way.”
“Your brother had ties to organized crime. If they’d wanted him dead, it would have been a showy execution.”
“Bullets flying everywhere, yes.” She frowned. “But instead…”
“I know,” said Curran. “It doesn't make sense.”
“Something else that doesn’t make sense.” She peered into his eyes. “You.”
Curran grinned. “Me?”
“You don't seem nearly as fazed by this as the medical examiner did.”
“Yeah, well, I see a lot more garbage than Kwon does.”
She shook her head. “That’s not it. I get the feeling this case almost seems…familiar to you.”
She stared at him. Curran looked away and toyed with his chopsticks. “I might have heard about some cases sort of similar to this.”
Lauren frowned and stabbed her own chopsticks into the bowl of rice. “You’re lying.”
Curran removed her chopsticks. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
He pointed. “Never leave them pointing straight up in a bowl of rice.”
“You’re schooling me on etiquette now? That’s going quite a ways to change the subject.”
Curran shook his head. “Leaving your chopsticks like that means death in most Asian cultures. They look at it as an omen of sorts.”
“How’d you get so acquainted with Asian culture?”
“Military.”
“Before you joined the police?”
“Before I joined the FBI.”
Curran was a G Man? That surprised her.. “You were with the Bureau?”
He smirked. “Impressed? Don’t be.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t tell you if I was. And I still think you’re lying.”
“Maybe I can’t talk about it in front of you.”
She frowned. “That’s ridiculous. I just sat here and spilled out a host of ugly skeletons that most folks would try to bury. And you can’t even discuss your experiences with unexplained deaths?” Lauren rested her elbows on the tabletop. “Any time you want to talk will be fine.”
He sighed. “You don’t give up easily.”
“I’ve been told that.”
Curran sighed. “When I worked in the FBI, I came across a series of murders that happened in Miami. Unexplained deaths, all of them.”
“How many were there?”
“That we knew of? Five in Miami. Privately, I suspected there were many more.”
“So what happened?”
“I got assigned the cases. I was a young hotshot eager for a tough case. I guess I wanted to prove myself as capable. I tried my damnedest to do just that.”
“But?”
Curran frowned and Lauren watched his eyes go dark again. But they didn’t stare at her any longer. Curran was a million miles away. She watched what must have been awful memories pour across his face in rapid succession. Dark shadows that creased his forehead and made the crows feet at the edges of his eyes seem more pronounced. What has he gone through, she wondered.
“It didn’t work out,” he said.
Lauren never blinked. “I just watched a dozen nightmares play across your face. That was some ‘but.’”
“Probably better if we don’t discuss that right now. I may not be as strong as you.”
“All right.”
He sighed and reached for his water. “They stopped eventually — the murders I mean.”
“In Miami?”
“Yeah. Thing is, for a serial killer, which is what we pigeonholed this guy as, it didn't quite make sense. The experts figured he'd start up again somewhere else. Once the fury got too much for him to handle.”
“You keep saying 'him.' Do you know for sure it was a man?”
Curran shrugged. “Statistically, most serial killers are white males in their mid-thirties. And I guess for some reason, right at the beginning, I felt the killer was a man.”
“So, were the experts right?”
“Yeah. They were right. Six months later. Dallas. Another bunch of bodies with no discernible marks on them start showing up. Each one during the post mortem had characteristics that fit with how your brother died.”
“Like what?”
“Like blood work showing an abnormally high level of glucose spikes just prior to death.”
“Glucose?”
“It’s a side effect of a sudden adrenaline rushes. Like what might happen if the victim knew they were in trouble. It’s that fight or flight instinct response programmed in us all.”
“But they didn’t fight, did they?”
“And they couldn’t flee, either. So this massive dump of adrenaline floods their system. On the outside, it almost looked like they’d been scared to death.”
“There was nothing else that would help unravel the case?”
“Each victim did have a peculiar oddity to them.”
“What’s that?”
“During the post-mortem examination, the prosector — that’s the guy who does the autopsy — discovered the victims — all of them — had green brains.”
Lauren leaned back. “Are you joking?”
“I don't have an explanation for it. I'm just relating what I found out.”
“Did my brother-?”
“Yeah,” said Curran. “Kwon and I did the PM last night — this morning really — and confirmed what I thought I might find.”
“You had a suspicion you’d find it?”
Curran shrugged. “I’m a cop, Lauren. I see scores of dead bodies. Most of them have gunshots, stab wounds, foamy mouths, something that tells me how they died. I came on the crime scene last night, your brother looked like the picture of perfect health. No reason for him to be dead. It kind of stood out as unusual.”
“Especially since Miami.”
“Right.”
“Have there ever been any witnesses?”
Curran motioned for the check and then frowned. “Well, in Dallas, some woman in a nightclub saw someone close to the victim right before it happened. She confirmed it was a man.”
“She saw him kill the guy?”
Curran smirked. “That’s the problem. According to the woman, the killer simply walked up and touched the man on his shoulder. After a few seconds, the person dropped dead.”
“You’re dismissing it.”
Curran smiled. “Well, come on. How silly does that sound? I’ve done a lot of research into Asian cultures and the closest thing I could dig up was a martial art technique called the death touch. But even that didn’t work that fast.”
“There are other traditions out there that might have something like that in them.”
“You know of any?”
Lauren shifted in her chair. “Actually, it sounds something like a reverse laying of hands.”
Curran shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
“Laying of hands is a traditional, albeit unusual method of healing.”
“You mean holistic?”
“Something like that. It’s widely accepted by the Catholic Church as a special occurrence. The healer places their hands on the afflicted and helps heal them using special energies.”
“Special energies?” Curran smiled.
Lauren pointed at him. “Don't look so surprised. A minute ago you were telling me about green brains, after all.”
“Touche.”
“Laying of hands has been acknowledged in the writings of the church for many years and while most consider it something of legend, there are reasonably accurate accounts of healers being able to cure in the name of God.”
“There’s a flip side — that reversal thing you spoke of?”
“I don't know.” She took a sip of water, thankful her stomach didn’t vomit it back up. “I could research it. See if there are any references to something like it anywhere. It sounds pretty odd, I know.”
“I don’t know if I need any help.”
“Sure sounds like you do.”
“You’re being stubborn again.”
“Determined.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Don’t think too long. There might be more bodies.”
“I hope not.” And she could see in his eyes that he really meant that.
Lauren smiled at him. She felt certain he’d come around. “How come you’re not with the Bureau anymore?”
“To be blunt, I was fired.”
“For not solving the cases?”
“That and an evil manager who had it in for me. I couldn't win to save my life. The Bureau canned me and I came north to Boston.”
“Why Boston?”
“At the time, I was dating a woman who had family up here. I figured it'd be nice to be closer to her.”
“Your relationship didn't work out?”
“It was one of those instances where you like the family more than the person you’re supposed to be in love with.”
I wouldn’t know, thought Lauren. “How did you get into the Boston Police Department?”
“My last friend at the Bureau put in a good word for me. That was five years back. Things are good, but it's not where I pictured myself when I was younger.”
“Let me guess: you wanted to head up the FBI.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“A boy's got to dream, I guess,” she said.
“You're telling me you don't have any dreams?”
“I never said that.”
“So…share on.”
She folded her hands. “All right. Thanks to my evil brother, I grew up pretty jaded. I hated men. I became the antithesis of feminine. I felt scarred, broken, unable to figure out what I was supposed to be doing with my life.” She leaned closer. “It was a lonely time for me. I traveled a lot. Hitchhiking here and there, skirting danger and even flirting with the same path my brother had chosen for himself.”
“What changed you?”
“God changed me.”
“What do you mean — you found him?”
“Kind of. He came to me in a dream one night. When I awoke, something inside of me felt changed forever. I can't really describe it. It was as if the sorrow I'd been carrying for all those years suddenly lifted. My vision cleared. I wouldn't turn to evil like my brother. I would turn away from it.”
“Become good.”
“More than that. I'd become a soldier in God's army.” She smiled and hoped he wouldn’t think she was some sort of weirdo. “Don't laugh. I know it sounds extremely cultish. But it's not at all.”
“I'm not saying anything.”
“Think about it, Steve. The world is full of evil. If it isn't people out actively committing evil acts, then there are millions of apathetic souls who will never stand up to evil, they'll never sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Their only concern is what's in it for them.”
“I agree.”
“I thought you would. We're similar in that respect, I think.” Lauren looked at the table of food. “I’m sorry, Steve, but I don’t think I can eat any of this after what we’ve been talking about.”
Curran nodded. “No sweat. I’ll get it to go.”
“I’m not good at leftovers.”
He grinned. “Fortunately, I am.” He waved the waiter over and the food disappeared. After a moment, he looked at her. “So, how do you intend to combat all this evil?”
“I asked myself that same question for a long time. Finally, six months ago, I found my answer.”
“Which was what?”
She smiled. “It's quite simple, really. I'm becoming a nun.”
Curran looked like his stomach had just dropped twenty stories. “Oops.”
She grinned. “I thought that might throw you for a loop.”
“Sorry, I had no idea.”
“Of course, you didn't.” She winked at him. “But then again, this wasn't actually a date…was it?”
Curran’s smile looked as natural as a five-leaf clover. “Uh…of course not. No way. I'm just gathering information about the case.”
She grinned some more. “Pay the bill, Steve. You're an awful liar.”