Shelter in Place (Page 83)

The woman sent Xavier a short stare, then held out her hand to Reed. “Special Agent Tonya Jacoby, Chief.”

“Thanks for coming.” Since he liked her a great deal better than Xavier already, he offered her the evidence bag. “It came in this morning’s mail.”

Jacoby snapped on gloves, unsealed the bag. “Your photos came through clear,” she began.

“And this contact, the threat therein, makes it only more imperative that you back off.”

Reed barely flicked a glance at Xavier. “Since that’s not going to happen, and there’s no point in going over the same ground as yesterday, let’s try this: I’ve briefed my deputies.”

“The last thing we need is a bunch of armed yahoos shooting at shadows.”

Reed got slowly to his feet. Jacoby started to speak, but he beat her to it. “You want to take potshots at me, you go ahead. But you watch what you say about my officers. You’ve been invited here today. You can be uninvited just as easy.”

“This is an FBI investigation.”

“Special Agent Xavier, why don’t you take a walk?” Jacoby’s stare turned longer, harder. “Take a walk.”

He strode out—and once again slammed the station door behind him.

“Are you in charge now?” Reed asked her.

“As a matter of fact. I was brought in on this investigation just last week. He’s not happy about that, which may account for his behavior yesterday. I caught the drift of it from his report. I’ll apologize.”

“No need.”

Donna came in with coffee—a pot, mugs, the fixings on a tray. He didn’t know they had a tray.

“Thanks, Donna.”

“Yes, thanks.” Jacoby added a dollop of milk to her coffee, sat. “Let’s talk.”

He spent thirty minutes with her and, when they shook hands again, felt better about things.

After she left, he finished the briefing with his team, took questions, answered.

“Special Agent Jacoby, now the SAC on the Hobart investigation—”

“Did they can that dick?” Leon asked.

“He’s still on the investigation, but no longer the Special Agent in Charge.”

“At least somebody in the FBI’s not a total idiot,” Matty decided.

“Since Jacoby didn’t strike me as any kind of idiot, I’m going to say there’s more than one. She informed me they’re following up a lead in Tennessee. Memphis. If that pans out, we may be able to put this to bed. But until we do, I want those patrols, and an eye on the ferry. My partner and I will be in rotation.”

“‘Partner’?” Matty asked.

Reed patted the dog’s head. “Deputy Barney. He’s one of us now.”

* * *

In the cabin, with her laptop streaming Fox News in case anything broke she needed to know, Patricia redid Seleena’s makeup.

“You take care of your skin,” she said as she applied foundation. “Me, too. My mother let herself go. I mean hag time, especially after they killed JJ. But even before, she didn’t fix herself up. I wouldn’t’ve blamed the old man for screwing around on her or giving her a smack now and then, but he was such an asshole.

“I’m going to use a neutral palette on your eyes. Classy, professional. Close them.”

Engage, Seleena ordered herself. Connect. “Did he hit you, too?”

“Barely noticed me, so he couldn’t be bothered. I got fat—that’s her fault, too. Always bribing me with candy and cookies, and letting me eat bags of chips. He called me ‘Tub O Lard,’ ‘Tubbo’ for short.”

“That’s cruel.”

“Didn’t I say he was an asshole? I got bullied in school, did you know that?”

She had to draw back before she messed up her work. Seleena’s eyes popped open.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself. Close your eyes, keep them closed until I tell you otherwise.”

She closed her eyes, kept them closed. Listened. She heard the crazy, oh God, she heard it. And the bitterness, and worse. God, worse, the cold dispassion when she talked about doing her mother a favor by killing her.

“They— The police classified that as an accident.”

“Because I’m just that good, girl. Loopy, whiny old bitch made it easy, but you have to be good. Open your eyes.”

Seleena opened them, tried to mask the fear.

“Oh yeah, I’m good. Close again. You know, I learned all about makeup and hair, skin care, all of it, on the Internet. YouTube because my mother taught me nothing about nothing. I’ve got an IQ of a hundred and sixty-four, and I sure didn’t get it from her or dear old dad. Open,” she said, beginning to brush and blend liner on the bottom of Seleena’s eyes. “You’re used to having your makeup done.”

“Yes.”

“I do my own. I do everything myself because I’m smart. JJ wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t very smart, either. I used to do some of his homework and assignments for him, even after those asshole parents of ours tore us apart. They shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, they shouldn’t have. That was cruel, too, and selfish.”

“You’re damn right! JJ’s the one who taught me how to shoot because the old man couldn’t be bothered with me. Look down while I do your lashes. Not that much!”

“Sorry.”

“He was good with guns, but I was better there, too. He didn’t mind. JJ was proud of me. He loved me. He was the only one who did. And they killed him.”

“You must miss him.”

“He’s dead, what’s the point? He knew I was smart, but he didn’t listen to me, went off half-cocked. Get it? Guns, half-cocked.”

Trying to read the eyes boring into hers, Seleena let her lips curve, just a little. “That’s a good one.”

“I can be funny when I want to be. I don’t get to talk to people much, and never as myself. I have to talk to fuckheads when I’m stalking a target, but that’s not me. I’m on the inside then, and only show the outside they expect. You’re lucky, because you get to see inside.”

“It’s been hard for you, to keep yourself inside.”

“I had to do it for years, goddamn years in that mausoleum with those dried-up, whiny grandparents. ‘Oh, I’ll do that, Gram. Don’t worry about that, Grandpa, I’ll clean it up.’ They just wouldn’t die and leave me alone. Nobody would’ve put up with their shit as long as I did. The eyes look good.”

She studied her kit, chose a blush, a brush.

“They said terrible things about JJ, especially after he was dead. Terrible things, and I had to hold myself back from just slicing their throats. Maybe he wasn’t very smart, maybe he didn’t listen to me, but they shouldn’t have said those terrible things about him.”

“Their own flesh and blood,” Seleena said.

“They said he was sick, defective, even evil. Well, they paid for it, didn’t they? Not enough, but they paid. He just didn’t listen to me, that’s what happened.”

“You tried to stop him.”

Patricia eased back, studied the blush, approved. “We’ll polish that off,” she said and reached for translucent loose powder.

“I would’ve stopped him if I’d known he’d upped the time line. I still had some details to work out. And what does he do, he hits in July, when too many people are on vacation or whatever. It was supposed to be December, holiday crush. He’d have taken out twice as many. More, and I’d have worked out the escape route by then.”