Next Victim by Michael Prescott Page A

of a bitch," she moaned, her face in her hands. "Piece of shit, motherfucker…"
    But she couldn’t hurt him with words. Couldn’t hurt him at all.
    She knelt for a long time, aware of nothing but pain, pain that was her world now, pain that was everything.
     

 
    11
     
     
    Her face in the mirror.
    It startled her as she came back to herself. She was in the rest room of the LA field office, two years and six weeks had passed since that night, and she was about to introduce herself to a man who might have robbed her of everything that mattered.
    People could tell her that they knew what she’d lost, but they didn’t know that Paul Voorhees had been much more than her partner.
    In dreams Tess sometimes found herself with him again, hiking an alpine trail in the Rockies. They would pause in their ascent, looking down at the path they had taken, and all the world below would be screened in white mist.
    Then she would think that she and Paul had risen above the clouds, to the top of the sky.
    It’s not like they told us in church , she would say. No harps. No wings .
    And Paul would laugh, and she would turn to look at him, but she couldn’t see his face—it was hidden in the sudden overpowering brightness of the sun.
    She always awoke then. And she could never get back to sleep.
    At times Tess believed that the trail was real, and she and Paul would climb it someday. At other times she believed in nothing but darkness and the damp earth enclosing an urn of ashes.
    Bereavement leave and therapy had not healed the hurt. Nothing could heal it.
    She checked her watch. Five minutes had gone by. Time to go.
    Leaving the bathroom, she walked down the hall to the door with the DO NOT DISTURB sign. The door was unlocked, a violation of normal procedure, but necessary if she was to enter unannounced.
    So this was it. Open the door, enter, and meet William Hayde.
    It seemed like such a simple thing, yet for a moment she wasn’t sure she could do it. She remembered a parachute jump years ago, the final seconds of standing in the airplane’s open hatchway, waiting to leap into space.
    Then, at least, she’d had a parachute.
    She opened the door, entered the room.
    Everything slowed down. The world grew big around her, its small details looming large in her perception. The glare on the steel tabletop, the creak of the straight-backed chairs, the handcuffs securing Hayde’s right hand to the table, his head lifting, his eyes—brown eyes, ordinary eyes—locking on hers.
    She met that gaze and held it, and held her breath also.
    And saw…nothing.
    A flicker of curiosity, perhaps. No surprise, no hostility, no recognition.
    He did not know her. He had never seen her before.
    "Agent Starling’s older sister," Hayde said. "Pull up a chair, join the party."
    "I’m Tess McCallum," she said.
    "Bill Hayde."
    Her name had drawn no reaction. He looked bemused at her arrival, her rigid stance and staring eyes.
    She tried one more time, though she knew the effort was wasted. "You sent me postcards in Denver."
    "I don’t think so. I’m not much of a correspondent."
    "Novelty postcards."
    He shook his head. "Must’ve been some other perp."
    She said nothing. She turned and left the room, shutting the door.
    Larkin was in the hall. "Nothing on voice-stress," he said.
    "Right."
    "He didn’t seem to know you."
    "He doesn’t know me."
    "So you think…?"
    "He’s just a jerk who likes to tie women up. That’s all he is. He’s not Mobius. He’s not anybody."
    A moment later Michaelson joined them. He looked at Larkin, ignoring Tess altogether. "I’m kicking him loose," he said.
    Larkin nodded.
    "There’s nothing for us to hold him on. The circumstances of his sexual play with Agent Tyler are too ambiguous to permit prosecution. Mr. Hayde himself seems to have understood as much from the start."
    "He’s a cool customer," Larkin said.
    "I’m not ruling him out yet. Not totally. I want you and DiFranco to look into his background, see