J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“I should probably go,” I say. “Get on top of this thing.”

A faint smile. “Yes, you should.”

I sink back beside her, wrap my arm around her shoulder.

“There’s so much to do,” I say.

But I don’t leave for a long time, afraid to put too much distance between us, afraid of what might happen if I’m not here. After a while she starts to tremble. And then the tears flow and I hold her tight.

“You’re not staying here,” Ann says. “No way.”

Charlotte’s sister drags her downstairs by the wrist, a hastily packed overnight bag clutched in the other hand. Within ten minutes of her arrival, she’s taken charge of the situation, declaring the house unsafe and insisting Charlotte go home with her. She gives me a tongue-lashing for not having installed a security system, and I take it gladly, relieved that someone is finally putting the blame where it belongs.

“She’s right,” I say. “We can’t take the chance that he’ll come back.”

“There’s a police car out front. I hardly think he’d be that stupid.”

Ann drops the bag near the door without releasing Charlotte’s hand. “We’re not arguing, sis. You’re coming with me, end of discussion. Once your husband takes care of the situation, you can do what you want. Until then, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“What about Carter and Gina?”

“What about them?” Ann says. “There’s a police car out front.”

I’ve never cared much for Ann, calling her the ugly duckling behind her back, but at this moment I could kiss her.

“Go with your sister. I’ll come see you when I finish some things.”

I follow them out, slipping Charlotte’s overnight bag into the back. Ann guides her to the passenger seat, making sure she’s settled, then closes the door. Coming around, she leans in close to me.

“You’d better not,” she says.

“Better not what?”

“Come over. How do you think this guy found out where you live?”

“I don’t know.”

She shakes her head. “How would you do it?”

“I’d look him up, but we’re unlisted.”

“How else would you do it?” she asks. “Think about it. You work with a lot of bad people. Well, I’ve represented a few. It seems obvious to me.”

“What does, Ann? Just spit it out.”

“Did you ever think maybe he followed you? You were at the scene, your name is in all the newspaper reports, and he obviously knows how to email you. Would it be so hard to tail you around?”

I smile. “You think I wouldn’t notice?”

“I think there’s plenty you don’t notice,” she says. “So indulge me, all right? Let me take care of my sister and you focus on your case.”

They pull out onto the street and Charlotte lifts her fingers in a hesitant wave. As the car rolls away I feel a bond drawing taut and, as her figure behind the glass grows small, finally snapping. It’s terrible, her going away, but somehow right that she should be taken from me. I turn back toward the house, cold and deliberate, a dark intention forming at the back of my mind, a cancerous notion metastasizing, infiltrating blood and bone.

Hanford calls my cell, telling me his baited hook is ready to send.

“You’ll be able to find him with this?”

He laughs, unable to contain his excitement. “I think so. All he has to do is run the Mail software. When our message hits the preview screen, we’ll get a location-it might be precise, it might be vague. But we’ll also get a picture. He’ll basically send us his identity.”

“What about the message I sent earlier? Can you tell where it came from?”

“He switched up on us. The location was different, and I’m working on the provider to see if I can pinpoint it. He might have just used an open network. A coffee shop Wi-Fi signal, maybe even somebody’s house. He could pull up to the curb just like he did with Dr. Hill.”

“Couldn’t he do that again, with our email?”

“Sure,” he says. “The difference is, we’ll see his face. Also, he’ll be opening the software to compose a message. In the time it takes him to do that, we might be able to get there. You never know.”

“So let’s send our message and see what happens.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14 — 4:19 P.M.

Bridger greets me with an unaccustomed smile, approaching through the lab in a white coat, eyes sparkling behind his rimless glasses. He has one hand behind his back.

“That’s not a knife,” he says, channeling Crocodile Dundee. “ That’s a knife.”

He brings the hidden hand around to reveal a bowie knife bagged in plastic. I take the knife, hold it up to the light, and whistle. “It’s not what I expected.”

“That is not a cheap throwaway, March. It’s more like a trophy. The scales are made of stag, and the blade’s all wavy like that because it’s Damascus steel. And take a look at this. .” He motions for the knife and points to a small line of text stamped into the blade near the hilt. “Eric Castro pointed that out when he brought the knife over.”

I squint at the stamping.

It reads: 29 OF 50.

“A limited edition,” he says. “Tell me that’s not going to be easy to trace.”

“If I get a hit on those prints, it’ll save me the trouble. But yeah, I’m thinking it shouldn’t be too hard.” I can feel my mouth twisting into an involuntary smile. “He pretty much handed himself over on a silver platter.”

“I would assume this is his ritual weapon. As much care as he took to clean up the Simone Walker scene, I’m surprised he would hold on to the knife.”

“ Is it the knife? You’re sure about that?”

“If you’ll follow me,” he says, heading back into the depths of the lab. We pause before a pair of microscopes and a bank of sterile-looking computer screens.

“The blade had been wiped down, but the crime lab pulled apart the handle and scraped some dried blood. They sent some results over, which I’ve just been verifying.”

With Bridger the answers never come easily. He considers these encounters to be teachable moments, forcing me to peer through microscopes and examine inscrutable charts on a variety of monitors, lecturing me all the while on blood type, blood cells, and the intricacies of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. I nod my way through, waiting for the plain English explanation of his findings.

“You already know the prints on the handle aren’t Simone Walker’s,” he says.

“I didn’t know that. But why would they be?”

He ignores the question. “Do you talk to your crime lab people at all? I got the information from them.”

“Why would the prints on the knife belong to the victim?”

“They wouldn’t ordinarily,” he says. “But somebody in your fingerprint division floated the theory that the fingerprints belonged to a woman-something about the ridge density. So they were checked against Walker’s prints and didn’t match. You don’t know about this?”

“The man we took that knife from was trying to murder my wife with it. Pardon me for being a little preoccupied. Anyway, in case you haven’t heard, our fingerprint detail is under a cloud at the moment.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re turning this stuff around so fast. Trying to look efficient.”

An impatient nod. “Yes, yes, yes. Now, what about blood, Alan?”

“Look for yourself,” he says, pointing to a white-cased microscope with two black viewers jutting out at me.

“I already did. Can you please tell me?”

He chuckles. “The state of science education in this country-”

“I’m begging you.”

“Please don’t beg, March. Here’s the deal. We have blood from two separate sources. Based on the viscosity, I’m guessing one is older and the other is fresh. . as recent as a day or two. The older sample matches Simone Walker, so in my opinion-and this is backed up by your own people-this is the weapon used in her murder.”