Steven James - The Bishop

“Patrick, I’m not five.”

“I know that.” A handful of sales flyers, a few credit card offers-all for Runnels.

“So, don’t treat me like it. I know when to say please and thank you.”

I looked up and saw that she was giving me an irritated stare.

“I’m just making sure you were polite,” I said.

“I’m the queen of polite.”

I blinked. “You’re the queen of polite?”

A raised eyebrow. “Careful.”

“I’m just saying.”

She laid her book on the couch and stood. “I gotta get to bed.”

“Hey, are you feeling all right?”

“Sure, yeah.” Her tone softened. “I’m just, you know. Worn out, I guess. I have a big day tomorrow.”

Back to the mail again. “I thought you were gonna hang out around here. Read?” Hardly anyone knew we were staying here, so I was surprised to see an official-looking letter addressed to me from a law firm in DC.

“Yeah, I mean, I was thinking I might take the VRE train to the city. Maybe see if I can get a reader’s card for the Library of Congress. I hear they’re pretty cool about giving them out to students. Is that all right?”

The Library of Congress was the biggest library in the world. A bibliophile’s paradise. I knew it was her mandatory mecca for the summer. She’d talked to me earlier about getting a reader’s card to get access to the main reading room, so her request wasn’t a surprise.

As I ripped open the letter I realized I couldn’t think of any good reason not to let her go, except that I didn’t really like the idea of her wandering around the District of Columbia alone.

Ease up. She’s seventeen.

“Sure, that’s fine. I’m teaching most of the day tomorrow anyway.” Then a thought. “I’ll be in class from 8:00 to 11:00, and then from 2:00 until 5:00. I have a meeting in between there, but I should have enough time to sneak to DC, grab lunch, and get back to the Academy. What do you say? Hang out together for lunch?”

You’ll never make it, Pat. Not with the briefing… the drive alone could take you “Lunch.” A slight pause. “Yeah.”

Good.

I’d find a way to make it to DC in time.

After an awkward moment, she headed for her room, but I called after her. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

She didn’t turn around. “Yeah.”

“I love you,” I said.

Her bedroom door swung open. “You too.”

She went in, clicked it shut.

Yes, definitely spend some time talking tomorrow.

I slipped the envelope’s contents into my hand and scanned the pages.

And felt my throat tighten.

The letter was from a law firm representing Paul Lansing.

He was taking me to court to get custody of his daughter.

I’d only been in the DC area for a couple weeks, not long enough to get to know any lawyers, but Ralph had lived here for the last decade.

I speed-dialed him, and he answered after two rings. “Yeah?” His voice was hushed.

“You still at the primate center?”

“Naw. I’m at home. Tony’s in bed.” Tony was Ralph’s eleven-year-old son. A boy Tessa called “a Cheetos-eating, soccer-playing, video-gaming fool.”

“Sorry to call so late.”

“What’s up?”

“I think I need a lawyer.”

A pause. I had the sense that he was repositioning the phone. “What do you need a lawyer for?”

I told him about the letter from Lansing’s law firm. “Here’s the thing: I’m her legal guardian, so I don’t think there should be any prob-”

“This guy is her father, Pat.”

“I know, but he was never in the picture.”

“Did he want to be?”

An uncomfortable memory squirmed through me.

Last month Tessa had found an old letter that Christie had kept in which Paul begged her not to abort her unborn child. He’d promised to help raise the baby, but Christie hadn’t wanted him to be a part of their lives and had moved away, then raised Tessa alone.

“That’s not the point, Ralph.”

“The court always favors blood relatives. You know that. And she’s still a minor.” His voice had softened, and I didn’t sense that his sympathy right now was a good sign. “You will need a lawyer,” he said. “A good one.”

Not what I’d wanted to be hearing. “You know of any?”

“Most of the ones I know don’t do divorces, custody, any of that stuff. It’s all criminal law.” He thought for a moment. “Hang on a sec. Let me talk to Brineesha.” I heard him turn away from the phone and exchange a few indecipherable words with his wife, then he was back on the line with me. “Brineesha says hi.”

“Hi, back.”

“I’ll tell her. Anyway, she might have someone for you. One of her friends from work-Tracy-I guess she just went through a divorce, messy custody battle, the whole thing. Whoever Tracy’s lawyer was seemed to be really sharp. Brin says she’ll ask her for the name first thing in the morning when she gets to the bank.”

At least it was a start. “Tell her thanks.”

“Hey, don’t worry about this thing, okay? It’ll work out.” His assurances seemed to be having the opposite effect on me.

“Yeah.”

“See you at 11:30 tomorrow. My office.”

“All right.”

Astrid led Brad down the steps to the basement.

Where they were keeping the woman.

“How was it for you?” she asked him. “Tonight, I mean? Being able to watch?”

“It was everything I’d hoped it would be.”

She’d been watching things too, from a rather unique vantage point. “The video feed to that store was a great idea,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“You got the footage I asked for? Afterward?”

He held up his phone.

“Good.” She took it from him. Slipped it into her pocket.

She had to admit, Brad’s plan was by far their most devastating and brazen one yet. There were a few holes that she would fill in over the next two days, but overall he’d done a satisfactory, even admirable, job, and she was quite proud of him. Two more people would die, and the FBI would never suspect her or Brad of anything.

“How did you learn to reroute the video like that to the television store?”

“Research.”

“Research?”

“A job I had before my accident.”

He left it at that, and she sensed it was awkward for him to go on. He’d never told her how he got his scars, but ever since the two of them had first met, it’d been evident to her that the memory was painful.

She decided not to press the issue at the moment.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and went to the room Brad had recently remodeled.

Last month, he’d asked her if they could move some of their work to the house. She hadn’t liked the idea at first, but he’d been persistent, and when she realized it would be harder to travel after the baby was born, she’d given him permission.

He’d spent the last few weeks working on the room. She’d allowed him free rein, and in the end had been surprised by how thorough he’d been in designing it so that it could serve an array of troubling purposes. He’d even made the room soundproof and added a drain to the floor to make cleanup easier.

For her, the excitement came from the feeling of control, not from inflicting physical pain. Brad, on the other hand, had recently become more and more fascinated with that secondary aspect of their hobby.

His choices for outfitting the room reflected that.

She opened the door.

Brad stood quietly beside her as she made sure the woman was safely tucked away for the night.

When Astrid was done, she locked the door behind them and took Brad upstairs.

Just knowing that the woman was down there, helpless, captive, afraid, only served to add to the thrill, and when Astrid reached the bedroom door, she slid seductively in front of her man. “Ready?”