Steven James - The Knight

We passed room 123.

“But?”

“Do you remember how you felt yesterday when you found out your mother struggled with the decision about whether or not to have an-”

“Abortion. Yeah. I remember.”

I took a small breath. “Have you thought about the possibility that Mr. Lansing doesn’t…”

“What? That he doesn’t love me? Doesn’t want anything to do with me?”

“It’s possible,” I said.

Room 127. Calvin’s room lay just ahead.

She worked her jaw back and forth for a moment, then said, “I just want to know the truth. I mean, he is my father.” Then she looked my way. “You understand, right?”

A moment of awkward silence. “Yes. I do.”

We arrived at Calvin’s room, I pressed open the door and saw him lying on the bed. A doctor I didn’t recognize was reading his charts. Jake Vanderveld stood beside the bed.

Calvin wasn’t moving, and I feared the worst. “What do we know?”

The doctor looked my direction. “He’s stable, but he still hasn’t regained consciousness.”

Tessa had met Calvin a few times, and I noticed a cloud of worry on her face. “Is he all right?”

“Can you wait with my mother?” I said. “We’ll talk more in a minute, OK?”

She was still eyeing Calvin.

“Tessa, go sit with Martha. I’ll be there in a little bit.”

She finally backed into the hall but then looked at me. “You meant it, though, right? That I could meet my dad? It wasn’t just-”

“I meant it. We’ll set it up, I promise. Now, please.” I gestured toward the waiting room.

After one more lingering glance at Calvin, Tessa left.

And I pulled the doctor aside to tell him that his patient was dying.

I explained to the doctor that I didn’t know what Calvin’s condition was, but that Special Agent Ralph Hawkins did. I gave him Ralph’s number and he immediately left the room to make the call.

I went to Calvin’s side. My mentor. My friend. He looked so old and frail.

“So it was Kurt?” Jake said.

“Yes,” I said simply.

“Amazing. You knew him all this time and yet never suspected a thing.”

“It’s hard to know people.” I felt a knot of tension in my chest.

“To really know them. What they’re capable of.”

“That is true, Pat. That’s a good observation.”

Jake took a slow breath, then went on. “They found the priest. That man and the woman, too, in the storage unit. They’re all OK. Looks like we got to them all in time.”

It was nice to hear some good news.

My attention shifted back to Calvin. I had so many questions: How did he know to go to the Greers’ house? Why did he call me from police headquarters? What evidence led him to suspect that Richard Basque was innocent?

I’d seen Calvin taking notes at the trial. Maybe his notebook would give me some answers.

His clothes and personal items were in the chair beside the nightstand. I walked to them.

“Her laptop is missing,” Jake said abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

I didn’t see Calvin’s notebook, but I found a slip of paper in his pants pocket.

“Amy Lynn Greer’s,” Jake said. “It looks like she was the one who posted the article online. But it’s hard to tell for sure because her laptop computer is missing.”

Calvin had written Dr. Renee Lebreau’s name and phone number on the piece of paper-she was the law professor at Michigan State University who’d found the DNA discrepancies that had led to Basque’s trial. The sheet also contained a cryptic message: H814b Patricia E.

I had no idea what it meant.

Another mystery.

I memorized the information and returned the paper to its place.

“You ask me,” Jake said, “Kurt took it. Destroyed it.”

I couldn’t understand why we were even having this conversation about the computer. “Well, maybe we’ll find something on her digital voice recorder.” I didn’t find any other answers to my questions in Calvin’s things, so I returned to his side.

Jake’s demeanor shifted. Cooled. “Her what?”

“I saw a voice recorder in her purse when I was at the house.”

Jake seemed to be internally debating something.

“What is it?” I asked.

He checked his watch and stood. “I have to go. Captain Terrell and I have a press conference coming up.” He patted my shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Pat. I’ll make sure everyone knows how much you helped us with the case.”

The more I spoke with Jake, the more my headache returned.

“Please,” I said, “don’t bother. Just tell them the truth-that we never would have solved it without your profile.”

“Thanks, Pat. That means a lot.”

“You’re welcome.”

After Jake left, I sat in silence for a few minutes beside Calvin. Then, I said softly, “We got him. We got Kurt.”

In his current state I didn’t know if Calvin could hear me, but I added, “And I told the truth today. On the stand. I don’t know if it was the best thing to do, but I’m glad I did it. We’ll see what happens next.”

Calvin lay still. Silent.

A few moments later the doctor returned and told me that he’d just spoken with Calvin’s internal medicine doctor in Chicago.

“And?”

“And I’m sorry, but it’s the family’s wish that his condition remain confidential. You’ll have to take it up with them.”

Not the news I wanted to hear, but this wasn’t the time to argue. I figured I could contact Calvin’s family tomorrow. “I have to go,” I said, “but I need you to call me if his condition changes. You can do that much. That’s not breaking any kind of confidentiality.”

The doctor nodded. I gave him my office number, quietly told Calvin that I would see him again soon, and then left the room to regroup with Tessa and my mother.

I checked the time: 10:02 p.m.

So, unless Ralph had been able to pull a few strings with Internal Affairs, I was officially on administrative leave from the FBI.

One week later

A dirt road

52 miles west of Riverton, Wyoming

2:51 p.m. Mountain Time

Our flight had landed two hours ago, and while I drove the rental car toward Paul Lansing’s remote cabin in the mountains, Tessa sat beside me, her eyes closed, trying to solve the Rubik’s Cube that her friend had given her.

All around us, sunlight cascaded across the Wind River Range, but clouds were moving in.

We were less than ten minutes from the cabin.

Over the last week, Angela hadn’t found out anything negative about Paul Lansing. No red flags. And in a strange way, that bothered me. I’d promised Tessa that she could meet him and Angela hadn’t uncovered anything that gave me a reason to break that promise.

So here we were.

However, there was no way I was going to leave Tessa alone with Lansing. Not for an instant.

I watched the clouds gather in the west, and Tessa, with her eyes still closed, said, “Have you heard any more about Dr. Werjonic? Since this morning?”

She twisted the cube.

Click. Click.

“Still no change,” I said.

Calvin’s family had chosen to keep his illness confidential, and even though I could have gone through some back channels to find out the details, I’d respected their wishes and let that information remain between them and his doctors. The family was furious enough that Ralph had discovered Calvin’s health issues before they had and I didn’t want to disturb the waters any more. Calvin was stable, he was being treated, and they were keeping me informed about his condition. That was enough for now.

I’d placed a call in to Professor Renee Lebreau to see what H814b Patricia E. might mean, but hadn’t yet heard back from her.