Jeffery Deaver - A Maiden's Grave

Potter hesitated. "Let's go inside."

With flashing lights, a Hebron PD squad car pulled up. Angeline Scapello, looking exhausted though no longer soot-smudged, climbed out and hurried up the stairs. She nodded to everyone, and like her fellow threat management team members she wasn't smiling.

Melanie's house had a homey air about it. Thick drapes. In the air, incense. Spicy. Old prints, many of them of classical composers, hung on the walls, which were covered with striped paper, forest green and gold. The largest print was of Beethoven. The room was full of antique tables, beautiful Art Nouveau vases. He thought with some embarrassment of his own Georgetown apartment, a shabby place. He'd stopped decorating it thirteen years ago.

Melanie was wearing blue jeans, a black cashmere sweater. Her hair was no longer in the awkward braid but hung loose. The bruises and cuts on her face and hands were quite prominent, as were the chestnut Betadine stains. Potter turned to her, tried to think of words that required exaggerated lip movements. "Lou Handy's escaped."

She didn't understand at first. When he repeated it her eyes went wide with horror. She started to sign then stopped in frustration and grabbed the stack of paper.

LeBow touched her arm. "Can you type?" He mimicked keyboarding.

She nodded. He opened his two computers, booted them into word-processing programs, hooked up a serial port cable, and set the units side by side. He sat at one, Melanie at the other.

Where did he go ? she typed.

We don't know, that's why we came to see you.

Melanie nodded slowly. Did he kill anyone escaping ? She could touch-type and she kept her eyes on Potter as she asked this.

He nodded. Wilcox – the one you called Stoat – was killed. Troopers too .

Again she nodded, frowning, thinking over the implications of this.

Potter typed, I have to ask you to do something you're not going to want to do .

She looked at his message, wrote: I've already been through the worst . Her hands danced over the keys invisibly, not a single mistake.

God compensates.

I want you to go back to the slaughterhouse. In your mind .

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She wrote nothing but merely nodded.

We don't understand certain things about the barricade. If you can help us to I think we can figure out where he's gone.

"Henry," Potter called, rising and pacing. LeBow and Tobe caught each other's eyes. "Call up his profile and the chronology. What do we know about him?"

LeBow began to read but Potter said, "No, let's just speculate."

"He's a clever boy," Budd offered. "He comes across like a hick but he's got some smarts."

Potter added, He plays the dummy but that's largely an act, I think .

Melanie typed, Amoral .

Yes.

Dangerous , Budd offered.

Let's go beyond that.

He's evil , she wrote. Evil personified .

But what kind of evil?

Silence for a moment. Angie typed, Cold death .

Potter nodded and spoke aloud, "Right. Lou Handy's cold evil. Not passionate evil. Let's keep that in mind."

Angie continued, Not a sadist. Then he'd be passionate. He feels nothing for the pain he causes. If he needs pain or death to get his way, he'll cause pain or death. Like blinding the hostages – simply another tool for him .

Potter leaned forward and typed, So, he's calculating . "And?" Budd prompted.

Potter shook his head. Yes, he's calculating, but you're right, Charlie, what does that mean?

The men stopped speaking while Melanie's fingers danced over the keyboard. Potter walked around her and stood close as she typed. His hand brushed her shoulder and it seemed to him that she leaned into his fingers. She wrote: Everything he does has a purpose. He's one of those few people who isn't driven by life; he drives it .

Angie typed, Control, control, control .

Potter found his hand was resting on Melanie's shoulder. She lowered her cheek to it. Maybe it just was an accident as her head turned. Maybe not.

"Control and purpose," Potter said. "Yes, that's it. Type this out so she can see it, Henry. Everything he's done today has a purpose. Even if it seemed random. Killing Susan – it was to make clear that he was serious. He demanded a helicopter that seated eight but he had no problem giving away most of the hostages. Why? To keep us busy. To stretch out the time to give his accomplice and girlfriend a chance to set up the real Sharon Foster. He brought with him a TV, a scrambled radio, and guns."

Angie leaned forward to type, So what is his purpose ?

"Well, escaping," Budd laughed. "What else would it be?" He leaned forward and two-finger typed, To escape .

No !! Melanie typed.

"Right!" Potter shouted, and pointed at her, nodding. "Escape wasn't his priority at all. How could it've been? He virtually let himself get trapped. There was only one trooper on his tail after the accident with the Cadillac. The three of them could've ambushed him, taken his car, and escaped. Why would anybody let themselves get trapped?"

"Hell," Budd said, "a spooked rabbit'll run right into a fox's den not even thinking." He dutifully hunted-and-pecked this in.

But he does think , Melanie wrote. We can't forget that. And he isn't spooked .

Not spooked at all , Angie offered. Remember the voice stress analysis .

Potter nodded to Melanie, smiling and gripping her shoulder once more. Calm as ordering a cup of coffee at 7-Eleven .

Melanie typed, I called him Brutus. But he's really like a ferret .

Budd continued, Well, if he's a ferret, then he'd go to ground only if he knew he wasn't trapped at all. If he had an escape route .

Melanie typed, When he first walked into the slaughterhouse Bear said that there was no way out. And Brutus said, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all ."

Potter nodded, mused, "He could've run, but no, he risked taking a detour to the slaughterhouse and getting trapped. But it wasn't that great a risk at all because he knew he could get out. He had guns and he had a radio to call his accomplice and work out some escape plan. Maybe he'd already thought up substituting his girlfriend for Foster." He typed, Melanie, tell us exactly what happened when they picked you up .

She typed, We found the wreck. He was killing those people. In no hurry.

He was confident ?

Very. He took his own sweet time , Melanie typed, grim-faced.

Potter unfurled a map. What route did you drive ?

I don't know roads , Melanie wrote. Past a radio station, a farm with lots of cows . She frowned for a moment then traced the route on the map. Maybe this .

The prison's south of the slaughterhouse ninety or so miles , Potter typed. The three of them drove north to here, had the accident with the Cadillac here, took the van and drove all the way around here … He traced a route that had Handy driving well past the slaughterhouse then doubling back.

Melanie typed, No, We drove straight to the slaughterhouse. That was one thing I thought funny. He seemed to know where it was .

But if he went straight there , Potter typed, when did you pass the airport ?

We didn't , she explained.

So he knew about it ahead of time. When he was asking me for the helicopter he knew there was an airport just two or three miles up the road. How did he know ?