Линкольн Чайлд - Verses for the Dead

“I beg your pardon, Ms. Fleming, but your question was whether there was anything I could tell you .”

“Ah.” The woman nodded knowingly, with a wink at the camera. “You mean, there are a number of aspects — developments — you’re not at liberty to share with the public.”

“That is correct.”

“Can you tell us, then, if you’re satisfied with progress in the case?”

“I am rarely satisfied. We have, however, identified certain avenues of investigation.”

Fleming was game — Coldmoon had to give her that — and seemed skilled in handling recalcitrant guests. “I’m sure that will ease the minds of our viewers. While I realize there is probably a lot you can’t tell us—” Fleming leaned in a little conspiratorially — “could you at least let us know if you’re close to catching this monster?”

“Alas, that is something I can’t predict. However, there is one favor I’d like to ask you.”

“Of course.”

“Please stop referring to him as a monster.”

Coldmoon heard Grove draw in his breath sharply.

The woman’s smile froze on her face. “I’m sorry if you disagree with the characterization. Isn’t it true this person has brutally murdered three innocent women?”

“That is true, yes.”

“And if that isn’t enough, hasn’t he cut out their hearts and used them to decorate the graves of suicide victims — bringing even more grief to their families than they’ve suffered already?”

“Yes.”

“Then, Agent Pendergast, in what way is this, this creature not a monster?”

“ Monster has connotations of evil. Of taking pleasure in cruelty. Of a psychopathic lack of guilt or remorse.”

“Yes, but—”

“And I don’t think that’s a correct characterization of Mister Brokenhearts at all. He has killed, without doubt — but not for the sake of killing.”

“What do you mean?”

“He took no pleasure in it. In fact, evidence indicates the reason he cut his victims’ throats was to ensure their deaths were as quick and painless as possible. Remorse, and not the lack of it, is precisely what these murders are about.”

“I’m not sure our viewers are going to understand. Could you explain?”

Pendergast rotated his gaze from the news anchor to the nearest camera. Still speaking, he rose from his chair.

“In fact,” he said, “the very reason I’m here is to speak to Mister Brokenhearts. Face-to-face.”

“Agent Pendergast—” Carey Fleming began, but Pendergast paid no heed. His attention was now focused intently on the camera.

“Mister Brokenhearts, I know you’re there, watching and listening,” Pendergast said as he slowly walked toward the camera, its operator dollying back slightly as he approached. “I know you’re not far away — not far away at all.”

“Son of a bitch,” Coldmoon heard Grove mutter under his breath. “What the heck is he doing ?”

Pendergast went on, a gentle, honeyed voice filling the studio. “You’re not a monster. You’re a person who has been harmed, perhaps even brutalized.”

On a monitor, Coldmoon could see Pendergast approaching the camera until his head and shoulders filled the frame. “I know you’ve had a terrible life; that you’ve been hurt; that you haven’t had the guidance we all need to tell right from wrong.”

Coldmoon, fixated, saw Fleming motioning frantically to the producer while the camera was locked on Pendergast’s close-up. This is live , she was mouthing with an exaggerated chopping motion; this is live . But the producer gestured for the cameras to keep rolling. Coldmoon realized that this was great footage, and the producer obviously knew it.

“I can’t believe they’re airing this,” Grove whispered in dismay. “And live, no less!”

Pendergast focused intently on the lens as the camera operator tightened the shot. “It’s because you never had that kind of guidance that I’m reaching out to you now. While it’s my job to stop you, I want you to know one thing: I’m not your enemy. I want to help you. You’re intelligent; when I tell you that what you are doing is profoundly wrong, I believe you will listen. I understand your need to atone. But you have to find another way. Trust me, listen to me: you must find another way.”

Pendergast paused. The producer spoke into his radio, gesturing sharply to keep the cameras on Pendergast and not cut away to Fleming, who had stopped her gesturing and was now staring at Pendergast, realizing the agent had taken over her set. It amazed Coldmoon how utterly mesmerizing his partner had suddenly become. The man surely had Miami in thrall.

“ You have the power, to act or not act. Use that power. Ponder what I’ve said. Write to me, talk to me, if I can help. But above all, remember: you have to find another way .”

Pendergast gave the camera a lingering glance. Then he stepped back and turned away. As he did so, the cameras panned back and the producer pointed at Fleming.

She recovered instantly, putting on a serious face, as if the entire episode had been scripted. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Special Agent Pendergast, speaking directly to the serial killer calling himself Mister Brokenhearts. Let us hope and pray he is watching.”

The producer cut to a commercial and could hardly contain his expression of glee, while Coldmoon saw Carey Fleming give Pendergast a baleful glare as he continued to walk off the set. As she did so, Coldmoon felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw, without surprise, that it was ADC Pickett.

He sat on the floor of the darkened house, the images from the old thirty-two-inch Trinitron throwing jerky patterns on the bare walls. The commercials on the screen unspooled in antic pantomime — he’d managed to mute the sound with the remote, but beyond that he was unable to move. He felt paralyzed.

It was just chance he’d stumbled upon the program. And there was that FBI man — strange, black-clad, but pale as death itself — standing in front of the camera, talking to him. To him .

I know you’re there, watching and listening.

He stared at the screen in such astonishment he could hardly focus on it. No one had ever spoken to him like that. Even when he was very young, in the good times before the Journey, he did not remember such talk, such sympathy, such kindly understanding.

I know you’ve had a terrible life; that you haven’t had the guidance we all need to tell right from wrong.

But he did know right from wrong. He did . After all, it was because he knew that he was Atoning. That was the point of the preparation, and the Action. How could this man understand him... yet not understand that?

While it’s my job to stop you, I want you to know one thing: I’m not your enemy.

Suddenly, regaining control of his limbs, he hurled the remote control at the screen. It bounced off in pieces and fell to the floor. He looked around for a moment in confusion and misery — at the dust heaped in the corners, the peeling wallpaper, the front door with its two cracked panes, the owl-patterned outside light with its busted bulb... and then suddenly he burst out crying. He had not cried in a dozen years but now he wailed, falling prostrate to the floor, writhing back and forth, grinding his teeth and pounding his fists against the old wooden planks, shrieking as if somehow sound alone could wrench the demons from him, roll back the years, undo the terrible, unspeakable Journey.

But the demons remained, and eventually the shrieks subsided: first to weeping, then racking sobs, then — at last — nothing. He lay on the floor, body aching, spent.