Janie Crouch - Fully Committed

As she’d gotten older and realized there were actual art supplies she could buy, she’d rarely been without a sketch pad. Drawing was a part of her. All her friends had learned that Sherry would always be drawing—and usually drawing the people around her—no matter what else was going on. They’d accepted her; had learned that just because there was a pencil flying in her hand and her nose was in her sketchbook didn’t mean she was ignoring them.

Her passion had driven her parents—both successful business owners, neither of them with any artistic ability or inclination—a little nuts. Both of them had small companies that could be handed down to Sherry if she would just do the smart thing: go to college and get a business degree. Or even better, a double major in business and something equally useful such as marketing or finance.

Sherry had double-majored, but in what she had found interesting: art and psychology. The psychology mostly because understanding what was going on inside the human mind made for more compelling drawings.

For the four years right after college Sherry had found moderate success in the art world. She wasn’t ever going to be rich, but she at least didn’t have to wait tables.

Then two years ago she’d stumbled onto what some people in law enforcement had termed her “obvious calling.”

Forensic art.

Sherry could admit it was the perfect blend of her natural artistic gifting and what she’d learned with her psychology degree. Once the FBI had learned that she was so good at it, she’d worked consistently—really beyond full-time—for them for the past two years. But if she had known the cost would be her love and passion for drawing, she had to wonder if she would ever have gotten involved with the FBI in the first place.

That seemed like such a selfish statement. She didn’t like to think that she would give up the breakthroughs she’d made in cases, the criminals she’d had a part in helping apprehend, just because it made her not want to draw anymore.

But she hadn’t even so much as picked up drawing materials for pleasure in more than six months. For the past five months, she’d drawn what she’d needed to for cases, although it had been difficult.

Then last month, after a particularly brutal case, the cold had started. She’d barely made it through her last two cases after that. Her boss at the FBI was glad Sherry was taking a couple of weeks off. It would allow her to “recover and come back fully recharged and ready to do what she did best—listen to a victim, get the picture in her mind and draw it so law-enforcement officers could put another bad guy away.”

That was a direct quote. And pretty much the farthest from reality than Sherry had ever felt.

How could she be ready to jump back into forensic art when, even now on vacation, with the vast beauty of the Gulf in front of her fairly begging Sherry to attempt to capture its beauty on paper, she couldn’t even pick up a pencil?

All she could do was keep from shivering and flying apart.

It was the third day of her two-week vacation in Corpus Christi. She’d actually made it outside today rather than just looking at the water from her house on the beach, one her parents owned but never used. So maybe she should cut herself a little slack.

She had made it to the beach today. That was enough. Tomorrow she would go a little further. Would actually pull out her sketch pad and draw something, even if it resembled a kindergartener’s stick figure. And even if she had to put a coat on to do it.

Maybe the day after that she’d actually take off her polar tundra gear and dip her feet in the Gulf. One thing Sherry had learned from working over and over with traumatized people was that you just had to take it a little bit at a time. It was okay to expect that same slow progress from herself.

In a few minutes she’d be driving into downtown Corpus Christi to pick up her friend Caroline. They’d gone to college in Dallas at the same time and had taken a few psychology classes together and then kept in touch. Caroline was a paramedic here in the city.

Sherry would at least slip on a short-sleeved blouse and skirt before meeting her friend. Caroline was already concerned about her. She would be even more worried if Sherry showed up dressed as she was now, particularly in this heat. Sherry hadn’t shared what was going on with her—she hadn’t wanted to worry her friend. But even without talking about it, she knew Caroline was concerned.

Dinner and margaritas on the back patio of Pier 99, a pier turned restaurant on North Beach, with a good friend and no pressures sounded perfect to Sherry.

No trauma. No stress. No need to force herself to draw. Just margaritas.

* * *

JON HATTON HAD a barbecue brisket sandwich—he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d developed an addiction to the Texas staple in his week of being here—almost up to his mouth when he received the brief text. Another rape victim. Memorial.

Even though it broke part of his heart, he dropped his half-eaten sandwich and stood.

Jon threw down a twenty, more than enough to pay for his meal at the diner plus leave the waitress a hefty tip, and was running out the door less than fifteen seconds after he received the text.

CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi—Memorial for short—was right smack in the middle of downtown. Jon knew where Memorial was. But not because of any information local law enforcement had provided him, only because of the maps he had studied.

Corpus Christi PD was pretty pissed that Jon, a member of Omega Sector: Critical Response Division, was even here. They had made it clear they didn’t find his skills as a behavioral analyst and expertise in crisis management needed or welcomed.

That was just too damn bad because they very definitely had a crisis on their hands. Corpus Christi had a serial rapist on the loose.

Five rapes in just over eight weeks. Actually six now, if the current woman in the hospital was also a victim. The local police, as probably any police force of a city this size, didn’t have the resources to deal with this type of situation. People were in a panic and no breaks had been made on the case.

Corpus Christi PD had wanted to handle the situation themselves. But once the story made national news, that option was no longer available.

Omega had been called in and Jon, highly experienced with situations where multiple skills would be necessary—profiling, crime and linkage analysis, investigative suggestions, multiagency coordination—had been sent.

Jon was good at seeing the overall big picture, at catching details other people sometimes missed. At taking all the individual pieces involved in a case of this magnitude and putting them together so that the whole was more than the sum of the parts.

He was also a pilot, an excellent sharpshooter and could kill a man a dozen different ways with his bare hands. But that probably wasn’t in his official dossier.

No matter what list of credentials Omega had provided for Jon’s arrival to help with this case, it hadn’t made any difference with the locals. Every piece of information was only reluctantly shared. Jon was the last person notified for any possible lead.

But call him Rhett Butler because, frankly, Jon didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t in Corpus Christi to sit around holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” He was here to stop a predator from victimizing more women.

A particularly smart predator who was too clever to leave behind any evidence so far.

So it wasn’t as if the Christi locals could be accused of not doing their jobs properly. Jon hadn’t been able to make as much as a single crack in the case himself, despite the time he’d spent in his week here interviewing victims and studying patterns.