Heather Graham - Dark Rites

“You’ve worked with him?”

“No,” Rocky said, “but I did meet him at a crime summit a few months back. Guy is brilliant and looks like a mad professor, right? Crazy white hair and thin as a sack of bones?”

“Yep. That’s him,” Griffin agreed. He drummed his fingers on the table. “I don’t know what he can tell us about our dead man that we don’t already know. He appeared to be healthy before, young and hardy looking. And now dead. Suicide capsule. What makes someone do that?”

Rocky took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Well, usually you have to be more afraid of living than you are of dying, I imagine.”

“Right. Afraid of what—or who—he had to face.”

“That’s a solid theory, anyway,” Rocky said.

“If we look at most things that have had to do with that kind of behavior—suicidal sacrifice behavior,” Griffin said, “it’s usually because we’re looking at those who feel disenfranchised or forgotten. If we look at history, men and women born in dirt and poverty are willing to practice terrorism when they’re promised something wonderful on the horizon—a special place in heaven or Valhalla or Mount Olympus. From Japan to Germany to the Middle East, Ireland and beyond. Those who feel that they have been chosen by a higher power to strike back at their oppressors are often ready to fight and die, whether it’s beneath a hail of bullets or on a suicide mission. Then again, there’s the fear that if you don’t carry out the suicide mission, what comes next will be even more terrible.”

“You think we’re looking at domestic terrorism?” Rocky sounded doubtful.

“No, no, I really don’t. So far, people have just been sent to the hospital. We’re not looking at anyone having been murdered—that we know about. But I believe that some kind of statement is being made, that there is something larger going on.”

Detective Barnes came into his office.

“The body is at the morgue, the forensic team is done in the streets and the techs are trying what they have to get an ID on the body. Autopsy won’t be until tomorrow, so we won’t really have real physical answers until then, but then you know that, and you know that we have been able to get Dr. Theodore Loeb on our case. I swear, if there is anything we can get from the body, Loeb will get it.”

Barnes was, in Griffin’s mind, a good cop. He was willing to put in whatever hours were needed. He had nearly a decade more experience on the force than Griffin, but had no qualms about working with him or the FBI.

Except that now he looked at Griffin, and then Rocky, and shook his head.

“Ah, hell! We couldn’t just be pleased—we couldn’t just be certain that we’d gotten the attacker—and that the newest craze in Boston beatings was over. No...you think it’s something deeper, and that we’re about to find out.”

Griffin glanced at Rocky and shrugged.

Devin Lyle tapped at the door and then walked in, carrying a foam tray with four large coffee cups.

“One is for me?” Barnes asked.

“Of course,” Devin assured him. She was about five-nine with a headful of long black hair. Devin had great stature, though; in her “real” life, she wrote children’s books. She still had the ability to appeal regal—and very authoritative.

“Thank you, thank you!” Barnes said.

Then he rose. “I suppose I’m glad I have a few specialists from your division of the bureau here. But I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to run the attacker’s fingerprints, see if he’s in the system.” He started out, then turned back. “Oh! I’ve got a report written up for Alex Maple. I’ve pushed accepted protocol around on this, you know. But we’re looking for his phone, and we’re checking out his apartment. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”

“Thank you, Barnes,” Griffin told him.

“Yep. All right, I’m getting out of here.”

“Actually, this is your office,” Griffin reminded him.

“I do know that. You all take your time. If I don’t find you here, I’ll call when I’ve got something.”

“Thanks.”

He left them.

Devin silently handed out coffee.

“So, nothing yet?”

“Nothing but musings,” Griffin told her.

“And they don’t bode well,” Rocky added softly.

* * *

“Wow,” Vickie murmured to herself. She realized she’d been on the computer for hours.

She looked at her watch; she knew it was late, of course. Paperwork did take a long time. She had to give up working for the night, though.

Her shoulders were beginning to hurt!

She winced, rubbing the back of her neck, wishing Griffin was there to do it.

Then she remembered that she had promised she’d make it worth his while to hurry home.

A wicked little smile crossed her face. She leaped up, heading to shower and shave her legs, now hoping that he wouldn’t arrive until she was ready. After toweling dry, she touched up with some makeup.

Since he was the only other human being in the world to have her key, she figured she was safe with whatever she did. And so, wearing nothing but a towel and a pair of spiked heels, she set up a perch on the sofa with throw pillows. She brought out an ice bucket and, since she didn’t have any champagne, opted for two bottles of Sam Adams beer. All the while keeping an ear out for the entry door to her complex—an old brownstone converted into four apartments.

Lastly, she arranged a plate of strawberries and chocolates and set them at the end of her little throne, right by the ice bucket. She turned most of the lights off and set just a couple lamps down low.

She took off the towel, curled her legs beneath her and posed and waited.

“Ho-hum, eh? Call this ho-hum!” she said aloud.

Then, of course, she felt a little ridiculous, naked on her sofa with high heels on. But their lives seemed to be twisted all the time by life-or-death situations, and—with Griffin’s work—it always would be that way. He’d told her that agents learned to seize their personal time, love it and embrace it. It was how they all managed in their world day after day, to appreciate every life they saved—and accept when there was damage they could not stop.

She decided to turn on the television—if she just held the remote control, she could keep it low and ditch it the minute he came in.

The news was filled with the evening’s reports. A recording of Detective Barnes was shown, giving out what information he could. The assailant was as yet unidentified. Yes, he had committed suicide with a pill; exactly what it contained, forensic experts would soon inform them. Did he believe there would now be a stop to the assaults? The police would be investigating all avenues, along with agents from the FBI.

He promised that new information would be forthcoming as they had it. He reminded the citizens of Boston and environs that they were a large and important city and never immune to harm; whether they had stopped the assaults or not, residents should always be vigilant.

As the news rolled to the next story, Vickie was certain that she heard someone at the building’s front door.

She quickly switched off the television—Griffin didn’t need to hear about the night he had experienced.

She switched into what she hoped was a truly sexy pose.

She heard the key in the lock. And the door opened.

For a split second, she froze.

And then she let out a scream.

* * *

At first, Alex Maple stared in disbelief at the man—the creature?—who came toward him. His mind was not working at all well, he determined.

Why would it be working well? He’d been kidnapped; he was a prisoner in a defunct loony bin!

Get it together, Alex. Survive! he told himself.