Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

"Sarah. Look at me."

The little girl turned to the policewoman.

"You hold on to my card. And you call me if you need me." She indicated Karen Watson with a nod. "Understand?"

"Okay."

That's it, huh? That's all you're going to do for her?

The inevitable reply came, the one that Cathy pulled out in any situation that demanded more intimacy than she was willing to give: It's all I've got right now.

She was an old hand at ignoring the feeling of shame. She wasn't in quite enough denial to blame it all on dear old Dad, though. A

Karen had helped Sarah pack her clothes and shoes. She had been act ing really nice again. Sarah had understood: There were other people watching. Once they were alone, she'd known that Karen would turn mean again.

They were driving now, and sure enough, Karen was giving her angry looks. Sarah didn't care. She was too tired.

"Messed up a good thing," Karen muttered. "Not like you have many options. Well, now you'll see what happens when you can't get along."

Sarah had no idea what Karen was talking about. Something bad. She was too sad to be afraid.

Theresa, Theresa, why why why? You should have talked with me. We were sisters. Now I'm all alone again.

They had pulled up to a large one-story building, made of gray concrete and surrounded by fences.

"Here we go, princess," Karen said. "This is a group home--you'll be staying here until I feel like giving you another chance with a foster home."

They got out of the car. Sarah followed Karen to and through the front door of the home. They walked down a hall until they got to a reception desk. A tired-looking woman in her forties stood up. She had brown hair and was the skinniest person Sarah had ever seen. Karen handed a form to the woman.

"Sarah Langstrom."

The woman read over the form, glanced at Sarah. She nodded at Karen.

"Okay."

"See you later, princess," Karen said. She turned around and walked away.

"Hi, Sarah," the woman said. "My name is Janet. I'm going to get you settled into bed for now, and then I'll show you around in the morning, okay?"

Sarah nodded.

Don't care, she thought. Don't care about anything. Just want to go sleep.

"This way," Janet said.

Sarah followed Janet down the hallway, through one set of locked doors, then another. The walls were painted institution green. The floors were worn linoleum. The home looked like every other heavily used but grossly underfunded government building in the country. The hallway they were in now was lined with doors. Janet stopped in front of one and opened it, taking pains to be quiet.

"Shhh," she said, putting a finger to her lips. "Everyone's asleep."

Janet kept the door open a crack so they could use the light from the hallway. Sarah saw that she was in a large room, fairly clean, filled with six sets of two-tier metal bunk beds. Girls of various ages were sleeping in each.

"Over here," Janet whispered, indicating one of the sets of beds.

"The bottom bunk will be yours. The restroom is down the hall. Do you need to go?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, thank you. I'm tired."

"Go to sleep, then. I'll see you in the morning."

She waited until Sarah had crawled under the covers before leaving. The door clicked shut and now it was dark. Sarah wasn't afraid of this dark, because she was in that place again, where she wanted to (Be nothing)

She didn't want to think about Theresa or Dennis or blood or strangers or being alone. She just wanted to close her eyes and see the color black everywhere.

She had started to fall into an exhausted sleep when she was woken up by a hand at her throat. It was choking her. Her eyes flew open.

"Quiet," a voice whispered.

The voice belonged to a girl--a strong girl. The hand around Sarah's neck was viselike.

"My name is Kirsten," the voice said. "I run this room. What I say goes, period. You got it?"

She loosened her grip on Sarah's neck. Sarah coughed.

"Why?" she asked once she'd caught her breath.

"Why what?"

"Why do I have to do what you say?"

A hand came out of the dark. The slap rocked Sarah's head, and the pain was shocking.

"Because I'm the strongest. I'll see you in the morning."

The shadow was gone. Sarah's cheek ached. She felt more alone than ever.

Yeah, but you know what?

What?

At least you're not being a crybaby.

She realized that this was true. What she was feeling wasn't grief. It was anger.

As she began to fall asleep again, the words Kirsten had said came back to her.

I'm the strongest.

A final flare of anger.

Not forever.

She fell into the blessed black.

Hey, there. Me again, back in the here and now. Looking back at it, Kirsten wasn't completely wrong, you know. That's the truth of the group home: The strongest ones rule over the weaker ones. She taught me that, although I wasn't thankful then. Hell, I was only six. Now I'm older, and I know the truth.

Someone had to do it.

I learned that lesson good.

I put the diary down again as the rising sun greets me through the windows. There's no way I can finish this before I have to go in to work, but at least I have my answer: No one believed her because he covered his tracks when he killed the Langstroms. No one was after Sarah, they'd probably thought, she was just having a run of really bad luck. This was borne out by the events that followed with her first foster-family.

That being the case, a new question arises: Why had The Stranger decided to come out into the open now?

I ignore all of the other questions, the ones about Sarah and the landscape of her soul; those edges are far too sharp for such a beautiful sunrise.

B O O K T W O

Men Who Eat Children

30

I CURSE THE RAIN AND READY MYSELF FOR THE RUN TO THEfront steps of the Los Angeles FBI building.

Southern California had very little rain and a whole lot of sun for nearly a decade. Mother Nature is making up for lost time with a heavy rainstorm every three days or so. It started in February and it's been going on for two months now. It's wearing thin. Nobody carries an umbrella in Los Angeles, even if they should. I'm no exception. I stuff the copy of Sarah's diary into my jacket to protect it, grab my purse, and poise my thumb so I can hit the lock button of my key fob on the run.

I open the door and sprint, cursing, cursing, cursing. I'm drenched by the time I arrive.

"Rain got you good, Smoky," Mitch remarks as I pass through security.

No response beyond a smile or a grimace is expected. Mitch is the head of security for the building, a grizzled ex-military man; fifty-five or so, fit, with hawk eyes and a certain coldness to him. I drip-dry on the elevator as I head up to the floor my office is on. Other agents ride up with me, looking just as bedraggled. Everyone got drenched; each region has its own piece of stubbornness. This is ours.

The current incarnation of my position is known as NCAVC

Coordinator. NCAVC stands for "National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime" and it is headquartered in DC. Every bureau office has someone in charge of being the local "rep" for the NCAVC, a kind of Amway network of death. In sleepier, slower places, one agent covers multiple areas of responsibility, NCAVC Coord being just one of many hungry mouths he or she has to feed.

We're special here. We get some of the best psychos around, in a volume that justifies a full-time Coordinator In-Charge (me) and a multiagent team. I have been in charge of my team for almost a decade. I hand-selected everyone; they are the absolute best around, in my notso-humble opinion. The FBI is a bureaucracy, so there are always rumbles and rumors about changing the name or the composition of my squad. For now, we are here, and we are generally more than busy. I head down the hallways, turning right and then left as I continue to drip on the thin, tight-woven gray carpet until I get to the NCAVC