CHAPTER TWELVE
“Hmm.” Kate pursed her lips and processed the information Marcus had just given her. “You think he’s our guy?”
“I don’t know if he’s the guy or if his client is,” Marcus admitted, “but he is definitely hiding something.”
The two of them were eating an early lunch at a Cuban café near a crowded beach.
Well, all of Miami’s beaches were crowded.
This one just happened to be crowded enough that the general hubbub would drown their voices out while they talked so they couldn’t be overheard.
It also spared them the need to go to their hotel room and possible awkwardness.
“Did you call Rivera for a subpoena?”
“Yeah, it should be coming soon. I guess Maxwell’s a known quantity.”
Kate raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“He crosses paths with law enforcement a lot. Typical P.I. bullshit. Pushing the boundaries of legal surveillance, impersonation, harassment, stuff like that.”
“How does that put him on the FBI’s radar.”
“Oh, sorry. Not the FBI. The court system.”
Kate crossed her arms. “So, he knows he can drag his feet, and it’ll be a while before he has to stop dragging them.”
“Exactly. Meanwhile, he can warn his clients, talk to a lawyer, and turtle up so tightly he could fart and we wouldn’t smell it.”
“Lovely analogy, Marcus,” Kate noted. “How did he seem, though? Did he seem like he could be the killer?”
Marcus thought for a moment, then finally admitted, “No. Not him. He’s too practical. The killer wasn’t practical at all.”
“Maybe from their perspective they are,” Kate said.
“I decoded more of the cipher. One of the verses referenced was Matthew 5: 30. ‘If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.’”
Marcus frowned. “That’s King James Version, right?”
“Yes, it’s a different version than the other verses, but I don’t think that’s important. Just like the last killer, this one is personal. Our killer was cheated on, and they’re taking it out on people who encourage others to cheat.”
“We don’t know that for sure, Kate,” Marcus reminded her. “We know that someone’s killing them for breaking the seventh commandment, but we don’t know that the motive is personal.”
“You don’t think cutting a person’s genitals off is personal?”
“I don’t think it’s evidence.”
Kate sighed heavily. “Okay, I’ll accept that we don’t have proof that the killer isn’t taking this personally. So maybe there is a practical purpose. Maybe they’re cutting the offending part of their victims out to save their souls.”
Marcus leaned back and crossed his arms. “Then why not cut out their tongues? The voice box part makes sense, but the Carltons didn’t lose their tongues or voice boxes.”
“No one was around to hear the Carltons scream.”
Marcus sighed. “I’m just saying it would make more sense if that’s the commonality.
They’re not screwing other people. Well, the Carltons were, but if the reason for this is that they’re leading others astray, then it’s not their private parts that are offending, is it?
Same with Dr. Hammond. She lost her voice box, true, but she also lost her genitals.
That’s not the part of her that offended. ”
“Yeah, maybe not,” Kate said. “All right. We’ll wait for the warrant, I guess. In the meantime, I’ll look through Dr. Hammond’s patient list.”
Marcus’s eyes widened. “You got permission to do that already?”
“With restrictions and some severe warnings about what will happen if any of that information is misused, but yes, Winters greenlit a search of her office, and the judge signed the warrant.”
“Wow. Thank God for small blessings.”
“I’m hoping it’s not a small blessing,” Kate said. “You want to look through them with me? It’d be nice to have another pair of eyes.”
Marcus shook his head. “I’m going to go through the Carltons’ list again.” He slid from his chair and reached for his wallet, and Kate said, “No, it’s fine. I’ve got lunch.”
“I can pay for lunch, Kate,” he growled with sudden irritability.
His tone stung. In fact, it made her angry. “Well, I’m going to pay for it. If you want to be moody, then I guess you have another reason.”
He looked away, and Kate regretted her tone.
But for God’s sake, this was getting old quick.
“Come on, Marcus, let’s just put things aside, all right?
We’re partners right now. Let’s just go back to being that, and when this is over, we can reapproach the other thing.
I’ve been hiding too. I’ve been dragging my feet too.
It’s not just you, and I realize that. We kind of rode a high for a little while, and now the high is wearing off, and we have to do some actual work.
But we have to do this work first. Right? ”
Marcus’s pursed lips bounced up and down slightly as he nodded. Then he met her eyes and smiled. A rueful smile but a real one anyway. “Yeah. We do. Thank God you’re more mature than I am.”
“You’ll grow up eventually,” Kate said, returning his smile. “Can I hug you, or will you have to back up and fork the sign of the cross at me?”
He laughed, then pulled her into a bear hug.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply of his rough, musky scent.
Her entire soul yearned for him in a way it had wanted nothing and no one else her entire life.
Under any other circumstances, she would have thrown caution to the wind and dragged him to the nearest dark corner to consummate their relationship, but these weren’t other circumstances, and she did have to be an adult.
So, she told herself it was enough. They were partners and friends again. That was good enough for now.
He released her and clapped her on the shoulder. “Talk to you soon, buddy.”
She smiled wryly. “Sure thing, pal.”
Marcus’s laughter carried to her as she paid for the meal. Marcus hadn’t taken the car, so Kate drove toward the field office, reaching for her phone to call Rivera.
It wasn’t Rivera she ended up dialing, though. She needed advice about a subject Rivera couldn’t help her with, and despite her best efforts, she couldn’t seem to stop fixating on the subject.
After four rings, a pleasant, mellow, and slightly gravelly voice replied. “Kate my lovely Valentine. How are you?”
“Been better,” Kate said.
Gabe’s voice grew instantly serious. “What happened? Are you in trouble?”
“No, nothing like that,” Kate said. “I’m in Miami working a case.”
“Ah,” Gabe said, his relief palpable. “You want my help with a cipher.”
Dr. Gabriel Levine was a linguistics professor at New York University, one of the premier voices in that field, particularly when it came to Ancient Near Eastern languages like Aramaic, which formed this killer's cipher.
He was also the man who had pushed Kate to join the FBI.
After her father was killed fourteen years ago, he suggested that she take her natural talent for cryptography to the FBI.
That decision had given her life direction.
She often came to him for advice on ciphers, but she reached out to him for advice in other areas from time to time as well. It was for one of those other areas that she talked to him now. “Actually, no. I have a more… personal question.”
Gabe hesitated a second. “Ah. I should warn you, Kate, I’m not an expert on interpersonal relationships. I find it much easier to read hieroglyphs than most women. Please forgive me. I know that sounds sexist. If anything, take it as a disparagement of myself.”
“No, I wouldn’t… I know you’re not sexist.” She sighed. “I just… don’t have anyone else to talk to.”
That wasn’t true either. She had her mother, but she didn’t want to talk to Catherine about Marcus. Her mother would only scoff and encourage her to stop thinking of “that woman’s feelings” and be direct with Marcus about their future.
“I’m always here for you, Kate,” Gabe said gently. “What do you need from me?”
Tears came to Kate’s eyes. She didn’t think they would fall, but she pulled into the parking lot of a shopping mall anyway. “Well, Marcus and I have been dating.”
“Ah! Your handsome partner! That’s wonderful!”
Kate took a deep breath. “Yeah, it was supposed to be.”
“Ah,” Gabe said once more. “I sense that the advice you wish is related to this not-as-wonderful-as-hoped relationship.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I just… Well, he and I have been dating for three months, but we haven’t done anything more than kiss.”
She laughed, realizing the ridiculousness of calling him about this.
When he didn’t react by making a joke or telling her how awkward it was to hear her talk about this with him, though, the rest just came pouring out.
Their months of dating, the one real kiss they’d shared, the careful avoidance of Cheryl until Marcus suddenly pulled back, Kate’s subsequent accusation that Marcus was the one responsible for slowing everything down, their makeup session a few minutes prior, and Kate’s fear that Cheryl was once again going to pull Marcus back, and she was going to react badly and lose her friend and partner along with her relationship.
When she finished, Gabe sighed. “Oh, Kate. You’re in quite the mess, aren’t you?”
She laughed, but not because he was being ridiculous. No, he’d hit that nail right on the head. “Yeah. Looks like it.”
“You know, I wasn’t lying when I said my experience in relationships is limited, but I am very confident when I say that relationships between colleagues rarely work out.”
A knife twisted in Kate’s chest. “No. I guess they don’t.”
“I’m not saying your relationship with Marcus won’t work,” Gabe said, “but you guys will need to approach it differently. Dating is for getting to know people. It’s awkward, exhilarating, sometimes intense, and often wonderful—and I mean that in the strict etymological sense. Full of wonder.
“You two won’t have the luxury of enjoying that stage. You two know each other very well already. There’s no need for you to arrange social interactions designed specifically to help you get to know each other.”
“That’s not why we were doing it, though. We were just taking it slow because he was in the middle of—is in the middle of divorcing his wife.” She flushed. “God, that sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”
“It sounds like avoidance,” Gabe replied, still gentle but also unyielding.
“You both want each other, but you both realize that now’s not the right time.
If he’s in the middle of a divorce, he’s hurting, and you see an opportunity.
So, you went for it. Now the other shoe has dropped, and you’re both confronting the reality that the timing isn’t where it should be. ”
He stopped there, and his words hung in the air, thick and weighty like smoke. “Yeah,” she finally said softly. She sniffed, scratched the tip of her nose, then dropped her hand onto the steering wheel. “So, he’s right. We should take a step back until he figures Cheryl out.”
“Don’t lose hope, Kate,” he said, and now his voice was just gentle. “The worst thing you can do right now is push when he needs time to close the door on his last marriage. Let him finish that chapter of his life. Then he will be entirely yours.”
Or he’ll decide that he’s entirely hers. He’ll go back, and they’ll make it work this time, and I’ll get to spend the rest of my career making myself look happy for my partner when really, I just wish his ring was on my finger, not hers.
But she knew that thought was selfish, and since she decided to think about a wedding ring, utterly ridiculous and about three years too soon. So, she had no response to make but, “All right. Thank you. I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else.”
“Take heart, Kate. The road to happiness is convoluted and full of ruts. You two will make your way there. Don’t be dismayed if you occasionally have to pull over and change a tire.”
Kate chuckled. “Yeah. I’ll do that. Thanks again.”
“Of course. Call me when it’s all said and done so I can say I told you so.”
She laughed again. “I will.”
He hung up, and Kate sighed and looked through the windshield for a moment. She tried to hold onto optimism, but it was hard to do that when the man she wanted was still hung up on another woman. Maybe he wasn’t in love with Cheryl anymore, but he was still chained to her.
She was running out of other options, though. Or rather, she was running out of reasons to act like she’d ever had other options.
She started the engine and called Rivera. She had a job to do. For once and all, her personal life had to wait. It wasn’t fair to the victims for her to fixate on Marcus.
Their killer, after all, wasn’t having trouble focusing. Their eyes were focused entirely on the task at hand. If Kate couldn’t do the same, then she was consigning others to the same bloody fate that the Carltons and Dr. Hammond had suffered.