EPILOGUE
An FBI field office was never empty, even in Portland, but it was much quieter than normal when Kate stepped into the building.
She’d convinced Marcus to drop her off and go shopping for groceries, arguing that even Cox wasn’t crazy enough to try to attack an FBI field office, and she’d be safer there than in public.
It was a weak argument, and Marcus knew it, but he also knew or seemed to know that Kate needed to be by herself, so he said nothing beyond promising to pick her up at noon. He waited at the curb until Kate entered the building, then drove off.
Poppy was watching the desk. She gave Kate a bright smile and said, “Hey, Kate. How are you feeling?”
Kate hated knowing that experience would dull Poppy’s smile and deaden her bright eyes, but one could only spend so much time staring into the abyss before it leached away the lighter parts of one’s soul.
“I’m hanging in there, Poppy,” Kate said. “Thanks for asking.”
She passed the desk, and Poppy called after her, “Is there anything I can do? I can look something up for you, maybe help figure out where Cox is going or find out for sure if he’s dead.”
Kate smiled softly. “We’ll know if he pops up, and we’ll definitely figure it out if he’s dead. I’m good for now. Thank you.”
“Okay. I… Um… Okay.”
Kate continued to the locker room. One day, when Cox was nothing more than a memory, she’d take Poppy out for dinner, and they’d enjoy some girl time.
She’d give the young agent some tidbits of wisdom gleaned from experience and leave her with some encouraging final thought.
Poppy would take that and hold it close to her heart as she matured and learned to be the agent she was destined to be.
Or more likely washed out of field work and took an analysis track. She was better suited for that anyway.
The air in the locker room felt ten degrees cooler than the rest of the building.
Despite the drop in temperature, the rancid odor of old sweat was still prevalent underneath the intense pine and lemon of the cleaning chemicals.
This was an old building, and decades of desperation, frustration, and depression had left an aroma that no amount of disinfectant could eliminate.
She opened her locker, turning the padlock left to five, right to fifteen, left to thirty-nine, then left a full circle again, and then to eight.
The numbers were random, a string she'd come up with on the fly when she first joined the FBI.
That randomness made her locker the most unassailable part of her life.
Which was why she kept the most precious object of her life inside of it.
She lifted the medical bag out and sat on a bench near the shower.
Other aromas mixed with the sweat and Pine-Sol here, Lilac-scented shampoo, aloe body wash, hints of both male and female virility from rare but intense connections formed from time to time between people who spent their lives poring over the details of others’ deaths.
She ran her fingers over the bag, soaking in the feel of the oiled sheepskin, still supple thanks to the expensive solution of lanolin and ambergris Dr. William Valentine used to care for it and the fact that Kate had only pulled it out of her locker fifteen times over the past fourteen years, once every year on her father’s birthday and now.
When her fingers numbed to the softness of the sheepskin, she unhooked the two brass clasps that held the bag closed and opened it.
A smell wafted from it, temporarily overpowering the other odors in the room.
Cedar, sandalwood, and the faintest hint of tobacco.
Her father rarely smoked, but as Kate’s mother was wont to remind him, rarely wasn’t the same as never.
She breathed deeply of that smell, closing her eyes and picturing him standing there, holding that bag, smiling at her as she ran to greet him. His kind eyes always shone with such love. He wasn’t there as often as Kate would have liked, but when he was there, his love was clear and powerful.
She held onto that love as she opened her eyes and reached for a small seam in the corner of the back wall of the bag, just above the bottom. She found it, and her fingers teased open the hidden pocket and caught the corner of a photograph.
She pulled it out and looked at the little girl grinning up at the camera, her freckles standing out harshly against her fair skin, auburn hair teased into curls for the first and only time in her life.
A stuffed armadillo was clasped tightly in one hand while the other hand was clasped within her mother’s.
Catherine’s face wasn’t visible in the photograph.
If Kate remembered correctly, she was watching a man walking through the zoo with a corn snake, preparing to warn him that if the snake came within six feet of her, it probably wasn’t going to survive.
Kate smiled, recalling the grin on her father’s face as he took the photograph. They had visited the Lincoln Park Zoo. Kate was over the moon. She’d never seen so many animals in her life. A lion had looked right at her and roared!
Her smile faded. Cox knew about this photograph. According to him, her father had shown him the photograph. When? Why? How had they known each other? Was Cox lying about all of it? And if he was, how had he known about this photograph?
A spark cut through the gray of Kate’s mind. Soft at first but growing in heat and intensity the more she looked at the photograph. When it blazed enough to consume her thoughts, she put the photograph away and carefully replaced the bag in her locker.
She closed the padlock and left the room, heading back for the front desk. “Poppy?”
Poppy's head perked up, her green eyes glowing brightly behind wide, round spectacles that, for a wonder, weren't fogged at the moment. "Yes?"
"I might have something you can help me with if you can keep it quiet. You can say no if you think that will be a problem."
Poppy hesitated, but only for a moment. “You can count on me, Kate.”
Kate smiled at the young agent. “Good.”