Second Interlude

Special Agent Andrea Devereaux of the Behavioral Sciences Investigative Division didn’t dare to pull her head away from the sink long enough to investigate anything. The coughing was subsiding, but she still felt like she had been gargling pond water all morning long. When she was confident she didn’t have anything left to spit out, she poured a shot of Listerine and swished it around with a sense of determined desperation.

The trip to Oklahoma was not her favorite expedition with the BSID. She had been looking forward to a trip to the pumpkin patch with her nieces this weekend in New York, not a gruesomely weird case in Oklahoma. Picking up and leaving at the drop of a hat came with the territory of hunting serial killers and rapists. Andrea had dreams of becoming the FBI’s first female director and the BSID was a good career path for her to use to get there. But Oklahoma was making her seriously rethink her life’s direction.

The crime photos had been nasty, but not the worst she had ever seen. The trouble didn’t really start till they got to the lake to investigate the suspect’s vehicle. Andrea usually had a sharp memory, but she could barely recall the lake at all. A thick fog had settled over that part of her brain. When she tried, all she could think of was that thick leather bound book…and the terror that it conjured inside of her. It was insane to think that decorated Special Agent Devereaux could be scared of a book, but that one particular tome...

She must be getting sick. That was the simplest explanation: some bad food on the plane or an armrest she should have sanitized, but didn’t. But agents didn’t let illness interfere with their job. Andrea had absolutely bombed the interview with the suspect, Colin Fisher. Her questions, or what she could remember of them, had been all over the place. Without plan, without direction, Fisher had easily stayed ahead of her. He had gotten away with murder once from all indications…and her sickness was helping him do it again.

She stared long into the bathroom mirror after she spewed out the mouthwash. Her hazel eyes, a mixture of brown, green, and gold stared back at her, the same as they had from every mirror for as long as she could remember. Andrea hoped that whatever had gotten into her system was out of it now. She needed to be at her very best for the rest of this investigation.