Chapter 4

Jessica swirled her margarita glass and, glancing over the salt-encrusted rim, took another sip. She couldn't believe her roommate had stood her up. They were supposed to meet at O'Shea's before happy hour was over—two-for-one grande frozen margaritas. She watched as a couple more college kids came in the door. The pub was busy; most of the dark, heavy tables were already occupied, and people were standing three deep at the bar and congregating in the hallway that led to the pay phones and bathrooms.

She liked O'Shea's because it wasn't just a college-kids hangout—she could go to the student center if she wanted that. But older guys came, too, guys already out of school—lawyers, teachers, cops. Last week she'd met this guy who was a resident at the local hospital. She wouldn't mind dating a doctor, and her parents certainly wouldn't complain.

Jessica drained her glass and pushed it across the smooth, polished wooden bar. She'd already had two. If Leanne wasn't coming, she didn't know that she should order two more. She'd be stumbling back to the dorm with four margaritas on a stomach of bar popcorn and the pop tart she'd eaten when she got up at noon.

"Come on, Leanne," she muttered, glancing at the door again. Her roommate said she had to stop by her biology professor's office to schedule a lab she'd missed, but how long could that take? Unless, of course, Leanne was flirting with him. Jessica liked her roommate, but she wasn't crazy about the way she manipulated professors by using sex. Leanne claimed she rarely had to sleep with a guy or girl, that usually flirting with them was enough to get a passing grade, but Jessica didn't care. It wasn't her style. She did, however, have to admire Leanne for how open she was about being bi. It took a lot of guts to be like that at twenty-one years old.

"Ready for two more?" the bartender asked.

"I don't know." Jessica spun around on the bar stool. Jay was cute. Once in a while he even gave her a free drink. "I don't really need two more." She laughed, already half drunk.

"Neither do I," said the person on the next bar stool over. "You want to order two more together and we'll split the tab?"

* * *

I don't know what made me go into O'Shea's, a bar so close to home where I could potentially be recognized in my present emotional condition. Not that it would matter if I was recognized; after all, I am a part of the community. I just have to be careful. Think before I act. With that nagging investigation into the accident still going on, I can't take chances. It's something I probably need to talk with Dr. Fisher about without giving details. Why am I taking this risk?

I look up over the rim of my glass. I don't really like margaritas, but the coed on the stool beside me is so cute. Her face is so fresh, so alive with all the possibilities a college girl has before her. Before I can catch myself, I am offering to have a drink with her. No, it is more intimate than that. I know it the moment her green eyes meet my gaze.

"It's just margaritas that are two for one," the girl says, glancing at my beer.

I shrug, smiling. Someone reaches over me, throwing money on the bar. "Bar dude, another four margaritas over here when you get a chance."

My new friend and I look up at the drunk between us and our gazes meet. We are on the same wavelength. I don't have to say a word. We both smile.

"Jay, two more when you get to it," the young woman beside me calls to one of the three bartenders.

"You got it, Jessica."

The drunk wanders away and I lean closer so I can be heard. Happy hour is almost over and the bar is now packed, smoky, loud. There is no live music because it's a weeknight, but Dave Matthews's voice comes from the round speakers strategically placed on the dark beams overhead. People are starting to get lit on the twofers. Names and faces are beginning to blur, which is what I realize I am counting on.

"You're a student at Chesapeake Bay, right?" I ask.

She smiles. She doesn't seem to care that I am older than she is. Maybe she is even a little flattered.

She nods, leaning closer so I can hear. "Psych major."

"Thinking about going into counseling?"

"Maybe troubled teens." She folds the damp napkin in front of her one way, then another, as if it is a piece of origami paper. "A safe house for battered kids, maybe pregnant teenagers." She shrugs. "I don't know yet."

She certainly does not. Sitting here beside her, looking at her adorable WASP face, I can guess not only her religious background and ethnicity, but I can probably guess her socioeconomic status, even what kind of car her parents gave her on her sixteenth birthday. Young women like this have no idea what troubled teens are faced with. Her biggest agony in the last three or four years has probably been whether to give up her virginity on prom night.

I have known girls like Jessica. I still have the scars to prove it.

"Wow," I hear myself say. "Giving back to the community. That's awesome."

The bartender delivers two frozen margaritas.

Jessica and I put our money on the counter at the same time and laugh. It is silly, I know, inane. But isn't the whole human mating dance inane? And that is what is going on in O'Shea's tonight. Of course these college kids, the young professionals, don't see it as mating per se. Most of them are looking for a one-night stand. Hot sex with a stranger, hopefully a stranger who won't remember you in the morning. But I know it is that innate desire in all humans to continue to reproduce that brings them to bars, to parties, even to Mass on Sunday mornings. Every place, every situation is a potential hunting ground. Life is all about sex. Procreation. The other hours are just filled with anger, pain, ugliness, to make the day go by.

Jessica lifts her glass and giggles. "Well, cheers."

I listen to the tink of the glasses as the two collide. Salt falls to the bar top and she presses her finger to the tiny granules and then touches her finger to her lips.

I watch, mesmerized. I set my glass down without partaking. She doesn't seem to notice.

"So what about you? You're not a student." Again, the giggle.

I smile, making myself what she wants me to be. I have learned that technique well over the years. I can be almost anything to anyone, at least for a short time. Self-preservation. "It's a dull tale. You here with someone?"

She rolls her green eyes, tucking a lock of brown hair behind one ear. She has the prettiest hair that falls past her shoulders, all glossy like a silk curtain. I find myself wanting to touch her hair as she tells me about her roommate standing her up. I pretend to listen, pretend to be interested, but it is her hair that fascinates me, not her inane conversation. It is such perfect hair for such an obviously imperfect person.

We talk for another twenty minutes, about what, I'm not even sure. Then she slides off the bar stool. "Hey, you leaving me?" I ask, ducking as a waitress lifts a tray over my head to get past me.

"I should be."

"But you haven't finished your margarita," I tease.

"You mean, yours." Someone bumps into Jessica and she grabs my shoulder, pressing her right breast against my arm. "I gotta pee," she says.

I just smile. "Then come back and finish my drink. No sense letting it go to waste."

She lifts her lashes, looking into my eyes. I know that look. And I know that we will walk out of O'Shea's together.

"Be right back. Watch my purse?" She lays the small black leather bag on her bar stool to keep someone from snatching up her seat.

"Sure." I smile. Watch her weave her way through the crowd. She is very drunk.

Here is where my evening takes an unexpected turn. Without any preconceived plan, from the pocket of my jacket I remove a bubble pack of tablets I have used before in other bars, though not so near to home. I pop one into my hand, hesitate, then pop another, for a reason I cannot fathom. My heart is pounding in my chest as I draw my hand over the glass that is mine and drop in the tablets. Slipping one hand back into my pocket, I raise the glass, swirl it, lift it to my lips to pretend I am drinking.

As I lower it to the bar, I glance around. The guy sitting on Jessica's other side left his bar stool at the same time she got up to go to the bathroom. Someone slides into it a moment later. Jay the bartender has disappeared into the back. A young woman seems to have taken his place. Shift change, perhaps, or maybe Jay is one of those young men who doesn't believe the surgeon general's warnings on cigarette packages. Maybe he is taking a smoke break outside the back kitchen door.

A moment later, Jessica returns. As she walks toward me I take in the tight blue jeans and t-shirt, her youthful stride. Again, she lays her hand on my shoulder as she squeezes past several guys doing shots, to take her seat again. She smiles and raises the margarita glass to me and then to her lips.

I watch her drink, imagining the dissolved rohypnol gliding down her throat. She said she was hungry; her stomach was empty. The drug will reach her bloodstream even faster.

"You want another?" I ask as she tips the glass back and licks the rim.

She shakes her head and reaches into the half-empty bowl of popcorn one of the bartenders has put out. "I'm already going to have a headache tomorrow." She crams the popcorn into her mouth.

I finish off my second beer. Chat. Within ten minutes, her forehead begins to break out in beads of sweat. Her speech becomes noticeably slurred.

"I... I don't feel so well," she says, wiping her forehead. "Hot."

"Maybe you just need something to eat."

She shakes her head. "Nah, I better go." She slips off the bar stool and sways. "Whoa."

I press my hand to her back to steady her. "You going to be all right? You want me to walk you back to your dorm?"

She walks away, bumping into a girl, splashing a drink down her t-shirt. "I'm... f... fine," Jessica slurs, disappearing into the crowd.

I make myself remain on the bar stool, giving her time to weave her way out the door, allowing plenty of witnesses to see her leave alone. I have already paid the bar bill. I get off my stool, which is immediately claimed by a young man with dreadlocks. I go down the hallway toward the bathrooms, then, checking over my shoulder to see that no one is looking, I slip out the emergency exit door, which has been propped open by someone.

The door opens to the alley that runs along the side of the bar. There is a tall fence overgrown by shrubs and vines. As if staged by a world-renowned director, Jessica comes stumbling toward me.

The alley is empty and cast in heavy shadows. It is meant tobe.

"Jessica," I say softly, my heart pounding. She believes she is going to counsel abused teens, unwed mothers, I think with scorn.

She looks up, disoriented. I don't even think she recognizes me. Her breathing is labored and she is sweating profusely, both side effects of the drug. "Head hurts," she mumbles.

I reach out to catch her and she is in my arms. Her life is mine. She sways and falls back and I feel her full weight against me. "Here," I hear myself say. "Take some aspirin for that headache."

"Don't want..." Her head falls against my arm. I pop another roofie from the package in my pocket and press it to her lips. She swallows it and there is no turning back for me.

In a moment of brilliance, I tuck the bubble pack into her purse. Just the other day I read in the Baltimore Sun how teen girls were using the so-called date-rape drug to lower their sexual inhibitions. How tragic.

"F... feel... s... sick," Jessica pants, pressing her face into my chest.

"Shhh," I soothe, stroking her silky hair. "It's all right."

* * *

Faces in the bar swirled around Jessica. She caught herself on the edge of the bathroom sink. Dizzy. Disoriented.

Time skipped, a stone on a pond's surface.

She could feel the cool air of the evening on her bare arms. Saw the security light overhead. She was in someone's arms. A gentle voice. Leanne? Had she finally shown up just in time to drag Jessica home and put her in bed?

She'd had too much to drink. Too many margaritas. Not enough popcorn...

"Feeling better, Jessica?" the voice asked.

She opened her eyes and realized she was having a hard time catching her breath. She was breathing—she could feel her chest moving, but she felt like she was holding her breath under water. Something wasn't right. She wasn't in a pool. Wasn't in her dorm room. Wasn't in the bar. Outside. A dog barking. The sound of nearby street traffic. She gazed up into the eyes of the person who held her.

A stranger? She had to be dreaming. A nightmare.

She saw the knife.

Jessica felt herself falling, saw the stranger's face looming overhead. She heard herself scream... or was that just in her dream, too?

* * *

Adam was typing in the last bit of the information on the Palmer file before he submitted it to Crackhow when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the little screen; it read Liza Jane. "Hey," he said picking up.

He continued to peck on the keyboard. "What's up?" He glanced at his watch. "Only ten-thirty—you're up early."

"I have a nine A.M. class on Wednesdays, Dad. Look, the reason I'm calling is that something's going on down here that you might want to know about." She hesitated. "This girl, a student here, was found dead behind O'Shea's this morning."

"You're kidding." He stopped typing. Despite its proximity to Baltimore and D.C., Ashview was a quiet place with a hometown feeling. There was very little crime, mostly break-ins, a shoplifting, no more than a mugging a year, and then it usually involved college students and some kind of payback. It was part of the reason why Adam had wanted Liza Jane to go to Chesapeake, instead of Temple in Philadelphia.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I'm on my way over now."

He heard the sound of a car horn and pictured his only child darting through traffic to make a newspaper headline. "Liza Jane, you don't belong at a crime scene."

"So you think a crime has taken place?" she inquired. "You don't think the girl just died?" It was her reporter's voice, the same he'd heard on her first four-minute spot on the college's TV station the other night—she'd come on right after Fraternity Row.

"Liza, this isn't the kind of thing you play games—"

"I'm not playing games, Dad. Look, I got to go. They've got the street blocked off, but I know a way around through the alley."

"Liza Jane, wait. You—"

"I'll talk to you later, Dad."

She hung up, leaving Adam to stare at the cell phone in his hand. Should he call her back? She probably wouldn't answer if he did.

A dead girl behind O'Shea's. How bizarre was that? The community would be reeling; first the four frat boys, now this young woman.

Grabbing his cell phone, he got out of his chair and walked down the aisle of cubicles, past the water fountain. He leaned over M.K.'s half wall. "Hey, you want to take a ride to Ashview?" he asked quietly, looking around to see who else was there. It was pretty quiet; most of the field agents were out of the office.

"What's up?" She was already out of her chair, reaching for her black jacket.

"I don't know. Nothing, probably." He halted, then went on. "I just got a call from Liza Jane. She says there's a dead girl behind O'Shea's—a little pub just off the Chesapeake Bay College campus."

"Some connection with the dead boys?"

"I can't see how," he said slowly. "Just bizarre coincidence."

"How'd she die?"

"I don't know. My sleuth hadn't reached the crime scene yet. I was thinking maybe I would head that way. She gets arrested, you know, I can bail her out."

"I'll go with you. Sure." She walked past him. "Just let me tell Crackhow what's up."

"M.K., I don't think that's necessary." He followed her down the hall. "Sometimes it's just better if you go fishing on your own. Come back to the boss if you find something."

"Just to cover ourselves."

"Yeah, but—" He put out his hand. "What excuse do we use?"

"No excuse." She halted at the assistant SAC's door, knocked, and walked in.

"Something interesting going on in Ashview, Captain," she said. "Special Agent Thomas and I are going to have a look."

He peered up from the unrelenting piles of records on his desk. "Something to do with the auto accident? The senator's office is still calling every day."

"Report's about done, concluding there's nothing to report. Kids driving drunk. Tragic accident."

"So what's going on in Ashview that would concern the Bureau?"

M.K. hesitated for a moment, and Adam considered coming to her rescue, but this was her idea to begin with.

"A dead girl behind a bar. No connection to the Palmer boy at all, sir, but I think when you send that report over to the senator's office, it would be a good idea for us to be knowledgeable enough to be able to say so."

In spite of himself, Adam almost smiled. The woman had an entirely different approach than he did, but he couldn't help but be impressed.

"You say Thomas's going with you?" Crackhow looked down at the form in front of him.

"Yes, sir."

"Report back to me. And I want the Palmer file on my desk in the morning."

"Yes, sir." M.K. walked out.

"Pretty slick," Adam said.

She lifted a shoulder. She seemed taller to him than she had the first week they had worked together. At the very least, not so helpless.

"My turn to get the car," Adam said, walking past her. "Meet you downstairs."

"Get one with lights and a siren," she called after him as she walked around the corner.

"Yes, ma'am."