I glared at Rhodes. "Get over it. If you're going to be so stubborn that you can't see the benefit of the FBI paving the way for cooperation with local jurisdictions that have a vested interest in seeing these murders solved, then perhaps we should part ways now," I said.
"Oh, no," Rhodes spoke forcefully and took a step toward me. "You're not getting out of our agreement so easily, Eriksson. You promised that I'd be with you every step of the way on this one, and that's exactly where I plan to be."
"Then deal with David, because I don't do this without him."
Rhodes turned away and literally stomped toward the private jet waiting on the tarmac. David looked at me.
"What?" I snapped.
"Well handled, Helen. I could do this with you and we wouldn't have to rub his nose in the fact that I'm helping."
"He needs to snap out of this, David. The guy acts like a petulant child. And why? Because we wouldn't let him have carte blanche with a serial killer that would have chewed him up and spit him out in ten seconds flat?"
"Beating him into submission isn't likely to win him over," David said. "In the first place, you were right about how raw all of that mess still is with him. Shriver has been dead nearly a decade and Mr. Rhodes looks as distraught as the day he was finally captured."
"I need you with me to do this," I admitted. "I don't care of Rhodes doesn't like it or can't comprehend why, but I need you, David."
His warm fingers gripped my shoulder firmly. "He still doesn't know, does he?"
"Who, Rhodes? Why should he?"
"I meant Johnny."
"He knows enough. There's no reason that he should shoulder all of my burdens, David. With you…"
"It's easier," he sighed. "We were shoulder to shoulder through most of the horrors you've faced. I'm sorry. I should've left you alone from the very beginning rather than selling you some rose-tinted dream of how together we could make a difference."
"Well, we're going to make a difference. We're going to find out why these dissimilar cases are linked together or die trying. If the husbands aren't killing their families, where are they? If someone else is responsible for this bizarre carnage, who is it, and why does he feel the compulsion to kill the way he does?"
David's smile was weak at best. "Seems we need each other, Helen, even after all these years and how everything has fallen apart for both of us."
I frowned, but before I could ask what was wrong with his life, Rhodes appeared at the top of the stairs to the small jet. "If you two are done with your lovey-dovey reunion, do you suppose we could get back to work?"
I started to snarl, but David stopped me. "In some ways, this guy is a lot like Shriver, Helen. He wants to provoke reactions from us. Let's not forget his cameraman is already on that flight and probably shooting footage of our conversation through one of the windows on the jet."
With a grin, I nodded. "You're probably right."
"So are you going to tell me which city we're visiting first?" he asked as we resumed our stroll across the tarmac.
"It made sense to me to work backward both geographically and chronologically," I explained. "The more recent the trauma, the fresher the memories. Johnny's taking care of the family in Darkwater Bay. Actually, he said that Katrina Gates family is closer to Montgomery. We know that she met her husband in college, that Gates was in post-graduate studies when his wife was an undergraduate. He's thirty-five, if he's still alive."
David concurred. "That thought occurred to me. What better way to throw off the police than to make it look like the husband committed the murders before vanishing with him to dispose of elsewhere."
"I figured it would be best to talk to the families of the wives first," I said. "I don't want a bunch of statements from grieving mothers who might be in denial that their little precious baby boys would ever commit such heinous crimes.
"So our first stop in Denver is only where we land. Selina Markinson's family is actually from a tiny little community in the mountains, Conifer. It's southwest of Denver. According to Google Maps, it'll take us about an hour to drive there from the airport."
"Do they know we're coming?" David gestured for me to mount the stairs first.
"No, and I didn't tell Rhodes our first destination either. I didn't want him forewarning people that we're coming."
"You think I'd do that?" Rhodes eyed us with hostile cynicism as we approached the threshold to the jet.
"I think you're angry enough at the world to lead with emotion instead of logic," I said bluntly. "Get it under control, and we won't have a problem. But I swear to God if you mess this up, there will be consequences that your status as the everyman avenger can't even withstand. These are people's lives we're talking about, Jeremy. I won't have you taking the lead or thinking you know better than we do."
He kept himself distant, both physically and emotionally for the duration of the flight, roughly two-and-a-half hours. When we climbed into the bureau-issue SUV and began crossing Denver on Interstate 70 westbound, he still held his tongue.
David and I discussed strategy.
"Her parents are in their late sixties," David said. "I had the local field office do a little background research for us. Bob Dooley and his wife Cindy have been retired since shortly after the murders of their daughter and granddaughter."
Noise from the back seat snagged my attention to the rearview mirror. Rhodes was scribbling something into a small notebook. His cameraman was engrossed in something on his tablet.
"Anything else?"
"Conifer is a sleepy place, and the Dooleys have become reclusive from all accounts."
"Have you done that kind of background research on all of the victim's families?" Rhodes asked.
David turned slightly. "It's a matter of expediency, Mr. Rhodes. We don't like walking into situations blindly, and contrary to what you may believe, the last thing we want to do is re-traumatize people who have suffered enough already."
"Did the Dooleys have other children?" I asked.
"A son, older than Selina. He lives in Chicago."
"We have his particulars?"
David nodded. "For all of the extended families. I presumed that you might like a broader picture when we briefly discussed this trip last night."
"Where was I when this discussion took place?" Rhodes demanded. "You promised I'd be involved every step of the investigation, Eriksson."
David turned once again while my eyes met Rhodes' in the mirror and held for two beats longer than safe while navigating through Denver traffic, even on a Sunday afternoon.
"I believe you were outside the state police annex with Detective Vickers trying to decide if you could tolerate my presence, Mr. Rhodes," David said smoothly. "While I understand your reticence to breathe the same air I do, our investigation doesn't stop while the whims of your moods are settled."
I clamped down on the urge to chuckle at the uncharacteristically rude comment from David.
"So who's actually going to ask the questions to these people?" Rhodes slid seamlessly away from David's barb.
"I think they should come from Helen," David said. "She's the psychologist. She's the one trained to observe responses, to know when to push, know when to pull back. I'm a cop at heart. The last thing these people need is to feel like I'm interrogating them. Your celebrity isn't likely to make them feel anything other than used for ratings," he added.
Piling it on a bit, aren't you, David? Maybe they'd be thrilled that someone with a national, perhaps even international platform is showing interest in their daughter's murder.
"Fine," Rhodes snapped. "Provided she asks the right questions."
"If you've got suggestions, I'm open to consideration," I said, mostly because I was curious about how Rhodes got people to open up in front of a camera. I'm not so filled with hubris at my own expertise that I didn't realize the man had a definite knack for pulling people out of their shells and getting them to talk. It was a skill I wasn't willing to dismiss.
"Why?" Rhodes interrupted my internal musing. "Are you planning to deceive them into believing this is a united front?"
"Jeremy," I sighed, "how many times do I have to tell you I'm sorry. What else could we have done?"
"He demanded to see me and you prevented it!" he yelled.
He of course, being Harley Shriver.
David's growl burst from his throat. "The man wasn't going to tell you anything, Mr. Rhodes! He wanted to see you to paint an image of the last moments your son lived in your mind so he could—"
"David!" I gasped sharply. After his strong warning to me, I couldn't believe Rhodes had pushed him so far that he'd retaliate by telling him the ugly truth about Shriver.
"Get off on it until the day he died," David finished his statement.
The thin air in the vehicle had little to do with the rising altitude as I drove to Conifer. Rhodes' eyes were wide, his weathered skin almost as gray as the cloud cover in Darkwater Bay.
"What did you say?" he hissed.
"His sadism was never directed toward the children he killed," David was practically babbling now, as if Johnny had somehow converted him to Catholicism while I wasn't looking and Rhodes had become the Father Confessor. "His thrill came in torturing those boys' fathers, men like you. He targeted men who were particularly involved in their sons' lives, Rhodes. Don't you get that? He didn't snatch kids born to deadbeat dads, or men who were so focused on their careers that they were barely visible in the family. He stalked you. He learned that you'd blow off a business meeting if your son had a play in preschool or a little league game.
"We found mountains of evidence of how thoroughly he studied his real subjects! The kids were tragic in that they were merely the tools he used to get to his real victims, you."
By the time David finished his tirade, I pulled over on the side of the road and had my face buried in my shaking hands. But David wasn't done.
"Two of your fellow victims were allowed an audience with that bastard," his voice was low and tremulous. "He ejaculated in his prison garb just watching their torment. And you want to hate us for sparing you that memory? Fine. Hate me. But know this, Mr. Rhodes. There was no way that he would've given you any peace by telling you where your son's body is located. Even if he'd given you that, he'd have planted himself in your brain like the cancer he was and tormented you until you killed yourself. And even that would've given him pleasure."
The only audible sound came from the passenger side of the vehicle—David in the front and Rhodes in the back. The cameraman and I sat in stunned, horrified silence. It was for different reasons, but the manifestation was identical. That poor cameraman was horrified that a human being could be that evil. And I couldn't begin to process why David, a man I'd seen stay cool, calm and collected in the face of various repulsive situations, would lose it so thoroughly because of Jeremy Rhodes' anger, particularly only a day after he forbid me to tell Rhodes the unvarnished truth.
The panting hurt and anger finally died down to deafening silence. Rhodes broke it.
"It would've been worth it to honor my son, to have a place where we could visit and show him our love."
"Your son had no idea what happened to him," David said dully. "The dead have no awareness. He wouldn't know that you visited anyway. You have other kids, dammit. Did you give them half the attention you did to Keith?"
"Screw you, Levine," he snarled. "Don't you speak his name. And how dare you mention my other kids? I loved them and protected them—"
"Sure you did, buddy," David interrupted. "You had so much spare time in the moments where you weren't on my ass demanding to see Shriver. How old are your other son and your daughter, Rhodes? Adults by now, surely. How often were you actually there for their important moments like you were for Keith's? Do they resent the big brother that died before they were born?"
"Shut up!" Rhodes screamed.
"David, stop it this instant. This isn't helping anything," I pled.
"How about your wife?" came the next brutal question. "Has she stood by you all these years that you've been obsessed with revenge against the people who prevented other fathers from suffering what you did? Was she by your side when you testified before Congress and lobbied for legislation to protect children?"
"Enough!" I barked. "What is wrong with you, David? Jesus, this man has suffered enough, more than you and I could imagine in ten lifetimes. This is his child you're dismissing! I won't listen to another word."
The wild look in his eyes receded, replaced quickly by the dawn of recognition of his highly inappropriate behavior.
David cleared his throat. For half a second, I thought he'd do the right thing and apologize. Instead, he turned to look out the window and muttered, "You stopped driving. I'd just as soon not navigate down unfamiliar mountain roads in the dark, Helen. We'd better get moving if you're going to have enough time to meet with the Dooleys."
Something was dreadfully wrong with my oldest friend. If I were completely honest with myself, I'd have had no choice but to admit that the man sitting beside me was a complete stranger.
Unfortunately, I've always been a consummate liar.