“You survived the admiration of a ten-year old, how do you feel?” Michael asked me as I sat down in the security room.
“I am so glad you all got to hear that,” I answered.
“Ace is great with kids,” Gabriel said.
“It’s adults that are a problem,” Xavier snickered.
“I do like kids more than adults,” I answered. “Her brother might be headed for some trouble though. Notice he hung back with the guy that was not his dad?”
“I did,” Xavier answered. “Think the kids are going through a rough time?”
“Dad’s out of the picture and based on the facial structure of Barb and the mystery man, I’d say they were relatives, probably siblings,” I said.
“At least they have some sort of stable male influence in their lives,” Michael said.
“Yes,” I agreed. “So, have we seen anything suspicious here in the God room?”
“Mostly hooligans,” Gabriel answered. “Teens doing things they aren’t supposed to, like smoking, but we can’t arrest them unless they kill someone, so we’ve been mostly ignoring their infractions. What about you guys?”
“A ten-year old girl wrote a paper about me, I’m hoping her mother helped her do the research and censored the more violent parts. Most of the people here are just people, no one is jumping out of the crowd,” I answered.
“Nada,” Xavier agreed. “But we stand out.”
“How do you figure?” Michael asked.
“A ten-year old recognized Ace,” Xavier answered. “I’m sure others have as well. If our killer, either of them, recognizes her, it’ll cause a change.”
“I’ll stay in here the rest of the night,” I answered.
“That doesn’t really work,” Lucas’s voice joined the conversation. “It isn’t just you. We don’t do undercover for a reason. I don’t exactly blend in. I just had a young man tell me I was even bigger in person than on TV.”
“Maybe he thought you were Hulk Hogan,” I suggested.
“He was under twenty. I don’t think he knows who Hulk Hogan is,” Lucas answered.
“Maybe not,” I shrugged.
“I think Xavier and Gabriel are the least recognizable,” Michael pointed out. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but Lucas is massive, he’s like a mountain with hair and teeth and Ace is a sociopath with enough scars for ten people and as the only girl, the press really likes her.”
“Especially when I’m bleeding,” I interjected.
“Especially when she’s bleeding,” Michael agreed. “Gabriel and Xavier are the only ‘average’ looking people in the group, besides me, but I’m sort of busted up.”
“You could still go to the fair,” I narrowed my eyes. “Move out of the way, geek, I’m taking over your monitors, go do wheelies with the smoking teens or something.”
“Wow, you just got uprooted,” Xavier said. “And you did it to yourself.”
“No one will expect a crippled US Marshal to be looking for serial killers and bombers,” Lucas agreed.
“Shit,” Michael sighed. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“Yep,” I said. “While you are out, grab me a funnel cake.”
“Those things are terrible for you,” Xavier said.
“Explains why they taste so good,” I told him.
“Damn,” Gabriel stood. “Come on, the three of us will wander around, looking for crazies. I’ll make Homeland Security join in the fun.”
With that, they were gone. Lucas and I were alone in the control room with seven computer monitors hooked to wireless cameras that Michael had instructed be set out. Someone had hidden them well, I had even looked for them a few times and couldn’t find them.
“About earlier,” Lucas started.
“Nope, Doc, we are not going there,” I held up my hand. “If you want to go through that part of my head, you are going to have to buy me dinner first, probably several times.”
“It was a memory, a happy memory,” Lucas prodded.
“Funnel cakes accepted since we are at a fair,” I answered.
“I didn’t realize you could have happy memories,” Lucas justified himself.
“There are very few and while I respect you and am glad we are friends, my happy memories are mine and they are private.”
“I can respect that. I was just wondering if death was involved.”
“No, just the opposite,” I told him.
“But you can have happy memories?” Lucas asked.
“I can feel happiness, Lucas, it just takes a monumental event to make me happy.” That was incorrect. The trip I had taken with my parents’ hadn’t been monumental, it had been a small thing, a weekend away. However, despite being born a sociopath, my killing a serial killer as a child had changed me. It was the reason that memory was sacred, it was the last happy memory before ending up in the hands of a predator. Two months is a long time to go without a happy memory to fill the void.
Like all little girls, I had spent those two months going to school, doing homework and spending time with family. I hadn’t had many friends, even at that age, so I hadn’t attended a spectacular princess themed birthday party or gone to the movies with a group of kids my own age or even gone over to a friend’s house for an afternoon of goofing around.
Most people assumed I was a lonely kid. That wasn’t true. Loneliness was beyond my scope of emotions, it required you to long to be around others and I never had that longing. I preferred to be alone, it was one of the hallmarks of being a sociopath like me.
My attention was drawn to the bank of computer screens. Not because something was happening, but because nothing was happening. A huge flaw in our thought process became visible to me. We were sitting around waiting to find someone taking lots of photos or sneaking drawings onto napkins or in their notebook full of craziness. These were tools of the trade only if you didn’t have a eidatic memory. Malachi Blake had one. He was scary accurate at recalling everything. His girlfriends faded from memory only because he choose for them to disappear. They took up unnecessary space in his memory bank. However, the man could draw you an accurate map of my house when I was eight, including all the furniture, knick-knacks and photos on the wall. More frightening, he could draw it to scale, perfect scale, not even a millimeter off on the positioning of anything.
Most eidatic memories weren’t quite that good, but most didn’t belong to functional psychopaths. A normal person with a eidatic memory would still be able to build a replica of this fair and the positioning might only be a few inches off. Without knowing the state of mind for our bomber, it was hard to pinpoint how good his memory was, but if it was even three-quarters the ability of Malachi’s, he would never need to take a picture.
“This is pointless,” I said, leaning forward and resting my head on the counter. I made sure that the entire team could hear me. “We’d be better off with planning maps that showed the setup and scale of the fair.”
“Why?” Xavier asked.
“If I was blowing up a carnival, I would need to know where to start,” I said. “I’d need pictures.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Gabriel crackled in my ear.
“I know, but if Malachi was doing it, he’d just need to attend the fair and then go home and spend an hour thinking about it. If he had a bad night, he might have to draw a map while sitting on his couch drinking a beer,” I answered.
“You think he has a photographic memory now?” Michael sounded out of breath.
“It is something we should entertain,” Lucas put his hand on my back. “Ace seems to have had an ‘ah-ha’ moment about it.”
“Getting you maps. Adams should be able to get us aerial photos of it tomorrow,” Gabriel said.
“For the record,” I didn’t look at Lucas as I turned off my communicator. “This is not a happy memory. This is a ‘feeling like an idiot’ memory, I have a lot more of those than happy memories.”
“You are many things, Aislinn Cain, but an idiot isn’t one of them,” Lucas said. “We all have IQs over genius level and none of us thought of a eidatic memory for our bomber. Well, maybe not Michael.”
“If that was an attempt at humor, it failed.”
“This must be what it’s like for you to be depressed,” Lucas said. “You have an interesting supply of emotions, even if it isn’t that large.”
“The good news is we have once again outwitted Homeland Security who believes every perpetrator requires a camera.” Xavier walked into the room. “Gabriel is currently arguing with Adams about the photos and maps.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Yes,” Xavier said. “I might have head trauma, but I’m not deaf.”
“Permanent brain damage isn’t head trauma,” Lucas asked. “It’s brain damage.”
“Semantics,” Xavier waved the argument away. “Even with brain damage, I’m smarter than you.”
“That’s true,” Lucas said. “Ace, go lock the door.”
I did as I was told. Lucas stared at Xavier. I stared at Xavier.
“I haven’t had a chance to ask,” Lucas finally continued. “How are you doing knowing we have a serial killing sniper?”
“I’m fine, Lucas,” Xavier answered. “No nightmares, no flashbacks, nothing to indicate post-traumatic stress disorder beginning to manifest. If it does, I’ll have Gabriel remove me.”
“You’ve giggled less,” I told him.
“I haven’t had you around,” Xavier answered. I considered that. There might be some truth to it. While Xavier found a lot of inappropriate things funny, he controlled it better when I wasn’t around. I brought out the worst in Xavier’s damaged sense of humor.
“You had him giggling earlier,” Lucas pointed out.
“Yep,” Xavier leaned back in his chair. “I’m fine with this, but thanks for caring.”
“I always care,” Lucas answered.
“Meh,” I shrugged. “I don’t know how to answer that.”
“You care,” Xavier said. “In your own twisted way, you care. My dearest Ace, I believe that you would throw yourself into the fires of hell for me. You may not be able to tell me that or even show it in a way other than actually doing it, but I know.”
“That was very sweet,” Lucas said.
“It is getting deep in here and I did not bring my waders,” I said. “Can we move to something less mushy?”
“There’s the Ace we know and love,” Xavier leaned a little further back.
“Don’t tip over or you’ll end up with a skull fracture, like me,” I told him.
“See, proof you care,” Xavier put the chair back down on the floor. “How do we figure out the ride he’ll target?”
“Easy, everything has a lynchpin,” I answered.