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"A profile," Special Agent Johnson said, "of the type of person who might
commit a crime like the ones we've experienced this week the strangulation of
Amber Mackey, for instance, and the kidnapping of Heather Montrose might sound
something like this: He is most likely a white heterosexual male, in his late
teens or early twenties. He is intelligent, perhaps highly so, and yet suffers
from an inability to feel empathy for his victims, or anyone, for that matter,
save himself. While he might seem, to his friends and family, to be a normal,
even high-functioning member of society, he is, in fact, wracked with inner
misgivings, perhaps even paranoia. In some cases, we have found that killers
like this one act the way they do because inner voices, or visions, direct
them to "
That's when it hit me. I'd be listening to his little speech, going, Hmmm,
white heterosexual male, late teens, sounds like Mark Leskowski, highly
intelligent, inability to feel empathy, yeah, that could be him. He's a
football player, after all, but a quarterback, which takes some smarts,
anyway. Then there's that whole "unacceptable" thing.
Only it can't be him, because he was with me when Heather was kidnapped. And
according to the EMTs, those wounds she'd sustained were a good six hours old,
which meant whoever had done it and Heather still wasn't talking had attacked
her at around eight in the evening. And Mark had been with me at eight....
But when Allan got to the part about inner voices, I sat up a little
straighter.
"Hey," I said. "Wait just a minute here...."
"Yes?" Special Agent Johnson broke off and looked at me expectantly.
"Something bothering you, Jessica?"
"You've got to be kidding me," I said. "You can't seriously be trying to pin
this thing on my brother."
Jill looked thoughtful. "Why on earth would you think we were trying to do
that, Jess?"
My jaw dropped. "What do you think I am, stupid or something? He just said "
"I don't see what would make you jump to the conclusion," Special Agent
Johnson said, "that we suspect Douglas, Jessica. Unless you know something we
don't know."
"Yes," Special Agent Smith said. "Did Douglas tell you where you could find
Heather, Jessica? Is that how you knew to look in the house on the pit road?"
"Oh!" I stood up so fast, my chair tipped over backwards. "That's it. That is
so it. End of interview. I am out of here."
"Why are you so angry, Jessica?" Special Agent Johnson, not moving from his
chair, asked me. "Could it be perhaps because you think we might be right?"
"In your dreams," I said. "You arenot pinning this one on Douglas. Noway .
Ask Heather. Go ahead. She'll tell you it wasn't Douglas."
"Heather Montrose did not see her attackers," Special Agent Johnson said
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lightly. "Something heavy was thrown over her head, she says, and then she was
locked in a small enclosed space presumably a car trunk until some time after
nightfall. When she was released, it was by several individuals in ski masks,
from whom she attempted to escape but who dissuaded her most emphatically. She
can only say that their voices sounded vaguely familiar. She recalls very
little, other than that."
I swallowed. Poor Heather.
Still, as a sister, I had a job to do.
"It wasn't Douglas," I said vehemently. "He doesn't have any friends. And he
certainly has never owned a ski mask."
"Well, it shouldn't be hard to prove he had nothing to do with it," Special
Agent Smith said. "I suppose he was in his room the whole time, as usual.
Right, Jessica?"
I stared at them. They knew. I don't know how, but they knew. They knew
Douglas hadn't been in the house when Heather had disappeared.
And they also knew I hadn't the slightest idea where he'd been, either.
"If you guys," I said, feeling so mad it was a wonder smoke wasn't coming out
of my nostrils, "eventhink about dragging Douglas into this, you can kiss
good-bye any hope you might have of me ever coming to work for you."
"What are you saying, Jessica?" Special Agent Johnson asked. "That you do,
indeed, still have extrasensory perception?"
"How did you know where to find Heather Montrose, Jessica?" Jill asked in a
sharp voice.
I went to the door. When I got to it, I turned around to face them.
"You stay away from Douglas," I said. "I mean it. If you go near him if you
so much aslook at him I'll move to Cuba, and I'll tell Fidel Castro everything
he ever wanted to know about your undercover operatives over there."
Then I flung the door open and stalked out into the hallway.
Well, they couldn't stop me. I wasn't under arrest, after all.
I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't. I mean, I knew the United States
government was eager to have me on its payroll, but to stoop to suggesting
that if I did not come to their aid, they would frame my own brother for a
crime he most certainly did not commit . . . well, that was low. George
Washington, I knew, would have hung his head in shame if he'd heard about it.
When I got to the waiting area, I was still so mad I almost went stalking
right through it, right out the door and on down the street. I couldn't see
properly, I was so mad.
Or maybe it was because I'd just gone for so long without sleep. Whatever the
reason, I stalked right past Rob and my parents, who were waiting for me on
different sides of the room in front of the duty desk.
"Jessica!"
My mother's cry roused me from my fury. Well, that and the fact that she
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flung her arms around me.
"Jess, are you all right?"
Caught up in the stranglehold that served as my mother's excuse for a hug, I
blinked a few times and observed Rob getting up slowly from the bench he'd
been stretched out across.
"What happened?" my mom wanted to know. "Why did they keep you in there for
so long? They said something about you finding a girl another cheerleader.
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