is to escape. Survival.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, though I guess it was. “It’s just scary. Someone like that out there . . . Have they come up with anything about . . . why?”
“They’re working on it. Brass and Brad are on it. But he’s going to be a tough one to crack. There was just no sign at all. The wall between his two lives was as thick as a bank vault’s door. On some of them we just never get through. The unexplainable ones. All you know is that it was there inside them. The seed. And then one day it metastasized . . . and he began doing what he was probably only fantasizing about before.”
I didn’t say anything. I just wanted her to continue, to talk to me.
“They’ll start with the father,” she said. “I heard Brass was going up to New York to see him today. That’s one visit I wouldn’t want to have to make. Your son follows you into the bureau and turns out to be your worst nightmare. What’s that line that Nietzsche said? ‘Whoever fights monsters . . .’ ”
“ ‘Should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.’ ”
“Yeah.”
We were both quiet for a few moments, thinking about that.
“Why aren’t you out there?” I finally asked.
“Because I’ve been assigned to desk duty until I’m cleared on the shooting . . . and my other actions.”
“Isn’t that academic? Especially since he isn’t even dead.”
“It should be, but there are other factors.”
“Us? Are we one of those factors?”
She nodded.
“You could say my judgment is being questioned. Getting involved with a witness and journalist is not what you’d call standard FBI practice. Then there’s this that came in this morning.”
She turned over a sheet of paper and handed it to me. It was a faxed copy of a grainy black-and-white photo. It was a picture of me sitting on a table and Rachel standing between my spread legs, kissing me. It took me a moment to place it and then I realized it was the hospital emergency room suite.
“Remember that doctor you saw looking in on us?” Rachel asked. “Well, he wasn’t a doctor. He was some freelance piece of shit who sold the photo to the National Enquirer. Must’ve snuck in there in his disguise. It will be on the cashier stand at every supermarket in the country by Tuesday. In keeping with their aboveboard journalistic ethics they faxed this over and asked for an interview or at least a comment. What do you think, Jack? How about ‘fuck you’ for a comment? Think they’ll print that?”
I put the fax photo down and looked at her.
“I’m sorry, Rachel.”
“You know, that’s all you can say now. ‘Sorry, Rachel. Sorry, Rachel.’ It doesn’t look very good on you, Jack.”
I almost said it again but instead just nodded. I looked at her, brooding for a moment about how I could ever have made the mistake I made. I knew then it had cost me my chance with her. Feeling sorry for myself, my mind ran through all the parts that had made the whole and had convinced me of something my heart should have known was wrong. I was looking for excuses but knew there weren’t any.
“Remember that day we met and you took me down to Quantico?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“That was Backus’s office you put me in, wasn’t it? To make my calls. Why’d you do that? I thought it was your office.”
“I don’t have an office. I have a desk and work space. I put you in there so you’d have some privacy. Why?”
“Nothing. It was just one of the parts that seemed . . . to fit so well before. The calendar on the desk, it showed he was on vacation when Orsulak . . . So I thought you lied to me about not having a vacation in so long.”
“We’re not going to talk about this now.”
“Then when? If we don’t talk about it now we never will. I made a mistake, Rachel. I’ve got no acceptable excuse. But I want you to know what I knew. I want you to understand what I—”
“I don’t care!”
“Maybe you never cared.”
“Don’t try to put it on me. You’re the one who fucked up. I wasn’t the one who—”
“What did you do that night, the first night, after you left my room? I called and you weren’t there. I knocked on your door and you weren’t there.