Cal was looking into the mirror. It was too early in the morning for his taste; he brushed his teeth, mouth-washed, tilting his head some and yawned. He then gargled, cleared his throat and observed himself critically. Minor contempt was written all over his face. Cal spit and opened the medicine cabinet.
Closing the cabinet door in another part of town was Torres - briefly putting her hair up and sipping her coffee. She was beamingly calm and content, but barely paid any attention to her own facial expressions for having plenty other things at her hand and the obvious lack of time.
Beginning to rush, she spilled some coffee, but managed to avoid getting it on her blouse.
And Locker didn't. At this moment he was standing by the counter at his high tech kitchen, wiping coffee off his shirt. He just rolled eyes at himself as if saying "typical me" and continued, hoping to get off the stain that was clearly there for good.
Gillian Foster was buttoning up her blouse. Her apartment was dead-quiet. She couldn't help, but notice how habitually tensed she started to look after these several passed weeks. But she felt somewhat relieved too and didn't need to look at the expressions to validate that.
Emily was at Cal's. When he walked past and petted her on the head, she was checking herself out in the mirror before school, cheery and upbeat, music blasting in her headphones.
A fair amount of hours passed, before the man sitting on the front seat of the white van on a distant parking lot pulled his headphones off with a short: "We got a hit, move!"
Wide fancy white doors were busted open and the masked men wearing black uniform got in, targeting people in the room.
It was likely to be an upscale black tie party. Masked men were pushing their way between guests, grabbing them by the shoulders and looking closely into their faces.
"He's not here".
Someone accidently pushed over the pyramid of glasses and liquid flooded the room.
Cal walked into the wide opened doors, looked around and grimaced in a suggestive manner: "Champagne?"
Foster walked in one step behind him gesturing "No" and "Not very appropriate, Cal" with her whole body language.
Cal glanced at the guests, mockingly asking: "What? No one?" - Was it about the champagne or the FBI failure, or much rather – both?
Guests were lead for questioning into the next room and the search started.
Almost immediately one of the officers called "Sir!" – He found a small black cell phone, laying in a puddle of champagne together with the broken glass.
The phone was put into plastic and the expert commented on the find: "It's unlikely we're gonna find any fingerprints on this".
"Those could be faked like in the earlier scenes and it's not like we have the DNA" - was detective's answer.
Foster and Lightman were standing behind the large white doors in a well-lighted carpeted hall.
- So the signal came from the party? Foster stood close to Cal, her arms folded.
- Likely. What I don't get is: why risk it? – Cal began gesturing extensively, pointing towards the doors - I mean all guests had to check in at the security desk downstairs. Thus he knew he would be seen. - Cal pointed his finger down as if grounding the made statement.
Gillian unfolded her arms and made a matching gesture, only her fingers were pointing up, suggesting that there's more to the question:
- Yet he's not here. Loker has been checking security cameras - nothing. Associate?
Cal grimaced.
- You know he couldn't. But I guess it's their working version now – Cal pointed at large men walking past them.
- So what do we do?
- What we do best – observe – Call grinned, turned and started walking quickly.
- Did you mean interfere? – Foster was catching up with him, smiling. Her high heeled elegant shoes dipped the thick carpet.
- Any luck? – Foster was standing by the table in the corner of the room, which had cameras and laptops, where Locker and Torres were working. The questioning has already come to an end, but they were still running the tapes.
Locker shrugged, trying his best to avoid eye contact with her.
Torres too looked visibly frustrated:
- None. Couple of them showed recognition of the man on that picture we have, but they all haven't seen him in a while. Their answers are odd, but truthful.
- Odd how? - Cal voiced his question from the middle of the room, where he hunched watching how the experts were crawling the carpet for any extra evidence.
- The whole story is odd: some claim they have known him to be a good man, but they haven't seen him since he "became not the man he was".
Foster shuddered at that phrase.
Without as much as raising his head from the laptop monitor, Loker added: "That of course implies also that he has been shown on the national TV as a serial murder suspect".
- Found something? – Cal interrupted, seeing how the experts livened up.
- It's a footprint possibly closely resembling the one of our suspect's.
- What the hell does that mean?
Cal roughly put his foot near the precious footprint and raised it at once: "Maybe this could be your possibly closely resembling?"
- Cal... Don't... – Foster was at his side, tugging on his sleeve.
Cal turned to face her and his expression changed instantly as they looked at each other. Cal's words sounded heartfelt:
- But he is...
- I know. – Gillian stared at him for a moment before proceeding to talk to the detective.
- So what does this leave us with? Disguise?
- There's no sign, madam. The place was thoughtfully searched and all the guests were checked. Again - no sign.
- That's not the first time. There should be a way he does it. – Foster's last phrase was mostly directed at Cal.
Lightman was chewing on his lips for long moments and then grinded his teeth: "Alright. Get me every guest of the stature more or less matching to your stupid footprint".
- But what for? We've checked - he's not there.
– Thank me later. Now get on it!
Detective cursed and left the room, taking one of the experts with him.
Cal turned to Gillian:
- Foster, I'm gonna catch the bastard, I promise. Look for the clues again – we might be missing something and it might need your judgment to figure this one out. Torres, Loker – with me!
Cal entered the large kitchen area, equipped good enough for any restaurant out there, where the men were gathered for the following interrogation.
- Now which of you is him? Sadistic bathe-in-blood-before-breakfast type, anyone? Oh! You, you and you! – Cal was pointing his finger – Shame on you for the "sadistic", but A+ on disgust for the blood-bathing.
Lightman circled the men, preying on their facial expressions closely and continued:
- I know you're a brilliant liar, but I promise I will show you just one photo and you will be fried. - The tank of oil that was right there, sitting on top of the oven.
Loker and Torres were watching Lightman through the old-fashioned round windows that the kitchen doors had.
- What do you think? - Asked Loker. He then turned to Torres and added– I think Cal lost it, this is madness. They're all showing exactly the same facial expressions – fear, disgust and ah – a good deal of amusement. Innocents. Well, not innocent innocents – scum and savages, but not our case anyhow.
Torres was barely listening – she was watching the scene closely instead. Lightman's suspects were indeed acting alike: confronting him, then turning their heads looking for a possible way out. There was something that she couldn't yet interpret, but it was certainly there.
Suddenly she rushed into the kitchen; Loker's panicked voice following her through the door:
- Torres, no!
Torres stopped in front of the group and pointed at one of the men:
- Him!
Lightman became a fury:
- Are you out of your mind? Get out! – He stepped close to Torres, grabbed her arm and gestured at the men. - They were showing nothing useful whatsoever! No signs! Do you realize what you just did?!
Torres only pointed at the man again:
- Him.
Lightman bowed, looking at her face upwards:
- Why?!
Torres hesitated:
- I don't know. But it's him.
Cal breathed out loudly and turned to the man – same as any of these slimy bastards, he was trying to loudly talk his way out now, gazing around for support of the group.
Cal looked at the suspect's reflection on the perfectly polished fridge door right at the moment the man saw his own reflection.
Seeing what he saw, Cal jumped, pushing the large man face first into the fridge door:
- So is it? He then turned his head to the agents - Chain this one before I fry him!
The man, yelling, was taken away and the detective was clearly concerned about the lack of reason.
Cal winced:
- At any cost don't let him walk. It's him. If I were you, I'd look for the connection to the plastic surgery clinics out there. The work is almost spotless: even most of the muscles are functioning, good as new. The healing results are extraordinary, definitely too quick for your any kind of doctor. We're talking genius surgeon here, with millions invested into equipment.
- But...
- That one – with disgust Cal tilted his head towards where the main suspect was taken a minute ago – that one didn't demonstrate anything close to recognition, when he saw his own reflection. I take it, it has been too little time since his operations and luckily he's not the type to spend much time gazing into the mirror at the results. Or he's a first class psycho. Either way – fits the case. Unless you think we're dealing with a real invisible man here, that one is our best shot. Why don't you put him on the carpet for starters? "Possible footprints closely resembling" should be enough for you.
- Considering the case – yes.
"The rest of you – please follow me" - detective walked out of the kitchen, leaving Lightman and Torres alone.
- Look, I'm sorry... – Cal spoke with remorse.
- What for? – Torres held her head high, not really looking at him as much as past him.
Lightman sighed and his voice became heartfelt once again:
- I shouldn't have grabbed you there. Violence is not the answer. And out of all of them – you know it best.
Her lip was quivering when Torres composed herself and asked:
- Is it the only thing you are sorry for?
- Don't get me wrong, love... you've done well. I don't know what stuff you saw when I know for sure there wasn't anything to see. Maybe you just got lucky. And maybe your natural abilities grow stronger adding up with the training you take. Anyway - be careful with what you see and with how much you see. If there's a way of ruining one's life – that sure could be it.
Locker, who couldn't bring himself to stop listening, mumbled "Holly cow" and withdrawn from the doors.
The sound of the TV at Cal's was loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Cal turned it down some, yelling upstairs for Emily "Are you deaf? Do you want me to be?"
The news channel was on: "The serial killer, known as The Invisible Man has been arrested in Washington earlier tonight. The authorities claim that he has been affiliated with the known plastic surgeon, thus had escaped the attention of FBI numerous times by changing his looks to steal and use his victim's identities".
Call turned the TV off. The press was already coming up with the new catchy names for the killer, like the Shape-shifter and it disgusted him.
Cal took some meds from the shelf, drank them with water and splashed the remaining water into the drain. Closing the medicine cabinet he saw his face expression - contentment.
Foster finished watching the same news story.
Her glass fell onto the floor and broke well before the end of it.
She looked at her ex-husband's picture laying right there, next to the crime scene report once again. His violent behavior before he disappeared, to be soon found brutally murdered, could have just become less of a mystery. "Not the man he was" - sounded in her mind.
With shaky hands Foster dialed the number.
"Cal?"