See Disclaimer, Chapter 1
Bird Flu - Chapter 8
Charlie sat in the conference room and stared at the grainy pictures, pulling them one by one out of the slim manila folder. He'd gotten up early that morning and printed out his lecture plan for the day on his printer at school, so it would be ready and waiting when he got back from the FBI offices. He'd also printed out the pictures of Amita.
Why, he wasn't sure. A half-loopy line of thought ran through his mind – he knew he needed to set his personal life aside for now – there wasn't much he could do about it until she came back. She'd tried to call him last night, but he hadn't answered. He refused to speak about it over the phone with her – the least she could do was talk it out face-to-face. However, in the meantime, he had to get it off his mind, and concentrate on the case. Somehow, he thought that if he printed the pictures in order to confront her when she came back, and then filed them away until she got home, that symbolic gesture would help him set it aside until she was here. The only problem was, when he took off for the FBI offices, he somehow had forgotten to file the pictures. They had come along for the ride.
He groaned softly, shook himself, and stuffed the pictures into the file, and shoved it haphazardly back into his briefcase, just as Don walked into the conference room.
His brother sat down across from him, and leaned back, sipping his coffee. "You're here early." The remark was mild, but Charlie was uncomfortably aware of Don's eyes, keenly appraising him over the cup of coffee. Charlie knew that look. He was about to be interrogated.
He was saved, at least temporarily, by a soft knock on the door – one of the office cleaning staff was making early morning rounds. She entered at Don's nod, and headed straight for the trashcan, and Charlie couldn't help himself – he winced, and the guilty grimace didn't go unnoticed. Charlie waited for the woman to make some comment about the stomach contents in the trashcan, but she just checked it and walked out. He breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, the night cleaning crew had gotten the dubious honor of removing the mess he'd made. Thank goodness for plastic wastebasket liners.
"You watched the video, didn't you?" Don voice was expressionless, like his eyes, and Charlie looked up guiltily, and then down at his briefcase on the table.
"Yeah." He sat, waiting for the lecture.
"You remember I told you not to."
His bother's voice was still quiet, emotionless, and Charlie chanced a glance at him. "Yeah."
"Are you glad you did?"
Charlie dropped his eyes again, closed them. "No," he whispered.
Don surveyed him for a moment. Charlie did look whipped – he hadn't bothered to shave, and he looked exhausted, beaten. "It's bad enough you're working on this, Charlie. Don't make it any harder than it has to be. I don't think your consultant's fee pays you any extra for mental trauma."
Charlie nodded, and lifted his eyes. "This is really bad," he said, his voice a little unsteady.
Some deep and dark flickered in Don's eyes, and he nodded. "Yeah," he said softly. "It is."
Charlie looked over his shoulder, and Don turned in his seat. Wright, Shire, and Cash were filing in, and Colby, David, and Liz were also converging on the conference room.
Charlie rose and began fiddling with his laptop, and Jill Cash entered and walked over to him, as the rest of them exchanged 'good mornings.' "Hi," she said. "I'm going to grab a cup of coffee; you want me to get you one?"
Charlie lifted an eyebrow, and looked up into bright green eyes that were just slightly above his. He smiled wanly. "Why – do I look like I need it?"
She grinned. "You said it, not me."
"Actually, I do," said Charlie, as he plugged in his laptop to the Bureau Ethernet. "Thanks."
She returned his grateful smile with a cheeky grin, and turned on her heel, returning with two cups of coffee, as Colby took the front of the room, and went over the report from the evening.
"I had all protection units, plus the possible candidates who weren't under protection report out periodically, the last report being this morning between six and seven. Everyone reported in as requested," he said. "There was no word of any attempts, and LAPD didn't have any word of attacks last night, at least other than the usual gang stuff."
The group breathed a collective sigh of relief, and Colby continued. "A lot of them are on their way to work now, as soon as they get in, they'll report again."
David spoke up. "We picked up DNA of the perp from the victim."
'Victim,' thought Don. 'Not Cookie, anymore – victim.'
David was continuing, and Don wrenched his attention back to him. "We got a rush analysis done – preliminary results don't show a match to anyone in the system. We'll get a more detailed result later today, but it doesn't look promising."
"You won't get anything," said Mike Shire quietly. "We ran it too. Whoever he is, he's not in the system."
"The lab did find a sedative," said David, glancing down at the report in his hand.
Jill Cash spoke up. "That fits his M.O. We found injection sites and trace amounts of sedatives in the other victims. We suspect he has medical training, based on his knowledge of sedatives, and use of syringes and scalpels. We've been looking at doctors who have possibly lost their medical license."
Liz frowned. "How does he get them in a situation where he can inject them? I wonder why they let him get so close, without a struggle."
Jill answered him. "He is quite likely either very unassuming, non-threatening, or possibly good-looking and personable. We think he charms his way into getting close to them. Based on the videos, I tend to believe the second possibility. We couldn't see his features, but we know he's tall and muscular, and quite strong. That rules out non-threatening – and makes it more likely that he's good-looking, clean cut. A white male, obviously, both from his voice and the small amount of skin we could see during the rape."
Her voice was matter of fact, but the statement made Charlie's stomach churn. He reached for his coffee, as Marcy appeared in the door, a troubled look on her face. She was holding a Courier Express envelope – two envelopes, Charlie realized, as she separated them, and immediately, the tone in the room changed - the businesslike atmosphere gone, replaced by foreboding. He gulped as his hand sloshed more coffee into his mouth than he'd planned, sending a scorching stream down his throat. "These just came," Marcy said soberly. "One is for Agent Eppes, the other for Agent Shire."
They took them without comment, and as Marcy left, Don looked at Shire. "Go ahead," he said quietly.
Shire's hands were shaking badly, and everyone looked away while he opened the envelope. His soft, unintelligible exclamation made everyone look back, and they saw him holding a photo, his eyes watering. He cleared his throat, and looked up, holding out the photo. "It's Joanie. He wrote today's date on the back." He ducked his head, and placed his forefinger and thumb on his eyelids, as if trying to hold in the tears with his fingers.
Wright took it, and then laid it on the table. It was on regular printer paper instead of photo paper, and the image was grainy, but still, Charlie felt his heart catch as he looked at it – the woman, in her late thirties, looked thin and bedraggled. It was her eyes, though, that hit him – they were blank, horror-filled, devoid of hope. The eyes of someone gazing out at them from hell. He looked at Don, who was staring at his own envelope white-faced.
He started to open it, paused, and looked up at Colby as if to ask him something, then shook his head, and finished opening the envelope. Two pictures were enclosed, and as Don looked at them Charlie saw disbelief and despair flash in his face. "Oh, damn," he whispered, and held out the pages with an unsteady hand. David took them, looked at them, puzzled, and began to pass them around. Don shook his head and looked down. "Someone who serves you -," he broke off, then looked at them in anguish and continued, his voice shaky. "She works at the Java Jive across the street. I don't even know her full name – Amber something. It wasn't anyone who works with me, or for me – she literally serves me coffee."
He looked at the envelope again, and pulled out a note, reading in a flat tone that Charlie had never heard before. "Agent Eppes – you have failed again. You disappoint me. Because of you, she will die." His words trailed off, and the room was silent.
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Amita checked her watch; then dialed her cell phone. It was nighttime in Delhi, so it would be morning in the States, but before class time, and she couldn't figure out why Charlie wasn't answering. He hadn't answered the night before either, and she'd made it a point to call him early enough. She sighed in frustration. "I can't understand why he won't pick up," she complained to Charu, who was watching her with sharp eyes and a slight smile.
"Because he is sensible," she said, with a satisfied expression. "He is listening to my advice."
Amita stared at her. "What advice? You talked to Charlie?"
"No, I emailed him," she replied as she leaned back against the sofa. "I sent him pictures, showed him how much fun you are having, and asked him not to pressure you."
"Not to pressure me!" Amita looked at her incredulously. "Charlie never pressures me – if anything, he can't commit. What on earth made you think you could say that?"
Charu looked hurt. "It is for your own good. I did it for you. You know you belong here. Did you not have fun today with me, with Ajay?"
Amita sighed. "Charu, yes, but life is not all about fun."
Charu looked shocked. "Why not?"
"I mean, I have responsibilities, a good job, and someone I love. I'm not going to throw all that away."
"Not even if you could get a better job, have more fun, and someone you love more? Someone who can commit? Really Amita, you sell yourself short."
Amita looked at her suspiciously. "What did you send him, exactly?"
Charu shrugged. "It is on the computer."
"I want to see it."
Charu looked at her, petulantly.
Amita's voice lowered dangerously. "I want to see it, Charu."
Charu sighed, flounced off the sofa and across the room to a desk, and opened up her email on the computer. "There!" she exclaimed with a flourish, and stomped off with a highly offended expression.
Amita clicked it open and read the letter, her hand going to her mouth as she read through it. "Charu-," she said with clenched teeth, as she began to open the pictures. Okay, not so bad, not so bad, - uh oh – Ajay had his arm around her in that one, not so good… She opened the last one, and gasped in shock. She'd had no idea that someone had captured their kiss on film, and she stared at the photo, mortified. "Oh, my God," she said, and it came out as half-whisper, half-whimper. "Damn it, Charu!"
She slumped back in the chair, still staring at the screen. Her first reaction had been guilt, and panic – she could very well lose Charlie over this, and she closed her eyes, imagining the pain she must have caused him, feeling it herself. Her eyes opened again of their own accord – the incriminating photo drew them like a magnet, and she writhed inwardly, her cheeks flushing with shame. She closed them again, tightly, trying to shut out the image, put her clenched fists to her forehead, and moaned.
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End Chapter 8
A/N: Next chapter - the killer reconsiders...
