(Thanks to demonchilde again!)
EVERYTHING GREATER THAN BOOKS MIGHT MEAN
The center where Frances was doing her court-ordered community service sat on the corner of two streets that had been, four years ago, the heatedly fought-over domain of two rival gangs. A concerted effort by the Atlanta pd's narcotics department and the Bureau had cleared out the district, with the gang leaders and their trusted bangers landing stints in the big house for decades to come. A neighbourhood association, backed by politicos, had stepped in and tried to salvage and build up the district for commercial success. The fruits of their venture had yet fully to be reaped, but at least it was safe to walk on the streets in broad daylight again.
Dan and Casey Burdell had set up the center for disadvantaged youths three years ago. They received their financial backing from companies' donations and wealthy benefactors' charity. Casey was a seasoned fundraiser, whilst Dan took charge of the day-to-day running of the center. They had three people on payroll, and they usually had a ready chorus of volunteers who'd assist the employees. The screening process for volunteers was strict; they'd only taken on Frances after several interviews. A good word from the district attorney had played a part in the decision, too.
Bailey rode on his Harley there to see that Frances would get home safely. It was another Saturday, and the center would close at ten. He arrived twenty minutes early, parked his bike a short distance from the street corner and watched the youngsters stream out of the center. He noticed Frances walk out, in pursuit of someone. She caught up with a guy in his late teens, to whom she handed a baseball cap. The guy muttered his thanks and turned on his heels to leave. Frannie headed back inside the center.
As she waded through the crowd, Bailey kept a close eye on her progress, watching the faces of the guys she passed. Ever since specialising in profiling and seeing into the depths of human baseness, he'd always been inordinately worried for any women in his life. A feeling that had ratcheted up since he'd been blessed with two daughters. He was always fighting against the urge to warn Frannie and Arianna of undue politeness toward strangers. In fact, he would prefer it if they were cold and indifferent. That'd make him rest easier.
It doesn't take much for some damaged, unhinged person to fixate on someone and proceed to make their life hell. He knew it from personal experience. He had daily proof of that.
And so, he was constantly sizing up people Frannie met at the center. So far, there had been nothing to give him unease.
The crowd streaming outside started to thin out. He turned the key in the ignition and drove the bike closer. He'd go in and greet the Burdells, then accompany Frannie home.
Sam kicked off her right shoe for a while. The pair of shoes was an old one, but it had started to rub her ankle bone all of a sudden. Luckily, she was sitting with George at the upper table of the command center, so no one had an inkling about her footwear discomfort.
"So, have you picked a sport yet?" George asked, letting his eyes a short respite from the constant staring at the computer screen.
"Uh, not really. Bailey mentioned a class for female agents at the Bureau gym, so I'll probably check that out," she responded.
"Great. Didn't you do any sports growing up?"
She shook her head. "No, not really. It just didn't appeal to me at all. What about you?"
"I played baseball as a kid."
"Really?"
George nodded. "I even toyed with the idea of becoming a professional."
Sam was surprised. "So you were that good, huh?"
George shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe. I like to think I was."
Sam knew that George wasn't prone to undue praise. "Then let's agree you that were."
Their discussion was caught short by the arrival of Bailey and John. They were to confer quickly about the Tuscaloosa case.
"Georgie, what's the word on the fingerprints?"
"Well, I found two sets of prints on the chessboard and was able to identify each set to an employee of the moving company. No other prints, even smudged ones."
"The killer was as careful as always," Bailey mused.
"Have no other crime scenes with extraneous chessboards come in?" Sam checked with Bailey.
"Unfortunately no," he replied.
"Maybe we should try casting a bigger net," Sam suggested.
"And make the chessboard quiry national?" Bailey followed Sam's train of thought. "George, put that in motion as soon as you can."
"Can you wager a guess about the significance of the chessboards now?" John prompted.
Sam gathered her thoughts before replying. "They are tied to the signature of the killer, so he gets some kind of satisfaction from bringing them to the scene. But then, he doesn't make the victim a part of the game. Mia Lowry didn't even know how to play. The killer wouldn't bother to teach the rules of chess, nor is there any physical evidence that would support that."
"The only correlation I see between the killings and chess is that each move is meticulously planned, even though the first murder was a bit sloppy," Bailey offered.
"Right, the killer's very deliberate, calculating. Hopefully, the nation-wide query will further this case along," Sam sighed.
"Thanks, everyone," Bailey ended the meeting. John sprang up and walked briskly away, while Bailey stayed sitting at the table to see the query sent off immediately. Sam gathered the Tuscaloosa case files, got up and took a few steps before realising that she was off-balance.
Bailey noticed the queerness of her walk, leaned over to take a look at her feet and smiled at the sight. He looked under the table, ducked and had the shoe in his hands before she had time to limp back.
"Missing something?" he grinned at her.
"Just give it," she mumbled and shot him a pointed look.
"The magic word?" he prodded while moving the shoe out of her reach, over the table.
"Now?" she tried to grab the shoe but her attempt was foiled by Bailey turning his chair to evade her hands.
"Okay, please," she relented. He gave a jubilant smile and handed the shoe to her. She placed her left hand on his shoulder for balance while she lifted up her right leg and slipped the shoe on. Then, she left without a word. He watched her go, his small smile taking its time to fade away.
"Mom? Mom?"
Sam heard her daughter's second mention of her name and lifted her eyes off her journal.
"Can you check these?" Chloe pointed to her calculations on one page of the notebook. Chloe had an arithmetic exam coming up next week, and the mother-daughter pair were doing some extra calculations to prepare. Sam had been reading the spring issue of American Journal of Psychology while Chloe did her calculations. Sam marked the page of the journal she'd been in the middle of reading before inspecting Chloe's answers.
Sam had devised twenty calculations regarding multiplication and division. The girl had answered correctly to 17 exercises. Sam handed the notebook back to her daughter. "Very good, Chlo, there's only three that are wrong. See if you can work them out."
She watched as Chloe puzzled over the remaining calculations. Chloe spent a few minutes correcting her answers. After that, she looked at Sam who'd been observing what she wrote down. Sam gave her an encouraging nod. "So good, sweetie, you got all of them right. Remember, you can always tell if a number can be divided by three by adding the two numbers together to see if the resulting number is dividable by three. So... Can 54 be divided by three?"
Chloe thought about it and nodded. "Good. How about 89?"
Chloe answered with a shake of her head. "Correct. There you go!" The little girl beamed.
"Can I go play with Denzel now?"
"Sure. We'll continue tomorrow night, alright?" Chloe nodded, gathered her math book and notebook and shouted for Denzel.
Sam stayed at the dining table and opened her psychology journal again, managing to read a few more pages before she heard the elevator coming up. She waited to see if Angel was coming home or if they were to have a visitor. It turned out to be a case of the former.
"Hey! Where were you?" Sam had only heard Angel making a hasty exit and yelling out "Going out for an errand!" an hour ago.
"Oh, I had to see Ron about an exhibit he's putting on at the gallery."
Sam checked the time from her watch. "That took an hour? The gallery is ten minutes from here."
"Uh huh," Angel said in an evasive tone and hung her coat in a nook by the elevator. "Did you guys eat already?"
"No, I couldn't be bothered to make the effort. How does Chinese take-out sound?"
"Fine by me."
Sam took a closer look at her friend. Something about Angel's appearance piqued her interest. She thought she could spot the faintest flush still on Angel's cheeks. A flush only a man could inspire, in Sam's experience. Maybe Angel had a thing for Ron?
"You look kinda..."
"What?" Angel's tone was a bit apprehensive.
"Kinda flushed. Like you've had a very good date." Angel looked to the side for a second, confirming Sam's suspicions. She wondered how long Angel had been seeing someone, and more to the point, who he was. "So who's the guy?"
Angel sat down at the table. "It's John. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner," she uttered when she saw Sam's surprise. "We've gone out on like six dates, and I wanted to see if it'd go the distance before telling you."
"I would have guessed the guy to be Ron, but hey, good for you and John. Nothing to be sorry about," Sam laid Angel's twinges of guilt to rest.
Angel, for her part, was tempted to bring up the subject Sam had so casually brushed off last weekend at the cafe. But she decided against it. She didn't have the whole picture yet, and she wanted more to go on apart from hazy suspicions. She'd have to find a chance to observe her best friend with Bailey some more.
Sam and Bailey entered one of three private interview rooms at the women's penitentiary. The spacious room was bare, with just a table and three chairs, all grey and made from metal. They had entered through one door; their interviewees would enter through the door opposite to them.
Bailey remained standing and looked on as Sam prepared for the interview. He knew from experience that she would focus on the task at hand by being taciturn. She always readied her state of mind for any interview, but for interviews concerning Jack, she'd go into another zone altogether.
Her motions were unhurried, deliberate; she positioned one chair directly opposite the lone chair on the opposite side. She would sit on it. She took out of her bag Jones' rap sheet, a notebook and a pen. She arranged the objects carefully on the tabe. Then, she placed the bag on the floor right next to her chair. Finally, she sat down.
He let her acclimate to the scene in front of her before he joined her at the table. He took off his overcoat, folded it to hang from the back of the chair and sat down. She gave him a little sideways smile.
Before they could say anything, they spied movement through the small window of the door. Their first interviewee, Leslie Jones, appeared through the door with an escorting correctional officer. She was skinny, average height, brown, small eyes, stringy blonde hair and a piercing on her nose.
Sam and Bailey had agreed to play hard ball with Jones. With her ill-tempered personality, she wouldn't react kindly to weak personalities. They needed to keep things formal and strict.
So, they waited in silence for Jones to be seated down and her handcuffs to be linked through the bar on the table.
"Ms Jones, I'm special agent Malone from the FBI. This is my colleague, Doctor Sam Waters."
"So?" Jones shot off in a challenging tone that implied that she wasn't impressed in the least.
"We understand that you've begun corresponding with someone in the recent months," Sam began on the subject.
"Not against the law, as I understand it," she commented with hostility, rocking her chair back on its back legs.
"What can you tell us about your penpal?"
"He's an old guy, likes red clothes and lives in the North Pole," Jones smirked.
"Lying to the FBI is a federal offence. So I suggest that you tell the truth, if you don't want to add years to your sentence," Bailey interjected.
Jones made a face and cursed under her breath.
"So, your penpal?" Sam prodded the convict.
"He's an old guy, like I said."
Sam began to fire off her questions in quick succession. "How old?"
"In his forties."
"What's his name?"
"It's Stephen Lux."
"What does he do?"
"He's on disability. Has been for a year now, apparently. Before that, he was a plumber."
"Where does he live?"
"He lives on the outskirts of Montgomery."
"What do you talk about?"
"How is that any of your business?" Jones gave Sam the stink eye.
"Just answer the question," Bailey ordered brusquely.
Jones blew out a breath. "Fine. He mostly talks about his childhood. His dad did a number on him."
"And what do you tell him?"
"I mostly rag on my cheating ex-girlfiend. He doesn't mind it. I guess he gets off on that."
Sam and Bailey shared a look, confirming their impression with each other.
"That'll be all, Ms Jones. Thank you for your time," Sam concluded the interview.
The correctional officer escorted the angry inmate of out the room.
Left alone, Sam commented to Bailey: "She's too wilful for Jack. He wouldn't waste his time on her."
"I agree. Let's see what Samson tells us."
For their second inmate interview, they'd chosen a completely different tactic to ingratiate themselves to her. Sam had arranged a notebook and a pen on the table which was otherwise empty. When Samson arrived at the interview room, Sam shot up from her chair, and began to thank Samson effusively. "Ms Samson, I'm Sam Waters. Thank you very much for agreeing to help me with my script," Sam rattled off to Samson, who clearly didn't know what to make of the strange woman's gushings.
Then, Samson's eyes landed on Bailey and she gave him a once-over and a flirty smile. Evidently, she liked what she saw. "Who's the eye candy, then?" The correctional officer walked Samson to the chair, waited until she sat down and then withdrew to the left corner of the room, ready to bounce if her convict got out of line.
"Oh, he follows me everywhere. My publisher hired him. There have been some... close calls at other prisons," Sam elaborated willingly to the convict, sticking to the story they'd fashioned to make Samson as susceptible as possible to their agenda.
Samson looked disinterested in Sam's explanation. "Does he have a name?"
"Bailey Malone," he replied curtly and stiffly, signaling that he was present to do his job, not flirt with anyone.
Samson looked delighted as punch at the information."Bailey," she let the name roll off her tongue.
"Uh, Ms Samson, I'm sure that someone explained to you that I'm doing research for a movie. I understand that you recently started corresponding with someone."
"Yeah, that's right," Samson agreed.
"Okay, excellent. How did this correspondence begin?"
"They wrote to me, I was bored and so I wrote back. Beats staring at the ceiling."
"How many letters have you traded?"
Samson drew reluctantly her eyes off Bailey to ponder the correct reply. "I think five."
Sam wrote down Samson's replies in her notebook. "Would you be willing to tell me the name of your penpal?"
"Sure, why not? His name is Jack."
Bailey sensed Sam tensing up next to him and had to resist the urge to check how she dealt with the news. She took a few beats.
"Just Jack?"
"His last name is Anderson." He could feel her apprehension and indignation coming in waves, and he was having a hard time remaining composed, too. He had to make the effort, since Samson was once again looking at him like a cat about to lick a bowl of cream.
Sam took a little bit longer to calm down, then continued as if nothing had transpired. Her next question and the answer to it would be crucial. "Do you still keep in touch?"
"Yup." Both Sam and Bailey sat up imperceptibly in their chairs. They might have a chance to trip up Jack.
Sam plowed on. "Has Jack told you what he does for a living?"
"He works in construction. He moves around a lot."
"How do you keep in touch?"
"He lets me know how to reach him. He includes the address of his next destination in each letter. "
"What do you converse about? Have you divulged any personal information about one another?"
"Some bits and pieces. Would you like to know what?" Samson directed her question to Bailey who remained silent and stone-faced.
Sam jumped in. "I'd really appreciate it. It'd lend an air of authenticity to my script."
"Well, he told me that he'd recently broken up with someone and was looking for a new relationship."
"I see. Nothing else?"
"You know, not much else. Funny," Samson chuckled to herself, as if somewhat surprised.
"And what you have told him?"
Samson shrugged. "Ah, just the basics, why I'm in prison, some things about my cellmate, everyday life inside prison."
"Actually, could we... I mean, could I borrow some letters, or make copies of them?"
The convict eyed Sam with a clear agenda. "Would it earn me a mention in the credits?"
"For sure," Sam was quick to reassure the young woman.
"I'll only let you make copies, though. Deal?"
"Deal," Sam agreed.
"You want them now?"
"Now would be fantastic." Bailey could hear that Sam was getting impatient with the woman and her attention-seeking ways.
"Okay." Samson looked behind her and waited for the officer to approach before she got up. The officer grabbed Samson's arm strongly, walked to the door and ordered Samson to stare in the opposite direction while she keyed a sequence of numbers on the security pad of the door. They exited the room.
Bailey turned to Sam immediately. She was almost seething. "He used my maiden name, Bailey," Sam ground out quietly, shaking her head slowly.
"He's one special kind of bastard, alright," he murmured.
She released a bitter chuckle. "You got that right."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"You think we'll get something useful from the letters?" Bailey asked finally.
"We'll see. Samson mentioned that he'd moved around a lot, so I guess the addresses will be a dead end."
Before their visit to the prison, they'd agreed to send the letters or the copies to Christine Logan, the handwriting expert they'd collaborated with in the Robin Poole case. Logan already knew of Jack, having identified his handwriting in Poole's journals and having been present at the task force when Jack kidnapped Sam.
Should Logan confirm that the handwriting was Jack's, they'd get a court order for the letters and keep them as evidence. Depending on what Jack's letters contained, they would press Samson for more accurate details on what she'd told him in her letters.
They waited patiently for the inmate to come back with the letters. They'd make copies at the warden's office, then give the letters to one of the correctional officers and leave the prison.
"Even in writing, he makes my skin crawl," Sam commented.
They were in the car, on their way back to the task force. Bailey was driving while Sam was poring over the letters Jack had sent to Samson.
"Listen to this bit from the second letter: 'You're the beauty in my world, lovely girl. You'll be a lover in my bed and a gun to my head.'"
"Jesus," he remarked with disgust. She took a moment to beat back the tide of revulsion the letter provoked.
"Too bad Samson had already written back to him a week ago."
"It's still worth a shot." Upon learning the last address Jack wanted Samson to use, Bailey had called the Columbia field office in South Carolina to dispatch a pair of agents to the scene. Jack had used a post office in Sandy Springs near the city of Anderson as the address.
Sam and Bailey were hoping against hope that security cameras might have caught him on tape, or that the paper trail Jack had used to pay for the post office box would lead somewhere. It was a long shot, but one worth trying.
"What do you think he might be up to?"
"He's got to be planning Lesher's demise. Why else would he strike up correspondence with an inmate?"
"Then we need to find out what Samson told him."
"Let's question her after we get the warrant. I think she'll be more forthcoming when she hears that she's been writing letters to a serial killer. It's a little more than what she bargained for."
Bailey found George in his nook, surrounded by heavy-duty computers. "George, you got a minute?"
The agent snapped to when he heard his boss' voice. "Yeah, I was just fixing some search parameters for the Tuscaloosa case."
"As you know, Jack used Sam's maiden name in those letters to Samson. That got me wondering if he might have used any other aliases connected to Sam."
George cottoned onto Bailey's train of thought. "Like Jack Waters?"
"Yes, Waters, Anderson, Lawson, and even Cooper. And use Jack and other similar first names, like Jackson or John."
"You want me to look for suspicious driver's licences?"
"And tax records, hospital patients, parking tickets, traffic violations. Cross reference those with the dates and places of Jack's known crime scenes. Dating all the way back to 1992, when he first started addressing Sam directly."
"You got it. It might take me a long time, though."
"Take all the time you need. Thanks."
Bailey checked his watch, then grimaced. He'd have to hustle if he wanted to make it to the gym for his boxing workout. First though, he'd go have a word with Sam. Check how she was feeling about Jack's latest stunt.
He'd hardly been in his office all day. He'd spent most of his morning with George in the command center, then discussing cases with Grace and John in the lab. After that, he'd made the trip to the prison with Sam.
He placed one sensitive case file in the safe in his desk, stuffed a few others in his bag, and paused to recollect where he'd left his gym bag that morning. That's right, to the right end of the desk behind him. He reached for the bag, then halted. Something was off. He observed the desk and noticed that Sam's trophy wasn't there anymore. She must have snuck in at one point and taken it somewhere else.
He turned off the lights in his office and headed to Sam's office. The lights were still on in her part of the task force premises. He knocked on the open door to announce his presence. She was packing up herself for the night. She looked up from her task and smiled.
"Hey. Did you reach Logan?"
He nodded. "Yes, I did. She's in Washington D.C. until Sunday. She'll come here Monday."
"Good. Thanks."
"I've asked George to run the alias Jack Anderson through every database we have access to. Jack Waters, Lawson, Cooper. Every variation of Jack, too."
"Good thinking," Sam muttered. It made sense to see if Jack had used another alias connected to her.
"How are you feeling?"
She knew what he meant. "I'm still pretty pissed." She made her point by shoving a book into her bag with unnecessary force.
"Maybe you should come to the gym with me, work out your aggressions with the bag," he suggested, half serious. He didn't think she'd take him up on his offer, so he needed to give her another way to release her tension: humour.
"Pretend that I'm hitting Jack? I gotta say, you've given boxing a whole new appeal to me," she informed him before shooting a curious look at him. He'd once confessed to waking up in the mornings and thinking about the bastard. "Is that what you do?"
"Most of the time," he confessed.
She stopped tidying up for the night and just looked at him for a moment, taking in his words. What a stark reminder of the gloom Jack brought with him. It scared and comforted her. Scared her because it proved that Jack's reach was longer than even he'd probably intended, and with longer reach, her ability to control the damage diminished. Comforted her because it was also proof that she wasn't alone.
As Sam turned off her desk lamp, she realised with a jolt that sometimes, recently, in Bailey's company, she forgot about Jack.
He'd stayed silent as she mused his response and had her unspoken realization. They started to walk to the elevator together. She picked up their conversation again.
"Punch the bag extra hard for me 'cos I'm taking a rain check. I need to get home and help Chloe prep for a math exam next week."
"Are you going to check out the fitness class?"
"I'll start Monday, next week," she promised.
Early next morning, Bailey held a staff meeting for his agents. The subject of the meeting was the upcoming, bi-annual training weekend for agents whose skill verification would be due before the year's end.
"The training weekend will be in Chicago this year. It's gonna be a two-day event. On Saturday, there'll be various workshops aiming to enhance the skills that'll come up in the verification. Sunday, there'll be a field training exercise that calls upon the skills you've just improved."
"When will it take place?" Grace asked.
"The Georgia Bureau agents will head to the Windy City at the beginning of June. We'll stay at a hotel near the Chicago field office."
"That's some short notice!" Washington piped in.
"Unfortunately there was a mix-up and I only got word on this yesterday. If anyone has plans they would like to keep, come to me and I'll arrange you to go to Chicago with another state's Bureau agents. Any questions? Thank you, all."
Sam was armed with her camera, moving slithely among Angel's sculptures. Angel had asked her to take a few photos of her past pieces of art for a web site Ron's gallery ran. Now, it was just a matter to finding the pieces and moving them to the table off to the far right corner of the studio. Luckily, the pieces were small and relatively light; not Angel's usual style.
She knelt down to read the tag on one sculpture that vaguely resembled a crossbow. Then, she heard someone opening the door leading to the former fire station garage hall that now served as Angel's studio. They were having visitors.
"Hey!" Her greeting to the Malones rang out sunnily. Bailey and Frances had come for an impromptu visit.
"Hi, Sam. Sorry we're dropping by unannounced," Bailey uttered as Sam approached them.
Frances jumped in. "It's my fault. I wanted to talk to you about something, but is this a bad time?"
"No, not at all," she waved off their concerns. "Is it okay if I carry on taking photos? I don't want to lose the sunlight."
"Go right ahead," Frances reassured Sam.
Bailey gestured toward the elevator. "I'm gonna go say hi to Chloe and Angel. Is it okay if I make coffee?"
"Only if you bring me a cup." A smile danced on Sam's features.
"Coming right up, ma'am," Bailey quipped and made a beeline to the elevator.
Then she noticed a bag in his hand. "What's in the bag?" she shouted after him.
"Now that would be telling," he replied mysteriously.
Frances observed Sam gazing warmly after her dad. Then, the woman remembered her task at hand and scooted down to pick up a curious-looking work of art.
"Can I help you somehow?" Frances asked.
"You could grab the camera that's on the floor. Thanks."
"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Sam carried the object to a small, white table to stood in front of a white wallpaper.
Frances picked up the camera and followed in Sam's footsteps. "It's about college. Well, what to study, to be exact."
"Uh huh," Sam encouraged Frances to go on and took to arranging the work of art on the table.
"Maybe dad's already told you that I'm thinking of having psychology as a minor," Frances' tone implied a question.
"He's mentioned it."
"What was it like? Studying psychology, I mean?"
Satisfied with the placement of the object on the table, Sam turned to Frances for the camera. "Honestly, at the beginning it was all quite dull. But then, you got to the exciting stuff."
Frances relinquished the heavy camera to Sam. "Like?"
"Like... As trite as this may sound, you get insight into the human mind. Why people do anything, behave in a certain way, what drives them."
Frances nodded to signal that she understood.
"You gain this understanding, this awareness. Not just into others, but into yourself, too." Sam explained while looking at Angel's art piece through the viewer. Frances considered Sam's words in silence. Sam started snapping photos.
"I wasn't too abstract, was I?"
"Hm? No, I got it. Thanks."
"But you know, you don't need to know these things right now. You still have plenty of time to make a decision about your major and minor."
"I guess," Frances replied in a wary tone.
The hesitation in the young woman's voice made Sam wonder if Frances was troubled somehow. Maybe about her studies? Or what might happen once she struck out on her own, as an adult? She would have to bring it up with Bailey.
"Alright, I think I'm done with this one. One down, three to go."
Chloe, wearing a white t-shirt and tights and a pink tutu, abandoned her ballet exercises to run up to the elevator door and let someone in. She was thrilled with the visitor.
"Uncle Bailey!"
"Hey, pumpkin!" He scooped her up for a hug. "What's this you're wearing? It's pink," he teased her as he closed the elevator door.
She looked at him as if he'd asked a very funny question. "It's my tutu. I'm practicing my part in Snow White."
Bailey connected the dots himself. "Ah, for your ballet class?"
"Yeah! I'm Sleepy, one of the dwarfs," the little girl added.
The girl's excitement was infectious. "Sleepy? Sounds very exciting."
"You wanna watch me practice? Please!"
"Of course. Let me make some coffee first, and then I'm all yours," he uttered and set about putting her down, but she resisted by hanging on. He relented, and his deep, put-upon sigh made her giggle. He walked to the kitchen, carrying the girl, and juggled to put the coffee on with only one hand, to Chloe's great delight.
Then, he carried her into the play pen which had enough room for practicing. This time, she eased onto steady ground willingly and waited for him to sit down before she began practicing her solo.
She danced for a good two minutes, non-stop. It was obvious to him that she'd been practicing hard. She looked absolutely precious, concentrating on her performance so hard.
Angel walked out of her room and spied movement in the play pen. She proceeded quietly so as to not disrupt Chloe's practicing. She remained out of view to the little girl, but she noticed Bailey observing Chloe's solo. She hadn't heard him come in.
She should be on the lookout for an opportunity to observe the man with her best friend. See what was what, so to speak.
Chloe finished her dancing and curtseyed to her one-man audience. Bailey clapped enthuasiastically, and Angel joined his applause, drawing attention to herself. "You're getting better and better, Chlo," she praised the girl and offered a small wave to Bailey, who in turn nodded his head once.
Chloe preened herself on Angel's words. "What did you think, Uncle Bailey?"
"I thought you were absolutely wonderful," he remarked truthfully.
"Thanks! The recital is next week, will you come?"
"Well, I'd love to come, but who else is coming? Is there a head count for each dancer?" Bailey looked to Angel.
"They usually allow four people to come along, but Helen and Charles aren't coming this time. There's room for you," Angel informed him.
"So do you promise?" Chloe repeated her question.
"I will do my very best to come," he hedged, mindful of the curve balls his job sometimes threw into fixed plans. He guessed that Chloe had heard the same response a few times before from Sam, for she looked a bit disheartened and just nodded silently.
Angel jumped in to rally the girl's spirits. "How about you dance for me, too, missy? I didn't see the beginning." Chloe agreed and moved to the center of the play pen to begin her performance. Bailey relinquished his chair to Angel and strode into the kitchen for the coffee.
Whilst being Chloe's audience, Angel made some surreptitious observations about Bailey. First, he'd put coffee on for a small army. Second, he rummaged through the cupboards, in search of a plate, a drinking glass and cups. He placed them all on the round table and then produced a cardboard box of... freshly baked croissants.
She did find it curious that he should feel so at home at their place. Not that she minded it. Lord knows she hadn't always like the man, but he'd started to grow on her. She wondered if Sam took similar liberties at his place.
Chloe finished her dance and Angel applauded for the second time. "You've gotten so good!"
The girl beamed again, then got wind of Bailey's activities and rushed to the kitchen. "Ooh, croissants!" she said, pronouncing the word as an amalgam of 'cross' and 'saints'.
"Yes, I bought all of us some croissants," Bailey replied, using the correct pronunciation.
"You bought us what?" Bailey repeated the word, but it was lost on Chloe's eight-year-old mind, evidenced by her unsure stare at him. "You can practice the word with your mom."
"Why's that?"
"Because it's a French word and she knows French," Angel explained.
"Okay. Can I have one?"
"Of course."
They sat around the kitchen table and ate their treat. Bailey and Angel had coffee, whereas Chloe enjoyed her French delicatesse with raspberry juice. Just as they had finished their snack, Frances came into the living area from the elevator.
"Uh, dad? Sam needs your help carrying this high piece," Frances remarked, waving her hand high up in the air.
Angel took a beat. "Oh yeah, the Cherry tree one is heavy. Tell Sam I'm sorry, I forgot about it. Hello," she greeted Frances, whom she hadn't yet met.
"Angel, this is my daughter Frannie. Sweetheart, this is Angel, Sam's oldest friend."
Frances greeted the artist somewhat shyly. "Hi. Hi Chloe," she said in a much more confident tone. Then she looked at her dad as if to remind him of her words.
"I'm on my way," he reassured her. He quickly poured some coffee into a cup and grabbed a tissue on which to put Sam's croissant. Then he headed for the elevator, leaving the three females to discuss Chloe's upcoming ballet recital.
Sam stood beside the tall tree-like sculpture, awaiting Bailey's arrival. The Cherry tree was the last piece Angel wanted photographed; she and Frances had managed to carry the others on their own. She would develop the photos in their very own darkroom. It would be the first time she used the room, in fact. Chloe had already secured a renewed promise from her about showing the process of developing the photos.
She heard Bailey opening the elevator door and looked up from her musings. She shot him a grateful smile when she saw that he'd made good on his promise to bring her coffee. And a croissant. She was beginning to feel the incipient rumblings of hunger in her innards, to be frank.
"That's the one?" Bailey made a small indicating motion toward the piece, mindful of the goods he was carrying.
"Yup. Thank you," she said as he offered the java and the delicacy to her. "Bring it where I'm going." She walked over to the table on which she'd positioned the other pieces and sat on it to consume her snack. She watched Bailey considering a while where to grab the sculpture, then picking it up with relative ease and bringing it to her.
"Thanks again," she remarked when he'd securely set the piece on the floor. She broke off a piece of her croissant and munched on it.
"My pleasure." He leaned against the table and surveyed the open space of the former garage. It was littered with odd-looking sculptures. "What are the photos for?"
She hastily swallowed her sip of coffee. "They're for the website of Ron's gallery. A few choice pieces from past exhibitions, so to speak." They were silent for a beat. Then she got to wondering what he'd been doing upstairs all this time. "What did you get up to just now?"
"Well, I made coffee, then Chloe danced her Sleepy solo for me, we ate and that's it." She'd smiled when he'd mentioned Chloe.
"She invited me to the recital," his tone of voice contained a unsure sound, as if asking whether or not he was welcome.
"I'm sure she'd love it if you came along. So, the only question is, how many tutus and pliƩs can you stomach?" she asked in a jesting manner.
He picked up her light tone. "I would think quite a few. Frannie or Ari didn't dance ballet when they were little. They were more interested in girl scouts and piano lessons."
She finished her pastry and sipped her coffee. Bail mentioning Frances reminded her of the young woman's wary response twenty minutes ago. She hadn't pursued it further, but she felt compelled to bring it up with Bailey. Better to err of the side of caution.
"How much have you and Frances discussed college?"
"I don't know. The usual amount, I guess. Why?"
"She sounded a bit unsure when we talked."
Bailey pondered Sam's words. "Like she doesn't want to go to college?"
Sam shook her head quickly. "No, it was more like she was scared of going without a set plan in place."
"You think she might be afraid of picking up some bad habits again?"
"Maybe. You should probably talk to her."
"I will."
She sipped the last drops of her coffee and set to work. "Let's wrap this up."
Together, they positioned the sculpture in front of the white paper sheet. The sun was still shining in through the windows high up on the walls. Sam looked at the work of art through the viewer of her camera and remembered a stanza of poem by e. e. cummings. She'd read the book a few times already, impressed by the man's use of form and simple words to convey themes of childhood's infectuous joy and love's miracles.
"We're anything brighter than even the sun," she muttered the stanza aloud.
"Excuse me?" Bailey shot her an inquisitive look.
"Nothing, a stanza from cummings' poem came to mind. I've read the collection now twice."
"Have you enjoyed his poems?"
"Are you kidding? I love them. In particular the one I quoted. I think it ends..." her voice drifted off.
He waited for a while to see if she'd come up with the last stanza, then recited it himself. "We're wonderful one times one." To his surprise, she snapped a photo of him just then.
"Yeah," she grinned at him.
Elliot Wykoff stared into the gloom of the Sunday night. He was sitting by his window, which had a view onto the activities yard of the Institute. Even early on, he'd refused to touch any of the exercise machines stationed throughout the yard.
Doctor Campbell, the first physician to take point in his recuperation, hadn't believed in his abilities and had forced him to handle a common baseball. The result had been a relapse into catatonia, albeit mercifully a brief one. After that, Campbell had washed his hands off Elliot's case, allowing Cynthia Simons to come on board. His progress had been remarkably speedy under Simons' care.
Progress that was first overshadowed by his grief over Diane's fate, and then this curveball had come along. He'd received the news two weeks ago. He'd been grappling with it since, wondering what to do with his borrowed time.
He now knew what he wanted to do with the time that remained. He'd only had one visitor the entire time he'd been in the Sander Institute. Just one of the many consequences of his reclusive life. He wasn't sure he would call her a friend, but she seemed like a kindred spirit.
A kindred spirit whose life might still be troubled by that fiend. So, Elliot had decided that he would do everything in his power to help her rid her life of the maniac. He would ask doctor Simons to contact her again tomorrow.
