Chapter 2: The Rose Has Thorns
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Potomac Circle Mall, Washington DC
Sunday, 30 May
5:15 am
He couldn't help but contrast the last image he'd had of Elizabeth, laughing up at him, with the white stillness of the woman lying on the floor of the back area of Potomac Circle Mall.
She was young, not more than 30, and dressed as though she were a professional somewhere; her blonde hair was still twisted up, although many strands had long since come loose, no doubt as she struggled with her assailant. Blood had spilled out from her throat, so much of it that he doubted there was even a pint left in her. A white sheet was pulled back from the upper part of her body, and the darkness of the rose tossed onto her was a sharp image against the tan dress.
"Look what ERT found." Jack's voice broke into his thoughts, and Myles turned toward the shorter agent. Jack handed him an evidence bag with a white piece of paper in it.
Myles' voice was rough before he got through reading the note. "Oh! Snatch'd away in beauty's bloom/On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;/But on thy turf shall roses rear/Their leaves, the earliest of the year;/And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:…" He looked up. "That's the first stanza of a poem by Lord Byron."
"We have a calling card, it would appear." Dimitrius joined in the conversation.
Myles' characteristic sarcasm had a bitter tone to it. "What kind of a sick freak takes something from one of the most romantic poets ever and turns it into their calling card for serial killing?"
"The same sick freak who also sends 'em flowers with the poetry." Bobby had come up behind them, and the tone of his voice wasn't far behind Myles'.
"Well," said Jack, "I want you to head up finding out what kind of sick freak we're dealing with, Myles. You'll be the case agent on this one."
Myles looked at him in surprise. It wasn't often he had the opportunity to be the case agent, and he knew it was because he usually came across as terribly overbearing during it. He tried not to sound too shocked as he replied, "Any particular reason why? It's just—"
Jack cut him off. "Because you spent five years in Violent Crime. You and D are the closest thing to profilers that we have. I know it's not something you'd like to relive, so to speak, but we need you."
"Oh, man," Bobby groaned. "Why'd you have to tell him that? Now there'll be no living with him."
Myles acknowledged the barb with a slight smile, but then nodded quite soberly to Jack. "All right."
For a moment, they watched him shift five years into the past, steeling himself even as he geared up for it. It took about a half-second, and then he turned to Dimitrius. "D, pull up the case files for all the previous killings. We want to look for anything that even remotely resembles a connection between the victims."
"The old drill," D responded. "Right."
"Jack, stay in contact with ERT. I want to know what this person used, and how they did it. Bobby, get in contact with the mall security. I want you and Sue to start going over their surveillance tapes for the past two days. Anything of her, or The Rose. We need to know if she was being followed, or if they were waiting here for her."
"Gotcha, mate." For once, Bobby had no comeback, but treated the situation with the gravity it warranted.
"Tara..." Myles paused, and held out the bag with the printed card. "Get someone from the lab to do some scans, and run some searches. I want to know what kind of paper they used, who sells it. What kind of ink, what kind of printer. The works."
"On it." Tara grabbed the bag and headed for her car.
"Tell ERT to go over every millimeter here, and to inform the morgue that detail counts in the autopsy. I want to know if this woman put sugar on her cereal this morning." He looked around at the group still present. "Let's get back to the office and start getting into the Black Rose's head."
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Hoover Building, Washington DC
Sunday, 30 May
4 p.m.
By late afternoon, the Bullpen more closely resembled a war room. Seven photos, seven names were up on the board, along with a map of the northeastern part of the US, from Massachusetts to Virginia. Two red magnets each marked off cities where the Black Rose had struck: Cambridge, Massachusetts, Princeton, New Jersey, and Baltimore, Maryland. One marker was on Washington, DC.
Case files were scattered over a table that Myles and D had set up just out of the traffic lane. Each had been gone over twice by each member of the team. ERT's report had been scrutinized as well, and they were just waiting on the autopsy report for Eve Harcourt, the latest victim.
Lucy walked in with the report and handed it to Myles. "Here you go."
He barely acknowledged her, but instead immediately started reading. After a second, he murmured absently, "Thanks, Luce," and headed back to his desk.
She stared at him for a moment— not because he'd actually bothered to thank her, but because he was almost a total stranger. Gone was the sarcasm, the often-morbid humor that was his trademark. In its place was…a predator. Lucy could feel it every time she went near him— a silent, lethal mental stalking of his prey.
A couple of times today, she'd caught him staring at the wall or out the window, processing some piece of information someone had handed him. The look in his eyes made her shiver, because it was exactly like an image she'd seen on a nature program of a panther, perched in a tree, surveying a potential lunch.
She shivered again, and walked over to the coffee station, where D was getting a refill. Lucy leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Was he always like this while you guys were in the VCD? Like some big cat on the prowl?"
Dimitrius chuckled at the metaphor, then turned around and leaned against the table. "I don't know about 'always;' we only worked together on a handful of cases. Same division, different units. But yeah— what you're seeing now is the Myles I knew five years ago. When he went after a killer, he went fast and he went deep. And he usually spent two weeks after each case just trying to claw his way back to the surface before he had to do it again."
Lucy's eyes were wide as they both paused to contemplate him again at his desk. "That bad."
"Yep," D agreed. "That's about it in a nutshell. And, to continue with your metaphor, if we hit a bunch of snags and he starts getting frustrated…you know what happens when you get in the way of a big cat on the prowl?"
She swallowed. "You get your head taken off in a single swipe of a paw?
D nodded, chuckling again. "Pretty much. You all are in for a trip."
"Guys?" Myles' baritone reached every corner of the room. "Let's get up what we have so far. The autopsy report on Eve Harcourt is here. I want to know if anything matches the other reports we have." His voice held no emotion whatsoever.
The team gathered around, and the brainstorming began.
"So far we haven't been able to pinpoint any connection between the victims," Bobby started. "Age, hair color, shoe size, profession, location, old school friends…nothing. Only two victims in each city, though. None of them knew each other, not even the two killed on the Princeton University campus. At this point, it looks as if the Rose isn't picky who he or she kills."
"But," Jack stepped in, "the modus operandi is identical in every case. Early Sunday morning, each week for the past seven weeks, the Black Rose chloroforms a victim, shoots her in the arm with an anticoagulant, then makes a single small cut in her throat, most likely with a hobby-type knife."
Sue raised her hand slightly. "An anti-what?"
Myles answered her. "Anticoagulant." He paused while Lucy spelled it out. "It's a substance to prevent the blood from clotting. Our Rose wanted to make sure there was no chance of them surviving."
Sue nodded, and he turned to Tara. "What about the note?"
She pulled up a report. "No help tracking there. The paper was standard 20-pound printer paper, and it was done on a basic ink-jet. No prints, either. The Rose was probably wearing gloves while he or she was printing them off. That same poem was found at each of the murder scenes, so it's definitely got a meaning of some sort, but what we don't know."
"Oh, it has a meaning, all right," Myles replied tonelessly. "The first line, 'snatched away in beauty's bloom,' tells us he's looking for young women. The rest…our killer wants the victims where he or she can see them. There's a beauty in their deaths, whatever that might be, and the Black Rose wants 'no ponderous tomb' to stand in the way of the view. I wouldn't be surprised if he hung around to watch them die."
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Dimitrius spoke. "The roses themselves might be a place to start. Black roses aren't exactly in high demand. Is there any place in DC where you could get them? Or Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Maryland, for that matter?"
Sue jumped up slightly at that. "I know someone who'd know the answer to that. Give me five minutes." She grabbed her phone and dialed, sitting down at her desk as she did so.
While she was doing that, Myles decided to tackle one aspect she already knew about, so she wouldn't miss anything. "Bobby, what happened with the surveillance tapes from the mall?"
The Aussie sighed and dropped into his chair, leaning back in it. "Not a bloody thing. Well, of value, anyway. The camera in the back area where we found her conveniently got blacked out before she was killed."
"Blacked out?" Lucy asked. "How?"
Bobby grunted. "Probably the Rose had already cased the place a couple days beforehand, came in directly under the camera, and put a coat or a cloth over the lens." He sat up, his elbows on his knees. "The previous two days worth of film were of Eve Harcourt going to work at the mall offices; she worked as the secretary to the mall manager."
"That's the only even remote connection we have," he continued. "All of them were some kind of white-collar professionals. The fields are as diverse as they come, everything from paralegal to interior decorator."
Sue hung up her phone and came back around to lean against her desk. "David says there's not any greenhouse or florist's shop on the East Coast that would regularly carry black roses. It would have to be a special order. He said he'll do some checking."
Myles stared at the wall for a minute, processing that. "Tara," he began slowly, "is there a way to check the orders for all the mail-order seed and plant businesses in the US? Maybe our Black Rose is a gardener…"
"You think he's growing them himself?" Dimitrius queried.
"It'd be the hardest way to trace them."
Tara sighed at her computer. "How far back do you want to check?"
Myles pulled at his lip, his eyes still focused on the far wall. "Let's say the last two years. It often takes roses that long to really start thriving."
She let out a low whistle. "Wow, you don't ask much, do you? It can be done, but I can't even begin to give you a timetable."
"I bet you could start by eliminating the ones that don't carry black roses," Jack suggested.
"Ooh. Good thought." She sat down at the computer and began to work her magic.
"All right." Myles shook out of his thoughts. "There's not a lot more we can do tonight, so everyone go get some rest. We'll pick it up fresh in the morning."
It took about five minutes for the Bullpen to clear of everyone except Tara, Dimitrius and Myles. Tara tapped a few more keys on her computer, then stood up and grabbed her coat. "The query is running, but it'll still take most of the night, I'll wager," she said. "Good night."
"'Night, Tara," D called. Myles was still engrossed in the case files. Dimitrius sighed and walked over to the blond agent's desk. He leaned against it and crossed his arms over his chest. "You could use a break, too, you know."
"It's going to be in my head anyway," was the sardonic reply. "I might just as well stay here with it as go home."
The older agent shook his head. "You know, it's not five years ago. You're not the same person who used to work 72 hours straight on a case until you passed out so deeply that the nightmares would stay away. You have something to go home to now."
Myles looked up at him. "What? There's nothing waiting at home…" He trailed off, his blue-grey eyes widening. "Oh…you mean…?"
Dimitrius nodded. "Lucy told me Elizabeth called earlier. She said she'd have dinner ready at your house if we weren't going 24/7. And," he added, "you'd be surprised what a break like that can do for your thought processes, even if you tell her nothing about the case. "
The blond agent sat back and sighed. "I must admit, I wasn't really prepared for how draining it would be to go back to all this."
Dimitrius chuckled. "Trust me on this one, Myles. Go home for a while. Clear your head. You'll be surprised how much it helps."
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Leland Home, Washington DC
Sunday, 30 May
5 p.m.
It was strange to drive up and see lights on in his house, but at the same time there was a comfort about it. As Myles walked in the front door, the strains of a Chopin nocturne reached his ears. He hung up his coat in the entryway closet, and walked into the kitchen.
What he saw there stopped him short— he'd never really thought about what Dimitrius had, with his wife and family, but now it rammed itself into his consciousness with force enough to drive out all thoughts of the case. Someone was actually waiting at home for him.
Elizabeth was seated at the kitchen counter, her back to him, working on what looked like patient files. He watched her for a moment— her pen in her mouth, dark hair pulled back into a simple ponytail, long legs crossed— and was entranced all over again. This certainly tops staring at crime scene photos, he thought with a smile.
He leaned over and whispered in her ear. "I heard someone had broken into my house."
She smiled without turning. "That's what you get for handing out the key."
Myles chuckled and put his arms around her from behind, resting his cheek against hers. "Well, you're certainly the most beautiful perpetrator I've ever caught."
She put down her pen and leaned back against him. "Long day?"
"Incredibly. I somehow managed to get assigned as the case agent on this."
Elizabeth turned to face him. "You sound surprised it happened," she said, raising an eyebrow at him.
He straightened and leaned back against the counter, his hands in his pockets. "It doesn't happen very often. I must admit, I tend to get a little carried away when there's a case to be solved and I feel responsible for solving it."
"Ah," she nodded, "Your passion overrules your people skills?"
"Something like that," he shrugged. "I believe Bobby resorts to calling me 'Mussolini' under his breath, or that's what it sounds like."
She laughed. "Well, then, your Dictatorship, let me put dinner in to heat up while you relax. There's already salad in the fridge if you want."
"Actually, a hot shower sounds better right now," he replied, stretching the kinks out of his back. "Do I have time before dinner's ready?"
"Yes," she smiled. "Go ahead. That will give me just enough time to finish up this report."
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8 p.m.
"Can I ask you something?" Elizabeth came back over to the sofa after setting the wineglasses on the kitchen counter.
He pulled her down next to him and put his arm around her. "Sweetheart, you can ask me anything. You should know that by now."
"All right." She snuggled up next to him. "What would you have been doing tonight if I hadn't called?"
Myles let his breath out in a laugh. "Trying to stay awake for 72 hours straight."
"What?"
He chuckled again. "That's what I used to do on cases like this."
"Why?"
The smile faded a little. "Because that was the only way to stave off the nightmares I used to get when I worked in the Violent Crime Division. I was there for my first five years with the Bureau. Serial killers, rapists… sick, twisted individuals who had nothing better to do than inflict the maximum amount of pain they could on innocent people."
"Oh," she replied. She looked up at him. "I'm sorry. Here I was trying to make you forget work, and I hash it all up again and worse."
Myles reached a hand over and stroked her cheek. "It's okay, love. Tonight...this is wonderful. Coming home and seeing you here, dinner, just being able to let something else fill me for a few hours... D was right. It helps. I feel like I can actually sleep tonight. Thank you." He drew her into a lingering kiss.
"You are very welcome," she replied when he released her. "If it'll help, I'll be here every single night until your case is solved."
He looked at her for a minute, his gaze softening even further. "Just until the case is solved? What if I told you I'd been thinking about maybe keeping you around longer than that?"
Her eyes widened, but a mischievous smile lit her face. "I'd say it's about time."
Myles returned the grin. "I'm not saying I'm ready to get down on one knee just yet, but..." His eyes lit with mischief as well, and the grin broadened. "Besides, after the day I've had, I might not manage to get back up on my feet again."
Elizabeth laughed and kissed him again. "Well, when you decide it's not such a scary idea after all, you just let me know."
"Oh, I will," he replied, pulling her close, "and when I do, my dear, I shall do it in style. Have no fear of that."
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