"Decaf, Don." David set the steaming cup in front of his team leader. "Caffeine is not on your menu for today."
Don didn't even consider objecting. It had been a rough night. He'd kept his word by driving Charlie straight home, never deviating once, and spent the night there himself. By unspoken agreement, neither Eppes shared the news with their father, that one of Charlie's 'classmates' was gone. It had been late, they'd walked in, shared a brief good night with Alan Eppes, and then begged off, Don heading for the room that he'd grown up in; still his, after all these years.
Margaret Eppes had updated Don's old room while he was in New Mexico, but Don still approved of it. She'd cleaned out the teenage detritus and replaced it with: nothing. The room acquired clean lines and welcoming corners, and Don found that he enjoyed spending the night as much now as he ever had growing up. There was a small picture of Don himself, catching a pop fly, framed and on the wall over a chest of drawers, and the wallpaper had a pattern of faint stripes that reminded him of an umpire's uniform. There was a definite baseball theme but nothing so overpowering that anyone walking in would get hit in the face. It was a good room to spend the night in, and as much as it contained the essence of Don, it also reminded him of his mother, how she used to sit in the stands and cheer. Still miss you, Mom. Always will.
Don had tried to sleep. He'd given it his best shot, and he thought that he'd even managed a couple of hours before anxiety woke him and forced him to crack open Charlie's door and peek in to make sure that his brother was still there and breathing. Then he headed back to his room and laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing that he could go back to sleep.
At four in the morning he had given it up as a bad job. He padded downstairs in his skivvies, not bothering to find an extra robe—he was home, after all—and quietly fixed himself a cup of coffee, intending to dig into the pile of email that was threatening to overwhelm his inbox at Headquarters. The IT department had already sent him two threatening letters, letting him know that he was seriously overloading his capacity and that further missives might or might not get through and how would he like them apples?
He might as well make use of the time. If he couldn't sleep, he could least use the time wisely. Don navigated through the various security protocols that allowed him to access his email from a non-FBI computer and started deleting the spam that managed to creep in despite all of the filters that the IT department routinely erected and refurbished. That in itself would clear out almost half of his overload, he rationalized. He scratched his hand across his bare chest, rubbing the muscles underneath, wishing that those muscles were less tense. Just one more misery to lay at Wesley Anders' door. Dammit.
He was on his second cup, enjoying the bitter feeling of seared taste buds, when his father walked in on him.
"You're up early, Donnie."
Don nearly jumped out of his skin. As it was, the nearly full cup slopped over onto his hand, making him yelp and set it down hastily. "Dad! I didn't hear you come down." He looked at the clock on the wall. "What are you doing up so early?" he asked, trying not to sound accusing.
"Hate to break this to you, Don, but I'm an old man. I get up every now and again. What about you?"
"A lot of stuff to clear up for the office…" Don let his voice trail away. His father wasn't buying it. Don was a master of interrogation, but his father put him to shame. Not for the first time Don wondered about hiring his old man to consult on interrogations. They'd clear out the L.A. streets in no time. "A case."
"The case." His father wasn't fooled. "It's not going well."
"It's not going well," Don agreed.
"Charlie still involved?"
Don debated lying. "Yes. Yes, he is."
"He's still sleeping."
"He's smarter than I am."
"Hmph." His father showed what he thought of that response, and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Ought to switch to decaf," he grumbled. "I don't need to be up early any more."
"You could go back to bed," Don offered.
"So could you. You don't have to be in until eight." His father carefully seated himself across the table from Don so that he couldn't see the computer screen. Don would be able to honestly say that non-FBI personnel had not seen his spam. "Can you talk about it?"
"Not…" Don reconsidered. It wasn't a case. A crime hadn't been committed—at least, not one that had gotten identified yet. All the murders were classified as suicides, and Don hadn't been able to prove otherwise. Which meant that it wasn't an FBI case, which meant that Don wasn't not allowed to discuss it. "I guess."
"Well?" Alan prodded, when no further details were forthcoming.
"It's this guy. He calls himself a life coach. We were talking about it, the day that I got back from San Francisco."
"Right. You told Charlie to stay away from him. Charlie didn't?" His father already knew the answer to that question, and was simply using the line to keep Don talking.
"Actually, Charlie did, but this guy went looking for him. Charlie's something of a big name at CalSci, Dad." We can use that as the excuse. I'm not ready to confess to you quite yet that Anders is going after Charlie because I went after him up North. "Getting Professor Charles Eppes to go to his so-called 'seminars' was a big marketing ploy for him. We decided to try to use that."
"So that's where Charlie has been spending his evenings. I thought it was with Amita. I should have known," Alan said disgustedly. "Neither one of you will give me grandkids to play with for the next decade. So Charlie's been going to these meetings?"
"Yeah."
"And someone else just died."
"Yeah." As if it wasn't obvious.
"Is Charlie in danger?"
Don started to say no. That didn't seem right, but 'yes' wasn't really the right answer either. "I don't know. I don't think so, but—"
"But you're not really sure."
"Dad, the kids who killed themselves gave off warning signs. They withdrew from their friends, they stopped talking to people, stopped going to classes; all classic signs of depression. Charlie's not doing any of that, is he?" A little desperately.
Alan came through. "No. No, he's still as hyperactive as ever."
"Gee, thanks." A tousled dark head stuck itself into the kitchen, followed by a sniffing nose. The rest of Charlie emerged after. "I thought I smelled coffee." He looked at the kitchen clock, just as the other two had done earlier. "You do realize that it's just after five in the morning?"
"So what are you doing up?" Don challenged.
"What are you?" Charlie challenged right back. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down with them. "I can just bet that I know what you're talking about. I listened from the stairs," he slipped in before Don could object. He swiveled around to face both his brother and his father. "Loud and clear: I have no intention of killing myself. I have not thought about it in the past. I am not thinking about it now. I do not anticipate thinking about it in the future. If I do, you will be the first one that I call to talk me out of it. There. Satisfied?"
"Who's first?" Alan asked. "Donnie, or me?"
"Who would you rather?"
"Me," Don said, with "me!" from his father at the same time.
"Fine. I'll make it a conference call. That good enough for both of you?" Charlie regarded his father and his brother with affectionate exasperation. "I did the research too, you know. People don't commit suicide unannounced. They send out signals. This Anders guy, he's persuading kids to kill themselves, but they're following all the rules. They follow the pattern." He leaned back in his chair and inhaled some of his coffee. "I'm not following the pattern. At least, not the pattern that Wesley Anders wants me to." He gave them a big grin, made larger by his desire to reassure them. "However, there is a pattern that I am following: Me first for the shower."
His team was avoiding him, and Don didn't blame them. His mood was enough to qualify as an instrument of torture, and he couldn't do anything about it. He'd made two calls to Charlie, and both had been rebuffed with a quiet and confident, "Chill, Don. Work on a case that needs you."
Yeah, well, this 'case that wasn't a case' needed him. There were three other files on his desk that also needed him, and so far he hadn't been able to concentrate on any one of them.
Don's mind drifted back to something that Charlie had said: 'how does this guy make any money at it?' They had been coming home, Don remembered, and Charlie had been cranky coming out of the session. 'How does this guy make any money?'
Of course. They all knew the guy's motive: he hated smart people. Wesley Anders wanted to get back at all the smart people because they'd refused to admit him to their ranks. He wanted to get even.
But he still needed a source of income. Every city where he set up shop, he needed money to refurbish the building and make it ready for his scheme. He needed a lot of money. Where did the money come from?
Don began to get excited. He should have thought of this before. Follow the money trail; it was one of the basics of criminal investigations. There were some quick and standardized routes to follow, protocols to look at—and information to decipher.
Wait a minute—he had thought of it before. He'd mentioned it to the others, and Colby had set some of the protocol into motion. They should be coming in by now. Don turned to his computer for a session of some advanced hunt and peck maneuvers.
An hour later, the three manila files on his desk were still untouched. An hour later, Special Agent Don Eppes was on his way to the Director's office to discuss opening a case that had originated in San Francisco and was now here.
Two hours later, Special Agent Don Eppes and his team were serving a warrant on the premises of one Wesley Anders, life coach.
"Two hundred fifty participants, Don." David called Don up to Anders' office to look at the financial books. The office was richly furnished; Anders hadn't saved any money on his decorating bills. "He claims to have some two hundred and fifty participants signed up for his sessions. He claims that almost everyone who attended his first free seminar came back and paid their thousand bucks for the series. A quarter of a million dollars."
"Considering that we've only seen six people besides Charlie attend, I find that hard to believe," Don said dryly. The shakes were gone from his hands, he noted. The drive was back. No more worrying about sending his brother into the lion's den. Don Eppes was in control, and the perp was going down. It felt damn good.
"You called it, Don." David gave credit where credit was due. "Here's the evidence. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars, all in one thousand dollar checks. All drawn on the same bank. All signed by the same person: Gary Frank."
"We'll pick him up for questioning," Don directed. "Let's see what Frank says about paying Wesley Anders this much money and then having his wealthy wife attempt suicide after a session with Anders. Let's see what he says about footing the bill for more than two hundred and forty fake participants as a way of cooking Anders' books." It was all coming together. "I'll call Maddox in San Francisco and have him go through the records up there. Let's see who paid Anders a lot of money to make another 'loved one' commit suicide."
The next stopping place was with Colby and Megan, in the auditorium. That was even more rewarding, if more unnerving.
Megan, gloves in place, had ripped open one of the seat cushions in the front row, the row with the different colored upholstery. She pulled Don over to look at what she'd found.
"I'm betting that this is how Anders got those kids to kill themselves, Don. Look at this seat. There's cushioning around the edge, enough to make people think that they're sitting on a normal chair. But pull the top back," and Megan lifted up the covering, "and underneath we have a nice little hypodermic syringe."
It was all there: a syringe held in a clamp with some sort of contraption attached to it that Don had no doubt would cause the syringe to plunge upward into someone's leg who was sitting there. Megan picked up a clamp to pluck the syringe out of its holder.
She examined the label. "Interferon. Interesting choice. I never would have thought of that." She looked up at her boss. "We'll have to research Anders' background a little more thoroughly," she told him. "I wonder how he knew about this. Interferon, Don," she said, knowing that it would be the next question, "is a medication used for many things: cancer, some auto-immune diseases. It's not a poison. And this needle is so slender that it wouldn't cause any real discomfort, just a little twinge that would be attributed to something else."
"If it's not a poison, then why was Anders using it?"
"For its side effects," Megan said. "It's not consistent, but a common side effect from the use of certain types of interferon is a profound depression, sometimes even followed by a suicide attempt."
"Ah." The light bulb went off. "So this was what Anders was using to persuade those kids to kill themselves. And why it happened so quickly. They were being helped along the downward spiral with this stuff."
"Right." Megan looked Don square in the eye. "Don, another side effect of these interferons is," she paused for effect, "flu symptoms. Headache. Fever, shaking chills. Muscle aches. Ring any bells?"
It did. "Charlie's flu bug." Don set his jaw. "One more mystery explained. Got any more explanations, Reeves?"
"Yes, but you could have guessed this one." Megan pointed to the interior wiring of the cushion. "A remote signal receiver. I'll get Forensics on it, but my guess is that Anders could control every one of these babies, either as a group or individually. Forensics will have to rip up every seat cushion to get an idea of how many of these altered seats Anders had." She jerked her thumb toward the stage where Colby was working, examining the electronic toys that Anders had installed. "Colby's up next, Don. We flipped a coin, and he lost. Go talk to him."
"Got it." Don went.
Colby was so eager to talk that words spilled out all over themselves. "Don, this guy went nuts over this! He had everything hardwired up here from the podium and then sent signals out to each of a dozen chairs, with the potential for a few more chairs if this thing took off and got a bunch more kids to sit in. He spent a big chunk of change on this." Then Colby sobered, and picked up a pair of headphones and handed them to Don. "Look at these, Don."
"Okay, headphones. What am I looking at, Colby? They don't look any different. High end, maybe, but not different."
"And that's the beauty of it, Don." Colby wasn't joking. "Sound. Low frequency sound waves. That's what Anders was playing with here. Another way to mess with kids' minds. That was the reason that he had all of them using headphones. It wasn't for concentration, and it wasn't even to piss you and me off by not being able to listen in on Charlie's wires. It was to most effectively carry these low frequency sound waves to those kids' brains and cause more depression."
"So that's why we found blood in Charlie's ear." It made sense. Don didn't like it, but it made sense. The thought of exposing his genius brother to this…
"Anybody find Anders himself yet, boss?" Colby cut in on Don's self-recrimination.
"No, but I haven't given up hope," Don told him. "His clothes are still upstairs in that room that he has for himself. There's a packed suitcase, but it's in his room. I think we may have caught him, or we will as soon as he tries to approach this place."
"You think he'll just run?"
"Always a possibility—" Don started to say.
Megan came up. "I don't know, Don. This is an angry man. He's likely to lash out before he runs, especially if he thinks that you beat him."
"I did beat him," Don pointed out. "We figured out how he did it. We ruined his little scheme, and we're taking away the money that he took."
"Yes, well, all I'm saying, Don, is to watch your back," Megan warned. "Look under your car before getting in. Check for booby traps before walking into your apartment after work—that's one that I would particularly watch out for," she said. "It's sneaky, it's relatively easy to set up, and it would get you when you're tired and not being careful. That would appeal to Anders' sense of outrage."
An unhappy thought struck Don. "You think he might go after Charlie?" Charlie, my brother, the weak link because he doesn't know to take the routine precautions that the rest of us cut our eye-teeth on at Quantico?
Megan was equally as unhappy. "I'd certainly warn him, Don. Statistically, Anders is more likely to go after you. You're the one who pursued him in San Francisco, and carried the case to L.A. You're the one who master-minded the bust, and he knows it. Statistically, he should go after you. But, as Charlie would remind us, it's always that one chance in a million that can come through. I'd warn him."
"Good idea." Don pulled out his cell. "Charlie?"
"Don?"
Yes! Math professor at home in his office, available for phone calls from worried FBI agents. "We got 'im."
"Anders?"
"None other. Financial books: cooked. Chair that you sat in: equipped with syringes filled with nasty stuff to make you see goblins in your sleep. Headphones: complete with mind-altering sound waves, suitable for nefarious purposes. I'm glad you're not coming back here, buddy. This was not a good place to be for anyone. Pass the word: Anders is finished." Don glanced at his watch. It felt good to deliver the news, and Don was in the mood to expand the goodness further. "Hey, how about a celebratory lunch, my treat? I have to head over to the D.A's office so that they can issue the arrest warrant for Anders, then I'll swing by your place with something. I'll get the other three there too, as soon as they finish up the details here."
"Sounds good. I've got the afternoon free. I was planning on doing some work on an article I'm reviewing, but this sounds better. I can chop down an article any time."
"Okay, Chuck. See you in a couple of hours. Oh and, Charlie?"
"Yes, Don?"
"This Anders guy is still at large, so be careful, okay? Don't go anywhere, don't accept candy from strangers, that sort of thing. We'll pick him up pretty soon, but until then, look under and around your car before getting in. Serious now, Charlie."
"Got it. How about Dad? Should we warn him?"
"Couldn't hurt. I'll call him next. See you in a few."
Excellent day to be alive, emphasis on alive. Visit to the D.A.'s office: wonderful. There was now a detailed warrant for the arrest of one Wesley Anders, life coach, on the charge of murder, with the D.A. considering a few attempted murder charges as well. There was now an All Points Bulletin posted so that every cop in Southern California would be looking for the aforementioned life coach, and faxes had been sent to most of the major cities so that if Mr. Anders tried to set up shop under his or an assumed name in a different location, Mr. Anders would find himself being quickly extradited to the City of Angels for an anticipated very long stay, vacations not included. There was the phone call, charged to the department, to Lon Maddox in San Francisco, detailing the financial shenanigans that had occurred in Don's proverbial backyard, so that Maddox could replicate those findings in San Francisco on a retrospective basis and bring additional evidence to bear. How many murders would Anders be charged with? Don hoped that he wouldn't run out of fingers to count on.
On top of it all, the sky was blue and cloudless, and, since it was L.A., there was little to no humidity to mar the glory of it all.
Don seriously considered purchasing a lottery ticket.
Only the thought of what Charlie would say about the odds prevented him from dropping the dollar for a ticket. Then…
"What the hell," he grinned to himself, and dug out the dollar bill, handing it to the clerk in exchange for the lottery ticket. "It's my lucky day. I don't have to tell Charlie, unless I win." He stuck the ticket into his wallet and picked up the bag containing high end gourmet sandwiches for lunch, not even caring that his credit card was now in serious jeopardy of being overdrawn.
He parked in the lot outside of the Math Building, didn't mind that he had to park what seemed like two acres away for all of the cars between him and his destination. He grinned; merely another opportunity to enjoy the fresh air. Don did just that, pausing to inhale the sunshine along with the fragrant carnations planted alongside the walkway. The other three would be joining him here just as soon as they put the crime scene to bed in Forensics' very capable hands, and David had promised to pick up something thirst-quenching en route.
Several of the students outside and in eyed him curiously as he ambled past them on his way to Charlie's office. Don knew that look: some of those students were undoubtedly Charlie's, and would be hoping for some extra-curricular project to help with and, incidentally, earn some extra credit. Charlie's classes were fun, Don had heard from talking to some of those students, but tough. Charlie had never been known for handing out easy A's. Big Brother FBI Agent with a bag in his hands usually meant extra credit. Sorry, guys. Not this time. This is a thank you to a courageous little brother.
Don rapped just enough for propriety and pushed the office door open without pausing for an invitation. Charlie was there, as expected, sitting behind his desk with his feet propped up on the desk and a journal in his hands. Catching up on his reading while waiting for lunch, Don presumed; Charlie usually took those spare moments to do that. There was a moderately sized fruit basket on his desk, the plastic wrapping paper already torn away to expose the fruit below. That too did not surprise Don. Several seminars in search of keynote speakers had taken to trying to entice Professor Eppes with small goodies such as this. The larger corporations usually went for more expensive bribes, electronics and such, to beg a portion of Dr. Eppes' time, but the scholastic endeavors were often cash-strapped and frequently manned by directors interested in good health habits as well as math.
"Hey, nice fruit basket," Don said by way of a greeting. "Who's it from?"
"Ha, ha," Charlie grinned, taking his feet down. "As if you didn't know. Don, you didn't have to do this. Lunch is more than enough. I would have—"
Don's cell interrupted, and Don held up his hand to halt Charlie's words. It was David's name in the window of the cell, and it would likely be important: either something about the case—maybe they'd spotted Anders, even caught him?—or, even more important, that the three were on their way over here for lunch. "Eppes."
"Don?" The panic was being contained in David's voice, but Don still heard it. He stiffened.
"What?"
"Don, you just got a package, here at Headquarters. Forensics has it now. Don, somebody dusted it with poison of some sort."
"Everybody okay?" Lunch just went off the agenda.
"Yes. As soon as it's safe, Forensics is going to try for prints and run it through the wringer. They'll see if they can identify who sent it."
"I can guess," Don told him grimly, turning to look at Charlie. His brother had just picked up an apple from the fruit basket and was examining it, trying not to look too alarmed at his brother's terse half of the conversation. "Any return address? Post mark?"
"It was a basket of fruit, Don. There was a card—"
"Charlie, stop!"
The apple was less than a centimeter from Charlie's mouth.