He looked past her for a moment, as if admiring the geometry of the glass, the way it split the room into before and after.“You know, for a long time I doubted anyone would follow in my footsteps.Oh, there have always been those who shouted on message boards, who emailed me in prison about how they ‘got it.’But shouting is cheap.Commitment is dear.I thought perhaps the age of obedience had passed.And then, recently, I was given to understand that I was wrong.”
“By whom?”she demanded.
He looked back at her.His eyes were clear and bright; prison had not dulled that fever.“Providence.”
The hair on the back of her neck prickled.“Who wrote to you?”
He spread his hands as far as the chains allowed.“When I was able to receive communications… Many persons.Always.The lonely, the devoted, the disturbed.The ones who see in my work a permission slip for their own anger.Most I ignore.A very, very few, I listen to.”
“And this one?”
He smiled again, but there was less warmth in it now.More calculation, like a cat deciding how much to toy with a trapped mouse.
She forced her voice to stay neutral.“Stop playing games,” she said.“Can you give me a name?An address?Anything that could help me protect people?”
“Protect.”He rolled the word on his tongue like a tasting wine.“Always so noble.What protection is there from the fire of the Lord of wrath?”
“Name,” she repeated.
He was quiet for a long moment.Through the glass, she could see the pulse beating thinly at the side of his throat.He looked older, suddenly.Tired.But the tiredness seemed almost… chosen, a garment donned for effect.
“At this stage,” he said, “names are irrelevant.What matters is the work.They spoke of honor.Of parents.Of the first duty we learn and the first we discard when it becomes inconvenient.They spoke as one who has watched that betrayal up close and has become ready to answer it.”
Honor.Parents.The commandment came to her at once, as it had for years.
Honor thy father and thy mother.The fifth.
She felt her jaw tighten.“You think someone’s about to start killing under that banner.The fifth commandment.They’re working their way through the list.”
“What a dull, prosaic way to describe mankind’s contract with the Almighty,” Cox observed sharply.
In answer, Kate merely shrugged, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a theological argument.
“I am aware,” Cox continued carefully, “that someone has felt the same pull I felt.The itch under the skin.The knowledge that the world has forgotten its oldest promises.They used my language.My metaphors.They called what was coming a… ‘sacred work.’”His mouth twitched.“I confess, I smiled when I read it.Pride is a sin, but one I know well.”
“And that’s why you’ve given this person encouragement.”
Cox frowned and shook his head, seemingly with authenticity.“I can offer nothing from here apart from my prayers.”
“And so you decided to share this because…?”
“Because you are my mirror,” he said simply.“And because you, uniquely, might understand what it means.”
Her stomach turned.“Try me.”
“You see,” he went on, “this particular case will be close to your heart.”
A beat.Two.
She heard Marcus’s voice in her ear:Don’t let him in the door.
“How?”she asked.“Close how?”
“Oh, Kate.”The way he said her name was almost affectionate.“You know better than most that the lines between public duty and private grief are rarely clean.There are threads in your life pulled tight between those poles.Family.Loss.Legacy.”
“I told you back on that rooftop in Manhattan, I’m not interested in your mentalist sideshow.You’ve researched my family.Big deal.You’ve sprinkled a few references to my past across your crime scenes, in the hope that it gives you some hold over me.And it hasn’t, because I don’t care.I only care about saving lives.So if you’ve got some information, share.”
She let the flash of anger pass through her and fade, the way her therapist had taught her: name it, notice it, let it go.Breathe.
