“Fine,” Kate said.“He was… himself.”
“That bad, huh?”
On the far side of the final door the sunlight hit her like a slap.She blinked, disoriented, and for a moment the fences doubled and blurred in her vision, lattices collapsing into each other like a bad visual effect.The sky seemed too wide, too blue, after the pressed-in geometry of the prison corridors.
The parking lot shimmered with heat.Her car waited where she’d left it, looking smaller than before, as if the building behind her had grown while she was inside.
In the car, the interior had become an oven.She started the engine, cranked the air conditioning, and sat there with both hands on the wheel, not moving.The steering wheel was hot enough to sting.She welcomed the sting; it was something real, something uncomplicated.
Was any of it useful?
He’d given her almost nothing.The Fifth Commandment: honor thy father and mother.But no name, no place, no time frame.Just a vague sketch of a stranger’s rage and the assurance that somehow, somewhere, it would intersect with her life.Close to her heart.
Her first thought, predictably, was her mother.Catherine in her little terraced house in Portland, Maine, sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a cup of tea.
Her second thought was Marcus.
Her third was a stubborn refusal to let Elijah Cox dictate the shape of her fear.
She reached for her phone, hesitated, then typed a message.
OUT.HE WAS VAGUE AND SMUG.WILL CALL AFTER I GET ON THE ROAD.PLENTY OF ACTIONABLES: NOTHING URGENT.
She hit send before she could second-guess the wording.Marcus responded almost at once.
SHOCKED.TRULY.DRIVE SAFE.
Kate let out a short breath that was almost a laugh.
She glanced back at the prison one last time.From this distance it was just a slab against the sky, blank and indifferent, the gleam of razor wire a faint silver halo.No hint of the man inside, or the words he’d just poured into the world like poison into a reservoir.
Maybe the meeting had been a waste of time.Maybe Cox was exactly what Marcus had suggested: a bored man in a box, poking at the only toy within reach.But she couldn’t gamble on it.
Pulling out her phone, she called Poppy Klamath, a promising junior agent who’d assisted on cases before.
Poppy picked up on the second ring.“Klamath.”
“It’s Valentine,” Kate said.“I’ve just come out of Northbridge.I need you on something.”
There was a rustle, the clack of keys.“On speaker with the Bureau’s favourite prophet?”
“Thankfully no,” Kate said.“But it’s about him.We want a run-down on anyone who visited or wrote to Cox when he was at the medium security joint in Redfern.Talk to the Governor, see who he got close to.There was a guy…” She frowned, trying to access the memory banks.“Tray Purvis… I interviewed him in the early stages of the last case, definite disciple, and nasty with it.”
“I read your case notes.The urban explorer kid.Him and his pal KO’d a security guard while they were filming in some derelict building.Cox pumped him for info on bypassing security, stealing utilities.”
Kate smiled to herself.She wondered if Poppy ever took an evening off.
“That’s him.See where he is now — he might have beaten the rap and be out somewhere pulling the legs off spiders.When you’ve done that, do a deep dive into the Dark Web, trawl the sea-bed for all the serial killer freak forums, Cox-groupies, snuff-sharers, extremists, especially of the religious kind.Extra, especially interest in the ten commandments, the fifth in particular.And…" She drew breath."Sorry, it's a lot."
“Nope,” said Poppy.Kate could hear the young agent typing at an astonishing rate, each keystroke a small reassurance.“Go on.”
“This is a bit… out of nowhere.But anything to do with rifts between parents and offspring, abandonment of parents.People who think it deserves cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Exactly.”
“On it.”
She felt energized by the brief conversation, by Poppy's can-do attitude to every task, by the simple fact of having turned the sludge of Cox's monologue into a list of actionable items.Something she could point to later and say,I did this.I took it seriously.Whatever happens next is not because I sat on my hands.
