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Her heart ached as she thought of Gordon. There was a point when Faith’s obsession over the Copycat Killer had put her career in jeopardy, and thanks to Supervisory Special Agent Gordon Clark, she had overcome her paranoia and gotten her life back on track. She owed him everything.
Him and Dr. West.
Dr. Copycat Killer West.
She pulled into her driveway and went through the motions of making Turk’s dinner. While he went through the motions of eating it, she went through the motions of making her own dinner, then went through the motions of eating that.
She had spent the last week following up with the police side of the investigation. She wasn’t foolish enough to try to snoop around the FBI side. If word got back to the Boss, she would find herself on indefinite loan to the belly of the records department at Quantico until the case was over.
She snooped around on her own, too, checking his workplace and trying to learn what she could about his past. That had proven to be very difficult lately, since she had managed to completely alienate herself from Dr. West’s ex-wife.
Dr. West’s ex-wife, Ellie, was, as far as Faith could tell, completely oblivious of her ex-husband’s secret life. She was also the fiancée of Faith’s partner and best friend, Special Agent Michael Prince. Faith had suspected her of being the Copycat Killer at one point. Then she had suspected her of being involved with the killer somehow or knowing more than she let on about it.
Needless to say, her concerns, though never explicitly shared with Michael, strained things between the two of them. They had reached an uneasy truce and seemed able to maintain their friendship, but last week, Faith had confronted Ellie and come just short of accusing her of murder.
During the confrontation, Ellie let slip that her ex-husband was named Franklin West, and that he was very dangerous, though she didn’t seem to know why.
And that’s when everything clicked into place for Faith. She realized that Dr. West was the killer and apologized to Ellie.
Ellie didn’t take it well. She told Faith never to contact her again, and when she returned home to Michael, she told him about the encounter. Michael had sent her a message asking for space and mentioning that the only reason that he didn’t chew her out in person was because he understood that she was going through a hard time learning about Dr. West, and he didn’t want to make things worse.
She could add her best friend to the list of things Dr. West had stolen from her.
She finished her meal and mechanically showered and readied for bed. Turk normally protested bedtime, but tonight he just trotted to his bed and laid down. Faith knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she made coffee and put the tv on. It came on to a show about different mint editions of half-dollar coins. She left it on as background noise and lost herself in thought.
Dr. West wasn’t superhuman. He had flaws. He had character traits. He operated in repeatable, identifiable patterns, just like everyone else did. Faith didn’t know what they were yet, but she would learn them, and when she did, she would find him and bring him to justice. She had to.
Michael’s voice echoed through her subconscious.And when you say bring him to justice, you mean?
“I mean justice,” she said softly.
You mean shooting him to death for what Trammell did to you,Michael's voice replied. Fitting that he should be the embodiment of Faith's conscience, considering the pain she had caused him.
“I mean justice,” she repeated.
Bullshit,Michael’s voice challenged.This isn’t about justice. You want revenge. Not even against Dr. West. You want revenge against Trammell. All of this time, you’ve never been able to let go of the fact that he beat you, and now you’re going after a dangerous killer alone again just to prove to yourself that you can.
“Well, what do you expect?” she asked drily. “My therapist is a serial killer.”
Her conscience didn’t have a response for that. She finished her coffee and leaned back in her chair, trying to think of anything that might give her an idea where to look for Dr. West.
His home had yielded nothing. Among his keepsakes hadn’t been a diary or a note or anything with his handwriting at all. No receipts, no addresses, nothing listed that could tell her where he might go to if he wanted to hide out from the law.
His office was likewise sterile. No clues that might suggest where Dr. West would go if he were to suddenly become the subject of an international manhunt and the winner of first place in the race to become the FBI’s Most Wanted suspect.
And, of course, he wasn't answering his phone. Faith had texted him shortly after discovering his identity on the off chance that he might be foolish enough to respond and so allow her to track his location, but he hadn’t returned any of her texts, calls or emails. He had disappeared into the wind.
The wind.
Faith concentrated on that word. Wind. Why was that word sticking in her mind?
“Oklahoma? Why Oklahoma?”
Faith grinned at the look of shock on Dr. West’s face. “I’ve always loved cars, ever since I was a girl. I always thought that if I retired, I would move to Oklahoma and start my own garage. Make my own customized Crown Victorias. You know what those are, right?”
“The old Ford cop cars?”
“Yep. I think it would be cool to have my own garage and customize Crown Vics. Maybe modify one for myself and run some street races.”
