Page 35 of Go Home
It had to be there.It was too blatant a gesture to be meaningless.In the church, the message had been carefully situated at the back of the building so that it wouldn’t burn up.And at Brantley College, the book had been placed in the elevator car – an elevator seemingly disabled so that the doors couldn’t open, and nobody could find it until the place became a crime scene.
All thoughts of the killings being unrelated had gone straight out of the window.Kate didn’t mind that; the whole job was about coming up with theories, testing them, then either rejecting them or pursuing them further.She felt relieved, in a way, that at least this much was now clear.Therewasa message to accompany the body.
But what was it?
She took her dad’s bag out of the drawer and put it on her desk, hoping it would have some talismanic properties, reveal the secrets staying stubbornly out of her grasp.
Her father, Dr.William Valentine, had pioneered a technique to repair damaged heart muscle using embryo stem cells.It offered hope to millions of cardiac patients; it could have transformed the nature of post-coronary care.A religious fundamentalist by the name of Peter S.Gadd had been very vocal on this, and other medical advances, claiming that the use of embryos amounted to the mass murder of babies.After Kate’s father was found dead, shot multiple times outside a city church, Gadd had handed himself in, claiming sole responsibility.However, a lone detective, a single-minded old warhorse of a guy, had doubted his story, and Gadd was swiftly eliminated.To date, the real killer remained unfound.
But whoever it was, he was the reason Kate was here now, dog-tired in an FBI office, on the trail of another maniac.
Did this one believe they had God’s blessing, too?
“Kate, you look dreadful.”
Kate was startled by her boss, who seemed to be dressed for a night at the Oscars.
“Well, I can’t compete with you, ma’am.”
Winters picked dismissively at the strap of her evening gown, as if it was some moth-eaten cardigan she’d found at a thrift stall.
“Ugh, it’s for some DOJ dinner-thing.Shrimp cocktail, nowhere near enough wine… And I don’t know why they always schedule these things for a Thursday.Who wants that at the end of the week?”She seemed suddenly to remember that Kate was there because she then asked, “Are you making progress?”
Kate shook her head.“It seems impossible that he wouldn’t have left a message.Probably coded, given the last one.But I can’t even find it, let alone crack it.”
“Is it possible that you might see it after you allowed yourself a break?What are you doing about that shoulder?Have you eaten anything?”
Kate didn’t know which question to answer first.Winters was a true enigma.On the telephone: abrupt to the point of hostility.In person: warm, caring, fiercely protective of her team.If Winters hadn’t fought in her corner in the wake of Denton’s attack, Kate didn’t know where she’d be.Not in the FBI anymore, that was certain.
“I’ll call Marcus for an update,” Kate offered.
“And that’s taking a break?”Winters asked.But her attention had already moved on.She was gazing at Kate’s screen.“What kind of scanners are they using?That’s really not up to scratch.”
She tapped a bright red fingernail on the monitor.Kate peered at the screen.Several letters on the page looked blurred, almost as if the page had moved in the midst of being photographed.She clicked on another page – there was nothing similar there.Same when she went back.Then she returned to the page Winters had spotted.What was it?
“I gotta fly,” said Winters.“Rest.”
With that, she departed, on a slipstream of Givenchy.Kate wondered, as everyone in the unit did, if there was a Mr.Winters.The boss was successful, glamorous, quite lovely.But curiously silent when it came to her private life.
Kate returned to the page.When she enlarged it, it seemed the affected letters had multiple blemishes.But they didn’t look accidental or random.The marks were in straight lines.
Kate rang the lab.She got lucky, as Dennis Santos answered.A genial guy of Dominican heritage, he never suggested that her requests were an imposition, whatever the request, whatever the hour or the deadline.That made him a rarity in terms of all the forensics labs Kate had ever dealt with.She explained what she’d spotted.He said he’d call her straight back.
The other good thing about Dennis was that he always did what he said he would.But Kate was beginning to doubt that after five, then ten minutes went by without a call.She was contemplating calling him again when an email alert pinged.
It was from Dennis, with a photo attached.And when she saw the photo, she realized why he’d taken so long.He’d managed to shine a light behind the affected page and adjust the lighting in the lab so that something became instantly clear.The letters on the page weren’t affected, as she’d first thought.That was just how it seemed on the scan.It was the spaces between, and underneath the letters.And they had been pricked with a tiny pin, so that, thanks to Dennis’s ingenuity, the light shone through, revealing a pattern.
She recognized the pattern.Slightly like the boxy, angular shapes of the Hebrew alphabet, and according to some, that would be no coincidence.But that wasn’t important right now.The important thing was that she could see the code, and because she could see it, she had a chance of cracking it.
She rang Marcus.
“Get out of the canteen.”
He swallowed, guiltily.“I’m not in the canteen.”
“And I’m Martha Stewart.Listen - there’s a message.I’ve found it.Well, Winters and Dennis found it.Do you want to see?”
“No, I might grab a bite to eat first.”
