Nobody has asked Kristin what she and her brother said to each other, which she finds curious. She’s not sure if she could explainit, anyway – so much of the communication between herself and her twin is about feelings, old memories, lines of poetry, moments in time. Talking to Simon is like listening to music playing just beyond other peoples’ aural reach, or standing before a warming fire in the grand stone fireplace at Pippi’s house … Although Pippi is dead now, of course.
None of that is pertinent to the investigation, so Kristin doesn’t bother to go into it.
But just being near Simon makes her heart resonate with indescribable joy. Even in Byberry, that horrible dungeon where they could not touch, there was something about her brother’s presence that Kristin found energizing. These are the thoughts that sustain her as the bureau car pulls to a halt outside Jefferson, as she separates from Travis and Emma in the atrium.
Kristin takes the elevator, goes to her assigned room, and completes her toilette. Then she settles herself in a chair by the window, pulls the curtain to one side, and spends an hour looking at her old friend, the moon.
The next day, she arrives at the basement office at 7:00AM, but Travis promptly ushers her back from whence she came.
‘We’re going back upstairs.’ He has coffee in a lidded polystyrene cup in one hand. His other hand is levering the strap of his heavy satchel onto his shoulder, shutting the door of the Cool Room behind them. ‘Report from Scientific Analysis just came through. We should go.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asks. She finds much of what the FBI does baffling.
‘It means we’re meeting Emma in the atrium,’ he explains gently. ‘Then we’re heading out. I’ve been instructed to do follow-up, and I know the lab folks in DC, so I’d like to talk with them in person.’
The enjoyable feeling of momentary weightlessness in the elevator. Kristin pushed the buttons helpfully and now stands beside Travis, swinging her hands. ‘Do you think there will be something new in the forensic results from Patricia Doricott?’
Travis watches the numbers climb. ‘No idea. But we’ve got fresh eyes to look at them now.’
‘Emma might see something?’
‘She might.’
On the atrium concourse, Emma is wearing the same jeans as yesterday, or maybe an identical clean pair, with a different shirt. Her shorn head gives her a skeletal profile against the pale blank brick of the atrium wall. She looks more rested than she did last night, but there are still shadows around her eyes.
She notices their purposeful, striding approach. ‘Do I have time to get coffee?’
‘Better hurry,’ Travis says. ‘Kristin, you want anything?’
It’s nice that he thinks to ask. ‘I would very much like a cream cheese sandwich. No coffee.’ Kristin considers the Quantico coffee an abomination.
‘Gimme five minutes,’ Emma says.
Travis is already walking backward for the main door. ‘Meet you out front. McCreedy’s got the car.’
They nod at each other. Emma walks off to the cafeteria. Kristin finds the way the two of them circle around each other quite fascinating. Something is happening there – she can feel the energy of it,like a heat shimmer in the air – and it’s interesting to see the way they’re handling it.
They remain highly professional, of course. In the car, Emma holds a file and cups a to-go coffee on her knee while staring out the window, deep in thought. Travis rearranges the paperwork in his satchel. His eyes flit over each of them: McCreedy driving, she and Emma in the rear. Kristin is aware that Travis Bell is singularly observant. She turns her own attention to the outside of the car. The weather is of the not-quite-nice variety: it should be warm, but a layer of cloud creates a flat dispersal of sunlight that eschews warmth.
Kristin would like to eat the sandwich, encased in plastic wrap on her knee, but the scent of Emma’s shower gel is interfering with her appetite. ‘Did you go running this morning?’
‘No.’ Emma blinks back to reality. ‘They won’t let me go without an escort, so I’ve gotta arrange it in advance.’
‘But you like to run,’ Kristin notes.
Emma shrugs. The shrug looks more helpless than nonchalant.
‘You get some sleep last night?’ Travis’s voice is casual.
‘Some.’ Emma sips her coffee, evades his gaze. ‘Any new leads in Pittsburgh?’
Travis consults his notes. ‘They got a potential hit at a thrift store in Delmont. Could be the dress was bought from there.’
‘Any chance they’ll get an ID of who bought it?’
‘Looks unlikely. It’s a cash-only place – no sales records, no cameras.’
‘But it means he bought local.’ Emma bites her lip. ‘It’s something.’
