Take off your gloves.
That is the part of her own encounter with the College Killer that she finds most distressing. That moment when he told her to take off her gloves, with the same tone he’d tell her to take off her dress, and she complied without resistance. It is a moment she finds shameful, and she wishes it hadn’t been caught on tape. Yes, the Rohypnol in her system, but it was an instant of extreme vulnerability, of a kind she would normally never allow.
Emma exhales slowly, tries to narrow down what she’s feeling. Guilt, that Linda Kittiko was taken instead of her – as asubstitutefor her. Shame, that she was so vulnerable in front of the killer. Emma understands emotional responses, knows that shame is a screwed-up way of exercising control – because feeling guilt and shame, believing you’re at fault somehow, is a way of saying that you can stop it from happening again. But she had no idea how the Paradise operation was going to go down when she volunteered to participate. She was there as bait – she trusted SWAT and the FBI to do their jobs. She couldn’t have anticipated that Peter would take another girl. She couldn’t have stopped what happened at Paradise last night any more than she could have stopped what happened to her three years ago. Audrey has been over this with her so many times. It’s still incredibly hard to process those feelings.
Emma does her breathing exercises again. No matter what happens, she’s going to find Linda. She makes it a commitment, writes it on her bones. She reminds herself that vulnerability itself is not a weakness, that it’s possible to be vulnerable without regret. That she also asked for help last night. She asked for help, and Travis hugged her, and it was good. It wasreallygood. Maybe she shouldn’t be thinking this way about her partner, but she wishes she could remember more about it. All she has is the sensation of being held, and the warmth of Travis’s chest, and the scent of him. But that is enough of a balm, enough to cling onto for a while, so she spends some time searching her memory for more traces of the hug until a shadow falls nearby, and when she looks up, he’s there.
‘Hey.’ Travis is dressed in fresh clothes – dark suit pants, white shirt, tie hanging open – and his hair is damp from a recent shower. He seems less haggard now, but somehow more sad.
‘Hey.’
Suddenly it’s like she can see him, reallyseehim: his defined cheekbones, athletic strength from physical training, the specific way he’s been honed. She can see him at twenty-five, in sharper suits, his social intelligence channeled into administrative politics, being a better agent than every other man in the bureau because with his dual heritage, he has to be. She can see him at thirty-five, with extra scars, and reading glasses from squinting at all those reports, his expressions confined and FBI-neutral.
Blinking hard, she brings herself back before she sees any further into his future – it’s making her too emotional. She indicates the bench beside her and he sits down. His posture is loose, like they are two college friends about to discuss afternoon classes.
‘I went back to headquarters, but Kristin said you’d come here.’
‘Yeah.’ She looks away blankly to the green lawns. ‘It’s nice. You get a little rest?’
‘A couple hours. Not enough, but it’ll hold me until tonight.’
Emma lets the pause spin out. She hugs the folders to herself and tilts her face into the light. The sun on her skin and the fresh air all put her in mind of home. ‘Travis, how long has it been since you went back to Texas?’
He tips his head up and closes his eyes. ‘I was there a week, after St Elizabeths. Since then … It’s been about three months.’
‘D’you miss it?’
He makes a weak laugh. ‘Every goddamn day.’
Thank you for hugging me last night.It’s on the tip of her tongue to say it, but she sidesteps. ‘Why did you come out to find me?’
He looks at her, his expression changing, face falling. ‘Emma, I’m sorry, but we need to go back to the office. I found something in the old evidence logs, and we need to talk about it.’
Emma feels the spit in her mouth dry up, just like that. She can’t reply, so she only nods.
He presses his lips together. ‘I always seem to be the one giving you bad news.’
‘Don’t take this personally,’ Emma says, ‘but I’m really sick of hearing it.’
The news is very bad. When they get back to headquarters, Carter meets them and they go into one of the side offices to talk. It’s a long room off the hallway, with a viewing window and two Formica-topped tables plus a bunch of file boxes, and Emma suspects it’s usedmainly for legal depositions. Carter is unshaven, and looks like he needs about twenty-four hours’ additional sleep.
‘All right, Miss Lewis, there’s no easy way to say this,’ Carter starts. Obviously reluctant, he frowns and glances at Bell, who assumes responsibility with a nod.
Emma stands near one of the tables and braces herself.
Bell has knotted his tie, and his expression is bleak. ‘I went through the evidence logs in the Huxton case. The tripod you mentioned, after the interview with Simon Gutmunsson, was a Velbon Victory 480 video camera tripod. From the crime scene photos and the description of where it was located, it looks like it was set up for secret filming, and agents recovered an RCA BW003 video camera in the kitchen of the mountain house.’
‘A video camera.’ Emma suddenly feels everything slow down. ‘You’re saying that Huxton made videotapes.’
‘Yes,’ Carter says. ‘It appears that way.’
There’s a pause, during which she forces her mind to work. ‘This was never looked into before?’
‘Not to my understanding,’ Carter says. ‘We knew he took some Polaroids, but this is the first time we’ve examined the idea of videotape. It was extremely rare in ’79, which is why it wasn’t originally considered. But Mr Bell found the details in the evidence logs, then realized that Huxton’s job as a TV and projector repairman had significance.’
‘Okay.’ She holds steady by pressing one hand hard onto the top of the table. ‘So Huxton was filming videotape. Then where are those tapes?’
Bell says, ‘We don’t know yet.’
