Confession Read online

“I think I might be able to help you with your fear of blood. How long have you had this problem?”

  “A few days.” Might be able to help? He needed her to cure him immediately. “I-­I can’t go on like this. You don’t know what I’m going through.” His voice trembled like a fool’s, and he had to cross his arms over his chest to keep his hands from shaking. “I’ve already lost my job.”

  Now the sadness in her eyes looked more like compassion, as if she was thinking only of him and had forgotten about her own problems. The idea of someone like her worrying about someone like him made his chest constrict, then explode—­like he’d been underwater holding his breath and finally managed to kick his way to the surface for air.

  But breathing in all that oxygen was painful, and it made him want to dive back down into the depths where he belonged.

  “You lost your job?”

  How was Dr. Clancy going to help him if all she ever did was repeat his words back to him? “Is there an echo in here?”

  “It’s called reflective listening. Quite an astute observation, Scourge. Now then, about losing your job, you were saying?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Patience. He must exercise patience with her. Reveal enough so she could do her job . . . but not enough for her to discover who he really was. “I’m a phlebotomist. Isn’t it ironic?”

  “It’s practically an Alanis Morissette lyric.” She gave him the innocent eyes again.

  “Ha.” He forced a laugh. She was trying to relax him with humor. He didn’t find the joke particularly funny but wanted her to know he was sophisticated enough to get it. “You a fan?”

  “Oh, well not really, but it’s a fun song. Anyway, yes, I do find it ironic that your job involves the very object you fear.”

  He wanted to tell her more. He wanted her to understand. He couldn’t fulfill his destiny as long as he feared blood. But sadly, it was his fate to be misunderstood. “Can you cure me?”

  “I can’t make promises, but I’m very optimistic. You see, you’ve only had the problem a little while. Technically, your fear of blood doesn’t qualify as a phobia because it hasn’t been present six months, but . . .”

  The urge to choke her was almost too much to resist. Strangulation would be bloodless . . . but not at all satisfying. No. He’d come too far to give up on his plans now. He would wait for his cure. “I haven’t slept in three days. I couldn’t eat my breakfast this morning because I can’t pour ketchup on my eggs, and that’s the only way I like them. Yesterday, I saw a man with a barbecue stain on his shirt, and I passed out, right there on the street.” He gritted his teeth. “I qualify. I promise you, I qualify.”

  She steepled her fingers and rested her chin atop them. “I agree with you, Scourge. We can’t always go strictly by the book. What I was about to say is that when the problem is severe enough to interfere with your ability to carry out your work—­”

  He came up on his haunches. “I need to do my work. We can’t always go by the book. Sometimes we have to change the book to get the job done right.”

  She nodded. “Agreed. If your symptoms interfere with daily living, I’d say you’ve got a true phobia. The good news is phobias are highly responsive to treatment. Often, a month or so of simple behavior therapy is all it takes.”

  He dropped back into his chair. He only had twenty days left. “I can’t wait that long.”

  “I can see you’re terribly eager to get back to work, and that’s a good thing. Your desire to get better may move therapy along more quickly. I can’t promise a fast cure, but like I said before, I’m optimistic.” She leaned back. “I think we should start with systematic desensitization. It’s a simple but effective technique involving relaxation therapy, and I think you could benefit from learning to relax no matter what. You seem a little . . . on edge.”

  A muscle in his jaw was twitching. He wished she hadn’t noticed. He didn’t want her to think he was a weakling. “Relax me now. Hurry, please.”

  She hid a flash of a smile with her cupped hand. “Hurry up and relax? Slow down a minute and think of what you’re saying. Take a deep breath, Scourge.”

  He gulped air as fast as he could.

  “Okay. Good start. Now take a long, deep breath, let it fill your lungs, then slowly, slowly exhale.”

  He released his breath in a long exhale just like she said. Oddest thing. His heart slowed in his chest, his clenched hands opened and fell to his side. The muscle in his face stopped twitching. “I actually feel better. Am I cured?”

  She pushed her chair back from the desk. “Hardly. But I’m glad you feel better than when you arrived. Try practicing slow, deep breaths before you go to bed tonight. Put your hand on your stomach and make it rise with each inhale. It’ll help you sleep.” She leaned back, stretched her legs, placed her hand on her belly, and closed her eyes. She started to breathe, rhythmically, hypnotically.

  As he watched her body rise and fall, his dick grew hard again. He stroked the leather chair while she breathed in, then out, demonstrating the technique. Yes. Dr. Faith Clancy was the perfect person to cure him. He could feel it in his bones. He’d be back at work in no time, and she would make a very pleasurable first order of business.

  TEN

  Monday, July 29, 2:00 P.M.

  No wonder Faith’s secretary had sounded excited. When Stacy had buzzed Faith to announce a man was here to see her, her voice had jumped with energy—­like she was about to give Faith the down and dirty after a hot date. As Faith rose to greet the visitor, she ran a hand beneath the length of her hair, fluffing it a little. And she wasn’t the type to fluff for a pretty face.

  The pretty face in question crossed her office, reached over her desk and offered her his substantial hand. “Please don’t get up.”

  “Too late. I’m already up.” She snapped her mouth shut. His grip, not surprisingly, was strong, his voice low and deep, the kind of voice that rumbled and resonated and commanded attention. As she quickly assessed his face, the hard angles and strong chin, she noticed him doing the same. They were sizing each other up in the time it took to shake hands. And that quickly, she decided she liked this man.

  He smiled, a warm, broad smile that made the skin bunch up around keen brown eyes—­eyes that took in the room in one fell swoop. “I’m special agent Atticus Spenser. FBI.”

  Her brows lifted, but she hurriedly smoothed her expression.

  “Mom was a Harper Lee fan. Let’s move on.”

  Apparently she hadn’t smoothed her expression quickly enough. But who could blame her? After all, it wasn’t every day a man who looked like a taller, handsomer, cockier version of a young Greg Peck strode into her office and announced he’d been named after Atticus Finch, the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird—­only her favorite book of all time.

  “Me too—­I mean I’m a Harper Lee fan. So as you were saying . . .” She cleared her throat and narrowed her eyes to signal she was all business and completely unaffected by either his looks or his name. “Let’s move on.”

  He motioned for her to sit, as if he were the host and she the guest. This was her office. She remained standing and gestured for him to take a seat on the other side of the desk. He shrugged, dropped into the chair, and bent his long legs neatly, squaring his knees over his massive feet. Okay, good. Now he knew who was in charge. Smiling politely, she sat down opposite him.

  “You’re Dr. Faith Clancy. May I call you Faith?”

  “Of course. May I call you Atticus?”

  “No.” He stretched out his legs and relaxed back into the chair. “Everyone calls me, Spense.”

  “I bet your mother calls you Atticus.”

  “You got me there. But only my mother.”

  “Well, Spense, I presume you’re here about Dante Jericho. I didn’t realize the FBI was involved.”

  “Officially, we’re not. But serial killers make ­people
nervous. Detective Johnson, for example, has gone downright squirrelly over this one. Anyway, the Santa Fe Police Department requested unofficial input from the Feds. I was in Phoenix working another case, but Johnson and I go way back, so I volunteered to come out for a curbside consult.”

  She tilted her head. “I doubt that Detective Johnson would appreciate the squirrelly remark.”

  With a wide grin, he said, “I call ’em like I see ’em.”

  “So do I.”

  “And you don’t like Johnson.”

  This guy was nervy, and she didn’t want to talk about his buddy, Johnson. “For the record, I don’t think that’s relevant. You have questions for me regarding Dante Jericho?”

  “I like your office.”

  Given how sparsely furnished her office was and how little thought she’d given to the décor, his remark took her by surprise. “You do?”

  “I really do.” Leaning forward in his chair, he ran his palm over her desktop. “Your desk is different. An antique?”

  “Yes, it came out of an old mining office in Jerome, Arizona.”

  “Arizona’s your home state. You chose an unusual desk like this because it reminds you of home. Home and family are important to you.”

  “You’re pulling this out of thin air, drawing conclusions with few if any substantiating facts.”

  “Which is precisely what Uncle Sam pays me to do.” He sat back and put his hands behind his head.

  “Are you a profiler?”

  “I like to think of myself as a puzzle solver. I’m a whiz at puzzles.” His eyes took another turn around the room. “You’re sentimental, but you’d rather not show that side of yourself to others. Thus no family pictures in the office. ­People are more important to you than things, which is why you don’t have the typical office knickknacks on display.”

  “Maybe I just haven’t had time to decorate.”

  He shook his head. “You had time to hang your diplomas, shelve your books, the things that matter to you. You don’t care about knickknacks. You care about ­people.” He came out of his chair, leaned across her desk, and sniffed her hair.

  The only reasonable response to such outlandish behavior would be to call him out, ask him to leave immediately. But part of her found Special Agent Atticus Spenser far too fascinating to dismiss. She didn’t know what it was with men sniffing her hair lately, but she was dying to find out what this one would say or do next.

  “You love fresh flowers, but you don’t keep them in your office—­because you’re concerned they might trigger a patient’s allergies.”

  “How did you know?” He should take this show of his on the road. He was that good.

  “Your hair carries the faintest scent of gardenias, which means you keep an abundance of them around you in your home. But your patients are more important to you than your flowers. As I said before, I like your office.” He smiled and sat back down. “And I like you, Faith. I know it was difficult for you to turn Dante Jericho over to the police, but I hope you know you did the right thing.”

  “Did I?”

  “Absolutely. Which brings me to why I’m here.”

  Spense retrieved a set of photographs from the briefcase he’d brought with him. On top was the photo of Nancy Aberdeen’s bloodied corpse. The same picture Detective Johnson had blindsided her with a few days ago. She felt just as queasy now as then, but this time she didn’t flinch, didn’t change posture or expression.

  Their eyes met, and Spense quickly chested the set of photographs, rearranging them so the picture of Nancy’s corpse was on the bottom. “Mind if I show you some photographs of the Saint’s victims?”

  Unlike Detective Johnson, Spense didn’t seem interested in intimidating her. His tone was respectful. Nor did he strike her as the type of man to get into a power struggle—­too much confidence for that. No doubt Agent Spenser had his reasons for asking her to view those awful photos again, but she didn’t see what those reasons could be. “Like I told Detective Johnson, I’ll do anything I can to help, but I don’t see how looking at these gory crime-­scene shots will make a difference. I’m not a detective.”

  “But you are a trained observer of human behavior . . . as am I. And I don’t intend to show you crime-­scene photos. I should’ve made sure the photos were sorted properly before I took them out. I want you to look at pictures of the victims taken when they were still alive. You told Johnson that during your therapy sessions, Dante never mentioned anything that would connect him to the victims.”

  “That’s right, because he didn’t.”

  “But you can’t say for sure unless you really know who these ­people were. Maybe if you knew more about them, something might click.” Gently, he placed one of the photos on her desk, oriented it toward her. “This is William Herbert Carmichael, the Saint’s latest victim. Forty-­seven years old, a deacon in the Methodist church. Made a fortune with some miracle-­grow crop fertilizer he invented.”

  “And you want to know if I think this Carmichael might represent Dante’s father.”

  His silence indicated that was exactly what he wanted to know.

  She shook her head. “I don’t see it. Dante’s father passed away this year at sixty-­three, so the age doesn’t fit. The victim was a wealthy farmer, and Dante’s dad was a wealthy rancher, but I still don’t see Carmichael as a likely stand-­in for Roy Jericho. Roy Jericho had a reputation as a drinker and a womanizer. ­People say the man was handsome as sin, had women trailing behind him like breadcrumbs.” With her index finger hovering over the photo, she traced Carmichael’s chubby-­cheeked grin. “This guy, probably not so much.”

  “What about the brother, Luke? He inherited all the money and all the perks of being a legitimate Jericho as well. Dante has to resent him.” Spense added a second victim to the lineup. “This is Kenneth Stoddard. Fifteen years old. Average student. Involved with his church group.”

  “Methodist?” She peered hard at the photo.

  “Yeah. So far that’s all we’ve got to tie the victims together. All Methodists.”

  “So the Saint’s murdering Methodists and leaving rosaries in their hands. Maybe he’s trying to save their souls.”

  “Possibly. Your boy Dante’s Catholic, I believe.”

  She tensed at his use of your boy, but let the remark pass. “No. According to Dante, his family attended mass on Christmas and Easter, and he considers them hypocrites for it. He not only refuses to participate in organized religion, he’s an avowed atheist. I can’t imagine Dante Jericho trying to save someone’s soul.” Closing her eyes, she tried to set all bias aside and wrack her brain for a true connection between Dante and the victims. Nada. She looked at the photo of Kenneth Stoddard again. “Even assuming Dante hates his brother, and I don’t think I can stipulate to that, this boy is not a good stand-­in for Luke Jericho. The age doesn’t fit, but mostly he’s just too average to represent Luke. Tell me about the women.”

  Spense laid down a third, then a fourth photo. “Linda Peabody. Forty-­four years old, a soft-­spoken housewife and stay-­at-­home mother of four. And finally, here’s Nancy Aberdeen. Sixteen. Straight-­A student. Popular girl. Never in any trouble.”

  “I understand Nancy won this ribbon at the state fair.”

  “For her cherry pie.” Grimacing, he looked away.

  They were all so different, and yet . . . “These ­people take living average lives to the extreme. I think that’s what sets them apart from the crowd. How many sixteen-­year-­old girls enter baking contests and wear gingham dresses these days? That has to mean something, Spense.”

  “Agreed.” He closed one eye and raised the opposite eyebrow. “Suppose we put these photos together like so.”

  “A visual puzzle?” she asked, as he arranged the photos in a square, with the man and woman on the top row and the boy and girl below, like four pictures in a si
ngle frame.

  “This reminds me of something. You see it too, right?”

  Her chest tightened. “I see a family.” Her eyes moved from one photograph to the next. “But it’s definitely not Dante’s family.”

  “That’s how I see it, too. Separately, there’s no logical pattern. A mixed bag of age, gender, and geography. But put them all together, and you have the perfect all-­American family. A throwback to the past.” He let loose a rough sigh. “We mean to nail the bastard who did this. Tell me you’re on board with that, Faith.”

  “With nailing the bastard who murdered four innocent ­people? Absolutely. But just so we’re clear, I believe a man is innocent until proven guilty. I don’t intend to rush to judgment or let myself be blinded by hate because of the heinous nature of the crimes.”

  “Dante Jericho confessed.”

  She put her forearms on the desk and stared hard into his eyes. “I’m the one who called the police. I don’t need you to remind me that he confessed.”

  A woman’s voice, soft and cold like frozen silk, cut into their conversation. “And Spense here doesn’t need me to remind him that a confession doesn’t seal the deal. A confession isn’t proof a man’s guilty. Right, Spense?”

  Faith’s shoulders jumped. She’d been concentrating so hard on the photographs, been so intent on finding that common thread among the Saint’s victims, she’d failed to hear the door open. For the second time that morning, she had to snap her mouth shut to avoid appearing rude. The woman standing in the doorway, sidelit by afternoon sun shining in from the window, was none other than Dr. Caitlin Cassidy. At least in this light, her hair had the sheen of melted chocolate. With a complexion just short of olive, and jet-­black lashes, her vivid blue eyes came as a surprise. Not so surprising, they looked every bit as keen as Spense’s.

  When Faith had e-­mailed Caitlin Cassidy for advice, she’d hoped to speak with her by phone or possibly set up an online conference. She never expected a face-­to-­face meeting, at least not so soon.

  Spense bounded to his feet, and Faith followed suit, quickly making her way around the desk to greet her surprise guest.