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Synopsis
New York Times bestselling authors Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen team up for another electrifying thriller that pits a serial killer against Kendra Michaels' heightened powers of deduction.
After scoring a plea deal in a high-profile murder trial, serial killer James Michael Barrett leads a grim parade of law enforcement officers to the body of his last victim. At the alleged burial site, the officers swing their shovels down and are met with a strange metallic sound they weren’t expecting. In a blink, a terrific explosion rocks the woods, killing Barrett and most of the officers instantly.
The detonation is only the beginning of a shocking case for FBI consultant Kendra Michaels—a string of heinous murders in the style of the very-dead Barrett mysteriously continue, and it becomes clear that he may not have been working alone. As the crimes accelerate, Kendra reluctantly accepts help from college student Tricia Walton, the only survivor of Barrett’s attacks. But the killer has a terrifying plan that Kendra and her team are only beginning to understand.
Release date: February 7, 2023
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 432
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More Than Meets the Eye
Iris Johansen
Chapter1
If it was a good day, she’d soon be looking at a corpse that had been rotting in the ground for over two years.
FBI Special Agent Cynthia Strode shook her head at what now passed for a “good day.” The bar was getting lower by the week.
It was a rainy morning in Southern California, and she was part of a twelve-car caravan driving down a remote two-lane road east of the San Diego burb of Pine Valley. The FBI agents, local cops, and two corrections officers were escorting serial killer James Michael Barrett to the body of his first victim, twenty-four-year-old U.S. Foreign Service employee Dayna Voyles. Barrett had just completed the third week of his murder trial when he obviously realized that the witness testimony and forensic evidence were too much for his defense team to overcome. In his quickly negotiated plea deal, Barrett agreed to reveal the location of his victim’s body in exchange for having the death penalty taken off the table.
FBI Special Agent Roland Metcalf sat in the passenger seat next to Cynthia. He’d just turned thirty, and the Barrett investigation had been one of his first big cases. They’d worked it together, and she was impressed by his intelligence and instinctive ability to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, the truth from the bullshit. Metcalf had impressed a lot of people at the Bureau, and she was sure he would be impressing many more in the years to come.
Strode knew this was probably one of her last big cases, at least as far as media attention went. Although she was still two years from the Bureau’s mandatory retirement age of fifty-seven, she’d been getting none-too-subtle inquiries ever since she passed her qualifying twenty-five years of service a while back. Nothing like a gentle shove out the door just when you think you’ve found your groove.
Metcalf turned toward her. “Have you ever been on one of these?”
“A perp-led body hunt? Once before, when I was still working out of the Dallas office. A guy showed us where he’d hidden his high school math teacher’s body.” She upped the speed on the windshield wipers. “But I’ll tell you, it was a lot nicer day than this one. How about you, Metcalf?”
“Nope. Never had a perp so accommodating. I’ve been on two body digs, but Stan and Ollie led the way each time.”
She smiled. “I love those boys.”
Stan and Ollie were cadaver dogs employed by their team.
“I’m surprised Barrett agreed to this,” Metcalf said. “I visited him in jail three times in the last few months, and he was never interested in a deal.”
“I guess he thought he was going to beat it.”
Metcalf shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You remember when we brought him in? He seemed like he was glad to be caught.”
“He did. But that didn’t stop him from hiring the best lawyers his daddy’s money could buy to try to beat the charge.”
Metcalf furrowed his brow. “I know. But every time I talked to him, he seemed…resigned. Like he knew he was never getting out.”
“But this isn’t about getting out. It’s about avoiding a lethal injection. Maybe he didn’t like how the jury was looking at him.”
“Maybe.”
The lead car pulled over to the side of the road, and the others followed. One by one, the cast of characters emerged. Half a dozen forensics team members pulled shovels and a pair of dirt sifters from the back of a police van. A photographer and videographer jumped from their cars with cameras already in their hands. Four uniformed cops placed traffic cones and signs on the slick road, directing passing cars around the parked convoy. A few detectives were also there, with no real purpose other than to be on hand when they finally recovered Dayna Voyles from her lonely grave.
Strode couldn’t blame them; there was no way in hell she’d miss this, after years of assuring the grieving parents that they’d never stop looking for their daughter.
She and Metcalf climbed out of the car just in time to see two officers emerging from the department of corrections van with killer James Michael Barrett, adorned in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, and leg irons. Barrett looked different than he had when they caught him; his round, bearded face was now clean-shaven, and his long hair was now cut and in an attractive conservative style. A classic defense attorney makeover.
Barrett smiled. “Strode and Metcalf. All the big guns are here.”
Strode shook her head. “You’re the big gun here today, Barrett.”
“You flatter me.”
“Never.”
The corrections officers pulled Barrett across the tall wet grass bordering the road, toward a clump of trees that looked remarkably like the sketch he’d drawn the morning he entered his plea.
The group was strangely silent, Strode thought, probably sobered by what they knew was waiting for them just ahead. It wouldn’t last; she’d visited enough crime scenes to know that the wisecracks would soon start flying. If called on it, the cops and agents would trot out that old canard about their jokes being a defense mechanism. She never bought that. Some of those guys were just sick assholes.
The rain had settled into a fine mist, giving the group’s slickers and ponchos a wet sheen as they trudged into the woods. Less than twenty yards in, Barrett stopped and pointed to the ground.
Within minutes, a waterproof canopy had been erected over the spot, and the group circled around. Barrett was still staring at the ground.
One of the forensics officers stepped forward with his shovel. “About two feet down, right?”
“Yeah,” Barrett replied. He looked with uncertainty at the barren patch of earth. “But it looks…different.”
“It’s been over two years,” Strode said. “The ground’s probably settled.”
“Well, it was definitely here, right between that boulder and these two trees.”
Metcalf’s phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the screen, and stepped away to take the call.
One of the forensics specialists plunged his shovel into the soft earth and emptied the blade’s contents onto the wire mesh sifter. He swung the shovel down again, and it hit the ground with a metallic clang.
The digger looked up at Barrett. “Is there something metal down there?”
Barrett just stared at the ground. Before he could reply, the other digger swung his shovel down. There was another metallic clang, and…
BOOM!
A terrific explosion rocked the woods!
A fireball erupted from the earth. The shock wave threw Strode and the other officers back over a dozen feet as a deafening roar overtook them.
Her body crumpled at the base of a tree. Her face stung, and blood gushed over her eyes. Her eardrums were blown, and the odor of gunpowder was thick in her nasal cavity.
She tried to wipe the blood from her eyes and only then realized that most of her left arm was gone.
She could see, she realized, but just barely. Fire everywhere, all around her. And mangled bodies, some writhing in pain, but most just still.
Next to her, Barrett was bloody and wheezing, his orange prison uniform burned and tattered.
“You…son of a bitch,” she whispered.
He didn’t react. He was now dead, like the others.
As a dark fog crept over her, she realized she would soon be joining them.
Chapter2
Sharp Grossmont Hospital
La Mesa, California
Kendra Michaels pulled open the stairwell door, took a glance to see if the coast was clear, and then ran down the surgical floor’s wide hallway.
“Ma’am…Ma’am?” The nurse ran after her.
“Where is he?”
“Ma’am, you can’t be back here.”
Kendra turned toward her. “Too late. Half the law-enforcement community of Southern California and their families are downstairs. No one is telling us anything. I need some answers.”
“I understand. And as soon as we have those answers, a doctor will be down to fill you in. Until then, I have to ask you to—”
“Please. Isn’t there something you can tell me?”
The nurse cocked her head. “I think I’ve seen you here before.”
Kendra half smiled. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” She looked at the ID card around the nurse’s neck. “Which is it, Holly?”
The woman froze. “You’re Kendra Michaels.”
“Guilty. Still not sure if it’s a good thing.”
“I was working at Scripps Mercy the night you brought in the Conway kids. They’d been kidnapped. You saved all three of them.”
Kendra’s smile faded. There was a fourth she couldn’t save, but there was no need to relive that awful memory. “Yes.”
“But you aren’t with the police or FBI at all, are you? You’re some kind of music teacher.”
“A music therapist. I assist law-enforcement agencies from time to time.”
Holly nodded. “I remember. You grew up as a blind person, right?”
Kendra didn’t feel like going through her entire bio with the nurse, but every minute she wasn’t being forcibly ejected was a good thing. “I was blind for the first twenty years of my life. Now that I have my sight, I guess I don’t take anything I see for granted. And like most blind people, I used my other senses—hearing, smell, touch, and taste—to make my way in the world. That has stuck with me. My senses aren’t better than anyone else’s. I just pay more attention. I’ve helped out the FBI and several police departments on some of their cases.”
“I saw you talking to the police that night. You knew so much about that sicko kidnapper just by looking at him. One of the doctors thought you were psychic.”
“Nope. I just pay attention. People tell me about themselves without even realizing it.”
“What am I telling you about myself?”
Kendra sighed. At the moment, the last thing she wanted to do was perform her damn party trick. But if she could use it to gain a little trust and perhaps a sense of obligation…
“You live close to work. Close enough to ride your bike, which you did today.”
Holly’s eyes widened.
“You’re an active person in general. You play tennis.”
Holly smiled. “Yes.”
“I’ve never played, but a lot of my friends have taken up pickleball. They can’t get enough of it. Anyway, on the way in today, you bought a drink from that Starbucks across the street. Pumpkin spice latte. You order from there often.”
“You saw me there.”
“No. You like to travel, and you’ve seen a lot of the world. You want to see more. You’ve recently been to New Zealand. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Stunning.” Holly shook her head. “But how—?”
“I’ll tell you how.” She added persuasively, “But first you need to tell me about the blast victims.”
Holly looked around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “We have four in surgery right now. Three San Diego PD, one FBI. Two of the cops look like they’ll make it. I’m not sure about the other two.” She looked at Kendra’s tense face. “When you came in here, you said, ‘Where is he?’ Is there someone in particular you want to know about?”
“The FBI agent. Roland Metcalf. He’s a good friend.”
“They’re working on him. I don’t believe his burns were as severe as the others, but he has several serious impact wounds. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
Kendra closed her eyes for an instant. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Sure.” She put her hand on Kendra’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
Kendra was silent for a long moment. Keep her talking. Do the party trick and ease her into telling Kendra more. Finally, she said hoarsely, “Your right pant leg is wrinkled.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s because it’s been rolled up over your calf, so it won’t get caught in your bicycle chain. You rode your bike to work.”
“That’s right. How did you know I stopped at Starbucks?”
“Coffee breath.”
“Ooh.” Holly covered her mouth. “Sorry.”
“It isn’t offensive, but that pumpkin odor is distinctive. And I happen to know Starbucks brought back their pumpkin spice drinks last week. The flavoring syrup is the same, but for some reason it smells different in hot drinks than in cold. It’s stronger. You had the latte. You’ve been drinking it from a thermal cup over there at the nurses’ station. The cup is decorated with the logo for the Lake Murray Tennis Club. It’s a city-owned club, isn’t it? I figure you probably play there.”
“How do you know the cup is mine? There are other nurses here.”
“The lipstick on the rim matches yours. No one else’s.”
Holly shook her head in amazement. “You’re right. That is my cup, and I do play there. I used to work at the pro shop sometimes. And I do love to travel. How did you know?”
“You’re wearing a hairpin. It’s jade, which could mean it’s from Asia. But there’s a Māori-style twist at the end, which means New Zealand. I saw them for sale there in a few places. You don’t really see them anywhere else.”
“I got mine at the Auckland Museum.”
“As lovely as New Zealand is, it’s several notches down on the list of travel destinations for Americans. You most likely visited several European countries before going there. You’re well traveled.”
“Right again. I’m going to Thailand next winter.”
Kendra didn’t know how much longer she could go on with this. She wasn’t sure if the nurse could tell her anything more and she realized that this idiotic “party trick” wasn’t distracting her from the awful thought that Metcalf could be dying in one of those surgery suites beyond the nurses’ station. And she’d only just begun to process the fact that Cynthia Strode was already dead. Her body was probably still with the others in that bomb-cratered crime scene.
“I’m sorry,” Holly said.
She must have looked more upset than she’d thought. “Thanks.”
“No, I mean…” She gestured behind Kendra, where a uniformed security guard appeared from the stairwell door. “I had the floor assistant call security when you first came up here. You should really go back to the waiting room with the others. The doctor will let you know when we know more.” She shrugged. “But like we tell everyone…”
“…no news is good news,” Kendra finished for her.
“It’s true.”
Kendra turned and walked toward the elevator. She couldn’t tell Holly that she didn’t belong down with those other friends and relatives. They’d closed her out, even though she was feeling the same horror and pain that they were. She couldn’t go back to that waiting room. That’s why she’d bolted up here to get information.
But now that was another closed door.
So, she just had to get the hell out of here.
* * *
Kendra’s hands clenched on the steering wheel as she sat looking at the hospital after she got into the driver’s seat of her Toyota 4Runner. She felt so damn helpless. There had to be something she could do. What? It was obvious Cassalas had wanted to get rid of her. He’d been very respectful, but she wasn’t FBI and therefore she was an outsider. That waiting room had been crowded with friends and relations of those victims who had been brutally killed and injured. It didn’t matter that one of those victims lying at death’s door was her friend, or that she had known and admired many of the dead. She didn’t belong to the club. She was in the way. She couldn’t even go to the crime scene and try to get them answers and closure. All she could do was tell the ones who had been left behind how sorry she was that a monster had decided to take down their loved ones to make his own death more spectacular, she thought bitterly. No, she couldn’t even do that, because she didn’t have all the facts yet. She had to wait for the FBI to get through with taking care of their own. Lord, how she hated the thought—
Her phone chimed, and she looked to see it was a text from her friend Olivia. It was a simple message: SEE ME WHEN YOU GET BACK.
Kendra felt an immediate rush of relief. She didn’t even think twice as she started her car and drove out of the parking lot. Olivia would understand because she’d realize how it was to be closed out and isolated when you wanted to reach out. Besides being Kendra’s best friend, they had shared blindness for most of their childhood and young adulthood, and that was a bond that was unbreakable. Even when Kendra had gotten her sight through an operation when she was twenty the closeness and friendship had remained. Olivia was totally brilliant and so was her website Outasite, a popular site for the vision-impaired, featuring articles, product reviews, and discussion boards, all accessible by integrated audio screen-reading apps. It was constantly changing and improving and was now a business that generated more than six figures.
Twenty minutes later Kendra parked her Toyota in the condo parking garage. She got on the elevator and pressed the button for Olivia’s condo, which was on the floor below her own.
She heard Olivia’s dog, Harley, barking as she got off the elevator. Olivia opened the door on the first ring, but Harley got to Kendra before she did. The big, adorable mutt’s paws were on Kendra’s shoulders, and he gave her ear a slurp before she could push him down. “How’s his training coming?” she asked Olivia.
“Splendid,” Olivia said. “But he never appears to realize which one of us is in training. I’m working on it.”
“I suspected that was what was happening.” She gave Harley a pat before she smiled at Olivia. “Well, here I am. Want to go out to dinner?”
“Hell, no.” Olivia took a step back. “Get in here.” She pulled her into the foyer and gave her a hug. “I can tell you’re about to crack any minute. How bad was it at the hospital?”
“Terrible. I couldn’t do anything.”
“How’s Metcalf?”
“I don’t know. It could go either way. He could die tonight, Olivia.”
“Or he could live. You said it could go either way.”
“It could. I know he’s your friend, too, Olivia. I don’t mean to be pessimistic.”
“I’ve been thinking about him ever since I heard.” She gestured to the couch. “Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.” She went over to the bar. “Maybe after a brandy or two you’ll be more positive.”
“I hope so.” She curled up in a corner of the couch and reached out to pat Harley again. He was looking up at her soulfully, which was peculiar because one eye was blue, the other brown, but he managed to pull it off. “I’m having trouble with positive right now. Did I tell you that I knew one of the agents who was killed? It was Cynthia Strode, and she was always friendly and eager to learn. She’d ask dozens of questions when I’d come up with a deduction. She wanted to go back to Quantico and study forensics. She was a brand-new grandmother, and she was always joking about going back to school when she might be retiring before she could graduate. She was…nice.”
“You’re tearing up. Drink your brandy.” Olivia sat down beside her and sipped her own drink. “It was all pretty crazy, wasn’t it? Barrett had to be nuts. You weren’t involved with catching him, were you?”
Kendra shook her head. “It wasn’t one of my cases. I’m glad I wasn’t involved. I’d feel guilty if I hadn’t been able to guess what he was going to do.” She took a swallow of her brandy. “And of course he was nuts. No one knows exactly how many people he killed. The guesses run anywhere from twenty-eight to thirty-five. It might be even more. He’s never given anyone a definite number. He’s just teased the FBI occasionally with the location of a body when he wanted something from them.”
“And they gave it to him?”
“Closure,” she said flatly. “It means everything to a victim’s family when a victim has been missing for a long time. It can be agony not to be certain.”
“That was what happened out in Pine Valley?” Olivia paused. “Do you want to talk about this? If you don’t, tell me to shut up.”
“I’ll talk about it. I’ll be going out to Pine Valley tomorrow morning with Dean Cassalas, the agent in charge of the scene, anyway. Maybe it will help me to get my head straight before I have to examine the crime scene.” She smiled lopsidedly. “Though that hasn’t happened yet. I guess you’d have to be mentally unstable to be able to think like James Barrett.”
“He’s a serial killer himself, and he killed himself?” Olivia asked.
“That’s what the FBI think happened,” Kendra said. “They had enough evidence against him to convict on several counts. Since California has been ambivalent about capital punishment there was always a chance that they’d still give him the death sentence.” Kendra added bitterly, “He’d be first in line. Since he was definitely unstable and hated both the FBI and the prison system with a passion, he probably decided that he wouldn’t wait. He’d take the decision into his own hands and bring down as many law-enforcement officers with him as he could.” She had to take another sip of brandy for what was to follow. “His trial was under way downtown, and he abruptly decided to plead out and show them where the body of Dayna Voyles was buried. Her abduction was probably the one that attracted the most attention from the media. She was twenty-four years old and very pretty, just the kind of young woman that would appeal to the general public and local politicians. Barrett said if they took the death penalty off the table, he’d show them where he buried her. It turned out he’d buried an explosive device with her.” Her lips curled sardonically. “He had to have been planning this for a long time. He’s been in prison for over two years.”
“Vicious,” Olivia murmured.
“He got what he wanted. Eleven died with him,” Kendra said grimly. “Seven more wounded. Two critical. Metcalf was there with Cynthia Strode, an agent I worked with a couple of times. They played the biggest part in catching Barrett. Cynthia testified in his trial last week, and Metcalf was just about to take the stand when Barrett decided to plead his case out.”
“Is Metcalf’s family with him?”
“His mother should be there anytime now. She’s flying down from San Francisco. Maybe I can stop by and see her before I go out to the valley tomorrow.” She made a face. “I’m thinking positive. Everything is going to go well tonight.”
“Sure it is.” Olivia got up, went back to the bar, and got the decanter. “And I’m going to give you one more drink to relax you, and then we’re going to eat the wonderful salad I made for us. Want to spend the night with me and Harley?”
“Nope. I’ve imposed enough on you.”
“It’s no imposition.” Olivia smiled. “You know, I was just remembering that it was Metcalf who discovered how much Harley loves HGTV. That dog still loves House Hunters, but lately he’s been wild about Property Brothers.”
“I remember. But seriously, I don’t need anyone holding my hand.” She reached out and took Olivia’s hand anyway. “Though maybe I did a bit earlier. It was very sad at the hospital tonight.”
“Someone to hold your hand is sometimes an excellent thing.” Olivia grinned. “Have you heard from Lynch lately?”
“Last week. He called me from Johannesburg. He checks in every now and then.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why. Actually, he’s too busy saving the world to bother with relationships.”
“That wasn’t my impression,” Olivia said. “And I know why. Since you’re even more skittish than he is, he’s probably playing it cool. And no one can play that game better than Lynch. It’s no wonder the Justice Department pulled him out of black ops and sends him out to do damage control all over the world.” She topped off Kendra’s drink. “But since you’re lacking a Lynch, I’ll lend you Harley to keep you company tonight.”
“Heaven help me.”
“He’s wonderful. Don’t you dare malign him. After all, you’re the one who talked me into accepting Harley into my home. It’s not as if I needed a Seeing Eye dog.”
“We all knew that,” Kendra said with a grin. “You rule your world all by yourself, but it made me feel better that you had Harley to protect you in case a burglar tried to break in.”
“His idea of protection would be to try to lick the burglar to the point of asphyxiation,” Olivia said dryly. “But if they didn’t know him, he’s big enough to make anyone think twice about attacking me. So, it all works out.” She reached down and Harley affectionately nuzzled her hand. “And what he does with the ut. . .
If it was a good day, she’d soon be looking at a corpse that had been rotting in the ground for over two years.
FBI Special Agent Cynthia Strode shook her head at what now passed for a “good day.” The bar was getting lower by the week.
It was a rainy morning in Southern California, and she was part of a twelve-car caravan driving down a remote two-lane road east of the San Diego burb of Pine Valley. The FBI agents, local cops, and two corrections officers were escorting serial killer James Michael Barrett to the body of his first victim, twenty-four-year-old U.S. Foreign Service employee Dayna Voyles. Barrett had just completed the third week of his murder trial when he obviously realized that the witness testimony and forensic evidence were too much for his defense team to overcome. In his quickly negotiated plea deal, Barrett agreed to reveal the location of his victim’s body in exchange for having the death penalty taken off the table.
FBI Special Agent Roland Metcalf sat in the passenger seat next to Cynthia. He’d just turned thirty, and the Barrett investigation had been one of his first big cases. They’d worked it together, and she was impressed by his intelligence and instinctive ability to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, the truth from the bullshit. Metcalf had impressed a lot of people at the Bureau, and she was sure he would be impressing many more in the years to come.
Strode knew this was probably one of her last big cases, at least as far as media attention went. Although she was still two years from the Bureau’s mandatory retirement age of fifty-seven, she’d been getting none-too-subtle inquiries ever since she passed her qualifying twenty-five years of service a while back. Nothing like a gentle shove out the door just when you think you’ve found your groove.
Metcalf turned toward her. “Have you ever been on one of these?”
“A perp-led body hunt? Once before, when I was still working out of the Dallas office. A guy showed us where he’d hidden his high school math teacher’s body.” She upped the speed on the windshield wipers. “But I’ll tell you, it was a lot nicer day than this one. How about you, Metcalf?”
“Nope. Never had a perp so accommodating. I’ve been on two body digs, but Stan and Ollie led the way each time.”
She smiled. “I love those boys.”
Stan and Ollie were cadaver dogs employed by their team.
“I’m surprised Barrett agreed to this,” Metcalf said. “I visited him in jail three times in the last few months, and he was never interested in a deal.”
“I guess he thought he was going to beat it.”
Metcalf shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You remember when we brought him in? He seemed like he was glad to be caught.”
“He did. But that didn’t stop him from hiring the best lawyers his daddy’s money could buy to try to beat the charge.”
Metcalf furrowed his brow. “I know. But every time I talked to him, he seemed…resigned. Like he knew he was never getting out.”
“But this isn’t about getting out. It’s about avoiding a lethal injection. Maybe he didn’t like how the jury was looking at him.”
“Maybe.”
The lead car pulled over to the side of the road, and the others followed. One by one, the cast of characters emerged. Half a dozen forensics team members pulled shovels and a pair of dirt sifters from the back of a police van. A photographer and videographer jumped from their cars with cameras already in their hands. Four uniformed cops placed traffic cones and signs on the slick road, directing passing cars around the parked convoy. A few detectives were also there, with no real purpose other than to be on hand when they finally recovered Dayna Voyles from her lonely grave.
Strode couldn’t blame them; there was no way in hell she’d miss this, after years of assuring the grieving parents that they’d never stop looking for their daughter.
She and Metcalf climbed out of the car just in time to see two officers emerging from the department of corrections van with killer James Michael Barrett, adorned in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, and leg irons. Barrett looked different than he had when they caught him; his round, bearded face was now clean-shaven, and his long hair was now cut and in an attractive conservative style. A classic defense attorney makeover.
Barrett smiled. “Strode and Metcalf. All the big guns are here.”
Strode shook her head. “You’re the big gun here today, Barrett.”
“You flatter me.”
“Never.”
The corrections officers pulled Barrett across the tall wet grass bordering the road, toward a clump of trees that looked remarkably like the sketch he’d drawn the morning he entered his plea.
The group was strangely silent, Strode thought, probably sobered by what they knew was waiting for them just ahead. It wouldn’t last; she’d visited enough crime scenes to know that the wisecracks would soon start flying. If called on it, the cops and agents would trot out that old canard about their jokes being a defense mechanism. She never bought that. Some of those guys were just sick assholes.
The rain had settled into a fine mist, giving the group’s slickers and ponchos a wet sheen as they trudged into the woods. Less than twenty yards in, Barrett stopped and pointed to the ground.
Within minutes, a waterproof canopy had been erected over the spot, and the group circled around. Barrett was still staring at the ground.
One of the forensics officers stepped forward with his shovel. “About two feet down, right?”
“Yeah,” Barrett replied. He looked with uncertainty at the barren patch of earth. “But it looks…different.”
“It’s been over two years,” Strode said. “The ground’s probably settled.”
“Well, it was definitely here, right between that boulder and these two trees.”
Metcalf’s phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the screen, and stepped away to take the call.
One of the forensics specialists plunged his shovel into the soft earth and emptied the blade’s contents onto the wire mesh sifter. He swung the shovel down again, and it hit the ground with a metallic clang.
The digger looked up at Barrett. “Is there something metal down there?”
Barrett just stared at the ground. Before he could reply, the other digger swung his shovel down. There was another metallic clang, and…
BOOM!
A terrific explosion rocked the woods!
A fireball erupted from the earth. The shock wave threw Strode and the other officers back over a dozen feet as a deafening roar overtook them.
Her body crumpled at the base of a tree. Her face stung, and blood gushed over her eyes. Her eardrums were blown, and the odor of gunpowder was thick in her nasal cavity.
She tried to wipe the blood from her eyes and only then realized that most of her left arm was gone.
She could see, she realized, but just barely. Fire everywhere, all around her. And mangled bodies, some writhing in pain, but most just still.
Next to her, Barrett was bloody and wheezing, his orange prison uniform burned and tattered.
“You…son of a bitch,” she whispered.
He didn’t react. He was now dead, like the others.
As a dark fog crept over her, she realized she would soon be joining them.
Chapter2
Sharp Grossmont Hospital
La Mesa, California
Kendra Michaels pulled open the stairwell door, took a glance to see if the coast was clear, and then ran down the surgical floor’s wide hallway.
“Ma’am…Ma’am?” The nurse ran after her.
“Where is he?”
“Ma’am, you can’t be back here.”
Kendra turned toward her. “Too late. Half the law-enforcement community of Southern California and their families are downstairs. No one is telling us anything. I need some answers.”
“I understand. And as soon as we have those answers, a doctor will be down to fill you in. Until then, I have to ask you to—”
“Please. Isn’t there something you can tell me?”
The nurse cocked her head. “I think I’ve seen you here before.”
Kendra half smiled. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” She looked at the ID card around the nurse’s neck. “Which is it, Holly?”
The woman froze. “You’re Kendra Michaels.”
“Guilty. Still not sure if it’s a good thing.”
“I was working at Scripps Mercy the night you brought in the Conway kids. They’d been kidnapped. You saved all three of them.”
Kendra’s smile faded. There was a fourth she couldn’t save, but there was no need to relive that awful memory. “Yes.”
“But you aren’t with the police or FBI at all, are you? You’re some kind of music teacher.”
“A music therapist. I assist law-enforcement agencies from time to time.”
Holly nodded. “I remember. You grew up as a blind person, right?”
Kendra didn’t feel like going through her entire bio with the nurse, but every minute she wasn’t being forcibly ejected was a good thing. “I was blind for the first twenty years of my life. Now that I have my sight, I guess I don’t take anything I see for granted. And like most blind people, I used my other senses—hearing, smell, touch, and taste—to make my way in the world. That has stuck with me. My senses aren’t better than anyone else’s. I just pay more attention. I’ve helped out the FBI and several police departments on some of their cases.”
“I saw you talking to the police that night. You knew so much about that sicko kidnapper just by looking at him. One of the doctors thought you were psychic.”
“Nope. I just pay attention. People tell me about themselves without even realizing it.”
“What am I telling you about myself?”
Kendra sighed. At the moment, the last thing she wanted to do was perform her damn party trick. But if she could use it to gain a little trust and perhaps a sense of obligation…
“You live close to work. Close enough to ride your bike, which you did today.”
Holly’s eyes widened.
“You’re an active person in general. You play tennis.”
Holly smiled. “Yes.”
“I’ve never played, but a lot of my friends have taken up pickleball. They can’t get enough of it. Anyway, on the way in today, you bought a drink from that Starbucks across the street. Pumpkin spice latte. You order from there often.”
“You saw me there.”
“No. You like to travel, and you’ve seen a lot of the world. You want to see more. You’ve recently been to New Zealand. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Stunning.” Holly shook her head. “But how—?”
“I’ll tell you how.” She added persuasively, “But first you need to tell me about the blast victims.”
Holly looked around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “We have four in surgery right now. Three San Diego PD, one FBI. Two of the cops look like they’ll make it. I’m not sure about the other two.” She looked at Kendra’s tense face. “When you came in here, you said, ‘Where is he?’ Is there someone in particular you want to know about?”
“The FBI agent. Roland Metcalf. He’s a good friend.”
“They’re working on him. I don’t believe his burns were as severe as the others, but he has several serious impact wounds. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
Kendra closed her eyes for an instant. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Sure.” She put her hand on Kendra’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
Kendra was silent for a long moment. Keep her talking. Do the party trick and ease her into telling Kendra more. Finally, she said hoarsely, “Your right pant leg is wrinkled.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s because it’s been rolled up over your calf, so it won’t get caught in your bicycle chain. You rode your bike to work.”
“That’s right. How did you know I stopped at Starbucks?”
“Coffee breath.”
“Ooh.” Holly covered her mouth. “Sorry.”
“It isn’t offensive, but that pumpkin odor is distinctive. And I happen to know Starbucks brought back their pumpkin spice drinks last week. The flavoring syrup is the same, but for some reason it smells different in hot drinks than in cold. It’s stronger. You had the latte. You’ve been drinking it from a thermal cup over there at the nurses’ station. The cup is decorated with the logo for the Lake Murray Tennis Club. It’s a city-owned club, isn’t it? I figure you probably play there.”
“How do you know the cup is mine? There are other nurses here.”
“The lipstick on the rim matches yours. No one else’s.”
Holly shook her head in amazement. “You’re right. That is my cup, and I do play there. I used to work at the pro shop sometimes. And I do love to travel. How did you know?”
“You’re wearing a hairpin. It’s jade, which could mean it’s from Asia. But there’s a Māori-style twist at the end, which means New Zealand. I saw them for sale there in a few places. You don’t really see them anywhere else.”
“I got mine at the Auckland Museum.”
“As lovely as New Zealand is, it’s several notches down on the list of travel destinations for Americans. You most likely visited several European countries before going there. You’re well traveled.”
“Right again. I’m going to Thailand next winter.”
Kendra didn’t know how much longer she could go on with this. She wasn’t sure if the nurse could tell her anything more and she realized that this idiotic “party trick” wasn’t distracting her from the awful thought that Metcalf could be dying in one of those surgery suites beyond the nurses’ station. And she’d only just begun to process the fact that Cynthia Strode was already dead. Her body was probably still with the others in that bomb-cratered crime scene.
“I’m sorry,” Holly said.
She must have looked more upset than she’d thought. “Thanks.”
“No, I mean…” She gestured behind Kendra, where a uniformed security guard appeared from the stairwell door. “I had the floor assistant call security when you first came up here. You should really go back to the waiting room with the others. The doctor will let you know when we know more.” She shrugged. “But like we tell everyone…”
“…no news is good news,” Kendra finished for her.
“It’s true.”
Kendra turned and walked toward the elevator. She couldn’t tell Holly that she didn’t belong down with those other friends and relatives. They’d closed her out, even though she was feeling the same horror and pain that they were. She couldn’t go back to that waiting room. That’s why she’d bolted up here to get information.
But now that was another closed door.
So, she just had to get the hell out of here.
* * *
Kendra’s hands clenched on the steering wheel as she sat looking at the hospital after she got into the driver’s seat of her Toyota 4Runner. She felt so damn helpless. There had to be something she could do. What? It was obvious Cassalas had wanted to get rid of her. He’d been very respectful, but she wasn’t FBI and therefore she was an outsider. That waiting room had been crowded with friends and relations of those victims who had been brutally killed and injured. It didn’t matter that one of those victims lying at death’s door was her friend, or that she had known and admired many of the dead. She didn’t belong to the club. She was in the way. She couldn’t even go to the crime scene and try to get them answers and closure. All she could do was tell the ones who had been left behind how sorry she was that a monster had decided to take down their loved ones to make his own death more spectacular, she thought bitterly. No, she couldn’t even do that, because she didn’t have all the facts yet. She had to wait for the FBI to get through with taking care of their own. Lord, how she hated the thought—
Her phone chimed, and she looked to see it was a text from her friend Olivia. It was a simple message: SEE ME WHEN YOU GET BACK.
Kendra felt an immediate rush of relief. She didn’t even think twice as she started her car and drove out of the parking lot. Olivia would understand because she’d realize how it was to be closed out and isolated when you wanted to reach out. Besides being Kendra’s best friend, they had shared blindness for most of their childhood and young adulthood, and that was a bond that was unbreakable. Even when Kendra had gotten her sight through an operation when she was twenty the closeness and friendship had remained. Olivia was totally brilliant and so was her website Outasite, a popular site for the vision-impaired, featuring articles, product reviews, and discussion boards, all accessible by integrated audio screen-reading apps. It was constantly changing and improving and was now a business that generated more than six figures.
Twenty minutes later Kendra parked her Toyota in the condo parking garage. She got on the elevator and pressed the button for Olivia’s condo, which was on the floor below her own.
She heard Olivia’s dog, Harley, barking as she got off the elevator. Olivia opened the door on the first ring, but Harley got to Kendra before she did. The big, adorable mutt’s paws were on Kendra’s shoulders, and he gave her ear a slurp before she could push him down. “How’s his training coming?” she asked Olivia.
“Splendid,” Olivia said. “But he never appears to realize which one of us is in training. I’m working on it.”
“I suspected that was what was happening.” She gave Harley a pat before she smiled at Olivia. “Well, here I am. Want to go out to dinner?”
“Hell, no.” Olivia took a step back. “Get in here.” She pulled her into the foyer and gave her a hug. “I can tell you’re about to crack any minute. How bad was it at the hospital?”
“Terrible. I couldn’t do anything.”
“How’s Metcalf?”
“I don’t know. It could go either way. He could die tonight, Olivia.”
“Or he could live. You said it could go either way.”
“It could. I know he’s your friend, too, Olivia. I don’t mean to be pessimistic.”
“I’ve been thinking about him ever since I heard.” She gestured to the couch. “Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.” She went over to the bar. “Maybe after a brandy or two you’ll be more positive.”
“I hope so.” She curled up in a corner of the couch and reached out to pat Harley again. He was looking up at her soulfully, which was peculiar because one eye was blue, the other brown, but he managed to pull it off. “I’m having trouble with positive right now. Did I tell you that I knew one of the agents who was killed? It was Cynthia Strode, and she was always friendly and eager to learn. She’d ask dozens of questions when I’d come up with a deduction. She wanted to go back to Quantico and study forensics. She was a brand-new grandmother, and she was always joking about going back to school when she might be retiring before she could graduate. She was…nice.”
“You’re tearing up. Drink your brandy.” Olivia sat down beside her and sipped her own drink. “It was all pretty crazy, wasn’t it? Barrett had to be nuts. You weren’t involved with catching him, were you?”
Kendra shook her head. “It wasn’t one of my cases. I’m glad I wasn’t involved. I’d feel guilty if I hadn’t been able to guess what he was going to do.” She took a swallow of her brandy. “And of course he was nuts. No one knows exactly how many people he killed. The guesses run anywhere from twenty-eight to thirty-five. It might be even more. He’s never given anyone a definite number. He’s just teased the FBI occasionally with the location of a body when he wanted something from them.”
“And they gave it to him?”
“Closure,” she said flatly. “It means everything to a victim’s family when a victim has been missing for a long time. It can be agony not to be certain.”
“That was what happened out in Pine Valley?” Olivia paused. “Do you want to talk about this? If you don’t, tell me to shut up.”
“I’ll talk about it. I’ll be going out to Pine Valley tomorrow morning with Dean Cassalas, the agent in charge of the scene, anyway. Maybe it will help me to get my head straight before I have to examine the crime scene.” She smiled lopsidedly. “Though that hasn’t happened yet. I guess you’d have to be mentally unstable to be able to think like James Barrett.”
“He’s a serial killer himself, and he killed himself?” Olivia asked.
“That’s what the FBI think happened,” Kendra said. “They had enough evidence against him to convict on several counts. Since California has been ambivalent about capital punishment there was always a chance that they’d still give him the death sentence.” Kendra added bitterly, “He’d be first in line. Since he was definitely unstable and hated both the FBI and the prison system with a passion, he probably decided that he wouldn’t wait. He’d take the decision into his own hands and bring down as many law-enforcement officers with him as he could.” She had to take another sip of brandy for what was to follow. “His trial was under way downtown, and he abruptly decided to plead out and show them where the body of Dayna Voyles was buried. Her abduction was probably the one that attracted the most attention from the media. She was twenty-four years old and very pretty, just the kind of young woman that would appeal to the general public and local politicians. Barrett said if they took the death penalty off the table, he’d show them where he buried her. It turned out he’d buried an explosive device with her.” Her lips curled sardonically. “He had to have been planning this for a long time. He’s been in prison for over two years.”
“Vicious,” Olivia murmured.
“He got what he wanted. Eleven died with him,” Kendra said grimly. “Seven more wounded. Two critical. Metcalf was there with Cynthia Strode, an agent I worked with a couple of times. They played the biggest part in catching Barrett. Cynthia testified in his trial last week, and Metcalf was just about to take the stand when Barrett decided to plead his case out.”
“Is Metcalf’s family with him?”
“His mother should be there anytime now. She’s flying down from San Francisco. Maybe I can stop by and see her before I go out to the valley tomorrow.” She made a face. “I’m thinking positive. Everything is going to go well tonight.”
“Sure it is.” Olivia got up, went back to the bar, and got the decanter. “And I’m going to give you one more drink to relax you, and then we’re going to eat the wonderful salad I made for us. Want to spend the night with me and Harley?”
“Nope. I’ve imposed enough on you.”
“It’s no imposition.” Olivia smiled. “You know, I was just remembering that it was Metcalf who discovered how much Harley loves HGTV. That dog still loves House Hunters, but lately he’s been wild about Property Brothers.”
“I remember. But seriously, I don’t need anyone holding my hand.” She reached out and took Olivia’s hand anyway. “Though maybe I did a bit earlier. It was very sad at the hospital tonight.”
“Someone to hold your hand is sometimes an excellent thing.” Olivia grinned. “Have you heard from Lynch lately?”
“Last week. He called me from Johannesburg. He checks in every now and then.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why. Actually, he’s too busy saving the world to bother with relationships.”
“That wasn’t my impression,” Olivia said. “And I know why. Since you’re even more skittish than he is, he’s probably playing it cool. And no one can play that game better than Lynch. It’s no wonder the Justice Department pulled him out of black ops and sends him out to do damage control all over the world.” She topped off Kendra’s drink. “But since you’re lacking a Lynch, I’ll lend you Harley to keep you company tonight.”
“Heaven help me.”
“He’s wonderful. Don’t you dare malign him. After all, you’re the one who talked me into accepting Harley into my home. It’s not as if I needed a Seeing Eye dog.”
“We all knew that,” Kendra said with a grin. “You rule your world all by yourself, but it made me feel better that you had Harley to protect you in case a burglar tried to break in.”
“His idea of protection would be to try to lick the burglar to the point of asphyxiation,” Olivia said dryly. “But if they didn’t know him, he’s big enough to make anyone think twice about attacking me. So, it all works out.” She reached down and Harley affectionately nuzzled her hand. “And what he does with the ut. . .
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More Than Meets the Eye
Iris Johansen
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