Crimson Lies

Chapter Eleven(M)

Roseanne

P!nk's "Blow Me" was playing on my iPod as I drove home, and I too had had a shit day. Actually my second full week at the BAU had been so bad that the stress headache pounding my temples was preferable to being at work. I'd worked straight-through Thanksgiving with the promise to my parents I'd make it up to them at Christmas. The joys of public service.

I wanted to crawl under my duvet and sleep for two days straight.

There had been no additional cases of abductions reported or bodies found with PP carved into the skin-which was good news. We hadn't got the results back from the possible DNA samples the ME sent to the lab yet, so there was still hope the killer might have screwed up and be in the system.

I'd sensed a tiny thaw in my relations with a couple of members on the BAU team-the secretary and the janitor. Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, I'd managed to search Barton and Singh's desks and found exactly nothing. Hanrahan hadn't been blown away by my results so far but he'd stressed patience and stealth. People this smart wouldn't leave incriminating evidence in plain sight.

Moira Henderson had restrained herself from letting down any more tires or being quite so openly hostile. So far I hadn't seen anything to make me doubt the integrity of me colleagues. They worked their asses off hunting monsters.

The scary thing was deep down I understood the vigilante. Over the years I'd often fantasized about what would happen if I ever found the man who took my sister. In my mind I put a gun to his head and demanded he tell me where Payton's remains were. But after he told me it became a blur. Would I pull the trigger? Or would I read him his rights and arrest him?

I didn't know, and hated myself for the weakness.

Lindsey Keeble's case haunted me. Her father's grief was so raw, so negative, and my family had added to his burden. I remembered the devil-may-care young man who'd carted us around the swimming pool on his dirt bike, and the infectious grin he'd once sported. The grin was gone now. I didn't think he'd ever get it back.

He could have taken Payton...Or he could be yet another victim of the whole sad episode. He'd obviously loved his daughter.

Traffic was heavy. I inched my little sedan through a busy intersection. Another Friday night with DC all dressed up in its pretty festive dazzle. I pushed thoughts of Lisa Manoban out of my mind. Tonight I planned to stay in and do nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Definitely not call Lisa for a repeat performance no matter how tempting it was just to hear her voice.

I volunteered to go to Lindsey Keeble's funeral next week even though I hated funerals-probably because my sister had never had one. There was no headstone to place flowers. No grave to tend. But I owed Bryce Keeble, both because of my family's treatment of him, and as a law enforcement officer investigating his daughter's death.

Frazer had leapt on the suggestion and by the end of the conversation he seemed to have persuaded himself it was his idea. Men. I rolled my eyes as I turned into my parking garage. I pulled into my space, switched off the engine and relaxed.

I closed my eyes and sagged in my seat.

Silence. Blessed silence.

This time two weeks ago, all I'd wanted to do was forget. Now, it seemed imperative that I try to remember. There were so many things I didn't recall from that period of my life. Going to Greenville, meeting Bryce Keeble and that deputy, Sean Kennedy, had made me realize I needed to dig deeper into the past because maybe, just maybe, the answers were still there waiting for me.

I thought of Lisa, and how I'd blown her off and how desperately I wished I hadn't. "Damn you, Pay. Why'd you have to go and leave me?"

The headache ratcheted up a notch, relentlessly grinding my temples as I climbed out of my little silver sedan and hauled my laptop out of the passenger seat to the elevator. It weighed a thousand tons. Maybe I'd take the night off. Reboot my brain. Visit my poor neglected mother like I kept promising. I stopped to check for mail and found a slightly battered looking parcel from Amazon. My mother and father often ordered me things off the web, maybe compensating for our general lack of family togetherness. I put it under my arm and headed up to my father's apartment. In the elevator I kept flashing back to that Friday night and the woman who'd rocked my world. My toes curled remembering the feel of her hands on my skin. My pulse sped up.