Part 18 (1/2)
Rainey didn't miss a beat. ”Did they do a cavity search?”
Danny drove away, headed for Durham. Rainey walked down to the office, where Ernie was waiting for her to sign the weekly checks. Rainey would join Danny and the others, as soon as she was finished. The crime scene guys had come and gone by the time she and Danny came outside. Rainey glanced at the dock. The crime scene tape had been cleared away and someone made an effort to wash the blood off, but there was still a dark stain where the head had been. Entering the main office, she found Ernie sitting on the couch, an unusual place for her.
”What? Are you lounging on the couch already? I suspected that's what you did when I wasn't here,” Rainey teased.
”How did he get that close, Rainey?” Ernie was in no mood for playful banter.
Rainey sat on the couch beside the older woman and told it plain, the way she knew Ernie expected it. ”We think he came up on a boat. The motion detectors only work when you cross from land to the dock, or vice versa. If he never came down the dock, he would have remained in complete darkness.”
Ernie turned to look at Rainey. ”How would he know that?”
”Because he's been here before. People come up here all the time in boats, thinking we're still a bait shop. If he came on the water at night, then set off the motion detectors, I wouldn't have paid much attention if the lights went right back off. It's such a common occurrence.”
”Katie might be right,” Ernie began. ”It's not safe out here, you two alone, so far away from help and exposed.”
Rainey stared out the window toward the cottage. ”I don't know what I can do to make this place safer, short of building a compound and that's no way to live.”
Ernie patted Rainey's leg. ”You'll think of something. Right now, you have to return a call to 'the Hill.' She's called three times since the newscast yesterday.”
'The Hill' referenced Chapel Hill and Rainey's mother. She had forgotten to call her, not thinking she was in real danger. Rainey had so little contact with her mother that she doubted the killer was interested in her or her stepfather, but she should have called. Having her mother find about Rainey's involvement in the case from the news was sure to bring down the wrath of Constance Herndon.
”Oh G.o.d, please tell me I don't have to talk to her today.” Rainey pleaded with Ernie. ”You call her back. Tell her I'm fine and I'm sorry I didn't call her.”
”No, ma'am. I've already had the pleasure twice this morning. I'm good for another year or two.”
Rainey cringed. ”That bad, huh?”
Ernie pushed off Rainey's knee and stood up. ”Constance is on the warpath, honey. Stick your head up and let her take her best shot, before she gathers any more steam.”
Rainey fell back against the couch, exasperated. ”Can my life get any more complicated at this moment?”
Ernie had reached her desk when she turned to face Rainey. ”Sure honey, Katie could call and tell you why she reacted the way she did the other night. She's been taking hormones for the last month and is scheduled to be inseminated next week.”
Rainey popped up into a rigid sitting position. ”You're making that up.”
”No, darlin', I'm not. She wanted to surprise you. Surprise!”
”h.e.l.lo, mother,” Rainey said into the receiver.
She was seated at her desk, signing checks, and praying this conversation would be as brief as possible.
”Caroline Marie, I cannot believe you were on the news and did not warn John and me.”
John Herndon was Rainey's stepfather. He adopted her, which Rainey had demanded reversed when she discovered the existence of her real father. He was a nice enough man, but he was no match for his wife, and no source of comfort to Rainey. She ignored her mother's insistence on calling her by the name she was given, after her grandmother, who thought ”Rainey” was base and uncivilized, had changed her birth-name. Once she knew her real name, she had insisted on being called ”Rainey,” to her grandmother's severe disapproval. Her mother called her Rainey most of the time, unless she was in trouble. She called her ”Caroline Marie” when she was in really big trouble.
Rainey talked fast, so her mother would have no time to comment. ”Mother, I did not call you because I didn't want to alarm you. Just so you're caught up, I have been temporarily rea.s.signed to the Bureau and I may appear on TV several times before this is over. I appreciate your concern, but I'm surrounded by good officers that won't let anything happen to me.”
Constance leapt in with both feet. ”I am not talking about your career choices. Quite frankly, I'd rather have a daughter in the FBI than one who chases lowlife bail jumpers for a living. What I am calling about is your announcement to the world that you are a lesbian. Do you have to continue to rub it in our faces? I won't be able to go to the club, until John Edwards gives them something else to wag their tongues about.”
The truth was out. Her mother cared more about her bridge club than Rainey being hunted by a serial killer. She barely remembered the years when her mother was kind and loving. That was before Rainey's grandmother fully sunk the teeth in and changed Connie into Constance forever. It did not surprise Rainey that her safety was the least of her mother's concerns.
Rainey took a breath and let it out slowly. Then, as calmly as she could, said, ”I did not make an announcement about my s.e.xuality. I answered a few questions and told off an obnoxious reporter. I a.s.sure you, attracting your attention to my personal life was the last thing on my mind.”
”Don't take that superior tone with me,” Constance shot back. ”I think that attack on you did something to your brain. Your father would be so disappointed in this leap into s.e.xual debauchery. Living in sin, in his house. Bill would never have approv...”
Rainey, who for the most part tried to be, at least, respectful of her mother on the rare occasions that they spoke, launched into her mother with all the built up frustrations of the last week for fuel.
”I may not be the daughter you wanted, but my father was proud of me and loved me for who I am. Don't presume to speak for him, not now, not ever. Do you understand? Shut up now, or I'll never speak to you again, or is that what you want? If so, lose my number, disown me, claim you found me in a ditch and did what you could, but alas, I was just too common to fit into your world. f.u.c.k you, Connie. Is that clear enough for you?”
Rainey slammed the cell phone shut and threw it down on her desk. She stood up, grabbed two fists full of hair, and roared at the ceiling, ”Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
She heard slow clapping at her office doorway. Rainey turned to see Ernie standing there, smiling, and continuing to clap in a slow deliberate rhythm.
”Now that, baby girl, was a long time coming.”
Every possible b.u.t.ton that Rainey Bell possessed was being pushed. Rainey's boxes were coming uncapped at an alarming rate. On the way to Durham, the hands-free device in her car began to speak.
”You have a call from Katie. Please press the call b.u.t.ton to answer.”
Rainey glanced at the mirror, where the call b.u.t.ton was located. ”Not now, Katie, not now,” she said aloud, but she pushed the b.u.t.ton anyway.
”Hey honey,” Rainey said, trying to sound upbeat.
”Don't 'hey honey' me. I know exactly what you're planning to do and it's just plain nuts.”
Oh my, G.o.d! The UNSUB might be under stress because he couldn't communicate with his master, but Rainey had the exact opposite problem. She couldn't keep people from talking to her. Was a minute alone to gather her composure too much to ask? How was she supposed to out-think Dalton Chambers, who, although he was a complete narcissist, had an extremely high IQ? Rainey couldn't put the lids back on the boxes fast enough.
”What are you talking about, Katie?”
Playing dumb did not work. ”Rainey Bell, you are not going to that bar Sat.u.r.day night. That's it! I'm putting my foot down. Let the team do the work. Consultants don't wear body wires and set themselves up as bait.”
”Well, I can see we need to tighten up security at the police station. Did one of the cops tell you?”
Katie was almost hysterical. ”No, Danny told me. He thought I should talk to you, while you still had a chance to change your mind. Rainey, you can't go through with this.”
Rainey made a mental note to tell Danny to f.u.c.k off, too. ”Did he also tell you why I'm doing this? I'm not going in there alone. I will be wired with both video and audio, so the team can see what I see. If the UNSUB is in that bar, he will have to get close to me. He won't be able to resist. If I can't spot him, maybe the team will. We have to be proactive on this guy. We can't sit around and expect him to make a mistake. He could make us wait a long time, but he will come for us, Katie. Have no doubts about that.”
”Why does it have to be you? Can't some other lesbian cop go in there? I mean, I'm sure they would spot a straight one right away, but there has to be someone else.”
In that high moment of stress, Rainey found Katie's comment hysterical and began to laugh.
”Are you laughing?” Katie was incredulous.
Rainey tried to control her amus.e.m.e.nt, when she said, ”So, what you're saying is, that because I have slept with a woman for nine months of the forty years I've been alive, these women will be able to tell within seconds that I have crossed over to their ranks.”