Free Last Call by Baxter Clare

power-assertive classification. A guy like that would have a very feminine woman. He’d tell her what to do, how to do it and when. She might have wanted children but he wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t want to share her. His woman would be petite, attractive and subservient. Well-groomed and well-dressed. Her femininity would make him look even more masculine. He’d have a macho ride, something souped up and tricked out, a late-model muscle car. Image is a big deal to this guy.
    “But such a big deal,” she argues with herself, “that he probably wouldn’t bother attacking children.”
    It would make him look small. He would probably prey on well-developed older girls or young women. Unless he’s got that stressor going on. Has a fight with the little woman. Sees the kids and is in a good position to take them. Wants to do something to feel good about himself, reassert his power and authority, his manliness. Ladeenia’s little, but what a coup snatching two kids would be. That’d show everyone what a stud he was.
    Frank tips her chair again, pleased as a kid with a new toy. A good profiler needs to be flexible. Frank learned that during her sabbatical at Quantico. Getting fixed on a single track usually derails a profiling effort. Rigidity makes it impossible to tweak and rearrange data. Frank’s been profiling a single perp. Now she has to switch tracks and look for a couple. She drums the chair’s arm with the pencil.
    “No problema,” she tells the ceiling. The case is six years old and Frank has nothing but time. Amused at her folly, she smiles. Of course there is no one to see it.

Chapter 14
    Gail has to run downtown and she calls Frank to meet her for lunch.
    Frank lies, “I’m kind of tied up, but thanks for asking.”
    “Okay. I’ll see you tonight then. Want me to get dinner?”
    “Actually, I’m going to have dinner with Trace and the kids.”
    “Oh.”
    Gail’s disappointment is obvious in that one, small word. For the merest second, Frank feels like a real shit. Then she feels nothing.
    “Well, I guess I’ll see you when you get here.”
    “Yeah. Don’t wait up. I’ll slip in next to you.”
    Frank is glad to hang up. Gail’s voice used to be enough to soothe the cold, dark places inside of Frank, but lately not even Gail’s touch can penetrate those lonely hollows. She saw a stone quarry once, in upstate New York. It was winter. She was on a school field trip. The quarry was fenced off and abandoned. Steep, gray pits had been left to fill with snow. Dark pines brooded above the holes. The bloodless sky matched the cold rock. Her classmates went quiet, hushed by the stillness of wind on stone. Frank wonders if a surgeon were to cut her open, would he find just rock and snow?
    Irritated, Frank shakes away the image. She has things to do before dinner. When she arrives at Noah’s, Tracey is overjoyed.
    Frank says, “You’ve lost weight, mama.”
    “Yeah. One of the advantages of grief,” Tracey replies, not without rancor. Frank plays Munch’s Oddysee with the younger kids while Tracey puts dinner out. When she goes upstairs to get Leslie, she returns without her.
    “Not eating?” Frank asks. Tracey shakes her head with a helplessness that breaks Frank’s heart. She wrestles with her cowardice before asking, “Can I go talk to her?”
    “What are you gonna say?”
    Markie sits at the table playing with army men and Jamie meticulously lays out napkins.
    “That I know how it feels.”
    Memory surfaces in Tracey’s eyes. She nods and Frank slips up the stairs.
    “Yeah?” Leslie says to the knock on her door.
    “Hey. Not hungry?”
    Leslie wags her head and Frank balances next to her on the edge of the bed. Noah’s oldest daughter is all giraffe legs and stick arms, skinny like her dad. She’ll bust hearts someday and Frank hates that Noah won’t be there to fret over her first date or give his daughter away when she marries. She hates this whole fucked-up situation and