Free The Face of Death by Cody McFadyen Page B

my head. “It was surreal. And fucked up. The day started out great. Now I feel crappy and…yuck. Too many messy cases in a row.”
    People think every murder is a bad one, and while they’re technically right, horror comes in degrees. The gutting of an entire family is a jolt.
    “You need a dog,” she says.
    “I need a good laugh,” I reply, forlorn.
    “Just one?”
    I give her a wry smile. “Nope. I need something on a
trend.
A
series
of good laughs. I need to wake up and smile, and then I need to do it again the next day, and again the day after that.
Then
I can have a shitty day, and it won’t feel so bad.”
    “True,” she muses. “‘Into every life a little rain,’ and all that—but you’ve taken it to a new level.” She pats my hand. “Get a dog.”
    I laugh, as she’d intended.
    Quantico, Quantico, a voice sings inside my head. No Sarahs, no up close and personal, no clangy-jitters there.
    Alan heads toward us, still talking on his cell phone. When he gets to us, he holds the phone away from his ear. “Elaina wants to know the outlook on tonight. As far as Bonnie goes.”
    I think it through. I need Barry to arrive. I need him to get his Crime Scene Unit onto processing the house. I need to go through the home and soak in the scene.
    It isn’t officially ours yet, but I’m not willing to just walk away.
    I sigh.
    “It’s going to be a late one. Can you ask her if she minds taking Bonnie for the night?”
    “No problem.”
    “Tell Elaina I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
    He puts the phone to his ear and walks away, delivering the news.
    “What about me?” Callie asks.
    I give her a tired grin. “You get to work on your vacation, just like me. We’re going to meet Barry, check things out…” I shrug. “And then we’ll see. Maybe it will be back to vacation-time, maybe not.”
    She sighs, an overdramatic, long-suffering sigh. “Slave driver,” she mutters. “I want a raise.”
    “I want world peace,” I reply. “Disappointment abounds. Get used to it.”
    “Bonnie’s covered,” Alan says as he returns. “So what’s the plan of action here?”
    Time to take command.
    This is my primary function, above all others. I run a group, really, of luminaries. Everyone has an area they shine in. Callie is a star when it comes to forensics. Alan is a legend in the interrogation room, and he’s the best there is when it comes to beating feet and canvassing an area. He’s tireless and he misses nothing. You don’t get people like that to follow you because they like you. They have to respect you. It requires just a touch of arrogance. You have to be willing to acknowledge your own strengths, to be a star in your own area and know it.
    Where I excel is in the understanding of those we hunt. In
seeing
a scene, not just looking at it. Anyone can walk through a murder site and observe a body. All the skill is in the reverse-engineering. Why that body? Why here? What does that say about the killer? Some are skilled at it. Some are very skilled. I’m gifted, and just arrogant enough to acknowledge it.
    My personal talent in my chosen field is my ability to understand the darkness that makes up the men I hunt.
    Lots of people think they understand the mind of serial killers. They read their true-crime books, perhaps they steel themselves and give a series of gory crime photos an unblinking eye. They talk about predators, the psychosexuality of it all, and they feel enlightened.
    All of that is fine, there’s nothing wrong with it—but they miss the boat by a mile.
    I tried to explain this once in a lecture. Quantico was doing their version of career day, and various guest speakers were giving command performances to rooms full of bright young trainees. My turn came and I stared out at them, at their youth and hope, and tried to explain what I was talking about.
    I told them about a famous case in New Mexico. A man and his girlfriend had spent years hunting and capturing women. They would