Motel 6,Virginia

"Who is Miguel Sanchez?" Rainie asked an hour later. She was propped up against the headboard of her mud-brown motel room, having just treated herself to a late dinner of pecan waffles at the nearby Waffle House. The Motel 6 had been highly visible from the highway and seemed as good a stopping point as any. Besides, at fifty dollars a night, no one could question her expense account.

She'd found the motel. She'd found the neighboring Waffle House. She'd eaten her waffles alone, thinking of Officer Amity's take on the accident scene and wishing she didn't have a chill. Then she'd wasted ten minutes watching other diners, burly, working-class men out with their girls. In some cases, tables crowded with entire families. She was three thousand miles away from home. Funny how nothing seemed that different.

She'd walked back to the motel knowing she should call Quincy and deliver a report on her day. Instead, she'd turned on the TV and perused the modern miracle of fifty-seven channels and still nothing to see. She told herself she didn't have much to report, anyway. Besides, she didn't want to seem anxious to hear Quincy 's voice.

She wanted to ensure that she was treating this as business, purely business. Quincy the client.

There had been nothing good on TV. She had spent the day in a strange state thinking, this is where Quincy lives, and she had been anxious to hear his voice. She'd called. And it had taken her all of one second to realize that she should've called sooner. Quincy sounded tired, nearly flat, as if he had no emotions left. She had never heard him sound like that before.

"Miguel Sanchez was my first case," he told her now. "Worked out of California in the mid-eighties, with his cousin, Richie Millos. They specialized in sadistic rape-murders of young prostitutes. Eight total. Sanchez liked to tape his work."

"Nice guy," Rainie commented. She turned off the TV and set down the remote. "So you were instrumental in catching Sanchez?"

"I formulated the strategy used by the police for Sanchez's arrest. A witness had reported seeing two men dragging the eighth victim into a white van twenty-four hours before her corpse was found mutilated alongside 1-5. At this point, we already knew we were dealing with an organized killer. As I explained to the LAPD, partnerships are rare for psychopaths, but in the few occasions we've encountered them, the partner has generally been subservient – a weak sidekick who merely fulfills the psychopath's desire for an audience. My advice, therefore, once the police had identified two likely suspects, was that they focus their attention on the weaker member of the pair. Turn Richie to give up Miguel, who was the real instigator and threat."

"I'm guessing this was easier said than done." "Yes. Richie idolized his older cousin. He was also terrified of him. For good reason. Six months after Richie handed over Miguel in return for a reduced sentence, he was found in the prison showers with his penis cut off and shoved down his throat. Miguel never believed in being subtle."

"Ah. So this fine piece of humanity called your personal line tonight?"

"Him, and forty-seven of his fellow deviants. Then I had eight calls from various prison officials, who thought I should know that my unlisted telephone number is currently being circulated in prison yards in everything from scraps of paper to packs of cigarettes. Oh, and in one prison, my number is now scratched into the shower wall."

"Quincy – "

"By my count, the forty-eight inmates represent twenty-one different correctional facilities, so I imagine I will be hearing from more prison officials in the morning."

"Quincy – "

"But don't worry," he continued, his voice no longer flat, but gaining an edge, "most corrections departments have the right to monitor an inmates calls, so I'm sure the new members of my fan club will be suitably punished. Maybe have a disciplinary ticket written up or receive ad seg – administrative segregation. You know, penalties I'm sure more than compensate for the sheer thrill a bunch of psychopathic lifers can get by toying with a federal agent."

"Change your number."

"Not yet."

" Quincy, don't be an ass!"

"I'm not. I'm being patient."

Rainie grew silent, then she got it. "You want to keep everyone calling in case you can trick one of them into revealing the original source of your phone number."

"In the morning, I will report the incident to my SAC. The Bureau takes the protection of its agents very seriously. I'm sure my line will be tapped and monitored in no time at all. Calls will be going out to the various prisons. Perhaps even a personal visit to one Miguel Sanchez. I would like that."

"Do you have a theory of who did this? It has to be somebody who knows you."

"Maybe. Then again, it could be some bored college flunkie who hacked into the telephone company's records in order to have a little fun."

"But you don't think so."

"No. I think it's personal. And I think the mysterious practical joker gave out more than just my private number, Rainie. Think of what Mr. Sanchez said. That he wanted to fuck my daughter in her fucking grave with a white fucking cross. Why a white cross? What's the first thing you think of when you picture a white cross?"

Rainie closed her eyes. She pictured a white cross, and her stomach went hollow. She shouldn't be at this stupid motel, she realized. She shouldn't be sitting here pretending that business was just business. She should be at Quincy 's home. She should be holding him the way he had once so kindly held her. And she should be putting her hands over his ears to spare him from what she knew he would say next. He had always been too brutally clever.

" Arlington," Quincy continued relentlessly. "The instigator didn't just give out my home telephone number. He told at least one convicted sadist where to find my daughter's grave. The son of a bitch." His voice finally cracked. "He gave away Mandy."

Rainie waited. On the other end of the phone, the sound of Quincy's breathing grew less ragged. She could feel him pulling himself back together, becoming once more the cool, composed federal agent he so prided himself on being. He needed his masks, she thought, just as she needed hers. It surprised her how much that realization hurt her.

For no good reason, she was thinking about the baby elephant again, his desperate run across the desert. Kicked down, getting back up. And still the jackals shredded him in the end.

"Do you think they're connected?" she asked him shortly.

"What?"

"The phone calls. With Mandy's accident. Seems rather interesting that you've no sooner hired someone to investigate Mandy's death, than you're getting a bunch of threatening calls."

"I don't know, Rainie. It could simply be opportunity. There are enough people out there who have nothing better to do than hate me. Maybe they heard about my daughter's funeral and decided it was their chance to have some fun. We've had incidents in the past where someone has gotten an agent's personal information. Nothing on this big of a scale, but then again, we're now in the computer age."

"I don't like it," Rainie said flatly. "Plus the fact that Sanchez evoked Mandy in the phone call… Seems a rather pointed message."

"I… I don't know." Quincy sounded tired again. "I think they must be connected. Then I think I'm paranoid. Then I think I'm merely being diligent. I don't… I'm not myself at the moment."

Rainie fell silent. She kept thinking there was something comforting she should say. She had not grown up in a house big on comfort. Thirty-two years old. It was kind of funny all the things she didn't know how to do.

"I spoke with the investigating officer," she said, since like Quincy, business was what she handled best. "He did a good job at the scene. I couldn't find anything he'd overlooked."