The Profiler Read online

  “Who you calling?” I ask Severo, when I see him enter digits into the conference room phone.

  “Cain. He needs to know we have Jude. Your family will be glad to hear that.”

  I think of my grandmother and my uncle, who have already been through so much these past few months with the death of my father. Despite Jude’s intention to rattle my family’s sense of security, I’m glad they were not victim to his taunting.

  Me, I can handle it. But I will not tolerate seeing my family suffer. And when I get in that room, face-to-face with this indescribable criminal, I’ll put to rest, once and for all, whether or not this man was in fact present the day my father was shot.

  “Great,” Severo says, and I listen to the final bit of his conversation with Cain. “Give them my best. See you soon.”

  The captain hands me a cup of water and I nod in thanks, appreciative of the small comfort as we wait in these closed quarters. Not unlike the room Cain, Severo and I shared just a few days ago, when I first became familiar with the Fifth Precinct, this room is anything but cozy. It serves a purpose, though, and that’s all that matters.

  “They’re fine,” Severo informs me. “They’re all fine. Denise is with them now, and Muddy, too.”

  “But Simon’s allergic.”

  “Muddy’s in the office, curled up and staying out of sneezes’ way,” the detective jokes, and I think of how great he’s been with my family over the past two days.

  He’s only just met them, but for some reason he has taken to them rather quickly. Kind of how I feel about him, I guess. “And Cain’s on his way over soon. Says he got caught up in a game of cards with your uncle.”

  “Oh, that can be dangerous.” More than a few times my uncle has walked away a richer man due to his hush-hush poker pastime. “Thanks for doing that. Checking on them, I mean.”

  “It’s my job,” Severo says nonchalantly, then leans closer to me so his captain doesn’t overhear. “But for you, I would’ve done it anyway.”

  My grin is fast to fade, however, as the sound of metal chairs scratching against tile floors draws my attention to the window. An officer escorts Jude Barnaby into the interrogation room, and as he sits down they cuff one of his hands to the chair. The only place this guy is going anytime soon is back behind bars.

  His eyes stare through the window, and I imagine he knows the mirror facing him leads to us, staring back at him. Looking at him now, I find he doesn’t seem like much of anything. I recognize the sunken cheeks and chiseled jawline I first laid eyes on in the crematorium, and his hair is shaved.

  He may think his ability to disguise himself has trumped us, but no matter what he looks like on the outside, I know there is nothing to this man’s soulless interior.

  “Shall we?” Severo asks, opening the door to lead us around the other side. I take a deep breath, prepared to meet the man who has caused such chaos in my first week of being an agent in New York City. I came here to work the field, but I was not expecting this as a welcoming party.

  “Agent David,” he says, his voice as raspy as I remember it. “You’re looking good.”

  “Wish I could say the same.”

  Severo slides a chair toward me, taking a seat himself across from the first criminal to know me by name. I can’t say I like the feeling.

  “Why don’t we start off with the basics,” the detective says, slouching a bit in his chair as he reads the expression on Jude’s face. The prisoner seems intent on staring at me, but then again, I’m returning the glare.

  “I’m not interested in talking to you, Detective,” Judas says, sitting up in his chair as his eyes follow my every move. A clock on the wall provides a steady beat as the second hand clicks by, drumming along with my pulse.

  “Fine.” I slide my chair tight against the table so I am as close to him as I can get without taking a seat on his lap. “You got something to say to me? This is your lucky day, Judas. Spit it out.”

  He slides the end of his tongue along his top teeth, and the sound of wet flesh squishing against the crooked edges causes my back to tense up. I watch as this man attempts to control my emotions, cracking his knuckles and curling his cuffed hands into fists.

  “You have nothing to say?” My voice rises above normal volume, but I maintain a steady, concentrated tone. “After following me day after day, tracking my every move, it comes down to this. Silence? Well done, Jude. Well done.”

  Severo and Jude watch as I lift myself off the chair and walk to the door. “Sit down,” the criminal commands, his voice explosive in the silence.

  “Why? You’re not holding my interest, Judas. Did you think you’d impress me by killing those four men? Or maybe by pulling off those disguises? Because I’ll tell you one thing,” I say, now leaning over the table and staring him down. “You haven’t impressed me one bit.”

  “Angie,” Severo says softly, but instead of meeting his glance, I simply raise a hand to keep him in place.

  “No. This guy, Detective? He thinks he’s smarter than us. He thinks he can prove how crafty he is by replicating the deaths of the apostles. Well, you know what I say? He’s a copycat. And if he couldn’t come up with something original, it doesn’t impress me. Not one bit.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Agent David.” Jude’s rasp interrupts my rant. There’s no change in his calm, confident demeanor. “Perhaps you and I got off to a bad start. It’d be such a shame if we couldn’t put aside our differences. After all, we have so much in common.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “I overheard that you spoke with my dear friend Philip Martin. How is he, by the way?”

  Glancing at Severo, and then through the mirror to the officers on the other side, I take the bait. “Fine. Considering he only has a few more days left.”

  “Mmm. Such a sad story, isn’t it? I’ll assume he told you all about the Apostles of Peace.”

  “He did.”

  “Then you know I’ve always had the best of intentions.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “That’s a shame. Because, Miss David, if you could only find it in your heart to understand me better, your problems might suddenly seem less difficult to deal with.”

  “What problems are those, Judas?”

  The ticking of the clock sounds in the background, like a time bomb keeping pace with our chat.

  “Oh, there are several. Where do I start…. Well,” he says, angling in his chair to position himself closer to me. “Both you and I have been betrayed by those whom we grew to trust.”

  I try not to let my emotions show, even though I’m not certain what he means. I cannot let him get the better of me, so I keep a straight face.

  “Those men who you believe betrayed you were only looking out for themselves,” I state, remembering how Philip Martin did, in fact, have good intentions at one point in his life. “You were the one to abuse their trust, Judas.”

  “Is that what you think this is about?”

  For the first time since he was escorted into this room, Jude’s pitch changes, causing me to react to the difference. My eyes focus on his as I try to read what set off the change.

  He leans back in his chair, as though he is amused by this situation, and both the detective and I keep watch on his actions.

  “Agent David, you honestly believe this was about them? About those men who scattered themselves silly, running away from me with their tails between their legs? Don’t get me wrong, Angela. It hurt. I won’t lie. It pained me to see them abandon the brotherhood.”

  His tone has returned to its steady rasp again, as he leans forward to stare me down. Fluorescent lighting from above creates a wash over his face, turning his skin an opaque, pale yellow. His dark eyes shine like black marbles. “Though if you think I have done all this to seek revenge on their actions, you are not who I thought you were, Agent David.”

  “Then why, Judas. Tell me your deep, dark secrets. I want to understand. I just don’t want to play you
r games anymore.”

  Severo looks to me, measuring my attitude, but I shake my head, letting him know I am fine, under control and handling this situation.

  “I would have thought you already understood me, Agent David,” Judas drawls slowly, as though with every word he is piercing my flesh. “After all, it didn’t take your father nearly as long to figure it out.”

  The detective pushes out of his chair, quickly coming to my side before I have a chance to react. He pulls me to a corner of the interrogation room and whispers tersely into my ear. “Angie, this is enough. He’s just trying to get under your skin. Don’t let him do this.”

  My eyes focus on Carson’s and my words are sincere when I tell him, “I’m fine, Severo. Whatever he has to say, I want to know what it is. Honest, I’m fine.”

  Frustrated with my plea, Severo twists to peer through the mirror, and I wonder briefly if Cain has joined the captain. But I return to the table to meet my match, as I am currently more interested in Jude Barnaby.

  “Figure what out?”

  A smile creeps across his lips as he turns his head slightly on an angle. “I told you in the crematorium, Angie. I told you I was seeking revenge.”

  “Yeah, and my father’s dead, so you got your way.”

  “Tsk, tsk. If you would only pay attention, Agent David, and stop thinking of yourself, you might somehow realize this isn’t about you. But perhaps I have wasted my time. Perhaps you are nothing like your father at all.”

  “My father was the best damn fed out there. He died protecting innocent people from assholes like you. Do me a favor, Jude. Don’t waste my time talking about something you don’t understand. Either get to the point or get your sorry ass out of my face.”

  Judas sinks deep into his chair, mocking my plea with an infuriating stuttered chuckle. “My apologies for upsetting you. I only had the best of intentions,” he says seriously now, and I exhale deeply as we head down this path again. “I just thought you might want to know what really happened to him. Because if you knew that, Agent David, you wouldn’t be wasting your time sitting here talking with me.”

  Severo slams a palm to the table. “Enough with the bullshit, Jude. Tell us how you got hold of her father’s blood. Do you have something more to confess?”

  The detective’s sudden forceful attitude surprises me, but I’m not going to interrupt. Jude seems content to be dragging this out all he can, so maybe this change of approach will work for us.

  Jude’s nostrils close in against the cartilage of his pale nose as he breathes before saying, “I took it from his bleeding neck the day he died.”

  Chapter 18

  “You killed him. You killed my father?”

  A tapping on the mirror glass distracts Severo, who looks at me. “Stop right there.”

  He exits the room, keeping the door open a notch as Captain Delaney speaks to him in private. I pay no attention to them, as I am fully concentrated on what Jude Barnaby wants to tell me. “I asked you if you killed my father.”

  “I’m hurt you would suggest such a thing.”

  “You wanted revenge. You said so yourself,” I say, trying to keep my heated emotions under control. With the closed space sucking oxygen from my every breath, the pale aqua walls making me less than lucid, I pace myself, careful of what’s to come. “So you went after the man who put you behind bars the first time. Well, I hate to tell you, Judas, but I’m putting you behind bars this time. And for killing my father? You can expect many years of privacy.”

  “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Agent.” Judas adjusts his position, but keeps his eyes on me as Severo closes the door, returning to our meeting. “Because you weren’t here to understand the relationship I had with your father.”

  “No. Nuh-uh. I will not for one second believe he took up a deal with you,” I say, recalling what Philip said about how Jude was paying someone off to keep quiet. Cain had warned me Judas would try to turn this around on me by making it even more personal. But I won’t buy it. “Not my father.”

  “No. Not your father.”

  “Then what? What is it, Judas?”

  Severo slides me a note, and I read it. “Captain says proceed with caution.” I look at him, then toward the double-sided mirror, like those are the stupidest words I have ever laid eyes on.

  “Your father knew who had made arrangements with me, I won’t keep that a secret. But it wasn’t me, Angela,” Jude says, his voice firm, as though he wants me to find reason within his words. “It was not I who killed your father. Though I was there all right, to witness the event where both you and I were betrayed by the same man.”

  “You want me to believe that? You’re telling me you want revenge, yet you’re also saying you didn’t kill my father. Who, Jude? Who is it, exactly, you want to extend revenge to? Me?”

  “Were that the case, Agent, I would not have bothered with creating such a display, now would I? It was necessary, of course, to go to so much trouble. I knew you would have a hard time believing me, had I simply told you the truth. One cannot just walk up to another, with a personal history such as we have, and tell you the facts.”

  His voice is picking up enthusiasm as he explains his motives for killing the apostles. It’s exactly like Cain said. Judas wants me to be impressed with his methodology.

  “I knew you would not believe it to be true, and thus I had to show you. It took time to carefully plan who would be first, and in what order they would fall victim to this revelation,” he says, his breathing intense as he urges me to realize his puppet mastery. “It was quite necessary to proceed with precision, you must know, for me to understand what it was you would see within each of their lifeless bodies. I needed to be exacting in my work, so you would be led to find out for yourself what unfortunate things have occurred.”

  My mouth clenches, keeping my tongue steady. My spine is rigid as I stare back at this man, and all my muscles are flexed, instinctively, as I confront my opponent. “So you seek no revenge against my father. None against me. And if not against your former partners, Judas, why the charade? Did you simply want to tease me, taunt me with your pathetic copycat abilities?”

  “No. You are, despite my earlier statement, not a disappointment at all. I can see how well your father trained you in his image. And I suppose you may have even learned a thing or two from Agent Cain.”

  “What’s your point,” I demand, rather than ask.

  “He, too, was a fine agent in his day. Perhaps now that your father is no longer with us, he is at the top of the list once again. I’m sure the two of you work well together, Angela, though I don’t know I’d go so far as to say he’s a suitable mentor for you.”

  “What about my father?”

  “Again, Miss David, I’m going to suggest you work on your ability to pay attention.” His tongue darts out the corner of his mouth as though he were a frog, trapping flies in slow motion. “You think it was an accident Cain chose to work with you? You think it was pure coincidence he chose to work with the daughter of the ever-respected Joshua David?”

  “Angie,” Severo pleads, placing a hand around my arm.

  “What is it, Judas. What are you trying to say?”

  My heart is thumping against my rib cage, swelling as I listen to this madman reel me in. I’m not the only one to respond to this revelation. The door to our interrogation room swings open and a guard begins to remove Judas, as Captain Delaney calls attention to Severo.

  While he is being guided from the room, Judas looks back to me. “Perhaps you should ask your mentor. You ask him what he would do to cover his own sins, Angie. He went back on his word,” Judas is saying, his voice now loud in the hallway. “He and I had an arrangement! He made a promise, to keep his mouth shut and me free. But when he got scared of getting caught, you ask him what he did.”

  Struggling against Severo’s hold, I follow Judas and the officers down the hall, just far enough so I can hear the rest of his speech.

  �
�You ask him, Agent David. Ask Cain how it felt to stand face-to-face with your father and shoot a fellow agent straight through the throat.”

  “Give me your keys.”

  “Angie, I don’t think you should drive.”

  “Severo, give me the damn keys!”

  He hands them over to me, which in my opinion is the right thing to do, although I can see he obviously doesn’t agree, and I hop in the driver’s seat of the Jeep.

  If Judas is telling the truth, and right now I don’t know who or what to believe in this spiderweb of activity, Cain was the one who accepted a bribe to keep quiet about the criminal activity of the Apostles of Peace.

  And if that fact can be proved, Judas is telling the whole truth. About everything. Which would mean Cain was the one who shot my father and left him to die.

  “Angie, we cannot take this guy’s words at face value,” Severo says, but I lower my foot to the gas, speeding toward Gramercy Park. “If what Jude says is right, we have to go in easy, you hear? If Cain is guilty of…hell, if Cain is guilty, he’s not going to be waiting patiently for us to get there. I can honestly say I don’t know what to expect from him.”

  My voice rises above the squealing tires as I round a corner with speed. “How the hell did this happen?” I glance quickly at the detective, looking for answers. “How the hell did Cain get away with this?”

  “I don’t know. Right now we cannot leap to any conclusions. And if this is what really happened,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief and uncertainty, “he fooled us. He fooled all of us. Angie, listen to me. If Cain killed your father, his bringing you to New York to be your mentor was no accident. Like Judas said, as much as I hate to admit.”

  The shocks from the Jeep bouncing over bumps in the road hardly register as I keep my focus ahead of me. Though it’s late in the evening, holiday traffic is still dense and I have to be watchful of civilians on the streets. Severo’s rooftop siren is screaming out to the masses, warning them to keep clear of our path, but I’m careful not to cause any further disruption as we make our way to my uncle’s church. We have to get there before Cain does anything stupid.