Brazen Virtue

the family, yet someone who’s still one of us, he’ll open up.”
    “I’ll do what I can, Claire.”
    “I know you will.”

    R ANDOLF LITHGOW HATED THE hospital. He hated Jerald Hayden for putting him there. It had been the humiliation more than the pain. How could he go back and face the other guys after he’d been beaten to a pulp by the class freak?
    Little creep thought he was big shit on campus because his father was running for president. Lithgow hoped Charlton P. Hayden lost the election without pulling one state. He hoped he lost so bad he’d have to crawl out of Washington in the dead of night, dragging his crazy son with him.
    Lithgow shifted in bed and wished, too, that it was time for visiting hours. He sipped through a straw and managed to swallow though his throat still burned like hell. He was going to make that pasty-faced nerd pay when he got back on his feet again.
    Bored, restless, and feeling sorry for himself, Lithgow began to switch the television channels with his remote. He wasn’t in the mood for the six o’clock news. He could get all that crap in Current Events when he went back to school. He flipped again and landed on a rerun of a situation comedy. He knew the damn dialogue in that old horse by heart. Swearing, he switched channels. More news. Just when Lithgow was about to give up and read a book, they flashed the sketch of Mary Beth Morrison’s assailant on the screen.
    He might have passed it by, but for the eyes. The eyes made him narrow his own. They were the same ones he’d seen as he was losing consciousness and Jerald’s hands had squeezed the air out of him. Concentrating, he struggled to fill in the details the artist had missed. Before he was sure, absolutely sure, the image was replaced by a reporter. Excited, no longer restless, Randolf switched to the next network. He might see it again.
    If he did, he had a pretty good idea what to do about it.

    W E’RE GOING TO HAVE cruisers sweeping that area all night.” Ben flipped the file closed. Ed was still staring at the map as though he were waiting for something to jump out at him. “He comes out, odds are they’ll spot him.”
    “I don’t like the odds.” He glanced toward the hall. Upstairs, Grace was completing her third night as bait. “How many times do you figure we went through that quadrant today, in wheels and on foot?”
    “Lost count. Listen, I still figure the school’s a good shot. Wight might not have recognized the sketch, but he was nervous.”
    “People get nervous when cops come around.”
    “Yeah, but I’ve got a feeling something’s going to click when Lowenstein finishes passing out the sketch to the students.”
    “Maybe. But that gives him tonight, and too many hours tomorrow.”
    “Look, there’re two of us in the house. Billings is outside and we’ve got pass-bys every fifteen minutes. She’s safer here than if we had her in lockup.”
    “I’ve been thinking about the psychiatric profile Tess worked up. Wondering why I can’t seem to think like him.”
    “Could be because you’ve got both oars in the water.”
    “That’s not it. You know how it gets when you’re close to one of these. No matter how wacko, no matter how sick the perp is, you start to think like him, anticipate him.”
    “We are. That’s why we’re going to get him.”
    “We’re not on the money.” Ed ran his fingers over his eyes. They’d started aching by midafternoon. “And we’re not on the money because he’s a kid. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure of it. Not just because of Morrison’s ID. Kids don’t think the same way adults do. I always figured that’s why they send kids to war, because they haven’t faced their own mortality yet. It doesn’t hit until a person’s in his twenties.”
    It made Ben think of his brother. “Some kids are grown up by the time they hit sixteen.”

    “Not this one. Everything Tess has here leads not just to a psychotic but an immature one.”
    “So we think like a kid.”
    “He’s probably done some pouting since he botched Morrison.” Trying to ride with it, Ed began to pace the room. “It’s just like she said, he was whining like a kid who busted his favorite toy. What does a real snot-nosed little brat do when he breaks his toy?”
    “He breaks someone else’s.”
    “Bull’s-eye.” Ed turned to him. “You’re going to make a hell of a father.”
    “Thanks. Look, the rapes and attempteds that’ve come in since