Five Days in Summer

hand, looked like she already got the message. She stood behind Kaminer with her hands folded behind her back, her keen eyes taking it all in. She was a smart detective, and Geary had a feeling she saw her chance to catapult her inexperience. Twenty-four hours with this task force would be like two years on the job.
    “Why did Mr. White drive such a showy car,” Sorensen asked the room, “when in the past the abductions were discreet?”
    Brad, the state’s ViCAP agent with the cratered face, leaned forward. “He wanted to be stopped.”
    “Or,” Sorensen’s trainee Janet said, “he wanted to be seen .”
    “Bingo,” Geary said. “The car’s a broad gesture. Mr. White’s as deliberate as they come. He’s upping the ante this time, increasing the challenge.”
    “My question is why?” Sorensen asked.
    “He’s tired,” Ingram said.
    Not bad, Geary thought. “Could be.”
    “He wants to stop,” said Jones, “but he can’t. He feels driven to complete the full cycle of his plan.”
    “But it’s exhausting” — Ingram — “to carry out such an ambitious plan over so many years.”
    “His subconscious is having trouble carrying the load.” Jones.
    Ingram: “The seven-year pauses between incidents require a substantial amount of restitution. Very few minds are complex enough to handle it.”
    “I’ve seen it before,” Sorensen said.
    Geary leaned back, nodding at his BSU team. Clever girls. Kids. Women. No... agents. He shook his head to squeeze forward what Bell would have called “better thinking.” The man claimed you could control your thoughts, and that was supposed to have been Geary’s way out of the sexual harassment charge; he was supposed to convince himself he hadn’t propositioned the woman, so when he testified, he’d be telling the truth. The New Truth, Bell had called it.
    “You disagree, Detective Geary?” Sorensen’s eyes landed on him.
    Detective Geary. It was the first time he’d heard it said. Strange. He’d been Special Agent Dr. Geary half his life. Detective. Maybe better thinking would get him used to it, or maybe not.
    “Bug flew in my ear,” Geary said, shaking his head again for effect. “Special Agents Ingram and Jones are on the right track.” He nodded at Ingram and Jones, who beamed at him. He felt a bolt of pride to know he was still teaching new behavioralists even though he’d retired.
    Amy stepped forward. “The witness who called in seeing the second Mr. White refused to give his name.”
    There was a hush, just the whiz of the computers, until Geary heard his own voice: “The asshole called it in himself.”
    “Which means the physical description, another fiftyish man with white hair, could be wrong,” Sorensen said.
    Janet: “He might not be a Mr. White at all—”
    Ingram: “But he used the same description. That would indicate he saw Robertson talking to Emily Parker. He saw Robertson behind her on line. He saw her discomfort with him—”
    Tom leaned over his belly and joined the conversation. “He was watching her in the store.”
    “All we can assume now is that he’s a man,” Sorensen said. “He could be anyone, any age, any description.”
    “Mr. Anyone,” Brad said.
    “No.” Geary shook his head. “Mr. White still fits the profile. Male, mid-fifties, educated, mother issues—”
    “Obviously,” Kaminer muttered.
    Geary ignored that one. “I don’t know what color his hair is, but the rest of the profile stands. He likes head games.” Geary thought about Janice Winfrey, whose mind had been so fully scrambled and cooked in one small week. “In the past, he drew his lines closer. He stayed inside the crime. But this time is different. This time he’s not just reaching into the mother’s head, he’s trying to reach into ours.”
    Bell, Geary thought; he’d consult the Great Mind for a reality check on their psycho’s new-andimproved end game.
    “Sir?” Amy leaned forward, toward Sorensen. Kaminer leaned forward too, as if he could intercept her question. “How do we handle the press?”
    Sorensen nodded. “We’re holding a press conference in about twenty minutes, our statement’s being drafted right now.”
    “We’ll need to hold something back,” Geary said.
    “Eric Smith’s already written up the basics about the mother’s disappearance,” Amy said. “And he’s been talking to the national media.”
    Sorensen planted his elbows on the table and clasped his hands. “We’re going to