Warning: Some content is categorised as NC-17 for graphic descriptions of violence and details regarding the mind and behaviour of serial killers.

E-Mail of 20^th September 2005, 0815 hours

FROM:      Terry Thorne

TO:           Diana, Dino, Max, Reagan

SUBJECT: Summit Conference

We’ll meet at Max and Reagan’s at 1900 hours.

The five of them were in one room. Reagan had appointed herself as facilitator simply because she was the logical choice. Facilitators require more than the average ability to see into other people and anticipate not only their next behaviour, but their motivations for engaging in those behaviours; her training and experience had given her that knack. More importantly, she had the ability to get others to verbalise and then ask the questions that would enable them to articulate precisely what those motivations were, irrespective of how painful that articulation might be.

All commanding generals know when to delegate responsibility to others, and Max was no exception to that rule. He knew that Reagan was the logical choice as facilitator. Given that premise, he knew she could not be distracted by the necessity of provisioning for the siege. He stopped by the local Albertson’s on his way home, smiling in memory as he passed the produce department, and got two-litre bottles of soft drinks and three deli trays of food. Those who were hungry could eat; those who did not wish to do so could drink. It was unsaid that no alcohol would be served as alcohol would only act to fan the latent flames between Terry and Dino. As he checked out at the register, Max picked up two packs of cigarettes for Reagan. She did not often smoke but did when under stress. This night would be as stressful for her as for the others; the role of facilitator was possibly more taxing than that of a participant. He pulled into the drive behind Reagan’s Jeep and began unloading the car. She met him at the door, holding it open with one hand as she held Bailey with the other. The dogs would be banished either to the bedroom or the backyard before the others arrived. There would be no comfort available by the absent minded stroking of puppy heads. Diana was particularly prone to seeking comfort from her own dogs, and Reagan’s would have been a more than acceptable substitute. In reality, she considered Reags' dogs with as much affection as her own. Diana spoke first after they had all settled.

“So, who called this meeting?” Reagan immediately short-circuited Diana’s attempt to take control of the meeting.

“Diana, you are not going to hide behind your façade tonight, and you aren’t going to run away. Tonight we lay it bare – all of us – no exceptions.” Terry sprang to Diana’s defence and made his own move to take control.

“Reags, don’t come down on Diana. She isn’t the problem.”

“I agree. She isn’t the problem, but she and I are the symptoms of your collective problem. And the problem has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of the existence of you three. The problem is right here, right now, and how all five of us relate to each other from this point forward. No more half truths, no more insinuations (she looked at Dino), no more lies by omission,” she looked at Max as she spoke her final words, “and no more waiting for appropriate times to disclose information critical to all of us. No more masques (she looked at Terry and Diana). We’re forging a new model.” She took a deep breath.

“Tonight we get real with each other, no matter how painful that may be because tonight we’re picking away all the scabs and getting down to the raw meat of each other’s lives. Tonight the five of us become a unified WE.” She looked at Terry, Diana, and Dino before continuing.

“Terry, you, Max, and Dino know that the psychological debrief after a mission is mandatory before you’re allowed to return to the field. You may not like it, but it’s part of the ongoing requirement for a field operative. Dee, this aspect is new to you, but you’re part of it now, and all of us have to participate …including me. The three of you,” pointing to Dee, Terry, and Dino, “are the most immediate symptom of the underlying problem. You three have to talk.” All three spoke at once, but Diana was the first to actually be heard in her question to Dino.

“Why did you lie to Terry about what our supposed relationship was?” Dino’s comment was directed at Terry.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that you wanted her instead of sending me to fucking Boston on that trumped up meeting?” Diana retreated; Reagan could only hope she hadn't already pulled into her shell, physically as well as emotionally. Terry looked at Dino.

“I didn’t know I wanted her, not until I saw her again, because I didn’t think I would ever see her again.” Diana showed a rare flare of temper.

“Don’t fucking talk about me as though I were a side of beef.” Terry’s head snapped around to look at her.

“We’re supposed to have a partnership now. Get in here and fight beside me.”

“You had your chance at Dino this morning. I need some answers now,” Diana snapped back.

They both turned to Dino, Diana taking the first shot. “Why did you lie about me, Dino?”

His walls were still intact. “Because I wanted it to be true. Because I have a reputation to uphold as a cocksman. Because I …fuck if I know. Because I’m a guy?” Reagan spoke next.

“Dino, you don’t know because you’re too afraid to look inside yourself, and using glib responses to keep from engaging isn’t going to work so drop the ‘because I’m a guy’ crap. The first response was honest; the second probably was. The last one was a load of crap. Stay on track.” She looked at Terry.

“Terry, why did you drum up that cock-and-bull story to get Dino to Boston? You could have told me that you thought she was the woman you’d met years ago. I’d have been more than happy to introduce you as soon as you got home after Labour Day.”

He sighed. “I think I’m so used to working behind the scenes that I’ve forgotten how to be straightforward.” That got Diana’s attention.

“You were absolutely clear with me this weekend, both in words and deeds. You said you wanted to be with me all weekend; you were. You gave Miranda the chance at closure she needed. You even gave Dino the chance to deck you. I don't know how you could be more direct.”

He sat back on the sofa, taking a deep breath before speaking again. “That’s in a compartment I haven’t looked at in years, Diana. I can’t tell you specifically what I feel or why I feel it. I’ve spent the entire weekend talking round what I feel for you because I didn’t know what that was until yesterday and last night.”

She looked at him, her voice low when she spoke. Her statement made Reagan think that perhaps Diana was going to try and make a go of a relationship with Terry. “We can define that together as we go along. It doesn’t have to happen right now.”

Terry nodded and turned to Max. Before he could act, Diana stood and walked to Dino, started to kneel in front of him and thought better of it; she remained standing and put her hands on her hips.

“What – precisely – did you tell Terry we were doing?” Her voice was low, and her enunciation clipped. Max’s head snapped around to look at Dino, and Reagan’s eyebrows shot up.

Dino tried to dance the question. “I let him think what he wanted to think.”

She asked again in the same dangerous tone. “What – precisely – did you tell him about Labor Day?”

“I talked about your legs; I talked about your rack, talked about your planning abilities.”

“And what were those legs doing, Dino? Digging? Or digging into you?”

If a grown man can look sheepish, Dino did. “Both.”

“Did you get specific about our mad pash?” The sudden look of alarm on her face said she hadn’t told Terry about that pash; she also hadn’t told him that there had been no spark. Her fear was that as she’d not told Terry about the pash, he would now think that perhaps Dino hadn’t been lying about everything …that perhaps some of it was true. She turned back to Terry. “Terry, that was before I met you …and he really is a cute little shit.” She turned back to Dino. Max stood and walked into the kitchen, clearly displacement activity on his part as his fists were clenched as he walked. At that moment, Dino was again in danger of a serious beating, and this one could come from Diana or Maximus, as both were clearly furious with him.

“And on how many occasions had we been together …according to what you told Terry?”

“Only two.”

“I see. And the second time was when I picked you up at the car dealership? You let him think I spent the night with you?”

His reply was very low. “Yes.”

She looked at him and shook her head, her tongue clenched between her back molars, chewing on it, as she sat beside Terry. “I put two-hundred fucking miles on my truck so that son of a bitch had a ride into the office.” Terry put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side, tucked her securely under his arm, and looked at Dino for a long moment before speaking.

“Dino, you’re lucky she didn’t rip your bollocks off just now. But, Mate, our private life is off limits to you unless and until we invite you in.” Terry had heard all he wanted to hear and sought to deflect the attention away from himself and Diana.

“Okay, Max, since the game plan tonight is truth and full disclosure, let’s get all the dirty laundry out in the open. How did you and Reags meet? All Dino and I know is that it was round Valentine’s Day, but that’s all you’ve seen fit to tell us.” Max had been on his way back to the lounge when Terry asked the question. He returned to the kitchen, coming back a moment later, smiling as he re-entered the room, a cantaloupe in one hand. Reagan said nothing, obviously wanting Max’s disclosure to be just that …his disclosure. Max walked to Terry and handed him the melon.

“Can you tell me if it is ripe? If it is ready to be eaten?”

MAXIMUS

Terry looked at me before looking back at the melon.

“Well, it isn’t green. I suppose it’s ready.”

Diana snorted and looked at Cassandra. “You said you did, but I didn’t believe you.”

Cassandra smiled and shrugged. “I did.”

Terry looked at the three of us. “Did fucking what?” I smiled at him and turned to Dino, addressing both of them.

“Have neither of you yet learnt that meeting a woman in the produce section of the supermarket is most advantageous to your culinary education, as well as your social life?” Dino was unable to let that pass.

“Well, on the occasion that I told a good looking woman at the meat counter that I’d buy the steaks if she’d cook them, it worked.” We did laugh at that. I continued.

“I saw Reagan enter the market and wished to make her acquaintance but had no idea as to how I might approach her. For lack of a more ingenuous method, I followed her through the market. When she went to the produce section, I observed her behaviour. She picked up a melon, sniffed it, and put it back onto the display. When she repeated the procedure twice more, I saw an opening and commented that she appeared to have a system for making her selection. She said that she did.” I looked at Terry, handing him the melon.

“Smell the melon at the spot where the stem came off.”

“Smells like a vine stripped off a branch, Max.”

“Rub the spot where the stem was and smell it again.” Diana was now trying hard not to laugh, as was my Cara. He looked sceptical but did as I asked, and then smiled.

“What do you smell, Terry?”

“Smells like cantaloupe.”

“Precisely. The same is true of peaches and nectarines, but it is not necessary to rub them to bring out the aroma. Lacking an aroma, those fruits have no flavour …they should smell as they taste. That is what I learnt the night I met her. The opportunity for introducing myself was there, and I took it. By way of thanks for her advice, I asked if I might buy her a drink. She accepted. I believe you know the rest of the story.” Dino shook his head.

“Buddy, that has to go down as the all time most original pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”

Terry looked at me. “You picked her up in the produce section? Jesus, I was right not to trust your judgment.”

“It served my purpose, Terry. It was also an innocent and very informative discourse.”

Of course, Terry was unwilling to stop there. “Okay, so you met her in the produce section. Fine. When did you tell her who you were?” Ah. Caught.

“The first time I took her out …the following Friday. She had entertained various probabilities as to my identity because she said she knew beyond doubt that she had seen me somewhere. She had already checked with her sources in Washington …that confirmed that the three of us were what I had represented us to be, but she was still suspicious because there was no information on us dating further back than three years. On learning of her activities, I had little option other than the truth if I wished to pursue a relationship with her.”

He shook his head as he looked at me then turned to Cassandra. “I guess Dino and I were about as far in the wrong as we could possibly have been, weren’t we, Reags? You’ve known from the very start.”

“Yes, Terry, I have …and you were. You never had anything to worry about with me, and you have nothing to worry about with Dee.” He smiled and nodded as he spoke, taking Diana’s hand into his own.

“I know.”

DIANA

It was time to direct them back to the point of this meeting, and Reags did it.

“Okay, the problem here is your lack of trust in each other. We need to look at what's behind that. It isn’t that you don’t trust the others to stay on your six because, clearly, you do. The issue is why you don’t trust each others’ judgment in women. Terry? You had a three-year relationship with Miranda, and that didn’t raise any hackles with Max or Dino. Let’s start with that. Did she know who you really are?”

“As far as I know, she never had a clue, never sussed us out, even though she saw the three of us together on a number of occasions. Perhaps she isn’t that observant …perhaps I never allowed her to be that observant. Perhaps it’s because we were totally superficial with each other. Perhaps she’s not been to a film in ten years. I’ve no idea.” Reagan was ready for him.

“I think it’s that none of you – until Max and I met – has had anything but the most superficial of relationships with women because you don’t know how the Hell you even got here. Because of that, you don’t trust your own reality, and you were afraid to commit to any more than occasional rental space for your dicks. Think about that for a bit.” She sat back in her chair and waited. I looked at Terry. Obviously, that had never occurred to him.

He took a deep breath before he continued. “And Miranda was a serial one-night stand …I never let her in at all. I think I didn’t even want to really let her in. The reality now is that since last Thursday – for the first time since getting into this life – I actually want someone in my life. I feel like a human being again – a man - rather than an automaton going through the motions.”

I really wish Reags hadn’t brought Miranda into this conversation, but I understood why she had. That didn’t make me feel any more comfortable, but I understood her logic. With the mention of Miranda’s name, Dino had the decency to look uneasy. It seemed that he actually understood that talking about Terry’s just-ex-squeeze wasn’t much fun for me. No matter how distant Terry says he and Miranda were, it was still a damned long series of one-night stands. I had managed not to imagine the two of them in bed while he was telling me about Miranda; that just went by the wayside. Now that Terry had made love to me, all I could see were the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms. Max had been quiet for a few minutes, but his next words pretty well summed up the problem.

“Perhaps it is not so much that we distrust the women in each others’ lives, but we mistrust our collective rebirth. It has nothing to do with the science of it or our futures, but more to do with the fact that we have not dealt with the uncertainties that our rebirths have wrought within us. I closed my eyes in the arena, believing I had breathed my last. When I next opened them, I had travelled two-thousand years, and I have not yet come fully to terms with that fact. When I awoke in this life, I knew I was not in Elysium, and thus thought I must be mad or in some nether world of which I knew nothing.” I looked at Terry, seeing the emotions moving through his eyes and over his face before he spoke.

“I’ve always wondered if Alice Bowman really existed.” Max looked at him.

“She existed, Terry …just as Lucilla and my wife …and the first Cassandra existed for me. The women in our former lives are part of what made us the men we are.”

Terry appeared to be really thinking this one through. “Max, Dino …what made us enter the profession we have? K&R? By definition, our job isolates us from intimate relationships. Do either of you know why you chose this line of work? Why you made a conscious decision to take on a job that, for the most part, precludes intimate relationships …why you chose to isolate yourselves? Has our profession made us unable to trust others? Is that a function of our prior military experience and the subsequent K&R training?” It was the first time I was in the same room with all three live men who had stepped from the movie screen. I no longer thought of Terry as movie Terry; I hadn't since the moment I met him. Dino did bear some resemblance to movie Dino, but that was probably because I didn't know him as intimately as Terry. Maximus was from such a different time and one I didn’t understand at all; we had only ever spoken of modern subjects. Max spoke first, and I really wanted to hear at least part of what had made him the person he was today.

“I did not choose my trade. My family’s social position as a member of the Senatorial class decreed that I would serve in the Army; it was a stepping stone to the Senate, assuming I survived long enough to leave the Army. I was expected to excel and did. In that time, there was no option. I was put into positions that I felt ill equipped to handle, but it would have been unthinkable not to succeed, so I persevered. I never understood what Caesar saw in me, why he chose me in whom to repose his ultimate trust. Caesar trusted me, but I trusted none of my own subordinates, not even Quintus …especially not Quintus. I was allowed to marry because of my social status and rapid promotion through the officers’ ranks. I found myself a Centurion at 19, a Tribune at 23, appallingly early ages for both ranks. When I went home on leave after my promotion to Tribune, Caesar ordered me to marry as befitted my rank. I was a General at 26 and by my 30^th birthday, I had been made Commander of the Northern Armies and the Felix Legions.” He stopped for a couple of seconds and then began again.

“Following my marriage and six months leave that winter, I left home knowing that I loved my wife, that although our marriage had been arranged, it was far from a marriage without love as was so common in our class. In order to survive – to do my duty to Rome and to my family – I learnt to compartmentalise my life. To do anything less would have compromised my ability to function as a soldier. In truth and whilst I did love her, when I was on the front, I rarely thought of my wife …usually only when I received a letter from her that required an answer, and that was no more than twice a year. I learnt to distance myself from my emotions; I learnt to trust no one other than Caesar. Had I ever been put to the test, I doubt I would have trusted my wife …and on one occasion, I did not. That ability to distance myself from others – to trust no one other than myself and Marcus Aurelius - enabled me to survive on the field of battle, as a gladiator, and that is likely what made it possible for me to survive when I awoke in this life. Kidnap and ransom requires the same skills and ability to focus that I developed in the Army. I understood how to live without the love of a woman, how to ignore my need for relationships and do what must be done in order to serve Caesar and the Empire.

“On arriving in this life, I did not know where or when 'here' was, so my ability to isolate myself served me well. It is thus with kidnap and ransom, as one is limited in one’s ability – and the ability of another – to have an intimate relationship in this endeavour. I had no fear for any of Crowe’s other incarnations because at that time, I did not know there were others. I did not know of him until I was stopped on the street by a woman asking for my autograph, and I thought her besotted with drink. Her questions of me presented a conundrum. Shortly after that, I saw part of the film on television, then sought out a copy of the DVD of Gladiator, and began to realise what must have happened. As regards my relationships with women other than my wife – and now Reagan - it is not in the Roman psyche for a man to deny the needs of the flesh but, as Dino has done, it was easier to purchase a woman's body for a time than to involve myself with a woman I did not know and one who might violate my trust.”

REAGAN

Wow! I had never anticipated that level of disclosure from Maximus, at least with anyone other than me. Dino had been listening intently, and I wanted to kiss him when he tossed his hat in the ring.

“Well, since Max brought up the subject, I guess I get to enlighten you on why I’d rather pay for it.” I smiled.

“That might be a good place for you to begin.”

“Well, if I’m going to spill my guts, can I at least trade in this 7-Up for scotch?”

“No.” He sighed and sat back as Maximus rose to get more ice and another two-litre bottle of 7-Up.

“This goes back a ways, so be gentle with me.”

Dee couldn’t let that pass without comment. He had no idea how furious she had been with him earlier. “Dino, I was gentle with you.” He leant forward in his chair and poured more 7-Up into his glass.

“I was 26 when I got out of RECON. I resigned my commission and came home to take care of my sister-in-law after my oldest brother dropped dead of a heart attack at 38. Left Sherie a widow at 25, with three kids. Sherie and I had gone through high school together. I think I’d been in love with her since I was about 15.” God, I didn’t know I was going to be facilitating a soap opera this evening. Still, we were getting to what had caused these men we cared about to shut themselves off from the rest of the world, and I knew whatever those causes were, they weren’t going to be easy or pretty because such things never are …God knows mine aren’t. None of them had ever acknowledged those reasons before, not to others and certainly not to themselves.

“Go on, Dino.”

“I was Tim’s best man when they got married. Sweet, huh? Damned near broke my heart to stand there and hand him the ring, but I did it. Then the kids started coming. I’d get the announcements in the mail at wherever I was stationed and always wrote back with congratulations and a baby present. What do you get for a baby? When I got the first announcement, I asked my CO’s wife what was appropriate, and she said a silver spoon, so that’s what all three got.”

“I made Captain by the skin of my teeth, and less than a year later the CO woke me up at three in the morning. I was wondering what the fuck I’d done that time until I looked at his face, and he said I had a call from the Red Cross. I jerked on my pants and ran to the Message Center, expecting it to be Tim telling me that one of our parents had died. It was my dad, calling from the hospital. Tim had collapsed while he was cleaning the gutters on the frigging house. Dead before the paramedics even got there. I took 30 days compassionate leave and went back to North Carolina. Tim had been a farmer - he inherited the place from my grandparents - and his back-up job was seasonal lumber-jacking so there was no life insurance from an employer. Sherie didn’t have any marketable skills, and the family couldn’t support her and the kids. When I went back to my duty station, I resigned my commission and put in my request for Compassionate Discharge. Sixty days later I was back in North Carolina. Two days after that, I walked into the County Sheriff’s Office – went through high school with him, too – and asked for a job. I left with a badge and a duty roster in my pocket and started work the next day. I worked in jeans and a golf shirt with my badge pinned to it for the first week until my uniforms came in.”

I wondered if the others might be getting tired of hearing this, possibly thinking that he was still trying to side-step the issue, but I didn’t think that was the case. One thing you learn early in facilitating groups is that each person gets to their truth in their own way; this was Dino’s way. I had to agree with his request before he started talking though …I could have used three fingers of scotch about now myself. Terry was now leaning forward, arms on his thighs, and listening intently. I noted that Dee’s hand was on his neck, fingers in the edge of his hair, and smiled to myself; one or the other of them had been touching the other since her in-your-face with Dino. I doubted any of the others had noticed her fingers in Terry’s hair, much less assigned any meaning to the behaviour. That one simple gesture told me that either Dee was coming out of her shell or Terry had gotten inside it. So much for observations. It had just become glaringly apparent that Terry had no idea of what Dino’s life had been prior to their meeting when they both were with Luthan. I prodded Dino to continue.

“Where did you live, Dino? I can’t see you having moved back into your parents’ home.”

“I rented a garage apartment on the edge of town, a couple of miles from Grandma and Grandpa’s place where Sherie and the kids lived. Started coaching Bobby’s – that's the oldest boy – baseball team, taking them to the movies on Saturday afternoons, helping them with their homework, working to fix up their house …and letting Sherie cry on my shoulder any time she needed to. I was in and out of that house at every hour of the day and night. Sherie called me at one in the morning when the baby – Jeff – fell out of the top bunk and broke his arm, and I took them to the hospital. Never had a key to the house but never needed it because the doors were never locked – small town America – and never bothered to knock. Hell, we were family; I just figured one day she’d get over Tim, and we’d get married. She got over him all right but not with me.” I knew what was coming, and my heart ached for Dino.

“I went by the house every morning and picked up the kids to take them to school because it was on my way to work. That morning when I went by, there was a car I didn’t recognize behind the house. The kids were in the kitchen, still in their pajamas, and hadn’t had breakfast. That didn’t make sense because Sherie was always up with the chickens. I asked if their mom was sick. Bobby shrugged and said she was still in bed. I told them to go get dressed and that I’d make their breakfast. While they were dressing, I got cereal and toast for them, almost managing to ignore the sounds coming from Sherie’s bedroom. I dropped the kids off at school and went to work, turned in my badge, went back to my apartment and packed, put my suitcase in the car, and drove away. Haven’t been back since. Read in the hometown paper that she married him six months later. At least I guess it was him …I never met him and didn’t want to. That’s when I decided it was cheaper to pay for it. At least that way, you don’t get your heart put through the meat grinder.”

TERRY

Jesus. I'd thought I knew everything there was to know about Dino, but I’d had no fucking clue. No wonder he kept me – and everyone – at arm’s length. I couldn't have picked a worse way to hurt him than I had with Diana. If I'd known about Sherie, I would have been more upfront about Diana. I’d done more talking in the last five days about emotions than I had in five years; I should have done more with Dino. I'll be so glad to get this sorted and go back to normal life, whatever normal implies. It was my turn to talk.

“I can tell you the day and hour I started isolating myself. 'Do you know how an English general’s daughter gets back at daddy? She marries an Australian.' When the old bastard said that, I started questioning my entire life. I’d always been a cocky bastard and still am …fair-haired son, excelled at school and in sports. Best shot in my unit, best in survival, best at all of it. That was the first time it had ever occurred to me that I might not be good enough. I realised that as far as the General and his family were concerned, I was the rough colonial and would never – COULD never – measure up to their standards in anything. For years I’d carried more of a grudge against him than I did her, right up to Marjorie's and my last row.” Reagan looked at me, and I bloody well knew what was coming.

“Why was it the last row, Terry?”

“I’d had enough.”

“Not good enough …what was said, Terry? Why had you had enough?” She wasn’t going to let me off, and I suppose that was fair. Max and Dino had spilled their guts so, by rights, it was my turn. Diana's steady hand on my neck gave me the courage to go on. She deserved to know the specifics on why I can be so hard to live with.

“I’d just come in from an assignment and needed her in the worst possible way. I’d lost two men and needed to bury myself in her, not just sexually, but emotionally. I needed to hold onto her and have her return it, I needed to cry, and she wouldn’t let me. She said she’d had enough ….” I thought she would let it lie there, but Reags is relentless when she feels it necessary. I’ll bet she was a damned good interrogator back in the day.

“The words, Terry.” I took a deep breath and looked at Diana before I answered her.

“She said that all I’d ever wanted from her was sex and position. Her precise words were, 'My little rebellion hasn’t been worth the eleven years of marriage to you. You’ve always had to prove yourself, Terrence. You didn’t have to go on this assignment. Daddy would have made sure that you were safe at home with me and Henry. Go find someone else to stick it up this time. I’m done dealing with your colonial, Saviour complex.' I can still hear the words in my head, exactly as she said them. I'd done the best I could to give her what she wanted, what I’d thought she wanted, and she’d thrown it all back at me. I doubt she’d ever loved me, but I’d certainly provided her with one Hell of a way to get back at the old man.” I turned and looked at Diana, not knowing what I’d see on her face; I had finally revealed what a fraud I am. What I saw was understanding as her arm went round my shoulder, and she laid her head on my arm. I realised she likely knew about not feeling good enough – and would understand it – more than anyone I’d ever known.

Reagan stood and picked up the soda bottles from the coffee table and looked at us.

“Anyone need a drink?”

REAGAN

I got drinks for all of us, and we relaxed for a bit. The session had gone far better than I had hoped, given that we had three Alpha males in one room, and none of the three was comfortable with disclosure. I could have kissed Maximus for getting the ball rolling, as I knew that had been difficult for him; he isn’t accustomed to confession or disclosure and to some extent, probably still considered doing so a weakness. There was still one bit of business that needed to be dealt with tonight, though, and I decided to throw it on the table. It would probably lighten the mood a bit, and God knows, it needed lightening.

“Okay, you three have made good progress tonight, and knowing more about how each of you got to this point in your lives should make for better communications from now forward. But there is one other item of business that we need to address right here and right now.” Maximus looked at me over his glass.

“What would that be, Cara?”

“Don’t you all think that the dynamic for the Ambassador’s Ball has changed substantially? Somehow, I think hotel arrangements will be a bit different than we’d anticipated when that invitation arrived.”

Dino cocked his head and looked at all of us. “Well, at least now I don’t have to worry about Tio finding out that Dee and I weren’t sharing a room …that was going to be a bitch to keep under wraps. Now I can sleep in instead of getting up at oh-dark-thirty to be in the lounge when he walks in.” We almost lost it at that point because it was funny as Hell.

Dee couldn’t resist the jab. “Well, Dino, maybe you really are a gentleman instead of the son of a bitch who talks about women in the locker room.” Dino fell back in his chair, hand over his heart, and groaned.

“Dee, you’ve wounded me deeply …not that I didn’t have it coming.” We all laughed again, and I think we’d cleared the air of most of the angst and anger, hopefully paving the way for a better relationship among the three men, not to mention Dee’s and my relationships with each of them.

Terry leaned forward and looked at Dee, then at Max, Dino, and me before speaking. “We need to be serious again for a tic. We need to set up the time for one of us to vet Diana as we did Reags. Clearly, I’m not the one to do it nor is Dino. That leaves you, Max.” The look of horror that passed through Maximus’ eyes would have been comical if it hadn’t been so genuine.

“I do not think I am the appropriate one to handle that, Terry.”

“Why not? You did a great job with Reags.” Maximus looked at me in the closest thing I’ve ever seen to panic in the man.

“I would not be …comfortable …with asking her questions of a personal nature. It would not be appropriate.” Terry sat for a minute, thinking. Guess that hadn’t occurred to any of us. Of course Maximus wouldn’t be comfortable with that. He’s an Old Roman, and no Roman male would feel at ease asking a woman outside his family questions about ex-lovers. He wouldn’t feel comfortable asking a woman who was a family member. The only reason he’d managed to pull it off with me was that there was no way in Hell he’d have let Terry or Dino close to me at that point.

Terry looked at me just as Dee spoke up. “People, I am fully capable of participating in the set up of my own interrogation. Give me the list, and I'll write out the answers.”

Terry looked at her. “How many times have your clearances been just written answers? We need an assessor to be able to ask the follow-up questions.”

He turned back to me. “Reags, there is one thing I’d like to ask you professionally though …have you even been in a situation as a profiler, as an interrogator, in which you felt you couldn’t go on and maintain your professionalism?” The tables just got turned on the facilitator. That was the one question he could have asked that I’d never thought he would though he had every right to do so. The role of facilitator had allowed me to distance myself, but in taking it on and establishing the parameters, I had also set myself up to be a participant. In order for the five of us to be the 'we' that I'd demanded going into the discussion tonight, Terry's question had to be answered. I took a deep breath and a simultaneous step back in time.

“You all know about the child who died on my watch.” Nods all round, and Maximus’ hand reached out and closed over mine. He knew how painful this would be for me; he knew all of it, ever single heart-wrenching detail. The other three knew the official, scrubbed version. Only Maximus knew that I’d been in the room with the lead investigative agent when the monster was interrogated. As the team leader and profiler, I’d been there to assess his psychological and emotional status, to clarify the motivations behind the things he’d done, to ask the questions that he’d never answer from other than a forensic psychologist who stood a chance of getting inside his head. Only Maximus knew what was behind that locked door in my mind. He was the only one with the key, the only one other than me who knew the truth of why I’d left profiling and gone into academia.

“The most difficult thing about getting into the head of a serial killer is to acknowledge that the most horrifying aspect of the human condition is man’s inhumanity regarding his fellow man.”

TERRY

As soon as I saw Max’s hand reach across and cover Reagan’s, I realised that was the last question on earth I should ever have asked her.

“Reags, forget it. You don’t need to answer that, and I had no right to ask it.” She shook her head.

“It’s alright, Terry. I set the boundaries for tonight, and what all of you – with the exception of Maximus – don’t know about my life is the driving force behind much of what I am now. I’ll answer the question you asked, and any others that any of you have when I’m done, but know one thing. Although I continue to work occasionally as a profiler, this is the first and last time that I will ever discuss what I do with you because this is an aspect of my professional life that has no place in personal relationships. Evey single person in the Unit was either divorced or in the process of a divorce by the time they'd been there a year. You won’t understand it – at least not my motivations for staying in the field – and you’ll hate it.” She looked at Dino and me for a long moment before continuing.

“For the two of you, death is most often quick and clean, a sniper’s shot at 500 yards. I know both of you have killed hand-to-hand – as has Maximus – but the setting of those deaths was one of necessity …kill or be killed. There’s a vast difference in the deaths you’ve been a part of and those in which I was forced to be a post hoc participant. I profiled serial killers, men whose minds are so tortured and twisted that it’s difficult to remember that they’re human. You also need to understand that a criminal psychological profile is not of a specific individual …it gives us an idea of the biological and psychological make-up of a person whose behaviour would lead him to commit the type of crime we’re investigating. A profile is a tool, in the same way that DNA analysis is a tool. John Douglas and Mark Olshaker have said that profiling is used to narrow down an investigation to those suspects who possess certain behavioural and personality features that are revealed by the way a crime was committed because the person’s behaviour is reflection of their personality; I agree with that.” She took a deep breath and seemed to grow almost visibly smaller. Max had been sitting beside her, but now, he moved even closer, his right arm going round her shoulder and pulling her tightly into his side, his grip on her hand tightening. Clearly, he knew what was coming; she’d already told him about it. I’d thought I had some idea of what profiling entailed but learnt that my knowledge was nothing more than superficial.

“By definition, a serial killer is someone who commits three or more murders over an extended period of time. In most cases, there’s a sexual element to his murders. Serial killers are thrill killers …they do what they do because of the element of excitement, and the thrill their power over someone weaker provides. There’s a cooling-off period between kills, and in that period, he functions rather normally. He goes to work, pays his bills, shops at the market …stands beside you in the line at the theatre, but during that time, he’s building for the next kill. We call his behaviour during this time the 'masque of sanity' because during this time, he seems normal.” She shook her head slightly.

“When we go into the room to interrogate a serial killer, all weapons are checked outside the door, and retained by the agent outside. If any of us went in with a weapon, it’s probable that the killer would leave the room in a body bag.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “This isn’t going to be in any particular order …if I were lecturing to my classes, it would be, but most of what you’re about to hear, my students never will.

“The BAU becomes aware of a potential serial killer – the UnSub, Unknown Subject – through contact from a local law enforcement agency. By the time we’re called in, there have usually been four or five murders within a relatively contained geographical area and within a fairly short period of time, often less than a year. In rural areas, the local law enforcement group often snaps when the body of someone from a neighbouring jurisdiction is dumped in their area. They realise that there are things about this killing that are similar to one or two others in their jurisdiction, and they contact law enforcement in the area where the victim lived, assuming they can identify her. They learn that similar crimes have occurred in that area as well. The light comes on for both jurisdictions at the same time, and we get the call. In metropolitan areas, the law enforcement community is more aware of serial killer methodology, and they’ll get suspicious after finding the third body. We go in with a basic profile – things common to virtually all UnSubs – as a reference point.

“Commonalities that are basic to most profiles include behaviours we call the Homicidal Triad. The first is fire-starting, for the thrill of destroying things. Cruelty to animals is the second. Most children can be cruel to animals, such as pulling the legs off of spiders, but future serial killers often kill larger animals, like dogs and cats, for their solitary enjoyment rather than to impress peers or out of simple curiosity …and they torture the animal before killing it. Bedwetting is third, and it persists beyond the age when children normally grow out of it. Bedwetting is something other kids will know about, and it’s something that gets them abused by other children in terms of poking fun at them; parents also deride them for it. I’ll come back to this later.” I knew that when she did, I’d rather she not have done so. I realised that all the emotion had left her voice. It was now low, almost a monotone, and clinical as if she were speaking to a group of those local law enforcement officers, telling them what they were looking for.

“Probably 98% of all serial killers are male, and the majority of their victims are female. Wayne Williams, John Wayne Gacy, Elmer Wayne Henley and Dean Corll, and Jeffrey Dahmer were the jarring exceptions to that rule. Henley and Corll were even more exceptional because they worked as a team, exceedingly rare for serial killers. This group is also an exception because most male serial killers prefer female victims; these bastards chose males. However, with any serial killer, the man you’re looking for is almost certainly of the same ethnic group as the victims, and as most victims are white, most serial killers are white. You almost never encounter a female serial killer, so I’ll use the male prototype. He’ll be between 25 and 35 years of age, probably with a working class background. He often drives an older car, not uncommonly a van or station wagon because those vehicles are large enough to transport a body without arousing suspicion. In most instances, he will be above average intelligence; if he’s an organised killer, the intelligence factor will increase with the number of kills. He has to be smart to evade identification and capture and he learns more as he goes along. Often he will live with a woman …sometimes his wife, sometimes an older sister, not uncommonly his mother. She will be a dominant and overbearing force in his life; nothing he does is ‘good enough.’ She humiliates and denigrates him on a routine basis. He has very low self esteem and feels unappreciated by those around him, his intelligence unacknowledged, and he blames the world for his shortcomings and failures.

“There is often a sexual component to his kills, but he’s often sexually inadequate. The UnSub will generally operate in what we call a comfort zone, an area that is well known to him and – at least in the early days – fairly close to his home. It’s easier to dump the body if you know the surrounding area and topography. He probably keeps a journal of his kills …it will often detail how he selects his victims, stalks, then abducts them …what he did to the victim prior to killing him or her …a living out of the underlying fantasy that drives him to kill, and any post-mortem activities with the body. He will have collected every news clipping printed about the murders …he may also have a video tape he’s made from TV news coverage of the crime scenes. He will already have a criminal record, and if he’s been in the military, he’ll likely have been dishonourably discharged; he has problems with any type of authority and authority figures.

Most UnSubs have a history of dysfunctionality …abused as a child, inability to form close relationships, and when he does form relationships, they don’t last because he’s abusive …things of that nature. You start looking for someone living in the general area of the murders, someone with a history of that homicidal triad of childhood behaviour I mentioned earlier.  The neighbours, former teachers …if he lives in a small town or rural area, local law enforcement will be able to provide at least a couple of names of people fitting that part of the profile if they don’t already have at least one ‘person of interest’ identified.

“UnSubs are often fascinated with police work because they consider themselves smarter than the police. They will generally insert themselves into the investigative process. By the time the BAU gets involved, the local police have almost certainly interviewed and released the UnSub, though may still consider him a ‘person of interest.’ He follows the media coverage because it boosts his self-esteem; it’s more ‘proof’ that he’s smarter than the police. If there has been video or other photographic coverage of the crime scenes, we look at the films and photos. There’s a high probability that the man we’re looking for will be in all of them, usually on the periphery because he doesn’t want to be noticed, but he can’t stay away either. If local law enforcement doesn’t have the graves of the earlier victims and the dump sites of the bodies under surveillance, we set that up. All too often, he’ll return to either or both; being at either location brings him closer to the victim and facilitates his reliving of the thrill derived from the process.”

I looked at Diana. Her eyes were wide, and she was as white as a sheet. She knew Reags had been a profiler but, like me, had no true notion of what that actually meant. Like most of us, she’d likely got her notion of profiling from that Anthony Hopkins/Jodie Foster movie and the show on the telly a few years back. Tonight she was learning things about her best mate that she’d not known existed. Reags looked at me again, then at Dino.

“You asked me if there had ever been a time as an interrogator, a profiler, when I felt I couldn’t go on and maintain my professionalism; the answer to that is yes. It happened during my second year with the Unit. We were contacted by the Sheriff’s Department in a rural part of Alabama. Two children had been abducted, their bodies found, and a third had gone missing less than 24 hours before we got the call. There were similarities between the first two deaths, and when the third child disappeared, the Sheriff started calling other law enforcement agencies in the area. Within a couple of hours, he’d discovered that a total of five children – all female, all between the ages of five and eight – had been murdered within a three county area. There were too many similarities among the deaths, the dump sites, the ages and physical appearance of the children to ignore the fact that this was a single perpetrator. We were on the next plane out of Dulles.

“When we arrived, the Sheriff who had called us and those from the two adjoining counties where children had also been murdered were waiting. They had the complete case files from the prior homicides and wanted us to begin going through them immediately. I was the team leader and told them that the first thing I needed to do was talk to the parents of the now-missing child, as well as her teachers, neighbours, friends, anyone who may have noticed anything unusual where the child was concerned, any visits to new places, any deviations from her usual schedule, any-fucking-thing out of the ordinary that might give us a starting point in looking for her. I also needed to visit the locations where the bodies of the first five children had been found. I put two members of my team to work going through the case files, and Ted Ackerman – the lead investigative agent – and I left with the Sheriff to go speak with Brenna’s – that was her name – parents. She wasn’t their only child, but she was their only daughter …she was six-years-old. Blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin; her photo from her kindergarten Halloween party looked like a perfect little princess. Before leaving the Sheriff’s office, I’d looked at the photos of the other children; they were also all blonde, three were blue-eyed, and two had hazel eyes.

“Ted and I spent that entire day visiting the locations where the first five bodies were found and interviewing anyone close to Brenna, anyone who might have noticed a change in her behaviour, anyone who had seen her in the time frame in which she’d been abducted. When we got back to the station, I asked for a list of everyone who had been interviewed regarding the first two children killed in that county and got the corresponding lists from the Sheriff’s of the other two counties. I was hoping for a match among the lists but didn’t get that lucky. There was, however, one man who had been interviewed in the first murder in that county; the deputy who interviewed him had made a notation that as a child, the man had been caught starting fires at various places around the small town in which he lived. The deputy knew that because he was an old-timer and had been working for the department at that time. I remember Ted and I looking at each other. We had a starting point.

“I asked if the man had been in the military. He had but was dishonourably discharged three years earlier. No one knew the specifics of his discharge. I asked what else they knew about him, and they went through the litany …it was a rural area, and everyone knew everything about everyone else in the county. He’d married at 17; his wife left him a year later. They had lived with his mother, and he still did; she was a cold, domineering woman that no one liked. She’d apparently kicked the man around a lot when he was a child. He worked as an air-conditioning repairman and drove a panel truck that his employer let him keep after hours because he had no other mode of transportation.

"Our UnSub immediately went from an unknown individual to having an identity and became our prime suspect. He fit the profile, and we had his name.” Reags looked at the four of us, and then picked up her glass and drained it. “Someone get me a refill, please?” Dino did the honours, and I don’t say that lightly …the honours bit. I was just beginning to realise that Reagan might be the most courageous person I’d ever met. The term ‘courage under fire’ doesn’t just apply to a battlefield setting. It also applied to having the intestinal fortitude to sit across the table from a cold-blooded killer of children and make him think you empathised with him so that he’d talk to you and tell you what he’d done. She took a sip of her drink and went on, staring off into nothingness. If ever I’ve seen a 50-yard stare, this was it. Reagan was in another time and another place. I had forced her to relive something she’d clearly been trying to bury in the deepest recesses of her mind as well as her heart.

“As we had predicted, the man had ‘come forward’ in one of the investigations in the next county over. He contacted the local sheriff and said he may have seen something that would help. His story was that he had been stopped at a traffic light on his way home from picking up equipment from a supplier and ‘saw’ a man in a blue pick-up truck talking to a little blonde girl on the opposite corner. The child was wearing clothes that matched the televised description of what one of the murdered children had been wearing when her body was found. No, sir, he didn’t get the license plate because he had no reason to be suspicious. Well, Sir, the man driving the truck was black – ‘and I just saw him through the windshield, Sheriff, so I could be off a bit here other than the fact that he was black’ – and looked a bit older …maybe in his 50s because his hair was grey at the temples. The truck was kind of beat up, not new, and it was a Chevy Silverado.

“His comments to the deputy sought to deflect attention away from his own ethnic and age group, and we expected that. We checked the local sheriff’s records, and the man had a history with them. At seven, he’d set two neighbourhood cats on fire, then stood and watched the immolations. That got him severely beaten by his mother and locked in his room for a week. When he was nine, neighbourhood pets began disappearing at a rate of about one a month. There was nothing to connect him to those disappearances, but the mutilated corpses were discovered close to the homes of the various owners, and all the owners lived close to the suspect. That Halloween he was caught in the act of placing a dismembered dog on the owner’s front porch. His mother reacted in the same manner as with the immolations, and after that, the police began keeping an eye on him.

“His sophomore year in high school, a female classmate was abducted. Two days later, she staggered into the Sheriff’s office after having been held without food or water, brutally beaten, and raped with a flashlight barrel. She couldn’t identify her assailant because he wore a ski masque every time he came to torment her, and he’d also kept her blindfolded the entire time; she did say that his voice had seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She’d been locked in the basement of an abandoned house, but she couldn’t tell the deputies where it was; he’d attacked her from behind – a typical blitz attack – then blindfolded her before taking her there and not removed it before taking her out of the house. She knew she’d been in a basement because he took her downstairs; she could smell the damp and mould, and there had been rats that she’d kept kicking away the entire time she was there. The place was obviously abandoned because she’d screamed until she was hoarse, and no one heard her. She had scratched her abductor when he uncuffed her hands prior to releasing her. Two days later at school she saw a classmate with deep scratches on his arms. She called the police, but aside from bringing him in for questioning – and he had an alibi – it wasn’t pursued because she ‘wasn’t really raped.’ She said he had tried to rape her but couldn’t maintain his erection long enough to carry through. The poor kid also had the disadvantage of being the town bike, and how could you ‘rape’ a slut?”

I looked at Diana, and she was beginning to look a bit green about the edges. Perhaps I should have stopped Reags, but I didn’t …while I knew this was difficult for her, I also knew that she needed for us to hear it. Telling it allowed her to get skin in the game. Something else was occurring to me, as well, and I looked at Dino. The look on his face said he was thinking what I was, that there might be a day in the future when TEO might need her skills. I nodded at her last comment because even though it was phrased as a question, it wasn’t. I’d seen the same thing in the Balkans, with the so-called ethnic cleansings, where men raped women of the other religious group because they considered them – generically – to be whores and thus deserving of the abuse. Reags looked at all of us and then went on.

“There are two basic types of serial killers, organised and disorganised. This guy fell into the former classification. He was socially adept, friendly, always willing to help a neighbour work on his car or fix their air-conditioning unit for only the cost of the parts. His kills were methodical …he thought it all out carefully and well in advance. We learnt that his ploy – he told me this at interrogation – for abducting these children was telling them that his cat had a new litter of kittens, and wouldn’t they like to come pick one out for their very own? What little girl could resist that? Organised killers kill in one place and dump the body elsewhere. His kill spot was the same abandoned farmhouse he’d kept his classmate in back in high school. It was ten miles from any other dwelling and well off the nearest road. Most people had forgotten it was even there, and the sheriff’s deputies never thought to look there. He didn’t leave the bodies completely out in the open such as at the side of a road but did leave them where they would be found relatively quickly. He put one child in the tool shed of a neighbour …the poor bastard found her body when he went in to fire up his brush-hog to clear out an overgrown field on his property. He’d kept a journal, and he’d also kept souvenirs from each child …a hair ribbon from one, a baby ring from another …that sort of thing.

“His level of organisation made him more difficult to actually catch, because he was so fucking careful. We knew that he’d kept each of the children alive for a week or more because the bodies hadn’t been in a state of advanced decomp when they’d been found. None of them had been dead for more than 24 hours at the time of discovery. We brought in additional agents and scattered them throughout the area as hunters. It was fall, and the surrounding area attracted a number of people from out of the area, so a few more wouldn’t be noted. Two of our agents were literally out wandering around in the woods one afternoon and were close enough to the road to see his van leave the blacktop and head off into the trees. They called us and followed the tire tracks.

“I held a briefing before we sent the team in, and the team included the local officials. There was no way in Hell I could keep them out of it, and I knew it. I told them that the child was very likely still alive, but if they rushed the house there was a high probability that he would kill her. They knew he had tortured all the children he’d killed thus far, and I told them that even if they heard Brenna scream, they were to do nothing until I gave them the go ahead. I wanted the opportunity to let him know we were there and talk to him because sometimes we can talk the killer out and get him to release the victim. I was naïve enough to think the locals would actually listen to a woman. Jesus …I grew up in the fucking country. Of all people, I should have known better than to think a bunch of rednecks would listen to me.

“We’d been in place a couple of hours and I’d been talking to him on a cell phone that we threw through a window he opened for a couple of seconds; I felt we were making progress. We were until one of the local yahoos jerked my cell out of my hand and called the man a fucking maniac and said we were coming in for him. Less than a minute later, I heard Brenna’s little scream rip the air. I was probably thirty yards from the front of the house in the trees when two of the local deputies rushed the house. Just as they hit the porch, I heard a shot from inside and knew he’d killed her. All of us ran for the house at that point. He came out the door and shot both of the deputies – not fatally, thank God – and then turned and sprayed bullets as he did; he had a Browning 9mm with a 30-round clip. He hit two of my men and three more deputies.” Reags stopped talking and held out her glass. I refilled it that time.

“We got him back to town and into lockup; we held him for 24 hours. All of us needed to calm down before we began the interrogation. At three the next afternoon, Ted and I surrendered our sidearms to another federal agent and walked into the interrogation room. By that time, our forensics team had torn the farmhouse apart, literally and figuratively. They had found his souvenirs, the journal, newspaper clips, even a video he’d made of the TV coverage of the various disappearances and discoveries of the bodies, everything I’d predicted was there. They found it all ….” Her voice trailed off again, and the 50-yard stare resurfaced. I could see this was tough going for her, but as I'd done, she needed to say it and to say all of it.

“Ted sat at the end of the table, and I sat across from the suspect. He actually stood when I entered the room and waited until I sat before sitting himself. He wasn’t manacled, only handcuffed, because Ted was so much bigger than he was that his doing any damage to either of us was highly unlikely. We’d set up video cameras in all four corners of the room …we didn’t want to miss anything …not a gesture, an inflection, a smile, nothing, and we got it all. He had confessed the night before, and that had been video-taped as well, so we didn’t have to do that now. My job that day was to get him to tell me why he’d done it, and I simply asked him. It was probably the easiest interview I’ve ever done in terms of the fact that he just flat-out told me …I didn’t have to do a lot of probing.

“He smiled at me and said ‘Because they all looked like her.’ Her? Whom? He smiled again. ‘My mother …all those little girls looked like the pictures of her when she was a kid.’ I asked why that made him kill them. He said he did it so they wouldn't grow up ‘like her.’ He was what we call a mission-oriented killer …there was a purpose for him beyond the excitement of the kill. He went on to confess to all of the abductions and murders, and we were out of the room in less than two hours. He pled guilty to the crimes and was sentenced to death; he’s awaiting execution on Alabama’s death row. I’ve already been told by the governor of Alabama that the man wants me present when he’s executed. How perverted is that?

“When I was in that room with him? That was the time you asked about, Terry. As I listened to his confessions, heard him tell what he’d done to those babies, if I’d had my sidearm, I’d have blown his head off, and Ted wouldn’t have been fast enough to stop me. It took every scrap of professionalism I could muster to sit there calmly and ask questions without vomiting all over the table. As it was, everything I tried to eat for a week afterward came right back up.” Reags stood and walked to the bookcase, pulling a slim volume from the shelf, and walked back to the lounge and sat again. It was a book of poetry. She opened it and took a piece of paper from it and unfolded it, looking at it before handing it to me.

“Brenna’s mother sent this to me on the year anniversary of her baby’s death. It breaks my heart every time I read it. I don’t know who wrote it, but it may be the most poignant thing I’ve ever read.” I looked down at the words, written carefully, in a beautiful hand. It was perfectly centred on the page, and I wondered how many times Brenna’s mother had copied it before getting the spacing right.

Diana read it over my shoulder; I handed it to Dino. He read it and shook his head - lips compressed - then gently refolded the paper and gave it back to Reags. I looked round the room before saying anything.

“Reags, I don’t know what I expected when I asked you that question, but any expectation I had would never have included what you just told us.” I stood and walked to her, taking her hands in mine, pulled her to her feet and just held her. Max smiled as he watched me rub my hands up and down her back, just like you would if you were soothing a child. She had skin in the game …likely more than any of the rest of us, and all her cards were on the table.

“So, Reags, how would you feel about doing Diana’s interrogation?”

“Why me, Terry? Don’t you think I might be prejudiced in her favour?” He shook his head.

“Not a chance. You’ve earnt your stripes, Love. Diana trusts you, and the two of you are comfortable with each other. I think that’s the solution.” Diana nodded. I looked at Max and Dino, who also nodded. That’s when Reagan became the so-called official interrogator of women in the lives of the principals of Thorne, Espan, and O’Reilly.

I stood and held out my hand to Diana. “It’s late. Let’s go home.”

NOTES

On your six	Military parlance for watching someone’s back in a potentially dangerous situation.
BAU	Behavioural Analysis Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Quantico, Virginia. Originally the Behavioural Sciences Unit, formed in the 1950s.
Wayne Williams, John Wayne Gacy, Elmer Wayne Henley, Dean Allen Corll, Jeffrey Dahmer	The men responsible for – in order – the Atlanta Child murders (21 victims), Chicago’s serial killer in the 1970s, Elmer Wayne Henry and Dean Allen Corll were partners and responsible for 27 murders in the Houston, Texas area in the early 1970s (Reagan has a personal connection to that particular series of murders), and the 1990s killer who cannibalised many of his victims.
Douglas and Olshaker	Criminal profiling is used primarily by behavioural scientists and the police to narrow down an investigation to those suspects who possess certain behavioural and personality features that are revealed by the way a crime was committed ("behaviour reflects personality"; Douglas, J.E., Olshaker, M.). http://www.criminalprofiling.ch/introduction.html
Skin in the game	A term coined by Warren Buffett to refer to the situation in which high-ranking insiders use their own money to buy stock in the company they are running. Colloquially and in this instance, it means one has to be committed to the process and the group, and not just stand on the sidelines and toss advice about …you have to be totally invested.

Partial Bibliography for those wishing to pursue this topic

• John Douglas and Mark Olshaker; Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit; Pocket Books; ISBN 0671013750; 1997
• John Douglas and Mark Olshaker; Journey into Darkness, Pocket Books; ISBN 0671003941; 1997
• Robert K. Ressler and Thomas Schachtman; Whoever Fights Monsters; St Martins Mass Market Paper; ISBN 0312950446; 1994
• Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg; The New Encyclopedia Of Serial Killers; Headline Book Publishing; ISBN 0747253617; 1996
• Colin Wilson: A Plague Of Murder; Robinson Publishing Ltd; ISBN 1854872494; 1995