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Tyler pokes her head from around the corner, and she looks more put together than Gabe does. I’ve never seen him with his hair down, but Tyler’s still got her hair styled and her makeup in place. “Hello. Don’t worry, I’m sending Sterling out in a moment.”
I lean closer to Vinny, exchanging a glance with him. Doesn’t the leader of the team usually send people out? I thought Sterling was Tyler’s boss.
“Don’t mind her,” Gabe continues, shaking his head when I look back. “We’re just having a shit day. People get moody when we can’t find killers.”
Oh, so they’re all acting weird. Gabe looks exhausted, like he hasn’t slept at all. As we watch, he takes a sip from a mug—probably coffee, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a little something stronger added. His eyes are fixed on something across the room, out of our line of sight, and as we stand therein the front room waiting, it feels a bit like we’re intruding on something private.
“What do you think they’ll do if they have to do real interviews?” Vinny asks me, bending slightly to whisper in my ear.
“In this chaos?” I whisper back, glancing around us in the sudden quiet. “Probably go to the PD. Look at this place. I don’t think anyone’s redecorated since Sterling’s parents lived here.”
Gabe starts across the space, and I guess Jensen isn’t going to circle back. He nods to us, lifting his brows as he takes another sip. “Okay, don’t mind us. You showed up sooner than we expected.”
“Didn’t you talk with Sterling about this already?” Vinny asks.
“Yeah, well, there’s always something new happening here,” he says with a shrug. “Lots of working parts to figure out where the killers are, ya know?”
I stare at him, surprised how casual he sounds with us. I’m used to the agents holding us at arm’s length since we aren't part of their team, and the only one to deviate from that thought process is Sterling. And he only does so because of sex. We’ve caught him off guard twice now, once on the side of the highway and then at Emeric’s house. Maybe he needs a moment to compose himself before speaking to us again.
Gabe bypasses us, pointing to the stairs. “Follow me. I think Sterling wants to speak to you up here.”
I keep staring around the corner where Jensen went for another moment. I’m betting they’ve got evidence down here. Otherwise I’d expect them to be upstairs yelling instead. It’s early, but not that early. Gabe makes it sound like they worked all night long.
Vinny smoothes a hand down my arm, and I walk with him up the steps. There’s a ledge at the top that overlooks the front door and a sitting area that’s crowded with bags. It’s fairly large, and to one side I spot a bathroom and a hall on the opposite end of the room. This is definitely a drop spot, but there’s enough space between the couch and all the bags that I don’t feel overcrowded sitting up here. There’s two chairs on the opposite side of the room from the couch, facing it.
We sit on the couch, and Gabe sits opposite us. “We’ve been doing a lot of analysis on what we know about Porscha and Alastair’s behaviors. It’s something Sterling will want to talk to you both about, individually.”
“So we’re going to be here twice as long?” I ask.
“Not necessarily. I can do the other interview. It shouldn't take too long,” Gabe replies, trying to smile pleasantly, but he looks too damn tired to pull it off, and he just shakes his head and yawns before he continues. “We all want them found. Alive. There’s nothing you can tell us about either of them that wouldn’t be helpful.”
Since I’m getting the feeling their overall view of the two killers is vague, I think they need us. We knew Alastair best, and they have all those notes, so there shouldn’t be much to share on that front.
Gabe leans forward, taking out his phone. “I took a picture of some words we’re using to describe the two of them. It helps us build the picture of how they think about things, and if we understand them we can try and think ahead about what they might do next. Until proven otherwise we’re going to assume they are working together.”
After a moment of tapping, he gets up and crosses the short space, turning the phone to show us the screen. It’s a photo of a whiteboard, the reflection making it a little hard to see. It takes me a moment to be able to read all of the words.
Alastair: adaptive, analytical, mentally detached, artistic, physically strong,
Porscha: manipulative, master of disguise, mentally deranged, end game?
I read the list twice. “That doesn’t sound like my mother.”
“What doesn’t?”
My eyes leave Gabe’s phone to find Sterling standing at the top of the stairs. He appears tired too, and I guess it’s a general theme in the house today. He’s holding a manila folder, probably filled with things I’m sure I don’t want to see.
“Master of disguise,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him. He steps closer, nodding towards Vinny who barely returns the gesture. “That’s not my mother. She’s not a master of anything.”
He hesitates, not saying a word until he’s standing right in front of us beside Gabe. “Porscha has a completely different persona now. What your mother was like then and who she is now aren’t necessarily the same person.”
I scoff. “You don’t get it. My mother isn’t what I would call a master of disguise. She’s a manipulator, sure. She manipulated the whole world into thinking she died. But disguise? I don’t think you’ve got that part right, Sterling. She took notes to try to remember things about people so she could emulate them. I don’t call that mastering shit.”
We’ve gone over this. Sterling had so many questions once I was cleared from the hospital after Alastair disappeared, and I answered his questions but for the most part the FBI wanted to get moving to try and find Porscha and Alastair before they were too far gone. Citrus Grove is close enough to the borders of Georgia and Alabama that if she wanted to cross state lines she could’ve done so fast enough before any messages got out to the local PDs up there. My initial interview withSterling was rushed, and Tyler continued it, but for three weeks after their disappearance I recounted things about my mother I hadn’t considered in years.
“You never said she took notes,” Sterling says slowly.
“I said she liked to pretend to be someone else,” I reply. “She wasn’t a people person. Why do you think she chose a job she could manage by herself?”