I long-shrug and stare at my hands. “Buried treasure, then.”
“You think you can find buried treasure using your tracking ability?” Jimmy’s skeptical but intrigued. “Like, say, Blackbeard’s treasure?” Lowering his voice and leaning closer, even though there’s no way the flight crew can hear, he says in a conspiratorial tone, “You’d have to know what Blackbeard’s shine looks like, right? How could you know that? How could his energy still be around after, what, three hundred years? You’re good, but that’s a lot of layers of shine to sift through.”
He knows better.
Once I’ve seen someone’s shine, I can concentrate on it and block all the others out—for the most part—even if it’s been three hundred years and a hundred thousand people have walked the same path … provided the path is enduring, like stone. If someone walks across a field of leaves, or crosses a wooden bridge, the shine survives only as long as the leaves or the wood. Often the leaves blow away and the wood rots, taking the shine with it.
“I was actually thinking of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine,” I say with a half smile.
“Really?” Jimmy’s voice is subdued, but his eyes widen noticeably and he leans in closer. He’s read all the stories about the Lost Dutchman’s Mine and even spent two weeks looking for it after college.
We both know it’s just a dream, though.
If I quit, the STU ceases to exist; what’s a Special Tracking Unit without the Human Bloodhound? Jimmy would be reassigned, most likely to a counterterrorism position. Diane would be transferred back to the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) complex in Clarksburg, West Virginia, which would break her heart, since her daughter and two young grandsons live in Seattle.
Les and Marty don’t actually work for the FBI; they’re on contract. In addition to their base monthly salary, they get bonus pay based on their flight hours, and government-rate per diem to cover food and lodging whenever we have a layover. Jimmy and I draw per diem, too. The difference is when Les and Marty draw it in, say, New York or Fresno or Boulder, they’re out seeing the sights, tasting the local fare, and taking advantage of all the natural and man-made attractions.
Jimmy and I rarely stay at the nice hotels; we never eat a $30 breakfast, a $40 lunch, or a $60 dinner; we don’t sightsee. Jimmy and I spend our time following shine down back alleys, across fields, and through forests … all the least desirable places.
Les and Marty would miss the per diem more than the job.
“It’s just a thought,” I say, pushing dreams of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine to the furthest alcove of my mind, saying good-bye to Edward Teach’s treasure, and rest-in-peace to Mr. Hoffa. I can’t ask Jimmy to quit and come with me. He has a family and a good career.
Pushing forward in my seat until I’m perched like a bird at the very edge, I look at my partner, then reach across the table and snatch the folder from his briefcase—the folder—the one decorated with gruesome photos of a young mother and her baby, the one with surreal images of a glowing blue kitchen, a blood trail, a heel drag.
“I’m tired of this haunting my dreams, even my waking dreams,” I say, slamming it down on the table. “Doesn’t it ever get to you, Jimmy? You’re with me every step of the way. You see the same blood, smell the same decomp. How do you deal with it?”
Jimmy doesn’t answer; he just lifts the folder from the table, his movements slow and measured, not in a caring manner but in the way one would treat a toxic chemical, an infected animal, or unstable explosives. Closing the file with equal care, he slides it back into the briefcase.
“Magnus”—he never calls me that—“you’ve got to stop dwelling on the dead and remember the living. How many more would be dead if you didn’t stop these monsters? And I’m not talking about Quillan. He’s just another messed-up tweaker who went over the edge—” He shoots up a hand to stop me as I open my mouth to interrupt. “Let me finish.
“When we started, the FBI had a long list of unsolved murders believed to be the work of perhaps hundreds of serial killers, and that list was growing by about two hundred murders a year. How many are you up to?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Aside from the hundreds of killers like Quillan and Buerger that you’ve identified, how many serial killers are behind bars today because of the work you’ve done over the last five years?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar! You remember every one of them. You dwell on them, just as you dwell on the dead. It’s seventeen, seventeen of the sickest bastards that ever walked the earth. How many more victims would be dead now, I wonder, if you hadn’t stopped them? Most of them were averaging one every year or two; Plosser was good for three a year himself, and his victims didn’t die quickly or well. He dragged them through hell itself before he finished them. No one deserves that, Magnus.” There it is again.
“So just suck it up and live with it, that’s what you’re telling me,” I snap. “Just ignore the nightmares that wake me dripping in cold sweat, leaving me shaking for the better part of an hour before I can calm myself, before I can breathe normally.” I stand and take a few steps to the back of the plane—I like to pace when I’m thinking or fretting or making a point, but the plane’s just not large enough. I pause and turn in the aisle, my hands resting on the backs of the chairs to my left and right.
“I come from a great family, Jimmy. We all get along like families should but rarely do; I love my mother; I love my father; I love my brother. I’ve got no childhood traumas weighing me down, no hidden scars, no unresolved issues.”