She was slightly taller than Andie, with eyes every bit as intense as Andie had remembered. Up until a month ago, her long, dark hair had been one of her more striking features.. Rumor had it that she'd cut it to shoulder length on her forty-fifth birthday, that she hadn't gone to some expensive hair stylist, just grabbed the scissors from her desk drawer and whacked it off.
It was no secret that criminal profilers had one of the highest burnout rates in the bureau. Some said Victoria was approaching the point in her career where she'd crawled inside the head of too many psychopaths, that she'd looked into the eyes of too many lifeless victims. Others thought she was still steaming over the inexplicable decision to derail her promotion to unit chief at CAS KU by transferring her to the Investigative Support Unit. Her supporters said she was extremely aggressive. Her detractors said she was extremely aggressive. Bureau politics being what they were, you didn't have to be the highest-ranking woman in a predominantly male unit to get stabbed in the back.
"Ms. Santos?" Andie extended her hand. "I'm Agent Henning. It's a pleasure to meet you. Actually, it's an honor."
Andie cringed at the "honor" bit, concerned that she was sounding like a kiss-ass.
"I hope you're not too honored to call me Victoria," she said as they shook hands.
"Okay, Victoria."
They exchanged smiles, but Victoria looked understandably tired. She'd just flown coast to coast on the red-eye, having left her home in Virginia some time after midnight. Andie glanced at the two bags at her side.
"I see you already got your luggage."
"Yeah. Let's get out of here."
Andie and Victoria reached for the same suitcase at the same instant. They knocked heads. Andie backed away, startled. The rolled-up copy of the PostIntelligencer slid from under her arm and fell to the floor. The page-one story was right at their feet. Victoria rubbed her forehead where Andie had butted her. She did a double-take at the catchy headline, then picked up the paper and gave it a quick read.
"A serial killer slaying in pairs? Where did this come from?"
Andie cringed as she replied. "It's a theory."
"Who's theory?"
"Mine," she said, shrinking.
"What's it doing in the newspaper?"
"The local police leaked it."
She glowered. "I'd better read this," she said as she snapped open the newspaper.
"I think so, too," Andie said.
Victoria walked as she read. Andie followed behind, toting her bags. Andie said not a word all the way to the car, just trying to gauge Victoria's reaction to the article. Victoria opened the passenger door and got in. Andie tossed the bags in the backseat, got behind the wheel, and drove out of the garage.
Victoria folded the newspaper and laid it on the dashboard.
Andie was bracing herself for a shakedown, but Victoria simply popped open her briefcase and buried her nose in a notepad as Andie maneuvered out of the airport. For ten minutes, Andie endured the silent treatment. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. "Excuse me, but aren't you going to say anything?"
Victoria glanced up from her notes. "I'm not going to chew you out, Andie. What's done is done. But if you're looking for me to say everything's okay, it's not."
"I wasn't trying to upstage you or impress you. I wasn't trying to impress anyone. It was just a theory."
"And I'm not saying your theory is necessarily a bad one. The real damage is that once any theory hits the press and gets ingrained in the heads of the local police, it's hard to get them to come off it. Makes my job a lot harder than it needs to be."
"But I wasn't the one who leaked it. It was a detective named Kessler."
"That's no excuse. It's your job as coordinator to gain the respect of the locals. If you have their respect, nine times out of ten they'll listen to you if you ask them to keep something out of the press."
Andie felt a pang in her gut, realizing she'd never expressly asked Kessler to keep the theory out of the papers. "You're right. For that I apologize."
Again, there was only silence.
Andie said, "I don't mean to be pushy, but it would make me feel a lot better if you were to say something. Like 'Apology accepted.'"
Andie kept her eyes on the road, waiting for a reply. Finally, she glanced over and caught Victoria's eye. It wasn't the disapproving glare Andie had expected. Quite the opposite. It was as if Victoria had warmed to her fight.
"Apology accepted," Victoria said. "And don't worry about it. Happens to all of us."
Andie was only half-relieved. "Somehow I don't think anything like this ever happened to you."
"Actually, it did."
"Serious?"
"Long time ago. My first year in Quantico. We had a geographically transient serial killer. The only lead was an anonymous newspaper informant who had an uncanny ability to predict each murder, time, place, victim. My unit chief was convinced the informant was himself the killer. I wasn't. I went over his head, straight to the assistant director of the Criminal Division. Laid my reputation on the line."
"How did your unit chief feel about that?"
"About the way you'd expect. He was madder than hell." "How did you smooth things out?"
"Sometimes, things have a way of smoothing themselves out."
"How do you mean?"
"It's simple, really. Now that your theory is printed in black and white all over Seattle, you just have to hope for one thing."