Chapter 2: A reluctant beginning

"Really?" said Brooke, "You want to talk to John?"

Max sighed. Yeah, no one was going to believe he wanted to meet John again of his own free will. Oh well, he tried.

"Max," she continued, "no one wants to reconnect with John. The only people who even ask about him are his sister, his aunt, a handful of people who want him dead and the FBI when he slips off their radar."

Sometimes Brooke said things that made Max very concerned. Not for John, the man could rot in a ditch for all he cared, but for Brooke. She was the sweetest woman. Really. She had issues that seemed to stem from her time with John –that bastard- and had never really recovered, but she was as kind, understanding and beautiful as ever. Most of the time, it seemed that every daunting situation she had found herself in was long past her. Then she would casually mention frequent contact with killers and feds, and Max would find himself questioning everything he thought he understood about her.

"Yeah, um," he stumbled a bit over his words, "It's actually about my first city case. He's my best lead."

Brooke was silent on the other end of the line.

"John's been staying out of trouble for a long time now," she said after a long pause. "Jasmyn's been good for him. Whatever case you're on is old news. Leave the poor man alone; he's finally happy and living out his life."

Max leaned against the wall and rubbed his forehead. He could tell that Brooke was holding something back from him. But what? He'd thought John would be the only possible source of information he might find, but Brooke had been with him at the time the massacre had taken place. If she hadn't been at the scene of the crime with him, then she couldn't have been very far. Immediately after the massacre, John ran away with Brooke. It was the general consensus in Clayton County that John's motive for going on the run had been to kidnap her. When his face showed on the news, everyone thought that he had finally snapped and joined the psychopaths he'd always been obsessed with. With information he currently had, though, that didn't really hold up.

Initially, as many residents of Clayton County did, Max had assumed that there were three grand time spans to consider in the life of John Cleaver. The first was his life in Clayton up until he kidnapped Brooke and left town. Then was the time he was on the run from the authorities for kidnapping Brooke. Then the third period came when he realized his wrongs, brought Brooke back home and disappeared never to be seen or heard from again.

Max would need to rethink these ideas. He noted that Brooke probably knew something, but before questioning her, he needed to sort through his own ideas. It was so much more confusing when he had all these preconceived ideas of what had happened.

After a brief exchange with Brooke, he scored himself an invitation to breakfast the next morning to go over any information she had.

"Thank you, Brooke," he said as farewell, "I appreciate it."

Closing his cell phone, he walked out of the police station into the sun. He'd thought coming to the city would award him a nicer police station to call his workplace, but no such luck. It was bigger, but darker, and rather depressing to spend any time in, especially with the strange lieutenant lurking around. He'd rather take a look at the case at a coffee shop he'd spotted down the street.

There weren't many people milling about at that time of morning, a fact he was grateful for. The air smelled faintly of dew. He strolled down the street, enjoying the peace. Entering the shop, he smiled at a waitress who motioned for him to pick a seat. He took a seat as she brought him a menu of the complex caffeinated drinks they served. Drinks he had never heard of in Clayton. He resolved to try each of them at least once in his lifetime.

Not knowing which one to start with, he ordered the waitress's recommendation: a marocchino. Whatever that was.

He watched the young woman turn towards the counter, flat hair swaying as she walked. There was something so perfect about the coffee shop that he indulged in its peace a few seconds longer before turning his thoughts to his assignment. He gazed outside the window.

The advantage he had over any other detective looking into this case was the he knew John and Brooke. He also had a little more background on cases that John had been involved with in the past. The downside was that he already had opinion on John that might blind him to the actual events that had taken place. He had to careful here.

The period of time between John first leaving Clayton and returning Brooke changed much more than he had thought. If anything, this massacre seemed to have played a pivotal role. It had forced him to go on the run. Prior to that, it wasn't clear what he had been doing. According to the lieutenant, he had been part of the FBI team that was killed alongside the civilians in the building. He needed more information on that.

Max opened the file and flipped through it. John's incomplete profile, descriptions of the scene, blood samples and an inconclusive analysis of the black goo along with some other papers. But no mention of John's role with the F.B.I. That was odd. Had Max misheard or had the lieutenant given him information that was not on record? He'd have to ask about the origin of that information later. For now, he would consider John a member of the team while keeping an open mind. His role might have been different.

If had been part of the team, had Brooke been as well? It was a strange thought, but Max quickly set it aside. It didn't make sense; what could a teenage girl possibly offer to such an organization? She didn't have any skills they would value and her mental state had been questionable at best. Max could at least see how John might be useful. He knew way, way too much about serial killers. Max himself knew too much about serial killers, and most of what he knew was second hand information from John. One of Max's teachers had once joked that his understanding of serial killings was one of his best assets as a cop. Max had been grumpy for a week following but knew it was true. He could definitely see John as an asset for the F.B.I. In all likelihood, John probably left her alone wherever they were staying when he worked with the feds.

But what exactly had that team been working on? Max felt that this was a key component to the case. Super-secret F.B.I. teams didn't exactly turn up dead by coincidence. The team's specialty was certainly linked to the horrid murders inside the building.

Murders that, as far as he could tell, had little rhyme or reason to them beyond being as horrific as possible. The list and details in his file made him feel sick, and he suddenly understood the lieutenant's odd behaviour when handing the case over to him. Sure, it was a sort of impossible test for newcomers to be given cold cases, but if Max had discovered that crime scene… He'd also be bringing it up long after it had gone cold. Max pushed the thought away.

The pretty waitress brought him his drink, a towering thing that looked more like dessert than coffee. Max thanked her and carefully sipped it. It was as delicious as she had promised.

Max figured that speculation would lead him nowhere. He simply didn't know enough. No one knew enough. He knew that horrific murder had taken place. He knew it involved the F.B.I. He knew it involved John, and maybe Brooke. He knew that the lieutenant had been one of first policemen on sight. He knew that John had been on the run afterwards, and that he wasn't anymore.

What he didn't know was who the killer was. He didn't have a name, but he also lacked any kind of profile. There was no apparent motive. The deaths were horrific, but didn't seem to follow any pattern he could distinguish. Some of those deaths seemed almost supernaturally difficult to carry out. What weapons were used? Why attack these people? There were no hints available to him. Nothing in the case fit.

For example, one of the latest murders was that of one of the F.B.I members whose veins were pumped full of gasoline. What possible reason would anyone have for doing that? Was it some kind of symbolic revenge? Besides, who even had the know-how on how to do that, besides doctors and embalmers?

Embalmers… morticians…

Goddammit, John. What the hell were you thinking?

Max shook himself. It would do him no good to jump to conclusions. He was just pulling at straws. No, what he needed was a source of information, but his meeting with Brooke wouldn't be until tomorrow. Where else could he look? He thought on it for a second. The only other source of extra information besides Brooke was the lieutenant. He'd known that John was in the FBI despite it not being mentioned in the file. It was possible that he knew some other information that was off the books. Max sipped at his sweet drink, dreading his return to that cramped space to interrogate the intimidating man. He'd have to head there once he was done with his mocachino.

He sipped at it as slowly as possible.