The Heart of the Jungle, стр. 42

He looked into Jason's eyes and set his jaw. "I'm coming with you this time. I need to see her. I need to be there when you nail Michael's ass to the wall. I promise I won't interfere. I won't do anything stupid. I just... I need to be there."

Jason looked as if he might protest, but after contemplating the resolve on Chris's face, seemed to think better of it. "I'll need your help to identify Brianna, anyway."

A renewed sense of hope surged to life within Chris. After all this time, he was finally going to have his life back. Brianna was alive, she was here, and she'd be home with him soon. He would have wept with joy if he had any tears left to cry.

He favored Jason with a look that bespoke deep and boundless gratitude. "I don't know where you came from, Jason Kingsley, but I can never repay you for this. Never."

Jason smiled softly, tenderly. "You don't need to repay me, Chris. I told you, I have a soft spot for anything to do with children."

Chris noticed the fleeting look of pain again. This time, he didn't fight down his curiosity. "Because of your time in the FBI?"

Jason nodded slowly and looked away.

Chris drew him back with a gentle touch. When their eyes met again, he asked, "Why is it that whenever the subject comes up, you shut down?"

"I told you before. Bad memories."

"Was it a case you were working on? What happened? Please tell me."

Jason tried to protest, but before he could stop himself, the story came tumbling out. He faltered at first, and then, as if frantic to get it all out before he lost the nerve, he let it pour forth like a flood. "I was working a case. A serial. Sick, detestable scum by the name of Don Gerry. He was... a predator. Violent. So evil you can't imagine. Careful. We knew it was him, but it seemed like every time we got close, he'd slip away. Crime scenes were always scoured clean. I hate prime-time television. Damn shows teach perps how to cover their tracks.

"Anyway, up to that point, I had a promising career in the unit. I had already nailed a couple of high-profile cases and had a reputation for getting the job done." He drummed his fingers on the tabletop as he spoke. "I was following in my father's footsteps, so they expected great things from me. Everyone's confidence in me... well, I guess it made an impact. I was just as confident in myself. Too confident.

"Guys like Gerry always mess up, and I was there when he did."

Chris was transfixed. The sacrifice Jason was making in telling the story was not lost on him. He could see the anguish, could feel it in Jason's every word.

"About a year into the investigation, we got a call that a little girl named Jessica Andrews had been murdered. Since the scene looked like it matched Gerry's MO, my partner and I were sent in. We did an initial sweep---found nothing---not even fiber evidence. Typical of Gerry. We checked the body and found about what we'd expected. She was beaten to death and badly abused." Jason stopped, his face adopted a haunted, tormented expression. The shadowy apparitions of his memory had momentarily overwhelmed him, and Chris could see him struggling with the images in his mind. He wondered if he would ever have been able to sleep again after having seen something so horrific.

Suddenly conscious of Jason's struggle, he reached out. "This is too hard for you. I shouldn't have imposed. I don't expect you to---"

"No, I have to get this out." He took a deep breath. "We decided to do another sweep, hoping we'd missed something, anything. We almost gave up, but Clint, my partner, lost it. He was kind of a rookie and just wasn't hardened to crime scenes yet. He got sick.

"There was a used condom in the commode," Jason said. "When Clint lifted the lid, he saw it. Gerry must have tried to flush it, but the house had bad plumbing. Clint had the good sense to puke on the floor, but it turned out to be a wasted effort." Jason gritted his teeth, remembering what had followed.

"What happened?"

"I fucked up," Jason said, too ashamed to meet Chris's eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't seal the evidence bag properly," he blurted.

Chris drew in his breath sharply. He had some idea of what was coming.

"The guys in forensics positively ID'd the sample. It was him, all right. He'd done it, and we had the proof---right there in our hands. Only we couldn't use it."

"But you got him anyway? Tell me you got him."

Jason shook his head. His voice was filled with bitterness when he spoke again. "That sample was our only real evidence. We had nothing else to make a case with. We had to let him go. He's still out there, probably up to his old tricks."

Chris swallowed hard, utterly sickened by the fact that such evil roamed the streets. "He went free on a technicality? You had proof that he did it, but you couldn't tell anyone? That's preposterous. It's... it's---"

"My fault. I was cocky, sloppy, too goddamn caught up in my moment of glory to check the boxes the way I should have." Jason ran a trembling hand through his hair, and there were tears of remorse in his eyes. "I let that little girl down, and all the rest of them. After that, I just couldn't do it anymore. They were counting on me---all those kids that Gerry preyed upon---and I betrayed their trust." Jason closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "So I left. They censured me, of course, but I didn't really care. They should have drummed me out. Instead, I quit." He stared at the table for a long while, drained, seemingly afraid of the reproach he