Already Seen (Laura Frost FBI)

***

Laura lifted up her notebook, giving Geneveive Piper a reassuring smile. Under the sickly hospital lights, she looked washed-out and shaken. But they were under the hospital lights, which meant they were safe, and she seemed to be rallying.

“So, you knew Edwin Love before tonight?” Laura asked. It was more

of a conversation starter than a real question. She knew that they were acquainted, had managed to make out at least that much before being dragged away for examination at Nate’s insistence.

“Yes, I’ve been his speaking coach for years, on and off,” Genevieve said. She was wearing an oversized hoodie that a boyfriend had brought around to the hospital, where Geneveive herself had also needed checking out. All in all, they’d been very lucky: the only one with any real injuries, enough to need treatment, was Edwin himself. She toyed with the sleeves as she spoke, wrapping up her whole hand as if for comfort. “He always wanted to be an actor, but he had that awful speech impediment. He couldn’t even make it through a line without stuttering when we first met.”

“When you say on and off, what do you mean?” Laura asked. It felt strangely quiet, talking to the woman alone. Normally she always knew Nate was backing her up, even if he didn’t speak. But he’d taken over interviewing Edwin Love, and had insisted that Laura go nowhere near him again – not just because he was being protective of his partner, but also because Laura had shot him. The last thing they needed was to be accused of bullying him into a false confession – not that they didn’t have enough evidence already.

“He was very frustrated,” Geneveive said. She spoke softly, frowning and hesitating, seeming to pick her words carefully. “It was like he couldn’t get over the speech impediment on his own, but he thought that a therapist could cure it for him instantly. When it didn’t work, he would get mad. Really mad. Then he would stutter even worse, until it was this vicious cycle that he couldn’t seem to get out of.”

Laura nodded. “Did you ever witness violent behavior before now?”

“No, not towards others.” Geneveive hesitated again. “Towards himself, maybe. He would get very frustrated, end up hitting a desk or something like that, hurting his hand. But he was just a teenager when we started working together. I put it down to that, you know? All those hormones, on top of everything else. It can’t have been easy to deal with.”

Laura noted that down, then looked up at Genevieve again. “So, that was the on. Tell me about the off.”

“He would just stop coming to sessions for months at a time. Then I’d hear from someone else in the industry that he’d tried another therapist and got just as frustrated with them, and walked out. I think he kept coming back to me because I was his first. Like it was comforting, maybe. I tried to get him to work through his anger issues, but he couldn’t see they were linked. Not back then.”

“And more recently?”

“Well, he came back to me a few months ago,” Genevieve said. “And, you know what? It was really strange. He was calm all of a sudden. Like he’d figured out how to control himself. He didn’t lose patience or get angry or violent. I tried to ask him about it, but he just said he’d taken up acting classes and he was going to get into the industry because of this great coach he had. But I never heard from anyone I knew that they’d been teaching him.”

Laura nodded. She didn’t need to share it with Geneveive, but she had the explanation for that already. The first search of Edwin Love’s home, carried out by Captain Mills and his detectives, had uncovered a number of false IDs in different names. After cross-checking them with the list, it had turned out that Edwin had attended classes with all of the victims, starting when he was just a teen with Gypsy Sparks. He had known them all – but they hadn’t known him under his real name. He had made himself into someone else right from the beginning, almost as if he’d known that he needed to hide his identity.

Or perhaps, being an aspiring actor, that was the point. Maybe Edwin Love was trying to make himself into a different person each time, a new character, as if that would leave all of his old troubles behind him.

Either way, it had made it conveniently difficult to trace him when he had started to kill. Laura could see how it had happened, how his own strange psychosis had driven him along. From admiring actors to becoming infatuated with his acting coaches, who were able to talk so smoothly, to memorize and deliver monologues and speeches.

How that infatuation had developed into anger when things still didn’t work out, even when he tried to follow their lead. How he’d continued to blame outside influences, and not himself, for the fact that he couldn’t get roles. The only reason he’d felt in control of his anger was because he was using it to first mentally attack, and later really attack, the women who he felt had wronged him. He was a troubled young man, and though it wasn’t an excuse for what he had done, Laura had the feeling that some psychologist was going to have a field day explaining it in court.

“Thank you, Geneveive,” Laura said. She smiled, a reassuring gesture that she hoped would help the other woman to calm down. “One of my colleagues, or someone from the prosecutor’s office, will be in touch if we need to go to trial. In the meantime, is there someone you can stay with?”

“My boyfriend’s going to let me stay at his place for a while,” Genevieve said.

Laura nodded. “That’s probably for the best. Just remember, you’re safe now. We have him under lock and key. He’s not going to be able to attack any more women.”

Laura would have liked to have said that he wasn’t going to hurt anyone else, but she couldn’t guarantee it. He really was a young man, and if he went to prison – which he almost certainly would – there would be plenty more opportunities for him to do harm within the penal system. Even if he was sentenced to a life in therapeutic care instead, he would be able to harm himself.

Laura wanted to feel good about solving this case, but she wasn’t sure she could. The killer was a disturbed individual who might have been prevented from doing all of this if he’d had the proper mental health care earlier on. As for the problems that were waiting for her at home, they were still waiting. She was still unsure that Amy was truly safe. She still couldn’t see her own daughter. The bottle was still beckoning, and Laura knew she still had to fight it with any shred of willpower she had.

In the end, solving the case didn’t mean as much as she had hoped it would.

Laura let Genevieve leave first, and then followed her out after a few minutes. She headed to the waiting area; she didn’t want to go on a trek through the halls of the hospital to try and find Nate, only to end up missing him and needing to head back to the waiting area anyway. She had her mind set on slumping down in one of the chairs, maybe getting a coffee from one of the machines, and letting the world pass by without her for a short while until he was ready to go home.

But she never made it to the chairs. Standing in the middle of the waiting area and studying the board covered in directions to various departments was a very familiar face: Caleb Rowntree.

“Here to visit an old acting coach?” Laura asked. Habit, and the knowledge that privacy needed to be protected, stopped her short of using Genevieve Piper’s name.

“No, actually,” Caleb said, grinning when he looked up in surprise and recognized her. “I was here to see you. I saw on the news that the killer had been apprehended and an FBI agent was taken to hospital. I didn’t know whether it was you or your partner, so I thought I’d come visit just in case.”

“It was me,” Laura said, shrugging. “But I’m fine. It was just a precaution. The only care I need is a good night’s sleep.”

Caleb smiled at that. He tilted his head towards the wall, and they moved together, out of the general flow of traffic and away to the side. “I’m glad you’re alright,” he said. “I was a little worried there.”

“I thought you would be disappointed,” Laura teased. “Being well means I’m heading home.”