"And as far as him recognizing me, I was on TV. CNN, remember? He could've recognized me from that."

Backus looked down at the floor and I watched him try to compute this and I saw by the expression on his face that he found it plausible. I was getting through to him.

"Okay," he said. "What about Phoenix, the hotel rooms, all of that? Where do you see that going?"

"We were getting close. Rachel knew it and needed some way to either derail the investigation or make sure it pointed only to Gladden when we got him. Even though every cop in the country wanted him dead, she couldn't be sure that would happen.

"So she did three things. First, she sent the fax, the one from the Poet, from her computer to the general number at Quantico. She wrote it in a way that she knew the information it contained would become the definitive link between Gladden and the cop killings. Think back, remember the meeting on the fax? She was the one who said it tied all the cases together."

Backus nodded but said nothing.

"Next," I said, "she thought that if she leaked the story to Warren, it would trigger my story and the rest of the whole media stampede. Gladden would have to see the story somewhere and he'd go underground, knowing that he was being blamed not only for the murders he did commit but the cop killings that came after. So she called up Warren and gave him the story. She must've known that he'd gone to L.A. to peddle the story after he got canned at the foundation. Maybe he had called and left her a message about where he was. You follow all of this?"

"You were so sure it was Gordon."

"I was. And with good reason. The hotel bills. But the drugstore receipt shows he wasn't even in his room when the calls were made and Warren told me today his source wasn't Thorson. By then he had no reason to lie. Thorson was dead."

"What was the third thing?"

"I think she made a connection by computer to the PTL Network. I don't know how she already knew about it. Maybe it was a tip to the bureau or something. I'm not sure. But she dialed in. I don't know, maybe that was when she shipped one of those Eidolon files that Clearmountain found. Again, it would be evidence linking Gladden to the Poet murders. She was sealing him up tight in a package. Even if I didn't kill him and he lived to deny everything, the evidence would be there and nobody would believe him, especially in light of the killings he did commit."

I took a breather so Backus could digest everything said so far.

"All three of the calls she made were from Thorson's room," I said after a half minute. "It was just one more buffer. If things went wrong there would be no record of her making the calls. They'd be on Thorson's room. But the box of condoms destroys that. See, you know firsthand about the relationship she had with Thorson. They battled but there was still something there. He still had something for her and she knew it. She used it. So I think if she told him to go get a box of condoms and she'd be waiting for him in his bed, he'd have run out the door to the drugstore like a man with his pants on fire. And I think that's exactly what she did do. Only she didn't wait in his bed. She made those calls. Then when Thorson got back she was gone. Thorson didn't exactly tell me all of that but in so many words he did. When we worked together that day."

Backus nodded. He looked like a man lost. I thought maybe he saw what was to become of his career now. First his command questioned by the fiasco of the Gladden arrest, and now this. His days as an assistant special agent in charge were numbered.

"It seems so…"

He didn't finish and I didn't finish it for him. There was still more for me to tell him but I waited. Backus got up and paced a little. He looked out the balcony door at the Marlboro Man. He didn't seem to have the same fascination with him that I had.

"Tell me about the moon, Jack."

"What do you mean?"

"The Poet's moon. You've told me the end of the story. What's the beginning? How does a woman end up at the point we are at now?"

He turned from the door and looked at me, a challenge in his eyes. He was looking for something, anything that he could build a case on for not believing. I cleared my throat before beginning.

"That's the hard part," I said. "You should ask Brass."

"I will. But you try it."

I thought a moment before starting.

"A young girl, I don't know, twelve, thirteen years old. She's abused by her father. Sexually. Her mother either… her mother leaves. She either knew what was happening and couldn't stop it or just didn't care. The mother leaves and then the girl is left alone with him. He's a cop. A detective. He threatens her, convinces her she can never tell anyone because he's a detective and he'll find out. He tells her she won't be believed and she believes him.

"So one day she's finally had enough or she'd had enough all along but didn't have the chance or hadn't thought out the right plan. Whatever. But that one day comes and she kills him, makes it look like he did it himself. Suicide. She gets away with it. There's a detective on the case who knows something isn't right but what's he gonna do? He knows the guy had it coming to him. He lets it go."

Backus was standing in the middle of the room staring at the floor.

"I knew about her father. The official version, I mean."

"I had a friend find out the details of the unofficial version."

"What next?"

"What happens next is she blossoms. The power she had in that one moment makes up for a lot of things. She gets past it. Few do, but she makes it. She's a smart girl and she goes on to the university to study psychology, to learn about herself. And then she even gets drafted by the FBI. She's a prize and she moves fast through the bureau until she's in the unit that actually studies people like her father. And like herself. You see, her whole life has been this struggle to understand. And then when her team leader wants to study police suicides he goes to her because he knows the official story about her father. Not the truth. Just the official story. She takes the job, knowing inside that the reason she had been chosen was a sham."

I stopped there. The more I told of the story the more power I felt. Knowledge of someone's secrets is an intoxicating power. I reveled in my ability to put the story together.

"And so," Backus whispered then, "how does it all come apart for her?"

I cleared my throat.

"Things were going good," I continued. "She married her partner and things were going good. But then things weren't so good. I don't know if it was pressure from the job, the memories, the breakup of that marriage, maybe all of those things. But she started coming apart. Her husband left her, thinking that she was empty inside. The Painted Desert, he called her, and she hated him for it. And then… maybe she remembered the day when she killed her tormentor. Her father. And she remembered the peace that came after… the release."

I looked at him. He had a far-off look in his eyes, maybe envisioning the story as I conjured it from hell.

"One day," I continued, "one day a request for a profile comes in. A boy has been killed and mutilated in Florida. The case detective wants a profile of the person who did this. Only she recognizes the detective, knows his name. Beltran. A name from the past. A name maybe brought up in an old interview and she knows that he, too, was a tormentor, an abuser like her father, and that the victim he is calling about was also probably his victim…"

"Right," Backus said, taking up the strand. "So she goes down to Florida to this man, Beltran, and does it again. Just like with her father. Makes it look like a suicide. She even knew where Beltran kept his shotgun hidden. Gladden had told her that. It was probably an easy thing to get to him. She flies down, goes to him with her bureau credentials and gets inside the house to do it. It brings her peace again. Fills that void. Only thing is it doesn't last. Soon she is empty again and she has to do it again. And then again and again. She follows the killer, Gladden, and kills those who are after him, using him to cover her tracks before she had even made them."