Bogart looked at Decker. “A real piece of work. What’d you do to deserve her?”
“I can’t process that right now,” said Decker.
* * *
The jet flew them to a private airstrip south of the Windy City and they took an SUV to the new headquarters of the Cognitive Institute. It was in a three-story building in a campus-style office park about an hour outside of Chicago.
Bogart flashed his FBI credentials at the receptionist, which started a chain reaction that ended with their being escorted to a conference room in the back of the building outfitted in soothing earth colors.
A man in a dark three-piece suit with a pink shirt and yellow bow tie with green dots came in.
He looked at Bogart, who flashed his badge and introduced himself. Then Darren Marshall saw Decker.
“Amos Decker?”
Decker rose and shook his hand. “Dr. Marshall.”
“It’s been, what, twenty years?”
“Plus two months, nine days, and fourteen hours,” said Decker automatically. The calculation came out of his head so fast he didn’t even realize he was doing it. It didn’t seem weird to him anymore. It just…was who he was now.
“Of course, I will take your word for it,” said Marshall. He glanced at Bogart. “Amos was quite an exceptional case.”
“I’m sure. But I know nothing about it.”
Marshall next looked at Jamison. “And are you also with the FBI?”
“No. I’m just an interested citizen trying to help.”
Marshall looked a bit startled by her comment.
“Exceptional case?” prompted Bogart.
Decker said tersely, “I suffered a head trauma. It changed how my mind worked. Made it more efficient in some ways.” He paused. “A manufactured savant, as it were, unlike your brother.”
Bogart nodded, studying him closely. “Okay. Right, I get that.”
“Can you tell me what all this is about?” asked Marshall.
Decker explained the situation to Marshall, who slowly nodded before he was finished.
“I had heard about poor Sizemore of course, but I didn’t know it was part of this…this awful event in Burlington.”
“We had mentioned it to Dr. Rabinowitz,” said Decker.
“So that’s why he was calling,” said Marshall. “I’ve been so busy I haven’t called Harold back yet.”
“It’s connected to even more awful events,” said Bogart. “None of which we need to get into at present.” He glanced expectantly at Decker.
Decker said, “Our killer is almost certainly a male, a male who has partnered with someone calling himself Sebastian Leopold.”
“Never heard of him. But you think it has a connection to the institute?”
“Considering that it was their carefully placed clues that led me back here, yes. And add the fact that Dr. Sizemore has been murdered.”
“And you know they’re connected for certain? I mean, Sizemore’s death and the others?”
“Another message was left at his home. Again, for me.”
Marshall slumped back in his chair looking highly unnerved. “My God, I can hardly believe it.”
Decker said, “There was a woman in my group at the institute, Belinda Wyatt.”
“Yes, I remember her.”
“She was one of Dr. Sizemore’s protégées.”
“Well, we don’t encourage such attachments here.”
“But that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. In fact is it correct to say that Dr. Sizemore was let go from here because he had formed an attachment with patients more recently? Perhaps female patients?”
“I really can’t get into that.”
Decker said to Marshall, “How did Belinda come by hers? We had group sessions, but that fact was never revealed. Although some of the others here learned about my situation through the grapevine, I don’t remember Belinda’s ever being mentioned.”
“Well, your background should not have been disclosed. And Belinda’s was even more…complicated.”
“How complicated?” asked Bogart. When Marshall said nothing, Bogart said, “I don’t want to play hardball, but I can have a subpoena here in an hour. But in that time these people might kill again.”
Marshall looked over at Decker. “Do you really think that this might be connected with all those deaths?”
“I know that it is.”