The Omission Index, Ch 20: Face Value Pt. 2

The shapeshifter didn't just want wealth. The evidence pointed to something colder: envy that consumed, that demanded the experience of being wealthy and adored.

The operations center hummed three floors below the Oceanus Casino's main gaming floor. Burned coffee. Overheated electronics. The local police had cleared out hours ago.

Hale stood before the whiteboard, already filling with connections, timelines, victim profiles. Victor Sterling's penthouse suite still clung to his senses - expensive cologne gone rancid.

"It's more than copying." He turned to face the team. "This shapeshifter immerses completely - "

"How deep?" Knopff's sidearm clicked as he cleaned it, each component sliding into place with practiced efficiency.

Hale pressed his temple. The ache had rooted there, pulsing. "I read the suite. The mental imprint wove into Sterling's own aura, seamless. They absorbed his surface thoughts, his recent emotional states - "

"Jesus." Reid looked up from his monitors, blue glow carving shadows under his eyes. "Identity theft at the cellular level."

"For that week, they were Victor Sterling." Hale tapped the whiteboard. "Or the idealized version. The study required..." The memory washed over him - that perfect imitation, chilling in its precision. "Weeks. Months of observation. Routines, vocal patterns, private habits."

Kwan leaned forward, pen hovering. "Emotional signature?"

"Deep envy. Corrosive." Bitter on his tongue. "They don't just want Sterling's money. They want to be him. To taste that life, wear his privilege - "

Custom-made suit. The phrase triggered it: Susan three weeks ago, her voice cutting through their kitchen's stillness. You wear your work like armor, Tom. But underneath? I don't even know who you are anymore.

His jaw tightened. "Obsessive. Cold. Judging."

Reid's fingers flew across his keyboard, rapid-fire clicking filling the silence. "Financial theft confirms it. Layered transfers, shell companies nested inside shell companies, computer-driven trading accounts as pass-throughs."

"Skill level?" Kwan asked.

"Genius. Or..." Reid's reluctant admiration crept in. "They absorbed Sterling's financial knowledge during the impersonation. Every banking code, every private trust, every offshore trick."

Knopff snapped his weapon together. "Smart and patient." His pale eyes fixed on Hale. "Sterling. The real one. Still breathing?"

The mental echoes had been specific. Focused on taking. "No violence imprint against Sterling himself. My sense - they kept him alive, incapacitated, for the duration. Cleaner."

"Less homicide investigation risk," Kwan observed, pen scratching. "Once they finish playing dress-up, they dump him like the Santa Cruz victims. Disoriented, memory broken."

"Discredited if he tries reporting an unbelievable story," Reid added without looking up.

Kwan set down his pen. "The psychological manipulation extends beyond impersonation. Casino staff, Sterling's associates - they described him as more charismatic during that final week. More engaging. Generous."

"They played an improved version." The realization clicked. "The man everyone wished Sterling was."

The observation landed harder than intended. How many versions had he performed over the years? Dutiful husband, home at reasonable hours. Present father who kept case files separate from family dinners. Partner who divided work from personal life with surgical precision.

All lies, Susan's voice echoed. Every single mask you wear.

"So what are we looking at?" Knopff's practical question cut through.

Hale forced focus back to the whiteboard, tangible details. "Highly intelligent, patient planner. Sophisticated shapeshifting with partial mental imprinting. Deeply envious, harbors profound inadequacy toward wealth. They don't just steal - they inhabit. Revel in the stolen identity before discarding it."

"And they're very good at disappearing," Reid muttered, frustrated sigh audible over cooling fans.

A cynical smile touched Hale's lips. "Amazing how easy it is for some people to fake being someone they're not." The words settled like smoke. He caught Kwan's concerned glance, looked away. Pushed his personal battlefield back into its locked compartment.

***

The call crackled over Reid's patched-in police dispatch just after dawn, cutting through stale pizza and electronic ozone.

A disoriented male matching Victor Sterling's description. Found by sanitation crew, wandering the grimy wharf district in cheap clothes and complete confusion.

***

The interview room reeked of industrial disinfectant and fear-sweat. Under harsh fluorescent lights, Victor Sterling resembled a broken marionette - loose joints, dangling strings.

"Mr. Sterling?" Kwan's voice gentled as he settled into the metal chair. The real Victor Sterling bore little resemblance to magazine covers. His expensive suit was gone, replaced by a faded tracksuit hanging on his diminished frame. His camera-ready silver hair, matted and unkempt.

Sterling's eyes darted around like a trapped animal's. "Sterling?" The name sounded foreign on his own tongue. "I... I think that might be me." He shook his head, frustration and terror warring. "But I can't be sure. So much is gone. Holes in my head."

Hale stood near the door, silent anchor while his mental senses reached out carefully. The broken man carried traces of the shapeshifter like contamination. Cold. Invasive. Predatory.

"What do you remember?" Kwan prompted softly.

Sterling's story emerged in hesitant fragments. Unease in his Oceanus suite. A seemingly harmless encounter weeks earlier at his private club - someone new who'd shown unnervingly intense interest in his life.

"Asked a lot of questions." Sterling stammered, paper cup trembling in his hands. "Said they admired my... accomplishments." He couldn't recall their face, their name. Only that clinical sense of being observed.

Then nothing. A void where days should have been.

His next memory: waking cold and disoriented in darkness. Probably a van's back. His head throbbing, body aching. Vague recollection of being given something to drink - something that made him groggy, compliant. Then being pushed onto an unfamiliar street, sanitation truck's flashing lights the first real thing.

Hale absorbed the mental impressions clinging to Sterling - fear, violation, sophisticated psychological grooming that preceded the takeover. Complete identity theft, cellular level.

"The money." Sterling's voice cracked as another piece of his stolen life reasserted itself. "My accounts... Oh God, what have they done?"

Kwan's hand touched Sterling's arm - inadequate comfort for monumental loss. "We're working to recover what was taken. Right now, our priority is understanding what happened."

Sterling looked from Kwan to Hale, eyes filled with desperate confusion. "Who would do this? Why?"

The question hung in sterile air. Hale met the broken man's gaze, seeing in him an echo of his own recent fears. The terrifying possibility that someone you trusted had been wearing a mask all along. That the person you thought you knew was carefully constructed performance.

"That's what we're here to find out," Kwan said softly.

But looking at this hollowed-out shell of a once-powerful man, Hale felt cold certainty. Some violations left scars no amount of justice could heal.

***

"Bastard slips through financial networks like smoke through screens." Reid's bloodshot eyes reflected the amber glow of the microfiche reader. The basement facility reeked of stale pizza, electrical burn, and desperation - mostly Reid's own.

The complex web of international transfers, shell companies, coded communications spread across multiple monitors made his head pound. Following Truman's money trail resembled reconstructing a shredded document in a hurricane.

Hale sat in the corner, eyes closed, sweat beading on his pale forehead. The low thrum of ventilation systems provided white noise as he sifted through Atlantic City's collective unconscious, hunting for Truman's mental signature. A whisper in a hurricane.

"They're not just good at becoming someone else." Reid continued, more to himself than his silent partner. "They make money vanish with surgical precision. No traceable purchases under Sterling's name after the accounts drained. No credit card activity screaming 'shapeshifting con artist on a spending spree.'" He scrolled through another screen of transaction codes. "Cashed out hard and fast, converted to physical assets. Diamonds, gold, untraceable commodities."

The old-school money laundering was almost elegant in its simplicity. Reid had to admire the craftsmanship, even as it frustrated him.

A telex message caught his attention - intercepted communication between a Philadelphia art dealer and a discreet Atlantic City gallery. "Hang on." Reid leaned closer to the amber screen. "Philly dealer asking about provenance on a small Rodin sculpture. Seller insisted on cash, offered extra for no-questions-asked sale."

He cross-referenced the message with SHEPARD's asset database. "Galerie Moreau. Just off the boardwalk. Known for discrete, high-value cash transactions." The kind of place that catered to old money and connected mobsters who needed to clean their assets quietly.

"Hale." Reid's voice sharpened. "Possible lead. Galerie Moreau reported large cash purchase yesterday afternoon. New seller, insisted on cash, matches our vague description."

Hale's eyes opened slowly, distant look fading as he focused on Reid's city map. As his gaze settled on the circled gallery location, a low hum - almost inaudible - began emanating from him.

"Yes." Hale's voice tightened with concentration. "Strong mental presence. Truman was there recently." He closed his eyes again briefly. "But they weren't just selling. They were... observing someone else. A woman. Dark hair, elegant, expensive clothes. Looking at a Modigliani."

The pieces clicked into place with mechanical precision. "The envy's already building." Hale continued. "Fresh. Intense. They were studying her."

Isabella Rossi. The Italian heiress whose arrival had made the society pages.

Reid felt familiar chill of recognition. Truman hadn't just been liquidating assets - they'd been actively hunting, selecting their next victim while still carrying Sterling's mental scent. Using old-world methods to buy their way into new circles of wealth and privilege.

The chameleon was already choosing its next skin.

***

The SHEPARD operations center's sterile efficiency usually provided Hale with detached focus, necessary buffer against emotional chaos. Today, the constant electronic hum pressed against his skull like a migraine waiting. The recycled air tasted of metal and defeat.

He'd just finished another call with his lawyer - a man whose voice had the smooth, predatory quality of a shark cutting through dark water. The legal terminology still echoed: "amicable settlement," "parental alienation," "irretrievable breakdown." His marriage, his home, his carefully constructed life - all being systematically dismantled with surgical precision.

You've been performing for years, Susan had said during their last real conversation, her voice cutting through their kitchen's artificial warmth. The devoted husband, the present father. But I can see through it now, Tom. I can see the stranger underneath.

The accusation had hit like a physical blow. Partly because it contained enough truth to draw blood.

Kwan walked in carrying a fresh file, his expression carefully neutral. But Hale could feel his partner's concerned assessment, cataloguing signs of strain and stress.

"Reid's got a potential location for Rossi." Kwan said. "Rented villa in the Inlet district. Knopff's doing reconnaissance, checking security. We should have eyes on her by nightfall."

Hale nodded without really listening, his gaze drawn to the grimy window overlooking the boardwalk. Below, a young couple walked arm-in-arm, heads close together as they shared some private joke. Effortlessly, genuinely happy.

The sight hit him with unexpected savagery. A wave of longing so sharp it made his chest ache, followed immediately by corrosive cynicism.

Fools. The bitter voice in his head. It's all performance. Everyone wears a mask. Sooner or later, they all show their true, ugly faces.

He flinched at his own venom, disturbed by how easily the thought had formed. When had he become this person? This bitter, paranoid shell who saw deception in every gesture of affection?

"Tom?" Kwan's voice pulled him back from the edge. "You seem distracted."

Hale turned from the window, forcing professional composure over the raw ache in his chest. "Just processing. This suspect... their ability to inhabit someone is so complete." He paused. "Makes you wonder who's genuine. Who's just playing a role?"

The words carried more weight than intended, bleeding personal pain into professional observation.

Kwan's gaze remained steady, filled with empathy that made Hale want to crawl out of his own skin. "People wear masks for different reasons. Protection. Fear. Sometimes because they don't know who they are without one." He paused carefully. "Doesn't always mean what's underneath is malicious."

Complicated love. Was that what Susan would call their current state of armed negotiations? The phrase made him want to laugh or scream - he wasn't sure which.

"Truman's motivation is pure envy." Hale heard the harsh edge creeping into his voice. "They see a life they want, so they take it. Wear it like expensive clothing, then discard the empty shell when the fantasy fades."

Kwan didn't press, just nodded slowly. "Then we stop them before Isabella Rossi becomes another discarded fantasy." He paused. "Before it inflicts more damage on anyone else."

The unspoken including you hung in the recycled air between them.

Hale looked out at the glittering, indifferent city - all false fronts and manufactured dreams. The case file seemed to bleed into his personal life, leaving everything tasting of betrayal and broken trust. Confronting a creature who literally stole and wore other people's identities felt less like professional duty. More like staring into a funhouse mirror of his own fears.

His focus was compromised. In their line of work, compromised focus got people killed.

He had to lock his ghosts back in their cage before they dragged the whole team down with him.

***