by Kay Hooper
“Sounding more and more like the unsub’s still on-script. He might have had less time to kill Perla, but it doesn’t seem to have rattled him.”
“What the hell. Getting that tree ready ahead of time, somehow rigging the grill, sabotaging the elevator and Clara’s car, knowing where all his victims would be . . . It’s like he’s stacking up planes to land. Just how long do you think this maniac’s script is?”
“Sorry, but no idea. There’s been less and less time between each kill and the next, but given his preparations at the Cross home alone, it doesn’t feel like he’s doing that because of any external factor, any unexpected pressure. It feels like all this is in his script.”
“And there’s nothing in his behavior that moves us any closer to finding out who the bastard is?”
Hollis glanced at her partner, then said, “The thing about profiling is that it’s a process. Every bit of information we learn is a piece of the puzzle. And sometimes the pieces don’t even look like they fit. But they will. Sooner or later. That’s why Reese and I spent the whole day here going through all the information you’d already collected and getting a timeline up while Cullen and Kirby visited the Nash farm and that elevator shaft.
“There’s nothing left in the Summers backyard to remind Mrs. Summers and her little girl that Jeremy Summers died there; shocked and grieving neighbors very kindly cleared away all the signs as soon as you allowed them to, even cleaned the pool and laid new sod and turf over the crater left by the explosion. And even though you classified it as an accident, you have Clara Adams’s burned-out car safely stored in a rented garage just outside town.”
The sheriff frowned at her. “That isn’t in my report.”
Hollis lifted both eyebrows at him. “We’re profilers.”
Mal frowned, but as soon as he spoke she realized the frown was directed at himself. “I’m sorry, guys. It feels like you’ve been here for days. But it’s not even quite twenty-four hours, is it?”
“Something else that tends to happen in serial-killer investigations,” Hollis said. “Time . . . changes. Or at least our perception of it does. Sometimes it rushes past, then it drags. You lose track of what day it is. Of when you last slept or when you last ate. Hell, one of the reasons we get a timeline of the murders up on the board as quickly as we can is to ground ourselves as much as to look for some kind of pattern.”
“Yeah, I think I get that.”
Quietly, DeMarco said, “When was the last time you got a decent night’s sleep?”
“Sometime around mid-July, I think,” Mal answered frankly.
“Around the time of the car crash. What made you think it wasn’t an accident?”
Mal didn’t have to think about it. “Clara Adams was a good driver, a safe driver. And her car had just been inspected not a week before. If there was a short in the electrical system, it should have been found. She had a newer car, the kind they hook up to a computer and do a diagnostic on. I checked with the dealership where it was inspected. I saw the diagnostic report. There was nothing wrong with that car. Unless somebody tampered with it just before the crash. And did that skillfully enough to leave no evidence, or at least to be sure any evidence would be destroyed in the wreck. I don’t even know if he somehow arranged for the car to go up in flames.”
“You had that checked out,” Hollis said, and it wasn’t a question.
He answered anyway. “An army buddy who specializes in bombs, explosions, took a look at the burned car for me about a week after. No signs of any explosive device or accelerant. But he couldn’t rule out something that could have been destroyed in the fire.”
Kirby, who had been sitting so still and silent that the others had nearly forgotten she was there, said suddenly, “You didn’t believe any of them were accidents, did you?”
He turned his head and looked at her. “No. No, I didn’t. My gut told me that much. But I didn’t have any proof. Nothing to connect them. Until I hit on the cell texts, checking records pretty much out of desperation.”
“And because all their cell phones had been destroyed when they were killed,” Kirby said.
Mal nodded. “Even Karen Underwood’s. She’d forgotten her purse, but like so many people these days she tended to carry her phone in her hand. In the crash, it was broken into about a zillion pieces.”
“I wonder if that was part of the script,” Hollis mused. “To make sure the phones were destroyed—and see how long it would take you to check the records.”
“What, you think this bastard is challenging me?”
“This type of killer, with such elaborate, meticulous plans, is always out to challenge law enforcement. That’s part of his fun. He needs to prove he’s smarter than the people hunting him.”
“Do you think this is personal?”
Hollis glanced at Kirby this time before replying, “You probably know him, in a town this size. He probably knows you better, or believes he does. You’re visible on a regular basis. You represent authority. He could have a personal grudge, but it’s more likely, given his victims so far, that trying to outwit you—us—is just a fun bonus, not the reason why he’s killing.”
“But you do believe that a woman is his real target. Is or was, if it’s Perla Cross.”
“Alternating gender and always killing women in their twenties is, as Cullen would say, statistically significant. Mrs. Cross’s bright red hair makes her appear to stand out, as does the fact that he either wanted us to know it was murder, or just didn’t care. That escalation bothers me, obviously, but . . . it still doesn’t point us in a clear direction moving forward. Hard as it is to accept, what he does next is likely to help us, or at least clarify a few of our puzzle pieces. Because we do believe he’s after a specific woman. And if it wasn’t Perla Cross, then it’s very likely more women will die.”
—
BISHOP SAID, “I’M fairly sure we have at least three analysts available to do those background checks for you. I’ll get them started on it right away. All the adults?”
“Yeah, I’d say so,” Hollis responded. “Everyone over the age of about sixteen, at least. We think he’s older, probably in his late twenties or thirties, but . . . there’s an element of childishness in some of this. Hell, maybe he just didn’t get picked to play Red Rover in school, and he’s still pissed about that.” She was using the landline on the conference table, partly because her cell was indeed dead as a doornail, as per usual, and partly because she knew the sheriff’s department communication system was pretty literally blasting out cell calls constantly, still trying to reach everyone with a cell.
She was half convinced she could feel the damned things—and couldn’t help wondering if DeMarco did. She knew she was edgy, and all day she had alternated between oddly brief but pounding headaches and equally odd sudden urges to look over her shoulder to see . . . whatever was behind her.
To say she still felt there was something off, something wrong inside her would have been an understatement. And to say she had done her best to shore up her shields and minimize if not hide her uneasiness from her partner—and everyone else—would have been a greater one. She didn’t want anyone picking up on her weird, unsettled feelings.
Mostly him.
Sheriff Gordon had been called out of the conference room to be updated on the emergency-alert warnings, and Hollis had used the momentary privacy to call Bishop. She was reasonably sure that Mal wouldn’t like the idea of his people being investigated, even if his cop’s mind told him it was the thing to do.
Not that she was hiding it. Exactly.
“Copy that,” Bishop said. “And the other thing?”
Damned telepaths. Even at a distance . . .
Hollis held the receiver away from her ear for a moment and glared at it, then put it back against her ear. “What other thing, Yoda?”
“What sort of energy are you sensing?”
“Do you live in my head, or just visit occasionally?”
DeMarco was smiling slightly, and so was Kirby; one thing everyone in the unit knew was that Hollis could get away with questioning their unit chief when others really couldn’t or didn’t dare, and also that—for whatever reasons—he tolerated, even seemed amused by her sometimes disrespectful comments and questions.
“I just visit. Out with it, Hollis.” His voice took on a more serious note. “It isn’t negative energy?”
She sighed. “Not as far as I can tell. Doesn’t feel negative or positive. All I know is that I started feeling it at the Cross home. I’m not even sure it’s energy, though Reese seems to be.”
“Well, you are very sensitive to energy.”
“Yeah, that’s why I know there’s a storm on the other side of the mountains and I’m really hoping it stays there.” Her free hand lifted to massage her temple. “As for whatever I’m sensing here . . . I dunno, Bishop. It just feels weird.”
After a brief silence, he said, “I don’t have to remind you to follow your instincts.”
“No, you don’t have to do that.”
“Okay. Is Reese handy?”
“He’s right here.”
“May I speak to him?”
“Sure.”
Hollis held the receiver out to her partner, making sure not to lower her voice when she said, “He wants to talk to you.”
Reese accepted the receiver, immediately saying, “I’m being glared at.”
“I’m not surprised. Want to put me on speaker?”
“What can I say? She owns me.”
“Then put me on speaker.” Bishop remained calm.
Kirby happened to be looking at Hollis in that moment, and her amusement became astonishment—because she had never seen the other agent look so totally shocked and almost painfully self-conscious.
Seriously, how could she not know? He doesn’t even try to hide it from anyone. Jeez, even I know . . .
Without looking at his partner, Reese leaned forward to press the speaker button on the conference phone. “Okay, you’re on speaker. Kirby is here as well.”
“And Cullen?”
“With the acting ME and her assistant, going back over the scene at the Cross residence. She thinks there may have been something mechanical involved, maybe a block and tackle or some kind of pulley.”
“Sounds more likely than not, given where and how the body was found. How does Cullen feel about the town?”
“He says nothing really sticks out. Just some tension and anxiety, which you’d expect. Probably getting stronger as the sheriff’s department warning goes out. And as Hollis told you, Kirby had a very strong physical reaction, possibly to a new victim being incapacitated by the unsub.”
“On a third straight night.”
“Not even night yet but, yeah. He could be getting set up to kill again. Don’t know if he’s in a hurry, maybe to distract us from Perla Cross’s murder, or whether it was always planned this way, for some other reason.”
“Kirby, how are you holding up?”
“I’m okay, Bishop. Still working on the shield, obviously, but I’m okay.”
“Glad to hear it. Hollis?”
“Yes?” Her expression now could best be described as mutinous, and she did not look at her partner.
“You know I can’t hang up with you mad at me.” His voice was uncharacteristically solemn.
Even Hollis had to smile at that, however unwillingly. “I know you’re full of shit,” she said roundly. “Just . . . get us any background checks flagged with the parameters on our list, will you, please? I don’t like how fast this unsub is moving, especially if we find out tomorrow that somebody else died tonight.”
“Copy that. Everybody watch your backs.”
“We will.”
DeMarco leaned forward to end the call and had barely leaned back when Sheriff Gordon said from the doorway, “What parameters on what list?”
THIRTEEN
Cullen leaned carefully out the attic window, his flashlight shining upward, and said, “Yeah, there’s a new-looking metal ring up there that could have easily supported a block and tackle of some kind.” He moved the flashlight slowly downward until he was examining the outside and underside of the upper part of the window frame. “I don’t see a friction burn on the window frame, but there are a couple of very small marks I don’t recognize. He could have fastened something smooth and metallic here, I suppose, to make sure there weren’t any friction burns from a rope or cable.”
The flashlight was necessary because even though the sun had not yet fully set, it was cloudy over the western mountains, and the entire valley was in a kind of twilight. The attic, being shaded at both ends by very tall trees, most definitely required artificial light.
From outside the attic, quite a bit higher up in the tree than where they’d found Perla Cross’s body, Sam Norris’s voice came with the swishing, crackling sound of leaves and limbs being shifted.
“Yeah, looks like there was something fastened here too. Around the trunk and a couple of branches.” He raised his voice. “Jill, I don’t think there’s any reason to collect evidence—unless you want me to saw off one of these branches showing the marks?” Clearly, he wanted a negative response.
Cullen glanced over his shoulder at Jill, who had just worked her way back to him after covering one side of the attic, and she grinned at him.
“Sorry, Sam, but I think we should take a much closer look at one of those marked limbs, at least,” she called out.
They could both hear muttering from the tree—and then the slow sound of someone carefully using a hacksaw.
Cullen stepped farther inside the attic and away from the window. “You can check the top frame of the window and the peak of the roof if you want. Maybe you’ll see something I missed. How about the rest of the attic?”
“I’ve only gone over this one side, following the wall to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Have to say, I’m still not seeing any signs that she was held captive up here or that there was some kind of lover’s tryst. I will say it looks like most of the exposed flooring was either thoroughly dusted, and recently, or else mopped.”
“Hollis smelled bleach. I don’t, but I don’t have a very sensitive nose. How about you?”
“I can smell it, faintly. Haven’t found any damp spots, but it’s August and breezy; if the windows were open long enough, that could have dried anything that was wet.”
“Could Perla have cleaned up here?”
Jill pursed her lips thoughtfully. “If she did, she would have had to wash up afterward or wear rubber gloves to protect her very nice manicure and very long acrylic nails—and something besides those black leggings and the red blouse she was wearing when she died. I found one pair of rubber gloves in the storage closet off the ground-floor kitchen, and that appears to be worn by the cleaning lady who comes in twice a week, just to do the main floor. My guess is that Perla wasn’t the sort to clean an attic.”
“Even though that’s what she told her husband she’d be doing yesterday?”
“Yeah. My bet is that to her, cleaning the attic would have meant no more than looking through all the stuff stored up here, hopeful of finding a treasure of some kind. Box of old jewelry, maybe. Or more shoes.”
“But no dusting or mopping.”
“Not likely. I didn’t find anything under her nails, on her clothing, or on her body that would indicate she’d been cleaning. Certainly not anything containing bleach. In fact, I don’t believe she spent much time even looking around up here. The floor may be free of dust, but there’s plenty on the trunks, boxes, and bins she would have had to look through, and so far I’ve found no sign anything was touched in months at least, far less opened. If she did spend any time at all up here looking around, she had to have changed afterward,
because there was no dust on her clothing. Bits of bark and dirt from the impact with the tree, but no dust.”
Jill indicated a couple of vials on a handy sort of tool belt she was wearing. “I took some scrapings of the dust here and there, but I can already tell you it doesn’t look like anything I found on her clothing or body.”
Cullen shifted slightly, not even aware he had moved as something caused him to focus his attention inward. Almost absently, he said, “You haven’t found any signs of blood, and there was nothing on her body to indicate how he might have . . . subdued her. Maybe even kept her immobile for hours.”
“Well, what I can test for in the field is limited to drugs and other substances most commonly found in murders or accidental deaths; we won’t get the tox screen back for days at least, maybe longer. So I can’t be absolutely certain he didn’t drug her. I didn’t find an injection site, and I looked everywhere. With a magnifying glass. Stomach contents looked normal, organs looked normal—except for those punctured, of course.”
Cullen blinked and looked at her, saw her. “Oh.”
In a polite tone, she asked, “Where were you just now?”
“Here. Obviously.”
“Part of you was,” she agreed blandly.
He looked into her unusually pale brown eyes and slowly said, “Why do I get the feeling you know a lot more about me than I know about you?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Jill.”
She smiled faintly. “How’s Bishop?”
He glanced back over his shoulder to where sounds of sawing and muttered but colorful curses were audible, then looked at Jill and nevertheless lowered his voice.
“You’re not SCU?”
“Not even FBI.” Still smiling, she added, “Some of us were already committed to our schooling or professions when Bishop came calling. We didn’t all want to be feds. Or cops of any kind. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be . . . useful . . . from time to time. And you know how Bishop hates to waste a psychic.”
He lifted his eyebrows in a silent question.
