The old, familiar pain of April’s death swept through him.
Staring down at the little girl in front of him shook Oliver to his core. Sandy Irvine was most likely in the hands of the most sadistic serial killer to ever live and would not be coming home.
Little Lexi would be forced to grow up without the love and nurturing of her mother, which would assuredly alter her life forever.
She smiled once more at Oliver and then turned back the way she’d come.
Russell waited until she was out of earshot before giving Oliver his attention once more. “Tell me what to do to help bring Sandy home, Mr. Quick. I’ll do anything.”
Oliver hardened his emotions to prevent his own pain from connecting with Mr. Irvine’s. “I’ll need a list of every friend she has, including coworkers, doctors, any gym memberships, and the like. Anyone at all that she’s mentioned in the past few weeks. Someone new you might not have met. Anything and everything you can remember.”
“That’s going to be a long list.” Russell reached up to massage his forehead. “Sandy doesn’t know a stranger.”
“Like I said,” Oliver continued. “Everyone. Anyone she’s mentioned from the grocery store, the daycare, any places you can think of she frequents.”
And on it went, with Oliver asking questions about Sandy Irvine as if she were simply missing. But she wasn’t. He was ninety-nine percent certain she’d been taken by the Silencer and was probably dead at that very moment. But that one percent chance she could still be alive pushed him to keep the husband talking.
* * * *
Later that night, Oliver sat on his sofa, drink once again in hand, and motioned for Richard to join him.
Holland had arrived a few minutes before and now stood at the bar, pouring himself a stiff one as well.
He turned and made his way toward the couch. “Did you learn anything from Sandy Irvine’s husband?”
Waving his bandaged, throbbing hand toward the open folder on the coffee table, Oliver muttered, “I have a list of friends, family, coworkers, and the like. But nothing that is really doing me any good.”
Richard nodded toward Oliver’s hand. “You never did tell me how you were injured.”
“You didn’t ask,” Oliver shot back.
“I’m asking now.”
Oliver glanced down at the bandage in need of changing. “I cut it on a scotch glass.”
Richard shook his head. “Still drinking yourself to sleep, I see.”
“Are you here to discuss my habits or talk about the case?”
Raising an eyebrow, Richard barked out a laugh. “You always did get right to the point.”
“I went to see Jennifer Clayton’s family,” Richard continued, changing the subject. “Her mother has been sedated since her body was identified.”
Oliver let that sink in. “What about the husband?”
“He was the calmest one. I got the impression he was in denial or drugged up as well, which is probably a good thing at this point. I was able to get some information out of him.”
“Such as?”
Richard took a hefty swallow of his drink. “Mrs. Clayton had an OBGYN appointment a couple days before she went missing. She’d also picked up some dry cleaning and stopped off at the supermarket. I’ve already ordered the security tapes from all places from that timeline.”
“Did the husband say if he’d noticed anything different about her? Such as, did she mention anything out of the ordinary anytime leading up to her disappearance?”
Richard shook his head. “He said he hadn’t noticed anything off, other than her appearing more tired than usual. Which he said was normal considering how far along in her pregnancy she was.”
“What about her phone records?” Oliver’s gaze kept straying to the folder on the coffee table, to the photo of Sandy Irvine. The resemblance to April was uncanny.
“They’re being gone over as we speak.”
Oliver absently nodded, unable to pull his attention away from Sandy Irvine.
“She resembles April.” Richard’s softly spoken confession penetrated Oliver’s helpless infatuation with that picture.
Glancing away from the image, Oliver admitted, “It’s the dimple. Nothing more.”
“It’s more than that.” Richard leaned forward and pulled the photo free of the folder. “The hair, eye color, and even the shape of her face.”
Oliver swallowed hard. “You know that he’s already killed her, don’t you? Sandy Irvine, I mean.”
“We don’t know anything for certain, Quick. The Silencer may not have taken her. It could be her ex-boyfriend or—”
“Bullshit. It’s him. You know it as well as I do.” Though he prayed he was wrong.
“But why take a pregnant woman?” Richard asked, replacing Sandy’s photo. “His other victims hadn’t been with child.”
Oliver swallowed his pain. “Other than April.”
“I know, but you told me yourself that she hadn’t been to see a doctor. There was no way he could have known about her pregnancy when he took her.”
“Maybe…”
Chapter Ten
Oliver woke the following morning with a pounding headache and eyes that felt like sand lined the lids.
He and Richard had worked until far into the night on the Clayton and Irvine cases.
As far as Sandy Irvine went, they were nearly positive she was already dead. But until a body had been discovered, they would treat the case as if she still lived.
Jennifer Clayton, on the other hand, lay in the morgue, her dismembered body stacked up in a refrigerated unit, waiting to be released so her family could bury her.
Oliver had gone over the details of Jennifer’s murder long after Richard’s departure. Until he’d forced himself to slip into the mind of the Dockside Killer.
He’d mentally watched through the killer’s eyes as he endlessly tortured Jennifer, taping her mouth shut to silence her screams. He would then remove the tape long enough to drown her, before resuscitating her and beginning the process all over again.
Jennifer Clayton had been missing for seven days. A week at the hands of a monster bent on pain and humiliation.
But she’d been pregnant, which meant that she likely wouldn’t have survived more than two days without sustenance.
So, the psycho would have had to feed her, only to torture and drown her again. And on it went inside Oliver’s mind, until he could stomach no more. He’d ended up stumbling to the hall bathroom and vomiting.
Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, Oliver rubbed at his gritty eyes and glanced at the small black clock on the nightstand. Seven am.
He needed to shower, dress, and head to Alabama to speak with the Baldwin County Medical Examiner about the two women currently housed in their morgue.
Ambling to the bathroom, Oliver turned on the shower and stepped under the heated spray.
The steamy water felt amazing on his pain-pulsing, cotton-filled head. He really did need to lay off the drinking.
And then a thought occurred to him. The contents of Jennifer’s stomach.
Oliver bathed as quickly as possible, threw on a dark three-piece suit and slipped on a comfortable pair of Italian loafers.
He made his way to the kitchen for a glass of water to wash down his over-the-counter pain medication, brushed his teeth, and then did a rush job rebandaging his hand.
The folders lay open on the coffee table, just as they had when Oliver staggered to bed a few hours before.
He dropped his weight onto the sofa and snatched up Jennifer Clayton’s autopsy results. He scanned over the first page, flipping to the next in search of her stomach contents. There, at the bottom of paragraph three lay the answer. Liver, asparagus, and milk.
Oliver snatched up his cell phone and put in a call to Richard as he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.
Richard picked up on the third ring. “Holland.”
“Hey, Richard, it’s Oliver. Where are you?”
A few choice curse words ensued. “Trying to drive in this damnable Panama City Beach traffic. I swear to God, Quick, I don’t know how half the people on the road this morning have walking around sense.”
Oliver replaced the paper he held and flipped the folders closed. He gathered them up and rushed out the door.
He unlocked his SUV, climbed inside and started the engine. “Yeah, it’s going to be the same here,” he absently muttered, putting the vehicle in reverse and backing out of his parking spot.
Pausing to pull out into the heavy Destin traffic, Oliver informed Richard of his plans to head on over to Alabama. “I need to speak to the medical examiner who worked on the victims found there.”
“I think that’s a good idea. Run by the office and pick up your credentials. I’ll call Nancy and have her put you back on the payroll.”
“This is only temporary, Richard.”
“Be that as it may,” Richard responded, agitation still lining his voice, “you’ll need your credentials in order to obtain records from Baldwin County. I’ll also notify the Mobile field office of your plans. The last thing we want to do is step on toes.”
Oliver darted out into the busy traffic. “I’ll get up with you when I return this afternoon.” He ended the call.
* * * *
The drive to Baldwin County took a little over an hour once Oliver left the FBI’s main hub in Fort Walton Beach.
He had officially hired back on with the bureau, which felt strange, considering it had been six years since his sudden departure.
Pulling into the parking lot of the Baldwin County Medical Examiner’s office, Oliver took in every car in the parking lot in a quick glance. All were empty, save for an older female, smoking a cigarette in an even older model sedan.
He exited his SUV and locked the doors.
A cough reached his ears, drawing his attention to a man trailing across the parking lot. Something about the man seemed vaguely familiar, as if Oliver had seen him before.
Of course, the guy fit the bill of half the population along the Gulf’s shore. Blond, wind-blown hair, shorts, and flip-flops.
The stranger casually strode toward a row of vehicles parked next to Oliver’s SUV.
He paid Oliver no mind.
Oliver watched him stop next to an older model tan Ford pickup truck before he pushed the man from his mind and made his way to the Medical Examiner’s office.
Once inside, he showed his newly acquired credentials to the redhead sitting at the front desk. “I need to speak with the ME.”
“He’s gone to lunch,” the redhead informed him in a soft, Southern drawl. “But if you have time to wait, he should be back in about twenty minutes.”
Oliver returned his credentials to his pocket. “Thank you, I’ll do that. Do you happen to know who the blond-haired gentleman was, leaving here before I arrived?”
The receptionist tapped her pen against her chin. “I sure don’t. He said he was a family member of someone being kept in the back, but he didn’t say who. He wanted me to let him back there. I informed him he’d have to speak to the doctor when he returned from lunch. I guess he was in a hurry, since he didn’t want to wait. Is everything okay?”
“Oh yes, everything is fine. I just thought I recognized him, is all.”
Chapter Eleven
Oliver arrived back in Fort Walton Beach a little after four that afternoon.
He bypassed the elevator, taking the stairs to the third floor to Holland’s temporary office.
The door stood open, saving him from having to knock.
Richard waved him inside. “That was a quick trip.”
“But definitely a trip worth making.” Oliver moved to the chair facing Richard. He dropped the two folders he held onto the desktop before taking a seat. “They had no stomach contents.”
Holland frowned. “But they were all pregnant. Why would he starve these two,” he nodded toward the folders, “and not Jennifer Clayton?”
Oliver sat forward and flipped open the folders. “And why rape these two women and not Mrs. Clayton? Something’s off, Richard. Way off. I’m not sure we’re dealing with the same killer.”
Richard held his gaze. “But the bodies were all dismembered, the ring finger missing on all three vics, and all three bodies left tied to a public dock.”
“I know.” Oliver leaned back, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Then why didn’t he rape Mrs. Clayton, like he did the other two? And why feed her, only to remove her…unborn child? What was different about her? Something set her apart from the others.”
Holland plucked up his glasses from the desk and adjusted them on his nose. He then retrieved a paper from the top folder. “Thirty-two weeks pregnant. Around the same age as the others, same hair and eye color. Ring finger removed, raped, tortured, and dismembered. The fetus left in the womb.”
“But how was the fetus still in the womb?” Oliver’s mind spun with so many unanswered questions. “I mean, the extensive amount of torture they’d undergone should have caused them to miscarry. But both unborn babies of the Alabama women died in utero.”
Richard peered at Oliver over the top of the paper he held. “I’m sorry, Quick. I know this can’t be easy for you.”
Though he attempted to hide it, Oliver could read the pity swimming in Holland’s eyes.
He also knew without asking that Richard referred to the fact that April had miscarried their unborn child at the hands of the Silencer.
“I’m fine, Richard. Can we get back to the cases at hand?”
Holland returned his attention to the paper he held. “Okay, so we know that both babies died in the womb and neither expelled from the bodies. We also know that he starved them yet fed Mrs. Clayton.”
“Mrs. Clayton wasn’t raped, either. Something set her apart from the others. Either we’re dealing with an entirely different killer, or something about Jennifer Clayton threw him off his game. We need to find out what that was.”
Oliver leaned back in his chair, sitting quietly while Richard went over everything he’d learned from the Baldwin County Medical Examiner.
Holland finally lowered the folder he held. “It has to be the same killer. A copycat would have stayed true to the original murders.”
“I know.” Oliver had thought of that already. “There was something different about Mrs. Clayton. Maybe she reminded him of someone.”
Richard removed his glasses. “Or maybe she showed less fear. You know how these sick fucks feed off fear.”
“She was pregnant, Richard. She would have been terrified for her unborn baby. Terrified to the point where she would’ve been unable to hide it.”
Oliver suddenly pushed to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Richard stood as well.
“To see Jennifer Clayton’s husband. I need to get a feel of who she was. I’m betting that there was something about her that changed the game for the Dockside Killer.”
Richard snatched up his suit jacket. “Wait, I’ll go with you.”
“Take your car,” Oliver called over his shoulder. “There’s something I need to do later, and I won’t be able to drive you back.”
Without waiting for a response, Oliver left Richard’s office and took the stairs down to the parking area. He hurried to his SUV, digging his keys out along the way.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket.
Oliver opened the door to his vehicle and slid behind the wheel. He started the engine and retrieved his phone. “Quick.”
“How is your hand, Oliver? I hope you are mending well.”
Oliver stilled. The whisper-soft sound of the voice on the other end sent the hair standing up on the back of his neck.
He pulled the phone away from his ear and glanced at the small screen. He didn’t recognize the number or the area code.
“Who is this?” But he knew. Somewhere deep in his gut, he knew exactly who had contacted him. The Silencer.
“Ahhh, your attempt at being bl
asé is quite humorous, Oliver. I see you are working with the BAU on the Dockside Killer case. Have you any leads? No? Pity. You seem to be losing your touch.”
It took considerable effort for Oliver to keep his voice calm, so great was his rage. He took a deep breath for control. “Seems to me that you’re the one losing control. You must be awful desperate to contact me like this. Is that where your rage comes from? Am I the only thing that gets your dick hard?”
“April had no problems in that area. She was really quite vocal about it in the beginning. Before I—”
“You piece of fucking shit!” Oliver snarled, his mind refusing to go where the Silencer wanted to take him. “When I find you, and I will find you, I’ll pull your nuts up through your throat and watch as you choke to death on them!”
Laughter ensued from the other end of the phone before the line went dead.
Oliver fought to control his breathing. Nausea rolled through his gut and sweat beaded his forehead. The Silencer had contacted him.
Richard jogged across the parking area and tapped on Oliver’s window.
As much as Oliver wanted to drive away and attempt to regain control, he couldn’t. They needed to act while the fire was still hot.
He rolled down the window. “I need a trace run on my cell number.”
“What’s going on?” Richard rested a hand over his eyes, squinting against the sun.
“The Silencer contacted me,” was all Oliver could manage.
Richard paled, yanking his own phone free of its place on his belt.
Oliver listened as Holland put in a call to Huntsville, gave them Oliver’s cell number, and asked for a trace to be performed.
“It’s top priority,” Richard continued before signaling for Oliver’s phone.
Pulling up the strange number the Silencer had called him from, Oliver turned the screen in Holland’s direction.
He waited while Richard read the number aloud before returning the cell to his console.
Richard ended the call. “What did he want?”
“To taunt me.”
Richard’s phone rang again. He promptly answered, bringing the cell to his ear. “Holland.” A brief pause ensued, and then, “Got it. Thank you.”
Oliver Quick Page 5
