He brought his attention back to Kenny. “She blames herself as well. Probably more so.”
Kenny’s eyes widened. “Why would she blame herself? She had no control of what that monster did to her.”
“I know, and you have to make sure she understands that. It’s not going to be easy and will probably take a long time. The shame she feels will destroy her if she doesn’t get some help. And that help has to begin with you.”
Kenny dropped his head and pressed his thumb and middle finger against his eyes. “I won’t leave her side ever again. My family lives in Mississippi. I’ll take her there once she recovers enough to handle the move. My parents have several rental houses scattered throughout Greene County, where they live. They would be more than happy to put us up in one. Especially with their first grandchild coming in three months.”
“That’s great that you have that option.”
“Yeah,” Kenny softly agreed. “Missy is from Alabama. In the past, when I’ve mentioned us moving to Mississippi, she wouldn’t hear of it, said her roots were here. But with everything she’s been through, I’m sure she’d rather be anywhere but here. The memories alone…”
Oliver touched him on the shoulder. “Talk to her. Let her decide. She’s going to have to rebuild her trust in mankind, gain back the control she feels she’s lost. With a good support system, she will heal.”
Kenny lifted his head. “You see this sort of thing a lot?”
“More than you can imagine, Kenny.”
Oliver let his hand fall away from Kenny’s shoulder and got to his feet. “The most important thing you can do is listen to her. Let her know how sorry you are for what she’s been through. Pretending it didn’t happen will only make it worse. Remember that. Always.”
Kenny stood as well. “I’m going to go back up. Missy’s nurse is having a cot brought in so that I can stay with her.”
Pulling a card from the breast pocket of his suit coat, Oliver handed it to the younger man. “If you need anything at all, give me a call.”
Kenny accepted the card. “Thank you, Mr. Quick.”
Oliver walked away, his shoulders tight with tension. The Davises were too young to have to deal with this type of trauma. He wondered if Missy would ever be able to live a normal life. He prayed so.
Once back in his rental car, Oliver allowed his emotions to consume him. Sadness and anger swirled through him. Anger for what Missy Davis had experienced at the hands of a monster, and sadness that she would relive it again and again for probably the rest of her life.
* * * *
Oliver arrived home close to nine pm that night to find Jason sitting on the couch in his condo.
“I’ve been calling you for hours,” Jason explained, switching off the television. “I heard you caught the Dockside Killer.”
Oliver closed the door and trailed over to the bar to pour himself a scotch. He quickly took a pain pill, noticing the prescription paper still sitting next to the bottle of narcotics. It was far too late to get them filled tonight. “He was shot and killed yesterday.”
“Yeah, I saw it on the news. Are you all right?”
Oliver brought his scotch to the living room and joined Jason on the couch. “I will be.”
“Where have you been all afternoon?”
“I went to see Missy Davis, Wendel Bedford’s only surviving victim.”
Jason stood and meandered over to the bar. “You went to Alabama?”
“Yeah,” Oliver softly stated. “Missy is in the hospital there in Baldwin County. She has a long road ahead of her. She and her husband both. They’re so young.”
Jason returned to his position on the couch. “Was she pregnant as well?”
“She still is. I can’t even think about what would have happened to her or her child had we not arrived when we did.”
“Your mom called while you were gone. She wanted you to know that everything was good at Mindy and Aaron’s. Your father is driving her crazy, but other than that, everyone’s fine.”
Oliver smiled for the first time that day. He knew all too well how his father was. He worried about everyone and overthought every situation.
Jason propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Any news on the Silencer?”
Dropping his head against the back of the sofa, Oliver stared up at the light fixture on the ceiling. “He contacted me again.”
“What? When?”
“Yesterday evening after having my arm sewn up, I came home to find the front door open. There was a note on my dresser, a note about April.”
Jason’s feet landed on the floor. He sat up straight and turned to face Oliver. “He’s been in your condo? How the hell did he get in? You have a deadbolt on that door. And what happened to your arm?”
“A bullet from Wendel Bedford’s gun grazed me when he was shot and killed yesterday. I don’t know how he got in. All the windows stay locked, and there were no signs of a break-in.”
“Jesus, Quick. That means he has a key.”
Oliver met Jason’s flabbergasted gaze. “That’s the only explanation I can think of. But where would he have gotten a key? My parents have one, my sister, Joyce, you, and me. That’s it.”
“And mine stays on my keyring at all times,” Jason admitted. “There’s no way he could have gotten it from me.”
Oliver finished off his drink and stood. “I’m going to bed. I’ll have the locks replaced tomorrow. Are you staying or heading home?”
“I’ll go home. I have to be up at the butt crack of dawn.”
“Okay then. Lock up when you leave.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Oliver poured himself a fresh cup of coffee the following morning and opened his laptop to check his email.
The third message he came to happened to be from Danica Weber. The subject line read, List.
Oliver clicked on print and waited for the printer to warm up and do its thing.
He put in a call to Holland. “Hey. Miss Weber emailed the list of names who’d had access to April’s file.”
“Good. See anyone you recognize on there?”
Oliver heard the printer kick on. “I haven’t looked over it yet. I’m waiting on it to print out.”
“Email me a copy and then meet me at my office. We’ll go over it together.”
“Okay.” Oliver forwarded Danica’s email to Holland. “I’ll see you in half an hour.”
Once he finished off his coffee, Oliver plucked up the printed pages, holstered his weapon, and left his condo.
The drive to Fort Walton turned into a time for reflection. Hundreds of people were murdered each year, their killers never caught. But sometimes, oftentimes, they were. Yet with every killer that was put behind bars, another one surfaced to take his place. The cycle seemed never-ending.
Oliver realized in that moment that he needed to move on with his life. April was gone and never coming back. But he was still here, and she would want him to go on living. Not drinking himself to sleep at night out of sheer loneliness and depression. And he would do exactly that… Once he caught the Silencer.
* * * *
“I don’t recognize any of the names on this list,” Holland muttered, staring at his computer, his glasses perched on the end of his nose.
None looked familiar to Oliver, either. “Jason pointed out something to me last night. The Silencer has a key to my condo.”
Holland looked up over the top of his glasses. “Why would he think that?”
“The windows to the condo stay locked at all times, and there’s a deadbolt on the front door. So, the lock couldn’t have been picked. Not to mention, there were no signs of a break-in.”
Richard leaned back in his chair. “I’ll be damned. Who all has a key to your place besides you?”
“Jason, my parents, my sister, and my secretary, Joyce.”
“Have you spoken with any of them to find out if they’re missing a key?”
Oliver shook his head. “Not yet. I can’t let my
parents know about this. My dad will be on the first flight back to Florida. I’ll speak with Joyce today. But Jason’s key is still on his keychain.”
Holland’s eyes narrowed. “How much do you trust him?”
“Jason?”
At Holland’s nod, Oliver answered, “With my life.”
Richard continued to stare. “And he was the one who mentioned the missing key?”
“I know what you’re thinking, but I can assure you, Jason is not April’s killer. I’ve known him nearly all my life. He loved April like a sister.”
“There was never any attraction between them?”
Oliver’s jaw tightened. “Maybe in high school, but it never went anywhere. He was the best man at our wedding.”
“I understand that you trust him, Quick. But the first thing you learn from being a profiler is to suspect the unsuspected. I’m not saying he’s guilty. I’m only saying, don’t rule him out.”
More than a little angry over Richard’s assumption of Jason, Oliver stood and moved to the window. “I’m going to start moving down the list of names we have. Jason is not on this list. End of story.”
“I apologize if I struck a nerve. That was not my intention. As for the list, you begin at the top, and I’ll start from the bottom.”
The phone rang on Richard’s desk. “Holland. What? Where?”
Oliver turned from his window gazing to watch Richard snatch up a pen and scrawl something down on a note pad. “We’ll be right there.”
He practically slammed the receiver down and surged to his feet. “Sandy Irvine has been found. Alive.”
Oliver’s heart did a summersault. He’d already figured her to be dead. “Where the hell has she been?”
“According to her, with the Silencer.”
“Jesus,” Oliver breathed, already rushing across the room to snatch up his suit jacket. “Where is she now?”
“At the Santa Rosa General Hospital in Destin. On the fourth floor.”
Oliver didn’t slow. “I’ll meet you there!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Oliver arrived at the Santa Rosa General Hospital a few minutes ahead of Holland.
He didn’t bother to wait for Richard’s arrival. No, Sandy Irvine was alive, and she happened to be the only person living who could identify the Silencer.
He locked up his rental car and raced across the parking lot to the automatic doors.
The elevators were congested with people waiting to board, telling Oliver one thing: he needed to take the stairs.
His arm had already begun throbbing while at Richard’s office. The over-the-counter medications didn’t come close to touching the pain.
Emerging on the fourth floor, Oliver hurried to the nurses’ station. He was about to ask for Sandy Irvine’s room number, until he noticed two deputies situated on either side of a door a short distance down the hall.
He strode toward them, already reaching for his credentials, which he quickly flashed. “I’m with the FBI.”
One of the officers leaned in to check Oliver’s ID before stepping aside and allowing him to pass.
With a soft knock, Oliver eased the door open to find a doctor standing next to Sandy’s bed and speaking in a soft voice to Russell Irvine.
“Is this a bad time?” Oliver quietly asked.
The doctor moved toward the door. “May I have a word?”
Oliver backed up a step so the doctor could join him in the hall.
He glanced at the nametag on the man’s white coat and extended his hand. “Dr. Flores, I’m Oliver Quick with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. How is she?”
Flores accepted Oliver’s palm. “She’s terrified, as I’m sure you can imagine. I found no outward injuries, other than her eyes.”
Oliver steeled himself. “Her eyes?”
“They’ve been glued shut, with what I can only assume to be superglue.”
“And her baby?” Oliver pressed.
“The baby is just fine.”
Relieved, Oliver asked, “Do you think she would be up for some questions?”
“As long as you don’t keep her up too long. I don’t want her overdoing it.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
Oliver waited for Flores to disappear down the hall, and then he entered Sandy Irvine’s room.
Her head turned in his direction, allowing Oliver a glimpse of the gauze taped over her eyes.
“Who’s there?” she asked in a small voice.
Russell bent and kissed his wife’s forehead. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s the FBI.”
It took Oliver a second to find his voice. In person, Sandy Irvine’s resemblance to April was uncanny.
“Hi, Sandy. My name is Oliver. Do you mind if I ask you some questions? I won’t keep you too long.”
She sat up higher in bed, her arms moving to cover her swollen belly in a protective manner. “It’s fine.”
It tore at Oliver’s insides to know that her eyes were glued shut. “Do you feel up to telling me what happened the evening you went missing?”
She bit her lips when they began to tremble.
“Take your time,” Oliver murmured, hating to put her through anymore trauma. But if what he’d been told was true, the sooner she talked, the better.
Russell reached out and clasped her hand, which seemed to calm her somewhat.
She exhaled a shaky breath. “I left the bank around five o’clock like I usually do. I began experiencing the shakes, which told me that my sugar was low, so I ran through a drive thru in town to grab a milkshake.”
“What happened next?” Oliver gently prodded.
“I figured while I was there, I would go ahead and use the restroom. Being this far along in my pregnancy, I have to go often. So, I pulled into the parking lot and went inside.”
Her lip began to tremble again.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Irvine. If you need to take a break, I completely understand.”
“No,” she whispered, with a slight shake of her head.
She cleared her throat and tried again. “I heard the door open to the restroom and then the water come on. I didn’t think much of it, so I didn’t bother to check before I came out of the stall. I should have checked,” she choked out.
Oliver waited patiently while Sandy regained control.
“Something hard pushed against my back when I leaned over to wash my hands. And then he spoke. He told me to follow him to his car. He said that if I made a sound or tried signaling for help, he would kill me and everyone in the restaurant.”
After asking her about what restaurant she’d stopped at, Oliver prompted her to continue. “And then what happened? Did you get a look at his face in the bathroom mirror?”
Sandy shook her head, her fingers kneading her husband’s hand. “I was too afraid. I thought if I looked at him, he would have to kill me. So, I offered him what money I had in my purse. He just pushed the weapon he held more firmly against my back.”
Her breath shuddered. “I remember he had on gloves. I felt them when he put his hand on my forehead and tilted my head back. I wanted so badly to scream, but all I could think about was my baby. He would have killed my baby.”
“You did the right thing,” Oliver assured her. “I would have done the same in your position.”
She seemed to pull herself together enough to continue. “He-he glued my eyes shut. I remember the panic I felt when they wouldn’t open. It felt like he’d dropped fire in my eyes. He then put a pair of glasses on my face, I’m assuming sunglasses, and then walked me out to his car. He opened the door for me and helped me inside.”
“He took you in his car?” Oliver asked, confused by her story.
“Yes. I knew it wasn’t mine. It smelled new, like new leather.”
Oliver wrote down the information she’d given him so far. “What happened after you got in his car?”
“He drove in silence. I prayed as I’d never prayed before. God, please don’t let my baby die. That’s all I could
do.”
“How long were you in the car?”
Sandy paused, appearing to think. “About twenty minutes.”
“And then he stopped?”
“Yes. He made me get out of the car and then took me inside a house. I knew it was a house because the air conditioning was on, and I could hear a television on in the background.”
“What happened inside the house, Sandy?”
A tear leaked from her eye. “I could hear a baby crying. He led me through the house until we reached the baby…”
“Sandy?”
“No…I can finish.” She hesitated briefly. “He helped me into a rocking chair…unbuttoned my blouse and…and put the baby to my breast.”
Oliver glanced at Russell’s expression only to find tears in his eyes as well.
Gaining control of his feelings, Oliver returned his attention to Sandy, “He wanted you to feed the baby?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, breaking down to full on tears. “He— The baby was premature, and he needed the colostrum my body was beginning to make in order for him to survive.”
Sandy pressed on through her tears. “He told me how he took the baby from his last victim, and that he would do the same to mine, if I didn’t do as he said. And when the baby slept, he would pump my milk with a breast pump.”
A premature male baby from his last victim, Oliver silently thought in horror. Jennifer Clayton’s baby hadn’t been found with her body because the Silencer was keeping him alive.
Chapter Thirty
Oliver followed Holland into his office approximately an hour after leaving Sandy Davis’s hospital room. “He has Jennifer Clayton’s baby, Richard.”
“I know.” Holland sighed, taking a seat behind his desk and massaging his temples. “Something is off about this entire scenario. He didn’t just take Sandy Irvine to feed a premature baby, Oliver. He also took her because she looks like April.”
Oliver had thought the same thing. “Okay, then why let her walk away without a scratch?”
Oliver Quick Page 12
