by Tami Dane
Today she was as serious as ever. Of course, we were talking about an extremely serious case.
The chief cleared her throat. “Another fact has come to light,” she said solemnly. “Our second victim, Katherine Jewett, who we suspected was pregnant, also delivered her child within an estimated hour of her death. Her infant is also missing.”
Horrible.
I hated this case already.
What kind of monster were we dealing with? Or were the mothers delivering somewhere, returning home, and then being ... punished for what they’d done?
“I know you all are anxious to get this case solved,” she said. Of course, we all nodded in agreement. “Once news of this gets to the media, which it will, it could blow up. Somehow we’ve got to keep a lid on this one. We don’t want to chase the unsub away. I have a feeling he’s been doing this for a long time. He’s just been moving on when the heat gets too hot. We must keep him here, if we’re going to catch him. So what do we have?”
“MO,” I said. “The killer appears to be selecting pregnant women, or women who have just recently delivered, as his victims—though that can’t be confirmed yet, since we’ve only had two victims. His mode of killing is to somehow drain the victims’ blood. Puncture wounds have been found in the groin of both adult victims, suggesting he’s either a vampiric creature or a Homo sapien using some kind of pump, similar to what a mortician uses to drain the blood in preparation for a funeral. He’s killing at night, while the victims are asleep. And he’s killing them in the victims’ own homes, rather than removing them to a location he can control.”
“We’ve found no defensive wounds on either victim,” JT added.
“No signs of forced entry,” suggested Gabe.
“He’s leaving no trace evidence. Nothing,” I contributed.
“At this point, we see no sign that his killing is for material gain,” Gabe mentioned. “Jewelry and money were left untouched at the scenes.”
“However, there is the question of the missing children,” JT pointed out. “If he is delivering them and then killing the mothers, the children could be sold on the black market.”
“Damn,” I muttered.
“Still, cash is untraceable. And it’s easy enough to sell jewelry on the street,” Gabe said. “If he’s out for material gain, why not take what’s right in front of his face?”
Good question.
“Here’s another scenario,” I said. “It’s far-fetched, but still worth mentioning. What if the mothers are delivering the children and then abandoning them somewhere, and the killer is then killing them as a form of punishment? That would make him a mission-oriented killer. He would see his actions as a service to society.”
“Excellent point,” the chief said. “But that raises a lot of questions, like where are these women delivering, how they are able to leave their homes and then return undetected, and finally why they would hide the birth of their children from their husbands and then dispose of the child?”
“In Victoria Sprouse’s case, her motivation could be to hide the paternity of the infant,” I offered, already doubtful that the scenario I had sketched out fit the evidence.
“What does all this tell us about the unsub?” the chief asked.
“Assuming the missing children weren’t taken to sell, and taking into account the money and other valuables left at the scene, our unsub is more likely male than female,” I said. “Women more commonly kill for material gain. And they historically use poisoning. They also tend to kill husbands, their own children, and relatives. On the other hand, if the unsub is delivering the infants, and the children are being sold, we could be dealing with a female unsub.”
“Good. What else?” the chief asked.
“If our killer is organized, which the crime scenes support, then the victims would tend to be strangers, unknown to the killer,” JT suggested.
“Excellent. However, we must keep looking for a connection between Sprouse and Jewett,” the chief said, writing notes on the whiteboard behind her. “Because we’ve found no evidence of a break-in, defensive wounds—and because our unsub is killing in the victims’ homes—we can’t rule out an unsub that is familiar to the victims. Husband. Friend. Someone who would have access to them when they were sleeping. In our investigation, we’re going to focus on victimology. We need to know why the unsub chose these women as his victims.” She pointed at Fischer. “I want you and Wagner to go back to each crime scene and interview both husbands again. Find out if anyone was in their house the day of their wives’ death. Thomas, I want you and Skye to dig into Sprouse’s and Jewett’s backgrounds. See if you can find any concrete connections between the two. Also see if there would be a motive for them to give birth and then abandon or kill their own children. Life insurance policies, that kind of thing. Hough can help as needed.”
When the meeting was over, we headed back to our cubicles. I was powering up my laptop when JT came rolling up on his wheeled office chair.
“So ... ,” he said.
“So,” I echoed. “What now?”
“Two pregnant victims.” He scooted his chair closer to mine, so he could see my computer screen. My skin warmed a little. “What do you think?”
“I think ... I hate this case.”
“Yeah.” His jaw clenched. “I do too. Do you believe the punishment theory you presented at the meeting?”
“No, not really. It seems to rely upon too many coincidences.”
“Yeah, I have some serious doubts about that theory too. I think the unsub is taking the kids.”
“Then how is he able to deliver them without leaving any evidence? Without alerting the husband? How is he getting the children out of the house?”
“I wish I knew. What I do know is this—the thought of anyone out there hunting pregnant women ...” He looked angry, furious, more emotionally invested in this case than how I’d seen him before. And the first case involved the kidnapping of an innocent child. That was nothing to sneeze at either.
“We’ll get him ... right?” I asked, sounding doubtful because I was, a little.
“You know we will.” He motioned toward Brittany’s Cave of Wonders. “I have Hough digging into the victims’ medical history, looking for a common thread, like a doctor.”
“That was my first thought.”
“It’s better to leave that to her. With the HIPAA Privacy Rule, she’s better equipped to navigate those waters.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“Let’s map out where they live, where they work, see if, or where, their paths cross.” Scooting forward, he set an arm on my desktop, next to mine. This brought him even closer than before. Now I could smell the scent of his aftershave; and when he shifted positions a little, his arm brushed mine.
Skooching sideways, to put a little distance between us, I said, “Okay.” I opened a window and typed in the first address.
He inched closer again.
So much for that.
Two hours later, we had nothing earthshaking on either victim. Nada. Nil. I was stiff, sluggish from sitting in one position for so long, and a little warm from being in such close proximity to JT for two hours. I had no doubt he was sitting so close on purpose—the twerp—which was why I’d pretended it didn’t bother me. I stretched as he finally rolled back to his cubicle. Minutes later, I watched him head toward Brittany’s Cave. I wondered what they might dig up with her superpowered search engines. It seemed she was our last hope.
Gabe came strolling into the office just as I was about to go to the Cave of Wonders to take a peek. “What’s up?” he asked while dumping his laptop case on my desk.
“Absolutely nothing. That’s what. Tell me you got somewhere today.”
“Oh, I got somewhere. Plenty of somewhere.” He went to his cubicle, grabbed the back of his chair and wheeled it up to mine. He sat, kicked an ankle up on his opposite knee. “I’m learning something about people.”
“What’s that?” I asked,
entering another term into a Google search.
“Everyone has secrets.”
“There you go with the drama again. That’s a bit of an overgeneralization, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely not. I have secrets.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course you do. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Time to get this conversation back on course. “So ... what kind of secrets are we talking about, in regard to our case?”
“First there was Victoria Sprouse and her kinky threesomes. And then there’s Katherine Jewett. Let me tell you, her secret makes Sprouse look like an angel.”
“Yeah? Are you telling me she’s not the innocent suburban wife and soon-to-be mother that we thought?”
“Far from it. Jewett was running a call girl service.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. Let me tell you, her girls were ...” His face turned five shades of red, each one brighter than the last. “They were very nice.”
“Shocking.” This conversation was making me feel a smidge weird. “So, do you think her unusual career had anything to do with her murder?”
“Not sure.”
“Is that all you found out?”
“That was the most interesting thing we found out. Fischer’s following up on some other stuff. A neighbor thought she saw someone snooping around the Sprouses’ house a few hours before she was killed. She swore it was a woman. Well-dressed. Attractive. Maybe a salesperson. Or a Mormon doing some mission work. Doesn’t fit our profile, but Fischer said we have to check it out, anyway. Oh, and get this, that couple Sprouse was involved with were wanted in ten states for at least a dozen charges each. They skipped town. Vanished.”
“Doesn’t exactly make them look innocent, does it?”
“Nope, though none of the crimes were violent. They’ve been running a bunch of phony businesses, scamming people. Mostly real estate, though they’ve also recently gotten into the psychic and life-counseling business too. It amazes me how many people fall for these kinds of things. But they do.”
“Maybe Sprouse caught on to what they were doing, so they decided to silence her?”
“Maybe.” He checked his watch. “But then, what about the baby? It’s getting late. I think I’m going to call it a night. You?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at JT’s empty cubicle. “I guess I’m ready to quit too.” I poked the power button on my laptop. My stomach growled. Slightly embarrassed, I clapped a hand over my belly.
Gabe stood but didn’t leave. “Hey. Do you want to go get something to eat?”
“I don’t know... .” When my computer powered off, I closed it and tucked it into its case.
“It’s only food.”
“I know.”
“I swear, I won’t make more out of it than that.”
My stomach growled again.
He pointed. “I think your stomach said yes. My treat.”
“No, absolutely not. I won’t let you buy me dinner.”
“Your treat?”
“How about we pay for our own?”
“Fine by me.” He rolled his chair back where it belonged; then he came sauntering back with the trademark Gabe Wagner swagger that both annoyed me and made me feel a little breathless. “Where should we go? Somewhere quiet? Intimate?”
“Intimate? No, absolutely not.”
“Fine. I’ve got the perfect place in mind.” He took my laptop case from me and then motioned for me to proceed out to the elevators.
“We’ll drive our own cars.”
He shrugged. “If you insist.”
“I insist.” I gave him a warning glare. “And you’d better keep your word. This is a casual meal with a coworker. Nothing more.”
“You got it. Nothing more.”
Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in a noisy restaurant, where model airplanes, piloted by birds, swooped and zoomed over our heads. All around us, clamoring children were happily munching on French fries and slurping shakes while their parents nagged them to eat their burgers.
Intimate, it was not.
Lesson learned—next time I would expect Gabe to take my suggestion in the most literal sense possible.
While we were waiting for our burgers and fries, we gobbled up yummy potato skins slathered in melted cheese and sour cream.
Gabe said, “Okay, now that I’ve got you here, and you’ve had a little bit to eat, I feel I need to confess something.”
The mouthful of potato, cheese, bacon, and sour cream suddenly felt a whole lot bigger as it slid down my throat. “What?” I croaked.
“I had an ulterior motive when I invited you out to dinner tonight.”
“Which was ... ?” I guzzled half my glass of cola while I waited for Gabe to admit why he’d asked me out to dinner. I hoped it wasn’t because of what he’d said last week, but I had a feeling it was.
“I wanted to get a chance to talk to you about Thomas.”
“What about him? I’ve already told you, it’s none of your business.”
“I know. And I’m sorry if it seems like I’m getting too pushy. But I overheard him talking to Hough yesterday and I felt you should know about it.”
I wasn’t going to ask.
I didn’t want to know.
No. Absolutely. Didn’t want to know.
Oh, hell. “Okay, so tell me.”
We learn the rope of life by untying its knots.
—Jean Toomer
5
Gabe had stopped eating. He was looking at me with the kind of serious expression I rarely ever saw. I had no doubt he meant business. This time, he wasn’t overdramatizing.
“Okay. You got me. What were JT and Hough talking about yesterday?” I asked.
“I heard Hough say, ‘I need you. I can’t do this alone.’ And then Thomas said, ‘I’m here, Britt. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.’”
“That could be interpreted a million different ways.”
“Yeah. But the most obvious is ... ?” He gave me one of those you-know-what-I-mean looks. “They’re having an affair and she’s planning on leaving her lesbian wife.”
I gave him back a you’re-full-of-bunk look. “She’s happily married. And she and JT are just friends. Good friends.”
“Says who?”
I shifted in my seat. “JT.”
Gabe gave me a sure-right eyebrow lift. “And you believe him?”
“Yes, of course. He’s given me no reason to suspect him of lying.” This conversation needed to end.
“That you’re aware of. You haven’t known him long. All men lie. Sometimes.”
“Yet another generalization. All men?”
“It’s the truth. If you don’t believe it now, you will someday.”
“Which means you lie too, since you’re a man.”
“Sure. But I’m not lying now. Not about this.”
“Okay.”
The waiter brought our burgers and fries, asked if we needed anything else, then hustled away to serve his next table. While I ate, I mulled over what Gabe had told me.
Assuming he heard what he thought he’d heard, and it meant what he thought, it was a damn good thing I’d decided to keep JT at arm’s length. Yes, a damn good thing.
Now I was glad Gabe had picked this insanely noisy, chaotic place for our dinner. We ate, paid our tabs, and headed out to the parking lot.
I was about to make a clean getaway when Gabe grabbed my arm. We were standing in between two parked cars, midway between my car and his. It wasn’t quite dark yet. The sky to the west was purple, with some puffy salmon clouds. The east was already cloaked in deep indigo. Fireflies were flitting around us.
“Skye, I didn’t tell you about Thomas because I expect something to happen between you and me.”
I thought I understood what he meant by “something.” I nodded.
“You keep telling me you and he aren’t ... Well, anyway, I can tell you like him.” He released my arm. More softly he said, “I�
��ve seen the way you smile at him. The way you look at him.”
I didn’t respond right away. I wasn’t certain what to say. I mean, here he was—obnoxious, irritating Gabe—being so honest. Vulnerable. Looking into his eyes, I could see the spark of something. Sadness? Pain? I didn’t have the heart to brush off his feelings.
“Sure. You’re right. I do think he’s attractive. But the fact is you and I are interns. We have to be careful. How bad would it look if it got around that I was sleeping with him?” I sidestepped to a nearby light pole, leaned against the concrete base, and folded my arms over my chest. The wind was picking up, and it was actually getting a little chilly. “I guess I need to do a better job at setting aside my personal feelings and acting like a professional, if it’s as obvious as you say.”
“I’m not saying it’s obvious to everyone. Only to me. But that’s because you once smiled at me like that.”
Shit.
My phone rang.
“Um, sorry. I should check to see who it is.” I dug my phone out of my purse. The display was glowing but blank. Strange. I shrugged and slid it back into my purse. Then I looked up at Gabe.
“I should let you get going. It’s getting cold.” He glanced at the western sky. “And it looks like we’re in for some rain.”
“O-okay.” I still hadn’t responded to his last comment. I didn’t know what to say, honestly. This was beyond complicated. He was a nice-enough guy, when he wasn’t intentionally trying to antagonize me. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. On the other hand, I didn’t want him thinking I had any warm, fuzzy feelings for him. Because I didn’t. At least I didn’t have a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings for him. Maybe there was a little something there. A spark. But I was hell-bent on not traveling back down that road again. Once in a lifetime was enough for this girl. Besides, I technically still had one annoying and demanding would-be fiancé to contend with.
“See you tomorrow, Skye,” Gabe said, shooting me a smile.
“Yep.” I waved and then scurried to my car. I jumped in, buckled my belt, and then I just about peed my pants when someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Holy hell!” I screeched, jerking around.
