Tim gave a thumbs-up, indicating that he’d managed to get the phone number and triangulate the call and had a location where it was coming from. Alex raced over to his computer, took a look and then headed for the door with a nod to Frank and Matt to go with him.
Georgina picked her phone up from the table and hurried after them. “How are you keeping all those people?” she asked, still connected to the call and knowing she needed to keep him talking for as long as possible.
“Very carefully,” he said and then laughed, the sound shivering through her already fragile state.
“Let Macy go,” she said, aware of the emotion that filled her throat, nearly stifled her voice. “I told you about my childhood. I did what you asked. Now you do something for me. Let her go.”
“I’ve thought about it and I’m pleased that you shared so much with me, but I’m not ready to give up little Macy yet,” he replied.
“Please let her go.” She drew a deep breath in an effort to keep her emotions in check. “Let them all go.”
“I think we’ve talked long enough for one day,” Bob replied. “We’ll talk again, sweet Georgina.” He clicked off just as the four of them burst out of the building’s back door.
As Frank and Matt raced toward Matt’s car, Georgina hurried after Alexander toward his. “He hung up,” she said unnecessarily as she slid into the passenger seat.
“The call came from the college campus. Let’s hope he decides to linger for a while.” Alex started the engine and squealed out of the parking lot and onto the street. He hit the button to start his flashing lights, zooming through the light traffic with Matt and Frank close behind.
She was grateful that Alexander didn’t talk. She was in a dark place that she hadn’t visited for a very long time. Bob had managed to wrench memories from her she’d thought were long forgotten. He’d reminded her of what it had been like to be unwanted, unloved and unworthy.
It had only been when she’d joined the police force and then later the FBI that she’d found her worth, some form of self-respect and dignity, and the desire to be the very best that she could be at her job.
“The signal appeared to be coming from the bench area in front of the gym,” Alex said as he braked to a halt at the curb by the college. Almost before the engine was completely off, he was out of the door and running.
Matt and Frank parked and ran after him while Georgina hurried out of the car and headed in the same direction. She hoped he was still there. She hoped and prayed that this was it, that they’d get him in custody and he’d tell them where he had his captives.
She picked up her pace, running after the men as her stomach rolled with the need to throw up and her brain continued to fire memories of her childhood through her head.
The men reached the area first, where four students were hanging out, two seated on the concrete bench and two standing.
“FBI. All of you put your hands up where we can see them,” Alex said as he approached the group with his gun drawn.
The two young men who had been seated jumped to their feet and all of them raised their hands over their heads. “Wha...what’s going on?” one of them asked. Frank and Matt also had their guns drawn and the four were now circled by the agents.
“Very carefully, very easy, all of you get your cell phones out and set them on the bench,” Alex instructed.
“This is about a cell phone?” A tall, dark-haired young man asked. “I’ve got it. It was sitting on the bench when we came out of the gym. I was going to turn it in to lost and found.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and plucked out a cell phone and set it on the bench, then quickly raised his hand once again.
“How do we know that isn’t your cell phone?” Georgina asked.
The young man gazed at the phone with scorn. “Look at it. It’s a cheap piece of crap. It doesn’t even have internet capabilities. I’ve got my own phone right here.” He reached into the pocket of a duffel bag next to him and pulled out an expensive phone with all the bells and whistles.
He was here and now he was gone. The sick roll of Georgina’s stomach intensified. As Alex questioned the young men, Matt pulled on latex gloves and put the phone in a plastic evidence bag he pulled from his pocket.
They would find nothing on the phone, she thought. Bob was far too smart to leave a phone for them to find unless he knew they’d glean nothing from it. It was a cheap throwaway and she knew he’d left it behind just to taunt them.
Before the men even finished speaking to the students, she turned and headed back to the car, her legs unsteady and a bitter taste in the back of her throat.
She got into the car, and a few minutes later Alex joined her. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“No. I think I need you to take me home. I’m requesting the rest of the day off.” Her voice sounded tinny and as if it came from someplace far away.
Alex asked no questions. He started the car and headed in the direction of her house. He apparently sensed that she was in a place where she didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to listen, for he didn’t speak until he pulled up into her driveway. He obviously knew that she’d be no good to anyone for the rest of the day.
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. “I’ll be fine by tomorrow morning. I just need some time alone right now.” She got out of the car and shut the door, grateful that she could enter a code that would open the garage door and grant her entry into the house since she’d left her purse in the war room.
She didn’t look back. As the garage door rose, she ducked under it and hurried to the door that would take her into her kitchen. She punched the button to close the garage door and then headed for the bathroom where she fell to the floor in front of the toilet and threw up.
She felt as if she was purging all the rage and grief that had been buried inside her for so long. Tears blurred her vision as she continued to be sick.
She hated Bob, not just for the crimes he’d committed but for what he’d done to her. He’d forced her back into a darkness she’d thought she’d escaped long ago. More than anything, she hated him for making her appear weak in front of her team.
When she was finally finished being sick, she pulled herself to her feet, brushed her teeth and then went back into the living room and curled up on the sofa with the television on.
Tomorrow she’d be strong. Tomorrow she would be the kind of agent she needed to be, but right now she needed to deal with the fact that despite Alex’s warnings to her, Bob had gotten into her head and brought up memories she needed to banish from her mind forever.
* * *
THE AFTERNOON CREPT BY slowly with Alexander’s thoughts split between the case and the broken woman he’d dropped off earlier. He’d never seen Georgina so shattered and he worried that the conversation with their perp had pushed her over an edge he hadn’t realized existed inside her.
He now knew why Georgina had never wanted to share anything of her past with him. He now recognized that she had demons inside her he couldn’t begin to understand.
“Kind of a coincidence that the phone was found not far from where our kooky reporter lives,” Matt said, pulling Alex back to the work at hand.
“He admitted freely that he’d been to all the crime scenes,” Frank added. “Maybe he’s our perp hiding in plain sight.”
“Maybe,” Alex replied absently. “Two things I think we can agree that we learned from the conversation Georgina had with Bob. The first is that he probably grew up in the swamps. He talked about blowing darts at gators when he was young. The second thing is that I think he’s probably well educated.”
“Pedestrian isn’t a word that normally flows from a thug’s mouth,” Terry replied. “Hell, I went to college and I’ve never used that word in a conversa
tion in my life.”
Nicholas walked through the door and Alexander suddenly realized the man had been missing for several hours. “Where in the hell have you been?” he demanded.
“I told everyone I was going to lunch,” Nicholas replied defensively.
Alexander looked at his watch and then back at the dark-haired agent. “Since when do we get four-hour lunches around here?”
Nicholas’s complexion took on a red cast. “I was only at lunch for half an hour. Then I got a call from a snitch who thought he had some information for us about this case, so I agreed to meet with him.”
“And?”
“And the little jerk didn’t have anything for me, he just wanted to see if I’d flip him a twenty. It was a waste of my time. What did I miss here?”
“Frank, fill him in,” Alexander said and headed for the door. He walked down the hallway to the bathroom and once inside he sluiced cold water on his face and then dried off with a paper towel.
For just a moment as he’d faced Nicholas, he was too angry for words. He knew the younger agent had a reputation as being a lone wolf and had a desire to make a name for himself amid the ranks.
But Alexander had little use for somebody like that on this case. The task force was a unit that would function best as a single entity, with everyone knowing what everyone else was doing and learning.
He frowned at his reflection in the mirror. Had Nicholas ever been present when Georgina had received a call from Bob? No, Nicholas had always been absent when the calls came in.
Crazy. The thoughts that whirled through his mind were crazy. There was no way Nicholas could be responsible for the phone calls to Georgina. Alexander was definitely entertaining crazy thoughts.
He tossed the towel into the trash and then left the bathroom and returned to the war room, his anger back under control.
“Just a word to all of you,” he said, although his focus was on Nicholas. “We are a team here and we work together as a team. I’ve assigned you all a partner and anything you’re doing your partner should know about. No exceptions, got it?”
The men all murmured their assent and everyone got back to their assigned jobs. Alexander sat down and opened the folder he carried everywhere with him. It contained all the reports and photos from the previous disappearances and everything that the task force had done in this investigation.
He’d gotten word from the lab that none of the food that had been in Jackson’s refrigerator had been tainted by anything, a point that didn’t matter now that Bob had confessed how he’d taken his victims. Tranquilizer darts—it made sense given the fact that none of the victims had appeared to have had an opportunity to fight back.
“Tim and Jeff, focus in on all buildings that are near the swamps in the area. My gut says this guy will stay where things are familiar to him. Nicholas and Frank, focus in on any murders that occurred within the last ten years or so around the swamp areas. If he killed his parents at the old homestead, then I have a feeling that homestead is swampland.”
“You know it’s possible their murder was never reported,” Jeff said. “Those swamp people are a tight-knit group that have little to do with law enforcement. Our perp might have killed his parents and fed their bodies to the gators.”
“At this point anything is possible. Check missing persons reports during that time period. Surely somebody would notice if two people just went missing,” Alex said.
Once again the room grew silent except for the clicking of computer keys. Alex stared down at the folder open in front of him. The photo that stared back at him was Macy’s.
There was no question in his mind that Georgina had put herself through a terrible hell in an effort to please Bob enough that he would agree to release the little girl.
The bastard. His chest filled with pain as he thought of what Georgina had shared, as he realized how difficult it must have been for her to go back to such a horrendous time in her life, to dredge up memories that should have stayed buried deep in her mind.
Secrets. He’d always known she had secrets. He just hadn’t realized they involved childhood abuse and neglect. There was no question that it bothered him more than a little bit that she would give that piece of herself to a killer, but had never shared any of it with him throughout their marriage.
He wondered how she was doing. He’d never seen her so pale, so sickly looking in all the time he’d known her. He reached a hand to his pocket for his phone and then dismissed the idea of calling her.
She’d made it clear what she needed from him, and a check-in call wouldn’t be considered appropriate under her conditions. Still, he couldn’t help the worry that weighed on him as he thought of her at home all alone with only her demons as company.
“I’ve been checking Roger Cambridge and Michelle Davison since they’ve both been around the college in the last week,” Frank said. “And I found a connection between the two of them that probably means nothing.”
“What kind of connection?” Alexander asked, grateful for anything that would keep his mind focused on work and not on Georgina.
“It’s weak, but they both took the same class in college, a class called Inside the Killer’s Mind: Aberrant Behavior through Case Studies. It’s taught by Professor Jacob Tanner.”
“He was in front of Georgina and me in line at the book signing for Michelle,” Alexander said and then frowned. “But I didn’t pay much attention to him.” Unfortunately he’d been far more focused on the author and her boyfriend than the man in line in front of him.
“I’ll check in with Professor Tanner tomorrow. Maybe he can give me some insight into his former students,” Alexander said.
“If Georgina isn’t available to tag along with you tomorrow, I’d be happy to,” Nicholas said.
“I’ll decide who is going where in the morning,” Alexander replied. He hoped that Georgina would be back, that today hadn’t completely shattered her not only personally but professionally as well.
It was just after eight when he finally dismissed the team. After the room had emptied, Alexander remained, his mind trying to process everything that had occurred in the past eight hours.
Maybe Professor Tanner would be able to give them some insight into Michelle and Roger Dodger, the wonder reporter, some insight that might indicate whether either of them had the potential to be a killer.
It would be nice if Professor Tanner could provide an easy solve to this complicated case, but Alexander didn’t hold out much hope for that.
The swamp reference had definitely been a lead to follow, but there were plenty of swamps in and around Baton Rouge. It could take weeks...months to check every building for the missing people.
And he wasn’t sure he wanted Georgina taking any more of the creep’s phone calls. It had gotten to her today. She’d given up too much of herself, sacrificed a piece of her soul in an effort to negotiate with Bob.
He had no idea if she’d be any use to the team now or not, but what concerned him more was her emotional well-being. He had a feeling she’d only shared a taste from the plate of horror that had been her childhood. How much more she must have gnawing holes deep inside her soul.
It was after nine when he finally left the FBI building with the need to drive around for a while and process everything the day had brought.
At least Georgina hadn’t sacrificed herself for nothing. They now believed the man had been born and raised around the swamps and that somehow, some way, he’d become educated beyond what would be expected from a spawn of the swamp.
Either he was a self-educated person or he’d had some schooling additional to high school. Words were Michelle Davison’s business. Roger appeared to be a fairly well-educated man. So neither of them could be taken off their list of suspects. He just had a feeling that neither of them were guilty of these crimes.
&
nbsp; Of course, he knew Michelle hadn’t physically carried out the kidnappings, but her boyfriend, Jax, would have been able to commit the crimes at her bidding or even unbeknownst to her.
He drove for about half an hour and was somehow unsurprised when he found himself pulling into Georgina’s street. Darkness had fallen and he told himself he had no intention of stopping in to see her. He just needed to drive by her house and make himself feel better.
As he approached her house, his headlights fell on her front lawn where two people appeared to be fighting. He stopped his car, pulled his gun and got out. “Halt!” he yelled.
One of the figures froze, while the other fell to the ground. The one standing turned and ran and Alexander raced forward. From a nearby streetlight, he saw that it was Georgina on the ground.
“Go,” she gasped. “I’m fine, just go catch him.”
Alexander hesitated only a moment and then ran in the direction her attacker had gone. His heart beat frantically as a dog barked in the distance. He couldn’t think about what might have happened had he not arrived at the scene when he did. He couldn’t think about anything but catching whoever had attacked Georgina.
Still, what he wanted and reality were two different things. The darkness of the night played in the attacker’s favor and the attacker had enough of a head start on Alexander that by the time he reached the next corner, he didn’t know which way to go.
He stopped and listened. The only sound he heard was the frantic beat of his own heart. No footfalls, no crackling of brush or any new barks to indicate which direction the man had run.
He was gone, swallowed up by the night. With both frustration and worry boiling inside him, Alexander turned and hurried back down the sidewalk toward Georgina’s house.
BATON ROUGE Page 9
