Charley ran the tip of her tongue along her lips. Whatever happened between them, there was no denying the man was one hell of a kisser.
“Right,” she said in a voice that was deliberately light. “No more social calls to serial killers who dress up like women.” She raised her right hand as if taking an oath. “I promise.”
His eyebrows drew together over the bridge of his nose as he started the car. “Charley.” There was a warning note in his voice.
Charley stared at his profile. There was a little nerve winking in and out along his jawline. For the first time since this awful business had gone down tonight, she felt something akin to a smile budding.
It was with no small amount of glee that she came to her conclusion. “You care, don’t you?”
Nick kept his eyes straight ahead, fixed on the road they were traveling. “Yeah.”
Charley’s smile grew.
THE SEARCH WARRANT issued by a bleary-eyed Judge Monroe allowed them to return and methodically sift through the old Victorian house, all in the name of finding clues to “Alice Sullivan’s” true identity.
Sam, Bill and Jack looked more than a little surprised to see Charley return. It was taken for granted that Nick would drop her off at her apartment after they’d obtained the search warrant. They all thought she’d been through more than her share tonight.
Sam spoke up first. “What are you doing back?” he asked. His eyes shifted from Charley to Nick. The accusation was unspoken but clear.
Nick spread his hands. “Don’t look at me. I wanted to take her home. You guys know better than I do how pigheaded she can be.”
“You’ve got one get-out-of-jail card, Brannigan, and you just used it.” She put a pair of latex gloves on. “Got my second wind,” Charley told Sam, answering his question. “Besides, I won’t be able to sleep tonight anyway. Not until I get a clue about who or what that lowlife is.”
“Whoever he is, it’s pretty clear he—or she—had a crush on you,” Sam said. The observation brought him a swipe at the back of the head from Charley.
Staying out of hitting range, Bill lifted his shoulders in an elaborate shiver. “To think, we worked with her-him-whatever for two years.”
“Four,” Charley corrected. “You joined the team late,” she pointed out. “‘Alice’ became the A.D.’s secretary when Mrs. MacGuire retired. ‘She’ was hand-picked out of the data-processing pool for ‘her’ efficiency.”
Jack laughed, shaking his head. “Think how he must feel now, knowing the killer was right under his nose all the time. It’s got to get to a guy. Even a guy like Kelly.”
“Well, there’s an upside to that, I guess,” Charley observed.
All four men looked at her incredulously.
Bill put it into a single demanding word. “What?”
Charley smiled. “At least his wife’ll know that he’s not the type to fool around with his secretary.”
“Not unless he’s got god-awful taste,” Bill commented.
Charley made no reply. She was focused on the bookcase in the rear of the room. She went toward it now, intent on retrieving the rectangular box in the center drawer.
She got as far as putting her hand on the drawer before Nick moved in, putting himself in the way. Charley raised her eyes to his in a mute query, confused about what he was up to.
He looked at her meaningfully. “Let me do it,” he said quietly.
And then she understood. If he was the one who uncovered the box of souvenirs the killer had collected, there would be no question of prior knowledge. She had gone through the drawer without a warrant. A clever lawyer would get that out of her and have the evidence thrown out of court. Since she hadn’t actually told Nick where the souvenirs were kept, he wouldn’t be guilty of introducing tainted evidence.
Charley lifted her hand from the drawer and then stepped back.
Nick opened the drawer. Very carefully, he took out the rectangular white tray. Once he set it on the coffee table, he examined its contents.
Inside the tray, neatly arranged were thirteen crosses, each still on its chain, each inhabiting a tiny cubicle of equal proportions.
Nick shut the box again. “We’ve got everything we need right here,” he told the others. “Even without a confession.”
Kneeling before the fireplace, Bill glanced in their direction just before his gloved hands came in contact with something hard and metallic lodged inside the chimney. “I think I’ve got something,” he announced.
Using both hands, he grasped the hidden object and gave it a hard yank. Dirt and debris rained down into the hearth, creating a cloud of dust that took a moment to subside. In the cloud’s wake a rectangular metal box came clattering down.
The fall broke the lock and the lid popped open. Photographs and papers came spilling out like so many escapees from a prison.
“Eureka, I believe the man said,” Bill muttered in wonder as he stared down at the treasure trove.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHARLEY DIDN’T WANT to waste any time getting to the photographs within the box. She had Nick drive her to the field office while Jack and Bill drove her car back. A cold chill kept roaming along her back as she viewed captured images from the serial killer’s past. There weren’t all that many, but enough to give her a feel for the life he had led.
He was a thin, sad-eyed boy. There were photographs of him alone and him with a dour-faced older woman.
Probably his mother, Charley thought. The woman looked as if she might have once been pretty, but the expression on her face negated that. For all intents and purposes, she was a caricature of a strict headmistress out of an old melodrama.
Then there were the half pictures. Photographs with pieces missing where another person might have been standing. Except in one case.
“This was a time bomb, looking to go off,” she commented.
When stopped at a light, Nick glanced over. Charley held up the photograph she was looking at. It was of the serial killer as a teenager. He was standing on one side of someone, with the woman who was most probably his mother standing on the other side. The figure in the middle had no head. That piece of the photograph had been ripped away. What remained had sustained multiple holes delivered by most likely a pencil. It looked as if the body had been stabbed repeatedly.
Charley angled the photo, trying to discern as much as she could about the mystery figure in the middle. He was wearing a black suit jacket, black pants and she could just make out something white around the neck region. Maybe a collar?
She had a feeling she was looking at the killer’s father. “The guy might have been a minister.”
Nick took his foot off the brake. He laughed drily. “Either that, or he was an umpire.”
There had been a great deal of anger dispensed on the man’s image. “From the looks of it, he certainly struck out with our ‘suspect.’”
Charley all but spit out the last word. Suspect. That was the technical, noncommittal term they were all supposed to use. There was no way in hell that the man the team had taken into custody was a mere “suspect.” With all due respect to their judicial system, she thought darkly, “Alice Sullivan” or “John Doe” as he had now become since he refused to give them his real name, was the inhuman monster who had cut short the lives of fourteen women and had ruined countless other lives as well. Lives that would never be put back together again.
There was no one else out on the road at this time of the evening. Nick slowed so that he could gaze at her for more than half a heartbeat. And then he smiled. “Nice work, Special Agent Dow. You got your man.”
For reasons she didn’t have the luxury to delve into right now, when Nick uttered the last phrase, her mind focused, however briefly, on him.
The next moment, she managed to tear her thoughts away and back on target. “Thanks,” she murmured. “Wouldn’t be here without you.”
He didn’t rub it in, the way she knew he could have. Instead, all Nick said was, “What a
re partners for?” making her wonder if he was up to something, or if the job had gotten to her and she was being paranoid.
WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES of finding the box of photographs, Charley had the entire task force assembled in the field office in a conference room. The photographs along the back wall bore silent witness to the proceedings. Charley couldn’t help glancing at the first photograph in the lineup before addressing the team.
We got him, Cris. We got the bastard.
Turning toward the team members, she dove in. They had a lot to do but, for once, it was with the full knowledge that they had gotten who they were after. And that the women in Southern California didn’t have to look at their calendars in fear as Sunday approached.
“Okay, I want copies made of these and distributed.” She dropped the box onto her desk. “I want several different photographs released to the press.” She picked up two that she had deposited right on top. “Like this one of our killer when he was a teenager, or this one, standing in front of the church. Maybe someone seeing it will remember him and/or the church.” She pushed the box toward Bill, who had originally discovered it, and Sam. Her meaning was clear. “I want a photograph taken of our John Doe after someone cleans him up and takes that awful makeup off him.” She reached for the box just as Bill was taking it. He looked at her quizzically. “Publish that photograph of the mother, too.”
Sam frowned, taking the photograph out. He shuddered in response to the woman’s expression. “We sure that’s his mother?”
Charley shook her head. “We’re not sure of anything, but we will be,” she promised. “Somebody has to recognize him.” She looked around at the faces of the people surrounding her desk. It didn’t look like enough for the avalanche that might ensue. “We might need extra people on the phones, but I want every single lead tracked down. Sam—” she turned to the man on her left “—I want his alter ego traced. Maybe there is or was an Alice Sullivan. Use the social security number our human resources department has on file and track down any past income-tax filings. See how far back they go.”
She leaned against her desk, exhausted but utterly wired at the same time. “Maybe we can find out what happened to the real Alice Sullivan. Or at least her point of origin. Who knows, she might somehow lead us to whoever is in our holding cell right now.”
As the task force members broke up to follow instructions, Nick moved next to her. With his body blocking direct view of her from the others, he lowered his voice and asked, “Don’t you think maybe you should get some rest?”
There was a time when she would have taken his suggestion as an insult, a slam against her stamina and capabilities. But instead, something warmed within her. Nick was just watching out for her like any good partner would.
“I appreciate the concern, Brannigan. But this is really a lot better than rest.” She smiled. “Besides, I’m so wound up now, if I lay down, I’d probably spin like a top.”
“I’d pay to see that.”
“Hold on to your money,” she advised and then winked. “Maybe next time.” She moved away from her desk and opened the bottom drawer to retrieve her purse. “But I do have to go somewhere. I’ll be back in an hour.”
For a moment, he debated whether or not he should intrude. Concern got the better of diplomacy. “Want me to drive?”
“Thanks, but I need everyone else working on this. I need you to go through ‘Alice’s’ computer, see if there’s anything there we can use.” She set her mouth grimly. “There might be more bodies we don’t even know about. It wasn’t as if the Sunday Killer had an ego thing going.”
Nick nodded. “I’m on it.”
She paused for a second to look first at the row of victims’ photographs on the wall, then around the room at the activity that was underway. God, but she felt like cheering.
“We’re finally hot, people,” she cried. A number of faces turned her way. All seemed relieved that the ordeal was finally coming to an end.
Nick caught her eye just before she walked out. “My thoughts exactly.”
There was something in his tone, in his look, that made her feel with a fair amount of certainty that he wasn’t talking about the case. A thrill rippled through her. She didn’t bother banking it down. She felt too good to even try.
“Yeah,” she responded.
As she turned on her heel, the excitement she felt continued to vibrate through her, giving no indication that there was an end in sight.
CHARLEY STOOD on the porch. Shifting, she heard it creak beneath her feet. For the first time in a very long while, she was tempted to use her key. To insert it into the lock, turn the doorknob and just walk into the house where she had grown up. To keep walking until she was inside her father’s bedroom. When he woke up to look at her, she’d tell him the news. Tell it to him the way she had envisioned and dreamed of doing all these many years.
In a way, it still felt like a dream.
Except that she knew it was real. Her scalp still hurt where “Alice” had pulled her hair.
Charley took her hand out of her pocket, leaving the key there, and rang the doorbell.
When Christopher Dow finally came to the door, his eyes bleary, his white hair divided into peaks and tufts that bore silent testimony to the fitful way he tossed and turned each night, his mood was far from the best.
“What do you want?” he growled angrily at his daughter, not bothering to open the door any further than it already was.
Some things never changed. He always was a bear when he woke up, Charley thought. “I came to tell you before you read it in the paper.”
“Tell me what?” he snapped. And then he stopped and stared at her. His eyes widened. The next words out of his mouth came in a whisper. “You got him.”
Everything within Charley smiled except for her lips. “We got him.”
“You’re sure?” The question was almost timidly uttered.
She knew her father. The man was cautious to the nth degree, never wanting to venture out on the side of optimism unless it was guaranteed. They’d already had one false alarm a number of years ago, when she and the task force had thought they had the right man, only to suffer the disappointment of discovering, a number of days later, that they didn’t.
That time had taught her. From then on, she never gave any indication of how the case was going. But now she could. For his sake. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”
Her father scrubbed a hand over his face, still afraid to absorb the information. The scratchy sound of flesh meeting stubble whispered between them.
“And he’ll pay?”
“He’ll pay,” she promised.
Only then did her father take a step back, silently inviting her into the house. When she made no move, he asked, “Do you want to come in?”
Charley shook her head. “I can’t. There’s still a lot to do. I’ve got to be getting back.” She was already moving away from the door. “I just wanted you to know.”
Her father nodded and she took that as her cue to turn away. But she’d only taken a few steps toward her vehicle when he called out to her.
“Charlotte.”
Charley stopped and turned only her head, looking at her father over her shoulder. “Yes?”
It took him a moment to form the words. There was a sea of emotion in the way and he was a man who refused to display any. But even so, Charley could see tears in his eyes.
“You did good.”
Charley smiled for the first time. It burst free from deep within her. “Thanks.”
Her smile grew as she hurried back to her vehicle.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“WE’VE GOT A HIT.”
It was less than twelve hours later. Twelve hours of exhaustive, nonstop work. The only personal time Charley had allowed herself, other than her visit to her father, was a phone call to David to tell him the good news. Her brother had been overjoyed, displaying all the emotion that their father had not.
But once she’d gotte
n off the telephone with David, she’d worked along with the other members of the task force, trying to come up with a further lead. And trying, too, to discover how something like this could have happened in the first place.
The answer to that was easy enough once they had “Alice’s” computer. Not the one at the Bureau’s field office, but the laptop from the house. The person who had been Assistant Director Kelly’s secretary for four years was an excellent computer hacker. Forging the necessary documents and background references had been a walk in the park for him.
“I went back ten years,” Nick told her. “According to the back taxes filed with the Internal Revenue Service, there was an Alice Sullivan with that social security number living in the Bakersfield area.” He checked the notes he’d made. The resourcefulness of the criminally insane never ceased to amaze him. “Ten years ago, the real Alice Sullivan was working as a secretary for a Reverend Sykes in Beaumont, a small town of about three thousand people located right outside of Bakersfield.”
Charley’s mouth dropped open. A reverend. Like the decapitated figure in the photograph.
They’d been right.
The pieces were all coming together to form a whole.
Charley was on her feet immediately. There were answers that were best gotten firsthand. “You and I are going to Beaumont,” she told Nick.
“Funny,” he said, following from the room, “I had someplace a little more exotic in mind for our first getaway together.”
He was probably kidding, Charley thought, but just in case, she tossed the word “rain check” over her shoulder as she hurried out.
SHE CLEARED the trip with Kelly via cell phone on the way to the airport. Eager to put this behind him, the assistant director gave her no argument about expenses. Charley was counting on that.
The Bakersfield airport was less than forty-five minutes away by plane. Kelly had arranged for a car to be waiting for them as soon as they landed. Gassed and ready, the 2002 navy-blue sedan came equipped with a navigator as well as maps of the area. No one wanted to waste any more time. It was almost a race now to get all their ducks in a row before the media pounced on the latest developments.
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