Rainey stood and walked to the door. She gave Katie a hug and a kiss, and then said, “I’ll come up in a bit. I have one more email to send.”
“Okay, don’t stay up all night. You need some sleep.” Katie yawned again, before saying, “Goodnight, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Katie went off to bed. It was now after two a.m. They had talked for the better part of an hour, after Rainey returned from a quick shower and a change of clothes. Rainey outlined everything she knew, from the writer preparing her character assassination, Mackie’s condition, the risky surgery, hearing her father’s voice, Ernie’s warning, and the feeling she was being watched and not by the stalker. Rainey restated her belief that Cookie Kutter was involved in the blog, and how she hoped to catch her, or someone who worked for her, on the security cameras at the hospital. She told of Danny’s forced betrayal and the leaked Grand Jury testimony. Rainey admitted she felt evil lurking, more malignant than a photographer posting pictures or a writer telling tales. Katie listened, promised to be more aware than usual of her interactions outside the home, and then told Rainey what she needed to hear.
“If you think someone is out there plotting your demise, then I believe you. Do what you have to do to keep us safe. I’ll do as you ask.”
That was hard for a strong-willed, free-spirited woman like Katie. They had survived two serial killers together, but it was a struggle to get Katie to listen in the beginning. Katie Meyers was determined not to let what happened to her affect the way she lived her life. She would not raise children in a house filled with paranoia and fear. Rainey had to explain it really had nothing to do with living a fearless life and was more about surviving to live it. After their last brush with death, Katie tended to follow the security procedures Rainey set out for them without fail. She still thought Rainey was paranoid, but not nearly as much as she did before.
Rainey sat down to write her final email. She already sent one to her stepfather about Mackie’s protection detail, and one to the security company office alerting them to a possible threat. She could not describe the threat to either John or the security company. Unsure of what or whom she was up against, she kept her concerns vague. She also sent a message asking Brooks to tweak the software she designed, which searched twenty-four hours a day for any mention of Rainey on the Web. Her former job as a criminal mind-hunter made Rainey a target for twisted individuals out there fixated on the Behavioral Analysis Unit members. It was common to find reams of information about the unit and their work in a serial offender’s home. Rainey needed to know if one of them was focused on her.
Now, the last message had to be written. She held off on this one until the end, not wanting to write it, but knowing she had to. She opened the encrypted email program to insure privacy. This message was for Danny McNally’s eyes only, and only he would have the key to open it.
“Danny,” she began. “I’ve thought long about how to broach this subject, but I find no way other than directly. Your Grand Jury testimony in the Chambers case has been leaked. Martin Douglas Cross, the writer, will be publishing quotes from that testimony in his new book about me.”
She stopped typing and looked across the desk at a picture of Danny and his Godchildren, Rainey’s children. It was taken at the triplets’ birthday party, which he flew in to attend. His goofy grin was so wide, his eyes were forced into smiling slits. Katie had framed the photo and placed it on the desk. Danny had Rainey’s back since they joined the BAU together, nearly twelve years ago. He had seen her at her most exposed. Had he betrayed her? She could not know for sure without reading all the testimony, which was unlikely to happen. Marty might be able to get his hands on it, but no one was going to give that testimony to Rainey willingly.
With a heavy heart, she typed, “I know I put you in the position to have to testify to what you heard me say to and about Dalton. You tried to warn me the day would come when you would be forced to tell the truth. I admire your integrity. You were correct in your testimony. Under the right circumstances, I would have killed Dalton Chambers. Still, the fact remains, those circumstances did not arise. Chauncey Barber confessed, and is serving life without parole for Dalton’s murder. As you told me before, if I were involved, I left a mile-wide trail right back to my door. I believe you said it was the smartest or dumbest thing I had ever done.”
Rainey selected her words for the next paragraph carefully. Encrypted or not, the only safe communication was face to face in a listening device free environment, a luxury she did not have at the moment.
“No one would believe I was that reckless. No one, but Detective Rex King, who has a deep desire to see me rot in prison; author Martin Douglas Cross, who, as it turns out, I should have at least wounded enough to scare into never crossing my path a second time; a certain blond journalist named after a kitchen utensil that my wife would like to punch again; and possibly you, my friend. My position is still the same. If Chauncey Barber did murder Dalton Chambers because of some kindness I showed him, then bless his heart. I did not personally order a hit. Call it semantics if you will, but those are the facts. Read up on Henry Plantagenet and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This story has several parallels, but you’re not going to find me wailing at the altar wearing a hair shirt.”
That was as close as Rainey could come to telling Danny the truth. As she had just discovered, if placed on the stand and under oath, Danny would reveal what she said. She moved on to the second reason for her email.
“There was one more piece of information from Mr. Cross that I think you should be interested in. He brought up Michael Paul Perry, insinuating that people were talking about the incident, and implicating me in his death. Either he’s bluffing, or you have a misinformed leak in the unit. I know we did what we did out of respect for the boy’s family, but if this blows up, you and the Bureau will be forced to make a statement. I was following orders from way above my pay grade, as were you. I won’t remain silent and take the fall by myself. You might want to let the powers that be know that. I suggest you find out if anyone has been looking at that case and with whom that information may have been shared.”
Rainey almost forgot to mention Mackie’s situation and added it as a final note.
“Mackie was hit in the vest tonight with a .44 at close range. He suffered the usual resulting injuries, but had a heart attack later in the hospital. He’ll undergo bypass surgery as soon as he is deemed stable enough. I’ll be tied up with him for a few days. We’ll chat about all this when he is out of the woods.”
She closed with her standard, “Your friend, always, Rainey,” attached a new picture of his godchildren, and sent the message.
After shutting down the computer, Rainey stood and walked to the window. Her office was at the rear of the house, with a view of the backyard. The moon was in the waning of its cycle, with only a sliver of light reflecting down to earth. Here, in her little fortress, Rainey felt safe most of the time, but tonight she had let the evil follow her home. She sensed it out there, watching. Rainey closed the blinds and went to the bookshelf she brought from the old house at the lake. It had been her father’s and still contained memorabilia from his soldier days. It also held a secret, one where Rainey broke one of Katie’s rules. A thick volume of Shakespeare’s Complete Works rested on the middle shelf. Only it wasn’t a book at all. It was an empty shell concealing a small, snub-nosed, .38 revolver that belonged to her father. Rainey verified it was still there and in working order.
She left the office to check the window and door locks, stopping in the foyer to scan through the camera images on the wall-mounted security panel hidden behind a hinged painting. One more check of the alarm system to see that all the indicator lights glowed green ensured the security net was solidly cast around her family. Satisfied that she had done all she could do, Rainey climbed the stairs to the master suite.
As she reached the first landing, Rainey was drawn to the large arched window that looked out over the backy
ard. She stopped and stared into the night, out beyond the thick brick security wall with its heavy iron gate. The wall was imposing, but not impassable. Night vision cameras would capture the image of someone scaling the wall or tampering with the gate. Motion detectors would sound the alarm and lights would blare down on anyone stepping a toe into the net laid out over her property. Everyone in the neighborhood knew when someone violated Rainey’s safe space. It caused a clamor at one of the neighborhood association meetings, but Katie handled that with ease.
One neighbor expressed fear that if Rainey felt the need for that much security, what kind of element might she attract to the area?
Katie stood up and replied, “You live in a community behind iron gates and armed guards. You call once a week about some suspicious email you’ve received, wanting Rainey to check it out. Might we also be concerned about the people of whom you are afraid?”
The neighborhood quieted down about Rainey’s presence after that. Some neighbors even hired her to help with security plans for their homes and families. She identified a stalker for a frightened woman, helping her take the appropriate legal steps and security measures. More than one neighborly wife or husband had approached her, wanting a wayward spouse caught on camera during an extramarital dalliance. Rainey did not do that type of private investigating. She had enough business without stooping to long nights of surveillance outside hotels and strip clubs.
Beyond the backyard, Rainey could see the thick woods that led to the shore of the lake. Anyone could be in there watching her search the blackness for movement. She was sure that some of the photos of her family had been taken from the higher limbs of one of those trees. The hair began to stand up on Rainey’s neck and arms. Danger was in the air. Cliff was right. There was great disturbance in the force.
“Dad,” Rainey whispered, “if you can hear me, I need more clues.”
“Get some sleep so you can understand the clues,” Katie said from the top of the stairs, in a ghostly voice.
Rainey turned quickly to see Katie holding sleeping Timothy against her shoulder.
“He was restless,” she said, still patting the baby’s back unconsciously. “Come on, we’ll take him to bed with us.”
Rainey smiled and bounded up the stairs. “Here, I’ll take him,” she said, holding her arms out to take her son.
Katie handed the baby over to Rainey, and then steered them all toward the third floor master suite. “Honey,” she said, patting Rainey on the back now, “we’ll be okay. It’s like you say, you’re not paranoid, just prepared. I know you’ll keep us safe.”
Rainey looked down at the precious babe in her arms, the smallest of the boys. “I know why my father was so vigilant with me now. The thought of something happening to one our children—I don’t know, Katie—I really do think I could commit murder if someone threatened them.”
Katie smiled up at Rainey and said matter-of-factly, “You’ll have to get in line.”
#
Her cellphone ringing startled Rainey out of a dead-tired sleep. She felt like she had just closed her eyes, but the clock on the bedside table said it was five minutes before six a.m. Three hours of sleep was better than none, she supposed. Fearing something had happened to Mackie, she frantically felt for the phone.
“Hello,” she said, not even pausing to see who was calling.
“Rainey, this is Sheila. I’m so sorry to call this early, but this could not wait.”
Sergeant Detective Sheila Robertson, of the Durham County Criminal Investigation Division, was an old friend and a frequent colleague. Their most recent endeavor together was as members of the missing women’s task force. If she was calling this early, it could not be good news.
“Hang on, Shelia. Let me get where I can talk.” Rainey rolled out bed and started for the bathroom, hoping Katie could settle Timothy, who woke with the ringing of the phone, back down for a few more minutes rest. Once she was behind the closed bathroom door, Rainey said into the phone, “Okay, what’s up?”
“We have a body,” Sheila began. “I need you at the scene.”
“I don’t know if you heard about Mackie, but I have to go back to the hospital in about an hour. Do you think you can do this one without me?”
Rainey looked in the mirror at her tired eyes and wild hair. It was still slightly damp when she removed it from the ponytail before falling asleep. She was now blessed with a bride of Frankenstein hairstyle, which would require another shower and some heavy conditioning to bring under control.
Sheila brought her back to the conversation with, “No, Rainey. You really have to come out here.”
“Out where? What is it, Shelia? You sound shaken.”
“I am, Rainey, and you will be too. Look out your back window.”
#
Rainey stood under bright portable lights provided by the Medical Examiner’s office. Still wearing the tee shirt she slept in, she had jammed a baseball cap over her mop of hair, thrown on some jeans, jumped into her boots, and grabbed her coat on the way out of the house. She arrived still warm from recently being cuddled with Katie and Timothy. It did not take long for the cold to seep into her bones upon seeing the body of a young woman deposited in the woods behind her house. It was obvious, from the condition of the body and the ground beneath it, that this was a fresh body dump, no more than a few hours old.
“This guy is a freakin’ animal,” a uniformed cop said over Rainey’s shoulder.
Sheila shooed him away. “Go string some more crime scene tape or something, but do it away from here.” The officer moved on, while Sheila mumbled under her breath, “Chatham County rookie.”
Rainey’s house was in Chatham County, making it not a Durham County problem, but someone notified the multi-county task force. Sheila had been dispatched to see if this was one of the missing women. No ordinary homicide, this was the work of a sadistic sexual killer, an offender type with which Rainey was all too familiar.
“We’re going to need to put that hair in some kind of containment device, if I’m going to let you get closer to the body,” a diminutive, salt-and-pepper haired, bespectacled woman said, while smiling up at Rainey.
If she had not been wearing gloves and the protective clothing of a medical examiner, Dr. Helen Wood might have been mistaken for a dainty little grandmother. Rainey had worked with Dr. Wood before. Her presence indicated the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had already been notified. From what Rainey could see of the body at a distance, she was very glad the esteemed pathologist was present.
Rainey dug in her coat’s many pockets. “I’ve got a tieback in here somewhere.” She stumbled on the note left for her last night. “Oh, here Sheila. You’re going to need an evidence bag. I suspect the UNSUB in the rape cases left this in my coat last night. See if anyone has video of Wiley Trainer’s vehicle while I was inside the house.”
Dr. Wood shook her head. “Trouble finds you, Rainey Bell.”
Rainey put the note in Sheila’s gloved hand and continued looking for a hairband, answering, “Yes, it seems to.”
Discovering one in the breast pocket, she pulled the band around the bush attached to her skull, calming it into a more manageable ponytail, and tucked it under the collar of her coat. She added latex gloves handed her by Dr. Wood’s assistant, pulled a flashlight from her pocket, and signaled the doctor that she was ready to enter her crime scene. Dr. Wood, satisfied that Rainey wasn’t going to shed all over the body, took a step forward, beckoning Rainey and Sheila to follow. She pointed at the lividity staining under the victim’s skin.
“She was definitely dumped here. And you’re going to find this very interesting. She was frozen, probably some time ago. I can’t be sure until we get test results, but she still has ice crystals in her core. She must have been frozen in this position.”
Rainey examined the body for clues, and there were many. She was naked, head shaved, and posed with her hands still tied behind her back, ankles bound, slumped to the
side. The position and mud on her knees indicated he left her kneeling, face pressed into the mud, buttocks raised in the air, exposing the damage done by the remaining oversized phallus protruding from her rectum. Rainey agreed with Dr. Wood, he had frozen her in that pose. As her body thawed, it fell over, ruining his art. Rainey had seen this type of presentation before. He was displaying his work like a sculpture, drawing the eye of the beholder to the horror first.
Signs of brutal torture were evident from her ankles to the ligature still positioned around her neck. There was hardly a place on her body without trauma. Rainey could not see the victim’s face, as it was still partially submerged in the mud, but she was sure he did not leave it untouched. She started talking aloud for Sheila’s benefit, but softly, so the curious and untrained would not hear details that should remain guarded for the moment.
“This level of bruising and injury does not look like a single beating. These were multiple attacks over time, possibly weeks, or months.”
Dr. Wood concurred, “Don’t quote me yet, until I can evaluate the tissue samples, but I think you are correct. There is healing evident around some of the lash marks, scarring, and old bruising. Poor girl went through hell for an extended period.”
Rainey squatted behind the body, intrigued by a bite mark on the victim’s buttock. “I know you haven’t done a thorough exam, but have you seen any other bite marks?”
“No, but her breasts are badly bruised and with lividity, it’s hard to tell,” Dr. Wood replied. “We’ve already taken pictures of that one. I think we’ll be able to get a good dental match, if you find a suspect.”
Rainey looked at the bite mark closely. Struck by its familiarity, she pulled out her phone.
Sheila, put her hand on her arm. “Hey, the brass kind of frowns on personal pics at the crime scene. I’ll make sure you have a full set of official photos.”
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