The FBI Profiler Series 6-Book Bundle

by Lisa Gardner

  She hung up the phone. Rain ran off her short hair and splattered onto her T-shirt. She caught her reflection across the room, and was startled by the broad, pale lines of her face, the deep shadows hollowing out her rain-dampened cheeks. Her lips appeared bloodless. Her chestnut hair was spiky and wild. She looked like a punk rocker, she thought. Or maybe a vampire’s latest victim. She gazed at her own reflection, felt no kinship with that beat-up woman, and was nearly struck dumb by sheer exhaustion.

  Bethie had fought in the end. She’d seen her attacker and she’d tried desperately to escape. What did a woman feel in those last moments? Did the mind give you the luxury of feeling betrayed? Or was the terror only physical? Adrenaline and testosterone. Pure animal instinct to fight, to live, to breathe?

  When she was younger, she’d watched wild cats stalk field mice. The cat would catch the mouse in its mouth, then let it go. Then scoop it up, then let it go. And the mouse would squeak and squeak and squeak, first shrill, then, as the game wore on, with less and less volume. Until finally, even after being released, the mouse rolled over on its back and very clearly surrendered. Dying had become preferable to living. Maybe that was nature’s way of taking pity on the smaller members of the food chain.

  She thought of Mandy, willing to get drunk again even after those hard-fought months of AA, then willing to get behind the wheel without a working seat belt. She thought of Bethie and how after years of isolation she’d agreed to allow a strange man through her front door.

  Dying becomes preferable to living.

  Rainie got off the bed. She threw the last of the toiletries in her bag. Eleven P.M. Seven hours until liftoff, and two hours left to drive. Life’s a battle, she thought. Time to rejoin the war.

  Quincy’s House, Virginia

  Special Agent Glenda Rodman was curled up on the floor in a corner of the cologne-smelling office. Outside the wind howled. Rain scoured the windows. Trees beat against fellow trees. Thunder still growled ominously, but the lightning struck further and further apart.

  The alarm had shrieked five times, power punching in and out. Apparently, the backup system had not been properly wired. Every time the power failed, so did the alarm. She had the security company on speed dial now. Special Agent Montgomery was still nowhere to be found.

  While in the kitchen, the phone began to ring again and the answering machine picked up.

  “Death, death, death, kill, kill, kill, murder, murder, murder,” a voice sang. “Death, death, death, kill, kill, kill, murder, murder, murder. Hey Quincy, check your mailbox. I disemboweled that puppy, just for you. Death, death, death, kill, kill, kill, murder, murder, murder. Death, death, death, kill, kill, kill, murder, murder, murder. Death, death, death …”

  Glenda wrapped her arms around her knees. On the floor of the office, she rocked back and forth as the power went out again, and the state-of-the-art alarm system once more began to shriek.

  23

  Greenwich Village, New York City

  “Mace.”

  “Mace.”

  “Firearms?” Quincy asked.

  “I carry a Glock forty,” Rainie replied. “I have to check it, though. Private investigators don’t qualify to carry onboard.”

  Quincy nodded, then turned toward his daughter who was standing over her open suitcase, having just handed her father her canister of Mace.

  “I have a Glock, too,” Kimberly said, which caused her father to do a double take.

  “You have what?”

  “As long as you’re armed, you might as well be well-armed,” she replied seriously. “What can you really accomplish with a twenty-two?”

  Quincy raised a brow. He brought out his own pistol, a stainless steel 10mm Smith & Wesson, standard FBI issue. The Smith & Wesson held nine cartridges in the magazine plus one in the chamber. Clipped to his belt in a brown leather holder, he carried two additional magazines, giving him total access to thirty rounds. Firepower would not be a problem.

  “As the only person in this room qualified to carry on a plane,” he said, “I’ll cover us during transit. I’ll also take the Mace. Otherwise, pack up, Thelma and Louise. Upon arrival in Portland, I want you carrying at all times.”

  “I have to meet with Luke Hayes once we get to Portland,” Rainie said. “I can ask him if any of the deputies would like to moonlight as bodyguards. That would give us more coverage.”

  Kimberly’s face brightened at this suggestion, but Quincy shook his head. “Too conspicuous. Plus, I don’t think bodyguards will do us any good. He’s not going to strike long distance. Drive-by shootings, sniper fire, isn’t his style. He’ll create an elaborate ruse, something to get up close and personal. Bodyguards can’t protect you when you’re the one letting the UNSUB through the front door.”

  “Dr. Andrews said he’ll be someone I know,” Kimberly said quietly. “The man … the UNSUB, works on identifying what the victim needs or wants. Mandy always wanted someone to take care of her. Mom wanted Mandy. Me … I have an instinctive trust of anyone wearing a badge.”

  Quincy had been folding one of his daughter’s shirts. Now his hands stilled. He looked down at the blue-and-white-striped top as if he didn’t see it.

  “Kimberly …”

  “It’s not your fault, Dad. It’s not your fault.”

  Quincy finally nodded, though both Rainie and Kimberly could tell he didn’t believe her. He finished placing the shirt in the single duffel bag. It was a little after one in the morning. None of them had slept much in the last two days and they were working off a list to keep their minds functioning through a sleep-deprived haze.

  “What’s next?” Quincy asked.

  “Toiletries,” Kimberly announced. She went into her bathroom, and a moment later, they heard the clatter of the medicine cabinet as she started throwing things into a waterproof bag.

  “Did you meet with the private investigator?” Quincy asked Rainie under his breath, his gaze on the open bathroom door.

  “Yes. Nothing. You?”

  “They don’t know about the note yet. It’s a big crime scene; it will take the technicians several days to process everything. If I’m lucky, they’ll get to the note last.”

  “How can it be your handwriting? You didn’t write it!”

  “I don’t know, but that’s my handwriting. The loops, the slant, the dot over the I’s … He’s obviously been practicing.”

  “Isn’t there a way of telling that it’s forgery? Hesitation marks, something like that?”

  “Depends on how good he is. Depends on how good the handwriting analyst is. In all honesty, I doubt the forgery is perfect, but I also doubt that will help me in the end. All the UNSUB needs is an initial report that the handwriting appears to be mine. The Bureau will follow up, but by then I will also have been arrested, disarmed and discredited. This UNSUB is not only clever, but efficient. He knows just how half-assed he can be, and still get the job done. In a perverse way, I admire that.”

  Kimberly walked back into the bedroom. She tossed the plastic bag into the suitcase. “What’s next?”

  They didn’t have any items left on the list. They zipped up the small collection of bags and piled them by the door. In three hours, Rainie would drive them all to JFK airport where they would return her rental car and board the six A.M. flight to Portland. Outside the storm still raged and from time to time Quincy glanced nervously at the window. Rainie knew he didn’t care about thunder and lightning. He was extremely concerned, however, about their flight possibly being delayed.

  They huddled around the small kitchen table. Kimberly poured fresh cups of coffee, though they were already twitchy from too much caffeine. The roommate Bobby was gone. Quincy had suggested it might not be safe for him to be in the apartment either. Given the option between being terrified of every sound in his apartment or having unlimited sex at his girlfriend’s place, Bobby had decided to stay at his girlfriend’s. Bobby was a smart guy.

  Rainie drank more coffee, her hands wrapped
around the steaming mug. She’d gotten a chill running around in wet clothes, and now nothing she did made her warm.

  “So what else did Dr. Andrews say?” she asked Kimberly at last.

  The young girl shrugged. She was holding up remarkably well, Rainie thought. Pale, jumpy, but functional. Rainie supposed they’d all hit the edge where you either kept moving or completely collapsed. Dying was not preferable to living at this point, so they kept moving.

  “He … he told me I should tell you something,” Kimberly said abruptly. Her gaze flicked to her father, before becoming locked once more on her coffee mug. “I um … a few months ago, I started having what I thought were anxiety attacks. I felt as if someone was watching me. I’d get goose bumps, find it hard to breathe. The hair would stand up on the back of my neck.”

  Quincy set down his mug hard on the old table. Hot coffee sloshed over the edges. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “At the time, I thought it was stress related. The situation with Mandy, I’ve been carrying a heavy course load plus the internship … It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that I’m telling you now and that maybe it wasn’t all in my head. Maybe it wasn’t stress induced—”

  “He’s been watching you,” Quincy said flatly. “Some man has been stalking my daughter and you didn’t even tell me!”

  “I carry Mace! I pay attention to the people around me. I make eye contact. You can’t hold my hand, Dad, and you can’t always protect me—”

  “Like hell! It’s my job and what’s the purpose of all these years of training if I can’t protect my own family?”

  “No father can protect his family. All children grow up. It’s what we do.”

  “I’m a professional—”

  “You’re human, just like all other fathers.”

  “You should have told me—”

  “So, I’m human, just like all other daughters.”

  “Dammit, I’m sick of this!” Quincy roared.

  “Good, I am, too!” his daughter yelled back. “So let’s catch this son of a bitch, so I can return to my classes and finish up my degree. Then I’ll join law enforcement, neglect my own family, and the cycle will be complete!”

  Quincy pressed his lips into a thin line. He opened his mouth, shut it. Opened his mouth, then shut it again. Finally, he picked up his mug of coffee and stared at the rain-splattered window.

  “You know,” Rainie said, “these family moments are very touching.”

  “I may have a lead,” Quincy said thirty minutes later. The clock had now struck two. By some unspoken agreement, it appeared that none of them were going to bed. Quincy’s 10mm sat on the kitchen table for easy access. They’d drawn all the blinds, then dimmed the overhead lights to prevent their silhouettes from standing out against the shades. The storm still raged. They’d tried the Weather Channel once, which told them things should clear up by morning. In their current mood, Rainie wasn’t sure any of them believed that.

  “What did you learn?” she asked Quincy. Kimberly was no longer making eye contact with her father. Rainie decided they could all use some rest.

  “An agent working this case, Albert Montgomery, has a bone to pick with me. He worked the Sanchez case first. He screwed up, however, and the Bureau gave the case to me.”

  “What was the Sanchez case?” Kimberly asked.

  “Fifteen years ago, California. Sanchez and his cousin were murdering young prostitutes. Eight of them. Sometimes … they held the girls for a while.”

  “Oh,” Kimberly said. “The cassette tapes.”

  “You listened to them?”

  Kimberly shrugged. “Mandy did. She had an obsession with your work. When you were gone …”

  “Oh for God’s sake—”

  “So,” Rainie interjected, in her new role as peacekeeper. “Montgomery is on the case, but not in your corner.”

  Quincy turned back toward her. His gaze was blazing, his face gaunt. “In Montgomery’s view, my success with the Sanchez case made his own failings even more glaring. Let’s just say that when the supposed ‘evidence’ reports finally come in from Philadelphia, I wouldn’t count on his support. In fact, I’m relatively sure he’ll be the first to lead the lynching.”

  “Not much time,” Kimberly whispered.

  “No,” Quincy said bluntly. “I give it three days. Then the first wave of lab reports will arrive and Everett will call me in. That’s that.”

  “Well,” Rainie said briskly. “Let’s keep focused then. I also managed to make progress today. I met with the president of Mandy’s AA chapter, William Zane. He confirms that she befriended someone at the meetings, but the man doesn’t sound anything like what I expected—he’s described as being five ten, balding, overweight, and prone to rumpled suits.”

  “I thought Mom’s neighbor reported a guy who was tall, well-dressed, and handsome,” Kimberly interjected.

  “Exactly. But the sightings were twenty months apart, which could mean the man has the ability to dramatically change his appearance.”

  “Ted Bundy was notorious for changing his look,” Quincy reported. “His weight often fluctuated more than fifty pounds, changing impressions of his face, and also of his height—heavier people are often perceived to be shorter. Then we have Jim Beckett, who pursued his victims and eluded police for over a year by significantly altering his appearance. He would wear padding, stuff his cheeks, things of that nature, to change the contours of his build.”

  “So one implication is that this guy is a master of disguise,” Rainie said. “The second is that he’s patient. Twenty months apart … that’s not someone who is committing a rash or random act.”

  “He’s planned this for quite some time,” Quincy agreed.

  “When we get to Portland, I’m putting you two into a hotel room under aliases. And then we go on the offensive. I have Officer Amity reopening the investigation of Mandy’s crash. Investigator Phil de Beers is tailing Mary Olsen and should have word for us shortly. Even if we don’t trust Montgomery, Everett seems to be on your side, Quincy, and Special Agent Rodman appears to know what she’s doing. She may be able to help connect the dots from the inside.”

  “We sit,” Kimberly murmured. “We wait. We wonder where he’ll strike next.”

  “We’re ahead now,” Rainie rebutted firmly. “He had the advantage with Mandy because she was his first victim. He continued his advantage with Bethie, because we didn’t know any better. We know now. And in exactly”—she glanced at her watch—”three hours, we’ll be out of strike zone. We’ll finally be ahead of his game.”

  Kimberly and Quincy nodded tensely. Rainie returned to her notes. “Now then, I have another person for us to pursue. According to the AA president, Mandy’s sponsor at the meetings was her boss. Larry Tanz owned the restaurant where she and Mary both worked. Now, I don’t know a thing about Mr. Tanz, but given Mary’s strange behavior and the fact that Mr. Tanz knows both Mary and Mandy …”

  “He’s worth considering,” Quincy said.

  “I told my new best friend Phil de Beers to work on it. You know,” she added seriously, “he makes his coffee with sour mash. I think my cream-and-sugar habit is now looking quite respectable.”

  As a unit, Quincy and Kimberly rolled their eyes. They looked just like father and daughter when they did that. Huh.

  Rainie flipped the page of her notebook. “Finally, I have the two aliases that the UNSUB has used thus far. He used Tristan Shandling in Philadelphia—we should run that through a database of names from your past cases, Quince, to see if it rings any bells. Then, twenty months ago in Virginia, he used the name Ben Zikka to approach Mandy at her AA meeting.”

  “What?” Quincy spoke up sharply.

  “Ben Zikka,” Rainie repeated. “The name Ben Zik—”

  “No! Son of a bitch. No, no, no!”

  Quincy bolted from the table. He grabbed the cordless phone, fumbled it for a moment, then got a hard grip. His knuckles were white. Rainie didn’t even rec
ognize his face. Something bad had happened. She didn’t understand what. She glanced at Kimberly and saw the girl’s face turn the color of bone.

  “Grandpa,” Kimberly whispered.

  “Oh no.” Rainie closed her eyes. None of them had even thought about Quincy’s father. He was a sick old man, stricken with Alzheimer’s, tucked away in a retirement home. “Oh no …”

  “Shady Acres Elder Care,” Quincy barked into the phone. “Put me through!” And a moment after that, “Abraham Quincy, please. What do you mean he’s not there? Of course he’s there; he requires full-time medical attention. His son picked him up? His son, Pierce Quincy, picked him up earlier this afternoon. Of course you made him show ID. Of course he had a driver’s license. His son, Pierce Quincy …”

  A horrible stillness had come over Quincy’s face. Rainie couldn’t move. Go to him, she thought. Touch him. But she knew she couldn’t. She knew Kimberly couldn’t. Because they were watching a man in the throes of something terrible and it had only just begun.

  He punched off the phone. He lowered it, cradling it against his neck as if the plastic receiver were something special.

  “Ben Zikka was my father’s best friend,” Quincy murmured. “They grew up together, went to war together. He used to tell stories …”

  Kimberly and Rainie remained silent.

  “He’s an old man,” Quincy whispered. “Seventy-five years old, can’t even remember to piss in a toilet, for God’s sake. He’s sick, he’s easily frightened. He doesn’t recognize his own reflection, doesn’t know he has a son. He doesn’t even remember the name Pierce Quincy.”

  Kimberly and Rainie didn’t say a word.

  “He worked hard his whole life. Built a farm, raised a son, helped pay my way through college when money was tight. Never even wanted a thank-you. He did it because that’s what he did. Seventy-five years old. At the stage where he deserves to die with dignity.”

  “Quincy …”