A Perfect Wife (Blake Wilder FBI Mystery Thriller Book 2)

by Elle Gray

  “And he knows how to screw up an investigation,” Mo says.

  “Are you thinking he’s got a law enforcement background?” Astra asks.

  I shake my head. “It’s possible, but it doesn’t feel like law enforcement to me.”

  Mo cocks her head. “I keep going back to what you said about the cuts being so surgical and precise. It’s making me think his background is in medicine rather than law enforcement.”

  I nod. “That’s the way I’m leaning too. Or at least somebody who has some training. It’s the amputation of the fingers that’s bothering me.”

  “But I’m stuck on his forensic countermeasures,” Astra presses. “The bleach, dropping bodies in different towns… he has some knowledge of how criminal investigations work. Which brings me back to law enforcement.”

  “To be fair,” Rick calls from his workstation. “You can pick up most of that stuff on TV these days. Swear to God, TV programs are like how-to guides these days.”

  That gives us all a good laugh. I can’t say he’s wrong though. Crime procedurals on television these days usually have somebody in that field advising them to increase the realism. Of course there are still many improbabilities and things that are just flat out false, but there’s a lot they get right as well. The information you can glean from TV these days in the name of entertainment is staggering. And helpful to any would-be serial killer, sadly enough.

  “The other thing is that he’s got to be fit,” I go on. “Maybe not a total gym rat, but somebody who is fit enough to carry a hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight on an upward path that’s rocky and unstable in some spots.”

  “That’s terrific news,” Astra says. “How hard can it be to find somebody who looks like The Rock working in a local ER?”

  I flash her a grin. “Sounds like your ideal man.”

  “Nah, I’ve got my ideal man already.”

  I roll my eyes. “Stop, I’m going into sugar shock.”

  Astra laughs as I walk over to the whiteboard. We need to get a working profile together if we’re going to track this guy down. We could always use more data, but I think we’ve finally got enough to get started and we can refine it as we go along. I start to write, speaking as I do.

  “We’re looking for a white male. I’d put him in his early-to-mid forties,” I say.

  “How do you figure that?” Mo asks.

  “Sounds like somebody needs to do a little more of her Profiling 101 homework,” Astra cracks.

  Mo laughs and rolls her eyes. “I’m working on it.”

  I turn to her. “We have a preferential offender. Most preferential offenders will stick with their race. His victims are white, so the chances are good that he is as well,” I tell her. “As far as his age goes, we know his kills go back almost a decade. The ages of his victims haven’t changed over those ten years. He seems locked into that one age group even though he himself has aged. So, I think we can assume that if he was roughly around the same age grouping as his victims were when he started to kill, then add almost a decade to it, he’s probably in his early-to-mid forties.”

  Mo sits back in her seat and lets everything I said sink into her head. I can see her processing it, taking it all in. She’s got a mind like a sponge and seems eager to keep learning more and more. Mo is starting to loosen up and carve her niche into our team. She’s certainly quite a bit more animated now than she was when she first got here, which is great. I think our team is starting to come together.

  “All right, so white male. Early-to-mid forties. Physically fit and has some working knowledge of forensics and criminal investigations. Also has a working knowledge of surgical procedures,” I say. “What else?”

  “I’d say he has a truck or a van,” Astra offers. “He’s got to be able to transport the victims without being seen. And I doubt you can do that in a Corvette.”

  “Excellent point,” I say, adding it to the list on the board. “He’s also most likely got a large home that’s in a secluded area.”

  “Reason?” Mo asks.

  “If he’s keeping these women for up to a year, he has to be able to keep them somewhere private. Can’t do that in a tract home or apartment building. You have to assume these women can and will scream bloody murder,” Astra says. “Which means he’s got to have a place he can keep them where they can scream until their throat is raw and nobody’s going to hear them.”

  Mo nods and scratches a couple of notes in her notebook. Astra sits up a little straighter, a proud smile on her face as if she likes being in the role of a mentor.

  “Okay, that all makes sense,” Mo says. “But what is his deal with redheads? Did some redhead do something horrible to him in the past or something?”

  I shake my head. “No, this isn’t revenge. Remember that he’s wooing them,” I say. “The roses, the fancy meals. It’s courtship.”

  “Which means he very likely lost somebody very dear to him,” Astra picks up where I left off. “The women he’s killing are surrogates for that woman he lost. In his mind, they are becoming her replacement.”

  Mo frowns. “But if he’s courting them, why is he killing them?”

  “Because for whatever reason, they don’t live up to his standards. They very likely do something to shatter the fantasy he’s created around them, and he no longer sees them in that romantic role anymore,” I say. “Of course, I can’t imagine the vics themselves are likely to take a shine to a guy who kidnapped them and chained them up, either. When they become too much for him to deal with, he dumps them.”

  “But because they did mean something to him, he still takes care of them when he kills them and disposes of their bodies,” Astra says. “It’s a form of showing remorse, which indicates feelings of intimacy.”

  “So, he keeps them for all that time, courting them, and then he reaches a point where he knows it’s not going to work and likely withdraws from them as he scouts his replacement,” I say. “And when he’s found her, he kills the current one, and replaces her with the new one.”

  “Out with the old, in with the new,” Astra mutters.

  “That’s… screwed up,” Mo says quietly. “Like, really screwed up.”

  “But why November third?” Rick asks.

  I turn to him. “That date is significant to him. It’s very likely the day he suffered his loss. That date is sacred to him, and perhaps he thinks that by choosing a new companion on that date, the woman he lost is somehow blessing him.”

  “That is nuts,” Rick says. “That makes no sense in the real world.”

  Astra shrugs. “It only needs to make sense to him.”

  “That’s good,” Mo nods. “All of that is really good. I think I learned more from you guys today than in all of the books I’ve read to this point.”

  “There’s something to be said for practical knowledge and the application of it. Sometimes, hands-on experience is a better teacher than all the textbooks in the world,” I tell her. “I know I learned more by doing than by reading.”

  “Blake likes to say that because she can’t read very well,” Astra cracks.

  I laugh and shrug. “Yeah, but it sounds good.”

  “Ladies, all I have to say is that y’all are scary,” Rick pipes up. “The way you can break somebody down like that… it’s scary.”

  Astra gives him the evil eye. “That’s right. Be afraid, little man. Be afraid.”

  That gets us all laughing and the feeling of camaraderie among us has never been higher. Yeah, this team is definitely coming together, and I’m liking it. I’m liking it a lot. But I’ll like it even more when put this killer down.

  Thirty

  The Emerald Bean Coffee House; Downtown Seattle

  “I like Mo,” I say. “I think she’s coming around. I think she’ll be a good one.”

  Astra takes a sip of her coffee and nods. “She needs some work, but yeah, she seems like she’s starting to come around.”

  “And look at you, becoming a mentor to her,” I sa
y. “Neither that, nor you settling down with a man, were on my bingo card.”

  “Life is just full of surprises, isn’t it?” she says.

  I laugh. “That it is.”

  After we left the shop, Astra and I stopped at the Bean for a cup and to talk a bit more. The shop is about half full at the moment, with mostly teens and college-aged kids bent over their laptops, banging away on their keyboards. It’s strangely quiet and subdued inside, the lights are dim, and the air is saturated with the aroma of coffee and chocolate.

  The Bean has been one of our favorite haunts for quite a while. Outside of Barnaby’s, this is one of the places we frequent most often. This is where we come to talk without being overheard or bothered by men who think they’re charming and clever enough to get into our pants. Or rather, into Astra’s pants, since I’m usually invisible when we’re out together.

  The Bean is a place where we can just relax and let our hair down a bit. And if I’m being honest, I much prefer spending time here than at a bar. It’s quieter and the pace is a bit slower. We often have our biggest breakthroughs and come up with our best theories while we’re sitting here just talking.

  “So what’s wrong with you?” Astra asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  She gives me a look and a crooked smile. “I know you, Blake. Don’t think I don’t know when there’s somethin’ cookin’ in that big brain of yours.”

  I laugh. “There’s always something cooking in my big brain.”

  “True. But you don’t always look this unsettled.”

  “I don’t look unsettled.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You look totally unsettled. So what is it that’s got your brain all twisted up like a pretzel?”

  I take a sip of my coffee and sit back in my seat. “The profile.”

  “What about it? I think it’s relatively solid.”

  “Yeah. But we’re still missing something. It just doesn’t feel… complete.”

  Astra nods. “Yeah, I was kinda thinking that too.”

  “So what is it?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I feel like we covered all the bases. I think it’s a good working profile.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” I say. “But where do we start looking for this unsub? It’s like you said, needle meet haystack.”

  She frowns. “This isn’t going to be easy. But then, it rarely is.”

  “It’d be a lot easier if we knew where these women’s lives intersected with the killer. I don’t want to believe it was just random. I want to believe there was some intersection point common to the victims and the unsub.”

  “You know the probability is high that it was random though, right?” she says. “It would be way too easy if it wasn’t, and you know life doesn’t work that way.”

  A rueful smile touches my lips. “It would be nice if life, God, the Universe, or whatever, worked in our favor for a change.”

  “It would be nice. But that wouldn’t be realistic,” she acknowledges.

  “And because our guy is so all over the place, never dropping a body in the same town twice, it’s impossible to nail down a geographic profile,” I say.

  “Like I said, life is never that easy.”

  I sit back and take a drink of my coffee, letting my mind spin through everything we’ve talked about today. Let it continue working the profile. I think it’s the fact that we have no direction here that’s bothering me the most. Not having any sort of geographic location to start looking is what’s missing. And it’s a big piece of the puzzle. But this guy is careful. Methodical.

  “Because this guy is so smooth and so well versed in forensic countermeasures, I keep coming back to the idea that this guy is connected to law enforcement in some way,” Astra says. “I don’t think you can get that slick just by watching TV shows.”

  “Probably not. But shows are sophisticated these days.”

  “Not that sophisticated.”

  “But how do you explain the surgical precision of the cut across the carotid and the amputation of the fingers?” I say. “I don’t see many rank and file cops having the know-how to properly amputate body parts.”

  Astra looks down into her coffee cup. She has no answer for that. But I have no answer for half a dozen different things. As solid as I feel like our profile is, I know there are some things that are missing. Questions left hanging open. And I’m not entirely sure how to go about answering them right now.

  She is right, though. This guy’s experience with forensic countermeasures is suggestive of somebody who’s familiar with law enforcement and criminal investigative procedure. I want to think there’s something there. Something relevant about somebody who’s taken the time and put in the effort to study forensics and investigative procedure. Something more than a man who simply wanted to be conversant with those subjects to become a better killer.

  I know in theory, we have about ten months to find Cassie Cooper. Assuming the unsub holds to his timeline. And given that he has for the last seven years, there’s no reason to think it will change now. But I also know that every single day she spends in captivity, the damage done to her will multiply exponentially. In ten months, Cassie might be damaged beyond repair. Forever. That’s why it’s imperative we get her away from this creep. Soon.

  But where do we begin? Where do we start looking for her?

  “So what’s our next move?” Astra asks.

  I sigh. “I don’t know yet. I just don’t know yet.”

  Thirty-One

  Residence of the Unsub; Location Unknown

  * * *

  I walk down the stairs and into the basement. Cassie is sitting on the sofa staring at the television even though it’s not on. She seems lost in thought and barely acknowledges me as I pass by. She’s been like this for days now. She’s just existing in this sort of stupor. This dark, angry stupor. And it’s really starting to annoy me.

  I walk over to the table and look at the tray from this morning. She had picked at it but barely ate anything. It’s like she’s eating the bare minimum to survive. That, too, has been going on for days.

  I slide open the dumbwaiter door and pull the tray with her dinner out and set it on the table, then pick up her breakfast tray and put it into the dumbwaiter and send it back up.

  “You really need to eat, Cassie. You need to keep your strength up,” I tell her.

  She says nothing so I turn and head back toward the stairs. But then she stops me before I get there.

  “I’m sorry,” she says softly.

  I turn around and face her. She looks at me with her wide green eyes, her lips quivering.

  “You’ve been so kind to me, and I’ve been so terrible to you,” she says. “I’ve behaved poorly. Treated you so badly. I just want you to know that I’m sorry.”

  My hand on the rail, I hesitate at the foot of the stairs. She sounds so sincere, and her expression is so earnest, I feel a familiar stutter in my heart as I look at her. I want to believe her. Want to believe that she’s seen the error of her ways and that she truly is coming to appreciate me. That she truly wants to be my companion in this life.

  The way she’s looking at me stirs something deep inside of me. I can feel the embers of my feeling for her beginning to flare up with new life. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Hoping for.

  Ever since the night of our disagreement, I’ve been waiting for Cassie to come back to me. Of her own accord. I’ve left her alone and given her the space she obviously needed, hoping against all hope that she would realize her own feelings for me.

  And now I want to believe that it’s happening.

  “Do you mean that?” I ask.

  She nods. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I see that you’ve been trying to give me a better life. You’ve been exposing me to things, the finer things, that I never would have gotten to appreciate in my life… before you.”

  I try but can’t quite keep the smile from stretching across my face. “That’s ex
actly right. I wanted to give you a better life. I wanted to show you what it was like to have a man cherish you the way you should be cherished. I wanted you to have the finer things, Cassie.”

  I knew she’d come around. I knew it was only a matter of time before she realized what it is I’m offering her in exchange for her companionship. I was right about her. I knew I was right about her. The others all had some fatal flaw. The others all had some quirk of their personality that doomed our relationship from the start. I always missed it at first, and it only became apparent later, when things were already on a downward spiral. I see that now.

  But from the moment I laid eyes on Cassie, I knew she was different. I knew there was something special about her. It was like my Debbie was there, standing right next to me, telling me that Cassie was the one. That she was the right one to help fill that empty void in my heart and soul. It was like Debbie had guided me to her, telling me that Cassie was the right girl for me.

  “W－will you have dinner with me tonight?” Cassie asks.

  “Dinner?”

  Her smile is faltering but seems warm and sincere as she nods. “Yes. I would like to dine with you tonight to make up for my bad behavior the other night,” she says. “I’d like to show you that I’ve changed. I’m ready to accept the kindness and generosity you’ve shown me. I want to do everything I can to make up for my bad behavior.”

  There is a cynical and jaded voice in the back of my mind telling me that this is all a ruse. A ploy to gain my trust. Cassie is simply trying to play me to get me to lower my defenses, and when they’re down, she’s going to strike. Maybe she’s even going to try to kill me.

  But when I look into her eyes, I don’t see how that could be possible. She looks so sincere. So earnest. When I look at her, I see nothing but sincerity in her gaze and hear it in her voice. Cassie looks at me, practically begging me with her eyes, pleading for a second chance.

  “If you unlock this shackle, I’ll put on a pretty dress－”