To Catch a Killer

by Kimberly Van Meter

  Kara thrust the evidence bag containing the scrap of rope into Tana’s hands with tense instructions to get it to the lab. “Put an ASAP on that,” Kara said, her nerves ready to snap. “I want the results back by this evening.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Tana said solemnly, and hurried from the room to hit the FedEx truck before it left town.

  “How’d you find it?” Dillon asked.

  “Pure dumb luck,” she answered, refusing to be completely honest because frankly, she didn’t have time to deal with her partner thinking she was bonkers, too. “I just happened to look down at the right moment and saw something that looked out of place.” She drew a deep breath. “It looks like the same kind of rope the Babysitter used in the other cases. Hemp, I think.”

  “Well, we are smack dab in hippie hemp movement headquarters,” Dillon said with a hint of his usual mocking sarcasm. He turned to Zane. “Hit up the local hardware stores, even into Fort Bragg, and see who sells this particular brand of hemp rope. Then, we’ll start culling receipts, see if anything stands out. Frequent purchases by certain individuals and whatnot.”

  Kara nodded. Sounded like a solid plan. Now, if only her hands would stop shaking. The strain must have been evident for she caught an assessing glance from Matthew. She moved away and busied herself with case files, but after a moment, she realized she needed space. Clutching the files to her chest, she made to leave but Matthew followed, taking the files from her hands. She began to protest but he silenced her with a look.

  “You need to eat. Let’s head over to Tally’s for a spell.” She grimaced at his suggestion.

  “All you do is shove food down my throat,” she muttered, adding, “And if I force down another order from Tally’s, I might die from food poisoning. You forget, it’s been a while, my stomach has lost its tolerance.”

  “Fine. You name the place,” he said.

  She didn’t want to eat. She wanted to find answers but her head was beginning to throb and she’d be an idiot to refuse sustenance. Basic needs must be met. Still, she glared as she answered, “Fine. We can hit the store and get some sandwich stuff. I don’t want to waste time sitting down in a restaurant. I want to go over the data D’Marcus has put together.”

  “Fine by me. But you know you can’t keep this kind of punishing schedule. You’re only hurting yourself physically and making it hard for your brain to function.”

  She cast a wry look his way. “I see you never outgrew that annoying habit of being incessantly logical. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m running on pure emotion. That’s high-octane shit and food’s not high on my list.”

  “I can tell. Let’s go.”

  Kara resisted the urge to bristle and say something completely uncouth and unwarranted for she recognized that he was right, even if it bothered her to admit it. Rolling her neck, she gestured to the cars parked in front and walked purposefully. “I’ll drive.”

  He shrugged and followed.

  “We shouldn’t spend so much time together,” Kara said as she climbed into the car. “My team is very observant. They’re going to catch on that we have a history and I really don’t feel up to answering questions.” Kara snuck a look at Matthew, mildly bothered that she couldn’t read him by his expression. “I mean—”

  “I get it,” Matthew cut in, his jaw tensing. “Drop it, Kara. No one is trying to resurrect the past. Just relax. If you drop from exhaustion you’re no good to the team, which means you’re no good to Briana. My daughter is my number one concern. Getting her home safely is my primary objective.”

  That stung for reasons Kara wasn’t ready to examine. “Right. Good,” she said briskly, yet her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as an unexpected ache bloomed behind her chest wall. Oh, stop it. You should be relieved that you’re both on the same page. The logical part of her brain was having a pissing contest with…crap…her heart. And she wasn’t sure who was winning but she sure knew who had a hold of her flapping mouth. She slid into one of the three parking spots and didn’t wait for Matthew to follow. The cab of the car suddenly seemed too small, too confining, and she needed air. Drawing deep breaths that froze her lungs and made her shudder, she welcomed the physical sensation. It was better than the phantom pain that seemed to pierce her heart whenever Matthew was the one who put distance between them. It was okay when she was the one pulling away because Kara had control. It was completely different to be on the other side of that action.

  “You coming?” Matthew asked, his brow furrowing in annoyance when she hesitated. She jerked a nod and he went inside. The cold in Matthew’s eyes was nearly as frosty as the air she was breathing. She’d hurt him. That was Matthew’s way of insulating himself from further pain. She’d seen that look years ago. She’d never forget it. Would she ever stop hurting the people in her life?

  Chapter 15

  By the time Matthew got home, it was nearing midnight. Tired as he was, sleep eluded him. Fear ate at him with sharp, feral canines, confusion rode him hard, and a bone-deep ache to have the one thing that was never his was his constant companion.

  The years with Mari had almost convinced him that he was finally over Kara Thistle. But seeing her again after all these years showed him exactly how hollow that belief was. He should hate her. He had every reason. But he couldn’t. And damn it, he couldn’t help but want her in his life again. He longed to feel her skin sliding against his fingers, hear her soft moans in his ear and cradle her in his arms. But his longing was nothing short of a wicked dream that he was afraid was going to disappear once he realized none of it was real.

  But the pain was real. That was the thing that served to remind him that Kara was here, the situation was deadly, and the odds were against them.

  Sinking onto his bed, he let his head fall into his hands. He understood the panic that pushed Kara to run herself ragged even though he didn’t know his daughter and hadn’t been able to be there for her up until this point. Fear squeezed his heart at the thought of her dying out there alone, in the cruel hands of a madman.

  Never in his life had he felt so helpless, so impotent.

  His shoulders shook silently as tears leaked from his eyes and hoarse cries made his nose run. He cried in a way that he’d never done before. It was ugly, raw and debilitating. The fear of losing his only child before getting the chance to know her, to teach and guide her, killed a part of him that he didn’t even know was alive.

  He dreaded coming upon his daughter’s body the way he had with young Hannah Linney. Somewhere in San Francisco a father grieved for his little girl. Heaven help him, he didn’t want to suffer a similar loss.

  He wanted to see Briana smile. He wanted to walk her down the aisle. He’d missed so much, would fate take so much more from him?

  He trusted Kara’s talents; he knew she was the best. But not even the best have impeccable records. And time was running out. He thought of Kara, drawn tight as a bow, brittle as antique china, and wondered how she was keeping it together. But there were cracks in her veneer. He could see the tiny fractures in small gestures she was too tired to hide; he could sense the panic bubbling under the surface that she tried to cover up with her waspish tongue. He wasn’t a man prone to spouting off poetry, he’d never been overly sensitive, but he’d always had an insight when it came to Kara, which was something Neal had never grasped. Neal had been the center of his own universe; he’d been too self-absorbed to notice he wasn’t the only person who could shine. It felt traitorous to admit that, even if he was only admitting it in his head. God, why hadn’t he questioned Neal when he’d told him that crock of shit about Kara leaving them all behind for selfish reasons? Easy. He’d been too devastated that she’d run away from what they’d shared. If he could have run, he might have, but he was too entrenched here, in this town, where this place was all he’d ever known, to take that first step. Plus, someone had to keep Neal together as he fell apart in spectacular fashion. It had been like watching a star fall from the sky in a blaze of sp
arkling lights and knowing that as soon as it hit the earth the ground would snuff it out. Awful.

  Grinding the residual tears from his eyes, he wiped his nose and kicked his shoes free from his feet before climbing into bed, still clothed and not caring, just needing to shut his eyes to escape the misery that hounded him. His last thought before sleep dragged him to nothingness was filled with desperate hope that they would close this chapter with joy instead of grief.

  Kara tossed, kicking her blankets free from the tangle of her legs. Unable to find a comfortable spot, she stumbled from the bed to the sink but the glass was missing so she cupped her hands under the faucet and drank greedily. This was the worst part of being an insomniac. She often slept in fits and starts, especially so when she was working a high-profile case. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised that sleep would elude her tonight.

  Knowing that lying there would simply be a waste of time, she flicked on the light at her table and pulling her hair back, opened the case files. There was something she was missing. Something was staring her in the face.

  After an hour, her eyes were watering from strain and she was ready to try the bed again. Sighing, she gathered the files and started putting them back in order when, out of desperation to leave no stone unturned, she reread the profiler’s report that was done when the Nobles boy had been discovered. The senator had insisted on bringing in a consultant and the director had indulged him.

  Frankly, Kara hadn’t read it more than twice before moving on to other evidence. But as she scanned the paper, her heart rate quickened and she wondered if they’d overlooked something critical.

  “Killer may have above-average intelligence and a superiority complex…”

  She skimmed past the stuff that they had already figured out on their own.

  Then she drew the paper closer and read one, seemingly small detail.

  “The ligature marks suggest intricate knotwork, may suggest the need for small hands and nimble fingers.”

  That voice that whispered in her ear, possibly her subconscious, had been telling her all along.

  They were looking for a woman.

  Matthew showed up at Kara’s room with doughnuts and hot coffee in an attempt to show that he was willing to let bygones be bygones but when she didn’t open her door immediately as was her custom, he tried the door and found it open.

  Kara, wild-eyed, fully dressed and looking like she hadn’t slept in days, thrust a folder at him with a triumphant gleam. “Matthew…the Babysitter is a woman!”

  Kara nearly went blind with the revelation, it was so monumental. All this time she’d thought they were dealing with a man because statistically serial killers were white, middle-aged men, but there were equally vicious and unstable women out there, too. What made it far more heinous was the very fact that most people didn’t like to think of a woman intentionally hurting a child—maternal instinct or some such shit—but women hurt children all the time. Sometimes even their own.

  She whipped around to stare at Matthew, who was watching her intently. “This is the missing key we’ve been searching for,” she said. “I didn’t see it before because, I’m ashamed to admit, I’d discounted the consultant that Nobles brought in. But the clue was there all along.”

  “Which is?” he asked, nonplussed but wanting to understand.

  “Small, nimble fingers,” she answered. “The knots in the rope, they left distinct marks on the skin. An expert said it could be a weaver’s knot! I didn’t think anything of it at the time because it was before we pieced together the connection to the nursery rhyme and it just seemed random. But now it seems to come together quite obviously. The weavers in the nineteenth century were typically women and children! How perfectly morbid for the killer to use a weaver’s knot to tie into her sick little game. It’s just one more little clue that she thinks we’re too stupid to catch on to!”

  “If you’re right…this could be the break we’ve been hoping for,” he said, his voice strained. “God, Kara, I hope you’re right!”

  Her eyes watered but only for a moment. Relief was sharp and immediate, and just the thing she needed to regain focus. Her vision cleared and for the first time in weeks, she was propelled by a feverish sense of purpose. This psycho bitch was screwing with the wrong person.

  “Let’s go,” she instructed, not waiting to see if he followed. She knew he would.

  “I have a very strong hunch we’re looking for a woman,” Kara announced to the assembled team as they rubbed at their eyes and downed coffee to jump-start their brains after a long night. “Go back to the university lists we’ve gathered of geniuses with a troubled past and narrow it down to the women. We’re looking for someone with a history of either extreme activism, experimental procedures, disciplinary actions…someone with a criminal record. Anyone fits that description—pull it. Come on, people, time’s wasting,” she said.

  Tana’s expression was puzzled and Kara understood her concern; if she were on the other end…yeah, let’s just say she got it. She looked to her friend and co-worker. “Trust me on this. I’ve got a feeling we’re onto something,” Kara said.

  Tana nodded slowly. “I’d bet my life on the quality of your hunches. You’ve been right before. I’m on it,” she said, moving into action.

  Kara’s eyes filled with moisture. Her team was more than her peers. They were her family. She turned to Matthew, who was conferring with Zane. Once finished, he returned to her side.

  “I’m going to head back out to Bernie’s,” he said. “Something’s not right. I’ve got a feeling, too.”

  “You think something’s happened?” she asked.

  He looked troubled. “Well, let’s just say I’d feel a whole helluva lot better if I could just see that the old coot is all right. He rarely leaves the property except to get supplies, and when he does leave it’s at the beginning of the month, not in the middle.”

  She could see his point. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  He shook his head. “You stay here, follow up on that hunch of yours. I’ll take Dinky or Oren out there for backup.”

  Kara’s dubious expression must have said volumes for Matthew quirked an amused grin. “I’ll be fine. Dinky and Oren are both crack shots even if they’re not much on personality. You can reach me on the radio if you have any news.”

  As Kara watched Matthew leave, something warm and beautiful stole her ability to think for a rare second and she knew it came from him. She’d come to depend—once again—on his solid sense of logic and intellect. But like her, he wasn’t one to waste time on things that couldn’t be helped. Kara smiled privately at how alike they were, how alike they’d always been. But the moment was fleeting.

  “I think I have something.” The urgency in D’Marcus’s voice erased all other thought as she moved to lean over his shoulder. “I’ve found a woman who fits your description in the database. I can’t believe we missed it.”

  Chapter 16

  Matthew and Oren followed the trail to Bernie’s shack, both of them glad that the sun hadn’t disappeared yet as it was wont to do during this time of year.

  “I’m real sorry that you’re tangled up in this mess,” Oren said quietly, as they walked the path. The genuine sorrow in Oren’s rough voice made Matthew jerk a nod in acceptance of the sentiment. “I never in a million years would’ve imagined that a case like this could have hit home so squarely.”

  Matthew nodded again, his throat tight. “Yeah. It’s a helluva situation to be in.” They walked in silence for a few minutes, then Matthew admitted his private fear to a man he considered a friend and a mentor. “I don’t want to find my daughter like we found that other child. But I know time is running out. It almost seems…hopeless,” he said, looking straight ahead as they continued to climb the mountainside. He didn’t need to see Oren to know the man understood his pain.

  “Don’t think like that,” Oren said gruffly. “Keep it in your head that you’re going to find her alive and yo
u hold on to it with your last breath. You hear me? Stop with the giving up. She’s not dead yet. Don’t start digging her grave before you have to.”

  Matthew nodded and they fell into silence again. Matthew felt mildly chastised but he deserved it. Oren had been a friend of his father’s and had helped him get into the position he carried now. He respected the man and his counsel. When his father passed, Matthew found himself turning to Oren more often for advice, guidance. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he didn’t always have the answers. Oren was the kind of man who didn’t begrudge him the questions.

  “Been a long time since Kara Thistle was around these parts…how’s that working out for you?” Oren asked.

  “It’s made things confusing,” he admitted. Confusing. That was a mild word for the turmoil going through his mind. How about chaotic? Wretched? Nightmarish? Those descriptions were more fitting for the situation but Matthew kept his eyes on the trail and let it go at that.

  “You know, Neal wasn’t the only one who was a mess when she left,” Oren said.

  “What are you talking about?” Matthew bluffed, though why he even tried was a mystery. Maybe it was because Matthew didn’t like to think of those days. He preferred to lock them away with a cache of other dark memories. The day Kara left, he could have sworn she’d physically hacked off a piece of himself and stuffed it in her luggage. Frankly, he’d been stunned by how hard it had hit him. He didn’t want to talk about it then and certainly not now when there was plenty to worry about as it was. “If you’re saying I was broken up about her leaving, you’re wrong. Obviously, your memory is failing you. I hated her for leaving Neal the way she did. She’s the one who twisted his mind. Maybe…” His voice trailed. He didn’t have the stones to keep on that track when he knew it was all bullshit at this point.