The Last Victim

by Karen Robards

  “So, you catch anybody scratching his nose inappropriately yet?” Kaminsky asked. Charlie had been so keyed in to what she was doing, she hadn’t realized the other woman had come to stand behind her.

  Charlie glanced over her shoulder. “Body language is much harder to fake than facial expressions. Most people aren’t aware of how much their bodies reveal, and don’t try to police it.”

  “I see what you mean.” Kaminsky reached around Charlie to tap the monitor. The central image, the one that Charlie hadn’t been looking at because it was her job to concentrate on the crowd, was her and Tony dancing. “I don’t know what Bartoli’s saying to you, but you’re sure blowing hot and cold on him. Look at that. First you’re making bedroom eyes at him, and the next second you look like you want to rip his throat out.”

  The sequence they were watching was the one where Garland had shown up and inserted himself into the dance. Of course, there was no sign of Garland on the monitor. Watching, Charlie had to admit her reactions looked more than slightly schizophrenic.

  “You know, I’m no psychiatrist, but from watching you two together like that, my analysis would be that your feelings for the boss are romantic, but highly conflicted.” There was way too much suppressed glee in Kaminsky’s tone. “Would that be one of your classic signs of attraction, Dr. Stone?”

  Careful to keep the frown that wanted to snap her brows together at bay, Charlie rolled the cursor over a (okay, random) male face in the crowd so it was immediately enlarged enough to cover most of the image of her and Bartoli dancing.

  “You get anything?” Tony’s voice behind them was so unexpected that it almost made Charlie jump. Glancing around at him, glad to be saved from the necessity to reply to Kaminsky, she shook her head.

  Kaminsky said, “The bad news is, Kornucopia hasn’t played in any venues this summer within easy driving distance of the Breyer or Clark homes.”

  If the two families who had been slaughtered prior to the attack on the Meads had no connection to the band, then there had to be something else there, Charlie thought. She let the computer go into sleep mode (the last thing she wanted was for Tony to start studying the image of the two of them dancing) and turned around in her chair to face the others.

  “You say that like there’s some good news,” Tony replied before she could comment, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his eyebrows at Kaminsky. He was once again in agent mode, in a dark suit, white shirt, and power tie, and Charlie was once again conscious of how perfect he seemed to be for her. One day, maybe, she might actually get a chance to explore the possibilities where he was concerned, but for now he had murders to solve and a missing girl to find and she, too, was preoccupied with those matters, along with—other things.

  Like a possibly missing ghost.

  Breaking into a wide smile, Kaminsky nodded. “Two members of Kornucopia also play in another regional band, the Sock Monkeys. It performed within twenty miles of the Breyer and Clark residences. Both the week before each family was attacked.”

  Tony’s arms dropped to his sides. His eyes instantly looked as refreshed as if he had just chugged twenty cups of coffee. “Good job, Kaminsky. Which two?”

  “Axel Gundren and Ben Teague.” Kaminsky walked to her computer, bent over, typed in a couple of commands, and the faces of two young men popped up. The photos appeared to be taken from their driver’s licenses, and they showed that Axel had a shock of near-white hair and blue eyes, while Ben had a biscuit-colored, Justin Bieber–style bowl cut. Both faces could have been considered long and thin, which would match Trevor Mead’s description of the killer. “Ages twenty-five and twenty-six.”

  Kaminsky glanced over her shoulder at Tony, who nodded. Then she typed in something else and stood back as what looked like a Venn diagram filled the screen. The three overlapping circles contained dozens of names, with dozens more lining the screen on the outside of the circles. “Both are approximately the right age, height, and weight.” She tapped a portion of the diagram with a well-manicured forefinger. “That puts them here. We know they were at the Sanderling on the same night as Bayley Evans, so that also puts them here.” She tapped a smaller portion of the Venn diagram. “Axel has a juvenile record—for drug possession, which I’m not sure is really relevant, but it puts him here as well.” Another tap. “Unfortunately, except for that, neither has any of Dr. Stone’s markers. Axel lives in the basement of his parents’ house in Greenville. Ben lives in an apartment in the same town. Both have multiple siblings. Neither owns or has access to a gray Avalon, as far as I can tell. According to their cell phone records, neither was anywhere near Bayley Evans’ house on the night of the murders.”

  “So it’s looking like neither one is our guy,” Tony summed up flatly. The sudden flare of interest had gone out of his eyes.

  “That’s pretty much it,” Kaminsky agreed. She tapped the center of the circles of the Venn diagram, a tiny area that was the only place on the screen empty of any names. “Anyone who fits all the criteria we’ve established will end up here. When we get a name there, he’s going to be our guy.”

  “Keep working on it, Kaminsky,” Tony said.

  Kaminsky nodded.

  Tony looked at Charlie. “I want you to help me interview the five girls who went to the Sanderling with Bayley Evans last week.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Didn’t we already talk to them?” Kaminsky asked as Charlie obediently stood up.

  Tony nodded. “Yes, but the four of them here on vacation are heading back home to Winston-Salem tomorrow. The Meads are from Winston-Salem, too, and the funeral for the parents and the little boy is scheduled for Monday, so I’m guessing the girls and their families want to be there for that. I want to talk to them again before they go.”

  “You really think you’ll get some new information out of them?” Kaminsky asked.

  Tony shrugged. “I don’t know. At the time of the previous interview I didn’t realize the significance of that dance. I want to talk to them again with that in mind, and I want Charlie with me to see if she can pick up on anything I might be missing.” Charlie caught the slightly surprised look Kaminsky cast her way upon hearing Tony call her by her first name, but of course the other woman didn’t comment out loud in his presence. That, Charlie judged, would come in the nature of a zinger later. “Meanwhile, find out if there are any other people the two bands have in common—support staff, maybe an agent or a manager, anything that might tie them together, would you?”

  Kaminsky nodded. “I’m on it.”

  As she turned back to her computer, Tony stood aside for Charlie to precede him out the door. The buzz of activity in Central Command was so loud that she had to wonder if the War Room was soundproofed, because until now she hadn’t been aware of any of it. Phones rang. Volunteers manned the tip lines. A couple of sheriff’s deputies in orange vests—which meant they were part of the search party that was still combing the area for any sign of Bayley Evans—stood in front of the search grid that hung on the wall talking to Agent Taylor. Most of the squares had been X’d through by this time, and even as she watched, Taylor drew a big X through another section. Charlie must have made some sound, because he glanced at her as she and Tony passed. His beady little bulldog eyes were grim.

  “I hope you’re having better luck than we are,” he said to Tony, who shrugged noncommittally. Charlie could feel Taylor’s eyes following them out the door.

  The interviews took place in a plush condominium farther down the beach, where four of the girls had been staying with their mothers on what had been intended to be a two-week-long getaway before school started. The fifth girl, Hannah Beckett, who was also from Winston-Salem, was in Kill Devil Hills for the entire summer as a result of a custody arrangement between her recently divorced parents that required her to spend school vacations with her father and new stepmother. Like the others, she would be a senior in the fall at Winston-Salem’s Lowell High School. She was al
so Bayley Evans’ cousin.

  “I feel so bad,” Hannah told Tony, tears welling in her blue eyes. Her long hair was a darker shade of blond than Bayley’s—more honey than platinum—but otherwise her resemblance to her cousin was strong. All the girls, in fact, were the same pretty, popular, cheerleader type. “Bayley—everybody—came here because of me. None of this would’ve happened if my parents hadn’t gotten divorced.” She shot a poisonous look at her stepmother, who sat with the other mothers on the two long, white-slipcovered couches that flanked the giant flat-screen TV. Along with Tony and Charlie, the girls huddled around the glass-topped dining table in the eating area of the combination living/dining room in front of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the beach. It was not a happy gathering. With the notable exception of Hannah’s new stepmother, who was a decade younger than the other women and dressed more like the teens in short white shorts and a black tee in contrast to the older womens’ country club chic, the mothers were somber and at the same time fiercely protective of their daughters. Sipping from tall glasses of iced tea, they talked quietly among themselves while watching the conversation at the table with nearly identical gimlet gazes. Every single one of the girls had, at one point or another during the questioning, started to cry, which had earned Tony and Charlie multiple glares.

  “It’s not your fault, Hannah,” Laurie Cole, who was sitting beside Hannah, reached out to clasp her friend’s hand where it rested on the table. The thinnest, tannest, and most athletic-looking of the girls, Laurie had long, seal-brown hair sleeked back into a ponytail. “All of us wanted to come. Bayley too.”

  “So besides the two boys whose names you already gave us, did anyone else pay any of you particular attention?” Tony asked. According to what the girls had already told them, the boys he was referring to had met the girls at the Sanderling, danced with them, gotten the phone numbers of Laurie Cole and Grace Rafferty, a doe-eyed, pigtailed brunette who was sitting across the table from Hannah, and subsequently called them. They would be checked out, but Charlie was almost sure they would be cleared—unless the girls were mistaken about their ages, those boys were too young.

  “It was dark and everybody was dancing with everybody,” Monica James said. The only one of the girls with short hair and no tan, she was a redhead with delicate bones. “Guys would just come up to us and start dancing. Bayley”—her voice caught a little on the name—“Bayley was out there in the middle of it just like the rest of us. But I can’t remember anyone she danced with in particular.”

  “What about that waiter?” Jen Merrick asked. She was petite, with inky black curls and blue eyes. “Remember, the really cute one? When we were leaving, Bayley forgot her purse. He came running after us to bring it to her.”

  All the girls nodded.

  “His name was Andrew,” Kristen Henry volunteered. Probably the least attractive of the girls, Kristen was tall, with a sturdy frame, nut-brown hair that hung in a long braid over one shoulder and slightly coarse features. When the other girls looked at her, she shrugged. “Hey, so I remember. Like Jen said, he was really cute.”

  Charlie could tell from Tony’s expression that he was making a mental note of the name.

  “Has any male you don’t know well attempted to talk to you about Bayley since her disappearance?” Charlie asked. As she had told Tony on the way over, the killer would have tried to insert himself into the investigation in any way he could. Reaching out to Bayley’s friends in an attempt to vicariously experience their grief and horror was absolutely something he would have done.

  “We’ve talked to you.” Laurie’s nod indicated Tony. “And the FBI agent who came with you the last time. And the police. And a couple of reporters tried to talk to Kristen and Jen when they went to the grocery store with their moms the other day.”

  “Nobody else?” Charlie asked.

  They all shook their heads. “Except for Jen and me going to the store that one time, we haven’t been outside,” Kristen said. “You know, because that guy’s still out there.”

  Several of the girls visibly shuddered. Charlie knew exactly how they felt.

  “Do you think Bayley’s still alive?” Hannah asked in a tiny voice.

  “I think so,” Tony answered, while Charlie felt her heart constrict. If she let herself dwell to any extent on Bayley, she started feeling physically sick.

  After a few more questions, Tony ended the interview. He and Charlie then talked to the mothers, who knew no more than their daughters. The mothers took the opportunity to pepper them with questions, which Charlie left Tony to answer. He responded with a patience and empathy she truly admired. At the same time he made it clear that he couldn’t actually discuss an ongoing investigation and subtly steered her toward the door.

  The man has tact. Chalk up another plus.

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that the perpetrator has tried to make contact with these girls or their families.” Charlie glanced over at Tony as they rode the elevator down toward the lot out front, where the SUV was parked. “If there’s some way to keep tabs on the men they come into contact with …”

  Her voice trailed off as Tony shook his head. “Neither us nor the local police force have the manpower to stay with them twenty-four seven.” As the elevator stopped and they emerged into the spacious, tile-floored lobby, he looked up and around, then frowned thoughtfully. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check the security cameras, but I don’t expect to get much out of it. Speaking for myself, if I were him and wanted to make contact with any of those families, I wouldn’t do it in a place where I was so obviously being recorded.”

  Following the direction his gaze had taken, Charlie saw the security cameras mounted high in every corner. As their purpose was obviously to deter crime, they were impossible to miss.

  “Good point,” she responded.

  “It’s suppertime,” he said. “And I’m starving. I’d ask you out to dinner, but until we find Bayley Evans, I can’t spare the time. How do you feel about grabbing some carryout on the way back to the house?”

  Charlie smiled at him. She liked the idea that he wanted to take her to dinner. If he had asked, she would have said yes. One day, she was going to. “Are we talking McDonald’s, KFC, or Arby’s?” Those were the three fast-food outlets between the condo and their rental.

  He grinned back at her as he pulled the building’s heavy glass door open so she could walk on through. “Tough call. You make it.”

  She never got the chance to—stepping out into the bright sunlight and baking heat of the parking lot, they were swarmed by a crowd of shouting, microphone-and-camera-wielding reporters.

  Charlie blinked in surprise. Her hand automatically went up to shield her eyes from the sun, then stayed in place to hide her face from the cameras. A police cordon had successfully kept the media away from their house, as well as Central Command and the crime scene area—except for yesterday’s one breach, which meant that they, or at least Charlie, hadn’t had to deal with an onslaught like this since. But here the media was again, surrounding them in a shoving, shouting ambush.

  Tony’s arm wrapped around her waist and he pulled her protectively close as they made their way through the pack. Charlie appreciated the gesture, and not just because she was rattled by the aggressive tactics of the media. At some point, she thought, this relationship might have some real potential. All it needed was a chance.

  “Agent Bartoli, any fresh leads?”

  “How are Bayley’s friends holding up?”

  “Can you give us an update on the status of the investigation?”

  “Does this feel like déjà vu all over again to you, Dr. Stone?”

  The last question, yelled by a male reporter, made Charlie drop her hand from in front of her face and look at him sharply. Something about it struck her as wrong. Watching her avidly, thrusting his microphone in her direction, the reporter surged forward until he was just feet away. He was fifty-ish, portly, with a bad toupee and a shark�
��s smile. The right age …

  A shiver ran down her spine.

  Dear God, am I starting to see the Boardwalk Killer in every age-appropriate male?

  “Any identity on the body yet, Agent Bartoli?”

  Tony’s arm around her tightened. Charlie could feel the sudden snap of tension in his body. He frowned at the reporter who’d asked the question even as he continued to propel her toward the SUV, which was now only a few parking spaces away.

  “What body are we talking about?” Tony called back warily.

  “The one found about half an hour ago out at Jockey’s Ridge. Jesus, didn’t you hear? Security’s tighter out there than at the White House, and nobody’s saying anything, but I sure thought they’d let the FBI know.”

  Another reporter yelled, “Can you confirm it’s Bayley Evans?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Jockey’s Ridge is the tallest natural sand dune on the East Coast. Located in Nags Head, the park surrounding it comprises 426 acres. Part of it is maritime forest. Except for some tall grass and a few scrubby bushes, the rest is rolling waves of white sand that reminded Charlie, as she stood near the end of the weathered, 384-foot-long boardwalk, of a picture she had once seen of the Sahara. It was evening by that time, past nine p.m., which meant the sun was hanging low in the west and long shadows stretched out everywhere, but the temperature was still so hot that even the wind blowing off Roanoke Sound felt suffocating.

  The sand was thirty degrees hotter.

  A young woman’s body was buried in that sand, in the shadows beneath the raised end of the boardwalk, beside one of the sturdy pillars that elevated the decklike platform into a scenic overlook providing a clear view of the dunes and the choppy blue waters of the Sound below. Charlie stood near enough to the burial site to smell the chemicals that were being used to preserve the more perishable bits of trace evidence being painstakingly lifted from the sand. She could see the shape of the body being revealed by the sand’s slow removal. She could see the horrible brown discoloration that clumped the once-white sand together in places so that it resembled coffee grounds.