The Obsession

by Nora Roberts

  substituted. And then found the high of the kill, of taking those substitutes. Along the way he evolved, he learned, he refined.”

  “Mason, that’s ten years. You’re talking ten years.”

  “Initially, his kills would be more spread out. Months, even a year between. He’d experiment with method, study you, study Bowes. He may be competing with Bowes, and Bowes had a twelve-year streak—that can be verified. You and I know it might have been longer.”

  Couldn’t sit, couldn’t, so she pushed away from the desk, paced to the window, drank in the view of the water.

  The peace of it, the colors blooming in light and in shadow.

  “I don’t know why, but if I believe it’s been ten years, it makes it less intimate. This isn’t about something I did, something I didn’t do—Xander was right. I’m the excuse. God, I asked myself so many times in the first couple of years after that night in the woods what I’d done or didn’t do to make my father hurt all those girls.”

  “I did the same.”

  She glanced back at him. “Did you?”

  “Yeah, I did. Of course I did. And the answer was nothing. We didn’t do anything.”

  “It took me a long time to accept that, to push away any blame. It’s not going to take me as long now. Not with this, not with him. And he’s not going to get away with using me as an excuse to kill.”

  She turned back. “He’s not going to get away with it.”

  “Brooding time’s over?”

  “Damn right, it is. Ashley. Liza would have been the same age as Ashley when I found her.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Considering, Mason sat back. “It might have been a trigger. Not necessarily the exact age, but the college student. You saved a college student. Now you’re a college student, and he goes there to kill you, or a surrogate. To finish what Bowes had started.”

  Mason rose. “I have to get into town. What I’d like you to do, when you can, is go back over that period when Eliza Anderson was killed, the days before it happened. Try to take yourself back there, the routine—class, work, study, social life.”

  “I barely had a social life, but all right. I’m going to do whatever I can to help you find him. And, Mason, when you do, I want something.”

  “What?”

  “Something I couldn’t do, just couldn’t do, with our father. I want to talk to him.”

  “Let’s catch him first.” But Mason went to her, wrapped his arms around her before stepping back. “You and Xander? Things are okay there?”

  “Why?”

  “You were yelling—both of you—when you came up here yesterday. And you were still off and upset when you came down again.”

  “He pisses me off so I won’t panic. It works. Most of the time. He said he’s in love with me. Well, he didn’t say it, he shouted and swore, and worked it into that. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  “If I knew that, I’d do it.”

  “You know.” He poked a finger in the center of her forehead. “You’re still brooding on that one. I’ll let you know if I’m going to be late.”

  Alone, Naomi considered brooding on that one a little longer. Instead, she sat behind her desk again, dug out files.

  And took herself back to college.

  —

  She spent two hours, made notes before taking her camera and going outside for a break. Dirt-covered and joyful, Tag paused his love affair with the landscapers to race to her.

  “Sorry about that!” Lelo called out. “He’s sure having fun, though.”

  “It shows.” Resigned to carving out time to bathe the dog, she took pictures of the crew setting pavers. Another of the one she thought of as Mr. Hunk—tall, golden, built, and currently sweaty, stripped to the waist and leaning on a shovel.

  Hunks at Work, she thought, immediately seeing a series of photos. Maybe a calendar, she thought, remembering Xander working on an engine, Kevin with a nail gun.

  She spent longer than she’d intended, taking candids, devising poses. Then she left the dirty dog with the exterior crew and went back inside.

  Back in her studio, she grabbed a bottle of water, texted Mason.

  Give me the next in line, chronologically. I’ll organize notes on the college years and have them for you tonight.

  Within minutes he’d emailed her two names, two dates. One eight months after Eliza Anderson he’d termed a possible, and the other, nearly eight months after that, termed probable.

  She went with the possible.

  And spent her day in the past. In the brisk winds of November on a college campus where Eliza Anderson had walked from the library to her car, intending to drive back to the group house she shared with friends, to the sweltering summer in New York where a runaway—only seventeen—was found beaten, stabbed, and strangled in a Dumpster behind a homeless shelter. To a bitter February weekend where Naomi had traveled with her photography group to New Bedford, where a married mother of two left her evening yoga class—and was found dead on the rocky shoreline Naomi had photographed only that afternoon.

  She skipped any excuse for lunch, fueling herself on water, far too much cold caffeine, and sheer drive. When she’d ignored the headache as long as she could, she popped some Advil and finished writing up her notes in a way—she hoped—someone besides herself could follow.

  Exhausted, she decided Jenny was right. She needed a love seat in the studio. If she’d had one she’d have curled up on it right that minute for a nap.

  Then again, if she had a love seat to take a nap on, she’d have a dirt-covered dog roaming the house. Best to wash the dog, then think about dinner. Because now that she’d stopped, she was starving.

  She stepped out of the studio, stood for a moment in the absolute silence—and decided having the house to herself was nearly as refreshing as a nap.

  So she’d grab a couple of cookies to fill the hole, wash the stupid dog, then think about dinner.

  But she realized as she came down the back steps into the kitchen that she didn’t have the house to herself. Seeing the accordion doors wide open would’ve stopped her heart if she hadn’t heard Xander’s voice.

  “Jesus, go lie down, will you? Do I look like I have a hand free to throw that damn thing?”

  She stepped out.

  He sat on a rolling stool, assembling a stainless steel cabinet. The rest of the . . . behemoth was really all she could think, was spread out on a folding table behind him.

  The dog—clean and smelling of his shampoo—managed to work his way under Xander’s arm to drop the ball in his lap.

  “Forget it.”

  “Is that . . . a grill?”

  He glanced up. “I told you I’d get the grill.”

  “It’s really big. Very really big.”

  “No point in puny.” He fitted the bit of an electric drill into a screw, gave it a whirl.

  “Don’t they come already assembled?”

  “Why would I pay somebody to put something together when I can put it together myself?” To buy some time, Xander heaved the ball over the deck rail.

  For one heart-stopping moment Naomi feared the dog would leap off after it, but he went into a flying scramble down the stairs.

  “You bought a grill—what looks to be a Cadillac of grills.”

  “I said I would.”

  “And you do what you say you’ll do.”

  “Why say you will if you don’t?” He shifted, watched her watching him. “What?”

  “I had a headache,” she said, thoughtfully. “And I was tired—brain, body, spirit, if you want to do the hat trick. I wished I had a couch in my studio so I could take a nap. But I needed to wash the dog.”

  “I washed him—for all the good it’ll do since there’s plenty of dirt out front for him to roll in again. Go take an aspirin and a nap.”

  “The headache’s gone, and I’m not so tired. I earned the headache and the tired by forgetting to eat
lunch and drinking too much caffeine.”

  “I don’t get how people forget to eat. Your stomach says feed me. You feed it, move on.”

  She let out a sigh. It surprised her as it wasn’t sad, frustrated, poignant. It was content. “Xander.” She went to him, reached down to take his face in her hands, kissed him. “You washed the dog. You bought a grill—one that looks like it needs its own zip code.”

  “It’s not that big.”

  “And you’re putting it together. I’ll go do the same with dinner.”

  “What are you talking about? This is a grill. In about forty minutes I’m going to fire it up and cook those steaks I picked up on the way home.”

  “You bought steaks? You’re going to grill steaks?” She looked at the partially assembled behemoth. “Tonight?”

  “Yes, tonight. Have some faith. I had them put a big-ass salad together, and if you want to be useful, you could wash the potatoes I’m going to grill.”

  Just as she started to prep, Mason came in. “Listen, I want to change, have what you’re having. Then we’ll talk. I saw Xander’s truck out front.”

  “He’s on the deck, assembling a gigantic grill.”

  “A grill.” Mason stepped out and said, “Whoa,” in tones of awe and delight. “Now that’s a grill.”

  “It will be.”

  “I’ll give you a hand.”

  “You’ve never been mechanically inclined,” Naomi began, and got a stony stare.

  “You don’t know everything.” Obviously primed, Mason stripped off his suit jacket, tugged off his tie, and then rolled up his sleeves.

  Naomi stood in the kitchen, listening to them talk. There could be normal, she realized. There could be pockets of normal even in the middle of the awful.

  She would prize it.

  —

  And she should’ve had faith. In forty minutes, despite what she considered Mason’s dubious assistance, Xander did just as he’d promised.

  He fired up the grill.

  “I’m duly impressed. And it’s beautiful. Big, but beautiful.”

  “It gets covered.” Xander jerked a thumb at the cover, still in its package on the table. “You use it, it cools off, you cover it. Every time.”

  “Without fail,” she promised. “And the side burners will be handy, plus it has all this storage.” She opened one of the doors. “That’s a rotisserie attachment.”

  “Yeah. I’ll show you how to use it when you want to.”

  “Restaurant kid. I know how to attach and use a rotisserie. And I will be. Let me get the potatoes ready.”

  “You scrub them off, toss them on.”

  “I’ll show you a trick. If I’d known this was happening I’d have picked up some liquid smoke.”

  “I’ve got some. They threw in this thank-you package. There’s some in there. Why?”

  “Why—get it and see.”

  What he saw was her mixing up oil, the smoke, some garlic in a bowl.

  “They’re just potatoes.”

  “Not when I’m done with them.” In another bowl, she mixed salt, pepper, more garlic. Then she took one of her little knives and cut wedges out of the potatoes.

  “Why—” he began, but she just waved him off and put pats of butter in the wedges, then sprinkled the salt stuff in it before fitting the piece she’d cut out back on.

  “It’s a lot of trouble for—”

  She made a warning sound, rubbed the potatoes with the oil mixture, used the rest of the seasoning on them, then wrapped them in foil.

  “Have a little faith,” she said, and handed him the three massive spuds.

  When Mason came down, they were sitting on the glider with the dog at their feet.

  “That’s one beautiful bastard,” he said, studying the grill.

  He sat on the deck, back against the pickets. “Do you want me to wait until later?”

  “No. I’m good. I’ve had a lot of time to think it through, work it out. We all need to know all we can.”

  “Okay then. We profile the unsub from late twenties to early thirties.”

  “More my age,” Naomi said.

  “He’d have blended on campus, we believe as a student.”

  “What campus?” Xander demanded.

  “You’re not caught up.”

  “He was in assembly mode when I came down. I didn’t talk to him about it.”

  “Okay. We now believe, strongly, the first kill was a student at Naomi’s college, in Naomi’s second year.”

  He filled in the blanks quickly.

  “I didn’t get to all your notes, Naomi, but I did read the ones on that time period. You were part of a photography club, casually dating one of the other members. You were still living on campus, and you worked at a place called Café Café—coffeehouse, casual dining. You paid extra to have a single room—no roomie—in your dorm.”

  “I learned the first year I couldn’t handle a roommate. They wanted to party when I wanted to work, and I still had nightmares off and on. I could put in extra hours at the café and pay the extra.”

  “And the night Eliza Anderson was killed you got off about nine.”

  “It was a Friday night—I looked it up, and I remembered. Most Fridays I got off at nine, walked back to my dorm, put in a couple hours on assignments or study. Even if the weather was bad, it was only about a ten-minute walk, on campus. But Justin came by right before I got off—the guy I was seeing. He wanted to show me some of the shots he’d taken earlier in the day, for this assignment. I liked his work, which is probably why I’d started seeing him, so he and another girl from our club walked back to my room together.”

  “Three of you—not what the unsub was expecting. He’d watched you, he knew your routine. And he couldn’t move on you when you were in a group. So he took a substitute, an opportunity.”

  “Eliza.”

  “She left the library about nine thirty. Her car was in the lot—she lived in a group house off campus. She wasn’t dating anyone, but they were having a party at the group house, so she was expected. We believe she was forced into her car—we know she was raped and killed in it—forced to drive somewhere remote enough to do what was done. Then he put her body in the trunk, drove it back, left it in the lot. He would’ve been bloody, so it’s likely he had his own car close, he had a change of clothes, a place to stay. By the time she was found the next day, he was gone.”

  She imagined the fear, like the terrible fear she’d seen in Ashley’s eyes.

  “If he knew my schedule, he had to have watched me for more than a week.”

  “Possibly, or he asked. Just asked someone. But he took Friday, which has proven to be significant. He may have been in school himself, taken time off. He may have gone to the same university, and have developed his obsession with you there.”

  “I never felt unsafe there. You were right before about noticing things. I think I would have, I would have felt it if someone that close had been focused on me. Someone I saw routinely, on campus, in class, in the café. But I didn’t.”

  “How did he know you went there?” Xander asked. “How did he know where to find you?”

  “If he looked hard enough, had decent computer skills?” Mason