Текст книги "All The Pretty Girls"

Автор книги: J. T. Ellison

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Taylor noticed that the moment Quinn had started speaking of her husband all the warmth and sparkle had gone out of her voice. And now talking about her sister was bringing it all home.

“Anytime is fine with me. Would you like to go now?”

“I’d prefer tomorrow morning. I have some arrangements to see to, and I haven’t been able to reach our younger brother, Reese. He is in Guatemala doing a mission trip with several other doctors from Vanderbilt. He’s the youngest resident to ever go on one of their trips. They spend two weeks doing surgeries on cleft palates, joints, all the procedures these poor people have absolutely no access to. Reese will be doing some pre-op and post-op counseling. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. He’s not due back for another week. I’ll try to get word to him, but he told me before he left that there wasn’t a solid line of communication. He’ll want to have a hand in everything.”

Taylor handed her one of her cards and said,

“Anytime tomorrow morning is fine with me. Just give me a call and I’ll meet you there.”

With that they wrapped things up with a few niceties and Taylor made a hasty retreat. Something was very All the Pretty Girls

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sad about Quinn Buckley, and it wasn’t only that her twin sister had just died.

Back in her car, she decided she might have time to head over to Betsy Garrison’s house. She dialed the number, and Brian Post answered.

“Hey, Post, can I come on over? I wanted to check on Betsy, see how she’s doing. Maybe talk about the case for a moment.”

“You know what, Taylor, it might be best if we gave it a day. She’s starting to come off all the drugs and really grasp what happened and she’s pretty pissed off. Having the story out on the air isn’t helping matters. I don’t want her to have to go through it with other people around, you know what I mean?”

“Of course. That’s no problem. Have her call me when she’s ready to talk. Meantime, do you want to be brought up-to-date?”

“I already spoke with Lincoln and Marcus. They brought me up to speed. I guess we have to start looking at one of our own, huh?”

“Well, there are lots of police uniforms in the midstate. Maybe it’s one of theirs.”

“That would be great,” he said a bit sarcastically.

“Tell you what, I’ll give your boys a shout in the morning and we can decide where to go from there.”

“Sounds good. Give Betsy my best. Sounds like she’s lucky to have you around.”

“Will do, Taylor. Thanks.”

Twenty-Seven

Baldwin got the call in his stifling hotel room nearly a full minute before the News Alert flashed on the TV

screen.

“It’s Grimes. We’ve got another one missing.”

“Are you kidding me? It hasn’t even been twentyfour hours.” Baldwin was wide awake now. “Who is it?”

“Local girl, Christina Dale. Didn’t show up for work this morning. This whole town is on alert because we’ve been here tending to Marni, and when she didn’t show up they immediately called it in. And one more thing. We’ve got a leak.”

Baldwin saw a flash out of the corner of his eye. He looked to the TV. Sure enough, the News Alert came up, a picture of a pretty brunette staring out from the screen.

“We have a leak” was an understatement, and he told that to Grimes.

“I know, I know. I can’t figure out who it is, either. No one that I’m giving information to, that’s for sure. All the Pretty Girls

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Regardless, we need to get moving on this new victim. How soon can you meet me?”

“Let me grab a shower, say, fifteen minutes in the lobby?”

“Okay, I’ll see you.” Grimes hung up and Baldwin sat on the edge of the lumpy bed shaking his head. Too fast. Too fast. This guy was on fire, and they weren’t any closer to finding out what was happening. They needed to kick it into high gear. He got up and walked to the bathroom, stripping off his boxers as he went. Oh, who was he kidding? They needed a break. They needed a big break.

“We got a break,” Grimes whispered to Baldwin as he walked up to him in the lobby. Grimes was looking a bit better today, not rested but there was a glimmer in his eyes.

“We got a break,” he said again, low, and put his hand on Baldwin’s back as if to propel him toward the front door. Baldwin waited until they were outside and turned to him. “Let me guess. There was a DNA hit on the piece of condom.”

Grimes looked vaguely disappointed. “No, there was nothing of use there. They recovered epithelial cells, but they were from a female. It’s a wash, unfortunately.”

“Damn,” Baldwin huffed. “That was our best shot so far.”

“You’ll change your mind after you hear this. We had an anonymous call that Christina Dale was seen at a motel last night. Cheap-ass place, just a couple of miles up the road. We’re gonna go in and check the room, she might still be there. We’ve got dogs meeting us, too…if she’s gone, we might be able to track her scent.” They got into the car and Grimes was buckling, shifting and 216

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steering at the same time. “Break, man, that’s what we needed, a break.”

“Yeah, no kidding. This is good, Grimes.” Baldwin was skeptical that they’d find the girl in a cheap motel room with all the evidence they needed to catch the killer. But he was willing to try anything once. His thoughts drifted. It seemed a little unlikely that the Strangler had simply decided to grab a motel room for the night to kill his latest victim. Baldwin mentally slapped himself.You don’t know she’s dead, man. But if she was, and he left something behind for them, well, that would be nice. A motel room would be a blessing and a curse for them. Too many remnants to process, but something might pop out. Grimes was still muttering under his breath as they pulled into the horseshoe-shaped drive of a budget motel that had seen better days. Paint peeled off the walls, a dirty gray that might have been white fifty years before. The Vacancy sign flashed, and Baldwin wondered if it had ever been turned off. There were cars piling up in the parking lot and Baldwin wanted the first crack at the room.

“Stall them,” he said to Grimes as he jumped out of the car. He walked quickly to the office and shut the door behind him. A fan poured warm air through the room, making it sweltering. A man with one tooth sticking out from what seemed like his lower lip stared him down. Baldwin flashed his FBI badge and hoped it would impress. It didn’t.

“We got a call that Christina Dale was seen here last night. Can you tell me what room she was in?”

The man stared at him, belligerence creeping up in his eyes, then dampening down like he’d stepped into a cold mental shower.

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“Yuaa, she was here. Didn’t see with who. Came in all drunk and stupid like she always does. Gave her the key to the room on the end. She didn’t bring it back yet this mornin’. What’s all this about?”

“Have you been in the room?”

“Ain’t but the one key. I tolds ya she didn’t bring it back this mornin’. What’s all this? Did Christina do somethin’ stupid, get herself in trouble with the law?”

The leathery bald head and absence of teeth gave the man a shrunken look, as if a headhunter had stolen in during the night and worked his magic on the man’s head, shrinking it down to portable size. Baldwin was almost staring but stopped himself.

“And you are…?”

“Call me Ishmael,” the man cackled. Baldwin stared at him until he finally stopped laughing and said, “It’s Jones.”

“Mr. Jones, did you see who she came with? Was it a man?”

“What, you think she’s one of those lesbos? ’Course it was a man. Practically a different man every night, seemed to me.” He sucked his tooth, the noise making Baldwin’s spine crawl.

“Mr. Jones, is there any chance you remember the particular man she was with last night?”

Jones sighed. “Prolly some young, good-lookin’

feller. She seemed to like them damn black Irish, brought ’em around more often than not.”

“Dark-haired men, you mean?”

“Black as coal. ’Course, I don’t see much. I don’t go spying on my folks.”

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“Of course you don’t.” Lying sack of shit. Baldwin was ready to pull that tooth right out of the man’s mouth. “Were they in Christina’s car?”

“Nope. Don’t say as I know what kind it were, either. Just long and dark, that’s all. Mebbe silver. Never was much of a car man. Like me those tits and ass though.”

Baldwin watched the fan for a moment, biting his lip. If he were as old and wizened, he’d be bad-tempered, too.

“Anything else you can remember, Mr. Jones? Did you see what time the car left?”

“Can’t say that I did. I sleep there in that back room over yonder, expect people to ring the bell if they needs me. I don’t recall anyone ringing the bell after Christina came through. What’d she do?”

“I don’t know, sir. Thank you for all your help, though. Mind if we break down the door if it’s locked?”

“I don’t give a rat’s patooty what you do, so long as you pay for it. But them doors are kinda flimsy, won’t take much to get it open.”

“Okay, Mr. Jones. Why don’t you stay in here while we go get that door opened.” He left before the man had a chance to ask any more questions or get any ideas, and walked quickly back to Grimes. The old man hustled after him, stood in the doorway to the motel office and stared at the commotion.

“Room three. No keys, we’ll have to take the door. The guy in there, the manager, didn’t seem too concerned, just wanted to know if Christina did something to get herself into trouble. Saw her come in with someone driving a ‘long car.’ Was he the one that called it in?”

“I don’t know who called it in, they just said it was an anonymous caller. I got the call from the sheriff’s All the Pretty Girls

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office, they’d gotten a call from their news station here in town.”

Baldwin appraised the man. Sloppy work, Grimes, very sloppy work. He should know every detail of the events that led them to this motel. He was getting wound too tight. “We better be careful in case someone is jerking our chain. Let’s just go up and knock first.”

They made their way to the door and did just that. There was no answer. Baldwin turned the knob; it was locked from the inside. He signaled to a deputy who held a battering ram. The door wouldn’t take much abuse, it looked rickety as hell. The man stepped up, swung once and the door burst open.

Baldwin looked inside and was assaulted with a strong coppery smell. He held up his hand to signal that he didn’t want anyone else coming in the room, then flashed his Maglite through the door. The sight was grim.

He could see almost immediately that there was no one in the room. It was a small area, just large enough for a bed and a desk, the latter taken up with a battered old television. A door led off to the right and Baldwin could see the reflection of a toilet and tub in the mirror. He could see blood on the unmade bed, enough blood that his mind told him the story. If this was Christina Dale’s last-known resting place, she was most likely no longer with this world.

He looked back out into the parking lot at the expectant faces and shook his head to signal that she wasn’t in the room. He signaled to Grimes. “I need gloves and boots, and a crime scene tech to start collecting evidence. Do you have a camera in the car? We need to 220

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get some pictures of this.” Grimes went to the car and came back with a digital camera.

“You can use this for now. The tech should have his own, but I always carry this in a pinch.” He also handed Baldwin gloves and booties to cover his shoes, then put his own on. They were ready to see what had happened in the indifferent little room.

Baldwin took one step inside and felt the energy, a palpable mass that nearly took his breath away. Maybe because this was the first mobile killing site they had found, there was a different power to this crime scene—

a deeper sense of evil. He hoped they would be able to learn more about their killer, and his anticipation ran high. Many of the other members of Behavioral Science didn’t feel the necessity of physically being at a crime scene. They were meant to draw conclusions about personality types, not process an event off the ground. Baldwin had always felt differently. He found that being at the scene gave him an honest taste of the killer. Being in the same room helped him understand on a far deeper level what actually happened. Seeing the blood firsthand, tasting that coppery tang in the back of his throat, his eyes assailed by red, his olfactory senses working overdrive, gave him an overwhelming ability to know what the killer was thinking at the time he committed his crime. He shone the flashlight throughout the room, and then focused on the light switch at the door. He didn’t want to run the risk of destroying a possible print, so he decided to leave the light off and make do with his Maglite. He swept the beam back to the bed. The sheets were soaked with blood. He flashed the light around the walls—there was blood spray and droplets everywhere. The spray, the All the Pretty Girls

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copious blood—he’d changed his pattern, without a doubt. Christina had been alive while she was separated from her hands. Intuition told him that she was dead. The light took in the rest of the room. Something on top of the TV caught Baldwin’s eye. Carefully picking his way to the television, he read the note aloud without picking it up.

“She half enclosed me with her arms She pressed me with a weak embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face.

’Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly ’twas a bashful art,

That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart.”

“My, he does love the classics,” Baldwin remarked, sliding the note into a plastic sleeve. “That one’s Coleridge. It’s called ‘Love.’” He glanced at Grimes and nodded, looking around the little room for any other signs. He saw none, so he backed carefully into the dusty courtyard. The rest would be up to the crime scene techs. He hoped they were good.

“I wonder if he had feelings for her,” Grimes asked.

“No, Grimes. He doesn’t have feelings that can be equated to love. She’s a pawn in his game. That’s all. The poems mean something to him. I don’t know if they’re supposed to mean anything to us. Let’s get this room processed, we need to see if we have anything that can link Christina Dale to the rest of the girls.”

They stepped into the clearing in the parking lot. 222

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Jones was holding court in the door to the office, a few locals had stepped onto the porch to exchange gossip with him. Lights were flashing, people were starting to crowd around. A deputy that Baldwin recognized from yesterday’s crime scene with Marni Fischer started winding yellow tape around anything he could find that would help form a barrier between the public and the law enforcement officials that were processing the scene.

As Baldwin watched the parade of action, a black SUV pulled up and he breathed a sigh of relief. Grimes hadn’t lost it completely, and had called in their own forensic team. The locals wouldn’t be allowed to touch anything, only the FBI would be handling evidence. There was just no sense in messing around. The dogs were next. They piled out of a dingy white pickup truck, a man in overalls and a John Deere cap herding them. There were two bloodhounds and a bluetick hound. Good trackers.

A deputy from the sheriff’s office had gone to Christina Dale’s home to check on her whereabouts when they’d first gotten the call that she hadn’t shown up for work. When she wasn’t to be found, the heads-up deputy grabbed a couple of pieces of her clothing. Knowing it was most likely futile, Baldwin watched as the dogs were given the clothing to smell. The handler stuck something cream colored under their noses and they whined and howled, straining on their leads, ready to go. The handler gave his commands and they were off. They ran about twenty yards to the east, baying, then slowed back to a walk, sniffing the ground, working in circles, growing more confused by the All the Pretty Girls

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minute. The handler looked at Baldwin and shrugged. He must have put her in a car. Not a big surprise. Baldwin looked around and felt the scene, despite the confusion, was out of his hands. It was time to find out more about the latest victim.

Twenty-Eight

The man was sweating. He was tired. It was hard work, getting a body in the right spot. But he was finished now, and he stepped back to admire his handiwork, rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. Soon, he thought. Soon, it will be done and you will have everything you always dreamed of. You will have the world at your feet and I will be there with you. He smiled to himself and got back in the car. He had things to do. He chuckled. “And miles to go before I sleep. Oh yes, miles to go before I sleep.”

Twenty-Nine

Whitney Connolly’s home was in a stately neighborhood in Bellevue, an area jokingly referred to as West Belle Meade. Trees lined the streets, the homes were mostly two-story brick with large yards. Children played in the streets and backyards oblivious to the cares of the world; the sun shone its blessings on their cavorting.

Taylor drove slowly through the neighborhood, wondering if she should look at buying here. It was obviously filled with kids and the homes were gracious and large, much more space than she already had. She’d toyed with the idea of selling the cabin once or twice in the past. With Baldwin around, things were getting a little cramped. Maybe that was the key. Break all her own rules. Buy a house, move in together and let people get over it when they found out she was dating a fed. Hell, her team was discovering her secret and none of them seemed to have any issues with it. Maybe she was the problem; her own prejudices were getting in the 226

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way. There was no law on the books against having a boyfriend, after all.

She’d counted it up last night. They’d been together for four months—just enough time for the newness to begin wearing off. He’d never officially moved in with her, just stopped going to his own house. She’d never encouraged him to leave. They’d fallen into a pattern while she was rehabbing—he’d bring home dinner, they’d talk about their cases, they’d end up in bed. Idyllic. Nothing easier to ruin a good relationship than having to talk about it. She knew he felt it, too, there was no reason to go chasing after it.

A woman with a yellow Lab walked by and gave her a friendly wave. Taylor sighed and allowed herself a moment of reverie before she pulled herself back into the here and now. There was plenty of time for dreams later. She took a left turn and wound deeper into the neighborhood, pulling to a stop in front of a large red-brick house with white columns. Quinn Buckley stood on the porch, her arms wrapped around her body as if she was cold, her pretty face pinched and drawn. She looked terribly tired and uncomfortable. Of course, this house was a far cry from the palatial mansion Quinn was accustomed to, maybe she just felt out of her element. Taylor chided herself silently. Now, that wasn’t a very nice thing to think. The woman just lost her sister, give her the benefit of the doubt. She got out of the car and walked across the grass to the front steps. She saw that Quinn had already picked up two copies of the Tennessean and was holding them in her left hand. She held them up, shaking the papers slightly, the plastic covers rustling in her hand.

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“I guess I have to cancel her subscription. I guess I’m going to have to do a lot of things around here.” Quinn gave her a small smile that didn’t make it all the way to her cool blue eyes.

Taylor nodded. “It’s always hard to get things settled after someone passes. Is there anyone else who can help you? Did Whitney have a boyfriend, someone who was familiar with her everyday things?”

Quinn laughed, a bitter sound. “No, Whitney didn’t have time for a boyfriend. She didn’t have time for anyone but herself. I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but my sister was one of the most selfish people you could ever meet. Everything revolved around her and her plans, her dreams. She couldn’t be bothered with anyone else.”

She turned and stuck a key in the lock. “She left it under the mat for the cleaning lady. She told me that a while ago, I assumed it would still be there and it was. Here we go.”

The oak door swung open and Taylor was assailed by the smell of furniture polish and Clorox. Her heart sank. “Did the cleaning lady just come?” she asked Quinn.

“I believe she came once a week, but I’m not sure which day. Usually midweek, I think. Is that a problem?”

“No, not necessarily a problem. If I was investigating a crime here, it would be, but since this was ruled an accident, it shouldn’t make a difference. But if there was something here that your sister was basing her panicky phone calls to you on, I would want to see it. But maybe we’re grasping at straws. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything tangible. Let’s just look around.”

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Quinn nodded and led the way through the foyer. The house was beautifully decorated to within an inch of its life. Parquet floors led to a spacious kitchen filled with the latest trends—black granite counters with an Italianstone backsplash, whitewashed cabinets and stainlesssteel appliances. An office area and breakfast nook split the kitchen from a large living room. Mullioned windows ran the length of the house along the back, and natural light flooded from the fenced-in backyard. Everything had a place, not a thing was disturbed. It was very homey, yet there was an antiseptic quality to it all. As if a decorator had decided what Whitney would like rather than Whitney herself deciding. Taylor supposed that if she was as busy as Whitney had obviously been, then she might have someone else do the decorating too. Taylor moved slowly through the downstairs of the house. The maid had been thorough, there was nothing amiss. Damn, that just made things more difficult. As she turned to go into the living room, a briefcase and a laptop computer caught her eye. The brand-new computer was sitting on the desk of a built-in set of shelves, and the briefcase sat at the foot of the chair. Taylor carefully opened the briefcase but saw nothing that excited her. Whitney didn’t bring a lot of paperwork home. She pulled out the chair and sat in front of the computer. She opened the top and was rewarded with a full screen of e-mails. Whitney Connolly hadn’t logged out of her computer when she took off like a bat out of hell for her sister’s house. Taylor scanned the e-mails. She saw that several had come in today, the dates were current and the e-mails were still bolded, indicating they hadn’t been read. She noticed that a few All the Pretty Girls

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of the messages had red flags next to them. She’d seen Sam do the same thing with her e-mails, she got so many that she had to identify which ones she wanted to pay attention to first. Taylor wasn’t as picky; she just didn’t spend that much time online to have to devise organizational codes for her e-mail. She started looking at the red-flagged entries, trying to see if something jumped out at her. She noticed there were a few that had already been opened but still had the red flag next to them. She turned to Quinn.

“Do I have your permission to go through Whitney’s e-mails?”

“Of course, do anything you need. I’m going to go out on the back deck for a little air, if you don’t mind.”

Quinn stepped out the French doors and turned her back to Taylor. Just as well, she thought. She wouldn’t want some impersonal stranger to go through all of her things if she keeled over unexpectedly.

She started looking closer at the previously flagged e-mails and matching them to unread flagged mail. There were a couple that were self-explanatory, alerts from news organizations and the like. But there was one address she saw several times, the subject line always reading “A poem for S.W.” She took a chance and opened the newest mail from that address. The window opened and there were just a few lines on the page. Taylor read them aloud:

“She half enclosed me with her arms She pressed me with a weak embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face.

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’Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly ’twas a bashful art,

That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart.”

She closed the e-mail, feeling like a spy. And Quinn thought her sister didn’t have a boyfriend. She scrolled through the list and saw that there were five more e-mails from the mystery man—

[email protected]. She opened them and glanced through hurriedly. Each held a fragment of poetry like the first had. She wished Baldwin would send her anonymous love poems.

She went through the rest of the mail but didn’t see anything that leaped out at her. It was time to let Whitney’s sister take a crack at it.

“Quinn?” Taylor called over her shoulder, and Quinn came in from the deck.

Taylor pointed to the e-mails. “I’ve been through here and haven’t seen anything that seems terribly out of place. She seems to get a number of e-mails from the same people. Would you like to take a look and see if anything strikes you?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Lieutenant. My sister’s e-mail is just not something I’m interested in. And I can hardly think any of it would have to do with me.”

“Well, have a quick look anyway. I did find some love poems that had been sent to her. I thought you said she didn’t have a boyfriend.” Taylor’s voice was only slightly accusing. She wondered if there was any chance that Quinn knew anything substantive about her sister’s life.

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“Love poems? Let me see.” Quinn leaned over the desk and Taylor pulled up the latest message. Quinn read the lines and got a strange look on her face. Taylor noticed.

“Something strike you as odd about this?”

Quinn’s face took on a soft countenance, and her eyes got moist. “It’s nothing, really.”

Taylor wasn’t going to let that go; the look on Quinn’s face told her that there was something about the poem. “I think there may be something here. There’re several more. Are you sure they don’t mean anything to you?”

Taylor looked at Quinn, who was trying to look away. Taylor could see that her shoulders were shaking slightly, and she was amazed to see a tear fall down Quinn’s lovely face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly. “Is this getting to you?”

Quinn laughed out a sob. “No, it’s nothing like that. I loved my sister, and I’m sick at heart that she’s dead. But the poems, that’s got nothing to do with it. My husband used to send me poems. He doesn’t anymore.”

She turned away and gathered herself by walking through the kitchen, grabbing a paper towel, splashing some water on it and holding it to her face. When she turned back to Taylor, her eyes were shining but she was back in control.

“Silly of me, to think of Jake in the middle of all this. I guess seeing that Whitney has an admirer made me wish that Jake felt like that about me still.” And with that, she left the room. Taylor could hear her rummaging around but decided to leave her alone for a while. 232

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Taylor swept through the rest of the house, looking for anything that would give them a clue as to why Whitney Connolly was in such desperate straits to reach her sister. If only the maid hadn’t wiped away any obvious intent by straightening and cleaning. If there were papers left out, notes or the like, there was no way to know. Then she had a thought.

“Quinn?” she called out. “Have the officers from the accident scene given you any of Whitney’s personal effects?”

Quinn came back into the kitchen. “No, I’m supposed to go to the morgue and pick them up. They said there were a few things in the car… Oh, now that was dumb of me, wasn’t it? We should have gone to get her things before we came all the way out here.”

Taylor stifled a laugh, as if Bellevue, a scant five minutes farther out from downtown than Belle Meade, was on the other side of the universe. “It’s really no trouble. We can head over there now if you’d like. I think we need to go through and see if anything in her stuff gives us a better idea than what we’ve gotten here.”

“That’s fine. I can write you a release and you can go through the information on your own, if that’s okay?”

Taylor studied her for a moment. “I can do that, but you may want to be there.” She hesitated, then decided it would be dumb not to ask. “Quinn, you don’t think this has anything to do with Nathan Chase, do you?”

Quinn’s face drained of color. “Oh dear God, you don’t think he’s…? Could he have gotten in touch with Whitney somehow?”

“Well, I don’t know. Has he ever reached out to you or your sister before?”

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Quinn started pacing, a pale manicured hand clasped to her throat. She looked as if she might shatter into a million pieces all over the foyer.

“No, we’ve had no contact from him. It was part of his sentence. And he’s still in jail, I know, because I check every so often to make sure he’s not getting out. He’s not due for parole for another fifteen years.”

Taylor digested that for a moment. Kidnapping was one thing, but Chase had been sentenced to at least thirty years. She made a mental note to look up the case and find out what exactly he’d been sentenced for. It probably wasn’t germane to this case, but it wouldn’t hurt to have the whole story.

“Okay, Quinn. I’ll go and sort through Whitney’s things. If I find anything of note, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you. Tell me, when will her body be released? I need to start making plans for the memorial.”

“Just give the M.E.’s office a call. They’ll be able to give you all of that information. It’ll be soon, I promise.”

As they made their way toward the door, they didn’t hear the chime go off on the computer to announce that Whitney had another new e-mail.

Thirty

Christina Louise Dale, better known as Christy to her family and friends, was a sad case. Nineteen years old, petite and brunette, Christy was always hustling, always looking for a way to get it done. She didn’t have the money to go to college nor the grades to get a scholarship, so she worked hard and associated with the college students around Roanoke as often as possible. She was autodidactic, and when she mentioned that, most of the college kids didn’t even know what it meant. On one hand, it was outrageous that she could be so much smarter than the rest of them and still not have a chance to go to school with them. But on the other hand, she secretly gloated, knowing that no matter what, she was better than all of them.