Текст книги "The Last Victim"
Автор книги: Karen Robards
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
The sounds of the TV had apparently masked their steps until now, but as she, Bartoli, and Haney reached the entrance hall at the bottom of the steps, a couple of the cops in the living room became aware of their presence and glanced their way.
“How the hell can you know that?” Haney demanded.
Before she could formulate a reply, or Bartoli could weigh in, the cops in the living room, who were still focused on the TV, stiffened almost as one. Then Simon, who was about Haney’s age, tall and stocky with short, thick, light brown hair, let out a low whistle and looked around at his partner.
“Lou, you’ll want to come here and see this,” he called. “Bartoli, you and the lady, too.”
As they obediently approached the group, the cops rearranged themselves a little so that the newcomers could see the TV screen. On it, in vivid color and high definition, was a picture of the Palmers’ house. Charlie’s heart started to pound as she realized what she was seeing: old footage of the day after the killing of the Palmer family and the kidnapping of Holly.
Everything being shown on that TV was etched into her mind and heart. Even the yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the ocean breeze was the same. She remembered the sound—flap flap flap flap—as she had taken the police officers around, shown them where Holly had been chained, where Mrs. Palmer had died. That night—the first night after the attack, the first full night she had spent in the hospital—it had rained and rained and rained.
The rain had smelled like worms, and death.
“… investigation into the Boardwalk Killer serial killings that have struck terror into the residents of the Outer Banks in recent days has taken a fascinating new turn: the last victim of the previous Boardwalk Killer murders, the sole survivor of the attacks that took place in beach towns a little farther north fifteen years ago, has resurfaced,” the anchorman said. “Any longtime viewers, or longtime residents of the coastal towns in the area, may remember the seventeen-year-old girl who managed to hide from the killer and thus survived the attack on the family she was visiting. That girl”—Charlie was struck dumb when a picture of her teenage self, taken from her high school yearbook, flashed on the screen—“is now Dr. Charlotte Stone, a psychiatrist and expert on serial killers. She has been recruited by the FBI to assist in identifying the Meads’ killer and locating seventeen-year-old Bayley Evans, who has now been missing for almost forty-eight hours.”
The footage taken earlier that day of Charlie hurrying toward the van with Bartoli holding her arm while Kaminsky and Crane brought up the rear and the media peppered them with questions filled the screen. Watching, Charlie felt her chest go tight. Her stomach dropped. Her pulse shot through the roof.
“You know what they say about the first forty-eight hours, Craig,” a woman anchor intoned weightily as the camera pulled back to allow a wider view of the news desk; in the Meads’ living room, the cops standing around the TV all cast covert glances at Charlie. As they looked at her, Charlie realized she was holding her breath. Her hands had clenched into impotent fists at her sides. “If a missing person is not found within that time frame, their chances of being recovered alive are cut almost in half.”
Charlie forced herself to breathe. Then, seeing how Haney was looking at her, seeing the surprise on his face, she put up her chin and met his gaze.
“That’s how I know,” she said coolly. Turning her back on the TV, she headed for the door.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I’d be apologizing for getting you involved in this, except for the fact that we have a missing girl. And I have to say, I still think you’re the best hope Bayley Evans has.” Bartoli followed her out onto the deck. Charlie’s stomach had settled down now that she didn’t have any apparitions to deal with, but she still felt shaky and a little weak-kneed. Her head hurt. She was tired, and not just physically. The distance to the house next door seemed way too far to even attempt to walk it right then, so she paused by the rail near the steps to gather her strength. She didn’t bother glancing around for Garland; if he was nearby, she figured she would find out soon enough, but she didn’t see him or hear him right now, so she thought maybe he wasn’t. Maybe the emotions Trevor Mead had triggered in him had been enough to catapult him back into the afterlife.
I hope.
But knowing what he was facing there, did she really?
“It’s all right,” she said.
Bartoli had stopped behind her. “Is it?”
The sky was black now, and velvety soft–looking above a black satin sea. The moon, as palely luminous as a pearl, hung high among glittering stars. The wind blowing in from the water was warm, but strong. It smelled of salt. The rush of the waves pounded as relentlessly as her heartbeat as the tide rolled in. A few people walked the beach, as faceless as shadows. Not knowing who they were, realizing that they could be anyone at all, did make her anxious. But still …
“Yes, really.” Charlie’s fingers gripped the rough wooden rail as she stared blindly out to sea. And thankfully, even as she said it, she knew it was true: whatever personal danger joining the investigation might have placed her in, it paled into insignificance when she thought about Bayley Evans. If anything she brought to the search could help save the girl’s life, it was worth it. “I’m glad I’m here. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I hadn’t come.”
“You’ve already helped tremendously. Somewhere amidst the reams of information that has come in, we have the fact that Bayley Evans and her friends attended a dance at the Sanderling less than a week before the attacks, but it might have been weeks, if ever, before anybody focused on it. Even then, it might not have meant much if you hadn’t found out the unsub had a heart stamped on his hand.”
Charlie smiled a little wryly at that, and threw a glance over her shoulder at him. Bartoli was standing close, looking tall and lean and darkly handsome. Just the kind of guy she would have wished for before all this had happened.
He’s even wearing a suit. How perfect is that?
“There’s more,” she said. “I was able to find out more tonight. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Haney.”
His eyes had questions in them, but instead of asking, pushing, he glanced at the lighted windows behind them. The curtains covering the French doors weren’t completely closed, and through them she could see Haney and Simon and the uniformed cops standing around in the living room. They were talking, probably about her. Having observed the same thing, Bartoli took her arm. His hand felt firm and warm as it curled around the smooth skin just above her elbow.
A strong, steady hand.
“Let’s walk and talk,” he said, and Charlie nodded.
When they were on the wooden path, he said, “Tell me,” and Charlie did. As they walked, she told him every bit of information she—or rather, Garland—had gleaned from Trevor Mead. What she didn’t tell him was how she knew it.
And he didn’t ask.
“So what we’ve basically got is more confirmation that the unsub is a tall, strong white male, probably around six-one, one hundred ninety pounds, mid-twenties, with a long, thin face, black eyes—or any color eyes, with severely dilated pupils—who was wearing all black clothing plus a black or dark blue ski-type cap at the time of the crime,” he summed up when she was finished. “That’s good stuff. As soon as I get you safely tucked away back in the house, we’ll start digging into it. A ski cap with an eagle or hawk—it could be a company emblem of some kind. Or a team cap.” He shrugged, and his tone turned dry. “Then again, it could be something the unsub picked up on sale at the Dollar Store with no particular meaning at all.”
“You understand why I think the perpetrator is almost certainly a copycat.” Charlie looked out toward the ocean, but didn’t really see it. The coalescing certainty, the significance of which was just now really registering with her, brought with it a lessening of the terrible fear that had gripped her ever since she had seen herself on TV and realized that the monster who had killed Holly might also be watching the newscast and thus seeing her in her grown-up incarnation of Dr. Charlotte Stone. Since then she had felt exposed, vulnerable, naked. Now she grabbed on to the lifeline Trevor’s revelations had thrown her way with both hands: if the perpetrator was a copycat, he shouldn’t care anything about her. Except, perhaps, as just one more investigator to outwit.
“Because of the unsub’s age.” Bartoli seemed to be mulling the possibilities over. Charlie had told him mid-twenties, because she vaguely remembered reading in one of the files that Julie Mead had one sibling, an older sister, with two daughters in their mid-twenties. Tomorrow she would check to be sure that one of those daughters was named Cory, and verify her age. Although Charlie hadn’t told Bartoli that Trevor had described his attacker as “about my cousin Cory’s age,” because she didn’t know how to explain that.
“The age is the clincher. If the perpetrator is in his mid-twenties, he can’t possibly be the original Boardwalk Killer. But there’s also the duct tape. And the missing fifteen years,” she said.
They were walking almost side by side, with her slightly in front, close enough so that her shoulder and arm brushed his jacket. Charlie was glad of his nearness. With the rolling dunes and blowing sea oats between the wooden sidewalk and the beach, and a stretch of scrub ground thick with trees and other vegetation on the other side, they suddenly seemed very isolated. The spill of light from the windows of the Meads’ house and the subdued glow emanating from the RV illuminated only the beginning and end of the walkway, far short of where they were. Darkness enfolded them and the sandy ground around them like a blanket.
The killer could be out here right now.
A shiver raced down Charlie’s spine. She glanced covertly all around: nothing. Of course nothing. Besides the police car guarding the Meads’ house, there was another one, complete with two officers, parked beside the RV. And the road in front of both houses had been closed to all but official traffic, in an effort to combat media intrusion. There was plenty of protection, she knew. But she was nevertheless suddenly very glad the man she was with carried a gun.
“You’re probably right.” Bartoli’s voice was nearly borne away on the wind. “But still, I don’t want you going anywhere alone. One of us stays with you at all times now that your connection to the old cases is known.”
Charlie opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that, for all her increasing certainty that the man they were after was a copycat, she was deathly afraid.
The memory of the horror that had unfolded that night in the Palmers’ house was something she was never going to escape; it had established itself in her body on a cellular level. And this perpetrator, this killer, had awakened her once again to that inescapable truth.
“Just as long as Kaminsky doesn’t have to stay in the apartment with me,” she responded, rallying. “Across the hall is close enough.”
Bartoli nodded. “Fair enough. But anywhere outside the house, one of us needs to be with you. Even a short distance like this, you make sure you tell one of us, and we’ll accompany you.”
“I’ll go nuts,” Charlie said. “I’m used to being alone. I’m a runner. I miss my runs.”
“So set a time. I’ll go running with you.”
“You?”
“Sure. Set a time. Morning is better for me. Before work.”
“Six-thirty a.m. Tomorrow.” Charlie’s tone made it a challenge. She glanced at him to see how he would respond.
“Done.” He grinned. “I—”
Whatever he’d been going to add was lost as a man came charging out of the shadows toward them. He came from the direction of the road, and his dark form blended with the night so well that Charlie was only aware of him when he was almost on top of them.
Her heart leaped. She gasped and jumped, but had no time to do anything else because Bartoli thrust her behind him and at the same time whipped out his weapon, leveled it, and barked, “Federal agent! Freeze!”
Dear God …
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, it’s John Price.” Identifying himself, the figure stopped so suddenly that he nearly toppled over. He wasn’t the only one struggling for balance, either. When Bartoli had thrust her behind him, Charlie’s heel had caught on the edge of one of the planks. She stumbled and would have fallen backward into the sand dunes if she hadn’t grabbed on to Bartoli’s waist to steady herself.
“Price?” Bartoli questioned sharply.
“Yeah.” The man’s reply was sheepish. “You know, Officer Price from Kill Devil Hills PD.”
“Did you want something?” There was an undertone of disgust in Bartoli’s voice. As he asked the question, he slid an arm around Charlie’s shoulders to help steady her. Even though her brain registered that they were not in danger after all, her heart still thundered, her pulse still raced, and her legs felt like spaghetti. Grateful for the support, she leaned into Bartoli’s side as he reholstered his gun. His arm stayed around her, and she liked it being there.
“Haney sent me to tell you …” Price, out of breath, huffed between words. “… that we got a surveillance video of a car he wants you guys to look at. It’s from Wednesday night … Thursday morning, I guess … about four a.m., taken off a traffic camera not far from here. The picture’s blurry, but he thought you guys might be able to sharpen it up so we could get something off it.”
Bartoli’s eyes brightened. “Where is he?”
“In the car, out there on the road. We were heading back to town when he spotted you and Dr. Stone walking here, and he told me to bring it over to you. So here it is.” Still huffing, Price pulled something from his pocket and handed it to Bartoli. “He said he’ll stop by tomorrow to see what you get.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “He said he doesn’t want anybody talking about it on the phone. He’s paranoid that some of the reporters … or somebody else … might be listening in.”
Bartoli nodded. “Tell Haney I said thanks, and we’ll do our best.” He pocketed what appeared to be a small DVD.
Price nodded, and turned to head back the way he’d come.
Bartoli looked after him for a minute, then glanced at Charlie. She was suddenly way too aware of her hands on his waist and his arm around her shoulders. Beneath the smooth cotton of his shirt, his waist felt firm and trim, and his arm felt warm and solid and protective curved around her shoulders. He smelled nice, too—maybe some kind of detergent or fabric softener in his clothes, she thought.
And we’re this close because I almost bit the ground. Again. The realization took the this-almost-could’ve-been-romantic overtones out of the situation.
“Okay, I admit it: I’m a terrible klutz,” she said with a sigh, and stepped away from him.
He let her go. “That’s not what I was thinking about,” he protested, and grinned. The grin was a dead giveaway.
“You don’t have to be polite about it.” Charlie started walking. Bartoli fell in beside her. “I’ve been falling all over myself since we met.”
“If you knew me better, Dr. Stone, you’d know polite isn’t exactly my strong suit.”
Charlie looked up at him. He wasn’t quite as tall as Garland—not that I’m thinking about Garland—or quite as muscular, or quite as handsome—or comparing him to Garland in any way. It was just that Garland was the last man (?) she had stood this close to. But Bartoli was plenty tall and muscular and handsome in his own right, and a dependable, steady man of good character besides.
“Probably it’s time you started calling me Charlie.”
The slow smile he gave her told her he liked that. No, it told her he liked her. Which was great, because she liked him, too.
“Charlie,” he said. “But only if you call me Tony.”
“Tony,” she repeated, and smiled back at him. This was progress. Plus, they had a date to go running together in the morning, which was something, too. Then, a little worried that she might be moving too fast, or heading in a direction she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she wanted to take, she glanced away and added in her best professional tone, “I wouldn’t have picked Detective Haney as the type to hand over potential evidence his department found to the FBI. He strikes me as being more territorial than that.”
Bartoli—no, Tony now—seemed content to follow her lead. “Yeah, but he’s got a problem: the media around here are going to crucify him if we don’t catch this guy fast. He’s the local detective in charge of the case. He’s the one who’ll take the heat if Bayley Evans …”
With a glance at her, he trailed off. But she knew what it was he wasn’t saying: if Bayley Evans dies. And with that thought, any lingering hint of prospective romance in the air vanished. The night suddenly became a whole lot colder and darker and every bit of pleasure she’d taken in the deepening of her connection to Bartoli—Tony—was gone.
He must have felt the weight of the case on him, too, because their conversation from then until he handed her over to Kaminsky, who was in the RV with Crane, stayed strictly professional.
Seated at adjacent computers in the War Room, Crane and Kaminsky were exchanging verbal jabs about the significance of a drunk driving arrest in one of the background checks when Charlie and Tony, having made it almost unnoticed through the hustle and bustle still going on in the front part of Central Command, approached them.
“By itself, not that significant,” Charlie advised, and Crane smiled triumphantly at her, while Kaminsky looked put out. Tony interrupted the budding discussion that threatened to follow with a quick description of the news report that had revealed Charlie’s true identity and to tell them about Haney’s disc, and then told Kaminsky to escort Charlie back to their lodging.
“And stay put. It’s almost midnight. You’re done for the night,” he added sternly to Kaminsky.
“You and Crane—” she protested.
“Will be coming when we’re done here. Go do your job, Kaminsky.”
Kaminsky sulked, especially when Tony pulled out the DVD Officer Price had given him and handed it to Crane, who inserted it into the computer.
“Go,” Tony ordered over his shoulder when Kaminsky continued to show a disposition to linger.
She did, taking Charlie with her, but it was obvious she wasn’t happy about it.
“So your cover got blown, huh?” Kaminsky inquired as she marched Charlie into the house, up the stairs, and into the in-law suite like a cop with a prisoner.
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll keep the bogeyman away.”
Charlie waited as Kaminsky conducted a quick search of her rooms. She was dead tired, emotionally wrung out, and in profound need of Tums and aspirin. As a result, her patience was frayed, and Kaminsky’s semi-sarcastic tone hit her the wrong way.
As Kaminsky returned to the living room, where Charlie stood by the door, Charlie snapped, “Is it me you have a problem with, or just psychiatry in general?”
Kaminsky looked about as surprised as she might have if a cat had barked. Then her eyes narrowed. “The day you explain to me how you, through some kind of psychiatric mumbo-jumbo, can tell that an unsub has a red heart stamped on his hand is the day I’ll believe that psychiatry has a role to play in solving a case like this.”
Kaminsky had her there. But not entirely. “Are you saying you think it’s a bad lead?”
The other woman’s mouth thinned. “No. But …”
“But nothing. I got this investigation a solid lead it wouldn’t otherwise have, and I’d appreciate it if you would respect that.” Charlie opened the door. The brightly lit hall beyond looked incongruously cheerful. “If you’re confident the bogeyman isn’t here, lying in wait for me, I’ll say good-night.”
Kaminsky looked at her, seemed about to add something else, then didn’t, and walked out the door.
“Good-night,” she said stiffly over her shoulder.
Charlie closed and locked the door.
After her own quick search of the apartment, in case Garland had shown up—he hadn’t—Charlie kicked off her shoes, found the Tums and aspirin, and washed both down with a glass of water. Exhausted but too wired to just immediately fall into bed, waiting for the aspirin to kick in and take the edge off her headache and the Tums to do its thing on her stomach, worried about Garland although she hated to admit it even to herself, she took a quick shower. In the process she discovered the heart stamp was pretty much impervious to soap and water and filed the information away as something to be mentioned later. Then she pulled on her nightie and robe, grabbed her laptop, and curled up in the big green recliner in the living room.
Her avowed purpose was to do a quick check of her e-mail.
She was not waiting for Garland, who might very well have crossed the Great Divide permanently and be gone for good. She did not feel like the parent of a teenager who’d missed his curfew. She was not even thinking about Garland.
If he’s gone, good riddance.
But still, after a cursory glance at her e-mail, she found herself opening Garland’s file, which she had downloaded to her personal laptop for convenience when she had first acquired him as a research subject at Wallens Ridge.
You want to know what kind of interaction with my “father figure” I had when I was eleven years old? I’ll tell you: I shot the bastard dead.
The savagery in Garland’s voice as he’d told her that echoed in her head.
A history of violence as a youth: this mark of a serial killer was present in every single case she’d studied. It was textbook. Charlie had a hazy memory of glancing through a long list of qualifying offenses in Garland’s past. At the time, she hadn’t been paying that much attention. Garland had been just one more monster in a world surprisingly thick with them.
However, now he was sort of her monster.
So she paged impatiently through a file that, printed out, would be as thick as a brick, searching for his juvenile record. When she found it, she saw the offense right off: subject, 11, murdered stepfather with victim’s shotgun.
The entry was recorded in a social worker’s neat, sloping penmanship beside Admitting Offense on the form used to remand Garland to a Georgia state facility for juvenile offenders. He had stayed there until the age of fourteen, when he had run away.
The body of the entry, a single handwritten paragraph in the space allowed on the form, said:
Subject was adopted by Stan and Susan Garland as a three-year-old, after having been in foster care from the age of seven months. Stan Garland subsequently left the family and Susan Garland filed for divorce. Susan Garland married Barry Davies, the victim. This marriage took place when subject was seven. Police records indicate multiple domestic violence calls to house before the time of the offense. Susan Garland Davies states that the victim was “a crazy drunk” and would beat her and subject regularly. Susan Garland Davies and Barry Davies both have numerous documented instances of alcohol abuse. Susan Garland Davies states that on the night of the offense, victim had beaten her and subject and subsequently left the house. When he returned, subject shot victim with a 12-gauge shotgun victim kept for household protection. Susan Garland Davies expresses anger at subject for killing victim, and is in the process of giving up her parental rights. Susan Garland Davies states that subject is “a mean little shit” and she wants nothing further to do with him now that he has killed her husband
.
Charlie was surprised to find that she had a lump in her throat as she finished reading. She was even more surprised to realize that her sorrow wasn’t for the victim, but instead for the abused eleven-year-old boy whose mother described him as “a mean little shit” and deliberately gave up her rights to him. Probably, given what Charlie knew of the juvenile corrections system, just when he needed her the most.
Suddenly her own mother, difficult as her alcoholism had been to deal with, seemed worthy of mother-of-the-year honors. At least Charlie had never doubted she was loved.
Charlie was just clicking through to the next page in Garland’s file when there was an urgent knock on the door.
“Dr. Stone.” It was Kaminsky.
“I’m coming.” Kaminsky’s tone set off alarm bells in Charlie. Shoving the laptop onto the nearest table, she jumped up and hurried to answer the summons. Before she could reach the door, Charlie heard a key in the lock. Kaminsky had sounded like something was wrong, and now she was coming in without waiting for Charlie to admit her.
Whatever it is can’t be good.…
Charlie discovered that her heart was pounding even as Kaminsky, still fully dressed, down to her shoes, burst through the doorway. Their eyes met for a pregnant instant. Trouble, was what Charlie read in that look, and then Kaminsky glanced around wildly.
“What?” Charlie registered Kaminsky’s drawn gun and surrendered to a full-blown case of the nervous jitters.
“Did someone come in here?” The agent’s voice was sharp. Shutting the door, she looked around with more care. Then, shaking her head at Charlie in a gesture that warned her to stay where she was, she started moving carefully through the living room, two-handing her gun, glancing behind the furniture and into corners before eyeing the kitchen suspiciously.
“No one’s here but me,” Charlie assured her.
“I saw a man in the hall right outside your door. I had just come up from the kitchen and stepped inside my room, and I caught a glimpse of him behind me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t see where he went, but there wasn’t time for him to go anywhere else. I—I’m almost sure he came in here.” There was the tiniest degree of hesitation in that last sentence, which told Charlie that Kaminsky was growing less sure by the second.
“You saw a man?” Charlie’s eyes narrowed as a possibility occurred to her, but it wasn’t anything she could share. “What did he look like?”
Having checked out the kitchen, Kaminsky was doubling back to search the bedroom. “Tall. Blond. Built. Way hot.” Kaminsky cast a suspicious look at Charlie before she stuck her head inside the bathroom and glanced around. “Naked.”
Charlie blinked. “Naked?”
“Starkers.”
Charlie saw a shimmer moving through the air near the bathroom. Keeping a wary eye on it, she called to Kaminsky, “Believe me, there’s no naked man in here.”
Just as soon as she said it, the shimmer turned solid and, sure enough, there was a naked man in there. It was Garland, of course, in all his tanned and muscular splendor. He cast Charlie an unfriendly look and disappeared into the bathroom.
