Just a couple of blocks to the north, she signaled and turned into the parking lot of a Comfort Inn. He slowed, his eyes narrowing in confusion. What was she doing here? Some kind of rendezvous?
She pulled into a stall and parked. He drove past the hotel, then turned and circled around. Driving quickly around the back of the building, he pulled to a stop on the far side of the parking lot she’d just entered. He put the car into park and stared at her Jeep.
That little tramp.
Whore.
Bitch.
Slut.
She was meeting someone at the motel. Probably a married guy, he figured. But why not just take him up to her house? She lived alone. Or was it someone the neighbors knew?
He bit his lip, thinking. If they were in there having sex, they were extremely vulnerable right now. If he could find a key to the door, he could -
No!
It was too dangerous. He had to wait.
Another vehicle pulled into the lot, an old blue truck. The driver parked it next to Katie’s Jeep, then got out. The man looked older than her from this distance, but that seemed to fit his theory about an affair. He made his way up to the second floor, where he rapped on a door. A woman answered.
Katie.
She smiled and let him inside.
His hands trembled. Oh, it was going to feel good when he finally laid the whammo on this bitch.
Sitting in his car, he debated his next move. He could go to work and wait for another day. Or he could wait here until they were finished and follow her home.
If she went home.
He sat in his front seat, clenching and unclenching his fists. He knew he couldn’t leave. Not now. He couldn’t wait anymore.
It had to be today.
0801 hours
“It’s a sealed file,” Renee told Tower.
“Sealed why?”
Renee shrugged. “Probably because he was a juvenile at the time. Whatever he did was dealt with by the courts, but then they sealed his records.”
“I didn’t think that extended to law enforcement,” Tower said. “I mean, I knew it wasn’t available to the public, but I thought we could at least view it.”
“You can,” Renee said, “Most of the time.”
“So why is this sealed?”
Renee took in a deep breath and looked at Tower. When she didn’t release the air, Tower gave her a questioning stare. Then his stomach sank.
“No. Don’t tell me.”
Renee let out her breath in a whoosh. “’Fraid so. The only time I’ve ever seen this is when the subject was a victim or a suspect in a sex crime.”
“And this entry shows him as a defendant,” Tower finished.
“Yes, it does.”
“So he had some sort of issue back in 1988. The question is, what?”
“More importantly,” Renee added, “Why hasn’t he had anything between then and now?”
Tower cursed lightly. “Could a guy do that?”
“Do what?”
“Be messed up enough as a kid to get involved in some kind of sex crime and then stay clean for eight years as an adult?”
“Of course,” Renee said. “The human animal is capable of incredible things. It’s not terribly likely that he would, but it’s possible.”
“If that’s the case, why start raping now? Built up pressure?”
“Yes,” Renee agreed, “but there’d probably need to be a trigger, too. Something to set him off.”
Tower took a deep breath of his own and let it out slowly, thinking. “Okay, here’s what we need to do. I need to see what’s in this file, for starters. I probably need a warrant for that, or at least a subpoena.”
“That prosecutor, Patrick Hinote? He could help you with that,” Renee offered.
“Good idea,” Tower said. “I’ll give him a call. Meanwhile, I need you to do as much research as you can on this Jeffrey Goodkind.”
“What do you want me to focus on?”
Tower raised his fingers and counted. “Where he works, for starters. And then look for anything that fits your theory about a trigger point. Something that might have set him off.”
“You got it,” Renee said, her fingers already flying over the keyboard.
Tower reached for the telephone.
0825 hours
He was about ready to give up when she appeared at the doorway of the hotel room, carrying a suitcase. She stepped lightly down the stairs to her Jeep. He watched as she stowed her suitcases in the rear of the vehicle.
He frowned, deep in thought.
Here was another wrinkle. Was she taking a trip? That didn’t make sense. The bags were already at the hotel room.
It dawned on him suddenly. He slapped the steering wheel twice, first in frustration for being so dense and then a second time with exuberance for figuring it out.
This is where she’d hidden from him. She’d packed up a bag and checked into a hotel room in order to avoid him. That had been her grand plan all along. The boyfriend was just an added bonus.
She went back upstairs. After a while, she appeared again. This time, she held two much smaller bags. He was fairly certain they were full of girl stuff — toiletries, makeup, curling irons and so forth. She was definitely packing up to leave.
A thought struck him and he smiled.
Maybe she was heading home.
0841 hours
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Tower shouted into the phone.
“I’m sorry,” the tech support agent told him. “I can’t do it.”
“But I’ve got a fucking subpoena!” Tower raged.
The phone fell silent. Then the man said, “Sir, I understand that. I’m not refusing to open the file. I’m telling you that I am not able to open the file. I can’t do it.”
“Why?”
“It’s password protected.”
“So who has the password?”
“For Juvenile Superior Court, the gatekeeper is in Olympia.”
“Gatekeeper?” Tower snorted. “What the hell is that?”
The tech support agent’s voice didn’t waver or become defensive. “That is the term for the individual charged with the electronic security and integrity of those files. Our county Superior Court transfers the information to Olympia for central housing.”
Tower shook his head. A dull pain was beginning to throb behind his left eye. “Do you have the number for this gatekeeper guy?”
The tech agent rattled it off from memory. Tower wrote it down and hung up without another word. Then he picked up the phone again and dialed. After five rings, an electronic voice answered. With growing impatience, he listened to the phone tree options, finally selecting what he hoped was the right one.
After two more rings, the line picked up. “This is Jonah Brandenburg,” a voice stated, “head of File Integrity for Juvenile Defendants and Victims for the State of Washington. I’m currently on vacation and will return on May twelfth. If you’re requesting information on a sealed file, please forward a request along with a subpoena to my office. I’m currently experiencing a backlog of two weeks in my response time, so thank you for your patience. If you’d like to leave a message, you may do so at the beep.”
Tower hung up, cursing.
“Dead end?” Renee asked.
“Goddamn government bureaucracy,” he groused. “You get anywhere?”
“Getting there,” she answered.
0902 hours
At first, she’d headed back north. He’d been thrilled at that. Anticipation hummed through him so powerfully that he almost let out a preternatural whine. He breathed in deeply and exhaled long and slow to get control of the urge. His grip on the steering wheel tensed and loosened while he drove.
Halfway to her house, when she pulled into a diner, he groaned out loud.
He parked across the street and watched her go inside. A few minutes later, the older man in the blue truck arrived and went inside to meet her. They sat across from each other in a booth near the window, giving him a front seat view to their little breakfast meeting.
“I guess it’s true,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Sex really does make you hungry.”