Chase made an angry sound in his throat. “Then pull that damn idiot out of his tree and sit tight. I’m exiting the interstate now and CSU and the ME’s rig are on the way.”
Dutton, Wednesday, January 31, 6:45 a.m.
He pulled into his own driveway, relieved, exhausted, stiff in all the wrong places. But Kate was safe and that’s what counted. He had an hour to shower, eat, and pull himself together before he was due at Congressman Bowie’s for an update meeting.
There was tragedy, he thought, and there was politics. Sometimes they were one and the same. He stopped on his front porch to pick up the morning paper, and even though he’d been expecting the news, his heart sank. “Rhett,” he murmured. “You dumbass. I warned you.”
His front door opened and his wife stood there, hurt in her eyes. “You used to try to hide your late-night romps from the neighbors. Not to mention the children.”
He nearly laughed. After all the times she’d ignored his rolling in late from another woman’s bed, she’d picked today to confront him. The one time he wasn’t guilty.
Yes, you are. You need to tell Vartanian about the seven other women. It’s not enough to keep Kate safe. If one of them dies… it’s on your head.
His wife’s eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “You look like you slept in your clothes.”
“I did.” The words were out before he could stop them.
“Why?”
He couldn’t tell her. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t sure he ever had. But she was his wife and the mother of his children and he found he still had enough self-respect to admit her opinion of him mattered. He couldn’t tell her about Kate, about any of it.
So instead, he held out the paper. “Rhett’s dead.”
His wife drew a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”
She was. Because she was a decent person. She’d never liked Rhett, never understood their “friendship.” Ha. As if. More like a mutual self-preservation society. Keep your enemies close to your heart; then you’ll know if they’re about to double-cross you. It was valuable advice he’d received from his father once a long time ago.
His father had meant his political enemies. Not his supposed friends. But the advice worked just the same. “He… um… he ran off the road.”
She opened the door a little wider. “Come on in, then.”
He stepped over the threshold and looked into her face. She’d been a good wife all these years. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just never seemed to be able to stop himself. None of his affairs really meant anything, except the last one.
He still felt bad about the last one. Normally he just used women for sex. But he’d used Bailey Crighton to get information. She’d changed since her daughter was born. No longer was she the town slut they’d all had at one time or another.
She’d thought he cared, and on some level he had. Bailey had tried so hard to make a life for herself and Hope and now she was gone. He knew where she was and who had taken her. But he couldn’t say anything to help Bailey any more than he could help the other seven women targeted by a killer.
“I’ll fix you some eggs while you get showered and changed,” his wife said quietly.
“Thank you,” he said and her eyes widened. It occurred to him he hadn’t said that to her nearly often enough. But then, on the list of his many sins, being impolite didn’t seem to hold a candle to rape. Or the murder of the women he’d refused to help.
Atlanta , Wednesday, January 31, 8:45 a.m.
Daniel slumped in a chair at the team table. He dragged his hands down his face. He hadn’t even had time to shave. Thanks to Luke, he at least had a change of clothes.
Luke had given credit to Mama Papadopoulos, who’d called him every hour the evening before, fretting about “poor Daniel.” Luke had dropped off one of Daniel’s suits on his way to his own office. But Luke’s face had been drawn and weary and Daniel knew his friend had troubles of his own. He thought of the pictures Luke had to look at every day as he investigated the slime that peddled children on the Internet.
He thought about Alex. She’d been a child when Wade had assaulted her, whether she’d admit it or not. Primal rage flared within him and he was glad Wade Crighton was dead. Slime like Wade and the predators Luke chased did so much more than physically assault their victims. They stole their trust, their innocence.
Daniel thought of how Alex had looked the night before-vulnerable and fragile. He shuddered where he sat. The sex had been the most amazing of his life. Being with her had rocked him to his very foundation. The thought of losing her scared him to death.
He had to make this insanity stop. Now. So get to work, Vartanian.
Chase, Ed, and Hatton and Koenig joined him at the table, carrying cups of coffee and looking grim. “Here,” Chase said, giving him a cup. “It’s strong.”
Daniel took a sip and winced. “Victim three is Gemma Martin, twenty-one. We’re three for three. All three grew up in Dutton, all graduated from Bryson Academy, same year. Gemma lived with her grandmother, who got worried when she didn’t come down for breakfast. She found Gemma’s bed unslept in and called us.”
“We ID’d her with her prints,” Ed said. “Everything at the scene was identical to the others, down to the key and the hair wrapped around her toe.”
“I want to know where he grabbed her,” Chase said. “Where was she last night?”
“Gemma told her grandmother that she wasn’t feeling well and was going to bed early, but the grandmother told me that Gemma often lied. Her Corvette is missing from her garage. We’ll start with her usual haunts.”
“What about the tapes from where Janet rented her minivan?” Chase countered.
“I dropped them off at CSU when I brought Hope to see Mary last night. Ed?”
“I had one of the techs review the tapes overnight,” Ed said and slid a photo across the table. “We got very lucky. Look familiar?”
Daniel picked up the photo. “It’s the guy who bought the blankets.”
“He made no attempt to hide his face this time either. He had the key to Janet’s Z.”
“And we have no idea who he is?” Chase demanded.
“We’ve got his face taped to the visor of every squad car in the city, Chase,” Ed said. “The next step is to flash his picture on the TV news.”
Daniel looked at Chase. “If we do that, he could go under.”
“I think that’s a chance we have to take,” Chase said. “Do it. What’s next?”
“Yearbooks,” Daniel said. “We need to track down the women in the pictures.”
“Already started,” Chase said. “I’ve got Leigh calling every high school in a twenty-mile radius of Dutton to get their yearbooks from thirteen years ago.”
Ed sat back, puzzled. “Why high school yearbooks from thirteen years ago? Janet, Claudia, and Gemma would have been nine years old thirteen years ago.”
“I’m getting to that.” From his briefcase Daniel pulled Simon’s pictures and told the others the version of the story he and Chase had agreed upon the night before.
“Daniel had surrendered the pictures to the police up in Philly,” Chase said. “The detective on the case up there was good enough to have them scanned and e-mailed to us first thing this morning. The originals are being couriered down.”
Daniel felt bad about Vito Ciccotelli jumping through the hoop of scanning and e-mailing the photos, but he’d been completely honest with Vito last night when he’d called him. Vito had offered to scan the pictures himself. Daniel hadn’t needed to ask.
Vito had rejected any offer of thanks, saying Daniel had given him something more precious-he’d helped Vito save his girlfriend Sophie’s life. Daniel thought of Alex and understood how Vito viewed the saving of his Sophie as the all-trumping act.
Ed shook his head. “Okay. So Simon had these pictures, including one of Alicia Tremaine and another of the waitress who was killed last night, Sheila Cunningham.”