“What’s his name?”
“Sean Romney.”
“I’ve never heard of him either.” She made herself ask the harder question. “Woolf’s on the move again?” she asked, and he nodded.
“I’ve gotta get out there and you can’t stay here alone.”
“I can be ready in ten minutes,” she said, and he looked impressed. “When you work level one trauma, you have to be ready to go in whenever there’s a major crisis. We get all the chopper cases in a seventy-mile radius. So I can move when I need to.” She rolled out of bed, but he stayed for a moment, watching her. “What?”
His eyes were that piercing blue that made her shiver. “You’re beautiful.”
“So are you. I hope I didn’t get you into any trouble, answering the phone like that.”
He got out of bed, stretching his shoulders one way and then the other while she watched for the simple pleasure of doing so. “No,” he drawled. “Chase already knew.”
Her eyes widened. “You told him? Daniel!”
“No,” he drawled again. “I’m a guy, Alex. When we have head- banging sex on a sofa, it’s written all over our faces. Everybody knows.”
“Oh. Well, okay.” She felt her cheeks heat. “So what did Chase tell you to tell me?”
Daniel sobered abruptly. “That he’s sorry about your mother. Hurry. We need to go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Tuliptree Hollow , Georgia , Thursday, February 1, 7:00 a.m.
Daniel walked to the ditch, the Review tucked under his arm. Ed was already down in it, watching as Malcolm and Trey lifted the newest body to a stretcher.
“Ed, come on up,” Daniel called. “I need to show you something.”
Ed scrambled up the wooden ramp they’d placed against the side of the ditch. “You know I’m fucking tired of finding bodies in blankets,” he said. He looked over at Daniel’s car where Alex sat huddled in one of Daniel’s overcoats. “How is she?”
Daniel looked over his shoulder. “She’ll be okay.” He handed Ed the paper. “Look.”
Ed’s eyes immediately widened. “Dammit. It’s the kid who bought the blankets.”
“And picked up Janet’s Z.” Daniel tapped the page. “Byline is you know who.”
Ed glared. “He’s up in that tree. I thought you might want to yank him down again.”
“That’ll be a pleasure. Take a look at the kid’s name.”
“Sean Romney, of Atlanta. So?”
“So… Woolf says here that Sean Romney is the grandson of Rob Davis of Dutton, who owns the damn Bank of Dutton. That makes Romney a second cousin to Garth Davis, the mayor of Dutton. That enough Duttons for you yet? I don’t want to make any accusations,” Daniel added in a whisper, “but Garth Davis graduated a year before Simon and Wade, but from Bryson Academy.”
Ed puffed out his cheeks. “The mayor? That’s going to be fun to prove.”
“We’ll talk more back at the office. Now I’m going to pull Woolf out of his tree.”
Woolf was climbing down when Daniel approached. “Goddammit, Jim. What’s gotten into you? Climbing trees like you’re twelve years old.”
Woolf shrugged. “I’m on public property, so you can’t make me leave. This is a fascinating story, Daniel. It needs to be told.”
Fascinating. Anger shot up in Daniel’s head like a geyser. “Damn you. Fascinating story. You tell that to the victims and their families. You’re getting your damn pictures from up in a tree. How sanitary, how damn nice. You come with me. You’re going to meet a victim up close and real personal.” He started walking, then turned. Woolf hadn’t budged. Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me drag you, Jim.”
Slowly Woolf followed, a mix of curiosity and apprehension on his face. Malcolm and Trey were lifting the body from the stretcher to the body bag on the gurney. “Peel back the blanket, Malcolm,” Daniel ordered sharply.
Malcolm complied. “It’s the same. Face beaten, bruises around the mouth.”
“This one’s got some serious hardware,” Trey said. “Earrings up and down both ears. A nose ring and a tongue stud.” He pointed to the victim’s shoulder. “And a tat. This one says L-A-L-L. Live and let live.”
There was a thud behind him. Daniel turned to find Jim Woolf frozen where he stood, his camera on the ground, and Daniel suddenly had a very good idea of who this woman was. He should feel guilty for making Jim look, but all he felt was pity for the young woman who’d never have a life. For all the young women who’d never have lives. It was, he thought bitterly, a fascinating turn of events. “Jim?”
Woolf’s mouth opened in horrified silence. He said nothing, just stared.
Daniel sighed. “Ed, can you put Mr. Woolf in your vehicle? This is his sister, Lisa.”
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 8:35 a.m.
Daniel and Ed both sank into chairs at the team table. Chase and Luke were already there. Talia had left to interview the rape victims they’d identified from the yearbooks. Daniel hoped her luck was better than his.
“We’ve got two more bodies,” Daniel said. “Sean Romney and Lisa Woolf. Seeing his sister like that loosened Jim’s tongue a little bit. He told me that a man called him with the ‘tips’ on Janet’s and Claudia’s bodies. All the other ‘tips’ were text messages that came in on a disposable cell. It wasn’t registered to any of his accounts, so we didn’t know to include it with the warrant.”
“And all the incoming text messages were untraceable,” Ed said with a sigh.
“Maybe he’ll be a little less interested in pimping stories for this killer now that his sister’s a victim,” Chase said darkly.
Luke was reading the front page of the Dutton Review Daniel had brought back with him. “Who is this Romney kid?”
“APD received an anonymous 911 telling them a young man was dead in an alley,” Daniel said. “They found Sean Romney with a bullet in his head. Apparently they didn’t recognize him as the picture they’d posted on their visor because he was too bloody. They didn’t get a positive ID until they’d cleaned up at the morgue at about five this morning. They called Chase and Chase called me.”
“He was only eighteen years old,” Luke noted. “He was only in kindergarten when Alicia was killed and those girls were raped. And he grew up in Atlanta.”
“But he’s connected to Dutton,” Daniel said wearily. “Sean is the grandson of Rob Davis, who owns the bank in Dutton. Rob Davis is Garth Davis’s uncle. Garth’s dad was the mayor for years and best friends with Congressman Bowie. I think Sean is like the keys he tied to the victims’ toes. A definite message.”
“And you’re thinking the message was addressed to Garth Davis,” Chase said.
Daniel nodded, troubled. “Garth’s the right age, only a year ahead of Simon and Wade. Garth knew Simon. We can’t dismiss the connection to Simon’s pictures.”
“You knew Garth,” Ed said. “Was he capable of the depravity in those pictures?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. I still hope not. I was a senior and he was a freshman, so I didn’t know him all that well. I do remember him coming by our house a few times though, looking for Simon. I wouldn’t say they were friends, exactly, but they hung out.”
Luke shook his head. “He might have known Simon, but did he kill these women?”
Daniel brought his focus back to the present. “Garth couldn’t have killed Claudia. He was at Congressman Bowie’s house Monday night during the time frame Felicity said Claudia died. But Garth is the first person we can connect to both Simon and one of these victims.”