Double Vision (25 page)

J
enna stared wide-eyed as Molly took the paper from Eldred Beasley and sauntered over from the kitchen table. She'd arranged to have Eldred brought to Molly to do this, but even she hadn't been sure how the little girl would manage it or what they were trying to get from Eldred's memory. But lo and behold, they'd watched as she'd brilliantly extracted a drawing of the three-headed dragon tattoo, the piece of the puzzle Eldred had seemed to lose over and over again.

“Can we give this kid a job?” Porter said out of the corner of his mouth so Raine Tyler, who was folding laundry a few feet away, wouldn't hear.

“I wish,” Jenna said truthfully. Who knew? Maybe the kid had a career in psychology one day.

“Unreal,” Yancy echoed.

CiCi stood next to him, silent, her mouth hanging open.

“Here you go,” Molly said, handing the paper over to Jenna. She repeated everything to them Eldred had told her, though they'd been close enough to listen in.

“Molly, you're amazing,” Jenna said, accepting the picture. No truer words had ever been spoken. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Molly said. “I like coloring.”

“Me, too,” Jenna replied.

Molly shifted from side to side, and it seemed like she wanted to say something else. Weird. Usually, the little girl spat out whatever came into her head.

“What's up, Molly?” Jenna asked.

“Um, it's just . . .” She looked at CiCi. “Would you mind if maybe Eldred came over sometimes? I think . . . I think he needs it.”

Jenna couldn't help the smile that stretched over her face. The kid had it. Whatever “it” was.

“I'll talk to your mom about it, okay?” CiCi said.

Molly nodded, then scampered back over to the table to color some more.

“So, random tattoo. Where do we go next?” Jenna wondered out loud.

“Case the tattoo parlors in town? Though he could've gotten it anywhere,” Yancy said.

“Surely there's a better place to start than the Yellow Pages,” Jenna said. “People with ink are really into their art. From what Eldred described, this thing is pretty intricate. Surely we know someone with tats who can tell us some of the best artists in town we could run this by. The Triple Shooter's murders are all within a certain radius. He wouldn't go states away just for the tattoo, right?”

“Not a clue. Irv might have one, though,” Porter filled in. “Irv has tattoos.”

Porter was right. Their technical analyst had a sleeve of them, and he was back at the next stop they needed to make anyway.

“Yancy, will you guys be okay to head home without us?” Jenna asked, catching her boyfriend's eye. She knew he would be fine, but she wanted to acknowledge how much she hated leaving him. She wished he could come with them, just be a part of the team.

He nodded, and something mischievous flashed in his eyes. “Get back to headquarters, Dr. Ramey. You've got a tattoo artist to find.”

•   •   •

T
he second they walked in the door, Saleda didn't give Jenna a chance to speak.

“You were right. Sevens in all of the other Triple Shooter murders. Based on the time she left the restaurant where the takeout receipt came from, the shooter saw the threes line up around Wendy Ulrich right around seven p.m. Victim two, Maitlyn O'Meara, was found off of Exit 7B. Ainsley Nickerson's birthdate was, get this, seven, seven, nineteen seventy-seven.”

The news of the tattoo died on Jenna's lips with the surprise. “How would he know her birthday if he just happened to see threes align by chance?”

Saleda shook her head. “We're working on that. But he had to have either known her or come across it. Too big a coincidence. Still haven't found the seven connection with Brooklyn Satterhorne, but I'm guessing it's only a matter of time. And no luck with finding anyone or anything that appears in both the Student Life Center courtyard surveillance
and
the bank surveillance, unfortunately. No creepers stalking Pesha Josephy in the bank footage, either. Though we did find Pesha's other three. She made her deposit that day with the teller at station number three.”

Of course she had. Good grief. Before this case, Jenna wouldn't have thought the ways a trio of the number three could manifest in everyday life would be this numerous
or
this varied. But then again, before this case, why would she? The Triple Shooter was set off by a combination of variables that most people wouldn't even ever notice.

“Is it just me, or do you guys now find yourselves intentionally avoiding that integer in all facets of life, too?” Teva said. “I almost jumped out of my skin this morning when I got out of my car to fill up my gas tank and noticed I was parked at pump three. Jumped in the car and moved one over. Stupid, but I couldn't help myself.”

Saleda laughed. “Not just you. I added an extra topping to the pizza I ordered yesterday solely to make sure the toppings didn't add up to the bastard's favorite number, because God knows I've got plenty of sins under my belt for him to punish me for if I catch his eye.” She looked to Jenna. “How'd it go with half-pint and Methuselah?”

Jenna glanced around the room. “Where's Irv?”

Teva pointed toward the door to the side office Irv often inhabited. “In his Irv Cave.”

Without answering Saleda, Jenna pushed past and into the office.

Irv looked up from where he was frantically pecking away at the keyboard in front of several monitors. “I'm looking for seventh heaven around Brooklyn as fast as my fingers can fly, but unfortunately she was born in May—”

“I don't need Brooklyn's birthday or astrological sign or bingo score—”

“She was a college student. I doubt she played bingo,” Irv cut in.

“Whatever,” Jenna replied. “I need to pick your brain about a tattoo.”

“Better than my nose.”

She took the picture Eldred drew out of her pocket and unfolded it. She laid it in front of the tech analyst.

“Whoever did this tattoo charged too much—”

“This was drawn by the Alzheimer's patient who witnessed the grocery store killings,” Jenna said. She gave all of the details Eldred had conveyed that he couldn't show in the drawing, like the tiny variances in colors and the appearance of the dragon ripping through the man's skin on his side. “The Triple Shooter lives or at least spends a lot of his time around here. Granted, he might've grown up thousands of miles away, but unless his parents were into finding tattoo parlors that liked to illegally ink minors, I'm pretty sure he didn't get that massive dragon tat until his adult years.”

“Yeah and it had to be pretty recent to still come across so well. If he'd had it done when he was super young, his skin would've changed, even if just slightly, enough to affect the look of a tat designed to have that kind of 3-D effect,” Irv said, swirling in his chair.

“Right. So where around here would he have had something of that caliber done?”

Irv frowned. “He wouldn't have, necessarily. People will go way out of their way to get a tat they want, or if he needed privacy, there are some people who will travel to them. No hard and fast rules . . .”

“And no one who specializes in dragons?” Jenna asked.

Irv leaned back and crossed his arms. “I wouldn't bark up the specific graphic preferences tree. It more often depends on what the client is looking for in quality or fine points of the design they're seeking. I'd focus in more on the detailing. The shading skill involved in the effect you're describing gives you a loose profile of the artist who had to have done it. I know I'm the guy behind the desk and not the biggest profiling professional in this room, but I know enough about the world to tell you that much. If you're looking in this area for who could've done something that takes that sort of skill, there's only one place anywhere near us that could. I'd go to Glory.”

Y
ancy sat in Raine Tyler's living room with CiCi and the very quiet Raine. They'd decided to wait a little longer before dragging Eldred home. He didn't get out much as it was, and he seemed to be enjoying himself in the kitchen with Molly, so they'd left them to it for now. Raine was okay with it, she said. She seemed happy enough with just having some company. Yancy wondered if her mother had lived with them before she died.

They sat around in silence, watching the television play through an old episode of
The Andy Griffith Show
that none of them laughed at. God, what it must be like to be a child in this home . . .

As the familiar whistle of the theme song sent them into the credits, Molly meandered into the living room. She stopped as she came closer to the couch and stared at them all, confused.

“Where's Mr. Beasley?” she asked idly.

Yancy looked at CiCi, then jumped up, his body in overdrive.
Oh, no . . . oh, no, no, no . . .

He ran into the kitchen. Eldred's chair was painfully empty, the coloring paper still at its place where Eldred had been working on it moments before. He ran back to the living room.

“Molly, where did he go?”

Molly blinked at him like he was stupid. “I don't know,” she shrugged. “That's why I asked. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, he was gone. I thought he came in here.”

Shit.

Yancy ran back to the kitchen, CiCi on his heels and cussing.

He glanced around the room. Nothing. He went to all the doors to the other rooms inside the house, looked out the windows. No sign.

Something caught his vision at the front door.

A smear of blood on the doorframe.

Oh, God, please no . . .

He reached to his leg and in a second had the gun out. He'd promised Jenna not to use it unless someone tried to take Eldred. The hairs on Yancy's arms prickled. What if this was that moment . . .

“CiCi, call nine-one-one,” he said, pushing the door open. He realized uncomfortably that it was loose, like it hadn't quite been pushed closed all the way.

“Oh, my God, Yancy . . .”

“Do it!”

He rushed out the door.

•   •   •

“W
hoa, whoa. Slow down,” Jenna said. She could hardly understand Yancy's frantic words. It sounded like he was running.

“Eldred is gone. Jenna, I . . . I think someone took him,” he panted.

“What? Why do you think that?”

He huffed harder. Yes, he was running.

“Molly went to the bathroom, and when she came back, he was gone. There's blood on the doorjamb. It looks like he might've been dragged . . .”

Jenna's mind reeled like the spin of the SUV's tires on the freeway. “Did you see a car?”

If this was UNSUB B coming back for Eldred, he couldn't have made it far lugging an unconscious grown man anywhere on foot.

“No, no, I didn't,” he said.

Through the phone she could make out the sounds of cars in the background, sirens.

“Which door?”

“Front,” he said. “It was ajar. I didn't see a vehicle, but I have no idea how long Molly was in the bathroom. They could've made off before we even knew they were gone.”

“Ask her,” Jenna blurted, frustrated.

“I can't,” he said. “She's at the house. I'm . . . well, I'm looking . . .”

“Yancy, I doubt someone came in and took him without you guys hearing
anything
,” she said.

The whoosh of air that had been passing over his phone as he moved around stopped.
He must be standing still.

“Jenna, stealth exists. I mean, what if this person has some kind of training . . .”

His voice trailed off, hesitant.

A salmon color she couldn't readily place flashed in, but she shoved it back. She'd worry about that later.

“I hear sirens, so I'm guessing you already called help. Right?” she asked, just making sure.

“Yeah, yeah, but, Jenna, we have to find him!” he said, panicked.

The salmon flashed in again.

“We're going to. Stay put, and tell the cops everything you can when they show up. I'll call Victor in case there's anything you
can't
tell them,” she said, thinking vaguely of Yancy previously not wanting the local cops involved where Eldred was concerned. “He might've just wandered off. Not that we don't need to find him either way, but people with Alzheimer's do that, you know.”

“But, Jenna, the blood—”

“I know,” she said, her heart racing. If UNSUB B knew to come and
get
Eldred at Molly Keegan's house, it would mean UNSUB B had been following them all along . . .

None of this made sense. God, what she'd give to be able to run this by Dodd. When the hell would he get back from Chicago anyway? Surely they wouldn't keep him away from this important of a case indefinitely. His being gone left the team shorthanded
and
short-minded. In the BAU, minds were everything.

Jenna's brain tried to tease out what reason the second UNSUB could possibly have for going after Eldred. He couldn't exactly silence him. Not anymore. They already had what they needed from Eldred.

Then again, UNSUB B wouldn't know that. They had to find the second UNSUB, and fast.

And to do that, they had to find the first UNSUB.

“Keep looking. Whatever you do, make the responders understand this is no normal missing person, and they have to search even if he hasn't been gone long. If UNSUB B took Eldred from the house, he couldn't have gone far. As long as they close the net, they'll keep both Eldred and UNSUB B in it,” Jenna said, feeling the looks from the other team members.

“Jenna, what if I've screwed this up worse than anything I've ever done—”

“Don't,” she cut him off. Then, before she could stop herself, “I know you, Yance. You can find him.” She should let the other cops handle it, but right now, she knew Yancy was there and she wasn't.

“Jenna—”

“Go. I'm sending Victor. I have to find the Triple Shooter.”