“You sure?”
The Judge nodded confidently, “I know you’re worried, but don’t be. Mac stepped in it, but the funny thing is, give it a few hours or a day and something else will come along to command people’s attention. Like I said, it’s up to you, but I think Mac deserves a break on this one. What happened at that clinic …”
“Is not Mac’s fault,” she finished the thought for him.
“No, when you really think about it, it’s not. And let me tell you something else. There’s nobody I’d rather have going after that evil son of a bitch than Mac McRyan,” the Judge stated, pushing himself up off the couch. “And let me tell you something else young lady. Given what happened today, Mac’s going to be
extra
motivated and
that
my dear, is a very good thing. That’s turning lemons into lemonade.”
A
fter Mac’s cooling off period at the coffee shop, he and Wire made their next stop at the home of Leslie Felding, a twenty-eight-year-old financial analyst for Starling Industries. She lived in a brick two-story colonial-looking townhouse north of Interstate 270.
Felding opened the door and recognized them immediately, “You two were on television earlier,” but then she went on guard and looked confused. “Why are you here?”
“We have some questions about the murders of Hannah Donahue, Sandy Faye and Melissa Goynes. You were a camp counselor with them seven years ago at Lake Seneca Lodge,” Mac stated.
Felding let them into her townhouse and took them back to the kitchen where they could all sit around the table. “I remember Hannah,” Felding stated as she sat down. “I don’t remember a Melissa Goynes or Sandy Faye.”
“Melissa Goynes is our victim’s married name, her maiden name was Ross,” Wire replied, taking out the AAHC picture from seven years ago and pointing to Melissa Ross. “Sandy Faye is a television reporter in Baltimore, but her real name back when you were at camp with her was Helen Williams.”
Felding’s eyes went wide, “I remember Melissa Ross. She worked in my dorm that summer. The Helen Williams name doesn’t really ring a bell, nor does the picture, but then again, that was years ago.” She shook her head, holding the picture in her right hand, looking it over, “My gosh, Melissa.”
“Have you been following the news reports on this killer people are calling the Reaper?”
“A little,” Felding answered. “I knew Hannah fairly well, at least that summer. I’ve hardly seen her since but obviously when I heard her name I paid some attention to the news reports but after the first day I didn’t really follow it. It was a little gruesome and depressing.”
“When you say you’ve hardly seen her since, define hardly?” Wire asked, taking the cap off her pen and flipping open her notebook.
“Hardly is once,” Felding answered with a shrug. “I ran into her maybe three years ago, just randomly at a bar down in DC. I give her credit, she’s the one who recognized me, came up and gave me a hug. Then after that she and I were Facebook friends, you know, you see an old friend, the next day I looked her up and friended her, but otherwise, I haven’t stayed in contact with her.”
Mac and Wire ran through the summer seven years ago, picking and probing at what Felding remembered of her time with Donahue, Goynes and Faye. It was clear that Donahue was the only one who really stuck with Felding, that she spent any real time with. “I liked Hannah, she was a real personality, fun, liked everyone, liked a good time and wanted everyone involved. I always wished I could have had that in me, you know, that open personality, but I’ve just never been able to be that …” Felding struggled for the right word, “open or free with myself, to others. Hannah was not so encumbered so people were drawn to her.”
“Did you ever go to any parties when you were at the camp?”
“Parties?”
“For example, rave parties? Around the time you were at the camp, rave parties were popular not far from there.”
“I know what a rave is, Agent McRyan. I remember going to one that summer, it was in July, I think, on a Saturday night. It was the middle of summer. I know that.” Felding snapped her fingers. “I remember because I went with Hannah. She had a friend who had a lake place somewhere around there. She drove over and picked us up from the camp and took us to the party. It was the only time I went to one of those.”
“Why only once?” Dara asked.
“They were too crazy for me. I went to college at Maryland so it’s not like I never went to a party or drank. However, the rave was out of control, the drinking, all the drugs, the sex and people were just wacked out and crazy.”
“Not your scene?” Mac asked.
“No, it wasn’t. I don’t judge and to each their own, but I was uncomfortable.”
“And what about Hannah, was she uncomfortable?”
Felding smiled and shook her head, “Hannah was comfortable in
any
environment. She knew people who were there and it was clear she knew how the party worked and she partook in all of it.”
“So you never went to another rave party that summer?”
“No.”
“How about the last weekend of the summer, that Saturday would have been August 17th, do you recall anything about that date?”
Felding sat back in her chair, folded her arms and thought. “Like what?”
“Did you go home that day, spend one more night, go home Sunday, go to a different kind of party, did others at the camp go to a party? Do you recall anything along those lines?”
Felding smiled, “I do know I was there that Saturday night and didn’t leave until Sunday.”
“Why do you recall that?”
“A boy named Austin Lane is why I remember that night.”
“I see,” Wire replied, smiling. “A night to remember?”
“I’ll say,” Felding answered, smiling, a memory of a good night. “I’ve never forgotten that night. The next day, I left the camp.”
“Did you keep in contact with Austin?” Mac asked, jotting down notes.
Felding shook her head, “He went to college out in California. I never saw him again but after a summer of making eyes at each other, we did have that one night.”
“On that last day, do you remember seeing Hannah Donahue or Melissa Ross or Helen Williams?”
“If they were there, I’m sure I did,” Felding answered. “But I honestly don’t remember anything about it.”
“But you remember Austin,” Wire stated, smiling.
“Oh yes,
him
I remember.”
“Does the name Rena Johnson mean anything to you?”
Felding shook her head, “No, should it?”
Mac showed her a picture of Johnson. Felding shook her head, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”
“I know it’s been seven years, but do you remember the name of Hannah’s friend that drove you to that rave party?”
Leslie Felding shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I can visualize her a little. I remember that she was brunette, average height, thin with an athletic kind of body, like she ran track or cross-country. I can’t remember her name. I just remember that her parents had a place not far from the camp, a summer place so she came over and picked up Hannah and me and a few others and took us to the party.”
“Do you remember what kind of vehicle she took you in?” Mac pressed.
Felding shook her head, “I don’t.”
A half hour later, after a call to the Donahues, Mac and Wire had a name. Kelly Drew. In another half hour, Gesch had a full dossier sent to their phones on Drew, who actually lived farther north a half hour up I-270 in Frederick and operated a coffee shop.
“No sense stopping at this point,” Mac stated. “To Frederick we go.”
• • • •
It had taken him twenty minutes from when he parked his truck three blocks away. Taking sidewalks, his baseball cap pulled down low, as he zigzagged his way through the neighborhood to the dirt walking path in the thick woods running to the immediate south of his target. Once inside the woods, he stopped, pulled on his all black clothing and stocking cap, sweating in the thick summer heat, even in the total shade of the woods.
Now, prepared, he walked carefully ten feet deep inside the tree line on a narrow path weaving its way through the thick woods, the creek just down the steep embankment ten feet to his right. With the dense woods and thick ground cover, he was nearly invisible. He reached the alley, scanned the immediate area and then slipped out of the woods, down a slight incline to the south side of the garage. He quickly pulled on rubber gloves and then took out his set of lock picks and started working on the lock to the side door of the garage. Within thirty seconds he had it open. Once inside the garage, he closed the door and relocked it. Next, he went to work on the door leading into the house, also locked. In another minute it was open.
He pushed the door open and took three steps up to the junction landing. Straight ahead was the stairway down to the cellar. The cellar could wait. Instead he turned left into the small kitchen which he passed through into the front of the small one-story house, nearly tripping over a softball bat and glove lying on the floor. In the front of the house he surveyed the small dining room area leading into the family room, separated by an arch. On the right wall of the family room was a hallway to two bedrooms and a bathroom.
He looked at his watch and surveyed his surroundings.
• • • •
“Cripes,” Mac moaned. “This was inevitable.”
“What?” Wire asked as they were walking towards Totally Caffeinated, a strip mall coffee shop owned by Hannah Donahue’s friend, Kelly Drew.
“My phone, the boys back in St. Paul, they saw it too.”
“Let me see! Let me see!” Dara answered excitedly.
“Wow, I thought you were a friend.”
“I am, one that’s allowed to find humor in your misery. So let me see, let me see,” she pleaded excitedly.
He read them off.
“This one’s from Rock: Hey dumbass, how’s life in the big leagues? Are you missing little old St. Paul yet? Then there’s a couple from Riley of course.”
“A couple?”
“Yup. First text: What’s Rule No. 1 Moron?”
“What is Rule No. 1?” Wire asked.
“Never talk to a reporter.”
“What’s the other one from Riles?”
“Rule No. 2, when you talk to a reporter, give them nothing. You answered a stupid question with an even stupider answer. #Simon Wouldn’t Have Done It. P.S. You have no excuse. Simon created Rules 1 and 2.”
“Ouch, bringing your dad into it.”
“Riles always goes for the throat,” Mac answered and kept scrolling through his messages, alternating between chuckling and groaning. “Here’s a good one: ‘Cue Sade:
Smooth Operator
– NOT,’ that’s from my cousin Paddy.”
He scrolled farther down. “Oh you’ll love this one. I’ll give you three guesses who sent this one and the first two don’t count. ‘So you and Wire are an item? I bet she’s a freak in the sack. I demand details!’”
“Lich,” Dara answered, rolling her eyes. “He is such a pervert.”
“It’s his most endearing quality. He lusts for you, by the way.”
“And what man doesn’t.”
It was Mac’s turn to roll his eyes. “And you think my ego is big.” He scrolled down farther through his texts. “Shamus has it right. He asks: ‘How pissed is Sally?’ I can respond to that one.” Mac texted a quick reply and laughed, a wry, weary laugh.
“What did you say?” Dara asked warily as she opened the door.
“On the pissed-off scale of one to ten, Sally’s at about thirty-seven and climbing.”
“By the way, are there any texts from your girlfriend?”
Mac shook his head, “Radio silence.”
“She’s probably cooling off,” Dara answered.
“Or all my clothes will be on the front lawn when I get home.”
“It’s your house, isn’t it?”
“Like
that
matters.”
Wire went to the barista at the counter and flashed her FBI credential, “I’m looking for Kelly Drew.”
• • • •
Kelly Drew looked back and watched the garage door close behind her. She arranged for her assistant manager to run the store for a few days and she was going to run off to upstate New York and her parents’ place. She needed to pack quickly and get on the road to her parents’ summer home. She needed some time to think things through, maybe talk things through with her mom and dad. She was giving serious thought to coming clean.
She moved quickly through the kitchen into the family room.
The rag was over her mouth.
The left arm wrapped around her chest and tightened like a boa constrictor.
She was lifted off the floor, her legs flailing.
Kelly gasped for air and breathed in. The rag was damp, sweet smelling, and she could feel the effect of the fumes.
It was the Reaper.
She knew it. She’d seen the news. He was targeting women just like her.
Kelly fought, kicking with her legs, knocking over two chairs from the dining room table.
The arm stayed tight.
She reached for the table with her legs, set her feet and pushed back. The man fell slightly backwards into the wall while she struggled.
The man tried to regain his balance, falling forward, the two of them crashing into the dining room table, which collapsed under their weight.
• • • •
Her body went immediately still underneath him. No fight and no push. He stayed on top of her for a few seconds to make sure she wasn’t playing possum. She wasn’t.
The Reaper rolled her over and immediately noticed the massive gash in her forehead from falling onto the table. Blood streamed rapidly down her face from the deep wound in the left side of her forehead, just below her scalp line. He felt for her pulse. It was there, but extremely weak.
He pushed himself up from her when he heard the car door slam.
• • • •
Mac and Wire walked up the front walk. “There’s a light on inside,” Dara noted as Mac hit the doorbell.
“Well, good she’s home then. We can get this taken … care … of. “ His hand went to his Sig Sauer on his right hip.
“What?” Wire whispered, stepping back.
“There’s a body lying on the floor inside to the left,” he answered quietly. “I can just see her legs from behind the sofa.”
“Any movement?”
Mac shook his head and nodded to the screen door handle.
Wire took out her Sig Sauer, held it in her left hand and reached for the screen door handle with her right, opening the door slowly.
Mac checked the door, it was locked. He took a step back.
Mac led with his right foot and kicked the front door in and rushed inside, weapon drawn, sensing for movement. Dara moved past him to the right and into the kitchen in the back of the house.
He kneeled down to the body and checked for a pulse, noticing the gash on her forehead. It was fresh, still oozing.
Mac reached for his cell phone when he sensed sudden movement back to his left. He turned in time to see the blow coming, raising his left arm.
• • • •
McRyan was down. The bat took care of that, one blow crashing down on his arm and the other on his upper back just below his neck.