Rainey bent over the sink, splashing cold water on her face. She toweled off, and then reached in the medicine cabinet where she kept a spare toothbrush. She brushed her teeth and hair, pulled the chestnut waves back into a tidy ponytail, and took a good look in the mirror. Better now, she thought. She took out her cell phone and checked the time. It was after one in the afternoon. At least she had gotten some sleep, before the nightmare came crashing through her unconscious mind.
Her stomach growled as she exited the bathroom. She was hungry and knew mentioning that fact to Ernie would set her off on a mission to whip up something good for Rainey to eat. This would also keep Ernie too busy to ask too many questions. She rubbed her belly as she stepped back into the main office, performing for Mackie and Ernie.
Rainey said, in her best Southern redneck drawl, “Ya’ll got any food around here?”
Ernie went right into motion, hustling in and out of the back room with a huge salad bowl, plates and napkins.
“I knew you’d be hungry when you woke up, so I called Mackie and asked him to go by the farm and bring us some fresh vegetables and eggs off my back porch,” she said. “I just finished making this chef salad in the back room. Do you want to eat in your office?”
“No,” Rainey said, too loudly. She saw their reaction and, in a much calmer voice, added, “No, I’d rather eat out here, if it’s all the same to you.”
Ernie filled the counter behind her desk with fresh fruit along with the salad and a loaf of fresh bread, she made the night before. Rainey thought it was smart of her father to leave the full size kitchen intact, in the back room, when he bought the building. New appliances had gone in over the years, because in truth her dad spent more time in the office than in the cottage. She realized that she had done the same since moving in last July.
The three of them sat balancing plates on their laps, while Rainey told them how she thought that JW’s wife might be in real danger. She glossed over the story of the stranger in the shadows, and how she almost shot JW, making it sound much less exciting than it was. They got out the notes and pictures the stalker had sent, laying them out on the coffee table. Rainey munched on the salad, listening to Mackie and Ernie banter back and forth about the meaning of the notes.
Mackie reached out to pick up one of the notes. “These have been dusted for prints?” he asked.
Rainey nodded and then swallowed a mouthful of salad. When she could speak again, she said, “Yes, the only prints found on the notes were JW’s.”
Mackie held the paper up in the sunlight. He checked the paper front and back.
“Looks like regular printer paper to me,” Ernie said, squinting over her reading glasses. “I don’t see a watermark, do you?”
Mackie answered her, “No, nothing identifiable on this sheet. Are they all printed on the same paper?”
They spent some time examining each note, looking for any distinctive marks on the paper. They concluded, after much passing of paper, that there was none. They also agreed that it looked like the same printer had produced each note. There was a characteristic shadow of smudge after each period. If they could find a suspect, they might be able to match the notes to a printer he had access to.
“Lord, JW went and got him a fine looking woman,” Mackie said.
He had just picked up one of the five by seven photographs from the table. When Rainey saw that he was looking at the picture of Katie in her bathing suit, she unconsciously nodded in agreement. Then, feeling odd about the way Ernie was looking at her, she felt the need to qualify.
“That one gives me the creeps. It looks like he was standing right over her,” Rainey said.
Ernie leaned in to get a better look, “How could a stranger get that close?”
“If she was my woman, I wouldn’t let a man get within a mile of her, much less close enough to touch,” Mackie said matter-of-factly.
Rainey answered Ernie, “I’m beginning to think it may not be a stranger. He knows too much about where she goes and what she does. And you’re right; I don’t think a stranger could have gotten close enough to take that picture, in particular.”
Mackie thumbed through the other shots, “Did you ask JW where the bathing suit picture was taken? Maybe he can tell you who else was there.”
“I didn’t see it when I first went through the envelope and I forgot to ask him about it when I talked to him,” Rainey answered.
She could not believe she had not thought to ask JW about the bathing suit picture. What else had she overlooked? The memories and dreams of her attack were interfering with her thought processes. That is why she left the bureau; she could not concentrate well enough. The image of Ernie filleted over her desk flashed into her mind. She closed her eyes and pinched the space between her brows.
“Are you alright, honey,” Ernie said.
Rainey covered with, “Yeah, just a headache.”
“Can I get you anything for it?” Ernie asked, at the same time beginning to clean up the lunch dishes.
“No, I need to go to the house and take a shower. That will probably take care of it,” Rainey responded.
Rainey opened her eyes and stood up. She walked over to the counter and put her empty plate and fork down. She finished off her bottle of water, leaving the bottle in the recycle bin so Ernie would not gripe.
“I’ll be at the house for the next thirty minutes at least, and then I need to get back to the teacher,” she said, heading for the front door.
Mackie unfolded his considerable frame, “Let me walk you over,” he said.
Once they were out of Ernie’s earshot, Rainey told Mackie the truth about her encounter with the stalker last night. He agreed that JW’s wife was definitely in danger.
“If this guy is that bold, he won’t stop until he has made face to face contact with her,” he grumbled out in his deep bass voice.
“Yep, he will not be deviated from his plan,” Rainey said. “These guys can’t stop themselves, they have to be stopped.”
Mackie added, before she left him at the bottom of the cottage steps, “I don’t care what JW said, you keep that Glock on you all the time.”
Rainey laughed, “You didn’t think I would go anywhere without it, did you?”
A laugh rumbled out of his barrel chest, then he said, “Rainey, call me before you get out of the car next time, okay?”
“Sure Mackie, I’ll call you next time,” Rainey said, smiling down at the big man from her front deck.
Mackie backed away, smiling up at her, “You’d better, because I’d hate like hell for your father to come back from the grave and haunt my ass, if I let anything happen to you.”
“Don’t worry; he’s too busy making my grandmother’s afterlife a living hell to worry about us. He’s probably messed with Constance a few times, too,” Rainey said, laughing at the image of her mother screaming through the mansion.
Mackie waved goodbye, shouting, “No doubt about that… Call me when you get parked tonight.”
She waved goodbye, then picked up Freddie, who had come out to greet her and was purring, rubbing against her legs.
“I sure hope you didn’t leave me any presents in there, I don’t think I can take any more surprises today,” Rainey said, hugging the big cat to her chest.
She looked around the property from her tree top vantage point. From here, she could see out onto the lake and far down the approaching road. The property was truly out-of-the-way. She could not see another soul. It was the perfect place for her to heal. Now if she could just get on with it. Just as she turned to unlock the door, Freddie sprang from her arms.
Freddie was the kind of cat that did what he wanted when he wanted, and only then. Evidently, he did not want to go in the house. Rainey found him one day hanging out behind the office. He could have only been six weeks old, at the most. He was solid black with wild hair shooting in all directions. He had a tail, but it was so twisted and curled, it looked like a nub. His tail never grew out, and the nub was currently flicking back and forth, while he stood on the railing of the deck. His fir had flattened out into a sleek black coat and he grew so large, he looked like a miniature panther, with a nub tail, of course. His wide gold eyes were staring across the parking lot, his chest rumbling in a low growl. Rainey believed Freddie thought he was a dog, or at least a tiger.
“Whatever it is, leave it outside,” Rainey said, running her hand along his back.
Freddie jumped down and hurried down the steps, beginning the long slow stalk toward his prey, as soon as his feet hit the ground. Rainey scanned the edge of the woods holding his focus. She could not see what he was after, but she hoped he would not catch it. His prizes for her tended to be messy. Rainey looked back down at him and smiled, turning toward the door anticipating happily, a much-needed long soak in a hot tub.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Contrary to popular belief, substantiated by the entertainment industry, profiling does not somehow magically identify the offender the police are looking for. It does indicate, however, the kind of person most likely to have committed a crime with the unique characteristics involved in the case. The Bureau stopped using the terms “psychological profile” or “criminal personality profile” long ago. The analysis of the type of person, who may be the perpetrator, could be a vital tool to law enforcement, but was a small part of the services offered by Rainey’s old unit.
The Behavioral Analysis Unit or BAU is a component of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, located at Quantico, Virginia. The BAU assists local law enforcement agencies all over the country, providing criminal investigative analysis, by reviewing the case using methods developed from years of studying criminal behavior. Through this research, a process in which to study crimes developed. The criminal act itself is evaluated, along with a comprehensive look at the specifics of the crime scene. Complete background information on the victim is analyzed and the police reports are scoured for information. The Medical Examiners report is evaluated as well. The information is hashed out and a profile with this type of criminal offender’s characteristics is developed. The BAU is not finished with the process until suggestions are made to the investigators, as to how to proceed in the subsequent search for the offender. It was akin to making a medical diagnosis and including a treatment plan. Rainey’s current treatment plan for Katie’s stalker was to go back through the evidence again, while she waited in the parking lot of the Literacy Center.
Rainey arrived at Katie’s school, before the parents again, and watched as Mrs. Wilson led her little troops, in a line, out of the school. When she dismissed them, some of them tore away to waiting parents, but most hung around to get a hug from their teacher. Katie smiled at the children and gave them each a special moment of her time. Katie Wilson appeared to love her job.
Katie did not go home after school. Instead, she drove to a bookstore on Chapel Hill Boulevard. Rainey could not follow her in, because she had been seen yesterday. She was still kicking herself, in the ass, for that one. Katie appeared in a window in the café section, sipping coffee, and eating what looked like a bowl of soup. She read a book while she ate, once pausing the spoon just inches from her partially opened mouth, as what she read captivated her attention. When she finished eating, Katie left the bookstore and drove to the strip mall near North Miami Street, in one of the most crime-prone areas, in the city of Durham.
Rainey found a parking place where she could watch Katie through the storefront window. She used her digital camera to take periodic shots of the cars and people who came and went. While she waited, Rainey brought up the file containing copies of the notes and pictures on her laptop. Her training told her the wording in the notes was a key factor in figuring out who this guy was. The perpetrator spoke of fate and destiny, in some form or another, in each note. He believed in a fantasy he conceived, as a predetermined future. The powers that be had put Katie Wilson here at this time and this place, just for him. In his twisted mind, he must fulfill whatever the fates have destined for him.
Rainey scribbled her thoughts on a legal pad, checking every few minutes to see that Katie was still hard at work molding minds. She noted the grammar and style indicated the author was educated, probably at least some college education. The note from June, “Is it now the time when destiny is ours to hold?” sounded like a quote Rainey had heard before. She typed it into Google and the results came up Paul Martin.
She wondered aloud, “Who the hell is Paul Martin?”
The name went into the search engine resulting in two likely candidates for the quote. It was either a hockey player or the former Prime Minister of Canada. Rainey decided it was probably the politician. She noted no contractions in any of the messages and the order of the words suggested formality in the writing, an affect probably. If the guy was not educated, he wanted people to think he was.
The sky was overcast, with storms moving up from the south. The cloud cover had lowered the temperature into the low seventies and a steady breeze was keeping the humidity at bay. Rainey had her windows down half way and could hear the winos and young bloods talking loudly and laughing, down at the other end of the strip mall. She kept an eye on them and noticed on several occasions that they were watching her as well.
“They probably think I’m a cop,” she said to herself, knowing the black Charger was a favorite with law enforcement.
Rainey turned back to the legal pad. She began formulating a list of characteristics of the unknown suspect in this particular crime. She had established that he probably had at least some college education. The guy was following Katie at all hours of the day, as evidenced by the pictures. He must have a job that allowed him to be unaccountable for large blocks of time. Since Katie had to be in her mid thirties and most victims are in the same age range of their assailants, he was probably thirty-five to forty-five years old.