Touching Evil (11 page)

Mommy wasn’t here.  

He was safe.

Safe in Lucy Benally’s house.

*  *  *  *

Sophia followed Cam back to his car.  “Aren’t you planning to wait for the search team?”

“Oh, I’m waiting.”  He consciously slowed his long strides so that she could catch up, then helped her over a downed tree.  “The idea is to multi-task.”

Of course.  He was directing the investigation responding to the regular updates coming in from all his agents.  In the short time they’d been here, he’d spent more than half of it reading emails or texts on his phone, or sending his own.  

They walked out of the stand of trees and toward his car.  “I fed the facial photo of the corpse we found last night into various missing persons databases last night.  Went through the photos on the Iowa and FBI sites but found nothing.  I’ve got the State Radio Center submitting the picture to NCIC.  But I still need to look through other online missing persons sites.”  He slanted a glance at her.  “Figured you could use the time to work on the new profile.”

“I have some thoughts,” she admitted.  She’d been completely unaware of the temperatures when she’d been at the water’s edge.  She’d been too immersed in learning everything she could about the man who had chosen that spot.  But the sun was warm after the relative coolness of the woods.  The warmth made her scalp under the wig itch.

Reaching the car, he walked around to open her door, the old-fashioned gallantry in the gesture oddly charming.  Continuing on to the driver’s side, he slid into the vehicle, but left his door open.  Sophia did the same to allow the slight breeze to channel through the vehicle.

Noting the fact gave her an idea.  “Maybe the back entrance of the cave was to access the water.  Or he might have built it to allow the cave to air out.  The smell of decomposition has to get pretty overpowering in an enclosed space like that.”

Cam held out his sleeved arm.  “If you want proof, smell my clothes.”

The invitation had her ducking away.  A faint stench of decay would hang over the area at any time.  But it had been far worse with the mouth of the cave open.

“You might be right.  Even if he didn’t remove the stones at the back entrance, the cracks between them would allow in some fresh air to provide ventilation.  In any case, this place is in keeping with the pattern so far.” Cam shrugged out of his suit jacket.  “It’s rural.  Near the Des Moines metropolis, but he hasn’t chosen an urban setting yet for a body dump.”

“That pattern only fits the MO,” she pointed out.  “It doesn’t tell us anything about this offender’s signature.  But one point I made in Vance’s profile remains true.  There will be an anchor that ties his accomplice to central Iowa.  Vance’s anchor turned out to be his grandfather’s home, and the fact that he spent summers with the man.  We need to figure out what this second UNSUB’s bond is.  And why he broke pattern on this site.”

At Cam’s quizzical look she explained, “The bone here mean the offender may have used this site more than once.  He never did that before.”  Only one body was found atop a burial vault and reburied at each rural cemetery that dotted several counties outside Des Moines.  

“We’ll see.  At this point we don’t know if those bones have anything to do with the body we found last night.”

Sophia knew he was hoping to discover just that.  But she recognized what his instincts were telling him.  The discovery of that first body in the cemetery at Slater had led to five more excavations.  “I tend to believe Vance used this UNSUB for the grunt work.  We know he snatched Van Wheton.”  

She withdrew her iPad from her bag.  “Given what you found here last night, this man may have also been tasked with disposal of all Vance’s victims.”  The first six victims had suffered pre and post-mortem sexual assaults, but the attacks differed dramatically.  Vance was brutal, given to sudden bursts of rage.  Part of his satisfaction in the rapes had come from his ability to control and torture the victims, in keeping with the behavior of a sexual sadist.

But whoever had been charged with getting rid of the bodies had first bathed them.  Perhaps primarily to erase evidence, but the care hadn’t stopped there.  The bodies had been rubbed down with Mother’s Touch, a lotion identified by the lab.  Then they had been doused with insecticide, either to slow down the decomposition and stymie an investigation, or to aid the post-mortem sexual assaults.

“What makes you so sure this UNSUB was charged with the body dumps?”

“The kids’ interviews.”  Sophie powered up the laptop and found the file she’d begun on this UNSUB.  “They all said they thought the man was talking to a girlfriend.  His tone—his words—were loving.  That seems to fit with the care taken with the bodies.  And while each victim bore evidence of post-mortem sexual assault, there were no signs, at least with the first six, that they were physically abused after death, as well.”  A clearer picture was forming in her mind of the offender they were seeking.  And while he might not be as violent as Vance, he just might prove to be a great deal sicker.

Twisting in his seat, Cam turned toward her, reaching in the back for his laptop.  His long-sleeved shirt was a dark dusty blue.  It looked good on him, providing contrast to his short-cropped brown hair that still bore no hints of gray despite the fact that forty, while not exactly around the corner, was certainly within sight.  The shirt’s color softened the lines and angles of a face that was too hard to be called handsome, but bulls-eyed on sexy.  

He caught her gaze on him as he turned forward, computer in hand.  “What?”

“Nothing.  I was thinking of the profile.”  At least she would be.  As soon as she could tuck away a vivid mental picture of what he looked like without a shirt.  Or anything at all.  The last thought had heat flooding up her throat to her cheeks.

Cam seemed unconvinced.  “That dark makeup you’re wearing might hide the fact, but I’d be willing to bet you were embarrassed about something.”

With effort, she tore her gaze away.  If the foundation hid her annoying penchant for blushing, she might be tempted to continue with it long after the need for disguise was gone.  “Over what, work?”

“You know, if this is too much for you, I’m sure Gonzalez would understand.”

Sophia froze.  Stricken, her gaze met his.  He continued, deadpan.  “I mean this.”  He stabbed an index finger in his own direction, made a small circle.  “All this potent male virility in one smokin’ hot package.  You wouldn’t be the first female to be too overcome to work.”

Her mouth twitched.  Before she’d allowed herself to be weak with Cam Prescott for twelve gloriously hot days, he never would have veered from the professional.  And a few months ago she would have been much too reserved to summon a response.  

“You’re right, of course,” she responded drily.  “It’s only through great personal resolve and heroic effort that I can keep from throwing myself at your feet at this minute.”  She paused a beat before adding, “Coupled with the fact that you smell vaguely of decomposing roadkill.”

His teeth flashed, and her heart did a slow lazy spin in her chest.  She could have worked alongside Cam Prescott, the agent, for several more years and never felt this foreign level of attraction.  It hadn’t been until she’d seen him like this a few short weeks ago that her defenses had started abruptly eroding.

“Since you seem to be weathering my overpowering allure, we may as well go to work.”

A companionable silence grew, broken only by the periodic alerts to texts Cam was receiving from the other agents.  Sophia quickly typed up her observations of this area and then focused on the man who had chosen this spot to enact his perverted fantasies.

She had first-hand knowledge of Mason Vance’s personality.  Her kidnap and captivity by him had been a harrowing nightmare.  But it’d also given her a unique perspective of the criminal, the likes of which was unmatched by any of the interviews she’d conducted over the years of similar criminals behind bars.  Sophia had seen Vance in his element, in control and brutally violent.  He was capable of any atrocity one could enact on another human being.

Even before they had known he was working with an accomplice, she’d had a hard time reconciling the man she’d come to know too well with the post-mortem sexual assaults.  Vance fed off the victim’s pain and suffering.  But there had been no evidence of post-mortem mutilation.  And while he’d uttered many threats about her death while she’d been held, his verbal details had had been reserved for the sexual assaults he had planned.  The torture.  Not once had he mentioned how he would kill her.

Many of the violent sexual offenders she’d interviewed spoke at length detailing how they had murdered their victims.  The deaths had been an extension of the fantasies they’d created, the ultimate finale to the sexual torture leading up to it.  

The fact that Vance had never mentioned more than the certainty of her eventual demise seemed telling.  

Thoughts of the man who’d kidnapped her had Sophie’s fingers going stiff and awkward on the keyboard. The rhythm of her heart kicked a faster beat.  Despite the warmth in the vehicle she felt chilled to the bone.  Surreptitiously she wiped her damp palms on her no-nonsense navy slacks and took a long deep breath.  Released it slowly.  

She knew all the techniques to calm her physical response to the memories.  But even given her expertise, she couldn’t prevent the recollections from exacting an emotional response.  So she took a few moments to practice the deep breathing, hoping Cam would think her pause was only to collect her thoughts.  

At her side he made an inaudible sound.  Sophie glanced over to find him with a photo of the victim from last night in one hand, his gaze intent on the computer screen.  He was scrolling through pictures at a dizzying pace.   They represented dozens stories.  Some could have disappeared voluntarily.  With others, mental illness may have entered the equation.  

And a few might have fallen prey to a predator like Vance, or his accomplice.

The thought of all those lost and missing women fortified something inside her.  Lent her the strength to wall off the memories and return to her task.  Perhaps the body found last night would be one of the faces in the databases Cam was mining.  Or it may be someone who was never reported missing at all.  In any case, the victim deserved justice.  Her family deserved answers.

Sophia resumed typing.  Vance’s interest in his victims had primarily been limited to the money he acquired through their abduction and the sexual torture.  She didn’t doubt that he was capable of killing.  With an icy finger tracing down her spine she recalled his sudden bouts of rage and erratic violence.  But after coming in far too close contact with the man, she could be fairly certain that once the women were dead, they lost all appeal for him.

Enter UNSUB number two.

Her typing began to pick up speed as the profile for the second offender began to take shape.  He had a proven sexual affinity for long dead victims.  Given the link between him and Vance, it seemed probable that the UNSUB had been responsible for the post-mortem sexual assaults of the bodies disposed at the cemeteries that had been discovered weeks earlier.  

The lotion used on the corpses suggested something of a personal nature for the offender.  Something his parent had used on him, perhaps?  Or a sharp contrast to a childhood devoid of the care the brand name denoted?  She made a note to check out how long the product had been on the market.  In any event, its selection was telling. Vance had been an egomaniacal offender motivated by power and control, who had exulted in degrading and torturing his victims.  Perhaps the accomplice had only been given access to the victims after their deaths.  Or, more probably, his perversion was titillated by the dead or near dead women.  

Perhaps the most puzzling thing about the seconder offender was the lack of evidence of accompanying paraphilias.  The absence of post-mortem sexual sadism and mutilation made him unlike many lust murderers.

Cam’s cell rang then and Sophia listened unabashedly to his side of the conversation.  When he finished he turned to look at her.  “Beachum and Samuels might have a real lead. They were following up on the most promising of the tips coming in since the sketch of the offender was released.  Most of them turn out to be people claiming the drawing is an exact match to an ex, or an ex’s new boyfriend, but they just finished interviewing Becky Gainer, a cashier at the Pinter’s on East Euclid.”

Sophia nodded.  Pinter’s was a chain of grocery stores that didn’t exist outside the Midwest, but one couldn’t drive more than five miles in any direction in the urban Des Moines metropolis without seeing one.  “She thinks she saw the offender?”

“Identified him from the sketch we released.  The first one Jenna did, of the offender in Edina.  According to Gainer, he shops there occasionally.  She sees him at least once or twice a month.”  

“Did she actually date him or just want to?”

He stopped then, drilled a gaze at her.  “Did I have it on speaker phone?”

Sophia smiled faintly.  “The first sketch depicted a man who was fairly attractive.”  His features hadn’t been nearly as pleasant in the drawings done earlier this morning when Jenna had interviewed the kids.  But it was the face in the first sketch that the UNSUB would be showing the world.  It was the one that would be recognized.  And regardless of his true personality, at least initially some women would respond to him.

“Troy said he got the impression Gainer was interested in the guy, but that he didn’t always come to her lane and they never exchanged more than a few words.  She described him as a cash customer.  Always alone.  No wedding band, so you’re probably right about her interest.  Polite and a little shy.…a perfect gentleman were the words she used.”

“What about the store security footage?”

“Gainer thought she’d last seen him in the store about ten or twelve days ago.  The agents are in the process of getting the store surveillance footage, both for the interior and exterior.  Then we’ll see how well he matches our sketches.  But Troy said the woman seemed pretty certain.  It’ll also give us a time stamp so we can get an idea of his schedule.”