Twisted (11 page)

She walked toward her truck. He followed. When they were belted in safely, she got the engine started and steered out of the crowded lot.

He closed his eyes and rested his head on the window, and she desperately hoped he wasn’t going to puke. After a few minutes on the highway, she decided he was asleep.

Allison focused on the narrow country road and the sleet coating her windshield. She flipped on the wipers and listened to the steady
swish-swish
of the blades.

“I hope you catch him this time.”

She glanced over, startled.

“Don’t bother arresting him. Call me up, I’ll come slit his throat for you.”

“I’m not sure you want to be saying that to a police officer.”

He sighed heavily.

Allison pushed on through the night thinking about loss and pain and how even people who closed themselves off couldn’t get away from it.

When she crossed the low-water bridge for the second time that day, Ethan Wheatley was fast asleep.

Allison lived in a generic beige apartment building that reminded Mark of his own. He wondered if she spent much time there or if she liked to spend her Saturday nights drinking and socializing, like most people her age. The silent door to 116 offered no clues, so he knocked.

Nothing.

But then the peephole went dark for a moment and the door swung back.

“Hi,” she said, in a tone that meant,
What the hell are you doing here?
She wore a black tank top—no bra—and blue pajama bottoms with SpongeBobs all over them. Mark immediately regretted coming over.

She shivered. “Damn, it’s
cold.
Come inside—you’re letting all my heat out.”

“Sorry to bother you at home.”

He stepped into her warm apartment and quickly realized that while the outside looked much like his place, the similarities stopped there. Mark’s apartment was depressing and anonymous, while hers was cozy and inviting. Her blue slip-covered sofa looked old yet comfortable. Her bookshelves were crammed with paperbacks and picture frames. Mark’s gaze fell on a leafy green plant in the corner of the living room, and he tried
to imagine being home enough to keep something like that alive.

He turned to look at her. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“You said that already.” She smiled slightly and crossed her arms. When he didn’t say anything, she huffed out a breath. “Okay, be mysterious about it.” She padded into the kitchen. “How about a drink while I try to guess how you found me? I’ve got beer or bourbon.”

“I’ll take a beer.”

He followed her into a kitchen, trying not to stare at her bare feet. He distracted himself with her surroundings. Several unread newspapers lay on the counter. Dishes filled the sink. She opened her fridge, and he glimpsed an assortment of beer, yogurt, and carryout boxes.

“Where’s your cat?” he asked.

“I don’t have one.”

“You were buying kitten chow the night of the holdup.”

“Oh,
that
cat.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Budweiser okay?”

“Sure.”

She used the hem of her T-shirt to twist off the top and then handed it to him. “He’s just a stray that hangs around my patio. I call him Kitty-Kitty, but everyone in the building has a different name for him.”

Mark sipped the beer and watched her. This woman had a soft side that she tried to downplay. He’d be willing to bet that one of these days she’d scoop up this cat that wasn’t hers and take him to the vet for shots.

She was watching him with suspicion. “So, what’d you do, run me through the system?”

“Simple Internet search.”

“But I’m unlisted.”

“Very few people are really unlisted,” he said. “Try it sometime. You’d be amazed.”

She walked into the living room and sank down on the couch. To his relief and disappointment, she pulled a zippered sweatshirt on over her thin top.

“Okay, so you’re not prying, you just happened to look me up on the Internet so you could crash my Saturday evening. What’s up?”

Mark sat down beside her and rested his drink on an issue of
Runner’s World.
“I’ve been working on the profile.”

“I was wondering when you’d get around to that. You planning to share it with me?”

“Are you on the case yet?”

“Not officially, but I’m getting closer.”

Mark watched her. She had that determined look that seemed to be her default expression whenever the subject of her job came up. She was trying to prove herself, and this case was a test.

“I’ve been working on this profile for a long time,” he said. “Our interview today helped clarify a number of things.”

“Glad it helped someone,” she said bitterly.

“What’s that mean?”

“Forget it. What did it clarify?”

He watched her for a moment and decided to let it go. “The UNSUB’s sweatshirt. Rice University. Jordan Wheatley said that’s her alma mater.”

“Yeah?” Allison’s gaze narrowed. “You think he was a student there?”

“I think he knew
she
was a student there.”

She leaned forward to put her beer on the coffee table. “You think he stalked her?”

“I know he stalked her. He stalks all of them. I hadn’t realized the extent of it until today.”

She looked incredulous. “You’re not talking about him spotting her on some jogging trail and learning her routine. You’re talking about him researching
her
, specifically. Stalking her using personal information.”

“Exactly. You heard what she said. Seeing that sweatshirt helped put her at ease, made her let her guard down. It’s just the sort of tactic he’d use.”

“But . . . maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe he actually went to school there.”

“I don’t think so. And I don’t believe in coincidences—not in this case. Every move this guy makes is deliberate.”

She stared at him, obviously uncomfortable with the notion that someone could be that calculating. She was naive. But then, she hadn’t seen the things he had.

“It’s not that hard, Allison. Think of all the social media sites where people post information about their backgrounds, their interests. All he needed was a name, and he had all kinds of information at his fingertips—information any skilled predator can use to gain an advantage.”

She sat back against the sofa and blew out a sigh. “Wow.”

“I found you—not only your home address, but your previous addresses, some of your hobbies, your date of graduation—all in a matter of minutes just by surfing the Net.”

“But I’m not on social media. I hardly even have time to read my e-mail.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You just said—”

“You were on the track team in college. Your name’s still on their Web site because you hold the record in the sixteen-hundred.” Which showed how recently she’d been an undergrad. “And utility companies have your old addresses. A simple name search yields all that. And the Habitat for Humanity project you did, back when you were a senior? That’s out there, too. You’re quoted in a newspaper article. Also, I can tell you’re a cop because there’s another write-up from when you spoke at a retirement home. ‘Mail Scams and How to Protect Yourself,’ I believe.”

Allison drew back, surprised.

“This UNSUB uses the computer to select his victims. Then he goes out and targets them in real life. It’s becoming more and more common.”

“Okay, but . . . what’s the common thread? How does he pick them off the Web?”

“I’m still working on that,” he said. “I’d like more on Jordan Wheatley’s background. And Stephanie Snow’s. I spent half the day putting together victimology reports, but there are some missing pieces.” He paused. “How’s that case file coming from Wayne County?”

Her expression clouded. “I’m doing my best. Unfortunately, that’s kind of limited right now, because I’m not officially on the case, and everyone knows it.” She stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the TV, her brow furrowed with frustration.

“You really think he’s that sophisticated?” she asked.
“I was thinking about the exercise connection. I figured he was some jogger who’d noticed these women out on the trails.”

“It goes beyond that. There’s something about these specific women and these specific dates. Another thing I’d like to get a look at is Stephanie’s computer. She might have been in contact with someone online.”

“I heard they didn’t find a computer at her house. She uses the one at work, apparently. And maybe her phone—our guys took that into evidence already.”

“It seems odd for her not to have a computer at home. What’s the status of her apartment?”

“It’s probably been released by now,” Allison said. “I could find out for you.”

“I should see it. It might offer some clues, maybe even some insights into how the killer picked her.”

Allison stopped and faced him, hands on hips. “Okay, I want to hear this profile. You’re obviously the expert. Tell me who this guy is.”

He held her gaze.

“Are you afraid you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“Then, let’s hear it.”

Mark took a sip of his beer. He rested it on the table.

“We’re looking for a white male, between thirty and forty-five.”

She scoffed. “
I
could have told you that.”

“College dropout,” he continued. “High IQ, probably one-fifty or above. Works a menial job, probably owns a van or at least drives one. He lives outside a metropolitan area. Not married, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in a relationship, possibly living with someone.”

She looked skeptical. “And do you think she knows her boyfriend slashes up women in his free time?”

“It’s possible,” Mark said. “I think she at least has a hunch. She probably knows something’s off about all the time he spends away from home. Stalking takes time. Maybe she’s noticed the mileage on the van, or items of clothing that disappear, or scratches on his arms or face. But she could be in denial about what it all means.

“I believe his parents are dead. That he has at least one sibling, maybe two, and he had a domineering mother who physically abused him.”

“Yeah, blame the mom. Next you’re going to say he kills these women because they remind him of her. That’s no excuse.”

“I didn’t say it was,” Mark said. “I’ve sat in prisons and listened to every rationalization you can think of for why people do things, but the real reason is, they get off on causing pain. They have the impulse to hurt someone and they don’t bother to control it—that simple. It’s like the man who beats his wife because she mouthed off to him or burned the toast or forgot to put his favorite pair of jeans in the dryer. It’s all bullshit.”

“So you don’t buy into the abused-kid defense?”

“There are a lot of abused kids out there, Allison. Not all of them grow up to be murderers.”

She looked at him for a long moment, probably realizing he was speaking from experience. She had good instincts about people.

“What about his physical appearance?” she asked.

“We have that from Jordan, but it’s possible he’s smaller than she described. Victims have a tendency to
exaggerate size as a result of their terror. Also, she described a goatee and glasses, but those are easily changeable features, along with hair color and eye color.”

“Why would he care about disguising himself if he planned to kill her?”

“Witnesses,” he said. “In California we found several eyewitnesses who thought they might have seen the UNSUB around the time the victim disappeared from the trails. They couldn’t describe much about him physically, but said he drove a dark-colored SUV.”

“Pretty weak.”

“You’re right, but that was all we had.”

Allison watched him, and he could tell she was interested, but not necessarily convinced he knew what he was talking about. Mark was used to that reaction. He’d learned not to let it bother him, but at this moment it did. He wanted her trust. Not just that, he wanted her respect.

Hell, he wanted to impress her. And the fact that he wanted to bothered him more than everything else because he couldn’t afford to be distracted right now, and somewhere along the way she’d become a distraction.

She stood there in her pajamas, arms crossed, probably mentally poking holes in everything he’d said.

“Another detail Jordan mentioned was the paint,” he told her. “That’s new, and we should use it. Reynolds needs to check out every paint contractor within a hundred miles of here.”

Allison rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’ll get right on that. As soon as he finishes beating Josh Bender’s lawyer over the head with all the evidence we have against
him.” She gave a frustrated sigh. “I’m fighting an uphill battle, you know. My lieutenant’s a moron. He’s stubborn, too, and as far as he’s concerned, I don’t even exist on this squad.”

“How’d you get on it, then?”

She looked away. “Long story.”

Mark wanted to hear it. Someday. But what he needed to do right now was get out of her apartment and get back to work.

She was giving him a look now that he couldn’t read.

“You know, there’s something you never told me about this case.”

There were plenty of things he’d never told her. He hadn’t wanted to burden her with every grisly detail. Was he being protective or sexist? Maybe both.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You’ve flown down here twice. First time, completely of your own accord. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the FBI have plenty to keep you guys busy without looking for investigations to butt into?”

“The UNSUB crossed state lines to avoid police. It’s a federal case.”

“Okay.” She waited. “What else? I can tell you’ve been losing sleep over this thing and I’d like to know why. You’ve seen hundreds of cases.”

He put his beer down. She could sniff out a lie, so he might as well just tell her.

“When they called me in ten years ago, it was my first case as a lead agent. I got more involved with the families than I should have. Sheryl Fanning’s family in particular—that was harder than I’d expected. When you’re the lead, everyone’s looking to you for answers.”