by Angela Ford
The file contained the original list of names and potential predators the two men were looking into, but Mike wanted to run the names through too. Maybe after ten years the FBI records would find a match. The last of the file contained the third and final postcard found at the beach house when the bodies were found. Mike concluded that the folder was encrypted because the FBI didn’t approve the case. It was too new and there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove it wasn’t a teenage prank. It mentioned Jess’s parents’ deaths at the beach house and that the FBI went to the crime scene under the direction of Special Agent Withers. Agent Withers concluded in the report that the crime was a break-in and enter. Nothing more was in the file. Mike had the uneasy feeling there was a lot more to Jess’s stalker and her parents’ deaths.
He switched over to the other laptop and searched all the social network sites and chat rooms he had up, but there was nothing more than a bunch of “I’m bored,” “Text me, someone, before I fall asleep in class” and more of the same typical teenage communication while they sat in their classes at school. He chuckled, remembering his own high school years. Nothing had changed.
Looking at his watch, Mike wondered again about Tom. He tried his cell and home numbers one more time and checked his office, but still no sign of the boss. He had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong and drove over to Tom’s home.
Mike walked up to the door and rang the bell. No response. This is not like Tom he thought and pondered whether he should contact anyone on the team. He decided to walk around to the back of the house, but before he could, a car pulled up. It was Tom’s housekeeper who remembered meeting Mike before, so she gave him the key once he explained how odd it was for Tom not to be at the office. He asked her to remain outside while he searched the house, in case there was any foul play.
Mike drew his gun as he entered through the front door. The housekeeper gave him the alarm code.
He keyed in the numbers to disarm the alarm but it was already disarmed. It was quiet and nothing appeared to be out of place. He called out Tom’s name, but there was no answer so he started to walk through the home. When he entered the kitchen, he was alarmed to see a trail of blood leading up the back stairs.
He slowly climbed the stairs.The sun shone in the room at the end of the hall and a trail of blood led to it. Mike moved quickly to the right side of the hallway, his back pressed tight against the wall. He moved slowly toward the room, his revolver held in both hands against his chest. He reached the doorway
and quietly moved into the room with his arms outstretched and gun pointed. The balcony doors were open.
A warm breeze blew the bottom of the sheer curtains amidst a pool of blood on the carpet. It wasn’t completely dry so whatever happened in the room must have happened in the last couple of hours, he determined.
Mike grabbed his phone and immediately called for backup and a CSI team. He hesitated to contact Eric and Gina. It was still unclear if Tom was missing or injured. He heard Tom’s voice in his head telling him the importance of no distractions when they were so close to solving a case and how important it was for the team to remain focused with their full attention on their work. But Mike knew something was wrong. He went back outside and told the housekeeper what he’d discovered, and then asked her to stay in her car and wait for the police as they might have questions for her. She nodded, obviously shaken and worried about her boss.
Mike decided not to contact Eric or Gina. They were now deep undercover and with Tom’s disappearance and with the scene he just found, it was best to keep them working the case. Mike knew Gina would be at school doing her part of the plan to draw the UNSUB in her direction. He knew Eric would be at the Marina by now setting the stage to make it appear he was taking off and leaving his daughter alone.
He decided to contact Jess. She would still be in the air on the team jet, but he could reach her on the jet phone. He dialed the number and heard that warm familiar voice that could always comfort him at the worst possible times.
Chapter Eight
Jess wasn’t alone.
When she opened her door earlier, she’d been startled to find the man who worked for her father; the man who the FBI records said died in a car accident.
Retired Special Agent Withers told her he was working on the ten-year-old case as a private citizen. The bureau never approved the case—not even after her father’s death. They didn’t believe there was enough concrete evidence of a stalker back then, let alone that he had become an escalated predator stalking teens on the Internet. Mark thought differently.
For ten years, Agent Withers kept a close watch on Jess without her knowledge. He made a promise to himself when he found his friends’ bodies that he would protect her as best he could. He believed Jess’s father. They worked many cases together and agreed the stalker would turn predator, and worse, a serial killer. They were the best profilers the bureau had.
After his retirement, the bureau encrypted the file and put it to rest and Mark moved to the west coast. Mark Withers, now a citizen, kept his promise to watch over Jess. He’d married young but his wife died. It was a devastating time for Mark, and Nick Resario had been there for him like a brother. He felt he owed it to his dearest friend to look out for his daughter. To Mark, Jess was his only family left. His parents passed away years before and he was an only child. The bureau had been his life, his family—and let him down. He told her he was frustrated and angry that they never approved the case, closed it and encrypted it. He came up with the plan to work undercover and underground, on his own, without the bureau and faked his death. It had been easy since he led a private life on the west coast for ten years, and changed in appearance so much that not even his former FBI co-workers would recognize him. He hadn’t kept in touch with any of them. As far as he was concerned, he couldn’t count on the FBI at all, until he met Tom.
Jess could identify with the difficulties he had faced and applauded his determination to follow his instincts. She knew too well what that felt like and how frustrating it was for the bureau not to back her up. She had been right too many times, yet reprimanded just as many times. If it wasn’t for her strength and determination to help the kids preyed upon, she would have left the bureau a long time ago. As Mark told her stories of the cases he had worked on with her father and how her father thought, she finally felt she was getting to know her father’s “business” as she’d called it when she was younger. Jess also discovered she was very much her father’s daughter.
Mark showed her his notes and the research he had done over the years. He explained the profile he had come up with.
When Jess was seventeen and the postcards arrived, her father investigated all possible stalkers the FBI had on file within the Vineyards. He’d even investigated her friends at the beach and at their home in Washington. The only lead was a picture her father took of a man in his late twenties or early thirties.
Jess’s jaw dropped when she looked at the picture. It was the same man in the picture she found in her album the night before and forwarded to Mike. She took it out of her purse and showed it to Mark. He agreed there were many similarities but also that it was hard to determine if it was the same man. Both pictures were old and fuzzy, and Jess’s picture had been taken at night at the beach. Jess asked if they had any idea who he was.
Mark told her that there was a man who had come from the west coast that summer, following his wife. She had fled to family in Vineyard Haven saying that her husband was abusive. Mark spoke with the local authorities but they didn’t have much more information other than her family had a peace bond placed against him. Jess’s father spoke with her family but they said she was too upset to talk to him about it. They did not have a picture of him, but described him, and when her dad spotted him near the beach home one day, he took a picture. The man fit the description given by the woman’s family. Jess felt as though she was
listening to the same story Mrs. Roberts told her.
“Odd,” she whispered. She turned to look out the plane’s window and drifted a million miles away.
“Everything okay Jessica?” Mark patted her hand with concern.
She’d not known about any of this and felt she was oblivious to her own life, her own surroundings. Her instinct as an FBI agent had fallen short, for herself. She turned her head slowly back to Mark and smiled.
“Yes. I think so.” She felt sure Mark understood as he simply gave her a smile of reassurance.
“Mrs. Roberts, my neighbor at the beach, told me the same story yesterday. Now, it’s all coming together to make sense. The pictures, the postcards, my dad’s files, your files...but who is this man? Do you think he was my stalker?”
Mark nodded.
“I believe so. I have for a while now. I tracked him to the west coast while you were at Berkley. He watched you, as did I. It was when you started at the FBI that he backed off watching you. It’s as if your joining the FBI scared him off. At first, I thought you were safe and he would leave you alone.”
Jess felt as though she was trying to make somebody else’s feelings and emotions her own. It was one thing to work a case, but to work your own case was completely different than what she usually dealt with. She listened as Mark talked, glancing from his notes to her face.
“His name is Trevor Marshall, the son of a wealthy banker in San Francisco and a prominent family. His mother passed away when he was a little boy. He was raised by servants.”
Mark’s research told the sad and lonely story of a boy who grew up with everything he could possibly need accept first, the love of a mother, and then a father after she died. Jess almost felt sorry for Trevor as she listened to Mark.
“Trevor is highly-educated. He went to Harvard but dropped out of law school his last year. It was there he met his wife-to-be, Susan. They moved back to the west coast to live the highlife off Trevor’s trust fund. A few years later, Susan fled from his abuse to her only living relative in Vineyard Haven. Sadly, the young woman, only twenty-two-years-old, took her life shortly after she arrived there,” Mark told her.
That was the first Jess heard of it. No one else— not Mrs. Roberts or the local authorities in their report—mentioned it. The family must have tried to give her some dignity in the end.
Mark pulled out another picture. This time it was a picture of Susan. Jess raised her hand to her chest and gasped. She felt as though she was looking at a picture of herself. That was it; the reason why Trevor stalked her in the beginning.
“This is a lot to digest, Jess and I’m sorry this all had to come out. I only wanted to honor my partner and keep you out of this like your dad wanted.” Mark said.
“Do you think he is still stalking me? I’m sure I would have noticed if I was being watched.” Jess felt annoyed, not scared.
“Yes, especially after your run-in with him the other night. And then he followed you to the beach. Jess, you never saw him watching you. You never noticed me watching you.”
“What?” Suddenly, Jess remembered the feeling of someone watching her, and then she remembered the pale green truck parked at the end of the driveway. After opening the door to Mark, she believed it was him.
“I was watching, but so was he. When I spotted him watching you on the beach, I moved closer to him knowing he couldn’t see me in the trees at the edge of the shore, but he would be able to hear me. That’s when I called Tom. I wanted Trevor to hear me set the plan in motion,” Mark informed her.
“What plan?” Jess questioned.
“I’m sorry Jess. I didn’t want to put you in harm’s way, but this is our chance to get him. I know you can handle yourself and I will be here to protect you.” Mark brushed his hand against his unshaven face.
“What plan Mark?” she demanded.
“You’re the decoy. That’s why we’re bringing you back. I called Tom to set the plan in motion so Trevor would hear it. He was too close Jess. I knew you were in danger at the beach. My gut told me he would strike that night. I had to protect you. I was right. Trevor flew back that evening. I’m sorry Jess, I had to do it.” Mark’s tone was genuine.
“I’ve never met this man! I just found an old picture of him last night. What are you talking about Mark?” Jess needed an answer.
“I believe he’s your UNSUB; the man you stopped the other night from a possible victim.”
Astounded, Jess felt at a loss for words. Then she barked at him, “What do you do? Follow me on all my cases? Do you follow me on dates too?”
“You don’t date. Maybe you should.” Mark said it without thinking.
Jess exhaled. Angry, she turned to look out the window.
“I’m sorry Jess. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I just think a beautiful young woman should have someone in her life. Don’t let your work control your life. You will lose out on so much. Trust me. I know. It is not my place to say anything, but I do care. Your parents would not want this for you. They just wanted you to be loved and protected. I’m sorry if I have offended you, or over-stepped my boundaries.”
Jess listened as her eyes welled up with moisture. He was right—about her life and her parents. She turned back to him.
“That’s okay. You’re probably right. Thank you for caring. My parents would be so grateful for all you have done to look out for me.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it.
Jess wondered if Trevor Marshall was the UNSUB. There was her similarity to the victims—long blonde hair, blue eyes, seventeen. Trevor came from money, which would give him the means and time to spend in the chat rooms, and why he targeted girls from wealthy families. He knew too well how much time wealthy families left their teenagers alone.
The jet phone rang and startled Jess from her thoughts.
“Hello.”
“Jess”
“Hey Mike. We’re almost ready to land and should be back at headquarters within the hour. What’s up? You sound odd.”
He gave her the details of his suspicions about Tom missing or injured. Jess’s jaw dropped as she listened and saw Mark mouth to her, “What happened?” She shrugged her shoulders and frowned to let him know something was wrong. Jess’s heart felt as though it dropped to her stomach and she placed her hand there. The thought of Tom being hurt—or worse, dead—suddenly created a flurry of regret in her mind. Regret at not being there to protect him and even more so, regret at not telling him her true feelings she’d denied to herself for so long. He was the only man she ever truly loved, but she had been so afraid of becoming close to anyone since her parents’ deaths.
She could barely grasp the words Mike spoke and felt sick. Mark tried to comfort her by placing a hand on her shoulder. The emotions Jess felt came to a halt when her investigative side came back in an instant.
“Mike, you need to go back upstairs and check to see if anything is missing from Tom’s room. You know Tom; he probably brought his work home. Check for his laptop and case file. It may have been the UNSUB who broke into his house. If so, he is definitely searching for something. Tom mentioned to me that he feels the UNSUB is on to us.”
Mike agreed and said he would wait for Jess’s call after they landed.
Jess hung up the phone as the pilot announced they were preparing to land. She and Mark gathered their papers and buckled their seatbelts. Nothing more was said. Jess struggled to absorb what she had just heard. Her only thoughts now were of Tom. She had to find him. He had to be okay. She needed to tell him she loved him.
Chapter Nine
The police arrived, along with a CSI team and Mike directed them upstairs to Tom’s room. He talked to one of the CSIs and briefly told him his team was tracking an online predator and it could possibly be him who broke in. He also told him he was worried there might be something missi
ng in the room that was crucial to their case. The CSI handed Mike some gloves but asked that he not touch or remove anything from the room until they were finished.
Mike searched the room and the rest of the house but he came up empty-handed. He went outside to look in Tom’s car and he discovered it wasn’t in the driveway. He called to one of the police officers to put out an APB on Tom’s car, giving the officer the description and plate number. He also asked him to have patrol cars check the nearby hospitals just in case Tom had driven himself to the hospital. Mike hoped that was the case and Tom was okay, but the thought that crossed his mind—that he feared—was that it had been the UNSUB and he had Tom’s laptop and files on the case.
The CSI team collected samples of the blood found in Tom’s bedroom and the fingerprints found on the balcony doors. They told Mike they would be in touch if they got a DNA match from the blood or fingerprints found. Mike thanked them just as the officer came to inform him Tom’s car was located at nearby Mercy Hospital.
Mike left instantly for Mercy Hospital. He received a call from Jess saying they landed and wanting to know if he was still at Tom’s house. He informed her he was on his way to Mercy as Tom’s vehicle had just been found there.
“We’ll meet you there,” was all Mike heard before the dial tone. It was the second time he heard her say “we.” He wondered who she meant.
Mike parked in the designated police parking zone and hurried in through the emergency room door. At the front desk he showed his badge and asked if a man had been admitted with a serious injury. He described Tom and explained that he was an FBI agent. The girl at the desk asked him to wait for a moment while she checked with the doctor on call that morning. Mike was pacing from one end of the desk to the other, when he heard Jess call out to him.