by James Swain
Daniels swallowed hard. “I do. You were very kind to me that night.”
“That’s why you came here, isn’t it,” Rhoden said. “Because of what happened in Hanover. You think that Jack and I had something to do with those girls’ killings.”
“Did you?”
Rhoden visibly shuddered and shook his head.
“No,” he added for emphasis.
“Do you know who did?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Rhoden said. “A local reporter wrote a book about the killings. His theory was that a pair of cops were behind them. I think he was right.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I dealt with the cops often in the ER. A couple of them were real sick bastards. They liked to hang around and watch patients suffer.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“No. It was a long time ago.”
“What did they look like?”
“They were white, in their late twenties. One had a scar on his chin and blond hair. The other, I think it was his partner, was Italian and had a mustache.”
“That’s it?”
“Like I said, it was a long time ago.”
Daniels shot Lancaster a look that said they were done. He removed the rental’s keys from his pocket and tossed them to her, knowing that she would want to drive. She pressed the unlock button on the keys, and the rental’s doors popped open.
“Wait.” Rhoden lowered his voice. “We’re obviously not the men you’re looking for. Can’t you show some pity, and let us go?”
“Not happening,” Daniels said.
“But I helped you,” Rhoden said, his voice trembling. “I didn’t have to buy you that cup of soup, or show you compassion, but I did. You were more than just a patient to me, Elizabeth. You were a terrified young woman, and I went out of my way to help you. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Daniels looked ready to explode. “I saw a laptop in your living room. A video of an underage girl having sex with a man was playing on it. Was that your laptop?”
Rhoden nodded. He did not act the least bit ashamed.
“Did you download that video to your laptop?” she asked.
Again, Rhoden nodded.
“Then you’re going to prison,” she said.
“But it’s just a video,” he protested. “It’s not like Jack and I are molesting young girls. We know that’s wrong, so we watch videos to keep our fantasies in check, just like men who watch S&M and bondage videos. Can’t you see the difference?”
“I do see the difference,” she said. “No young girl willingly has sex with a strange man twice her age. She’s either drugged or is being held against her will. She’s a slave and has no say in the matter. If it weren’t for people like you downloading those videos, they wouldn’t exist, and that young girl wouldn’t be exploited. That’s the difference.”
“You’re not going to help me,” Rhoden said, sounding defeated.
“On the contrary. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you never get out of prison. That goes for your friend Jack too.”
“But we’re invalids.”
“Tough shit.”
The monster lurking just below the surface showed its ugly head, and Rhoden lunged at her. Lancaster stepped between them and put him on the sidewalk. Rhoden grabbed his hip and howled in pain.
“You broke my leg,” he said.
“It was nice catching up,” Daniels said.
CHAPTER 37
REVERSE
Every agent of the law wore two faces. There was the face that they wore in public while performing their job, and there was the face they wore in private when no one was looking. Daniels drove out of the Oakland Park neighborhood and headed south to where Lancaster lived. They came to an intersection with a RaceTrac service station on the corner, and she pulled in and parked. Lancaster assumed she was going to use the john or buy a drink, and was surprised when she placed her head on the wheel and shut her eyes.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
He went inside and got two large coffees and an assortment of doughnuts. The store was quiet, and he killed a few minutes chatting with the manager about the flooding and did he think it would end anytime soon? He returned to the car to find Daniels wiping her cheeks with her palms. Both of her eyes were bloodshot. He placed the coffees in the holders on the dash and opened the bag and offered her a doughnut.
“No, thanks, I’m not hungry,” she said.
“Eat one anyway. It’ll make you feel better,” he said.
She chose a chocolate-covered doughnut and took a giant bite out of it. The sweetness brought a tiny smile to her lips, and she washed it down with coffee.
“Do you know how many times this has happened to me?” she asked. “So many that I’ve lost count. Every time I think I’ve found these bastards, the rug gets pulled out from under me. It’s like God’s punishing me, and I have no idea why.”
“It’s eating you alive, isn’t it?” he said.
She finished her doughnut and pulled another out of the bag. “These are delicious.”
“Have you thought about asking for a reassignment? I’m sure your superiors would say yes, considering how long this has been going on.”
“I’ve thought about it plenty of times,” she said. “But then a new envelope of photographs gets dropped on my desk and there are new leads to run down. I’m so immersed in the case that it would be impossible to bring another agent up to speed and expect they’d be able to put all the pieces together. Do you think I’m a bad person?”
“It doesn’t sound like you have enough time in your life to be a bad person.”
“Then why is God doing this to me?”
“God isn’t doing this to you. There’s a lot of evil out there. When it touches people, they get hurt. No one’s immune, not even good people like you.”
His answer seemed to satisfy her. Back on the road, he asked a question that had been bothering him. “The author of The Hanover Killers speculated that a pair of cops might be behind the killings at Dartmouth. Rhoden said the same thing. Is that an angle you checked out?”
“The FBI was all over that,” she said. “The bureau interviewed the Hanover Police Department and the departments from the neighboring towns. The neighboring towns were quickly ruled out. That left the Hanover Police Department, which employed sixty-eight full-time officers at the time of the killings and fourteen part-timers. Each officer worked ten-hour shifts, four days a week, and had to attend roll call before they went on duty. The station supervisor was responsible for keeping track of each officer’s hours and sick days. The officers were responsible for keeping logs that showed when they issued tickets or made arrests. The FBI reviewed everything and determined that there were six officers whose whereabouts weren’t accounted for during the times of the killings and when I was abducted. Two of the officers were female and ruled out. The FBI interviewed the other four officers, and they had airtight alibis.”
“If it wasn’t the local cops, what about guys with military backgrounds or retired cops who lived in Hanover?”
“We checked out as many of those as we could.”
“But you couldn’t check out all of them because there’s no database that contains all of them,” he said. “That’s why you were suspicious of me. It could still be a cop.”
“It could be.”
“You must have a theory as to who these guys are.”
“My theories have all proven false. I’m positive I’ve run across them during my investigation, but I didn’t realize it was them. It eats at me.”
Two blocks from his condo building they hit more flooding. The street hadn’t been flooded when they’d left, and Daniels weighed driving through the water.
“You never know what’s underneath,” he cautioned.
“Spoilsport.”
She threw the rental into reverse and drove backward down the street until she came to an intersection and masterfully turne
d the vehicle around. Her skill was admirable, and it made him want to enroll in a tactical driving class.
Ten minutes later they were in his condo ready to start over. Earlier, they had separated the list of names of male nurses at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and searched the DMV database to see which ones now lived in Florida, believing that the killers had established residency here. They decided to take a different approach, and run each name against the National Crime Information Center’s database to see which of the nurses on the list had criminal records. Daniels sat on the living room couch, working on her laptop. Lancaster sat across from her, holding the list.
“Ready when you are,” she said.
He read aloud the first name to her. “Ronald Colley.”
He spelled the name to ensure that she entered it into the NCIC’s search engine correctly. Daniels hit “Enter” and tapped her fingers impatiently as she waited.
“The computer’s running slow tonight. That happens when a lot of agents are running checks at once. Wait, I’ve got a response. Negative. Who’s next?”
“Wayne Heinrich.”
He spelled the name, and she entered it into the search engine.
“What did we do before computers?” she asked.
“We guessed more,” he said.
Heinrich also came up negative. The next twenty names on the list produced the same result. She raised a hand to her mouth and smothered a yawn.
“I need more coffee,” she said. “I’m starting to crash from all the sugar in those doughnuts.”
“Coming right up.”
He fixed another pot in the kitchen. He made it extra strong and filled two mugs. Searching the NCIC database one name at a time was a painstaking process, but he was convinced it would pay off. The Hanover killers had to be nurses for the simple reason that every other suspect had been eliminated. Daniels’s willingness to start over was assurance that she believed he was right. He returned to the living room with the mugs.
“Any luck?” he asked.
She did not reply. Her head was tilted back, and she was snoring. He cleared his throat but did not rouse her. He put the mugs on the coffee table, then gently removed the laptop and also put it on the coffee table. With her eyes still closed, she mumbled thanks, then lay sideways on the couch and slipped into dreamland.
He got a blanket and covered her. It was time to take a break. Before he did, he glanced at the laptop’s screen to see if they’d gotten a hit. Her latest entry had come up negative. He grabbed a mug and went outside. He needed to check in with the troops.
Sometimes late at night when the city was asleep, the light pollution dimmed and the stars came out. Tonight was such an event, and he stood at the railing and beheld the flickering dots in the night sky with his cell phone pressed to his ear, talking to Carlo.
“How are things at the Pearls’?” he asked.
“About the same,” Carlo said.
“You still seeing a lot of strange cars?”
“Yeah. Too much traffic for a residential street. That was some scene at the beach. In the old days, you would have torn that lifeguard’s arm off.”
“I guess I’m getting soft in my old age. How are the Pearls holding up?”
“They’re hunkered down inside watching a movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if they never came outside again.”
“I should probably call and calm them down.”
“Not a bad idea. Later, brother.”
The building had a visitor. Down below, the security gate rose, and a yellow taxi entered the property. It parked by the entrance, and the driver hopped out and removed a suitcase from the trunk and gave it to his female passenger, who paid him. The driver was familiar, having brought many residents home from the nearby airport.
The driver started to leave. The area around the entrance was having new pavers installed, and the driver had to back out in order not to hit any of the equipment. It was a struggle, and he finally got clear and left. Lancaster watched the taillights disappear and realized his skin was tingling. The driver knew how to handle the wheel, yet when it came to driving in reverse, he had struggled, much in the same way most people who drove a car would struggle. Driving in reverse was difficult, unless you were trained to do it.
Daniels had been trained to drive in reverse at the FBI’s training facility in Quantico. She was so skillful that he wanted to learn himself. He’d never seen anyone else drive in reverse that well—with one exception.
Two days ago, two of Nicki’s stalkers had been parked in front of the Pearls’ house in a white van, casing it. When Lancaster had chased them, the van’s driver had gone in reverse down the street and escaped. There were several vehicles parked on either side, yet the van hadn’t scraped a single one.
Based upon their use of a wheelchair at the Galleria mall, he felt certain they were the same pair of monsters who’d terrorized Dartmouth College twenty years ago. And now he knew something else about them. One of the stalkers knew how to expertly drive in reverse. Which could only mean one thing.
He’d been trained.
CHAPTER 38
BAD EYE
Lancaster went inside and shut the slider. Daniels was sprawled on the couch and mumbling in her sleep. He stifled the urge to awaken her so he could explain what he’d discovered. It was just a theory, and he needed to write it all down and make sure it held water before he rousted her.
He went to his study and shut the door. Sitting at his desk, he found a legal pad and a pencil in a drawer and wrote the words MISSED CLUES at the top of the page in bold letters. Before he could write any more, his cell phone vibrated and he removed it from his pocket. Karissa had texted him. She’d encountered a problem during her drive to Marathon and had just arrived at his friends’ motel and was getting settled in. He felt like a jerk for not reaching out to her to make sure she was okay, so he called her.
“Hey, there,” she said. “I didn’t know if you were still up.”
“Burning the midnight oil,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
“I blew a tire on the Florida Turnpike just north of Miami and had to pull off on the shoulder. When I went to replace it, I found the spare was flat, so I called Triple A. Luckily, a highway patrolman came by and babysat me until a repair truck showed up.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you’re not too stressed out.”
“I’ll live. Look, Jon, I need to ask you a question. You told me that you have an FBI friend who could arrest Zack. What if your FBI friend doesn’t come through? What then? It wouldn’t be the first time the law has let me down.”
He leaned back in his chair and considered how best to respond. He knew from his years as a policeman that victims of sexual crimes rarely felt protected by the law and did not trust the police to follow through when it came to protecting them from their attackers. He’d promised Karissa that he’d have Zack put away so he couldn’t harm her, but until he actually did something, she was going to fear every shadow and strange noise.
“If that happens, then I’ll deal with Zack,” he said.
“Deal with him how?” she said.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do. Deal with him how?”
“I’ll put a bullet in him if I have to. You have my word.”
The line went quiet. He’d never made a promise like that before. But the fact was, he’d screwed up when he’d confronted Zack and let Karissa’s name slip. He was responsible for the mess she was in, and he needed to fix it.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said.
“Neither do I. But if it does, I’ll deal with him. He won’t hurt you again.”
“Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. Good night.”
He said goodbye and ended the connection. He could only deal with one problem at a time, and he shoved Karissa out of his mind and went back to his legal pad.
Writing down all the clues they’d missed took twenty minutes. The reality of most criminal investigati
ons was that the truth was hidden in the facts, and if the investigator looked hard enough, the truth would reveal itself. The truth was beginning to reveal itself with the Hanover killers, and he booted up his computer and continued his search.
Three hours later he was done. He’d found the bastards and now understood how they’d managed to evade Daniels for such a long time. He also felt certain that they were about to claim their next victim, and that he and Daniels needed to act quickly.
He found Daniels in the living room still talking in her sleep. Her words were anguished, and her body twisted uncomfortably on the couch. She led a tortured life. During the day she chased the men who’d tried to abduct and kill her, and at night, they chased her. Putting down his legal pad, he knelt next to the couch, wanting to wake her as gently as possible.
“Beth, wake up.”
She remained asleep, still talking to herself. He tried a different approach.
“Special Agent Daniels, wake up.”
That didn’t produce the desired result, so he gave her a gentle shake. Her eyes snapped open, and she grabbed his wrist. Within seconds he was lying on the floor.
“Hey, cut it out!” he said.
She released him and shot him an angry look. “God damn it, Jon. I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is. Please don’t ever do that again.”
“You got it.”
He pulled himself off the floor and collected himself. Then he sat down on the couch beside her. He picked up the legal pad and passed it to her. She spent a long moment staring at what he’d written. She shook her head, not understanding.
“I was wrong,” he explained. “Our killers aren’t nurses. It took me a while, but I figured out who they are, and why they’ve evaded you for so long.”
“I’m listening,” she said.
“We missed several important clues, which I’ve written down. Let’s start from the top.” He pointed at the top of the page where he’d written DRIVING IN REVERSE. “One of our killers is trained in tactical driving. I saw him drive a van in reverse on a street outside your sister’s house in order to get away from me. The street had cars parked on the curb, but he didn’t hit any of them.”