The Third to Die

by Allison Brennan

  “Thanks for coming on board ahead of schedule.”

  “Once I told my superiors I was leaving for the FBI, I got the cold shoulder. I was already mentally gone. There’s a case I’ll need to follow up on—I trained my replacement, but it’s a sensitive situation and I’ll have to testify at the trial.”

  “Anything you need. After we’re done here, you can go back, get things in order.”

  “My daughter and her family are moving into my house—it’s in a better school district. She’s a prosecutor—they get paid shit, but she doesn’t want to go into private practice.” Jim sounded proud. “Her husband’s a cop. Good guy. They have three kids.” He pulled a photo from his pocket. Two sandy-blond-haired boys who looked almost identical except for their height and a girl with dark pigtails and round Harry Potter glasses. “The boys just turned eight and nine last month, and Trixie will be starting first grade in the fall. Boys look like their dad, Trix—my granddaughter—takes after her mom.”

  “Nice family.”

  “Yeah. There’s a basement I never finished—my son-in-law is going to do the work, add a bathroom, put up a wall. I’ll have my own space. And honestly, when I go home I mainly want to see the kids. We’d been talking about it when I decided to retire early. But this will work even better.” He finished his pastry. “You don’t have a family.”

  Statement, not a question.

  “A brother.”

  “You close?”

  Matt nodded. “I spend holidays with him and his family. He’s a doctor in Miami.”

  Dante was brilliant, always had been. They were thirteen months apart, Dante older, and together they’d gotten in and out of trouble while growing up. He loved his brother and sister-in-law and their kids. But settling down wasn’t in Matt’s DNA—all the home and hearth genes had gone to his brother.

  Then Michael Harris, the newest MRT member, walked in dressed impeccably in a dark suit and purple silk tie. He was big—bigger than Matt—and broad, former Navy SEAL. He’d joined the FBI after he served his country for eight years and been honorably discharged. He’d been in Detroit for six years, serving on their ERT unit as the munitions expert and on the SWAT team. Most FBI offices didn’t have a dedicated SWAT team—agents cross-trained. Matt wanted someone with advanced tactical training by his side in case a situation got out of hand.

  Matt raised an eye at Michael Harris’s attire. “You know you’re diving in a lake.” He’d got it out of a colleague that Michael’s nickname in the SEALs had been GQ. Matt hadn’t gotten up the nerve to call him that yet.

  “I have my gear,” Michael said. He extended his hand to Jim. “Michael Harris.”

  “Jim Esteban.”

  Jim wore Dockers and a rumpled polo shirt. They couldn’t be more different.

  “You caught up?” Matt asked Michael.

  “Read everything you gave me last night. Know what we’re looking for at the lake. Play nice with SSA Torino because she has her nose out of joint. Thank the Sheriff for letting us use their equipment and make sure everything we find goes directly to Jim, who will be at the Spokane crime lab.”

  Matt made some notes and said, “Detective Knolls of Liberty Lake is looking for the ATV with a vacationing cop from LA—he’s been solid since I arrived and may show up at the lake.”

  “Got it.” Michael grimaced when he sipped the coffee. “This tastes like shit.”

  “You were in the military for eight years and you’re complaining about hotel coffee?”

  “We had better coffee in the Navy.”

  Matt’s phone rang and he glanced at caller ID. “It’s Doc Jones,” he told his people. “I have to take this, but keep me in the loop, okay?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer before stepping into his adjoining room and closing the door. It wasn’t that he needed to keep the call private, but he wanted all his attention on Catherine.

  “It’s Matt,” he said.

  “First, I’m not coming to Spokane—you don’t need me on-site.”

  “I already said you didn’t need to be on the ground.” He tried not to gloat that he had been right.

  “You’ve given me good forensic information,” Catherine said, “but I need more—specifically about the first murder. Anne Banks, the Portland stay-at-home mother. She’s an outlier—at least with what we know right now. The background check went back five years, but we need to go further back, to her childhood if we have to.”

  “I got your email yesterday. Ryder is digging up the contact information for the detective in charge. You’ve always said the first victim is the key victim.”

  “It’s standard in profiling, Matt. I was frustrated yesterday because I knew I was missing something. I spent all day reviewing every file, every photo, every interview...and realized when I woke up this morning that we have several major holes. Consider this—victims four and seven were both in the medical profession. Victims two and five were both in the educational field. Different jobs, but they were educators. Victims three and six were both in law enforcement. They seem random but they’re not—not to the killer. He’s choosing his victims based on their careers.”

  “Yet the first victim was a stay-at-home mother of three,” Matt said.

  “I believe she was in the medical profession before she had children. I looked through all the files in her case again this morning. There’s nothing in there about where she was born, raised, what she did, where she lived—she’d been married for more than ten years and lived in the same house in Portland for all those years and no one went back further. They stayed local.”

  Matt took notes, then glanced at the Banks file. “You’re right. I didn’t notice.”

  “Anne Banks bothered me from the beginning because she was the only one who didn’t fit the profile in any way, and we didn’t even connect her until long after the sixth victim because she was killed in broad daylight, in a park, with dozens of potential witnesses, none of whom saw anything. She was the only victim who didn’t have a full-time job. The only victim who was extremely affluent—her husband was a dot-com genius, made a significant windfall when he sold his company and then he started another. The only victim who had young children still living at home. She wasn’t random.”

  “Are you saying that the killer targeted her specifically?” Matt asked. “Got a taste for killing, and just continued?”

  “No. I think he has a specific motive for killing each person—meaning, they are not truly random—though we still don’t know how he’s choosing his targets. A minor slight? Does the individual remind him of someone who hurt him? Do the women remind him of his mother, the men of his father? Is there a more personal reason? We haven’t established any personal connections between the victims, other than they were killed in groups of three. Perhaps they are all connected to the killer in some way—directly or indirectly—but not to each other.”

  Catherine cleared her throat and shuffled some papers; Matt heard her clicking on her computer.

  “And?” He knew she had more.

  “His murders are brutal, but well planned,” Catherine continued. “No one has come forward as a witness. In seven murders, they don’t even have a sketch, bad or otherwise, or anyone who saw the victim with someone immediately before they were kidnapped. My educated guess is that he calculated each murder for weeks, if not months. He knew their routines, patterns, schedule—and then planned exactly what time of the day—the right day—he could kill them. Those he killed in their homes—he knew they lived alone or would be alone. Those he took to another site, he didn’t keep alive for longer than it took to transport them. He grabbed them, drugged them, traveled to his chosen location, then killed them. He didn’t feel a need to explain himself and he didn’t get pleasure out of torture or even from their fear. His victims were likely unconscious or otherwise incapacitated and couldn’t fight back. His satisfaction comes fro
m a cathartic relief when he kills.”

  “Except for the first victim,” Matt said. “She was killed in public, in a park, found almost immediately.”

  “Exactly. That was bold—but it could have been that was the only place he could manage to get her alone. Her husband worked from home—they were together all the time. Her two older kids were at school, otherwise she would have been with them. And still—though she was killed in a public place—no one claimed to have seen anything.”

  That was truly frustrating. A mother killed in a neighborhood park and no witnesses. Did that make the killer supersmart or superlucky?

  “When you talk to the original detective in Portland,” Catherine said, “ask him to review all witness statements. Someone might have reported something that didn’t seem relevant at the time. Anne Banks is, I believe, the key to finding this killer.”

  “After six years it’ll be nearly impossible to get any actionable information from a witness,” Matt said,

  “Agreed, but the information could be hidden in the notes. I’m throwing ideas out there—but the detective will help you. I spoke to him three years ago and he was helpful then as well.”

  “You think the killer personally knew Anne Banks. That she knew him, maybe recognized him.”

  “Either directly or indirectly, he knew her and had a very specific—and very personal—reason for killing her. It wasn’t random. Something set him off. He had to have stalked her for some time to know her schedule, when she would be running, how to get her alone. Matt—find out where Anne Banks worked and lived before she was married. My instincts tell me she was a nurse—not just any nurse, but a trauma nurse, just like victim seven Victoria Manners, just like victim Sophia Kwan, the nurse in Missoula. I know you’re short-staffed, but we need to go back further than the original investigations.”

  “Are you talking ten years? Twenty years?”

  “When I initially got the case three years ago, I asked both the Portland and Missoula police departments to go back five to seven years on each victim. I received information haphazardly over the years, and some of the information is incomplete. Because this wasn’t an official FBI investigation, I had no authority to push for more. But now? We go back to the victims’ childhoods if we have to. To wait three years between his kills, that takes discipline and unusual patience. Yet in a sense he’s escalating. He grabbed Manners on the second, killed her shortly after midnight. This shows he was anticipating the kill and couldn’t wait until later in the day. Your next victim will be dead before the sun comes up tomorrow.”

  Matt had been thinking the same thing, but he was focused more on Catherine’s tone.

  “You have more, don’t you?”

  “I’m not going to jump to conclusions, Matt. The last time I rushed a profile, someone died. I don’t have to remind you of that again, do I?”

  Her voice was sharp, and Matt winced. “I’ll run the backgrounds, Catherine. But we’re on the clock here. If he’s picking his victims by their profession, then a teacher is likely to die in sixteen hours.”

  “Don’t put that pressure on me.”

  “I’m not. But give me one more thing—wait.” He scribbled on a notepad, glanced at his own notes, then said, “The way the previous victims were all left in the city when several lived in the suburbs. Why transport them elsewhere? Shouldn’t it be easier to kill them more remotely, like Manners? Less chance of being spotted?”

  Catherine was silent for a moment. He heard her typing, and then quiet, then more typing. “Yes—it does seem odd, particularly in the case of Manners and the sixth victim—Deputy Boyd in Missoula. Manners lived alone, it would have made sense to have killed her at her home. Boyd was married, and he lived in a remote area east of the city, well outside the city limits. According to the original police report, his personal car was found abandoned on the road off the highway leading to his property. That means the killer must have another vehicle, either his own or one he stole to transport the victim to the city to kill him. In fact, based on the map of the area I just pulled up, the killer took him just inside the Missoula city limits.”

  “So that’s part of his MO? That he kills his victims in a designated city?”

  “The specific places where they live don’t appear to have as much significance as the city where they were killed. Why, I can’t even speculate.” Catherine sighed and Matt heard the frustration in her voice. “I’ll think more on this, but I need more background on Anne Banks.”

  “Based on your thinking, the next two victims will be killed in Liberty Lake, whether or not they are from Liberty Lake.”

  “Yes, without a doubt. There’s obviously a strong imperative for him in choosing the murder location—a specific reason I just can’t see yet.”

  “You’ll find it.”

  “I really hate to guess like this,” Catherine said slowly, choosing her words carefully, “but at least one of the victims has a clear connection to each city. Given his pattern, that increases the chances that the next two victims will have a stronger connection to Liberty Lake, since there doesn’t appear to be any connection to the lake with Manners.”

  “There isn’t—nothing we can find. She is from Spokane, went to nursing school locally, lived and worked in Spokane. But Liberty Lake is only twenty minutes up the road—the local police are still working on old boyfriends, friends, neighbors, family. Maybe there is a connection we haven’t found yet.”

  “Please let me know what you learn, even if it isn’t complete. Even the smallest detail will help.”

  “I will. And this all gives me more than I had fifteen minutes ago. Catherine—thank you. This year has been hell for you, I get that. But sometimes, not working reminds us more of our failures than doing the job.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to forget,” she said quietly, and hung up.

  14

  Liberty Lake

  8:15 a.m.

  Kara showed up at the Liberty Lake police station at 8:15 a.m. with two large black coffees and handed one to Andy. With a wink, she tossed Abigail, the receptionist/dispatcher, a small bag.

  “I love you,” Abigail said when she opened the bag from Rocket Bakery. “It’s an espresso hazelnut scone, isn’t it?”

  “You can shower Andy with your kindness when I’m gone. He’s a good guy.”

  Abigail laughed and took a bite. Kara knew the scones were good—she’d eaten hers on the way to the station.

  Kara always made sure anyone who controlled access to anything she might want loved her. Abigail was easier than most, but this was also Liberty Lake. Most people were friendly, and because everyone loved Kara’s grandmother, she didn’t even have to try all that hard. Sometimes, she just enjoyed making nice people happy—maybe because she met so few genuinely nice people in her line of work.

  Kara followed Andy out to his police issue Bronco. He said, “Late night, early morning. My fiancée isn’t too pleased with me right now.”

  “She knows she’s marrying a cop, right?” Kara said, climbing into the passenger side.

  “A cop in Liberty Lake, Washington, with regular hours and no real risk of getting shot.”

  “We’re all at risk, every morning we strap on our gun.”

  “Not all risk is the same,” Andy said.

  Maybe not, but they were still cops, and Kara was surprised by Andy’s comment.

  They had planned on canvassing the lake, and since Kara was riding with Andy this morning, he put two other cops together to start at the other end. Like in Spokane, Andy didn’t want anyone riding alone until they caught the Triple Killer.

  “What happened with the victim’s car?” Kara asked.

  “It’s at the crime lab. Miles will go over it, along with someone Agent Costa is bringing in. I canvassed everyone near where we found the car, but no one saw or heard anything.”

  “Par for the co
urse.”

  “Not here, remember? Neighbors watch out for each other.”

  “Wasn’t it found in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Vacation house in Newman Lake. But the Madisons live on the same road full-time. I thought they might have heard the car coming, another car going. There’s only one way to get to that house.”

  “One way? Really? Seems pretty dumb for the killer to drive in and out when he didn’t have an alternate route.”

  “The ATV came from that vacation house.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We contacted the owners last night—they live in Las Vegas. This is their second home. They own two matching ATVs. Only one was in their garage.”

  “You have a description?”

  “Yep—sent out a sheet of what we’re looking for. And ATVs are loud—we found a trail we think he went, away from other properties, which could explain why no one heard anything. The tracks are there, but unclear, and Miles doesn’t think we’ll get any usable evidence from them.”

  “So he took the ATV, somehow strapped her unconscious but breathing body on it, and rode through the woods all the way to Liberty Lake.” Kara frowned.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Why not kill her at the house in Newman? No one would find her body anytime soon, inside or out. Or anywhere in all that land between the house and the lake. Why drive twenty minutes cross-country with a body strapped to your ATV in the middle of the night?”

  Andy didn’t say anything.

  “I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “I didn’t think of it like that. Maybe to rinse himself off in the lake?”

  “Did the toxicology report come back? Do you know what, if anything, he gave her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What if—and I’m just throwing ideas out there—he stole the ATV before he kidnapped Manners? Hid it closer to the lake? You can’t get a car down to where her body was found, and the trail is too narrow to drive on. He could have hidden the ATV any number of places, or right in the open. Driven here—or even in a public parking lot, because they’re generally closed after sunset. He could access them, but was less likely to encounter another person. She’s stuffed in the trunk. He transferred her body to the ATV, took her a mile or two to the lake, drove the ATV back, took the car and hid it at the house.”