by Burton, Mary
The cops were going to collect DNA and prints, but this room was loaded with both from all previous guests. Assuming this case even made the priority list, it would be at least a year before the samples got sorted and tested. By then he would be on a beach in Mexico.
“You aren’t that important, girl,” he whispered. “Hookers are a dime a dozen, and cops got better things to do than find me.”
He pulled his still-clean shirt over his head, tucked it in the waistband of his jeans, and shoved his feet into a pair of sneakers. He double knotted the laces for good measure.
A last glance in the mirror confirmed there was no blood on his face. He combed his fingers through his hair and then rubbed the stubble darkening his chin. He could use a shave.
The mirror’s reflection caught the woman’s body lying in the pool of blood now fully bloomed on the white sheets. Soon it would be brown and lose its luster.
He hoisted the backpack on his shoulder. “No one is going to bother you, darling. Room’s paid for until tomorrow. You’ll finally get that rest you were complaining about needing so bad.”
CHAPTER TWO
Monday, August 12, 9:30 a.m.
Quantico, Virginia
One Day Before
The eyes were critical. They reflected secrets. Even when an individual tried to fake it, the eyes still echoed loss, love, fear, or hate. They were the visual portals to the soul. And they were the hardest to capture in a facial reconstruction sculpture.
Special Agent Zoe Spencer stepped back from the clay bust she had been working on for weeks. The woman’s likeness featured an angled jaw, a long narrow nose, and sculpted cheekbones. She had chosen brown for the eyes, a guess based on statistics. And it was not lost on her that the most telling part of who this woman had been was conjecture.
Zoe’s attention to detail was both her superpower and her Achilles’ heel. Many questioned her ceaseless fretting over the minutiae such as a chin’s dimple, the flare of nostrils, or the curve of lips into a grin. Some in the bureau still believed her work was purely art and not real science.
Her sculptures were not an exercise in art and creativity. The point of her work, like this bust, was to restore a murder victim’s identity and see that they received justice. But instead of arguing with the nonbelievers, she simply allowed her 61 percent closure rate to do her talking.
Sculptor, artist, and FBI special agent were her current incarnations, but she’d had others. Dancer. Wife. Young widow. Survivor. Each had left indelible marks, some welcome and some not.
On a good day, Zoe would not change her history. Her past had led her to this place, and she was here for a reason. But on a bad day, well, she would have killed to get her old life back.
She had been with the FBI criminal profiler squad for two years and almost immediately had put her expertise to work. She caught the cases requiring forensic sketches or sculptures not only because of her artistic abilities and expertise in fraud but also because of her keen interview skills. Armed only with questions, a sketch pad, and a pencil, she burrowed into the repressed memories of witnesses and victims, penciling and shadowing those recollections into useful images.
She certainly did not have a master artisan’s skill, but she was good enough. And from time to time, local law enforcement brought her a skull and requested a forensic reconstruction. Such was the case of her latest subject.
The lab door opened. “How’s it going?”
The question came from her boss, Special Agent Jerrod Ramsey, who oversaw a five-person profiling team based at the FBI’s Quantico office. Their team specialized in the more unusual and difficult cases.
In his late thirties, Ramsey was tall and lean with broad shoulders. He had thick brown hair cut short on the sides and longer on the top, a style reminiscent of the 1930s. His patrician looks betrayed the upper-class upbringing that had financed his Harvard University undergrad and Yale law degrees. Naturally skeptical, he was considered one of the best profilers, and though many wanted him in the FBI’s Washington, DC, headquarters overseeing more agents, he had skillfully maneuvered away from the promotions.
Zoe raised the sculpting tool to the bust’s ear and shaved down the lobe a fraction. The artist always wanted more time to tinker. The agent understood when good had to be enough. “I’m ninety percent of the way there.”
Ramsey approached the bust and studied it closely. His expression was unreadable, stern even, but interest sparked in his eyes. He was impressed. “This is better than ninety percent.”
“Thank you.”
Ramsey leaned in, closely regarding Jane Doe’s glassy stare. “It’s really remarkable that you could create this likeness given the damage.”
Nikki McDonald had done Zoe no favors when she had handled and then dropped the scorched skull. “I’ve worked with worse.”
“I understand standard skin depths and predetermined measurements for determining facial structure, but how did you decide that she had brown eyes?”
Ah, always back to the eyes. “Over fifty percent of the world’s population has brown eyes.”
He grinned slightly. “So, a guess?”
“A calculated guess, Agent Ramsey.”
“I stand corrected. How long did this take?”
“On and off, about six weeks. I had to work it around other cases.”
“We all juggle. Nature of the beast.”
“Not complaining. I like the work.” I’m married to it was more like it.
“What else can you tell me about Jane Doe?” he asked.
Zoe shrugged off the smock she wore over her white tailored shirt and black slacks and exchanged it for her suit jacket, hanging on a peg. “Bone structure tells me she was a Caucasian female in her late teens. The few teeth that remain indicate she enjoyed good nutrition and dental care, which suggests she had resources when she was alive.”
He walked around the bust, getting a 360-degree view. He pointed to the hair tucked behind the ear, as a girl in her teens might do. “Was the hair also a calculated guess?”
“In part. Given her bone structure, I assumed it was a lighter color.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“Knife marks on her ribs indicate she was stabbed at least once in or near the heart.”
“The bones were badly burned. Could a fire have killed her?”
“We’d need soft tissue to determine. There are marks along the sides of the skull suggesting someone took a blowtorch to it.”
“Why torch the skull?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps the killer wanted to minimize the smell of rotting flesh. Or he wanted to destroy DNA, which he did accomplish when he also pulled most of her teeth. Or he could have been exorcising extreme rage.”
“He wanted to obliterate the woman’s identity,” he said, more to himself.
“That’s what I think.”
“The killer or someone messaged the tip to Ms. McDonald’s website,” Ramsey said. “Why now?”
“Another guess? The killer is tired of hiding,” she theorized. “He wants recognition for a job he considers well done. Maybe he’s sending a message to someone else?”
“Who?”
“An accomplice.” She sighed. “Or a witness who now feels secure enough to act.”
“How long has Jane Doe been dead?” Ramsey eyed the bust as if the face troubled him.
“No way of knowing. Though Jane’s dental work is modern.”
“Any personal items found with the skull?”
“No.” She was Jane’s last and best hope for identification.
Ramsey straightened. “Impressive work, Agent Spencer. The bust will be a significant help to Alexandria police. You’re working with Detective William Vaughan?”
“Correct.”
“He attended several of the profiling team’s workshops in the spring.”
The spring training sessions had been designed to help local cops solve crimes. Detective Vaughan had been one of her best
students. She had discovered he had a master’s in theoretical math, a reputation for thinking outside the box, and, over his ten years on homicide, a closure rate edging toward 90 percent. Her respect for his work had grown into desire, and when he had asked her out for coffee, saying yes had been easy. It was not long after that that they had started sleeping together.
“I’ll send Vaughan a picture of the bust so he can cross-check it against any pictures he has on file,” she said. “His department’s public information officer is arranging a news release. If we can publicize her face, we might get an identification.”
“Good.”
“Ms. McDonald has called my office several times,” she said. “I haven’t taken her call, but her voicemail messages make it very clear she wants access to the case. Kind of a finder’s fee.”
“She’ll get the news along with everyone else.” His mouth bunched in curiosity as he regarded the still face. “I understand the apartment building where the skull was found is a half mile from I-95.” The north-south interstate’s twelve hundred miles of roadway ran through a dozen states and was a main artery for running drugs and weapons and human trafficking.
“Correct. Jane Doe could be from anywhere.”
Ramsey stood back from the bust, folding his arms over his chest. “Her face is familiar.”
Zoe looked again at the bust. “You’ve seen her before?”
He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “Ever had a name on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t quite grasp it?”
Instead of pressing him for the name, she took a different tactic. “You’ve worked hundreds of cases.”
His gaze cut back to Zoe. “Yes. And I’ve seen the faces of a thousand victims.”
“Given she was in the basement for up to twenty years, you could have been a new agent when you saw her.”
“Early 2000s.”
“Remember, she’d have been a girl of means and likely missed when she vanished.”
He flexed his fingers and then suddenly straightened, snapping his fingers. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it right away. This is Marsha Prince.”
“Prince?” Zoe said. “Why is that name familiar?”
“She was a rising sophomore at Georgetown University and was in Alexandria working in her father’s business. She was days away from returning to school in August 2001 when she vanished.”
Tumblers clicked into place, and the memory unlocked. The case had been profiled at the academy. “She was living at home with her parents, who lived in Alexandria. She literally vanished, and the cops never figured out what happened to her.”
“That’s the one,” Ramsey said.
There had been search crews scouring the region. Cadaver dogs had canvassed the parks, fields, and riverbeds, dry from drought that summer. As Zoe studied the face, more fragments of the forgotten case slid together into a cohesive picture.
Young, blond, smart. With the world before Marsha Prince, her disappearance had set off a firestorm that had rippled through all levels of law enforcement, local politics, and television news shows. Her name had been kept alive for a few years until finally time had cast Marsha into the sea of lost souls.
“Should we notify her family that we may have found her?” Zoe asked.
“Mom and Dad are both deceased,” he said. “She does have a sister, Hadley Prince, but last I heard, she’d moved away.”
“Without DNA, we’ll need a visual identification from family.”
“Turn it over to Detective Vaughan. The ball’s in his court now.”
I rocked the finals! This is going to be an epic summer.
Marsha Prince, May 2001
CHAPTER THREE
Monday, August 12, 1:30 p.m.
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
One Day Before
A homicide detective’s case rarely fell into place easily and quickly. Solving it required legwork, poking and prodding of countless witnesses, sifting through hours of surveillance tapes, and the ability to study a murder scene until the critical details presented themselves.
A cop needed patience. Lots of it.
And so did the father of a teenage son.
The past year had been a study in tolerance and persistence as Alexandria homicide detective William Vaughan had shepherded his son through his final year of high school. Teenage hormones, brooding silences, and a couple of broken curfews had dominated their spring. The kid chomped at the bit and thought he knew better than anyone, especially his old man. Many a night, Vaughan had stood on the back porch of their home, drunk a beer, and counted the seconds to this moment.
“Do you have everything?” Vaughan asked his son.
Nate opened a careworn dresser in his dorm room and shoved in a handful of T-shirts. “I’m good.”
Vaughan looked at the small cinder block room sporting two twin beds, identical desks, and a long dresser with enough drawer space for two boys. Nate’s roommate, Sam from Roanoke, who had red hair, glasses, and a lean frame, stacked a handful of books on his desk.
Nate had been Vaughan’s to raise since his divorce. Connie had remarried and had decided a seven-year-old boy did not fit into her new life. She had loved the boy. Wanted to be a part of his life. But she just had not wanted to be hampered with the day-to-day grind.
Single fatherhood had scared the shit out of Vaughan, but he had figured out a way to make it work. To say this was a case of “father knows best” would be a gross overstatement, but he and Nate had done pretty well together. He was damn proud of the young man Nate was becoming.
Faced with the freedom that had tantalized Vaughan for the last couple of years, he suddenly did not want it. “How about I buy you boys a pizza in the dining hall? I hear it’s good.”
Nate shrugged. “I could eat.”
The kid could always eat. “Sam, join us? Might as well send you two off with full bellies.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” Sam said.
The three made their way across the campus to the dining hall fashioned out of glass and metal. A modern marvel that looked more like a fancy resort than a dining hall. The kid was going to have the best time of his life, and Vaughan was envious. His college and graduate school days had been parceled around part-time jobs that supported him and his then new wife.
Vaughan told the boys to get a table in the crowded room filled with students and parents while he scored a couple of pizzas. Fifteen minutes later, he spotted the boys sitting at a corner table.
As he approached, he caught the tail end of a conversation centered around a hot girl living on the fifth floor of their dorm. Rebecca.
Vaughan set the pizzas and sodas on their table.
He sat and flipped open the lids. The boys dug in immediately. This was his last moment with Nate for a while, and he wanted to savor every bit of it.
Vaughan reached for a slice and had it inches from his lips when his phone chimed with a text. It was from his commander, Captain Kevin Preston.
Homicide. Motel off S. Bragg Street. How soon can you be back?
He turned the phone facedown, determined to enjoy these last moments. But try as he might, the text chewed on him.
Nate bit into a slice. The kid knew the phone rarely brought good news. “You got to go?”
Vaughan took a bite and then accepted the inevitable. “Sorry, pal.”
“Murder calls.” Nate looked at Sam. “Dad’s a homicide detective.”
Vaughan wiped the grease from his fingers on a napkin and tucked his phone in his pocket. “Never a dull moment.”
Nate rose with him and almost leaned in for a quick hug before he seemed to remember they were not at home but in front of his new roommate and the entire freshman class.
Shit. When had his little guy grown up? Vaughan thrust out his hand. “Good luck, son.”
The boy took it.
Vaughan wondered when the kid had gotten so tall and his grip so strong. He pulled him forward and embraced him. “Call me if you need anything.”
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Nate relaxed a fraction. “I will.”
He reluctantly released the kid.
With a wave to Sam, Vaughan navigated through the sea of people in the dining hall and strode to his car. He looked back, half hoping to see Nate one last time, but his boy had been swallowed up by his new life.
The car felt empty when Vaughan cranked the engine. Two hours ago, it had been crammed full of Nate’s things, the radio had been blaring the kid’s playlist entitled Freedom, and they had both been chowing on fast-food burgers.
Vaughan turned up the radio as he pulled onto the interstate, but the song’s electric guitar riff did not banish the silence. Even the scent of McDonald’s burgers and fries was fading.
The kid was doing what he needed to do. And like it or not, it was time for both of them to begin a new phase of their lives.
He punched the accelerator.
Two hours later, Vaughan arrived at the motel on South Bragg Street. It was a two-story structure with the room doors facing out toward the parking lot. The room rate was less than forty bucks a night, a near steal in the Northern Virginia market, and attracted a steady stream of pimps, prostitutes, and drug addicts. He had responded to a homicide here last year.
The room was roped off, and a uniformed officer waited outside the crime scene. The forensic team had arrived, and judging by the camera flashes, they were working the scene.
He reached in his glove box and removed his weapon and badge, hooking both on his belt in one fluid motion. He stepped out of the car and braced against the coiling afternoon heat, dense with humidity. He pulled on a navy-blue sport jacket, slightly frayed on the inside from the constant friction of the holster and weapon. He fished gloves from the coat pocket and worked his fingers inside the latex.
Several sets of curtains fluttered along the string of outward-facing rooms as guests stole peeks at the scene. No one appeared ready to talk, but he would be knocking on doors soon.
He shifted his attention from the windows to the scene and the officer standing watch. Officer Shepard Monroe was in his early fifties and wore a buzz cut and a thick droopy mustache. “Get the kid dropped off?”