Harlequin Intrigue January 2021 - Box Set 1 of 2

by Julie Anne Lindsey, Lena Diaz

  “Not you,” she reminded him. “You kept looking at the case long after it was over. You stored all those copies of the case files. That’s what you were going through just now, isn’t it? I’m guessing that means you hired that temp you talked about when I first arrived, to key everything into the system.”

  “I had Brielle work with someone while I was in the hospital,” he admitted. “I’d always wanted everything digitized to make examination of the evidence easier. With you having been abducted again, I wanted to have the previous case information handy when I got a chance to review it. The obvious conclusion at the time was that Larsen was likely the Ripper, even before Bishop spoke to Finney. I expected when I eventually got home and went through this stuff, that conclusion would be cemented in my mind.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “No. Far from it.”

  She shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “The man who attacked me, who attacked us, is behind bars. It shouldn’t matter whether he’s the Ripper or not. So why do you look so serious? And why am I starting to feel concerned?”

  He took her hands in his. “Whatever I’ve found, or think I’ve found, there’s no reason for you to worry. You’re safe here, with me. There are four fellow Seekers twenty minutes away if we need them, which we don’t. And I’ve got a pistol in the nightstand in my bedroom.”

  “Then why have you been up all night looking at the case file?”

  A flicker of unease crossed his face before his expression cleared. “I like being thorough. And, as I said, I don’t like puzzle pieces that don’t fit.”

  “Show me those pieces.”

  “Teagan—”

  “We’re in this together. And we’ll still be in this together when Larsen is brought to trial and we’re both called to testify. Don’t shut me out now. Show me.”

  His reluctance was obvious, but he wheeled back in front of the computer tablet. “I can clear the pictures. There’s no reason for you to look at those. I was using them to double-check details in reports.” His fingers flew across the keyboard as he closed files and moved things around on the tablet in front of him without sharing them to the big screens. Then he punched one of the keys, and the various Ripper case files appeared on the large monitors. True to his word, there weren’t any pictures.

  He continued to move things around, mostly closing out various documents until he was left with only one screen of data. It was essentially a huge list with different headings with bullets of information beneath each one.

  She read some of the headings out loud. “Race, sex, age, marital status, victimology, criminal psychopathy, location, signature…” She shot him a look of surprise. “A profile. You’re working up a profile.”

  “More or less. I compiled the information from the Ripper murders along with what we know about Larsen’s recent crimes.” He scrolled to one of the sections labeled Organized vs. Disorganized. “I’m sure you remember a lot of this from your criminal justice classes. An organized killer is one who plans his crime ahead of time, brings his weapons with him. The disorganized killer grabs a knife out of a victim’s kitchen drawer to stab her. He’s more spontaneous, less controlled and tends to make a lot of mistakes. A disorganized killer is generally easier to find than the organized one because of those mistakes. Which one would you say Larsen is?”

  “Easy. Organized. He planned everything down to the last detail, from the camera hidden in the tree over the path where I went walking to the section of fence he loosened behind the Brodericks’ home. He had to have spent months getting that shack set up as his own personal prison, installing the bars on the windows and doors.”

  “You get an A plus. He’s definitely an organized killer, which gives us insight into his mind and how he thinks. Mason confirmed that Larsen purchased that shack over a year ago. I don’t know whether he planned to go after you again, or someone else. But he was definitely preparing it well ahead of time for another victim. Knowing he was an organized killer helps predict other things, like that he probably had a steady job.”

  “He worked for a realty company,” she said. “Not exactly nine to five, but he would have had some kind of schedule, checked in now and then, attended meetings.” She crossed her arms, remembering what she’d researched on the Kentucky Ripper’s crimes. “But that doesn’t fit what I know about the Ripper.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” He punched a few buttons and a list of names and dates appeared on the screen to the left of the main one they’d been looking at. “You should recognize those.”

  “The ripper’s victims. Six of them.”

  “What do they have in common?”

  “Other than the obvious? The carved X’s in their bellies, the fact that they were abducted for days or weeks before being killed? That all of them were stabbed, including the ones you haven’t listed. Some were shot too.”

  “Other than all of that. What type of killer was responsible for the kinds of crime scenes we found in those examples?”

  She thought about it, then shrugged. “You’re going to say whoever killed them was organized. I remember those crime scenes were pristine. Very little forensic evidence was found. No weapons were left behind. I could go on, but I can’t argue that point. Those particular crime scenes were indicative of an organized perpetrator. But there were eight more killings. And those were the opposite of organized. They were…sloppy.”

  “Yes. They were.” He displayed another list of names on the monitor to the right of the main one, the eight victims she’d just mentioned. “All of these were similar because they seemed to be the work of a disorganized killer.”

  “Right,” she agreed. “Given the mix of organized and disorganized crime scenes, the conclusion goes more to a mental disease, like Finney suffered from. He was, is, bipolar. The theory was that he killed some in his manic state—the disorganized killings—and some in his depressive state—the organized ones.”

  “It’s a popular theory, one the police bought into back then.” He motioned toward the first list. “Consider these victims again. Although they were brutally killed, the number of stab wounds is low. Only three for the first victim, six on another, and something in between for the rest.” He waved toward the second list. “These, however, had anywhere from twelve to thirty-one stab wounds in addition to being beaten in two of the cases. One victim even suffered cigarette burns all over her back.”

  “I remember.” That sick feeling was roiling in her stomach again.

  “It’s called overkill,” he said. “The killer inflicted far more wounds than necessary to kill his victims. Normally, that might suggest that he knew them, had personal feelings of hate toward them. But it can happen with a disorganized killer as well, with or without a mental defect. He kills in the heat of the moment, because of some imagined slight or explosive anger over something seemingly inconsequential to you or me but that is blown all out of proportion in his mind.”

  Again, he motioned toward the screen on the list, the names of the six victims that he’d grouped together. “Here’s another take on these. In each of these cases, there’s evidence that the killer spent a lot of time in the victim’s home during the stalking phase while the victim wasn’t there. What does that indicate?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I need a refresher course on my college classes.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure it will all come back to you when you go back to finish your master’s degree. Familiarity is the missing link here. We spend time somewhere when we feel comfortable there, because the location isn’t foreign or unknown to us.”

  She stared at him a long moment. “I’m trying to follow, but all that tells me is that the Ripper likely lived in Kentucky, close to the crime scenes. That was part of the original geographical profiling. That’s why Finney was such a good fit.”

  “And Lowe. Don’t forget him, the second potential Ripper on the origi
nal suspect list. He was from Kentucky too, born and raised in the same general area as Finney.”

  “Okay. Yes, I remember that. It’s part of the reason that I thought Lowe might have been the one who abducted me.”

  He swiveled his wheelchair to face her. “Think about the other things we know about those crime scenes. In the first list of victims, the bodies were left where they’d be easily found, potentially indicating the killer had some religious background, that he wanted them to get a Christian burial, or whatever religion he followed.”

  “The bodies weren’t hidden in the rest of the killings either. They’re the same.”

  “I’m going to disagree on that,” he said. “In the overkill list, the victims were, well, slaughtered for lack of a better description. Discarded. There was no caring emotion behind that action. The bodies were easily found only because the killer couldn’t be bothered to try to hide them. Not so with the organized killer list. Those bodies were treated, after death anyway, with a modicum of respect. Left clothed or covered, lying down, almost as if they were sleeping as opposed to being tossed out like garbage. It’s subtle, but it’s a difference. If you look at every kind of comparison that can be made, those two lists of victims each present evidence of a very different kind of killer. In fact, it’s my opinion that it proves there wasn’t one Kentucky Ripper. There were two.”

  She sucked in a breath. But it really shouldn’t have been a surprise after everything he’d just shown her. She glanced from list to list, read the headings on the middle screen, the bullets beneath them. “But, if you’re right, then your original profile was wrong.”

  He surprised her by smiling. “Don’t look so worried. You’re not dashing my newly found confidence. There’s more to the original profile than appeared in any police reports.”

  “Okay. Now you’ve lost me.”

  He shifted in his chair, a quickly hidden grimace telling her how much his night of research had cost him physically. His hip was aching. He needed a hot soak in a tub and a long nap. But she didn’t want to embarrass him by pointing out the obvious, so she remained silent.

  “When I profiled the murders allegedly attributed to the Kentucky Ripper,” he continued, “I presented the police with two profiles. Two different killers. When Finney was arrested, it was the profile I gave them that most closely matched his characteristics that they used. The other profile I gave them was ignored. That’s why you never saw it in any of the official case files that you researched.”

  “I still have to wrap my head around this. You’ve turned the investigation I did upside down.”

  “No. I haven’t. I’ve proved that your original conclusions were right all along.”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Now I’m beyond lost.”

  “Sorry. I’m not explaining this very well. To try to put it succinctly, if I look at Larsen and everything we now know about him, including that he used to live in Kentucky, he fits that first list of victims to a T.”

  “Larsen is the Ripper.”

  He sat forward in his chair. “He’s one of them. That’s where your research comes into play. Everything about that second victim list—if we consider that Bishop is right and Finney was a mentally ill fall guy who didn’t kill anyone—that second list fits the man you believed all along was the Kentucky Ripper.”

  She pressed a hand to her throat. “Avarice Lowe.”

  He nodded. “All I’m waiting on for confirmation is a list of dates and alibis for Larsen. Mason’s working on that to see if Larsen was on vacation or sick or whatever on the dates when the first set of victims was abducted. I’ve already cross-referenced everything I had on Lowe.”

  She glanced up at the dates he’d mentioned, the ones beside the disorganized list. They all had check marks beside them. “Lowe doesn’t have alibis for the second set?”

  “No. He doesn’t.”

  She sat back. “Two Kentucky Rippers, and a third guy in prison who had nothing to do with the murders.”

  “It’s worse than that,” he told her. “There’s one more puzzle piece that you haven’t seen.” He typed on his computer tablet again.

  “What could be worse than two killers?” she asked.

  He hesitated with his finger poised over one of the function keys. “How about this?”

  A picture displayed on the screen. She stared at it a moment, trying to figure out what was supposed to be significant about what she was seeing. There was a small crowd of people standing behind yellow crime scene tape. Behind them were homes and police cars parked up and down the street.

  “One of the Ripper’s crime scenes? A crowd shot?”

  “That’s exactly what it is. Standard operating procedure in a case like this. The police photographer hides out of sight and takes pictures of any people watching the activity, just in case the killer ends up being in the crowd.”

  “Because killers often come back to the scene of the crime,” she said. “They get a thrill from watching the police.”

  “Now observe the cropped, close-up version I made of that same picture.” He pressed another key and the screen changed. “What’s worse than two different killers?”

  She gasped in shock. “A tag team of killers, partnering together.” She stared at the close up of Avarice Lowe and Chris Larsen standing in the crowd, side by side, watching with riveted interest as the police worked one of the Kentucky Ripper crime scenes.

  “Congratulations, Teagan.”

  She tore her gaze from the screen. “For what?”

  “You were right all along. Lowe was the Kentucky Ripper. But so was Larsen. None of us saw that coming.”

  “You did,” she said. “You created two profiles.”

  “Yes, well. My mistake was in not following through and pursuing both after the police went after Finney. I assumed I’d messed up. Instead, I should have pushed for more investigating. Maybe then, Finney wouldn’t be in prison. Lowe would be in prison, along with Larsen. And then you’d have never been hurt. I’m so sorry.” His jaw tightened.

  She shook her head. “No. Don’t you dare go there. What happened to me was not your fault. It was Larsen’s.”

  He swallowed. “Thank you for that. But it gets even worse. I’m not sure it’s just Larsen’s fault. It may be Lowe’s too. Remember that you said, even after knowing Larsen had abducted you, that he didn’t seem like the right man, that he didn’t fit your memories except for his voice?”

  It took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, she pressed a shaking hand to her throat. “Oh my God. You think that I was abducted by…both of them?”

  He gave her a short, clipped nod. “I don’t have any real proof. Just theories. But I think we should tell the police and the FBI to consider that they may have been a tag team on some of the same crimes, including what was done to you.” He took her hand in his again. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have even told you that.”

  “No, no. I don’t want any secrets between us. I want to be included in everything.” She forced a smile. “Honestly, it’s not as huge of a shock as you’d expect. I was wrestling with my own doubts because some things didn’t seem to fit with Larsen. Now, well, it kind of all makes sense.” She squeezed his hand. “I assume you already told Mason about this?”

  He kissed the back of her hand before letting go. “I was discussing it with him when you walked in. He’s corroborating some data, but as soon as he saw that picture of Lowe and Larsen together, he was convinced. He’s pulling the Seekers onto this right now.”

  “I guess everything’s in good hands, then.”

  “The best.”

  She pushed to her feet, still feeling a bit nauseated and shaky after the latest revelations. “I need to push all of this ugliness out of my head for now. I’m going to go call my mom and let her know I’m still alive. She’s gotten a bit paranoid after this last
…episode. She made me promise to call her every day, but I fell asleep last night and never did. I’m surprised she’s not already blowing up my phone this morning.” Her face heated. “Sorry about falling asleep with you as my pillow. But thanks for putting me to bed. Next time maybe you can join me.” She gave him an outrageous wink, desperately trying to lighten the mood.

  He gently cupped her face and pressed a soft kiss against her lips. “One day, very soon, sweet Teagan. I’ll do more than just join you in that big bed.”

  She sighed with longing, already feeling better. He always made her feel better, even in her darkest moments.

  He put his phone in his pocket before turning off the equipment. Backing away from the table, he said, “Hop on. I’ll give you a ride.” He arched his brows in a suggestive manner.

  She laughed and eased herself onto his lap so she wouldn’t jar his incisions. When they reached the family room, she carefully got up. “I’ll call Mom from the bedroom.”

  “And I’ll make breakfast. Toast or an omelet? Those are the only two breakfast meals in my culinary arsenal.”

  “Omelet. Always.”

  “Good choice. My toast always comes out burned. Meat lover, veggie lover, or deluxe?” He wheeled toward the kitchen.

  “Deluxe. With sour cream on top, if you have it.”

  “You got it,” he called back.

  She smiled and went into the bedroom. But after three tries on her cell phone without the call going through, she gave up and headed to the kitchen.

  He’d left his wheelchair sitting by the island and was leaning on his cane as he pulled ingredients for the omelets out of the refrigerator. He glanced up in surprise when she started helping him. “That was a quick call.”

  “It wouldn’t go through. I think there must be a problem with the cell tower or something.”

  He frowned as he set a carton of eggs on the counter. “Is your battery low?”