The Man from Gossamer Ridge

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The Man from Gossamer Ridge Page 9

by Paula Graves


  “You’d rather be ogled by the tall, dark redneck all night?”

  She slanted a look at Tony. “Go to hell.”

  He grinned. “You got a crush on Jethro Bodine?”

  She turned without answering, crossing the road in a few angry strides.

  Gabe pushed away from the truck to greet her. “Are you mad at him or me?”

  She took a deep breath. “Neither.” She heard the crunch of gravel behind her and realized Tony had followed her across the road. Pasting on a smile, she turned to face him. “So? What’s the final verdict?”

  Tony seemed a little thrown by her question, but he recovered quickly. “I think you’re right. It does seem connected to the other Millbridge murders, at least. Same victim profile, same M.O., same signature. The spray paint is a new twist, but I don’t think that negates the obvious similarities to the previous murders.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Gabe said, drawing Alicia’s gaze back to him. “What if this is something more personal? Specific to Alicia, I mean.”

  “Specific how?” Tony asked.

  “This is the first crime scene where the killer left a message. And then Alicia got the index card message this morning. It seems to me, both the spray paint and the card serve the same purpose—a message for Alicia.”

  “Because he knows I’m investigating the murders,” Alicia replied, understanding his point.

  “He wants you to be afraid,” Tony said.

  “I wish it were that simple.” Gabe gave Alicia a troubled look. “But I think he meant what he wrote. He plans for her to be the next victim.”

  A cold flush shuddered through Alicia. She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, barely feeling the pressing heat of the sun overhead.

  “But why would he change his signature this way?” Tony asked. “Serial killers don’t do that kind of thing. They kill a certain way, choose certain victims, because they satisfy whatever twisted need he has. He wouldn’t just decide to pick a new victim out of irritation or a need to cover his tracks—”

  “I fit the profile,” Alicia murmured.

  “It’s not just that,” Gabe added, reaching out to brush the side of Alicia’s arm with his fingertips. “I’ve been thinking about it—why this would be different now. And I don’t think it’s the alpha who’s leaving the messages.”

  Alicia looked up at him. “You think it’s the beta?”

  Gabe nodded. “I think he must know you. Personally.”

  “How?” Tony asked.

  “Could be a student at the university or another faculty member. It could be someone in the maintenance crew.” Gabe slanted a look at Tony. “Or a cop she’s worked with.”

  Tony’s lips flattened to a thin line, but he contained his irritation. “Clearly it’s someone who knows she’s been investigating these murders.”

  “That could be almost anyone,” Alicia said, her chest tight with nervous tension. “I haven’t exactly hidden my dissertation subject. All of my students would know and they might have told family or friends—” She stopped short, remembering her encounter with Tyler Landon that afternoon. “Oh, my God.”

  “What?” Gabe spoke, but both men looked up at her words.

  “I had a really weird encounter with a student this afternoon, just before I found the note.” She told them about her run-in with Tyler Landon. “I thought it was just an inappropriate student crush, but—”

  “But it could be connected,” Tony finished for her. “I’ll run background on him, just to be sure.”

  “I don’t want to believe it could be a student—” Alicia shook her head, feeling sick.

  “You don’t want to believe it could be anyone you know.” Gabe laid a sympathetic hand on her arm.

  “But what if it is?”

  “Let’s concentrate on keeping you safe first,” Tony said firmly. “I can set up a safe house—”

  “No.” Alicia shook her head. “We discussed this.”

  Tony shot Gabe a considering look. “What qualifies you to protect her?”

  Gabe returned the look, his expression deadly serious. “Do you remember hearing a news story last November about a shootout in Alabama involving a Sanselmano drug cartel?”

  Tony gave him an odd look. “Sure. It was big news around these parts—we’ve had some trouble with the drug cartels ourselves. Story was, some ordinary family of fishermen—” He stopped short. “So. That was you.”

  Gabe nodded. “Well, my brothers, my sister-in-law, and me. And I’m not sure we really qualify as ordinary. My dad was a Marine Corps sniper in Vietnam. My brothers and sister and I have been shooting since we were old enough to hold a gun.” He slanted a quick look at Alicia. “More to the point, I’m motivated.”

  Alicia studied his face, trying to read the exact meaning of his words. Motivated to keep her safe because she might be the key to solving Brenda’s murder? Or because he had a personal reason for wanting to keep her alive?

  Stop it. This is no time to go all girly.

  She dragged her gaze back to Tony’s face. He was watching her, his brow furrowed. Finally, he looked at Gabe, his expression clearing. “Okay, I guess you’re qualified. But I want regular reports from both of you. And if anything gets really wiggy, don’t play hero. We may not be a big, well-funded police force, but we do have a few tricks up our sleeves that civilians don’t. And we can always call in the cavalry.”

  “Fair enough.” Gabe gave a quick nod.

  “I’m going to brief the detectives working the case. I’ll give them this.” Tony held up a small plastic evidence bag containing the envelope and index card Alicia had found on her porch that afternoon. “They’ll want to get a set of both your prints to eliminate.”

  “I didn’t touch it with my fingers,” Gabe said. “Just with a napkin.”

  “Just Alicia, then.” Tony looked at her. “But they’ll want to hear both of your statements, I’m sure.”

  “Aren’t they going to wonder why Gabe was snooping around the crime scene? I don’t want them to hare off on a theory that he’s the real killer.”

  “Know what I’m wondering?” Tony gave Gabe a dark look, his hand hovering near his hip, where his service pistol nestled in its holster.

  Alicia’s heart skipped a beat. “Tony—”

  His fingers settled over the holster snap. “How can you be so sure he’s not the killer?”

  Gabe didn’t flinch, although Alicia noted he kept his eye on Tony’s gun hand. “The police officers who responded to my 911 call last night checked me out for blood spatter and other trace evidence. They found nothing, of course.” Gabe smiled, although the muscles in his jaw looked as hard as rocks. “Plus, my brother, the deputy, vouched for me. And I’m pretty sure I have solid alibis for the other murders, if you want to waste time checking them out.”

  Tony stared at him for a long moment, then dropped his hand away from the holster. He sighed, his gaze wandering back to the spray painting on the brick wall across the road. “Twenty-one murders?”

  “Looks that way,” Gabe answered.

  “Well, hell…”

  “I’m pretty sure those murders are spread out over at least a decade and three different states,” Alicia said.

  “Three?” Gabe asked. “I thought the murders were only in Alabama and Mississippi. At least, that’s all Mariah remembered from that scrapbook.”

  “What scrapbook?” Tony asked.

  “Gabe’s sister-in-law found a scrapbook Victor Logan was keeping—newspaper clippings about several similar murders. Remember, I told you about that.”

  “Right. But I thought that got burned up.”

  “It did, but Mariah saw it before that.” Gabe’s voice was tight with impatience. “Unfortunately, now it’s stuck in the Mississippi state lab probably gathering dust unless they’ve miraculously figured out a way to restore any of those pages.” He looked at Alicia. “What other state?”

  “I’ve found one possible murder in Louisiana,
” she answered. “Outside New Orleans about seven years ago. But I can’t be sure, because I haven’t been able to confirm Victor Logan was in that area at the time, and he’s the only suspect we’ve been able to identify so far.”

  Gabe frowned, as if the mention of New Orleans meant something to him. “Seven years ago? Do you remember what month?”

  “October,” she replied. “Does that mean something to you?”

  “Maybe. I need to check on something.” Gabe pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

  He apparently had the phone on speaker, for a woman answered on the third ring, her voice tinny but understandable over the cell phone’s speaker. “Hey, Gabe. Are you still in Millbridge?”

  “Yeah, for another couple of days, at least.” He slanted a quick look at Alicia. “Mariah, I’m on speakerphone. I’m here with a woman named Alicia Solano and a police officer named Tony Evans.” He looked at Alicia and Tony. “This is Mariah, my brother Jake’s wife. She’s the one who knew Victor Logan.”

  “Gabe, what’s going on?” Mariah’s voice grew even tenser. “Why are we talking about Victor Logan?”

  “Alicia’s working on her doctoral dissertation. She’s looking into Victor Logan’s possible involvement in some old cold cases.” He threw Alicia a warning look. Clearly, he didn’t want to burden his sister-in-law with more information than what he’d already told her, so Alicia kept her clarifications to herself.

  “Listen, when Victor Logan found you in New Orleans—do you remember exactly when that was?” Gabe asked.

  “It’s been seven years—let me think.” Mariah’s voice darkened, as if the last thing she wanted to do was think about the time she’d spent with Victor Logan.

  Alicia couldn’t blame her. But whether she liked it or not, Mariah Cooper was a material witness to those murders.

  “It must have been October,” Mariah answered finally. “I’m pretty sure I was panhandling at an Oktoberfest event. Some jerk had thrown a whole cup of beer on me and I reeked. Victor thought I was drunk at first.”

  “October, seven years ago.” Gabe looked at Alicia. She gazed back at him, trying to keep a lid on her sudden surge of excitement. It might mean nothing.

  But what were the odds that a similar murder would happen in New Orleans exactly the time Victor Logan had been there?

  “Thanks, Mariah. That’s what I needed to know. Give the family my love and I’ll be in touch soon.” Gabe hung up and looked at Alicia and Tony.

  “So this Victor guy is looking pretty solid for the earlier murders,” Tony said.

  “He was the stalker. He found the victims. I don’t think he actually killed them,” Alicia said.

  “He was the beta,” Gabe said quietly.

  She nodded. “I think whoever’s acting as the beta now must be doing the same thing.”

  “And now he’s stalking you.” Tony sounded grim.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Alicia said, lifting her chin. But the way Gabe looked at her suggested she wasn’t doing a good job of hiding her fear.

  “How can it be a good thing?” Tony asked, answering fear in his voice. Their relationship might be over, but she knew he still cared about her.

  “He made the mistake of letting me know he’s stalking me,” she answered. “He’s getting overconfident, and that’s going to come back to bite him.”

  “You hope,” Tony muttered.

  “Call the detectives in,” Alicia said, setting aside any thoughts of her own situation. “Let’s get this done.”

  After a long look at her, Tony stepped away and made the radio call to the station.

  ALICIA STOOD OVER THE SINK in the ladies room at the Millbridge police station, scrubbing at the ink stains on her fingertips. She didn’t know if there would be any other fingerprints to find on the index card—frankly, she doubted it, as the killers had been meticulous about leaving behind no evidence to implicate them in the murders. But the police were big on following procedure.

  Once most of the ink was swirling down the drain, Alicia turned off the water and met her reflection in the mirror over the sink. She looked disheveled and terrified, her dark eyes wide and framed with dusky shadows.

  Get a grip, Solano. You can’t change anything. You can only make sure the perps don’t get what they want.

  Sometimes, it seemed as if the bulk of her life was completely out of her own control. From her parents, who reveled in their lives as flamboyant dilettantes, to her late brother, who’d gained his own notoriety through bullets and bombs, the Solano legacy was inescapable. People she met judged her by their reputation rather than her own actions, and nothing she did to separate herself from them seemed to make any difference at all.

  Now, thanks to her own obsession with solving these serial murders, the killers had made her a target of their sick appetites—and she could do nothing but hide in her apartment and wait for them to make their moves.

  How had she come to this point? What was she doing wrong?

  A knock on the bathroom door made her jump.

  “Alicia?” It was Gabe. He sounded worried.

  “I’m coming,” she called, reaching for the paper napkins on the wall. She dried her hands and crossed to the door.

  Gabe stood on the other side, as if he’d been standing guard. Taking his job as her protector seriously already, she thought with amusement tinged with dismay.

  “They said we can go. If they have any more questions, they’ll call.” Gabe laid his hand lightly on the small of her back, his touch warm and somehow bracing. It was all she could do not to lean in toward the solid heat of his body. “You want to stop somewhere and grab something for dinner?”

  She didn’t feel the least bit hungry. “I really should get back to the apartment. I brought a lot of work home with me.”

  “University stuff or your personal work?”

  “Both, actually.” They stopped at the property desk to retrieve the lethal-looking pistol Gabe had checked in upon entering the police station. He slipped it back into the holster at his waist and led her through the front door into the waning sunlight outside the police station, where their vehicles were parked in the visitor area.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little pale.” Gabe stopped with her next to the driver’s side door of her car. He lifted his hand to move a strand of hair away from her eyes. “Can’t the work wait? You look like you need some food and a good night’s sleep.”

  “You’re my bodyguard, not my nanny,” she retorted, careful to keep her tone light. She didn’t want him to think she wasn’t grateful for his help. But she didn’t need mothering, either.

  “Okay, fine.” He dropped his hand away from her face. “But maybe I can help you out.”

  “Help me out?” She forced a smile. “What do you know about cognitive psychology?”

  He returned her smile, though his eyes remained watchful. “About as much as you know about locating bass during a cold front. But I was talking about the murder cases. I could look over all your notes—you know, a fresh set of eyes. Might find something new.”

  “Something I’ve missed, you mean.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe with my experiences and background, I’ll just find something that means more to me than it means to you.” He eased the keys from her fingers and unlocked her car door. “I’ll be right behind you. Don’t get separated from me.”

  Part of her wanted to protest the way he expected her to follow his orders, but the rest of her was too tired and rattled to put up a fight. She led the way on the drive back to her apartment, taking care to stick to the more congested main roads rather than taking the shortcuts she’d normally use to cut the drive time by a third. They reached the apartment a little after five o’clock, parking in back-to-back slots at the curb.

  Cissy Cooper sat on the wooden steps leading up to the apartment’s wraparound porch, one dark eyebrow arching as she caught sight of Gabe pulling his bags from the bench seat of the truck. She rose and met them
at the sidewalk.

  “Moving in?” she asked.

  Chapter Nine

  “There’s been a development,” Gabe answered his niece’s query, tersely filling her in on the mysterious messages from the killer.

  Cissy’s face blanched and she moved closer to Alicia, putting a protective hand on her shoulder. She shook her head, gazing at her uncle in consternation. “This is crazy! The killers haven’t ever left messages before, have they?”

  Alicia told her their theory about the beta killer being someone Alicia knew. Cissy’s face went even paler.

  “He could be a student?”

  “We always knew that was possible,” Alicia pointed out, starting up the steps to her apartment.

  Cissy stayed in step. “Yeah, possible. But now it seems probable. Maybe not a student, but someone connected with the university.” She shuddered as she waited for Alicia to unlock her apartment door. “That whole place is filled with women fitting the profile. It must look like a buffet to him.”

  Gabe stepped forward, putting his hand on Alicia’s wrist as she started to open the door. He pulled his pistol from the holster at his waist. “Let me go in first.”

  Alicia exchanged a glance with Cissy, expecting the younger woman to be as amused by Gabe’s macho posturing as she was. But Cissy’s deadly serious expression had a sobering effect, and by the time Gabe gave them the all clear, Alicia’s stomach had twisted into a dozen new knots.

  “Where’s a good place for takeout around here?” Gabe asked Cissy as he locked the door behind them.

  “Brandywine Deli down the street is good. Great sandwiches priced with college students in mind. We can call in the order and I could go pick it up—”

  “Do they deliver? I don’t want you driving there alone.”

  Cissy frowned. “I don’t fit the profile.”

  “You’re close enough,” he said firmly. “If something happened to you and I had to call your father—” The look on Gabe’s face made Alicia’s stomach hurt more than ever.

  “They don’t deliver, but if you can pony up a little extra cash for more sandwiches, I could probably talk a couple of my roommates into going with me.”

 

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