by Paula Graves
“Gabe has been looking into these murders longer than I have,” Alicia told Tony when they reached the front door of Atchison Hall. Gabe opened the door and held it for her. Alicia bit back a grin, thinking how offended her mother would probably be by Gabe’s courtly gesture.
Alicia enjoyed the courtliness, herself.
“Because of your sister-in-law?” Tony asked.
“You know about that, huh?” Gabe glanced at Alicia, making her blush again. She’d told Tony everything about the cases, of course, when she asked for his help. She hadn’t really considered whether Gabe might have preferred her to be more discreet about his role in the story.
“Just the basics—you found her body. Your family’s been conducting its own investigation.”
“We’ve hit a lot of dead ends. I’m hoping this case doesn’t turn out to be another one.”
“It’s not,” Alicia said firmly. “The alpha, at least, is the same guy who killed Brenda. I know it.”
The three of them paused at the sidewalk. Gabe’s truck was down the lot to the left, while the quad and the food court in the student center was to the right. It was time to part ways.
Alicia felt Gabe’s gaze on her, and though she tried to ignore it, she couldn’t keep her eyes from lifting to meet his. “Call me when you’re through with your last class and I’ll come here to see you home,” he said, his tone intimate. She felt her knees go weak.
Tony shifted at her side, as if he wanted to speak, but he remained quiet. Alicia felt an odd lifting sensation, as if something that had been sitting between her shoulder blades for weeks had finally fallen away. “Okay. I’ll call.”
Gabe lifted his hand, holding her gaze another second, then turned and headed for his truck. Tony’s hand rested briefly on her arm, nudging her to join him walking in the opposite direction. But the moment she turned, his hand dropped away.
“Cooper seems like a good guy,” Tony said as they walked together toward the quad. “You may not think you need someone watching your back, but you do. It’s not weakness to need someone else, you know.”
“I know.” She sounded more defensive than she’d intended.
“I’m not sure you do.” Tony stopped in front of the library steps, turning to look at her. His expression was uncharacteristically serious. “Look, I know you and I would never work. I love you like gravy biscuits and I know you love me, too, but it’s not the kind of love you build a life on.”
He was right. It wasn’t. It had been exciting and fun, at first, but it had never really felt real.
“But you’re never going to find that kind of love if you insist on being so damned alone.”
Tears burned behind her eyes, catching her by surprise. “I’m not alone—”
“Yes, you are. Everything you do, you do by yourself. You think anything less is a sign of weakness. That’s why I’m actually glad you’re letting Cooper play bodyguard for you.” He shot her a wry look. “It’s a step.”
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the student center, speaking again only when they reached the food court and had to decide which micro-restaurant to visit.
Opting for Mexican, they shared a plate of nachos and talked about everything but murder while they ate. Only when they were carrying their trash to the bins near the food court entrance did Alicia bring up the topic again.
“The deeper I go in this case, the more I realize how dangerous these people really are.” She led him out into the sunshine. It felt deliciously warm after the overly refrigerated air inside the student center. “Tony, you have to make the detectives investigating the latest murders understand it’s not just some creep who likes coeds. These guys have been killing for a while—at least the alpha has.”
Tony frowned at her use of the word “alpha.” She knew why; the locals preferred to deal in evidence and testimony, not psychological theories. And they certainly weren’t going to listen to a twenty-five-year-old female professor from San Francisco whose parents had been police-taunting hippies and whose brother was a terrorist. “I’ve tried. But I don’t have much pull.”
“More women are going to get killed. Maybe a lot more.”
Maybe me, she added silently.
Tony’s expression softened. “I’ll try again.” He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Meanwhile, let’s get you back to class. Do you want me to hang around until it’s time to call Cooper?”
“No, of course not. You go enjoy what’s left of your day off. I’m fine here.” She wasn’t lying. She felt safe enough here on campus, surrounded by students, professors and other staffers. This wasn’t the kind of place or situation the killers preferred.
The note the beta had left on her doorstep was a threat, one she took seriously.
But he’d have to catch her alone and vulnerable first.
BY TWO, GABE HAD FILLED ten pages of the legal pad he’d found in Alicia’s desk drawer. He’d taken the notes partly to familiarize himself with the cases but mostly to compare the victims, to see where their lives intersected.
He ended up dividing them into two groups—the murders that happened while Victor Logan was still in play and the murders that happened afterwards.
Alicia’s theory—with which he concurred—was that Victor had been the procurer, the one who’d taken the alpha killer’s preferred victim profile and found the right woman in the right circumstances who’d fit the killer’s requirements. If so, there should be something connecting all of the victims he procured, something that would have given him access to them, the opportunity to scout out their situations and choose the right time and place to strike.
With Brenda, the obvious connection was the trucking company where she’d worked. Victor Logan had been a mechanic, and Gabe’s brother J.D. had recently confirmed that Victor had done some work on the Belmont Trucking Company fleet.
Alicia had flagged eight other murders that happened before Victor Logan’s incarceration that fit the victim profile and the killer’s signature. She’d done an admirable amount of legwork, checking with the victims’ families and former employers. She’d managed to confirm that six of the eight had direct contact with Victor Logan.
For the other two murders, she’d been unable to tie Logan directly to the women, but they’d both worked for businesses that Logan might have reason to frequent. One had been an assistant manager at an auto parts store, while the other had been the manager of an all-night diner about a block from where Logan had lived at the time of the murder.
Gabe rubbed his eyes. How had Alicia compiled so much information in such a short time? He and his family had been looking into Brenda’s murder for over a decade, with far less success. Of course, they hadn’t been looking for two murderers.
A knock on the door set his nerves on edge. He scooped the files into the desk drawer and locked it with the key Alicia had given him, then crossed to the front door and checked the security peephole.
His brother J.D.’s face filled the fish-eye lens.
Gabe pulled back, surprised. What was J.D. doing here?
He unlocked the door and pulled it open. J.D.’s grim expression made Gabe’s stomach ache.
J.D. loomed in the doorway, filling it completely with his massive frame. Rising to his full, intimidating six-foot-four, he spoke in a slow, deadly drawl. “So, Gabe, when were you going to tell me my daughter was living in the same town as a serial killer?”
Chapter Thirteen
Alex’s mid afternoon call caught Karl by surprise. He had to excuse himself from a group of people and disappear into an empty stairwell to speak freely. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.” Alex took great care to keep time and distance between his kills, trying to avoid a pattern that the police might be able to predict.
“I went by Stiller’s Food and Fuel a few minutes ago. It’s still not open. I imagine the owner quite rues the day he hired Ms. Phelps as a clerk. He’s losing business.” Alex’s accent was cultured and soft, making Karl wonder yet again wh
at his real history might be.
Alex looked like an average, middle-class man in his early forties—polo shirt and khaki trousers when an occasion called for casual wear, or a simple shirt and tie, off-the-rack suits and moderately-priced shoes when he had reason to dress up. But there was a sort of imperial aura about him, a sense that Alex was used to always getting his way, that had convinced Karl that the man’s endless supply of money came from old family money rather than some lucky turn at one of the Creek Indian casinos south of Millbridge.
Karl never asked questions, however. He didn’t want to end the flow of cash that enabled him to go places and do things he’d never have the chance to do otherwise.
“Why did you go back there?” he asked aloud.
“When did you take up tagging as an artistic outlet?”
Karl sighed. Of course Alex would notice the spray painting on the wall. “I thought the moment should be memorialized.” It was a lie, but Karl wasn’t about to tell Alex the truth. Alex didn’t like his partners to take on their own side projects. A side project had ended Alex’s partnership with Victor Logan, after all.
But Karl was smarter than Victor.
“I’m not the Unabomber. I don’t need the press or the police to validate my existence.” Alex’s tone grew hard and cold. “Don’t let it happen again.”
“I won’t,” Karl promised. His plans for Alicia would be over soon. Alex need never know about them.
“Good.” Alex loved getting his own way. “I trust we won’t have to have this conversation again?”
“No, we won’t.”
Alex hung up without another word. Karl pocketed his phone and left the stairwell, returning to the classroom he’d left when Alex called. Class had not yet convened, so his absence had garnered no attention.
He paused briefly on his way to the classroom, glancing through the narrow glass inset in the psychology laboratory door. He backtracked until he was able to see the instructor’s desk. Alicia Solano was sitting behind her desk, her gaze angled downward at something she was reading. Her hair tumbled forward onto her shoulders, as dark as midnight.
Soon, he thought. Very soon.
He continued down the hallway toward the classroom, feeling strangely energized.
“HOW DID YOU FIND ME?” Gabe locked the door behind him and followed J.D. into the center of Alicia’s small living room, trying to read his brother’s body language. These days, unfortunately, J.D. rarely vacillated much between grim and grimmer. It had been a long time since Gabe had seen his oldest brother smile and mean it.
J.D. turned to face Gabe. “Aaron told me.”
“It’s barely been three hours since I talked to him.”
J.D. shrugged. “Only takes two and a half hours to drive here from home. If you’re motivated. Don’t suppose you know where Cissy is.”
“Taking her last final of the semester.”
J.D. nodded, as if Gabe had told him what he wanted to hear. “Aaron’s pulling some strings to find her an internship closer to home. I don’t want her here this summer.”
Gabe agreed, but he’d also seen the fiery determination in his niece’s eyes. “Good luck with that.”
J.D.’s eyes narrowed. “You think she’ll balk?”
“Oh, I know she will. I tried to talk her into packing up last night so she could head home straight from class. She wouldn’t hear of it.”
J.D. made a growling noise low in his throat. “Stubborn as a pissed off mule. Got that from her mama.”
Gabe bit back a snort. If there was a more stubborn cuss on earth than J.D. Cooper, Gabe had yet to meet him. “You hungry? I was thinking about making myself some lunch.”
J.D. looked around the apartment. “So, you just moved in with this girl? What do you know about her?”
Gabe couldn’t rein in a smile. “Her parents are former radicals who are still pretty out there and her brother was a terrorist who blew himself up. But she seems nice enough.”
J.D. shot him a black look. “And she lives down the hall from Cissy?”
“Down the porch, whatever.” Gabe’s grin spread. “Relax, J.D. She’s good people. Smart as a whip, good instincts. You’d like her.”
“Well, I’m not planning on sticking around long enough to find out.” J.D.’s grim expression hardened even more.
“You won’t get far pushing Cissy to do something she’s determined not to do,” Gabe warned.
“She’s my kid. I know how to deal with her.”
Gabe doubted that. J.D. loved his kids more than his life, but his grief had put a wall between him and his children. Gabe’s parents had raised the kids, while J.D. finished out his obligation to the Navy and then spent as much of his spare time as possible following dead-end leads in his wife’s murder.
Gabe knew. He’d spent the last twelve years watching it happen, painfully aware of his own responsibility for the unfolding tragedy.
“I think her final was at eleven, so she’s probably through by now. You might try her cell phone,” he suggested aloud.
“I did, just before I got here. Goes straight to voice mail.” J.D. slanted a narrow-eyed look at Gabe. “Aaron didn’t tell me much about why you’re here. So, why are you here?”
Well, that answered one question Gabe had been pondering—why his brother hadn’t immediately insisted on hearing all the details of Alicia’s research. Clearly Aaron had limited his tattling to the part about a serial killer on the loose in Millbridge, editing the part about the probable connection to Brenda’s murder.
“I stumbled onto a body,” he answered.
J.D.’s gaze whipped up to meet Gabe’s. Gabe could tell his brother was thinking about that night twelve years ago when he’d found Brenda dead as well.
How often could such a thing happen to the same guy?
“What happened?” J.D. asked, his voice low and taut.
Gabe told J.D. about his fateful stop at the convenience store, leaving out any details J.D. might tie it to Brenda’s murder. He knew J.D. would be angry as hell when he found out what Gabe had kept from him, but keeping quiet was worth the risk of his brother’s wrath.
Gabe had seen J.D.’s obsession up close, more than once. If his brother sank his teeth into this investigation, and it didn’t pan out, this might be the time it finally killed him.
“Anyway, this murder was similar to the others Alicia was trying to profile, so I agreed to help her out, you know, tell her what I could remember.” He didn’t add the fact that it was Brenda’s murder he was telling her about. “And then Alicia got a message that seems to indicate the killer knows who she is and that she’s investigating his crimes. She could even be next on his list.”
“And she’s Cissy’s friend?” J.D.’s mind leaped immediately to the same place Gabe’s had.
“I told Cissy it wasn’t safe to be here. We suspect the guy sending Alicia these notes may know her personally. If he knows Cissy is someone she considers a friend, he may not hesitate to use her as a pawn against Alicia.”
“You should have called me.”
J.D. was right. Gabe should have told his brother that much, at least. He’d just been so intent on sparing J.D. the potential grief that might come out of this investigation that all he could think about was keeping J.D. as far away from Millbridge and this case as possible. “I’m sorry. You’re right. But I have been keeping an eye on her.”
“You don’t know where she is now, do you?” J.D. snapped.
Gabe looked away. “No.”
Cold silence pooled between them.
J.D. broke it. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” He pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans and dialed a number. Cissy, no doubt. This time, she answered. “Hey, baby, it’s Dad. Where are you?”
Gabe exhaled in relief and sat on the ottoman, listening to his brother’s end of the conversation.
“I’m in Millbridge. Thought I’d come by and talk to—” J.D. cut off in midsentence, apparently interrupted. “No, your Un
cle Gabe didn’t call me.” J.D. slanted a look Gabe’s way.
Gabe could tell by the growing creases in J.D.’s forehead that Cissy was being just as stubborn with him as she’d been with Gabe the night before. “Look, I’m here. Let’s go to dinner and you can catch me up on everything.”
Gabe looked away before J.D. saw the alarm in his eyes. Cissy had kept the news of Alicia’s investigation into Brenda’s murder secret so far, but would she be able to do it face-to-face with her father? Gabe wasn’t so sure. He had to talk to Cissy alone for a minute before she headed off anywhere with J.D.
“I’m at your friend’s place—” J.D. looked to Gabe, mouthing the word name.
“Alicia,” Gabe supplied quietly.
“Alicia’s place, talking to Gabe. Why don’t you meet me here and you can take me to see what you and the girls have done with your place.” After a pause, a genuine smile carved lines in J.D.’s craggy face. “I’m sure I’ve seen messier. I’ll see you in a few minutes, baby.”
J.D. hung up the phone and looked at Gabe, his smile slowly fading. “She’s worried her place is a mess.”
“She’s a good kid, J.D.”
“I know.” He sounded defensive.
“Do what you have to do to get her out of here.” Gabe’s words caught even himself by surprise. He’d meant to argue for patience and respect for his niece’s wishes, but the truth was, he was terrified something would happen to her if she stayed in Millbridge any longer. “Guilt might work.”
J.D.’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me?”
So much, Gabe thought. “The guy is killing coeds.”
“Is there a profile on him yet?”
“That’s sort of what Alicia Solano’s working on—” A knock on the door gave Gabe the break he needed. After checking through the peephole, he opened the door and let his niece inside Alicia’s apartment.
Cissy looked from Gabe to her father, her expression a younger, prettier copy of her father’s earlier suspicion. “Did you call Daddy here?” she asked Gabe.