Krystal locked eyes with Jack as she slid the sheets to the edge and picked them up. “Where to?”
Jack rattled off the e-mail address. “And copy me.” He gave her his address, too.
“Certainly.” Her attitude crossed from contemptible to outright rude. She ran the pages through a scanner, and less than a minute later, the paperwork was back on the counter.
Jack’s phone chimed, signaling a text message. It was a tone I recognized. He wasn’t the kind to fool around with the settings.
“Nadia’s got the list, and she’s also heard back from the administrators of the dating site,” Jack said.
My heart started racing. We were narrowing in on this son of a bitch, I could feel it. “Can I see those sheets for a minute?”
Jack handed them over. I scanned the lists and compared them, hoping to find a common denominator—one name showing up three times. No such luck.
I sighed. Maybe we weren’t getting closer after all.
-
Chapter 60
THE POTHOLE AT THE ENTRANCE to the lot needed to be fixed. The right front wheel dipped, hitting it dead-on. And with his mind on things of greater importance, it was no wonder he hadn’t managed to straddle it.
The restaurant—as it proclaimed itself—was a glorified diner with vinyl-wrapped seats, chrome legs, and glass-front fridges displaying an assortment of confections. Of course, the latter smacked patrons in the face upon entering. It was about marketing and positioning. While people waited to be seated, they had time to drool over the selection and make a choice. Management was betting on the fact that once their customers finished their main courses, they’d remember the treat that had first tempted them. If it paid off fifty-fifty, it was worth the investment.
On top of the counter next to the wood sign that read PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED was a stack of menus. Despite the lamination, years of use left some of the corners brittle and cracked. He wasn’t a germaphobe, but he preferred not to consider the sticky residue left on the surface from the grime-covered fingers of previous patrons. Not to mention the buildup of bacteria living between the plastic and the paper… He’d shudder if he kept dwelling on the matter.
“Hey, hon. Table for one?” The waitress/hostess—they were one and the same here—had a menu stuffed under her arm.
Now add bodily odor to the elixir contaminating the menus…
“I’m looking for Chantal.” He did his best to put on a smile. He wasn’t sure whether the effort showed. His stomach was churning, and he was the furthest thing from hungry.
The heavyset woman straightened her back and, in effect, puffed out her chest. In contrast, a grin enveloped her mouth. “You must be Drake. I’ve heard all about you.” Turning toward the kitchen, she yelled out, “Chantal, honey!”
The woman—Wilma, based on the stitching on her uniformed top—gave no consideration to a table of paying customers that was trying to get her attention.
“Chantal!”
“I heard you the first time.” Chantal came out of the kitchen, her arms busy behind her back as she untied her apron. She pulled it off in a single swoop, and when she saw him, her arm lowered to her side, the apron dangling from her hand.
Based on her facial expression, she didn’t seem pleased to see him. Maybe this was a bad idea. But then her features softened, and she threw her arms around him and gave him a quick kiss on the neck.
He was in shock. He’d thought she’d be happy to see him but not to this extent.
“So this is Drake?” Wilma’s cheeks balled from her smile.
“Wil, mind your own.” Chantal roped an arm through his. “I’m outta here. My shift ended five minutes ago.”
“Yeah, employee of the year,” Wilma mumbled behind their backs.
“What brings you by?” Chantal angled her head back to look at him. She was on the short side. He’d guess five four. Next to his six two, though, she was tiny. Her smile was contagious.
“I just thought I’d see how you were doing,” he said.
“How sweet. You know, you’re the only guy who makes me happy?” She tugged on his arm. “Where are we going? I am ready to have some fun.”
He knew she’d kept talking, but he was stuck on, You’re the only guy who makes me happy.
“How about we go to a hotel?”
She stopped walking and took her arm from his. He braced himself to be slapped for being so direct. She laughed instead. “Are you serious? You and me? I didn’t think you…swung that way.”
He bobbed his head from side to side, playing coy, doing his best to come across flirtatious. He’d imagine she was his last lover—Andrew. If he assigned Andrew’s face to hers, role-playing would be easier. And in this case, everything rested on being able to pull this off. “I mean, why not? It kind of works the same.”
“Yeah—” she scrunched up her lips “—kind of.”
“So what do you say?”
“Can we hit Happy Harry’s first?”
Happy Harry’s Bottle Shop was a popular liquor store chain in Grand Forks and Fargo.
This was easier than he’d expected, but she had always been a party girl. And also working in his favor? There was a Harry’s right on the way to where he was taking her.
-
Chapter 61
THE FOUR OF US WERE back at the police station. Nadia was working as fast as she could, but until we heard from her, we were pacing like caged animals.
Jack’s phone trilled out of the silence. He answered and put it on speaker.
“All right, I have something,” Nadia told them.
“Thank God,” Paige said.
“With full access to the online dating site, I was able to see who was following our three victims. As I mentioned before, Ideal Partner allows its members to secretly follow one another. This gives shy people the privacy to observe from a distance.”
Paige shuddered. “Or for the depraved to stalk their prey.”
“I thought the same thing, but the site backs the decision, saying it helps users decide if they really want to make contact beforehand. Anyway, there were a couple of men who were following all three women, and I was able to narrow it down to one of interest. Last year, he lost both his parents in a car accident. It made the local newspaper. To top it off, his sister, Jeanine, died when he was ten. She was nineteen and took her life by drug overdose.”
My ears perked at that. She was the same age and died by the same means as Gavin’s fiancée.
“And if all this isn’t heart-rending enough, she did it on her wedding day after the groom didn’t show. That was June twenty-first, by the way. I was able to get ahold of the officers who showed up at the scene. Add this to the tragedy: her little brother was the one to find her. Jeanine was lying on her bed, dressed in her wedding gown. She had taken a cigar cutter and severed her finger.”
“Oh God.” Paige let out a long, slow breath.
“Why wasn’t this found in your search, Nadia?” Jack barked.
“Her case was written off as a clear suicide. There wasn’t a full-fledged investigation, though. Case notes weren’t even flagged when I searched the database. I had to work backward and specifically look for Jeanine’s name. There was only a small obituary on her, Sir. No mention of how she died, just that she died at home.”
“His name?” Zach asked.
“I believe you and Paige already met him,” Nadia said. “Cain Boynton.”
Paige and Zach looked at each other. Paige paled. “We were with him. He’s the guy who used to work with Cheryl at the graphic design company.”
“You can’t always tell,” I said.
“No, no, I should have known.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “It was the way he looked at me. I thought he found me attractive, but he might have been assessing my make
up and whether I was happy.”
Nadia gave it a few seconds and continued. “He has a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta registered to him. Dark green.”
A boxy, older model. That car fit with Penny’s landlady’s description.
“He also lined up with the student list sent over from the beauty school.”
“What do you mean? I looked at the lists. None of the names lined up,” I said.
“You needed to look behind the names. He used three different ones, but the addresses correspond.”
“Get that address to me,” Jack demanded.
“Already done. I sent it before I called you. But Jack, you and everyone else should know that Cain was following four other women besides his three known victims.”
“Oh God. Please don’t tell me—”
“No, all of them are showing alive and well. At least so far.”
Jack’s expression soured at her last statement. “We need their names and addresses.”
“You should have those in your inbox already, as well. And, boss?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s more. I made calls to these women. I was able to reach all but one—Chantal Oaks. She works at the Grand Restaurant, and I spoke to a woman named Wilma there. She said I missed her by thirty minutes and that Chantal left with some guy. She thought his name was Drake but wasn’t sure. Wilma described him as handsome with dark hair and brown eyes. I was able to send Cain’s picture to Wilma’s phone—without his name, of course—and Wilma identified him as the one who picked up Chantal.”
I heard Paige’s breath hitch and had to try to keep mine even, as well.
“Cain was also connected with someone else on the dating site,” Nadia continued. “His name was Andrew West. I’ve included his information, too.”
My stomach fluttered at the confirmation that my hunch about him being gay was right.
“Thanks,” Jack said.
“You’re welcome, boss.”
He clicked off and read from his phone’s screen while we read from our own. Nadia said she had sent something to Jack, but it usually meant she’d sent it to all of us.
Zach was the first to put his phone away. “His sister was looking for happiness from outside of herself. All Cain’s victims were doing the exact same thing.”
“We’ve got to get this guy.” A throwaway statement, but I was moved to say it anyhow.
“Say that again, Slingshot.”
Who was Jack, pulling out his playful nickname for me again? This was the second time during this investigation. The first time I’d attributed it to alcohol. Was the elation of finding out the identity of our unsub enough to lighten his heart now? Who knew how much grief he was taking from the higher-ups? We’d been in Grand Forks for five days trying to find this guy.
Jack pointed at Paige. “You and Zach go to Chantal’s house, and Brandon and I will go to Cain’s place.”
She nodded resolutely. “You got it.”
-
Chapter 62
JACK’S DRIVING WAS AT AN all-time reckless high. He pulled into Cain’s driveway. There was no sign of the Jetta. We got out of our rental, and Jack signaled for me to go around the right side of the house while he went left. Both of us had our guns drawn, ready to fire if the need arose.
“FBI! We need you to come out with your hands in the air.”
I heard Jack’s yell and added my own. I tried to silence the voice in my head reminding me that Cain’s car wasn’t here. That didn’t mean Chantal wasn’t. I leaned in toward a window, putting my hands on the brick beside it, hoping to catch a glimpse of the inside, but the curtains were drawn tight.
I saw a white-haired woman in the neighboring property. She was on her back deck dressed in a teal bathrobe with curlers in her hair. She put down her paperback and stared at me.
I waved at her but not in the way of a greeting. “This is FBI business. Please go inside your house.”
She remained motionless, her mouth gaping open, her arms tightening the robe around herself.
I let her be. As long as she stayed over there, she should be fine. There was nothing to indicate Cain Boynton was armed, not that I was a gambler. I repeated my command. “Go inside.”
I met Jack on the back side of the house. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s here, but I think we should go in.”
“Damn right we should.” Jack kicked in the back door.
The neighbor’s gasp carried over the property line.
“Ma’am, inside your house!” Jack’s yell garnered a reaction this time—first a middle digit, and second, a slamming door.
“Hey, at least she listened to you.”
Jack gave me one of his famous looks, communicating, Let’s move on.
The house was a bungalow, and he pointed to the ground. “You take the basement, I’ll take the main,” Jack said.
I nodded. The stairs going down were easy to find. I turned on the light. “FBI!”
I paused and listened. Silence.
I took one step at a time, firm in my paces, steady in my balance, and prepared for an altercation, despite the increasing evidence that Cain wasn’t there.
The side of the stairs was open to the left, and there was no railing on the right as it butted up against the wall. I went down with my back to the wall, sweeping my gun in smooth, calm arcs in front and to the left. I made it to the bottom and looked around.
A good-sized bar ran the width of the room, which I guessed to be about sixteen feet long. Its front was wrapped in gold-flecked pleather, a testament to the seventies. In this basement, the era was alive and well. It was a poor time for the song “Stayin’ Alive” to come to mind, but I couldn’t help where my thoughts took me.
The space was a rectangle with the bar to the right, a media area in the middle, a small bathroom under the stairs—a no-no from a permit standpoint, I’m sure—and two doors to the left of the entertainment area.
“FBI!”
I gave pause again. Not a sound, except for the hum of a…dehumidifier?
I moved to clear the bathroom first. It was compact and painted a shade of lime green. The toilet was to the left, the sink was mounted on the wall straight ahead, and a shower stall was to the right with one of those cheap plastic curtains covering its entrance. I cautiously peeled it back. No one was hiding in there. What I did find was more remnants of the seventies—polka dot tiles in different shades of green. Not completely unpleasant but definitely dated. There was also a built-in shelf for toiletries, and a box sitting on it caught my eye. It was wedged between oversized bottles of shampoo and conditioner and a three-pack of shave gel. I’d return after the rest of the place was cleared. The two doors and what was behind them were more important.
As it turned out, each door led to the same room. On the left side were a washer and dryer, and on the right was storage. It was full of outdoor furniture not yet brought out for the summer, and countless boxes of empty beer, wine, and whiskey bottles were shoved in wherever there was a spot. It would be a tight fit for a man to squeeze through the area.
But what had my attention was a door on the back of the laundry room. It was secured by a latch and padlock.
“Boss, you might want to come down here,” I called out.
I shook the lock, naively hoping it would do the trick and fall open. It didn’t. I glanced around the space. At the end of the storage room was a workbench. If I managed to get over the mess between me and the table, I might find a tool to pry open or bust the lock. Shooting it was done in the movies or on TV shows, but in real life, we avoided firing our weapons if at all possible. Every time we drew our gun, it required mentioning in a report. If the trigger was pulled, the paperwork multiplied.
I was in midstride over a suitcase when I heard Jack’s steps reach the basement.
“Go in the left door,” I said.
My legs were wedged between luggage, a discarded plastic laundry basket, and a blow-up bed in a bag. A few more feet and I’d reach the table.
“I’m almost there, Jack.” I picked up the bed and tossed it on top of an outdoor chair, and with some inventive sidestepping, I made it to the table.
It dated back years, based its sturdy construction and the hardware on the two front drawers. The surface was piled high with batt insulation, cases for drills, and other power tools. A tile saw and a miter saw peeked out from beneath the pile, probably forgotten in Cain’s hurry to move on to another project.
I ran my hands over the mess, looking for anything to bust the lock. “There’s nothing here.”
“There has to be,” Jack said, now in the room with me.
Jack was being the optimistic one?
I pulled on a drawer, and it came out off-kilter. I balanced it by placing a hand underneath and took it out the rest of the way. I set it on top of the junk, perched at an angle, and I rummaged through it. Seconds later, I had the find I needed.
“Bolt cutters.” I held them up for Jack to see.
Jack’s gun was holstered, and he readied to catch the tool.
By the time I made my way back to the door, Jack had it unlocked. He dangled a key in front of me. “It was on the shelf here.”
I was too agitated to respond. Why not say he had it taken care of before I…?
I took a breath to calm myself. “Shall we?”
Jack flipped back the latch and turned the handle. I wasn’t sure if his heart was beating as hard as mine was, but mine was hammering. My breathing fell shallow, and I became lightheaded.
Unlike the other areas of the basement, this room was bathed in natural light streaming in through half-windows. I flicked the light switch, and any shadows were eliminated. One wouldn’t even think he was in a basement anymore. But what had my attention wasn’t the brilliance of the room’s lighting but its contents. There was an artist’s table to the right. On top of it were a sketch pad and charcoal pencils, and on the walls all around were framed charcoal portraits. The subjects were Cheryl and Tara. They were drawn lying in tubs, dressed in their wedding gowns, done up with makeup and jewelry—just how he had posed them.
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