They sat in silence for a few minutes, with nothing but the noise of the cars passing outside on the street filling the emptiness.
Charley took it for as long as she could. And then she asked, “How did you feel?”
He looked at her uncertainly. “About finding a dead rabbit on my doorstep?”
“No, when she killed herself.” She was about to refer to the woman as his girlfriend but stopped herself in time. She had a feeling he wouldn’t have appreciated the label.
“I thought it was a waste.” He paused. “And guilty. Because I thought there might have been something I could have done to stop her.”
She’d felt that way once, too. About her mother. But she’d learned otherwise. “Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t reach someone else. All you can do is watch them go spiraling down.”
He raised his eyes to hers. “You say that as if you had a front-row seat.”
Charley thought about denying it, then shrugged. There was no point in that. “I did.”
Curiosity got the better of him. “Your turn.”
Not today. Charley tossed the empty wrapper onto the tray they’d shared. “Lunch is over.”
He rose when she rose, picking up the tray. “We still have the rest of the day.”
“To work,” she pointed out.
Nick deposited the tray on top of a stack by the door, then followed her out. “I bared my soul.”
“No, you didn’t. You just took off your shirt, Brannigan. I’m sure there’s a lot more to your soul than that.”
He followed her to the car, which was parked at the curb. A grin played along his lips. “Now it’s your turn to take off your shirt.”
She laughed before she got in. “In your dreams, Special Agent Brannigan. In your dreams.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHARLEY STOOD before the array of photographs on the wall, lost in thought. There were times when she almost felt the victims were calling to her, asking her for closure. For justice.
Or maybe that was just her own need to solve the case weighing so heavily on her. Her need to finally, after six years, lay her sister’s spirit to rest. And maybe in solving the crime, she would find out if Cris had been the intended victim. Or if Cris was dead because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the killer had meant to kill her instead of her twin.
Some nights the question came screaming at her. But she had no answer, no one to give her an answer.
Except for the killer.
Even if her father were suddenly to stop harassing her to catch Cris’s killer, she knew she would doggedly continue with the search. Because she knew she would never have any peace until she found the truth.
Right now, doggedly determined or not, she wasn’t getting anywhere.
It had been over a week since the last murder had been committed. A week filled with leads that led nowhere. A week filled with several hundred phone calls that had to be answered, logged in and investigated. Neighbors and coworkers had been interviewed without a single clue being found. Their computer expert had pulled up Stacy Pembroke’s e-mail while an electronics tech had followed up on her cell-phone calls.
Nothing.
Stacy Pembroke’s murder turned out to be like all the other Sunday murders that had occurred prior to hers. No one had seen anything. And, except for cat hairs which may or may not have been connected to the killer, not so much as a single loose thread or fiber had been left behind as a clue. Only the killer’s M.O. told them that the murder had been committed by the same person.
But there had to be something, Charley thought. Something that was probably staring them in the face, daring them to make the connection.
She dragged a hand through her hair, fanning out the long, blond strands.
It was driving her crazy.
“So what do we know?” she said out loud, more to the dead women on the wall than to anyone else in the room.
Sam looked up from the file folder he was reviewing. For the fifth time. “That the killer is damn lucky,” he muttered.
Charley turned around to look at the agent. “Besides that.”
“The victims were all young, single.” Bill came up to stand beside her and look at the photographs. “Other than that, none of the women seemed to have very much in common.”
Charley frowned. He was right. There wasn’t a club, a religion, a favorite grocery store, a hair color to tie them all together. They were all white, but that could have been a coincidence rather than a pattern.
“There has to be something, something that sets our killer off. Why these women?” she asked. “Why not something else?” Why Cris and not me?
“Well,” Sam said slowly, leaving his desk to join them too. “Opportunity’s the first thing that comes to mind.”
“But they weren’t just in his line of vision. The killer didn’t drag them off the street in the middle of the night,” Nick pointed out. “More than half were killed in their homes. That means he seeks them out. Follows them. He does select them. What makes them so special?”
“Or unlucky,” Bill commented.
“Brannigan’s right,” Charley said. “There’s got to be a common thread. Maybe they were all adopted. Maybe they were all born at the same hospital. Maybe they all once lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same school—”
“But then how do the two out-of-state murders fit in?” Bill asked.
Sam’s thin shoulders rose and fell in an inevitable shrug. Jack Andrews, their newly assigned recruit, merely kept silent, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing. Satisfied just to listen and learn.
“People move,” Nick ventured. The others looked at him. “They don’t always stay in the same place. Hell, I lost count how many times we moved when I was a kid.”
“Exactly. People move,” Charley echoed.
Stowing away the piece of information her partner had just volunteered, she gained momentum as she spoke. This was more like it. This gave her something to do, something to investigate. Much better than just sitting around, mentally going around in narrowing circles.
Excited, she began to pace, looking at each of the four men closest to her and addressing her words to the rest of the room as well. Sullivan had given her a team of ten more to help with the canvassing.
“We need to compile an in-depth history on each one of these women. Go back over their lives with a fine-tooth comb. I want to know who their teachers were, who their friends were. Maybe someone they all knew in common is behind this. If we get a handle on that, on whatever ties them together, we might be able to get to the next woman before our killer does.”
Behind her, Nick nodded. “It’s worth a shot,” he agreed.
Charley turned to look at him. She wondered if the man thought she needed his validation. About to say something, she changed her mind and let it drop. She was being touchy again. That’s what came of fielding calls from her father and then dropping by to see her mother.
She’d stopped by at the psychiatric hospital after work last night. To talk. To tell her mother how the case was going and what she was doing. Ordinarily, an open investigation wasn’t allowed to be a topic of conversation, but it wasn’t as if her mother was going to sell the story to the tabloids. There were times she didn’t think her mother heard anything at all.
Other times, she told herself that she did. That her mother did hear her even though she stared off into the air vacantly, giving no indication that she even knew there was someone in the room with her.
Every once in a while, Charley could swear that she saw a glimmer, a spark. Something that told her her mother was only a short distance away. A distance that could be bridged if only she could find the right words. If only she could tell her that Cris’s murder had finally been avenged.
That was her ultimate goal.
“Okay, now that it’s met with everyone’s approval,” Charley said, slanting a look in Nick’s direction, “let’s get cracking.” She indicated the photograp
hs. In each one, the woman was smiling. Somehow, that made the loss of life even worse. “We have twelve victims. Dividing them up, that gives us two apiece with two left over.” Before anyone else could comment about that, she added, “I’ll take the extras.”
“Never doubted it for a minute,” Sam quipped. His eye caught Nick’s. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, our Charley is an overachiever.”
“Yeah.” Nick nodded, his eyes meeting hers. “I figured it out.”
“Good, I like ’em quick,” Charley responded. Her smile was almost wicked when she added, “Makes the team move faster.”
“Any preference as to which ones we take?” Sam asked, nodding at the array.
“No, but I’ll handle my sister.”
“Maybe a fresh pair of eyes on that might be more productive.”
She looked at Nick, surprised at the suggestion he made. A suggestion she might have made herself had the matter not been so close to home. “In the interest of time, I should be the one to do it. I already know who her friends were, what teachers she had.”
Nick remained firm. “You might have missed something.”
It was the wrong thing to say. “Missed something? Brannigan, before I was part of this task force, before I was part of the FBI, I went over and over the events leading up to Cris’s murder. It’s branded into my brain—”
Her voice began to rise, but it was cut down. Not by Nick, or any of the others in the room, but by A.D. Kelly. He was yelling. Not at any of them, but at the woman whose desk was directly before his door.
The woman in the long navy skirt and pearl-pink long-sleeved blouse who stood all but trembling before the man as he made his displeasure known to her and anyone else within earshot of his loud, booming voice.
“Damn it, Alice, when I ask for a report to be on my desk by ten, I want it there by ten. Not eleven, not ten-thirty, not even ten-oh-five. Ten. Do I make myself clear, or do you need it in writing?”
“Clear, sir,” Alice mumbled, her eyes downcast.
Charley, followed by the others, walked out into the hall to see the two standing there. The A.D. was holding a black bound set of papers in his hand. His ruddy complexion was a deep scarlet. Alice was looking down at the tips of her highly polished black shoes. In flats, she was almost as tall as the man bellowing at her.
Charley felt sorry for her.
Kelly was all but breathing fire. He had been under a great deal of pressure, both about this case and several others he was overseeing. He had no right side to stay on these days. “I don’t need the director to chew me out because you’re not competent.”
As always when she was nervous, Alice’s long, thin fingers fluttered about her throat and cheeks. “I’m sorry, sir.” She raised her head to timidly look at him. “It’s just that I—”
Kelly cut her off. “I don’t want excuses, I want an assurance that it’ll never happen again.”
Alice was quick to give him what he demanded. “No, never.”
His glare was malevolent. Charley couldn’t remember ever seeing Kelly this angry. It was rumored that he didn’t care for the secretary that had been assigned to him, that he had wanted a younger woman more in keeping with his fast pace. But inner structure and promotions had placed Alice in her present position almost four years ago, and Kelly had no say in the matter. Which irked him to no end.
Still he threatened the woman. “Because you can be replaced.”
Charley thought that Alice looked close to tears. The woman pushed her glasses up her sharp nose. “Yes, sir.”
“Easily,” he shouted.
“Yes, sir.”
Charley lost no time in crossing to the woman the moment the assistant director retreated to his office, slamming the door in his wake. For a second, she thought the glass would shatter.
“Are you okay?”
Alice’s lips spasmodically formed a smile that disappeared in the next second. “Not really.” Her fingers fluttered about her hair, patting in place what didn’t need patting.
Not a strand would have come loose even in a hurricane, Charley thought. The secretary clearly had stock in a hairspray company.
With effort, Alice flashed a quick, grateful smile, which remained for a moment. “But I will be. I just need a moment to pull myself together.”
“What set him off?” Charley wanted to know.
“It was my fault.” Alice quickly took the blame. “I came in with a report he thought he already had. He was looking through his papers, thinking he’d misplaced it. When he saw me holding it, he became livid.”
A.D. Kelly was not known for his neatness. It made Charley think of her brother. David was the last word in disorganized. At least he had been before he’d joined the Marines. The corps had taught him order, both of his possessions and of his mind.
She missed David, she thought.
“He’ll get over it,” Charley assured the older woman. Because Alice looked unsteady, Charley hesitated. “Want to catch some lunch?”
Gratitude flowered over Alice’s pale face. “Oh, I’d love to.”
Charley thought of the new direction the case had taken. She really didn’t have time to go out for a full-blown lunch break and leave the others to do the work. But she couldn’t renege now, not when she’d been the one to make the offer.
Someday, she promised herself, she was going to learn not to be so impulsive. Not to lead with her heart. “Fine, grab your coat and let’s go.”
Nick watched the two women leave. From what little he could see, the two had nothing in common. Charley was a dynamo and Kelly’s secretary was a throwback to the middle of the last century. Seeing them together just didn’t gel.
“Now, there’s an unlikely pair,” he commented to Sam.
Sam nodded. Nick noted that there was a fond smile on the man’s lips as he referred to Charley. “Charley’s got a soft spot for underdogs.”
Underdogs. It was as apt a description as any for the secretary, Nick thought. With a shrug, he returned to his desk. There were two women’s lives he needed to acquaint himself with. Another woman’s life might very well depend on it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“YOU DON’T HAVE to do this,” Alice protested even as they were being shown to their seats within the cozy Italian restaurant.
There were sixteen tables in all, with a small, fully stocked bar in the rear, crammed next to the tiny single restroom facility. Behind the bar was a kitchen where elbows rubbed against one another and the activity never stopped. To Charley’s knowledge, there was never more than one table empty at a time. It was her favorite place to eat.
“Do what?” Charley asked mildly. Depositing her purse on the floor, she looked at Alice. The menu was before her on the table, but Charley knew the selections by heart.
“Go out to lunch with me.” Alice shifted in her seat. “I mean, I know how busy you are, with the case and everything.” The smile on her lips seemed forced. “I’m really all right.”
Just being with the secretary brought out all sorts of protective feelings, Charley thought. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for Alice. And annoyed with the A.D.
“Nobody has the right to make someone else feel small,” Charley told her with feeling.
Loyal, Alice seemed unwilling to blame the man who had gone from white to purple voicing his displeasure with her. “A.D. Kelly was right. I should have had the report to him at ten.”
It didn’t seem like Alice to be late, Charley thought. But she kept her question to herself until after the waiter had come to take their orders. When she requested veal parmesan, Alice echoed her choice.
“Why didn’t you?” Charley asked as the waiter withdrew.
Alice drew in a breath and then let it out again slowly, as if bracing herself for an ordeal. “I was late getting in this morning. There was an accident on the freeway—”
“See, not your fault. Extenuating circumstances.” She offered Alice a thick slice of bread from the basket the waite
r had brought, then watched in amusement as the woman pondered her selection before making it. Each slice was of equal thickness. “He should have let you explain.”
Alice’s thin shoulders rose and fell quickly. “The A.D. has a great deal on his mind.”
Charley couldn’t help wondering if Alice’s backbone had been excised. Why else would she defend boorish behavior so far away from Kelly’s earshot? It was just the two of them, and fifteen tables of strangers. No one to carry the tale back to the Bureau.
“That’s no excuse,” Charley pointed out. “I’m sure you have a lot on your mind, too.”
This time, the smile was genuine. And rather sweet, Charley thought.
“Not really,” Alice told her. “My life is very simple. I come to work, and at the end of the day, I go home and feed my cat. Nothing else.”
That sounded chillingly like her own life, Charley thought, except that she had a dog instead of a cat. But in her case, there was a reason for the simplicity. Work took up most of her hours because there was so much of it. She felt she was always behind. Alice, on the other hand, kept regular hours, which left her evenings free.
Because her work involved so many questions, Charley never thought to back off when any occurred to her. Like now. “Don’t you belong to any clubs? Go to the movies with friends?” She watched Alice’s face as she reviewed a few alternatives to spending evenings alone.
FBI special agent, heal thyself, a small voice in her head mocked.
Alice moved her head from side to side in response to each question. “No.” She looked down at the silverware, carefully placing the forks side by side, to the right of the water glass. Sparse brown lashes swept along the swell of her cheeks. “I don’t make friends very easily.”
There’d been a time, right after Cris’s death, when all she’d wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die. It had taken a great deal of willpower to venture out again. She was the first to acknowledge how difficult that was. And how necessary.
“Maybe you should force yourself to get out more,” she suggested kindly. “Make it a challenge.”
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