Walking up behind her, Trevor clasped her shoulders. His touch caused her to release the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“People can look different in death,” he offered. “Along with the physical changes in her appearance…”
She turned to face him. “I should have known. She was my patient—”
“A while ago. You see a lot of kids. It happens, Rain. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“You don’t understand. They’re not just numbers to me.” Her voice trembled. She’d expected awkwardness after their kiss last night, but she hadn’t dreamed of being faced with what he’d thrown at her. The now-recognizable face of Becca Belknap seared itself onto her brain.
“I need you to focus, Rain. What do you remember about Rebecca?”
Her memories of those two brief sessions were like an out-of-focus slide show. Rain closed her eyes and tried to concentrate.
“She was referred to me by a general physician. She had symptoms of anorexia-bulimia, which would explain the weight loss since the last time I saw her. Especially if she failed to get treatment after she left my care or if it was unsuccessful.”
“Anything else?”
She shook her head. It had been so long ago. Without consulting her notes, it was difficult to recall anything beyond the bare facts. “You think her being my patient means something, don’t you?”
Trevor didn’t answer. Instead, he regarded her thoughtfully before speaking again. “Do your patients ever come into contact with one another? Maybe while one is leaving a session and another is coming into your home?”
“I try to schedule buffer time between appointments so that doesn’t happen.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Maybe,” Rain acknowledged.
“What about group therapy?”
“I do pro bono group counseling through the Louisiana Department of Social Services one afternoon a week. But Becca Belknap was a private patient. She came to my house.”
She’d been expecting Trevor’s next words, but they still jarred.
“I need access to the files of any male patients you were seeing in the same time frame as the victim.”
“I can’t do that.”
Trevor dragged a hand through his hair. He looked as tired as she felt. “Even if you’re protecting a killer?”
Rain tried to squelch the uneasy feeling in her stomach. “As you know, I specialize in adolescents and young adults. My male patients are all in their teens or early twenties. No one even comes close to matching your profile of the killer. Dante isn’t a kid, Trevor. You’ve heard him on the phone. Even if he’s using a voice synthesizer—”
“I still have to eliminate any possibilities, even the remote ones.”
She met his gaze. “I can’t give you my files. And you don’t have probable cause for a warrant. You’re simply trying to cover all your bases.”
“I’m trying to do my job.” He massaged his eyelids tiredly with his fingertips and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been talking to the victim’s friends since late afternoon. They all seem pretty harmless.”
Rain moved closer to him. “What do you really think this is about, Trevor? Why Becca Belknap? There are a half-dozen girls I’m counseling right now. Why not pick someone…”
Her words died as Trevor’s hands slid through her hair. The sensation sent little jolts of awareness along her skin. “This is the connection,” he murmured. The certainty she saw in his eyes made her heartbeat quicken. “Dante picked this girl because she was a redhead, Rain. The fact she knew you was just another bonus. He’s escalating, and he’s looking for ways to get closer to you.”
She blinked as a knot settled in her throat. “That’s your gut instinct speaking again, isn’t it? You’re saying you think Becca Belknap is dead because she was some sort of substitute for me?” She backed away. “I won’t accept that.”
“Rain.” Trevor caught her arms and drew her closer. “Try to stay calm. You may still have to face Dante on the air tonight.”
She attempted to laugh, but it ended on a note of hysteria. Her body hummed with nerves and exhaustion. All she wanted to do was go home, take a hot bath, have a glass of wine and fall into a mindless sleep. Too tired to fight, she pressed her hands over her face and leaned against his chest.
“It’s okay,” Trevor said. “We’ll get through this. I’m right here with you.”
“I have the playlist.” Rain looked up to see David in the doorway. Dividing a hard stare between the two of them, he laid the document on the table and went back down the hall.
At 1 a.m., Rain signed off with her listeners. Her eyes met Trevor’s through the glass window. Frustration was visible on his features as he stood and reached one hand behind his neck to massage the muscles there. She felt as tense as a coiled spring herself after spending the last three hours in nerve-racking anticipation of a phone call that never came.
David was in the production room with Trevor. She’d been cognizant of his unbroken gaze despite the few terse words he’d said to her all evening. He sat with his elbows on the control board and his fingers templed pensively in front of his face as he regarded her with cool eyes. He raised one hand and motioned for her to join them. Feeling as though she’d been summoned by the executioner, Rain stood and walked to him.
“You were off tonight,” he remarked. He adjusted a dial on the board as he spoke. “About as witty as cardboard.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“I’m your producer. My opinion’s the one that matters.” The superiority in his tone left a stinging silence in the air. Rain lifted her chin, knowing his annoyance had more to do with what he’d witnessed earlier than it did with her performance. She waited for his next jab as he fished a silver Mont Blanc fountain pen from his shirt pocket and began turning it absently in his fingers.
“You came off like an amateur. Ella could have done a better job tonight.”
“Then let her,” Rain replied evenly. “I’m sure she’d love a break from getting your coffee and manning the reception desk.”
He glared at her. “Ella isn’t under legal contract. You are.”
A contract that was about to expire. Not wanting to give more fuel to David’s ire, Rain kept the thought to herself. She glanced over at Trevor. So far, he’d remained silent, but she’d recognized the subtle change in his posture as David continued raking her over the coals. Rain silently willed him to stay out of it, but David seemed intent on drawing him into the fray.
“Looks like your killer stood us up tonight, Agent Rivette.” He swiveled the leather executive chair in Trevor’s direction. “Maybe he was as bored with the show as the rest of New Orleans.”
“He’ll call again.”
“And when do you think that might be?”
“Give it time.”
David let out a laugh. “At the expense of my ratings? I have news for you. If this little surveillance project continues to be a distraction to the talent, I’m going to have to end it.”
Trevor crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his stance, although his tone remained casual. “So far your participation has been voluntary, but it doesn’t have to be.”
“Meaning?”
“I can be here by invitation or by writ. And you can be charged with interference with a federal investigation if you cause problems.”
A flush crept up from David’s collar. He’d begun tapping the pen on the console, the rapid staccato a giveaway to his growing fury. The pen gave a sharp crack as he threw it down and pushed away from the board.
He pointed a finger at Trevor. “Fuck you.”
David stalked from the room. A few seconds later, the door to his office slammed shut with a force that vibrated the studio’s glass panels. Rain went to the doorway and looked out into the hallway. But all she saw was Ella, sitting at the reception desk with a smug expression on her face.
Rain turned back around. The expensive pen now lay under
the control board, its broken casing bleeding indigo ink onto the oat-colored carpet.
“That went well, don’t you think?” Trevor smiled faintly, but his eyes told her he was feeling anything but playful.
18
For years, he’d been unable to remember the details. Now it seemed they were returning with breathtaking clarity.
Trevor pushed the sheets back and sat up in bed. He ran a hand over his face and shivered as the cold air being pumped out by the air conditioner made contact with his sweat-dampened skin. This time, the memory had been so vivid his heart still pounded. He’d felt the cold steel of the gun barrel pressing against his forehead, heard the bullet’s metallic clink as it dropped into the hollow chamber. Worse, he’d heard Annabelle’s breathless sobs as she begged for his life. The badge on James Rivette’s uniform glinted in the sunlight squeezing in through the small attic window.
You think I won’t do it, Trev?
He’d told his father to go to hell. The images had stopped there, wrenching him awake.
Several days earlier, when he’d stood in the threshold of Annabelle’s old room, his brain had allowed him only a small glimpse of that scene before slamming the door shut. Tonight, while he’d existed in the nothingness of sleep, it had returned to him freely.
Trevor slid his feet over the edge of the bed and squinted at the digital clock on the nightstand: 2:00 a.m. In the clock’s glow, he could make out the Glock 9mm handgun he’d left next to it, within easy reach.
Dante’s latest gift also lay on the nightstand. That knowledge grounded him back to the present, as surely as the wail of the squad car that roared past the building before fading into the distance. After he’d taken Rain home, he’d gone straight to his hotel, yearning for a hot shower and some badly needed sleep. But a note on the door of his room informed him there was a package waiting for him at the front desk. This time, the token was an emerald ring, mailed to him in a plain white envelope with no return address.
Trevor turned on the lamp and picked up the clear baggie holding the ring, along with a short note written in blood like the last time.
She was a pretty girl. Where were you, Agent Rivette?
He’d tell Rebecca Belknap’s parents about the ring tomorrow, confirm with them it had belonged to their daughter. But then it would go into evidence until the investigation was closed. Right now, that day seemed like a long way off.
A knock sounded on the door and Trevor instinctively reached for his gun. Slipping against the wall next to the room’s window, he lifted a corner of the curtain and released a breath at the sight of Rain standing alone.
He slid on his jeans and opened the door, still holding the gun in his right hand although he’d reengaged the safety. Rain wore tan shorts and a scoop-necked top, her hair pulled into a ponytail. The fact that she wore no makeup, not even lipstick, made her appear somehow even more vulnerable to him. He scowled as thunder rumbled overhead.
“What the hell, Rain,” he said softly, wondering what she was doing here. They were on the hotel’s second floor and across the street below them, he could see a taxi pulling away from the curb.
Trevor took a step back and let her inside. Rain’s gaze moved from the unmade bed and back to him as he stood bare-chested in front of her. Although she didn’t remark on it, her eyes drifted to the faint bruise on his abdomen from his run-in with the two men at the Ascension.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted. “I have to see the rest of the victims. What if I knew them, as well?”
“So you came here alone in the middle of the night? Did nothing we talked about get through to you?”
“I need to see the other photos. All of them.” The lamplight brought out the gold in her amber eyes, and he thought he saw the glimmer of unshed tears.
Trevor dragged a hand through his hair. Taking in Rain’s grief-stricken expression, he didn’t have the will to scold her further. The discovery that she’d actually known Rebecca Belknap had obviously upset her, perhaps more than he’d realized.
“You’ve already seen photos of both victims in New Orleans,” he reasoned. “The chance of you knowing one of the victims in another city—”
“Please.”
Taking the time to pull on a T-shirt, he went to the desk near the window and picked up a thick folder that lay next to his laptop.
“Some of these are disturbing,” he warned, handing it to her.
“How many victims in all?”
“Six. Each in a different city, with the exception of the last two here. We think the unsub has a white-collar job that requires him to travel, which explains why the murders have been geographically dispersed.”
Rain opened the folder. The photo on top of the stack was of a young female lying on the cold steel of an autopsy table. The girl’s eyes were open but unseeing, their corneas clouded, and her lips were tinged blue. Cuts made by the killer covered her breasts and abdomen, and the deep gouge in her neck gaped open.
Trevor heard the waver in Rain’s breathing. The previous photos she’d seen had been easier to deal with, he knew, since they’d been taken specifically for the purpose of getting an ID. These photos were raw, the camera concealing nothing.
“This is the same girl you showed me when Brian brought you to my house?”
Trevor nodded. “That’s Cara Seagreen, the first victim in New Orleans. She was also the youngest.”
He studied Rain’s profile as she sank onto the edge of the bed and concentrated on the photo. She took her time, staring at the snapshot for what seemed like an eternity. Then she shook her head. “She was never one of my patients. I’ve never seen her before. I’m positive.”
Rain went through the rest of the morgue photos of the other victims, looking at image after image of their bodies postautopsy, the closed Y-incision a shared brand on their skin. When she was halfway through the stack, Trevor sat beside her and placed his hand over hers. He knew the order of the photographs by heart.
“The rest are the crime scene photos. I don’t think—”
“I want to see them.”
A flash of lightning illuminated the dark edges around the closed curtains. A half second later, thunder exploded and the hard fall of rain outside enveloped the room.
“Maybe you should,” he said finally. “Something might stand out to you.”
He removed his hand and allowed her to continue. The morgue photos were sterile compared to the ones from the crime scenes, the bodies left behind like broken, bloodied dolls. Even after seven years’ working with the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit, Trevor was still haunted by the damage inflicted by the killer’s knife. He could only imagine what Rain must be experiencing.
“You okay?” he asked once she’d made it through several of the photos.
She nodded, although her face had paled. “Their wrists. They’re bound with a rosary?”
“It’s part of the killer’s signature, one of the details we’ve kept from the press,” Trevor explained. “We haven’t been able to trace the maker, although we think each of the rosaries is handmade and fairly expensive. A jewelry expert believes they’re Italian imports. They’re made with—”
“Black crystal beads with mother-of-pearl and a Celtic silver cross.” Rain finished the statement for him, her voice barely audible. “The rosary medal is an image of Saint Agnes, the patron saint of chastity and virgins.”
He looked again at the photo, making sure. It simply wasn’t possible to glean that level of detail from the images. “How do you know that?”
“Because I have the same rosary. It belonged to my mother. It was used as part of a photo shoot.”
Electricity ran along his skin. “Photo shoot?”
She took a breath before continuing. “A series of photos ran in Blue Moon in which the rosary was used.”
Trevor recalled the defunct publication, which had been likened to Rolling Stone but had failed to build a mainstream following. After a decade of operation, the magazine closed its d
oors in the mid-eighties.
“Desiree used the rosary in provocative ways.” Rain smoothed the rumpled bed linens, avoiding his eyes. “At the time the photos were published, they were considered highly controversial. Some religious leaders labeled them sacrilegious soft-core pornography. The magazine was pulled from shelves all over the country.”
“Are the photos on the Internet?”
“I’m not sure. Copies of the magazine issue are rare.” Rain hesitated. “If not, I know someone who has several as part of his memorabilia collection.”
Trevor had gone to the laptop and was powering it up. “Who?”
“Armand Baptiste.”
He sat in the chair in front of the desk as the computer screen came to life. Clicking the browser icon, Trevor returned to one of the fan-operated Web sites he’d bookmarked earlier. This time he dug deeper into its photo archive using the keywords Blue Moon. With Rain watching over his shoulder, he went to two other sites before locating the images.
Although the quality of the scanned photos was poor, they still delivered a sensual impact. Desiree wore a sheer negligee that left little to the imagination. As Rain had described, a rosary was used in each of the darkly dramatic photos—one in which it was worn as a necklace, resting between the well-displayed curves of Desiree’s breasts, and another in which she sat in a chair with her legs spread apart, the string of prayer beads dangling suggestively between them. But it was the third photo that caused Trevor to lean toward the computer, his pulse speeding up at what he saw. In what was staged as an obvious bondage scene, Desiree was lying on a stripped mattress, her wrists bound with the glittering black rope of the rosary. Her eyes were wide in mock fright, and her painted, luscious mouth was gagged with a strip of cloth.
Rain’s voice came softly from behind him. “God. He’s trying to re-create that photo, isn’t he?”
“Have you seen these before?”
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