by Penny Childs
She had managed to stop crying, but at the sight of Bill standing there, she started again. “Bill, you came.”
“Of course I came,” he told her, coming to sit next to her on the couch. “I brought a few guys with me to help out.” He looked around the darkened office. “Have you tried to connect to her or Trevor?”
“I can’t, Bill,” she said, sniffling. “I’m fried after what I did to find the girl.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, Bill,” she snapped. “This isn’t a case of not wanting to do it. I’d do anything for him. I just can’t. Period.”
Bill let what she had said sink in for a moment. “Then we do this the old fashioned way, Mel.”
“What if she’s killed him already?” Just asking that out loud made her bury her face in her hands. She could not bear the thought of him dead, but she could not bear the thought of him suffering either.
“I don’t think she would have taken him if she intended to kill him right away. She’s going to use him for something.”
“This should have happened the other way around. She should have taken me instead of him.”
“No, Mel,” Bill said, reaching out to pull her hands away from her face.
“Yes, it should have. He’s the one that’s good at catching these crazy bastards.”
“He is good at it,” Bill said. “Mel, we’ll find him.”
“There was so much blood in the truck, Bill.” This made her think of something and her face set in frustration. “Damnit, I asked Craig to let me know about that.”
“It’s his, Mel,” Bill told her quietly. “All of it.” He had called Renee on his way to ask her after he had seen the pictures of the truck.
“Oh, God,” she groaned. “If I could just reach him. Just a little bit.”
Waiting out a little spell of sobbing, Bill just sat next to her. When she calmed again he said, “Mel, I need you to be the lead on this.”
She looked at him with wide eyes. She had thought since he had come, he would take over for her. “I can’t do that, Bill.” She wasn’t even sure if she was capable of tying her own shoes at the moment.
“You have to. This is your town, you know it and you know the people here. My people need direction and they need you to give it to them. You need to get a hold of yourself and do what needs to be done or he will die, Mel.”
Rubbing her face wearily with her hands, Mel shook her head. “Bill…”
“I’m going to tell you the same thing I always tell Trevor. I don’t want to hear why you can’t do this. I just want you to do it. Okay? Sitting in here balling your eyes out won’t do him any damn good and you know it.”
“I’m not as good as he is, Bill.”
“Oh, how he’d love to hear you admit that,” Bill said with a smile. He saw that he had elicited a small smile from her and was gladdened. “Maybe you’ll be able to use your hidden talent soon. In the meantime, I need you to let my guys know what’s going on so they can get started.”
Nodding her head and wiping at her eyes, she stood up. “Renee thought she had a lead on who this bitch might be. I want to pursue that. If we can learn something about her maybe we can figure out what she might do, where she might go. Maybe someone has seen her.”
“I gathered she was prepared to go to Mississippi. I’d rather send someone else and keep her here. She’s a valuable asset.”
Mel agreed. “Yes.”
“I have people close. She can fill them in and let them take over.”
When she opened her door and stepped out into the hall, she saw Renee, Craig and Brody look up at her, worried.
“Craig, have Lyle and Kenny come back here for a few minutes. I want them to escort a couple FBI agents out to my place so they can have a look around.” She knew the crime scene was still intact.
With a sigh of relief, Craig nodded and went to the front desk to use the radio. It was good to see the boss in action again, instead of holed up.
“Renee, get a hold of Mark Watson and have him take on what you had planned in Mississippi. I need you here,” Bill told her.
“Yes sir,” she said, not disappointed about staying.
“Brody, I want hourly reports. Someone out there must have seen something, we just have to find them.”
“Sure thing boss. Walt takes over for me at six tonight, I’ll pass it on.”
Renee, hearing her computer beep at her, looked down and opened an e-mail. “You wanted to know who the guy that Trevor killed was. I have it here.”
“Tell me,” Mel said.
“One Theodor Haskins. He lived in…shit, he lived one county down from here. No prior record. Not even a speeding ticket.” She paused while she read. “I have here a brother listed as the only living next of kin.” She raised her brows. “Twin brother.”
“Call him and see if you can tie him to the doctor you were looking at from Mississippi. It might save us some leg work,” Bill said.
With a nod, Renee got up from her seat, pulled her phone out and walked back toward the conference room.
“What are you thinking?” Mel asked him.
“I’m thinking that the good doctor may have been doing some experimenting. Either seeing if she could create a serial killer or direct one. Plus it gave her some kind of thrill as a bonus.”
Mel narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s a leap I would expect Trevor to make.”
“I did train him, you know.”
“I remember,” Mel said quietly. “Bill, how long do you think she’ll keep him alive?” She saw the pained, cornered look on his face and said, “Just tell me the truth.”
“A few days at the most. She obviously had some kind of issue with you. You lived when you should have died at her and Becker’s hands seven years ago. She’ll want to exact some kind of payment from you. She’ll want to know that you’ll suffer.”
Craig shook his head. “This is the kind of shit you people have to deal with all the time?” he asked, surprised by the matter of fact tone of Bill’s voice.
Bill only shrugged at him.
Renee came back into the room and said, “I just got off the phone with the brother. He’s not exactly being forthcoming.”
“Meaning?” Mel asked.
“He doesn’t want to discuss his brother. At all. He told me to get a warrant or shove it.”
Setting her jaw, Mel shook her head. “Not an option right now. Get me his address.”
“Mel…” Bill started to warn.
“Bill, need I remind you yet again I no longer work for you or the FBI?”
Raising his brows, Bill smiled. “Need I remind you if you coerce information from him you won’t be able to use it later?”
“What makes you think it will need to be used later, Bill? If I have it my way, that bitch won’t ever see a courtroom.”
Bill looked at Renee, who just stood staring at the two of them. She had never seen or heard of anyone talking to her boss this way. “Renee, get me the address.” He gave Mel a long look. “I’ll go with you.”
“If you think you can keep a leash on me, you’re sadly mistaken,” Mel told him.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m just thinking technically, you don’t have any jurisdiction down there. I do. Who knows, it might come in handy.” She had a bone now and he knew she would not let go of it until she was done with it. That much had not changed.
Writing down the address on a sticky note, Renee handed it to Bill.
Knocking on the door of the condo, Mel gritted her teeth, annoyed the man inside was taking so long to get to the door. She knew he was in there. The lights were on and when they had first arrived at the door she had heard music, which had been turned down.
“Mel, you’re going to put him on the defensive right away if you don’t settle down,” Bill said mildly. “Maybe you should try and let me do the talking.”
She wanted to beat the information out of the man on the other side of the door. “That might be a good id
ea,” she agreed.
Finally, a man in his mid-forties wearing jeans and a tee shirt answered the door. He scowled as Bill showed him his ID and told him why he wanted to talk to him.
“I already told the other FBI agent I don’t have anything to say regarding my brother.”
Bill saw Mel bristle and said quickly, “Be that as it may, perhaps she didn’t make it clear; a man’s life is in the balance here.”
“She mentioned that.” He looked at Mel and backed up a little, pretty sure he had heard her growl.
“Mr. Haskins, we only want answers to a couple simple questions. You could be instrumental in saving a man’s life just by doing so.”
Mel felt her patience nearly snap. Bill was being too damn nice.
“What do you want to know?” the man asked on an impatient sigh.
“Was your brother seeing a psychiatrist that you know of?”
“He mentioned something about some woman he was seeing for anxiety.” He furrowed his brows. “My brother has had problems since we were kids. He’s seen a lot of shrinks, but this one seemed to really help him.” He pressed his lips together and looked at a spot on the sidewalk for a moment before adding, “At first.”
“What do you mean at first?” Mel asked, leaning toward him.
“I mean he seemed a lot more level at first, a lot happier. Then he started getting…I don’t know…detached is the only way I can think of to describe it. I even asked him if she had him on drugs or something. His behavior was odd.”
“Did you ever see this woman?” Mel asked, wanting only to cut to the chase. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about the guy’s mental hang-ups.
Now the man dipped his head and averted his eyes. “No.”
“Bullshit,” Mel said. “You saw her.”
Looking back up at her, anger flashing in his eyes, Haskins said, “I told you I didn’t.”
“You’re lying,” Mel charged.
Putting a hand on her arm, Bill said, “Mel, please.”
“But he’s lying!”
“I know that,” Bill told her patiently. He looked back to Haskins. “You have to understand, Agent Giles is a very good friend of mine and he and the sheriff are very close.”
Haskins seemed to want to nod, but held back, swallowing a growing lump of fear in his throat.
“It’s a very tense situation. This woman, this doctor, will kill Agent Giles. I would really hate for it to come out later you had information that could have helped to save his life, but you withheld it.”
“I’m not withholding anything that will help save this man!”
“Are you sure?” Bill asked with a smile. “I’m going to tell you something now. I’m not just an FBI field agent. I’m the Director. I have a lot of connections and I can assure you if anything happens to Agent Giles because you withheld information from me, I’ll make sure you’re given a lie detector and then charged. You’ll be thrown in prison.” Bill knew he was pushing the truth a little, but he didn’t think Haskins did.
Haskins seemed ready to take his chances and slam the door in their faces, then shook his head and took in a long breath, seeming to think better of it. Prison didn’t sound good, no matter how you sliced it. “Look, I met her once. By accident. My brother and I got confused for one another on occasion, as you can understand.” He closed his eyes. “She saw me in the mall one day and thought I was Ted.”
“Obviously she said something or did something that disturbed you if you’re this reluctant to talk about it,” Bill said.
“Yeah, well…” He ran his fingers through his sandy hair and looked at the ground. “She pulled me into a changing room and ah…” He gave Mel a look and his face burned red.
“She give you a blow job?” Mel asked bluntly.
“Mel, please,” Bill whispered harshly out of the side of his mouth.
Haskins nodded, his face turning even redder. “She told me thinking about what they had planned made her hot and she needed to…show me how hot she was.”
“She never figured out you weren’t your brother?”
“If she did, she never said anything about it. I told my bother what had happened and he freaked out. He told me to just keep my mouth shut and my head down. I got the impression then he was afraid if she found out she had been fooled that day I wouldn’t be around much longer.”
“When was this?” Bill asked.
“About six months ago. Look, I’m married. I’ve never done anything like that before or since. I didn’t set out to do anything like that that day either.” He pushed his fingers through his hair again and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “I don’t want my wife to find out about this.”
“What did she look like?” Bill asked, ignoring the man’s concern.
“Straight blonde hair, about shoulder length. Green eyes, about five foot tall, a hundred ten pounds or so. Tiny little thing, but hot as hell.”
“I’m going to need you to give a description to an artist when they come by here.” He paused. “One last thing. What name was she going by?”
Haskins’ eyes widened and he sucked in a breath at the mention of a sketch artist coming to his home. “Megan Bellcamp,” Haskins all but groaned.
Bill nodded. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Haskins. Make sure you’re around when the sketch artist stops by.”
On a muttered obscenity, Haskins closed his door in their faces.
“Now, aren’t you glad you brought me?” Bill asked as they headed back toward her cruiser. “We didn’t have to resort to rubber hoses and bamboo shoots.”
“Very funny, Bill.”
“I have to wonder how it is you get reelected with the lack of tact you show.” He shook his head. “Was it really necessary for you to ask him if he got a blow job, Mel?”
Getting in the driver’s seat, Mel started the car and frowned at Bill. “Time saver, Bill.”
“Yeah.” He pulled his phone out, called Renee and gave her the name and description they now had. After he disconnected the call, he said, “You know, you would have made an excellent agent, had you stayed.”
“Despite my lack of tact?” she asked sarcastically.
“We could have worked on that.”
“I wasn’t cut out for what Trevor does, Bill.”
“You were. Until Becker.”
She threw a glare his way as she pulled onto the highway. “Now who isn’t showing any tact?”
“I’m simply making an observation, Mel. You were well on your way to becoming an excellent monster hunter. The problem was; you didn’t like to follow the rules.”
“I realize what the problem was, Bill,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I think you still don’t like to follow the rules.”
“Bill, please refrain from profiling me. It’s annoying as hell.”
“Sorry. Habit.”
“When does Renee think she’ll have something?” Mel asked, changing the subject.
“By the time we get back.” He looked out the side window for a time. “You and Trevor have become close again,” he remarked.
“Yes, Bill.” God, he could be annoying sometimes.
“This woman was counting on that. She means to destroy you with him.”
“Not if I get to her first,” Mel said through her teeth.
Twenty
“Good God,” Renee said softly, “this Becker was an animal.”
“All serial killers are animals, aren’t they?” Craig asked from the seat next to her.
“Yeah, but he really takes the cake.”
“And we’re going back through all this shit again, why?” Craig asked, noticing a particular photo and grimacing.
“Because I’m missing something. Some little clue that might tell us where this woman would be most likely to try and hide out.”
“She’ll be close.”
Renee looked up from her computer to see Bill leaning on the door frame of the conference room, his hands in his pockets.
“Why w
ould she be close?” Craig asked. “It seems to me she’d want to get as far away from here as possible with everyone and their brother looking for her.”
“It’s more fun to be close,” Mel said, passing Bill and coming into the room. She went to Wendy Chapman’s place on the wall and stood staring at it. “She wants the intensity. She wants to feel superior to us, like she’s getting one over on us.”
“I told you that you were good at this,” Bill said with a wry smile.
“Who the hell would want to be good at this?” Craig asked them all. He looked back at the gruesome photo still on Renee’s computer screen. “How do you look at this kind of stuff on a daily basis and not go nuts yourselves?”
Instead of answering him, Mel asked, “What did you come up with on this woman?”
“Absolutely squat with the name that Haskins gave you. There are a lot of Megan Bellcamps out there, but none of them could be your girl.”
Mel swore under her breath but nodded her head. She really hadn’t expected any different. “Anything from Mississippi yet?”
“Marsha Brinkman was the name she had on her shingle there,” Renee told her.
“Same initials,” Mel noted without much enthusiasm. “Another fake name, I’m assuming?”
“Oh, yeah. Fake as they come.” She shook her head. “There has to be a way to find out who she really is.”
“Maybe getting that sketch of her out on the news will help. Someone might recognize who she really is and call in,” Craig said.
Mel squeezed her eyes shut. It didn’t matter if they found out the woman’s name or not. That would not save Trevor. He was close, she was sure Bill was right about that. She wanted to have her men tear the town apart looking for him but knew she had to control that particular impulse. To start searching house to house would surely get him killed. They had to be able to zero in on one location and get in quietly. But, try as she might, she could not zero in at all.
“Mel, you okay?” Bill asked.
She turned to look at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just great.”
“You need to get something to eat and catch some sleep, Mel,” he told her.