Bubbles would be heartbroken, and the thought of that only added fuel to the fire of her rage.
“He destroyed everything she owns,” she said, her gaze on the house and the flames that were shooting from the right corner of the foundation.
“But he didn’t destroy her.” Adam opened the back door of the Cadillac, nearly shoving her in.
Wren had left the keys in the ignition, and River jumped into the driver’s seat, revving the engine impatiently as Adam climbed into the back seat.
“Ready?” River asked, already gunning the engine, the Cadillac jumping forward and speeding toward the road.
Charlotte scanned the trees and brush as they sped past, looking for signs that the Night Stalker might still be there. As if he’d be foolish enough to wait around.
Then again, his truck had been impounded.
It might have been difficult to find another ride.
“He’d have to have a vehicle to get to the hospital.” She spoke into tense silence, and River grunted in reply.
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
“It means, he probably does have a vehicle. That truck was what he used to transport his victims. It’s not the car he uses every day,” Adam explained.
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be. The Night Stalker travels a lot. It’s hard to do that if you don’t have money.”
“Is that part of the profile you plan to give me?” she asked, and he nodded.
“What else?” she asked, already thinking through her list of friends and contacts. She knew plenty of people who had money. Whisper Lake was a small town, but it wasn’t a poor one.
“More than likely, he’s in his mid to late thirties. Caucasian. An introvert, but not unfriendly. The kind of guy who wouldn’t stand out as the leader of a group, would never be the life of the party, but wouldn’t strike anyone as overly odd, either.”
“So, not like Mackey Sheridan?” Mackey currently owned a high-end butcher shop on Main Street. If rumors were to be believed, he’d made a killing capitalizing on people’s desire for grass-fed beef and free-range chicken.
“Mackey?” Adam asked.
“Macmillan Sheridan? He graduated the same year as us but was a couple of years younger, because his mother insisted he be allowed to skip first and third grade.”
“The redheaded kid with the thick glasses and the three-piece suits?”
“That’s him. Only, he’s an adult now. He wears contacts, and he owns a butcher shop on Main Street.”
“I thought he left town.”
“He did. He hopped on a plane a couple of hours after we graduated and didn’t return until his mother died a few years ago.”
“How many years?” River asked.
“Four? Five? I’m not sure. I lost track of time for a while.”
“We need to check into that,” River said. “Adam, do you want to contact Honor? Ask her to do a little research on the guy? See if he owns property on or around the lake?”
“I’m texting her now.” He’d pulled out his phone and was typing rapidly.
“I don’t think Mackey is the Night Stalker,” she said quickly. “He’s nothing like what you described. That’s why I mentioned him, because I wanted to make sure he wasn’t the kind of person you wanted on my list.”
“As far as we’ve been able to ascertain,” Adam said, still typing the text message, “the Night Stalker kidnapped and murdered his first victim five years ago.”
She went cold at the words, her mind rushing backward, trying to put a timeline on Jenny Sheridan’s death, on her funeral, on the day that Mackey had returned.
Not for his mother’s funeral.
People had talked about that for months afterward.
He’d come to clean out her house and to live in it.
“You’ve gone quiet,” River commented. “What are you thinking?”
“He didn’t attend his mother’s funeral. A few weeks later, he showed up and started cleaning out her house. He hired contractors, had an addition put on the back that was bigger than the original house. People wondered where he got the money, but he wasn’t very friendly, and he wasn’t willing to answer questions, so eventually he was left alone.”
“Not friendly, huh?” Adam typed something into his phone and then shoved it in his pocket.
“No. That’s why I don’t think he’s the Night Stalker. You said the guy would be friendly and wouldn’t stand out in a bad way.”
“Profiles aren’t set in stone. They’re educated conjecture. It’s possible I was off base.”
“You’ve never been before,” River said. “Not when it comes to your work.”
“There’s always a first time. I asked Honor to check into Mackey’s background and his property, see if he’s on the list Bethany provided. If he is, that’s another point against him.”
“I think he’s too obvious,” Charlotte said, blushing when Adam smiled. “Not that I know anything about any of this.”
“You know a lot about the people who live here,” he responded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She’d cut it short a few months after he’d left, because he’d loved playing with her hair, running his fingers through it, telling her how beautiful it was. “Is there anyone you can think of who works in the medical field and travels a lot?” he asked.
“Every doctor who works at the trauma center travels. They guest lecture at county hospitals and give classes on level-one trauma. It’s part of their contract.” She’d heard that from a friend who was a surgeon at Whisper Lake Medical Center.
“That’s a whole lot of people we just added to our list,” River said as he turned onto the road that led to the medical center.
“I don’t think he’s a doctor,” Adam responded.
“Because his time would be too limited?” River asked.
“Because he’d probably have more creative ways to use a knife or scalpel if he were a doctor, or even a nurse,” Adam answered, and Charlotte’s skin crawled, her mind jumping back to the night she’d heard Bethany scream.
If she hadn’t been awake, if she hadn’t adopted Clover, if Clover hadn’t whined...
Bethany would be dead.
Or she’d be trapped in a madman’s prison, tortured, terrified and alone.
“It’s okay,” Adam said. “You’re okay. Whatever you’re thinking about can’t hurt you anymore.”
He touched her wrist, and she realized her hands were fisted so tightly her nails were digging into her palm, the warmth of his fingers both strange and familiar.
“I was thinking about the Night Stalker,” she murmured, her cheeks warm from his touch and from her reaction to it. “He’s pretty determined to hurt me.”
“And I’m even more determined to keep you safe.” He dropped his arm around her shoulders, tugging her into his side the way he’d done hundreds of times before.
In another lifetime.
When they were young and naive and thought life would always be what it was.
But this was now. This was after. This was when there was too much stuff between them for them ever to be close. She understood that, but she couldn’t make herself move away.
Instead, she let her head drop to his shoulder, let him smooth her hair the way he’d always done, let herself stay right where she was as River pulled into the hospital parking garage and parked the car.
* * *
He was getting too close to Charlotte. Adam knew it, and he couldn’t make himself care. He’d fallen in love with her years ago, and he’d never fallen out of it. He’d left her because he was a coward, but he’d grown up a lot in the years since. Returning to Whisper Lake hadn’t been something he’d expected to do, seeing Charlotte again hadn’t been something he’d thought he’d wanted or needed.
Sure, he’d thought about
apologizing. He’d wondered how she was doing, found himself thinking about her a little more than he should have been, but he’d put their relationship behind him. He’d been content with that.
And now he was back in Whisper Lake, and he was beginning to realize how much he’d given up when he’d left. Not just Charlotte, but his community, his church, his friends.
Losing Daniel had been the hardest thing he’d ever gone through, but he could have grieved in a place where people loved and supported him. Instead, he’d run from the memories and from the people he cared about most. He’d cut them off as if they were responsible for his pain.
River got out of the Cadillac, shooting Adam a hard look as he opened Charlotte’s door. He didn’t approve of the closeness between them, and he was letting Adam know it.
“You’d better watch yourself,” he commented as Adam climbed out of the car. “These kinds of things can get messy.”
“What things?” Charlotte asked.
“Just making a comment,” River responded. “We ready to head inside? The less time we spend out in the open, the happier I’ll be.”
He took Charlotte’s arm, leading her toward the medical center.
It was a protective gesture. One that Adam respected. Even though he was certain the person River was protecting Charlotte from was him.
“I’ve been thinking about the profile you created,” she said as they walked into the building.
“What about it?”
“You said that the guy you’re looking for is a professional, right? In the medical field? That he travels a lot? That he has money?”
“Right.”
“I actually do know someone like that,” she said.
Just like that.
No inflection in her voice.
No excitement. Just a statement of fact. That, more than anything, made Adam’s blood pulse with adrenaline. He’d heard the same tone from victims who’d been resolute and certain, who knew their attacker but doubted anyone would believe them if they told the truth.
Whoever Charlotte was thinking of, he was someone well respected by the community.
“Who?”
“Liam Jeffers. He’s an assistant youth pastor at the church. A really nice guy, but I don’t know him very well. He mostly keeps to himself.” They reached a bank of elevators and River punched the call button.
He didn’t speak.
Adam didn’t, either.
This was the time when they were most likely to make a mistake, to shut down the victim without meaning to. Their enthusiasm and excitement for new information could be overwhelming to someone who was still feeling her way through, trying to make sense of what had happened to her. One wrong word, one careless phrase, and the nugget of truth that Charlotte planned to give them would be hidden away again.
The doors slid open, and they stepped onto the elevator. All of them silent. Charlotte must have known they were waiting her out.
She sighed, leaning her hip against the wall. “I wouldn’t have thought of him except that I was at Pine Valley last week, and I ran into Liam.”
“Pine Valley?” River cut in, breaking the unspoken rule to never interrupt the flow of a witness’s thoughts.
“It’s a residential memory center in Pine View. That’s a town about twenty miles from here.”
River met Adam’s eyes but didn’t speak again.
“Clover and I started visiting the center a couple of years ago. Bubbles asked me to bring her to see a friend there, and I agreed. I figured I might as well bring Clover.” She shrugged. “We’ve been going a couple times a month since then. As a matter of fact, they’re the ones who called to see if I could make a visit this week.”
Adam’s pulse jumped, every nerve in his body leaping to attention.
“Someone from Pine Valley called you?” he said, his voice sharper than he’d intended.
She frowned, stepping off the elevator and onto the third floor. “I did tell you about the call,” she reminded him.
“I know. I just didn’t realize it was from someone at that particular facility.”
“Does it matter?”
Yes. It mattered a lot. He wasn’t going to tell her that. Not yet. “Who called you?” he asked instead.
“Anna Randel. She’s a nurse there.” They’d reached the corridor that led to Bubbles’s room. Adam could see the armed police officer standing outside her door. He expected Charlotte to hurry forward, rush to get to her friend.
Instead, she stopped short, her brow furrowed. “It’s kind of funny, now that I think about it.”
“What?” he asked, his heart pounding like a sledgehammer in his chest. He knew that whatever she said next was going to be it—the clue he’d sought since he’d joined the Special Crimes Unit, the one he’d spent three years pursuing, the one that would knock the doors wide-open and put him face-to-face with a killer.
“Anna and Liam have been dating for a year. Everyone at church thinks he’s going to propose. They met at the center, and Bubbles is convinced they’ll have their wedding there. She and Liam’s grandmother have been friends since grade school. Dorothy was diagnosed with dementia a few years ago, and she moved herself into the center as soon as she found out, because she didn’t want to be a burden on Liam.”
“Why would she think she was going to be a burden?” he asked as River pulled out his phone and started texting the information to Wren and Honor.
“Like I said, Liam travels a lot. He’s a medical sales rep, but more on the tech end of things. I think he sells medical software and sets it up at hospitals all over New England. Sometimes he’s gone for a few days. Sometimes a week.”
And there it was.
Just like that.
The connection they’d been looking for.
His phone buzzed, and he glanced at the screen, reading the message River had sent.
One word, but it summed things up perfectly: Bingo!
NINE
Suspecting that someone was guilty of something didn’t make him a criminal. Charlotte reminded herself of that several times while she visited with Bubbles. Her elderly neighbor looked frail and tired, her skin wrinkled and sagging, her eyes dull.
She’d been through a lot, and it showed.
Charlotte wouldn’t make that worse by trying to get more information out of her, but she wanted to ask dozens of questions. She really did.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Liam. About his visits to the center and how sweet he always was to Dorothy. She didn’t want to believe he was the Night Stalker. She wanted to pick Bubbles’s brains to prove it to herself.
She wouldn’t, though. Not until Bubbles was a little stronger, a little less scared.
River apparently had no such compunctions.
He was sitting beside Bubbles’s bed, a notepad balanced on his knees, a pen in his hand. Adam stood a few feet away, reading a document that Honor had sent to his phone. Their associate, Sam, was standing near the door, his height and width reminding her of a heavyweight fighter set to go into the ring.
He had more muscle than she’d ever seen on someone who wasn’t a bodybuilder, his white shirt pulled taut across his shoulders. He must have felt her staring. He turned his head, met her eyes. Didn’t smile. If she hadn’t known he was an FBI agent, she’d have been convinced he was a criminal.
She nodded.
He returned the gesture, then went back to his original position, staring out the door.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your cooperation, ma’am.” River spoke into the silent room, so much sincerity in his voice and in his eyes that Charlotte could almost believe he didn’t have an agenda.
But, of course, he did.
She’d seen the look on his face and on Adam’s when she’d mentioned Liam and Anna’s relationship. She knew what they though
t, knew what they were fishing for.
She’d told them what she could, but she wasn’t going to offer speculations about him. She certainly wasn’t going to pretend that she’d always viewed Liam as serial killer material.
He was a nice guy. Seven or eight years older than her, a little geeky and introverted. Very likable. He’d do anything for anyone. He’d even helped her in calculus her senior year of high school. He’d been a substitute teacher, getting practical experience in the classroom because he’d planned to be a college professor, and he’d tutored after school.
He’d tutored a lot of kids.
That thought led to another. One she wasn’t as happy with.
He might have tutored Bethany. He’d certainly been at the school at the same time. She’d have been a decade younger than him and completely off-limits, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed her. That he hadn’t spent a decade fantasizing about her.
“Stop it,” she hissed, and Bubbles frowned.
“What’s that, dear?”
“Nothing. Just...thinking out loud.”
“About?”
“School,” she answered honestly, and Bubbles nodded like she understood.
“Teaching is a tough job. Even for a college professor. You’ll have a lot of decisions to make once you and Adam get back together.”
“Bubbles!” She started to protest, but River touched Bubbles’s hand, pulling her attention away.
“You were telling me about your friend Dorothy,” he reminded her, and she nodded.
“We grew up together. I loved her like the sister I never had. When she met Dean, I told her that she shouldn’t marry him. She did. He beat her every other day for so many years she just completely lost her will to live. If you ask me—and no one has—he’s the reason why she has dementia.”
“Did she have children?”
“Four. Two of them are in jail. One is dead. The other one took off when he turned eighteen. Showed up a few years later with his wife and son. By that time, Dean was dead. He was a firefighter. They say inhaling all those chemicals killed him. I say he died of his own spite. Dorothy was so happy when Ken and his family moved here. She let them build a little house on her land, and things should have been just fine, but, of course, Ken was cut from the same cloth as his father. He beat his wife and his kid. Eventually, he just walked away and left them.” Bubbles shrugged. “Fortunately, Liam turned out just fine.”
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