“Yeah, but Tori, these findings again bring up an important question.”
“Which is?”
“Is the killer really based here? Given the breadth of area covered, he could be living anywhere in the Upper Midwest. Why wouldn’t we present this to the Bureau, the BAU? This is their thing. I mean, if this is the work of one man, he’s operating in at least twelve states by my count. I’m just a little ol’ sheriff’s detective in north central Minnesota.”
“I know he’s here.”
“How? How can we know that?”
“Katy Anderson.”
“Other than timing, how could you possibly know that’s even connected to this?”
“How can you think it’s not?” Tori demanded, her voice rising. “I show up here. We start investigating these cases. We go to see Katy and then suddenly she’s gone—vanished!”
“Why?”
“Maybe she knew something? Maybe she saw something?”
“What could she know, Tori? What could she have seen?” Braddock asked sharply in reply, his voice rising to meet Tori’s. “We interviewed her. The detectives on Jessie’s case interviewed her years ago. She didn’t know anything. So again, how do we know it’s connected?”
“But the timing of it?”
“Is the only thing that might tie it in, might. I know she’s your friend, I know that. And I know you feel responsible, but she doesn’t fit the victim profile in the least. She’s eight years older than the oldest of our possible victims. She doesn’t fit the physical or educational profile of our victims. Katy’s the answer to which one of these doesn’t belong with the others. Other than timing and that you’re here, what says her case is related to the others? What piece of evidence says that? There’s nothing. Katy Anderson does not mean the killer is here!”
“Then what about the article I got?” Tori fired back hotly. “What about that? The only logical conclusion to be drawn from that is the killer wanted me back here, in Manchester. Why? Because that’s where he is. Genevieve Lash was taken on the twentieth anniversary of Jessie’s disappearance. Explain that, Detective!”
Braddock stood up. “He’s taunting you. He’s in your head, right where he wants to be. He has you chasing this thing but that doesn’t mean he’s here. He could be hundreds of miles away for all we know.”
Tori wasn’t having it. “It’s staring you right in the face, Will! You have a serial killer here, right here in Manchester. He killed Lash, Katy—he killed my sister and you’re too damn afraid to admit it or to go after it. You just want to pass the buck to someone else and wash your hands of it so you can go back to barbequing and waterskiing.”
“Oh, is that right?” Braddock replied bitterly. “I’ve been working this case morning, noon and night because I want to give it away? Go to hell, Tori. What I want is it solved.”
“Me too.”
“No!” Braddock replied, pointing at Tori, “You want to solve it. You. I don’t care if I close it as long as it gets closed, as long as the killing stops.”
“This is not about me!” Tori shouted.
“Ohhh, it’s all about you,” Braddock accused, hitting at her weak spot. “You know, I checked on you. People I know in the FBI. As an agent they called you a brilliant investigator. Cool, calculating, logical, methodical, dogged. They respected the hell out of you, every one of them.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“All of them also said you could be a complete and total pain in the ass. Ever since you’ve been here, I’ve seen little brilliance but plenty of pain.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“You’re not objective, you’re not being methodical or calculating. You have tunnel vision on this. You’re going just one direction, foregoing all others.”
“It’s about goddamned time someone did!” Tori yelled, losing control. “You’re not!”
Braddock snorted, shook his head, paused and then started grabbing his keys and a folder full of papers. “Tell you what, Special Agent Hunter, how about you get the hell out of my office and out of my investigation? I think I’ve had enough of what you call help.”
“Your investigation?”
“Yeah, remember our agreement? It’s my case, I run it. Let me ask you, did the Bureau assign you here?”
Tori didn’t respond. She couldn’t respond.
“That’s right, they didn’t. You have no jurisdiction here, none. You weren’t invited to this. I didn’t call and ask for your assistance. I didn’t need your help and even if I do, I can get it from someone who isn’t constantly in my face second-guessing everything I think and do.”
“Don’t do this,” Tori pleaded.
“Hell, this isn’t even your area of expertise. I don’t have a missing child, a missing teen. I’m not dealing with a kidnapping. And if I were it would be for an adult, not a child. For that, I’ve got a very capable, professional, non-pain-in-the-ass Twin Cities FBI office I can liaison with.”
“You can’t do this!”
Braddock pushed past her to reach for his suit coat hanging behind his office door. “It’s been a real pleasure working with you,” he added as he passed her on the way out the door.
Tori, angry, steamed, her body trembling in rage, could only watch as Braddock stormed out. Everyone in the hallway heard the argument and was staring back at her, including a visibly perturbed Cal Lund, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded just outside his office door. Tori spotted him and walked directly toward him.
“Victoria…”
“He can’t do that! You can’t let him do that!”
“In my office,” Lund replied calmly as she stormed inside. He closed the door softly behind them.
“Cal, he can’t…”
“Victoria, please sit down.”
“Cal!”
“Sit down and shut up, now!”
Tori froze, stunned. In the entirety of her life, she’d never heard Cal raise his voice like that to anyone. Sheepishly she did as she was told, slowly taking a seat and lowering her face to her hands. “Cal, he can’t do that to me.”
“Yes, he can,” Lund replied, now sitting down behind his desk, his arms folded across his chest. “That is, unless I tell him otherwise.”
“Then tell him otherwise,” Tori demanded, looking up. “He needs me on this. He can’t possibly solve this thing on his own. Hell, I don’t think he really cares to.”
“Dammit, enough,” Cal ordered, glaring angrily at her. After a moment, he calmed a bit and added, “You need to get control of yourself because you’re on about everyone’s last nerve around here.”
Tori simply nodded, looking to the floor.
Cal sighed, shook his head and then checked his watch. It was after five. He took his service weapon and dropped it into his desk drawer and locked it and then loosened his tie. He pulled open a lower drawer and took out a bottle of Wild Turkey and two white ceramic coffee cups, pouring a small amount in each and sliding a cup across his desk for Tori.
Tori looked at the cup for a bit before she reached for it. She took a slow drink while still leaning forward, her elbows resting on her thighs. It wasn’t often she found herself in the principal’s office.
“Now, young lady, Will Braddock has done nothing but work this case since Genevieve Lash went missing. Day after day. Morning, noon and night. I had to send him home last night for Christ’s sake because he slept in his office two nights ago. The man is obviously totally spent, yet you get all up in his face anyway.”
“Cal…”
“I’d have told you to go to hell, too. And let me tell you something else, he thinks I don’t know about all these other women who have gone missing, but I do. I know what he’s up to. If you count your sister and Lash, there are eight women...”
“Actually,” Tori replied quietly, “it’s maybe twenty-three, and if you include Jessie and Lash, it’s twenty-five.”
That set Cal back. “Excuse me? Twenty-three? Twenty-five? Where the hell a
re you getting this?”
Tori explained what Tracy Sheets found researching out of the FBI field office in New York City. “The file was sent to Braddock earlier today. Twelve state area. It all starts with Jessie in 1999 until now.”
“And you think the killer lives around here?”
“I do. Braddock questions that.”
“Whether the killer is here or not, I think Will is probably right…maybe somebody else should be working this besides just us. More resources need to be applied to this.”
Tori sat back in her chair, exhaled and closed her eyes for a moment. She wanted to choose her next words carefully, something she hadn’t done in the last hour.
“Cal, I see where you and Will might think that. I…” Tori exhaled a sigh. “I see the sense in that, I…do. But let me say this first. I haven’t been able to really review all twenty-three cases yet to see how strongly they all fit together. These are twenty-three cases that might be tied together, or they might not. There are four that may not be part of this at all because the victims were found strangled in the trunks of their cars, so those don’t fit the overall pattern. But that still leaves nineteen. I’d like a chance to work it and work it with Braddock first to see if we can figure that part out. If we do, then we have something to go to the Bureau and the other states with and maybe we get some sort of joint investigation or task force put together on it. But I don’t think we’re there yet.”
“Well, that brings us back to Will then. He is not happy with you.”
“I can tell he’s been working it hard,” Tori replied earnestly. “One look at him and you can see it. But with all due respect, he needs me—you need me. I’m sure he is a fine investigator and all, but…”
“Fine investigator? That’s all you can muster for him?” Cal chuckled in reply, shaking his head in dismay. “Let me ask you something, hotshot, what do you really know about him? We know all about you and your background. But have you even bothered to consider his? He called around on you. Have you called around on him? Maybe completed a rudimentary Google search?”
Tori shook her head. “No,” she replied but could tell Lund was leading somewhere.
“Then you have no idea who you’re dealing with? Do you think you’re the only one who’s had to deal with tragedy? Will Braddock is right there with you.”
“I know he’s from New York, was a detective with NYPD and was married to Meghan Hayes and moved here after she died of cancer. What else is there to know?”
“There’s a lot more to him than that.” Cal replied as he took a long drink from his cup. “In New York Will had his detective’s shield for about two years and was working the First Precinct. You know where that is, right?”
“South Manhattan.”
“He was on duty on 9/11. He and his partner were standing on the street drinking coffee when the first jet flew right over them and went into the North Tower. They jumped in the car and drove to the World Trade Center, helping with building evac. They were both in the South Tower when the second plane hit. Will barely escaped when the tower went down but his partner, his mentor, a veteran detective named Jim Quinn, was still inside and died.”
“Quinn is his son’s name,” Tori remarked.
“That’s right, Quinn James,” Cal answered. “A couple of months later Will Braddock joined the NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force. If you have any Bureau friends who worked in New York with that unit, ask them about Will. I’ll guarantee you they know who he is. He’s something of a legend.”
“Legend?”
“He was involved in a number of cases where terrorist attacks were stopped. The biggest occurred six months after Megan died. Will was shot multiple times by a terrorist while thwarting an attack in Times Square. Case ring any bells?”
Tori nodded. She remembered her phone pinging with text message after text message about first the search for the terrorist and then later the shooting in Times Square.
“Will almost left Quinn without a parent. It was maybe four months later, after he’d recovered from his wounds, that I got a call from Meghan’s dad, Roger Hayes, asking if I needed any investigative assistance or knew of anybody in our neck of the woods here who’d be interested in hiring an NYPD detective with Will’s background. He was looking to move here to raise his son and be closer to the only family they had.” Cal refreshed his drink. “I jumped at the chance to hire him, so much so that I basically created his position. He’s a damn good man who is fully, fully invested in your sister’s case and all you’re doing is pissing him off.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Does pissing people off come naturally or do you try to do it?”
“I think a little of both,” Tori replied, sitting back in her chair, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling.
“Maybe you ought to think about sitting down with someone and figuring out that little character quirk of yours. I imagine there may be a number of issues you’ve deferred work on.”
“You’re probably right, but…” She sat forward and sighed. “I’m sorry, Cal. I’m really sorry,” Tori said softly, fully admonished and only more embarrassed. “It’s just that this case…Jessie…Katy.”
“You should walk away from it.”
“No. I can’t quit it, not now. I just can’t.”
“No,” Cal replied with an exhale, “I don’t imagine you can.”
“What do I do? I’ll do whatever you think I need to do.”
“Well, tomorrow is a new day,” Cal reasoned. “Give Will a night to clear his head and get some sleep. I’m going to call him in a bit and make sure that’s what he does because Lord knows he needs it. As do you. You look totally fried, young lady. I imagine all that ruckus down in Des Moines might have left you a bit sleep deprived, am I right?”
Tori nodded.
“But you got the girl back?”
“Yeah,” Tori replied with a nod. “Yeah, we did.”
“Good, you see, the day is not a total loss then. Come back in tomorrow and mend the fence and I mean really mend it. If you don’t, then you’ve got a problem because if it comes down to a choice between you and him…” Lund shook his head. “I’ll have his back.”
“I’d be supremely disappointed in you if you didn’t.”
Twenty minutes later, Tori checked back into the Radisson. After a long shower and room service dinner, she jumped underneath the covers and turned on her computer and typed in an Internet search for Will Braddock.
“So, you’re back in town,” the man mused, sitting behind the steering wheel of his car as he watched Tori Hunter transport her wheeled suitcase, backpack and purse into the entrance of the hotel. “We begin again.”
He knew when he took Lash and sent Tori the newspaper clipping that there was a good chance that he would finally draw her back home and into the little drama he was creating.
That’s what he wanted. He wanted to tease and torment and ultimately terrify her, and if the opportunity presented itself, if the circumstances were right, reunite Tori with her sister.
That was a part, a juicy byproduct of his overall plan. And it had been proceeding as he hoped.
Then Katy Anderson showed up that night and now he was exposed.
Braddock and Hunter had, if not evidence, at least some information that if they pieced it together just right could lead to him.
Tori, as evidenced by her return, would never give it up now that he’d drawn her here and she had a real taste of it. She would be relentless and would never stop coming, not now.
And Braddock surprised him. He viewed him as a more than competent cop, but that assessment was far short of the mark. Braddock was far better than he thought. The detective was onto the other missing women that he killed. More urgent than that, his own level of investment in and growing obsession with the case was unexpected. He didn’t properly anticipate the effect Tori’s presence would have on Braddock. She was dragging Braddock into the vortex, her pull irresistible.
He sensed
danger in the two of them reuniting.
The good news was, the two of them were very predictable in one specific way.
CHAPTER 19
“A MERCURY SWITCH.”
T ori awoke at 6:20 a.m. She inhaled a breath and felt—rested. The last time she remembered looking at her watch was just after 8:30 p.m. so assuming she’d fallen asleep around that time, she had managed a solid eight plus hours of sleep, something she’d needed for weeks. What she did remember before falling asleep was what she read about Braddock.
Of all the things Cal said to her, the one that really stung was that she didn’t know anything about Braddock. The chagrin got worse when it took her less than a minute to find article after article of the shooting in Times Square.
The Joint Terrorism Task Force was closing in on Mahmoud Abidi, a suspected terrorist.
Abidi traveled to Pakistan twice in the two years before his name appeared on the task force’s radar. In his travels he became radicalized, as further evidenced by his associates in Pakistan, his online activity and intelligence chatter. The task force began closely monitoring Abidi and determined there was a high risk he was going to act.
The suspected terrorist lived in an apartment building in the Bronx. A task force entry team moved in to make the arrest. However, despite Abidi being under constant surveillance including being seen entering the apartment building a half-hour before entry, when the team went in Abidi was not in his apartment.
As officers set a perimeter and fanned out to search the area surrounding the building, Braddock was onsite out of interest as Abidi was close with another target that Braddock’s team was investigating. Consequently, he wasn’t fully geared up. Yet it was Braddock who spotted a man matching Abidi’s description in a long black coat hurriedly taking the steps up to the platform for the Number Two subway line a block outside the perimeter.
Braddock pursued the man and managed to get onto the last car of the train just as the doors closed. Problem was, Braddock had left his hand radio in his car and his cell phone wasn’t working once they descended into the subway tunnels.
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