by Karen Rose
Alex was stunned. “My DNA? How do you know? I’ve never given you a sample.”
He closed his eyes. “Yes, you did. Remember Tuesday when you were leaving to go with Ed to Bailey’s house and I kissed you and pulled your hair?”
Alex’s jaw tightened. “You did it on purpose. Why? Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“Because I didn’t want to worry you. I was trying-”
“Not to hurt me,” she finished. “Daniel…” She shook her head, wanting to be annoyed, but he looked so miserable that she couldn’t find it in her. “It’s okay.”
He opened his eyes. “It is?”
“Yeah. You were trying to do the right thing. Just don’t do it again, okay?”
“Okay.” He pulled her back against him. “Let’s go to sleep.”
She snuggled back into him. Then the full import of his words struck her, and despite the heat radiating from his body, she felt cold. “He has her hair,” she whispered.
“I know, baby.”
Fear snaked its way into her gut. “Where did he get it, Daniel?”
His arm tightened around her protectively. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll find out.”
Thursday, February 1, 2:30 a.m.
“Bailey,” Beardsley whispered. “Are you alive?”
Bailey drew in a shallow breath, testing. “Yes.”
“Did you tell him anything more?”
“I don’t know anything more,” she said, her voice breaking on a sob.
“Sshh. Don’t cry. Maybe Alex just hid it.”
Bailey tried to make her brain think. “I told her to, in the letter.”
“Letter? You mean you mailed it?” he murmured. “To Ohio? When?”
“The day they took me. Thursday.”
“She might not have gotten it then. She got here on Saturday.”
Bailey drew in another, faster breath. “Then she might not know about the key.”
“We need to buy some time. If you have to tell him, say you sent it to her in Ohio. She’s not there if they look, so she and Hope will be safe. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Dutton, Thursday, February 1, 5:30 a.m.
He rolled by Alex Fallon’s little bungalow, his eyes narrowing. Crime scene tape was stretched across her front door. He wondered if the assholes who’d tried to run her down two days before had finally been successful at snuffing her out. They better not have. He needed her alive so he could kill her himself. Otherwise his circle would not be complete, and that would be a damn shame.
He kept rolling along at his snail’s pace, doing what he’d been paid to do. A few doors down, old Violet Drummond hobbled out to the street and he handed her a paper through the window. “Mornin’, Miz Drummond.”
“Mor-nin’,” she said auspiciously.
“What happened at the bungalow?” he asked nonchalantly.
Her lips pursed as if she’d sucked a lemon. “Break-in. Somebody ransacked that Tremaine girl’s things and poisoned her dog. Tore up the house, too. I knew she was trouble the minute she walked back into town. She should have just stayed away.”
He looked back at the bungalow through his side mirror. Somebody had been sloppy. Somebody was getting scared. Inside he grinned. Outside he made his face frown. “Yes’m. Have a nice day, Miz Drummond.”
He rolled away, relieved Alex Fallon still lived, but annoyed that now she’d be more on her guard than ever-and no longer conveniently located on Main Street. But he knew where she’d be staying. She and Vartanian were practically joined at the hip. But he and Vartanian would meet soon and he’d grab Alex then.
For now, he’d finish his job, then go get some sleep. He’d had a very busy night.
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 5:55 a.m.
The phone woke her and groggily Alex answered it. “Fallon. What is it, Letta?”
“Um, I’m not Letta and I want to talk to Daniel. Is he there?”
Alex sat up, awake now. “I’m sorry. Wait.” She poked Daniel’s arm. “I think it’s Chase. I was so sleepy I thought I was at home and my charge nurse was calling.”
Daniel lifted his head, his eyes still heavy with sleep. “Oh, hell. Give it here.”
She handed it over, wondering if they would have any trouble over their… sleeping arrangements. She glanced at the clock with a wince. They hadn’t done much sleeping.
“I’m sorry. I did call you about her mother.” Daniel sat up and hunched over, his free hand massaging his temples. He had a headache already. “I should have called you about the break-in at the bungalow, but I had to take Riley to the vet.” He looked up at her with a hopeful grimace, then rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah, there was that, too.”
Alex scooted over so that she knelt next to his hip and lifted his chin. His eyes were shadowed with pain. She pressed her thumbs to his temples and her lips to his brow until she felt him relax. She leaned back and he nodded, but his lips didn’t smile.
“When?” he said. “Who?… Never heard of him. Why didn’t APD call us? I thought we had a picture of that kid on the visor of every patrol car in the city.” He sighed. “I guess that would make it hard to see his face. All right.” He sat up straighter and looked at his clock. “Again? Then there’s another one. Who’s his tail?… Good. Have him call me when Woolf stops. I’ll be there as fast as I can.” He started to hang up, then paused, looking at Alex. “I’ll tell her. Thanks, Chase.” He handed her the phone and she hung it up, her stomach already starting to churn.
“Who did APD have a picture of on their visors?”
“A kid we’ve been looking for. They found him dead in an alley, a few blocks from his car.” He scrubbed his palms over his face. “Shot in the head with his face covered in blood. Nobody recognized him until they’d gotten him to the morgue and cleaned up his face. They found his car, ran the plates. But I’ve never heard of him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sean Romney.”
“I’ve never heard of him either.” She made herself ask the harder question. “Woolf’s on the move again?” she asked, and he nodded.
“I’ve gotta get out there and you can’t stay here alone.”
“I can be ready in ten minutes,” she said, and he looked impressed. “When you work level one trauma, you have to be ready to go in whenever there’s a major crisis. We get all the chopper cases in a seventy-mile radius. So I can move when I need to.” She rolled out of bed, but he stayed for a moment, watching her. “What?”
His eyes were that piercing blue that made her shiver. “You’re beautiful.”
“So are you. I hope I didn’t get you into any trouble, answering the phone like that.”
He got out of bed, stretching his shoulders one way and then the other while she watched for the simple pleasure of doing so. “No,” he drawled. “Chase already knew.”
Her eyes widened. “You told him? Daniel!”
“No,” he drawled again. “I’m a guy, Alex. When we have head- banging sex on a sofa, it’s written all over our faces. Everybody knows.”
“Oh. Well, okay.” She felt her cheeks heat. “So what did Chase tell you to tell me?”
Daniel sobered abruptly. “That he’s sorry about your mother. Hurry. We need to go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Tuliptree Hollow , Georgia , Thursday, February 1, 7:00 a.m.
Daniel walked to the ditch, the Review tucked under his arm. Ed was already down in it, watching as Malcolm and Trey lifted the newest body to a stretcher.
“Ed, come on up,” Daniel called. “I need to show you something.”
Ed scrambled up the wooden ramp they’d placed against the side of the ditch. “You know I’m fucking tired of finding bodies in blankets,” he said. He looked over at Daniel’s car where Alex sat huddled in one of Daniel’s overcoats. “How is she?”
Daniel looked over his shoulder. “She’ll be okay.” He handed Ed the paper. “Look.”
Ed’s eyes immediately widened. “Dammit
. It’s the kid who bought the blankets.”
“And picked up Janet’s Z.” Daniel tapped the page. “Byline is you know who.”
Ed glared. “He’s up in that tree. I thought you might want to yank him down again.”
“That’ll be a pleasure. Take a look at the kid’s name.”
“Sean Romney, of Atlanta. So?”
“So… Woolf says here that Sean Romney is the grandson of Rob Davis of Dutton, who owns the damn Bank of Dutton. That makes Romney a second cousin to Garth Davis, the mayor of Dutton. That enough Duttons for you yet? I don’t want to make any accusations,” Daniel added in a whisper, “but Garth Davis graduated a year before Simon and Wade, but from Bryson Academy.”
Ed puffed out his cheeks. “The mayor? That’s going to be fun to prove.”
“We’ll talk more back at the office. Now I’m going to pull Woolf out of his tree.”
Woolf was climbing down when Daniel approached. “Goddammit, Jim. What’s gotten into you? Climbing trees like you’re twelve years old.”
Woolf shrugged. “I’m on public property, so you can’t make me leave. This is a fascinating story, Daniel. It needs to be told.”
Fascinating. Anger shot up in Daniel’s head like a geyser. “Damn you. Fascinating story. You tell that to the victims and their families. You’re getting your damn pictures from up in a tree. How sanitary, how damn nice. You come with me. You’re going to meet a victim up close and real personal.” He started walking, then turned. Woolf hadn’t budged. Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me drag you, Jim.”
Slowly Woolf followed, a mix of curiosity and apprehension on his face. Malcolm and Trey were lifting the body from the stretcher to the body bag on the gurney. “Peel back the blanket, Malcolm,” Daniel ordered sharply.
Malcolm complied. “It’s the same. Face beaten, bruises around the mouth.”
“This one’s got some serious hardware,” Trey said. “Earrings up and down both ears. A nose ring and a tongue stud.” He pointed to the victim’s shoulder. “And a tat. This one says L-A-L-L. Live and let live.”
There was a thud behind him. Daniel turned to find Jim Woolf frozen where he stood, his camera on the ground, and Daniel suddenly had a very good idea of who this woman was. He should feel guilty for making Jim look, but all he felt was pity for the young woman who’d never have a life. For all the young women who’d never have lives. It was, he thought bitterly, a fascinating turn of events. “Jim?”
Woolf’s mouth opened in horrified silence. He said nothing, just stared.
Daniel sighed. “Ed, can you put Mr. Woolf in your vehicle? This is his sister, Lisa.”
Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 8:35 a.m.
Daniel and Ed both sank into chairs at the team table. Chase and Luke were already there. Talia had left to interview the rape victims they’d identified from the yearbooks. Daniel hoped her luck was better than his.
“We’ve got two more bodies,” Daniel said. “Sean Romney and Lisa Woolf. Seeing his sister like that loosened Jim’s tongue a little bit. He told me that a man called him with the ‘tips’ on Janet’s and Claudia’s bodies. All the other ‘tips’ were text messages that came in on a disposable cell. It wasn’t registered to any of his accounts, so we didn’t know to include it with the warrant.”
“And all the incoming text messages were untraceable,” Ed said with a sigh.
“Maybe he’ll be a little less interested in pimping stories for this killer now that his sister’s a victim,” Chase said darkly.
Luke was reading the front page of the Dutton Review Daniel had brought back with him. “Who is this Romney kid?”
“APD received an anonymous 911 telling them a young man was dead in an alley,” Daniel said. “They found Sean Romney with a bullet in his head. Apparently they didn’t recognize him as the picture they’d posted on their visor because he was too bloody. They didn’t get a positive ID until they’d cleaned up at the morgue at about five this morning. They called Chase and Chase called me.”
“He was only eighteen years old,” Luke noted. “He was only in kindergarten when Alicia was killed and those girls were raped. And he grew up in Atlanta.”
“But he’s connected to Dutton,” Daniel said wearily. “Sean is the grandson of Rob Davis, who owns the bank in Dutton. Rob Davis is Garth Davis’s uncle. Garth’s dad was the mayor for years and best friends with Congressman Bowie. I think Sean is like the keys he tied to the victims’ toes. A definite message.”
“And you’re thinking the message was addressed to Garth Davis,” Chase said.
Daniel nodded, troubled. “Garth’s the right age, only a year ahead of Simon and Wade. Garth knew Simon. We can’t dismiss the connection to Simon’s pictures.”
“You knew Garth,” Ed said. “Was he capable of the depravity in those pictures?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. I still hope not. I was a senior and he was a freshman, so I didn’t know him all that well. I do remember him coming by our house a few times though, looking for Simon. I wouldn’t say they were friends, exactly, but they hung out.”
Luke shook his head. “He might have known Simon, but did he kill these women?”
Daniel brought his focus back to the present. “Garth couldn’t have killed Claudia. He was at Congressman Bowie’s house Monday night during the time frame Felicity said Claudia died. But Garth is the first person we can connect to both Simon and one of these victims.”
“No, Jim Woolf is connected to all the victims,” Chase corrected. “He’s taken every one of their pictures for his damn paper. He gets all these leads handed to him on a silver platter. The perp has to know we’re watching Woolf. Why does he continue to feed him leads if he knows Woolf’s going to be followed by us?” Chase lifted his brows. “Unless he wants us to watch Woolf.”
“He sent Jim to his own sister’s grave,” Ed said. “Pretty powerful message.”
“This guy went to a lot of trouble to get Lisa Woolf,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “She was a student at the university up in Athens. He had to either drive up there or lure her here. I’ve requested her phone records and I called the Athens field office. They’re going to search her apartment and interview her friends. Maybe somebody saw him following her last night.”
Chase pointed to the Review. “I want to know how Woolf got this picture. His tail said Woolf was in the newspaper office from nine till two last night. How did Woolf get to Atlanta to snap this photo of Romney? He must have sent someone else.”
“He wouldn’t have trusted just anybody,” Daniel said. “I’m betting good old Marianne had something to do with it. That’s Jim’s wife. Of course, Jim neglected to mention that when he was unburdening his soul.”
Ed was still frowning at the paper. “Wait. APD didn’t make a positive ID until about five this morning, after they’d gotten the body cleaned up at the morgue. Woolf had to have this story by press time. Even on a diddly paper like the Review, that’s gotta be around midnight. I mean, the papers are hittin’ Dutton doorsteps by six.”
Daniel remembered the paperboy’s delivery the morning before as he and Alex still lay on her sofa, panting and trembling, and felt his cheeks heat. “Right at five-thirty,” he agreed. “So Jim Woolf somehow knew who Romney was before the cops did. That’s more than a tip. That could be conspiracy.”
“You’re right,” Chase said. “Let’s pick him up. Maybe the threat of real jail will loosen his tongue a little more. Daniel, you’ll talk to this Marianne woman?”
“As soon as we’re done. Have we heard from Koenig and Hatton?”
Chase nodded. “Koenig called in about an hour and a half ago. He said they’d looked all night but couldn’t find Crighton. They were going to hit the shelters during breakfast, then call it a night and go home and sleep and try again tonight.”
“Damn.” Daniel squared his jaw. “I was really hoping to arrest that slimy SOB.”
“I watched the tape we made of Alex and McCrady again last night,”
Ed said, “and I was thinking. Alex remembered Crighton saying that Alicia ‘asked for it with her short shorts.’ Sounds like he might have known about the rape.”
“You’re right,” Daniel said. “He said Wade didn’t kill Alicia, but of course he would. If Wade raped Alicia, that was probably what he confessed to Reverend Beardsley before he died, and maybe what he wrote in the letters to Bailey and Crighton.”
“I checked up on Crighton,” Luke said. “After Alicia died and Crighton killed Alex’s mother, Crighton went downhill fast. He had a good job before, but he’s been MIA for almost thirteen years. No income taxes, no record of credit cards. Nothing.”
“Instead he’s been living on the streets playing the flute for quarters,” Daniel said with contempt. “And beating up poor old nuns.”
“Oh.” Ed shook his head hard. “Flute. I was looking at the inventory of stuff we found at Bailey’s house and it included one empty flute case. It looked really old, like it hadn’t been used in years. Huge dust buildup in the case crevices and hinges, but the inside was clean, like it had just been opened. Did Bailey play the flute, too?”
Daniel frowned. “I would’ve thought Alex would have mentioned that right away. I’ll ask her.”
“Did you tell her about the hair?” Chase asked.
“Yeah, I did. On the way to the scene this morning I asked her what happened to all of Alicia’s stuff. She said her aunt Kim had it shipped to Ohio and the boxes have been in storage ever since. But she also said that she and Bailey and Alicia shared clothes and makeup and hairbrushes, and Bailey and Alicia were sharing a bedroom at the time because Alicia was mad at Alex about something. That hair could still have come from Bailey’s house recently.”
“I don’t think so,” Ed said. “If it had been tangled in a brush all this time, it would be kinked, but it’s straight-and free of dust. It’s been kept sealed up.”
“A souvenir of the rape,” Chase said slowly. “Damn.”
“And, uh, there is one other thing.” Ed put a plastic bag on the table.
Daniel held it up to the light. “A ring with a blue stone. Where did you find this?”