by LENA DIAZ,
“You gave everything to her, saved nothing for yourself?”
“Don’t make me out to be a Good Samaritan, Logan. I’m not.” Far from it. “I had already graduated and had a job. It was the logical decision. But it was still early in my career and I didn’t have much money. Mom and Dad had still been helping me here and there. With them gone I needed a little extra cash, so I looked in the paper for a roommate.”
“Dana put an ad in the paper.”
“Yes. She was going to the local technical college and needed someone to help with expenses, so I rented a room from her.”
“Apartment, right?”
She nodded. “Her last roommate skipped on the rent. Dana was getting desperate.”
“Didn’t she have family?”
“Her mom and dad. But Dana made a lot of poor choices, burned her bridges. Her parents were trying tough love, trying to wake her up and get her to stand on her own feet. They were devastated when she was killed, blamed themselves for not helping her more.”
He asked about her routine with Dana. After answering several questions, she said, “I don’t know why he targeted us, why he chose us.”
“Figuring that out is my job. You’re doing fine.” He leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees. “I want to talk about the abduction now.”
She took a deep breath. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Tell me about the morning you were abducted.”
“It was Wednesday. I know that because that’s the only day Dana didn’t have classes. I worked from home, even back then, so my schedule was flexible. Dana wanted to go shopping, so I said I’d go along.”
“How did you get to the mall?”
“Dana’s car. She drove.”
“I know it’s been a long time, but can you remember if anyone followed you?”
“There wasn’t much traffic. I don’t remember any other cars.”
“Had anyone called you that morning? Or in the weeks before that? Threatening calls? Hang up calls?”
“Not that I know of.” She shrugged. “If they called Dana, she never said anything.”
“Go on.”
“We parked.” Her hands shook and she swallowed hard. “We parked near the end of the mall parking lot, near the trees and dumpsters. She had vinyl seats that got really hot, so she liked to park in the shade and crack the windows. Anyway, we went into the mall.”
“Can you remember anyone watching you, following you? Maybe you saw the same person in more than one store.”
She frowned and mentally traced their trip through the mall, surprised at how easily the details came back, easier than at the station the other day. “No, nothing like that. Everything seemed fine, a perfectly normal day. We bought a few things, stupid stuff—body lotion, a bracelet. Dana bought a pair of yellow polka-dot socks. I bought a pink tank top. We walked out of the mall and I was going to call my sister. That’s when I realized my cell phone wasn’t in my purse. I remembered using it at the last store we were in, so Dana told me she’d get the car and pick me up. I walked back inside to look for my phone.”
Logan’s fingers tightened around hers, helping ground her, chasing away the shadows.
“When I came out, her car was still parked at the end of the lot. The trunk lid was up so I thought she was standing behind the car, rearranging all the junk.” She smiled, remembering how much of a slob Dana was.
“You didn’t see anyone else near the car?”
“No, not even when I got to the car and went around to the back of it. I expected to see Dana standing there. I called out her name, but no one answered. When I rounded the bumper I saw her lying in the trunk. Before I could react, he zapped me.”
“Taser.”
She nodded. “That’s what they told me later anyway. At the time, I didn’t know what had happened. I dropped to the ground. For a few seconds I couldn’t think beyond the pain. Everything was fuzzy. Then he tossed me into the trunk beside Dana, slammed the trunk lid shut.”
Logan flinched but quickly schooled his features. “Did you see him when he picked you up? Maybe you saw his face for an instant?”
She chewed her bottom lip as she tried to recall, but it was no use. She’d tried hundreds of times and never could form a clear image in her mind. “I got the impression of a tall, white male. Nothing else.”
“When he opened the trunk you were at the cabin? This cabin?”
Her eyes darted around and she shivered. “Yes.”
“He didn’t stop anywhere on the way?”
“No.”
Logan stroked her hand with the pad of his thumb. “Do you want to stop?”
She shook her head back and forth. “No, no, I need to do this.”
He stared at her intently. “Look around you. Try to remember the cabin the way it was that day. Tell me the things I can’t see in the police photographs. What did you smell?”
“Smell?” She wrinkled her nose. “Blood. I smelled blood.”
“Before that, when you first went inside the cabin, what did you smell then?”
“Musty, dirty, like now.”
“Good. What else?”
She sighed and nodded toward the window. “The pine trees outside. Nothing else.”
“What about sounds?”
She cocked her head, listening. “Birds, the same ones I hear today. The woods are full of them.”
“Try to block that out. Think about what you heard inside the cabin. Did the man speak to you? Did he have an accent?”
“He whispered.”
“The whole time? He never raised his voice? Think back, think about all the times he spoke to you.”
She pursed her lips together and tried to picture herself back in this cabin. Over there, in the corner, the metal bed bolted to the floor. The hook, also bolted to the floor, here in the center of the room. She glanced down, expecting to see dark stains on the wood, blood. But someone must have replaced the boards. There was no blood, no metal hook where the killer had taken turns chaining her and Dana. She’d lain on that floor with him crouched above her as he whispered his commands. “He hummed,” she said, surprised to suddenly remember that.
Logan squeezed her hand. “Good. Was it something random or a song?”
“A song, definitely, but nothing I knew. It was distinctive, slow, creepy. Like a chant or something.”
Her hair had fallen in front of her face. Logan leaned forward and brushed it back, his fingers skimming through the curls and running down the length of the strands as if he couldn’t resist touching it.
“He loved my hair, too,” she whispered.
He snatched back his hand as if he’d been burned.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine. Go on,” he urged.
She sighed. “He brushed my hair for hours. Washed it every day. Combed out every single tangle. And all through that he hummed. I can’t believe I forgot that.”
“Sometimes we block out details like that, to cope. If you think of something else about the song that might help me identify it, let me know.”
“You think a song can help you catch a killer?”
He shrugged. “It’s a piece of the puzzle. You never know what tiny clue will break a case wide open. Is there anything else you can think of?”
She looked around, pictured the cabin again the way it was that day. The man with the hood, sitting above her, holding the rose, twisting off a thorn. The sick game he’d played.
He kills me.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Amanda?”
She opened her eyes and met his concerned ones. It was time to tell him the truth, what had really happened in this cabin. She opened her mouth to tell him, but nothing would come out. All she could think was that once he knew, he’d despise her.
Suddenly the tight, hot space was too confining. She had to get out of here. “I can’t think of anything else,” she lied. “I’ll go get Karen.” She
tugged her hands from his and ran from the cabin.
Logan started to run after Amanda, but Pierce caught him just as he reached the doorway.
“She’s fine. Karen’s with her. We’ve got bigger problems.”
Logan could see Amanda on the other side of the clearing, getting into Karen’s car. He waited until the car was heading down the dirt and gravel road that led away from Black Lake before he gave Pierce his full attention. What had he said? Something about bigger problems? “What are you talking about? Has there been another killing?”
“No, a fire.”
Logan’s nostrils stung from the smell of charred wood that filled the air. The warehouse that he, Riley, and Pierce had been in yesterday morning was now just smoldering rubble. The roof had burned away, leaving blackened concrete blocks rising into the sky like the legs of a dying spider. The firemen were stowing their hoses, packing to leave. They’d put the fire out quickly, but there was nothing left to save.
“I don’t suppose you guys have backup copies of all those files,” Pierce said.
“Those were the backups.” Logan shook his head in disgust.
“I do have some good news. The report came back from our little side investigation. Riley’s alibi checked out. He’s not the man we’re after.”
“Are you absolutely certain? I have a hard time believing vagrants started this fire, especially since we didn’t see any signs of vagrants near the warehouse when we were here.”
“Riley was at the conference. I can tell you every workshop he attended, every meal he ate, when he arrived, when he checked out.”
“Okay, okay. He didn’t kill Carolyn. What about the other women?”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re stubborn?”
“Every day.” Logan turned away from the burned-out structure and trudged toward his car.
“I can prove where he was for half the murders.”
Logan paused with his hand on the door handle. “Prove?”
“Absolutely.”
“Damn.” Logan slid behind the wheel and slammed the driver’s door shut.
Pierce got into the passenger seat and gave him a sideways glance as he fastened his seatbelt. “Why do you look so disappointed? I would have thought you’d be happy to know your lead detective isn’t the killer.”
Logan gunned the engine. “Yeah, but now I don’t have a suspect anymore. The killer is probably out there right now stalking his next victim. If we don’t figure out who he is, soon, another woman is going to pay a horrible price.”
Chapter Nine
Two weeks after Carolyn O’Donnell was killed, Logan stood with Riley and Pierce in the same spot where her body had been found. The yellow crime scene tape was only a memory, but Logan couldn’t help thinking the park had a desolate, mournful feel, as if the trees themselves were weeping at the horrible injustice that had taken place here.
On this beautiful Sunday morning, this park should have been full of children laughing and playing, but families no longer brought their children here. Joggers didn’t travel the manicured paths of which the city had once been so proud. What had been a place of joy was now a place of fear.
“You don’t expect to find any more evidence here, do you?” Riley asked. “The entire area has been picked clean, by our guys and Pierce’s guys.”
“No, that’s not why we’re here.”
“Then why did you ask us to meet you here?” Pierce asked. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and leaned back against one of the majestic oaks that dated back to the days of the Civil War.
“I wanted to get us away from distractions.”
“A conference room wouldn’t have been sufficient?” Riley snickered.
Logan gave him a sharp look and Riley quickly sobered.
“It’s been nearly two weeks since Carolyn O’Donnell’s death and we don’t have any leads. Based on the profile, the next murder is due any time now. I’ve been walking the scene for over an hour, trying to put myself in the killer’s mind, trying to think like he does. But I’m not getting anywhere. We need to take a fresh look at the case. We’re missing something.”
Pierce shoved away from the oak tree and joined the others next to a strand of palmettos. “After finding out Gerald Mason was from FSU, I had my team re-look at everything we’d gathered from the school. We couldn’t find any connection to Carolyn, and he had alibis both for the day she was abducted and the day she was killed.”
“What about Carolyn’s friend you re-interviewed,” Logan asked Riley. “The one you and Clayton drove up to Tallahassee for? Did you re-interview any of her other friends or professors while you were there? Did anyone see her talking to someone they didn’t know? Maybe somebody was calling her, emailing her.”
Riley shook his head. “False alarm on the friend. I reviewed everything from the school too. We subpoenaed cell phone records, internet accounts, and interviewed everyone she came into contact with the past semester. She was popular, well-liked, so that was a lot of interviews. But through all of them, nothing came up to point to her having contact with anyone suspicious. Nothing.”
Pierce wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “We traced every call in or out of her dorm for the past six months. No red flags.”
“Visitors to the dorm?” Logan asked.
“Not even a fake name on a visitor log that couldn’t be verified,” Pierce replied. “It all checks out. If she caught the perp’s attention on campus, he didn’t do anything to make himself noticed by anyone.”
“So, you’re convinced the killer didn’t target her at school,” Logan said.
Pierce shook his head. “FSU has thousands of students, but the investigation into the circle of people Carolyn associated with was thorough. In my opinion, there isn’t any evidence to suggest he targeted her from school and then followed her here.”
“But there isn’t any evidence to suggest he targeted her here, either,” Logan said.
Pierce frowned but didn’t respond.
Riley was staring at the ground, apparently deep in thought.
“No one has any fresh ideas? A new direction?” Logan asked.
“What about the algorithm Amanda was putting together? Did anything come of that?” Pierce asked.
“What algorithm?” Riley glanced back and forth between them.
Logan flushed, realizing he’d never confided in Riley about the work Amanda was doing. He wasn’t sure why he’d never told him. Maybe he’d been subconsciously suspicious of Riley even before that day at the boxcar.
“Amanda organized all the evidence into a new database and cross-referenced everything. She came up with a program to scan for similarities and patterns. That’s how Pierce’s men eliminated some of the potential suspects from the stacks of interviews. Amanda’s still fiddling around with her program, trying to come up with something better.”
Riley nodded, suddenly looking distracted.
“We should review all of the interviews again,” Pierce said. “Maybe there’s a nugget of information we missed. Or someone we should have interviewed that we didn’t. I can go back to the office and look through all of them again.”
Logan shook his head. “There has to be something else to pinpoint how he chose Carolyn, or how he chose Dana and Amanda. That could be the key. I think we should look into Frank Branson.”
Riley’s head shot up, a look of surprise on his face. “Dana Branson’s father?”
“You do realize,” Pierce said, “that we ruled him out as a suspect? He discovered Dana’s body in the cabin and called 9-1-1, yes, but he had an ironclad alibi during Dana’s time of death.”
“Yeah, so did a lot of murderers I’ve put away over the years,” Logan said. “Never completely trust an alibi, or a profile for that matter. We need to review his alibi again, see how ironclad it really is.”
“Why do you want us to look at Branson?” Pierce asked.
“As part of revisiting Dana Branson’s murder, Frank Branson was re-inter
viewed. I met him, briefly, and I didn’t get a good feeling about him.” Logan shrugged. “Probably nothing.”
Pierce gave him a sharp look. “If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have brought it up. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a father killed his daughter; happens a lot more than people realize.”
Riley shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t be the first, but can I say, ick? His own daughter? She was raped.”
“Dana was his stepdaughter, if that makes any difference,” Pierce clarified.
“It doesn’t.” Riley shuddered in distaste.
Logan flinched as his thoughts turned to Amanda. The police reports stated she wasn’t raped, at least not in the traditional sense of the word, probably because the killer preferred to rape his victims at the moment of death and Amanda had gotten away. But what had happened to her was just as brutal. “What about forensics from the Branson murder?” he asked Pierce. “Did your men find anything the state lab missed?”
Pierce shook his head. “No trace from the perp, only the victims. And all of the blood collected at the scene was either Dana’s,” he looked at Logan, “or Amanda’s.”
Logan winced then quickly schooled his features. Every mention of what Amanda had suffered was like a knife slicing into him. Judging from the expression on Pierce’s face, and their earlier confrontation in the cabin, he obviously wasn’t hiding his feelings very well.
A flash of movement had Logan looking toward the front end of the park. Several men were milling around, talking in a small group and watching the three of them. “Looks like we’ve caught the attention of some of the neighbors. We’d better go introduce ourselves before they flood the station with suspicious-person calls.”
“What do all of the victims he killed in the past four years have in common?” Logan asked as the three of them walked along one of the pine-needle-strewn paths. “Most were in different states so they couldn’t frequent the same businesses. Did they vacation at the same places?”