To Catch a Killer

by Kimberly Van Meter

“I noticed. Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on between you and this local chief. Get it off your chest so you can focus. You know I’m always up for a story, one with plenty of juicy details, so don’t skimp on the good stuff.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Look, blank-faced girl. Don’t forget, before I was assigned to this unit I was in interrogation. I know when someone is lying. Even you.”

  The corner of her mouth tipped up and Dillon’s brow lifted in encouragement. She shook her head and said with a shrug, “I grew up here. It’s a small town. It’s inevitable that I’d run into someone from my childhood. Matthew and I were friends growing up.”

  “He didn’t seem all that friendly to me. In fact, when he saw it was you, he looked downright pissed off. What’d you do to earn a look like that?”

  “Nothing happened. I moved away. He stayed.”

  “You two ever an item?”

  She kept her eyes on the road. “No.” Partially true. One night did not constitute a relationship. Bad judgment was more like it but no matter what, she couldn’t regret that night.

  Dillon regarded her with a silent, assessing stare that anyone else might’ve squirmed under but Kara allowed a tiny smile to play on her lips despite her growing fatigue. She’d definitely need more sleep if she was going to deal with Matthew on a regular basis. Finally, Dillon shook his head. “More bullshit. All right, just answer me this. Is he going to be a problem?”

  “Of course not.” Hoped not. No, she absolutely knew not. “Are you questioning my ability to do my job, Dillon?”

  “Only if need be. I’ve never had to in the past but this guy has you jumpy…on edge. It’s not like you. This case is too important to let anything cloud your judgment. I know I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “So don’t.” She flashed him a bright smile that she didn’t feel. “I’m fine. I’d tell you if I wasn’t. I know what’s at stake.”

  “So we’re good, then?” Dillon asked.

  “We’re golden.”

  “Good. You’re the best in your field. We need your ‘A’ game.”

  “Don’t start with the sports analogies. They sound weird coming out of your mouth. Everything’s under control.”

  Perhaps if she told herself that enough times, it would make it true. Her cell phone buzzed at her hip and she pulled it free to glance at the number. Director Colfax. Their boss. Damn it. She didn’t want to talk to him just yet. Dillon read her expression easily.

  “The cell reception in this place is terrible,” he remarked. “Damn near spotty in some places,” he added, and she agreed.

  “I know. It’s the trees. Messes up the line of sight on the cell towers.” She smiled and let the call go to voice mail. She’d call him after she’d had a chance to talk to the M.E. Until then, Colfax would just have to wait.

  An hour later while Dillon met with the incoming task force team, Kara went to the morgue. This part of the job was her least favorite, especially when it dealt with kids. She steeled herself for the inevitable sadness that followed when the coroner slid that little body out from its metal locker.

  She acknowledged the coroner, a short man with a balding pate, and flashed her credentials. “Cause of death yet?” she asked.

  “Petechial hemorrhages combined with the bruising around her neck point to asphyxiation,” he answered, opening the locker and pulling the metal slab forward with the young girl on it. So young. Snuffed out in a blink.

  Kara swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled her camera free as she gestured. “May I?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  She carefully detailed the marks left behind by Hannah Linney’s tormentor and silently promised, just as she had with the other two victims of the Babysitter, to bring him to justice.

  “Any sign of sexual trauma?”

  “None.”

  She nodded and exhaled the breath she’d been holding. So far, neither of the Babysitter’s victims had been sexually assaulted but serial killers sometimes varied their routine for reasons unknown.

  Kara was drawn to Hannah’s flaxen hair and couldn’t help but ache for the mother that had given birth with high hopes for her daughter only to have them end in such horrific circumstances. Somewhere a mother wept with a ragged heart, sobbing one word over and over. Why?

  She cleared her throat with difficulty. “Was there anything with the body? A small piece of paper, anything at all?”

  The coroner frowned in thought, then slowly shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of, but you could ask the chief for sure. He’s heading this case personally. He’d have the crime scene photos.”

  In the first two cases the Babysitter left something behind. It was his sick way of letting the cops know that he was one step ahead. Laughing. Kara was certain something had been missed. She made a mental note to return to Wolf’s Tooth first thing tomorrow morning.

  Nodding to the coroner, she indicated she was finished and hurried from the room, anxious to get back to the motel and away from the fear that clotted in her heart when ever she thought of how vulnerable children were in the world.

  It made her want to call home and talk to her nine-year-old daughter, just so she could hear Briana’s voice and know that she was safe, unlike the poor children who had somehow gotten caught in the Babysitter’s net.

  Chapter 2

  Matthew caught Kara leaving the morgue. His first instinct was to ignore her and keep walking, but there was something about her drawn expression that slowed his feet before he could form a different directive in his brain.

  The minute she realized she was not alone in the hall, her features relaxed into the blank, professional mask that Matthew knew came from training and not from her true feelings. That intimate knowledge of her personally should have given him an edge but it just made him feel as if he’d trespassed somehow.

  “Did you get what you needed?” He gestured toward the morgue.

  “Yes.” As an afterthought, she added, “Thanks.”

  “Enough with the ‘thank yous,’” he said, narrowing his gaze. Tiny lines of fatigue bracketed her eyes—he hadn’t noticed them before. Shake it off. If the woman couldn’t sleep, that was her problem. “Listen, you and I both know I was just being courteous. I don’t need thank-yous. You’re here to do a job and I’m here to help on my end. Everyone has the same goal—to catch this freak—and I’m not going to stand in the way of that.”

  She regarded him for a long moment and he wondered what was going through that mercurial mind. “Glad to hear it. Did you find anything unusual at the crime scene?” she asked, switching gears.

  “Aside from a dead body?”

  “Paper, fabric, wood chips that obviously didn’t come from the area…anything like that?”

  “No. Why?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll need to be apprised of any trace evidence that was collected. I’ll want to send it to our labs for analysis,” she said.

  “Just make sure it makes it back when you’re through.”

  “Of course. We don’t do things sloppy.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  And she clearly didn’t want to. She looked at him as if he were a nuisance with impertinent questions. She was definitely of the “need to know” camp and it was apparent he didn’t share the same clearance. Finally, she answered briefly. “The killer left something behind in the first murders.”

  He shifted. The conversation he most wanted to have with her kept moving to the forefront of his mind, but he managed to keep on topic. “I’ve been following this case in the press—” She made an expression that said who hasn’t? “It’s getting quite the coverage but I don’t remember that bit of information. Can’t hardly open a newspaper without seeing something on the case. The press is having a field day with the grisly Babysitter nickname. How’d they come up with that one?”

  She spared him a brief look, irritation in full bloom, but he did
n’t know if it was directed at him or the media. “Catch phrases and nicknames sell papers and boost ratings,” she said, disdain just under the surface. “And somehow…the press got a hold of information that was sensitive to the case.”

  “Such as?”

  “In both cases the person watching over the child, a caregiver of some sort, was killed when the victim was taken. So the press dubbed him the Babysitter Killer, which then was shortened to the Babysitter.”

  “Catchy,” he murmured, wondering what kind of sick person did these kinds of things to kids and their caregivers. “I knew when I saw the body it was that Linney girl. What made you think it was the Babysitter involved and not some other nut job with a thing for kids?”

  “The evidence. The killer likes to tie them up, which leaves distinct ligature marks on the skin.” She sighed. “Hannah had the same marks as the other two. And when we find something left behind with a message, there will be no doubt.”

  “No doubt?”

  “No, there’s not.” She met his gaze squarely. “Not one.”

  Her confidence was both impressive and bordering on smug. He found both irritating.

  “I read that one of the victims, Drake Nobles, was the son of Senator Nobles?” When she jerked a short nod in the affirmative, he shook his head. He wouldn’t want to be in her shoes. “Getting pressure yet?”

  She stiffened. “No more than any other case. We don’t place priority that way. Someone’s out there, killing kids. That makes this case move to the top.”

  He smiled, knowing full well she was probably getting squeezed by her superior who was no doubt taking it from the senator, but he was amused by her attempt to appear otherwise. “Well, I’m sure it can’t be easy being in your place. Head of the CARD Team assigned to this case. Kids dying on your watch. Must suck. Especially for someone who’s as ambitious as you.”

  She swallowed and her eyes registered the veiled reference to her past, even if she didn’t immediately jump back with an acidic retort as he’d hoped. Kara readjusted her camera bag and simply offered a perfunctory smile, one that she might give an annoying reporter, and said, “Well, you know, that’s why they pay me the big bucks. Good night, Matthew.” And then she stalked past him, taking great care not to make contact with him in any way—as if he had the plague or something.

  He should’ve followed her lead and continued to his office but his gaze lingered as she walked the long hallway, past rows of plaques and pictures of past chiefs hung on the walls, her shiny black boots clicking softly on the old tiled and dingy floor. Shoulders stiff as hardened plastic, she gave little indication of her mood except for the subtle yet angry twitch and sway of her hips. He suppressed a chuckle for no other reason than he recognized he’d delivered a low blow for selfish reasons and it didn’t feel right to enjoy it so much. But it felt good. Bad as it was. After what she did to Neal…well, it’s a damn miracle he didn’t toss her from the Widow’s Bridge and be done with it.

  One could dream…he sighed and walked to his office to finish his paperwork for the night.

  Kara got back to the motel, still fuming. What a passive-aggressive prick. Why didn’t he just come out and say what was on his mind? Obviously, it was killing him to hold it back, and instead of getting it off his chest so they could all focus on the job, he kept slipping in little jabs at her expense.

  “Must suck,” she mimicked under her breath as she unlocked the motel room door and slammed it behind her. And how did he know all that about her? She placed her camera on the bed and jerked off her overcoat. A light blinked on the phone indicating she had a message waiting. She lifted the receiver and retrieved the message, sighing when it was Colfax again. He’d already left two voice mails on her cell.

  A soft knock at the front door and Dillon walked in a second later. She replaced the receiver. “I could’ve been naked,” she said, pulling her cell phone free from its holster at her hip. “Try waiting until I answer, will you?”

  “And miss a chance to catch you in your birthday suit? Never.” He gestured toward the phone. “That Colfax?”

  “Yeah. He call you?”

  “Yes. I told him you were too busy fighting with the local chief to take his calls but you’d get back to him as soon as you were able.”

  She glared, even though she knew he would never say such a thing to their director. “You’re lucky I know you’re kidding. You know that British humor…it’s a hit and miss thing with Americans. Most of the time we just don’t get it.”

  “No, you don’t get it because you don’t have a sense of humor.”

  “Ha-ha. Are you here to bust my balls or do you have something useful to share?”

  “Actually, I do. The fax came from Dr. Benton, that geologist from Davis University we sent the mineral sample to.”

  That got her attention. “And?”

  “And it seems maybe our killer is from your own backyard. The mineral found on the body of the Garvin boy is called orickite. It’s a sulphide and it’s only found around these parts. Do you know of any active mines close by?”

  “No, but we can certainly find out.” She started for the phone but then remembered Lantern Cove pretty much shut down after five. “Are the rest of the team settled in?”

  Dillon nodded. “Four rooms booked down the hall, all federal agents. You want me to get them rounded up for a meeting? I thought we’d meet first thing in the morning over a spot of breakfast, preferably something hot to keep the hypothermia at bay.”

  “Smart-ass. And, no. Go ahead and bring them over now. You and I are going for a hike tomorrow.”

  “A hike?” Dillon’s brow arched. “What kind of hike? I don’t know if I brought the right wardrobe for that sort of excursion.”

  “We’re going back to the crime scene. In the first two murders, the killer left something behind. Matthew’s team didn’t find anything but I know the killer left his signature calling card. We have to find it.”

  “We haven’t concluded that what you’re thinking of as clues were actually left behind by the killer. There was no DNA on the paper found near the Garvin boy and it was printed on a computer so we can’t even get a handwriting analysis.”

  Kara shook her head. “It wasn’t random. He wants us to think that it is but there’s no reason a child would carry around something like that.” She met his dubious stare. “I’m right about this. I can feel it.”

  “You’re the boss,” Dillon said with a sigh. “What time tomorrow?”

  “At 7:00 a.m.”

  He groaned. “Just because you’re an insomniac doesn’t mean the rest of us are.”

  “At 7:00 a.m.,” she repeated. “Not a minute later.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Now, go call the team. I want to get this briefing underway before everyone starts trying to claim overtime.”

  By the time the briefing was over and everyone had returned to their rooms for the night, Kara felt an all-over body fatigue and actually welcomed the thought of sinking into the motel bed.

  She rose on legs stiff from sitting in one position too long. After washing her face and throwing on some pajamas, she climbed into the bed and gratefully closed her eyes. Perhaps tonight she’d be able to sleep without the details of the case she was working scrolling across her brain in rapid succession, screaming for closure, demanding everything she had and then some.

  But even as she started to drift into slumber, a memory, buried deep, surfaced and she rolled onto her side as if to escape it.

  Summer, 1990. She, Neal and Matthew were driving to the beach…the smell of her coconut suntan lotion filled the truck’s cabin…the sound of their laughter mingled with the music of Aerosmith…she felt safe, flanked by the two boys.

  Then, as dreams often do, the scene changed without warning to the night before she left. The fight. The words that were said that couldn’t be taken back. The heavy weight of regret and guilt that she carried each time she looked into her daughter’s eyes. Matthew’s eyes.

  Kar
a tossed. The dream faded but the feeling that she’d lost something precious remained. Just as it always did.

  Her eyes cracked open a slit but slid closed again. For once sheer exhaustion overruled everything else. And she was grateful.

  The next morning was much like the day Hannah’s body was found, only bleaker as dark storm clouds gathered on the horizon and headed straight for Lantern Cove. Angry waves crashed against the inland rocky shores as the wind picked up and howled through the trees.

  If Kara were the superstitious sort, she’d say there was an uneasy energy coursing through the air. But she certainly didn’t believe in that crap, nor would she admit to the shiver that ricocheted down her spine as she waited for Dillon.

  “Picked a cherry of a day to go hiking,” he said, locking his door and pocketing his key. “If it rains, we’ll lose whatever trace you’re hoping to find.”

  Kara looked to the sky and nodded grimly. “I know. We should get a move on. Maybe we can beat the rain.”

  Dillon shook his head. “I don’t know, but we can try. Oh, by the way, I left a voice mail for Beauchamp to let him know we were going out there,” he said as they climbed into Kara’s Range Rover.

  She looked at him sharply. “Why’d you do that? We don’t need his permission.”

  “No, but it’s a professional courtesy and you know it. Why are you so set on making an enemy of this guy?”

  Too late for that. Kara opened her mouth but snapped it shut, knowing that if she let fly what had popped into her head it would only open the door for more discussion about her past. She wasn’t interested in doing that. “You’re right. Sorry. I need coffee.”

  “No problem. There’s a coffee shop along the way.”

  “Good.” She looked to Dillon. “I didn’t mean to snap. This place combined with the case…it’s got me on edge.”

  He accepted her answer but then said with a cheerfulness that was unnatural that early in the morning, “Well, since you’re already grouchy, I should let you know that Beauchamp called me back after I left a voice mail. Seems he keeps the same late hours as you, fancy that. He said he’d meet us out there.”