Profiled

by Renee Andrews

  “What would cause a woman to hemorrhage at this stage in the pregnancy?”

  “At eight weeks, it’s very early yet, so it’d most likely be stress-related.”

  “Can’t get more stressful than hunting a serial killer.” Angel grinned.

  “No, I dare say you can’t. So you’re wanting to come back in, say, two weeks? In case you have any stress-related problems?”

  “Yes, and so he can see me here again.”

  The doctor annotated the information on Angel’s chart. “You’re sure this is the only way to catch him?”

  “It isn’t the only way, but I believe it’s the best way.”

  “Well, Ms. Jackson, take care of yourself.” She raised her voice so the nurses and additional patients outside could hear. Then she headed for the door. With her hand on the knob, she lowered her voice again. “I mean that. Be careful.”

  Angel nodded, waited for her to leave then got her things.

  Lexie carried a copy of her questions for tomorrow’s interview to the conference room. It would be the most difficult one to air, until the one for Aunt Bev. But tomorrow the segment would feature Abigail Lynette Tucker, and Lexie didn’t relish having to remind John how his wife had died.

  Although the task force had picked up on their relationship—Elijah Lewis had announced to the world that he’d seen the two of them cozy on Lexie’s porch and that he suspected John spent his nights there—they were determined to convince the group that their personal relationship stayed separate and apart from their professional one.

  In order to do that, Lexie couldn’t treat him differently than any of the other family members she’d interviewed. But to let the public see the victim as a real person, she had to ask very personal questions. Questions that sparked memories. Questions that hurt.

  And she didn’t want to hurt John.

  After Elijah’s gossip made its way through the police department, every office at the television station and the majority of the city, they hadn’t made a secret of their relationship. But Lexie had done her best to let everyone know John guarded her each night from his car. She thought, and hoped, that most believed the truth. The majority of Macon had hoped the notable homicide detective would find love again. They’d known how he’d been hurt following his wife’s murder; moreover, they’d watched him face accusations from the former profiler and had seen his stellar reputation questioned by the media. In other words, they wanted to see John Tucker happy.

  So did Lexie.

  For the past two weeks, they’d spent every night and much of every day together working on the case, working with the task force and becoming closer than she’d believed possible. Maybe because they shared a history with the killer, John losing Abby and Lexie losing Aunt Bev. Or maybe because a part of her knew John’s father had helped her so long ago on that horrible day, and the actions of the father drew her even closer to the son. Or perhaps because ever since that night on the porch, they’d discussed religion together almost daily, as well as how their backgrounds affected their beliefs and their faith. Lexie had discussed her concern for Angel’s lack of faith and how she prayed her cousin would find God.

  With all of their talks, she and John connected on a deep, emotional level. They understood each other, so much that they could communicate without words. John looked at her, and she knew what he thought, felt, needed. Sometimes the strength behind that emotion sent a shiver down Lexie’s spine.

  Like right now.

  She entered the conference room and looked at him, seated on the other side of the table by Ryan Sims. Those penetrating blue eyes connected with hers, and she knew what consumed his thoughts. In a little while, the two of them would have to discuss Abby, what his wife meant to him, and the killer that took her life.

  Talking about his deceased wife wouldn’t hurt their own relationship, Lexie knew. Far from it. She suspected it would make them even closer, because they would have tackled a difficult situation and survived it together. But that didn’t make either of them more eager to perform the task.

  “How are things going?” She placed her folders across from him at the table. “Anything new?”

  He gave her a slight smile and Lexie’s heart melted. Everything would be okay. They’d do the article on Abby, then on the previous victims, and they’d catch the killer in time. They had to. But they had no leads yet, and everyone at the table knew it. Lexie prayed for a new lead, because she couldn’t stand the thought of offering up Angel and her unborn baby as bait. Deep down, she knew she couldn’t let that happen, though she had no idea how to stop it.

  “Nothing new.” Ryan dropped his pen on the table next to his notes. “No one’s come forward with any new information, and if nothing surfaces we’re going to be sitting here just like last time, waiting and watching while he kills someone else. If you ask me, we’re not doing enough to catch this guy. Seems like our profiler should be able to give us something to work with. That is the FBI’s job here, isn’t it? Come in and tell us what the problem is, then tell us how to fix it. Seems she owes us a bit more in that department.”

  As if on cue Angel made her entrance, and by the fire in her emerald eyes, she’d heard the lieutenant’s comment. “I have a new avenue I want to recommend to the team, one that I believe will shake our killer up a bit. I’ll explain as soon as the others arrive.”

  Lexie knew Angel’s recommendation had nothing to do with her pregnancy. She’d agreed to keep her condition to herself for the time being, though Lexie hadn’t missed the knowing glances from the other task force members any time Angel left the room with an upset stomach.

  Lou Marker and Zed Naylor entered the conference room at precisely 11:00, followed by Captain Pierce, and Lexie tried to control her worries for her younger cousin so she could find out about the “new avenue” Angel planned to pursue.

  “You said you have an announcement, Jackson?” the captain asked.

  Angel shuffled her notes in place. “I do.”

  “Go ahead.” Pierce looked as though he wanted to hit something. Lexie knew the man hated the fact that he didn’t have the authority to remove Angel from the case, but the FBI trumped him, and that was all there was to it. In fact, Lexie figured he was lucky she hadn’t bought a billboard in the middle of Macon announcing her pregnancy.

  “I’ve studied prior cases, and with this kind of killer, one who thrives on perfection and a systematic approach to his murders, our best chance to force him out of his cycle is to make him mad, goad him into doing something atypical.”

  “What do you have in mind?” John asked.

  Lexie looked at John, then Angel. Angel had already told both of them that she attempted to do that very thing with her pregnancy. That hadn’t been enough for Angel, and Lexie wondered how far her cousin would go to pull this killer out of hiding. Of course, if they really wanted to force him out, they could announce that Lexie had witnessed one of his murders and that Aunt Beverly’s baby had survived and now profiled the killer who murdered her mother.

  But although that tactic had the potential to oust the killer, since he’d want to eliminate both of them as soon as possible, it’d also oust the only known witness to his crime. And since Lexie didn’t remember seeing the man’s face, letting him know would issue her own death sentence—which meant Angel had come up with another approach for forcing his hand.

  But what? And why hadn’t she forewarned Lexie and John?

  “We’ve been looking at victimoloy to tell us about our killer.” Angel indicated her thick victimology file. “And that’s, of course, a viable means of learning more about him, about what kind of victim he’s looking for and how he makes his selection. However, I realized today that I overlooked a key aspect to the criminology of this case.”

  “How’s that?” Lou asked.

  “The first victim. Zed has been working hard to get information on Hannah Sharp, and from his meetings with her family and friends, we know she was pregnant with Logan Finley’s baby,
that she’d planned to run off and get married to avoid her family’s disapproval, and that she never made it, since no one has heard from Hannah or Logan again.”

  Zed cleared his throat. “That’s right.”

  “So, let’s assume that Hannah Sharp was his first victim, or rather, that Hannah Sharp and Logan Finley were his first victims. What’s different about that case than all the others?”

  “There were two victims,” Lou said.

  “And no bodies,” John added.

  “Exactly. That’s the part that I’m focusing on. No bodies. With every other kill that first year, he left the bodies out in the open, ready to be found. Seven years later, with the second series, he’d developed remorse of some type, either from a marriage or a relationship, or maybe even the end of his leader, since Brother Moses left in ’88 and some presumed him dead. In any case, with that second series, he started leaving the bodies almost ceremoniously atop their own beds and within their own homes.”

  Ryan Sims leaned forward in his seat and glared at Angel. He’d grown weary of the profiler and her assessments, and even though he didn’t voice his displeasure, he didn’t try to hide it, either. “So what are you saying?”

  “I think he semi-planned his first kill. He picked the date, based on his religious numerology preferences, and he knew his victim, Hannah. I don’t know that he meant to kill Logan Finley at that time, but perhaps they were together on the specified date, and he had to kill him in order to kill Hannah as well. But in either case, I believe at that time, he hadn’t yet decided this would be a recurring act.”

  “He didn’t realize he would kill more people?” Lexie asked.

  Angel nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. And I don’t know what changed after that point, but I’d venture to say it had something to do with a twisted interpretation of the rules and regulations of the Fellowship, with their take on children equaling power and those expecting a child out of wedlock gaining that power illegally.”

  “Unbestowed,” John corrected. “That’s what we called it. Having a child out of wedlock gained power that hadn’t been bestowed on that person. You weren’t allowed to have a child without the bond of marriage, and those that did were excommunicated from the congregation. Right, Zed?”

  “That’s right.”

  Angel perked up at that, pointed a finger in the air, and continued, “Which fits. He dealt the punishment to the girl who’d committed the crime, and perhaps he dealt it to her boyfriend as well, but at that time, he didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done. Maybe he hadn’t decided if the act could be justified yet, and then after thinking about it, he convinced himself that it was not only justified, but required.”

  Throughout the course of the case, Lexie had watched Angel work, but she’d never seen the inner reasonings of her cousin’s mind in progress, not the way she did right now. Listening to Angel’s thought process and watching the way she put it all together, the entire room absorbed her analysis of a killer’s psyche, with her description flowing as if she were discussing the weather.

  “All right,” Pierce said, “I can see where you might be onto something here, but what are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting that when he killed the first time, he not only wanted retribution for Hannah Sharp; he also wanted to cover up his crime. Literally.”

  “You think he buried her,” John said. “He didn’t want anyone to know what he did, so he buried her.”

  “I do.” Angel seemed impressed that he followed her perception. “And because he is such a perfectionist, I don’t believe he’d have buried her anywhere. I think he put her body somewhere symbolic of the crime she committed, a place that would remind him of what she’d done when he returned to the body dump site.” She paused, took a moment to scan everyone in the room. “And he does return to that original site. Every killer does. I’d venture to say he’s been there a few times this year, when his newest series started.”

  “Why?” Lexie asked.

  “To remind him how and why it all began.”

  “Where do you think he buried her?” Lou Marker’s accusing glare changed to a look of acute interest.

  “I believe he’d want to put her close to the Fellowship, somewhere that would emphasize the rules she’d broken.” She looked at Zed. “You said the Fellowship met outdoors, in the woods, right?”

  Zed nodded. “Outside of town, with a narrow access off one of the county roads.”

  “Probably not even utilized by people who weren’t in the group, right? At least at that time?”

  “Right. You think that’s where her body is?”

  “Don’t you?”

  The older man’s eyes widened, his face searched out the former members of their group. Lou, Ryan and John. “What if she’s there? Back then, everyone refused to mention that she’d gone, refused to acknowledge she’d ever existed, because of her family and because of our rules. What if the girl had been murdered and buried right there where we gathered? What if the killer stood right above her and, knowing that, somehow found satisfaction that the group had disowned her? And no one even looked for her.” He shook his head. “It ain’t right. No one even tried to find her.”

  “You think she’s there too, don’t you?” Angel looked as though she already knew the answer.

  Zed, his wrinkled face full of disgust, nodded.

  “If we find Hannah’s body, and Logan’s too, assuming he buried them near each other, then we’ll upset his pattern. He undoubtedly returns to Hannah to remind him of his purpose. If we remove that ability, we’ll remove his original point of contact with his crime.” Angel turned to Zed. “All of you who were former members still remember where the group met back then?”

  Still dazed, Zed nodded, while Lou answered, “Yeah, we remember.”

  “Then let’s get on it.” Pierce sounded eager to make headway in the case and to have an impact in the killer’s plan. “Give us the directions and let’s get the crime scene van out there. If he did bury Hannah Sharp and Logan Finley at that place, we should be able to find them.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lexie spent the majority of her time at WGXA in the evening, after her interview with a victim’s family had aired, constructing the questions for the next day’s broadcast. When the remainder of the task force headed to the Fellowship’s former meeting location, she had John drop her off at her office to prepare for the first of tomorrow’s two interviews.

  She’d been informed that the excavation of the bodies, if they were indeed buried at that location, could take several hours or even days, and she hadn’t wanted her segments for tomorrow’s news missing in action while she watched and waited for something that might not turn up.

  But deep down, Lexie knew Angel had the right idea, and she expected to hear that Hannah Sharp had been buried on what was once considered sacred ground by the fanatical group.

  It still amazed her that John, Lou, Ryan, Zed and Paul had all been so obsessed with the cult-like assemblage. And, from what John had told her, so had a large portion of the town. Even now that the group had been disbanded for over twenty years, the Fellowship still dominated Macon’s gossip frenzy.

  Everywhere Lexie went, people asked if she’d heard any additional names that had surfaced regarding the group. She wasn’t sure whether they were trying to find out who had been involved, or whether they were hoping their own affiliation hadn’t been unearthed. Either way, she told them the truth. If she learned anything, they’d hear about it on the news. She had hoped the profound interest in the Fellowship’s relationship with the killer would remain outside of her office. With Melody Harper in the next cubicle, however, that wasn’t a possibility.

  “Lexie, you got a minute?” Melody popped her head around the wall at knee-level, still sitting in her chair while she asked. Her gray bun drooped from the top of her sideways head and her granny glasses dangled from a beaded strap around her neck.

  Lexie gave the lady a smile that she assumed
the woman needed. “I finished updating the information from the profiler and sent it to Paul for approval. And since I’ve got to wait a while before I’ll be able to do my interview, I’ve got a minute.”

  Melody’s eyes looked tiny without her glasses, and she squinted a bit as she rolled her chair across the floor to fill the opening to Lexie’s cubicle. “You’ve got to interview John Tucker about his wife, don’t you?”

  Lexie nodded. “She’s the next victim to be featured.”

  “That’ll be tough, don’t you think? Since the two of you have been seeing each other and all.”

  “It’s tough with any victim’s family. They’ve all lost someone they love, and it hurts to hear about their pain. But I still think it’s the best way of getting our readers to relate to the victims and to care whether or not we get this guy before he kills someone else. Plus, it lets them know what to watch for.”

  Melody bobbed her head, her gray bun threatening to topple. “I know. I found Delia crying her eyes out last night over that lady’s story. Of course, Delia’s getting close to her due date, so those hormones are messing with her emotions. About to drive my boy over the edge, not knowing how to help her when he calls to check in. She went ahead and moved in with me, by the way. I know she doesn’t fit what the guy’s looking for, since she’s married and all, but since Kevin is gone so much, we were afraid the killer might not catch on that she’s got a husband.”

  “This killer would know, but the police are hoping to stop him before he strikes again, anyway.” Lexie prayed they did, since she had no doubt Angel would be his number one target if they didn’t.

  “I hope they do. So, have you heard anything? The talk radio station announced the police had a lead on where the first body is buried. Is that true?”

  “I’ve got it in the copy I sent to Paul for tonight’s broadcast, but yeah, that’s true.”