“I think.” He let out a huff. The creases on his forehead and between his brows grew deeper by the second. “I think I don’t like this. At all.”
Sarah scooted away from the built-in bookshelf she leaned against and moved closer to the desk. “It’s from him, isn’t it?” She eased up to Isaac. The side of her arm touched his as a subconscious fear leeched into her heart.
“Well …” Charlie continued to ponder the evidence. “Maybe. There’s no return address, like the last one. The handwriting is definitely not a child’s.” He squinted. “And it looks similar, if not identical to the first letter, but without having them side by side, I can’t say for sure.”
“So what now?” Isaac rocked back on his heels.
Charlie stood up straight and made eye contact. “The usual. Investigate. I take this down to the station, open it, and take a look. That’s the only way to know for sure.”
“Can you do it here?” Sarah asked.
“I suppose,” he said uncertainly. “It arrived in your mailbox, and that means you have a right to see it. But, if it is from him, are you sure you want to?”
“Dammit, Charlie.” Her expression was now stern. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me.” The fear that had previously been in her voice vanished. “I’ve already read one letter and seen the picture with it. This can’t be any worse.” She lowered her voice so Josie couldn’t hear from the kitchen. “If it’s idle threats, then so be it. But if it’s not—if it has anything to do with when he might come back—then I have to know. This shithead’s pushed me way beyond niceties.” She jabbed at the letter with her pointer finger. “Let’s get on with it.”
Charlie relinquished with a slightly shocked, slightly somber expression. Sarah’s directness was new to him, different from her usual mild way. He didn’t know if it had always been a part of her personality, the current circumstances revealing a dormant persona, or if she was hardening in a way that she never previously had need of. Whichever, he couldn’t blame her. “Okay, then.”
From a bag of forensics and evidence collection supplies, he put on a pair of latex gloves and draped a thin piece of painter’s tarp over the desk. He set the envelope in the middle and, holding it down gently with one hand, slipped a scalpel under the flap. The sound of metal slicing through paper scraped against the anxious silence in the little room.
Isaac wrapped his arm around Sarah and pulled her close.
After Charlie slit the paper across the top, he inserted his thumb and pointer finger, pinching the contents between them. A plain sheet of neutral stationary, twice folded, came out. He opened the folds and held the corners down.
Dear Josephine, This being my second letter, I hope it reaches your hands. My recent attention has been on Lindsay Watson in West Virginia. I noticed this little music prodigy and immediately wanted to see how special she really was. My time with her may have been brief, but what we missed out on in quantity, she more than made up for in enthusiasm. I, however, am amazed that miles and variety fail to curb my hunger, my hunger for you, the one who slipped away. I do hope you are adjusting well to life as it is. I think about you and Caroline every day. Until we meet again …
Thinking of you,
XOXO
P.S. Do you like red?
Isaac flared with anger. How anyone could want to hurt little kids, Josie, evaded comprehension. “I’m going to kill him,” he said flatly. He looked into Charlie’s eyes. “I’m going to hurt him, bad, and then I’m going to kill him.”
“Isaac?”
“You can say whatever you want, Charlie. But if it comes down to it, if I ever get lucky enough to be alone with him, I will kill him slowly. Some people on this earth need killing, and he’s one of them.”
Charlie didn’t look away. He locked eyes with his best friend, his childhood pal, and nodded his head. He knew there was no talking him out of it. And honestly, he couldn’t blame him. I hope you never have to.
“Before you kill anyone,” Sarah chimed, “shouldn’t we see what else is in the envelope?”
A month ago, she lived on the border of reason and hysterics. Now the reality that Josie remained a target for a demonic pedophile made her more centered in terms of behavior and logic. Caroline no longer needed their protection; Josie did.
Charlie refocused on the task at hand without comment. Reaching back inside, he pulled out two more items. They quickly passed around a Polaroid picture—held between a Kleenex—of Lindsay Watson. The image would have previously been just cause for nausea, but they had seen the like with Bailey Davis, and their faces remained emotionless.
No mother should ever see her child like this, Sarah thought.
The second item, a plastic baggie with something bloody inside, Charlie held up to the light and squinted his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to throw everything away and never look at any of it again, but his job was to detect information from the evidence at hand, no matter how unpleasant. Finally, he set it aside and wiped his brow with a handkerchief from his hip pocket. The meal in his stomach felt like it might crawl back up his esophagus and make a second appearance. He closed his eyes and inhaled.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
He picked up the Polaroid and laid it directly beside the baggie. “I think …” He looked back and forth, studying them closely. “I think it’s … her nipple.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I want to talk about this before I leave tonight,” Charlie started. He closed the lid on the forensics kit and hesitated. “Knowing more about this pervert probably won’t make life easier, but it will help both of you to better understand him.”
“Understand?” Isaac asked scathingly. “I think it’s pretty cut-and-dry, don’t you?”
“Not necessarily, no. I don’t think it’s cut-and-dry.” He hardened his face, arched his eyebrows, and looked serious. “I’m not talking about physical pleasure, the seemingly obvious motive. What I’m talking about is: Why does he really do what he does? What is the very basis for his behavior, the true core of why he is the way he is? Absolute motive?”
“Don’t give me that,” Isaac held up fingers in quotations, “he’s probably got Mommy or Daddy issues line of crap. It shouldn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter why. The fact is, he does. End of story!” He looked at Sarah for confirmation.
“I’m not saying that both of you don’t have the right to feel the way you do. But from an investigative point of view, it matters a great deal.”
Sarah paced to the corner and turned around. “Why? Why can’t the all-powerful FBI just catch him already?” Her frustration emanated, and she threw one hand in the air. “Why do we have to get to know him?”
“Because, in case you haven’t noticed, he implies he will come back for Josie. If he does, don’t you want to know as much about him as possible?”
Neither answered. They knew Charlie was right. To know their enemy better could turn out to be the only means of protecting Josie.
“He wants us to know who he is, guys,” Charlie continued. “Not personally, but with his identity as a child predator. Otherwise, there is no reason on this earth that he would send letters to someone he wants. He’s waving a flag saying, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’”
“All right then.” Isaac shifted his weight to one foot. “What about postmarks? Where is he?”
Charlie shook his head. “The first was from Nebraska, and this one is from Ohio. He’s mailing them on the road. However, I think he lives somewhere in the western half of the country.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Both letters were processed by the Postal Service west of where he made the previous abductions. If he’s mailing them on the drive home, then he lives west of Hiawatha, Kansas.”
Sarah wanted clarification. “So just west?”
“That’s right. Just west. Without a name or state where the vehicle is registered, that’s all we’ve got.”
She paced four more steps to the opposite cor
ner and turned again. “Back to the motive. Isaac told me the FBI is working on a profile. What do you think he’s after?”
Charlie rubbed a hand over his shiny head, a nervous tick when thinking. “In the past three abductions—this is beyond the physical resemblance of the girls—there is a recurring thread. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I don’t think so.”
Sarah stood akimbo. “And?”
“Within one month prior to every kidnapping, each of the girls, Josie and Caroline included, have been recognized for an outstanding quality or action.”
Realization popped into Isaac’s head. “You mean catching Jason with the tablecloth when he jumped off the roof?”
Charlie nodded once. “And Bailey Davis from Kansas. She raised over two thousand dollars for a local food drive with a lemonade stand.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine? Two thousand dollars with lemonade? The local paper covered her, and so did a Kansas City paper.” Charlie zipped his bag and let it rest on the desk. “Lindsay Watson has also made the papers recently.”
“What did she do?” Isaac asked with new interest.
“Lindsay plays,” he stopped short. “Lindsay played the violin. She was scheduled to make a guest appearance with the New York Symphony Orchestra. Once a year, a select group of musically gifted kids is chosen. The Times printed an article about her a couple weeks before she disappeared.”
Sarah’s hands were over her mouth. Shock was in her eyes. Before all of this, she didn’t have her mind wrapped around the idea that the killer’s motives went beyond the physical weakness of lust. Now that changed. “You’re saying he only goes after kids who have done something special?”
As soon as she said the word, a sentence from the letter flashed in her memory. I noticed this little music prodigy and immediately wanted to see how special she really was.
Again, Charlie’s hand passed over his chubby, balding head. “I’m not saying that as an absolute,” he clarified. “Only, as I see it, there is a high probability that public recognition is part of his selection process.”
Sarah’s eyes began to tear, and she sat down on the couch. Bad things were not supposed to happen to good people, especially kids. But all over the world, they do. The fact that the good deeds themselves—good deeds that her little girls did—were the cause for all this hurt and chaos felt unbearable. When Josie is old enough and we tell her that a man tried to take her and Caroline to do bad things with them, how will I explain it was because they saved Jason’s life? I can’t tell her to stop doing good for others. I won’t.
“If that is why he chooses them, why mention it?” Isaac wanted to know. It didn’t make sense to him. Maybe it takes one to know one.
Charlie pulled up his utility belt and put the other hand to his mouth. He put one finger across his upper lip like a mustache. “I want to clarify that all of this is unofficial and just my opinion. The Bureau may have a similar one, but if they do, they haven’t shared it with me. I think our man is trying to level the playing field. For himself, I mean. Maybe he has a particular taste, like some men prefer blondes to brunettes. If that’s the case though, why not simply go after the most convenient, pretty blonde girl he can find? Why drive halfway across the country to take someone who looks like the girl next door? Why New Mexico? Why Kansas? Why West Virginia? I think destination is coincidence and selection is calculated.”
“Do people really do that?” Sarah asked, incredulous.
“Sure. Everybody wants something out of life. Just because you want nice, common things for yourself doesn’t mean everyone else does. This guy wants little girls, particular ones. Why? I don’t know. But I’d bet my life that it has something to do with the way it makes him feel on the inside, not the outside. It could be a misgiving from childhood, and these girls’ accomplishments help him feel more important. The old saying, “You’re known by the company you keep,” applies to criminals more often than most care to know. Maybe he feels like he’s never amounted to much and fulfills that desire by feeding off the achievements of others. Sure, it’s a sick way of doing it, but it is possible. He picks rare victims and then gets off by rubbing it in everyone’s faces. It’s a roundabout way of making oneself feel important, but if he were like the rest of us—”
“What could possibly be in his past to justify his actions?” Sarah shook her head. “Even to himself?”
“Who knows? Maybe something terrible, perhaps a traumatic event or traumatic several years made him this way. Most of us experience times in our lives we wish differently. In odd ways, we even try to return there and fix it. And since we never can go back in time, we spend our future trying to balance the scales.” He shrugged. “And maybe nothing at all happened to make him this way. Lots of people do bad things because, simply, it makes them feel good. Whatever it is, though, all people—I don’t care who they are, where they’re from, or how they go about it—have the same desire.”
Charlie looked them in the eye and paused to make sure they digested this little piece of clairvoyant gold. “We all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. We all want validation.”
After a silent moment of contemplation, Isaac asked, “In every letter he asks, ‘Do you like red?’ What does that mean?”
Charlie let out a long sigh. “No idea.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The abode sat beneath towering fir trees, tucked a hundred yards off a remote, forest road. Ricky’s fifteen-hundred-square-foot log home was his pride and joy. It took him a year of hard searching to find the secluded gem outside the suburbs of Denver. The wait, however, was little consequence to the reward of total privacy. A national forest bordered his two-acre spread on three sides.
The allure of Rocky Mountain weather was his original attraction to Colorado, as it is to thousands of college graduates looking to make their way in life. A sales job for a big-box electronics retailer came easy enough, and he went to work. There was definitely something special about life in the mountains. Something fresh, new, and invigorating. But before long, he grew bored with the daily grind. Answering to a boss, day in and day out, put a damper on extracurricular activity. He needed out.
A skilled hand with electronics could easily find work on a private, per job basis. He started soliciting home stereo, surround sound, movie room installations, computer, and car stereo jobs to customers at a fraction of the price the store charged. As a store employee, he also had the benefit of purchasing discounted equipment and selling to customers for a markup, a win-win for everyone. The customer saved, and he made money. In a few months, Ricky had enough business through word of mouth to quit the day job. He lived frugally, controlled his work schedule, and finally had time to pursue other more exciting interests.
Now, several years later and in the middle of the most intense summer of his life, Ricky still wanted more. If he couldn’t have Josie, another had to take her place. Someone pretty. Someone special.
Of course, Josie remained the ultimate goal, and he couldn’t stop himself from sending the letters to inform the most important person in his life what he was up to. But even the quest for her would eventually come to an end like so many before. At this moment in the infinite span of time, though, she was his huckleberry, his luscious little peach, ripe for the taking. He wanted her more than he knew how to handle. The buildup felt like nothing else before, not since the first time he actually placed his hands on live, warm flesh. If he sat still and concentrated on the memory in enough detail, sensations of her fresh-out-of-the-sun skin stimulated the corpuscles of his hungry fingers once again. Her sun-bleached hair tickled the bottom of his nostrils. The taste of salty hair from the seawater lingered on his lips. He thought of the clamminess of her damp skin beneath the elastic fabric of her swimsuit as he greedily searched her body with his spindly paws.
* * *
He found her at the local beach on a memorably hot day, not far from where the homeless man used to buy the dirty magazines for him. Over time, pictures and even video lost thei
r luster. The monotony of watching slowly festered into a rancid poison in his mind and bred the desire for a new corruption, touch.
The target-rich environment of a local snow cone stand made an ideal place to stalk his prey. And after all these years, he could see the girl like it was yesterday. She had her hands wrapped around a white, Styrofoam cup, a towering dome of blue coconut shaved ice on top.
From twenty yards away, he ran his eyes over every inch of her elementary body. Another girl, a few years older, approached and stood with the younger one amongst a scattered floor of picnic tables. He instantly knew the newcomer was his target’s older sister.
“Olivia, I’m walking back to the house,” she said. “Are you ready to go?”
Olivia, he mused with satisfaction. A name made it much more personal.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Olivia replied without looking away from her treat. She took a bite off the top of her monstrous snow cone. “It’s too big to walk right now.”
The older sister let out a huff and put a hand on her hip. “Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “Just don’t take long. I’m not supposed to leave you.”
Little Olivia nodded her eight—to nine-year-old head. Her lips were already stained blue. The older one walked away.
Five minutes later, the snow cone chewed down to a manageable mass, Olivia went in the same direction as her sister. She walked, only paying attention to her rapidly melting ice. Ricky followed at a distance until he discovered her destination, a row of bungalows along the beach about a quarter-mile up a deserted sidewalk. The houses were popular with families who spent summer vacations on the beach.
As he followed along the palm tree-shaded path, halfway between him and the houses, a landscaped bed of overgrown bushes and shrubs caught his attention. The sidewalk passed directly beside it. And in the middle of the blistering afternoon heat, not a soul was in sight. Everyone around was either in the water, laying out, or relaxing in an air-conditioned space.
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