The Last Victim

by Karen Robards

  Bartoli nodded. “Tell Haney I said thanks, and we’ll do our best.” He pocketed what appeared to be a small DVD.

  Price nodded, and turned to head back the way he’d come.

  Bartoli looked after him for a minute, then glanced at Charlie. She was suddenly way too aware of her hands on his waist and his arm around her shoulders. Beneath the smooth cotton of his shirt, his waist felt firm and trim, and his arm felt warm and solid and protective curved around her shoulders. He smelled nice, too—maybe some kind of detergent or fabric softener in his clothes, she thought.

  And we’re this close because I almost bit the ground. Again. The realization took the this-almost-could’ve-been-romantic overtones out of the situation.

  “Okay, I admit it: I’m a terrible klutz,” she said with a sigh, and stepped away from him.

  He let her go. “That’s not what I was thinking about,” he protested, and grinned. The grin was a dead giveaway.

  “You don’t have to be polite about it.” Charlie started walking. Bartoli fell in beside her. “I’ve been falling all over myself since we met.”

  “If you knew me better, Dr. Stone, you’d know polite isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

  Charlie looked up at him. He wasn’t quite as tall as Garland—not that I’m thinking about Garland—or quite as muscular, or quite as handsome—or comparing him to Garland in any way. It was just that Garland was the last man (?) she had stood this close to. But Bartoli was plenty tall and muscular and handsome in his own right, and a dependable, steady man of good character besides.

  “Probably it’s time you started calling me Charlie.”

  The slow smile he gave her told her he liked that. No, it told her he liked her. Which was great, because she liked him, too.

  “Charlie,” he said. “But only if you call me Tony.”

  “Tony,” she repeated, and smiled back at him. This was progress. Plus, they had a date to go running together in the morning, which was something, too. Then, a little worried that she might be moving too fast, or heading in a direction she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she wanted to take, she glanced away and added in her best professional tone, “I wouldn’t have picked Detective Haney as the type to hand over potential evidence his department found to the FBI. He strikes me as being more territorial than that.”

  Bartoli—no, Tony now—seemed content to follow her lead. “Yeah, but he’s got a problem: the media around here are going to crucify him if we don’t catch this guy fast. He’s the local detective in charge of the case. He’s the one who’ll take the heat if Bayley Evans …”

  With a glance at her, he trailed off. But she knew what it was he wasn’t saying: if Bayley Evans dies. And with that thought, any lingering hint of prospective romance in the air vanished. The night suddenly became a whole lot colder and darker and every bit of pleasure she’d taken in the deepening of her connection to Bartoli—Tony—was gone.

  He must have felt the weight of the case on him, too, because their conversation from then until he handed her over to Kaminsky, who was in the RV with Crane, stayed strictly professional.

  Seated at adjacent computers in the War Room, Crane and Kaminsky were exchanging verbal jabs about the significance of a drunk driving arrest in one of the background checks when Charlie and Tony, having made it almost unnoticed through the hustle and bustle still going on in the front part of Central Command, approached them.

  “By itself, not that significant,” Charlie advised, and Crane smiled triumphantly at her, while Kaminsky looked put out. Tony interrupted the budding discussion that threatened to follow with a quick description of the news report that had revealed Charlie’s true identity and to tell them about Haney’s disc, and then told Kaminsky to escort Charlie back to their lodging.

  “And stay put. It’s almost midnight. You’re done for the night,” he added sternly to Kaminsky.

  “You and Crane—” she protested.

  “Will be coming when we’re done here. Go do your job, Kaminsky.”

  Kaminsky sulked, especially when Tony pulled out the DVD Officer Price had given him and handed it to Crane, who inserted it into the computer.

  “Go,” Tony ordered over his shoulder when Kaminsky continued to show a disposition to linger.

  She did, taking Charlie with her, but it was obvious she wasn’t happy about it.

  “So your cover got blown, huh?” Kaminsky inquired as she marched Charlie into the house, up the stairs, and into the in-law suite like a cop with a prisoner.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll keep the bogeyman away.”

  Charlie waited as Kaminsky conducted a quick search of her rooms. She was dead tired, emotionally wrung out, and in profound need of Tums and aspirin. As a result, her patience was frayed, and Kaminsky’s semi-sarcastic tone hit her the wrong way.

  As Kaminsky returned to the living room, where Charlie stood by the door, Charlie snapped, “Is it me you have a problem with, or just psychiatry in general?”

  Kaminsky looked about as surprised as she might have if a cat had barked. Then her eyes narrowed. “The day you explain to me how you, through some kind of psychiatric mumbo-jumbo, can tell that an unsub has a red heart stamped on his hand is the day I’ll believe that psychiatry has a role to play in solving a case like this.”

  Kaminsky had her there. But not entirely. “Are you saying you think it’s a bad lead?”

  The other woman’s mouth thinned. “No. But …”

  “But nothing. I got this investigation a solid lead it wouldn’t otherwise have, and I’d appreciate it if you would respect that.” Charlie opened the door. The brightly lit hall beyond looked incongruously cheerful. “If you’re confident the bogeyman isn’t here, lying in wait for me, I’ll say good-night.”

  Kaminsky looked at her, seemed about to add something else, then didn’t, and walked out the door.

  “Good-night,” she said stiffly over her shoulder.

  Charlie closed and locked the door.

  After her own quick search of the apartment, in case Garland had shown up—he hadn’t—Charlie kicked off her shoes, found the Tums and aspirin, and washed both down with a glass of water. Exhausted but too wired to just immediately fall into bed, waiting for the aspirin to kick in and take the edge off her headache and the Tums to do its thing on her stomach, worried about Garland although she hated to admit it even to herself, she took a quick shower. In the process she discovered the heart stamp was pretty much impervious to soap and water and filed the information away as something to be mentioned later. Then she pulled on her nightie and robe, grabbed her laptop, and curled up in the big green recliner in the living room.

  Her avowed purpose was to do a quick check of her e-mail.

  She was not waiting for Garland, who might very well have crossed the Great Divide permanently and be gone for good. She did not feel like the parent of a teenager who’d missed his curfew. She was not even thinking about Garland.

  If he’s gone, good riddance.

  But still, after a cursory glance at her e-mail, she found herself opening Garland’s file, which she had downloaded to her personal laptop for convenience when she had first acquired him as a research subject at Wallens Ridge.

  You want to know what kind of interaction with my “father figure” I had when I was eleven years old? I’ll tell you: I shot the bastard dead.

  The savagery in Garland’s voice as he’d told her that echoed in her head.

  A history of violence as a youth: this mark of a serial killer was present in every single case she’d studied. It was textbook. Charlie had a hazy memory of glancing through a long list of qualifying offenses in Garland’s past. At the time, she hadn’t been paying that much attention. Garland had been just one more monster in a world surprisingly thick with them.

  However, now he was sort of her monster.

  So she paged impatiently through a file that, printed out, would be as thick as a brick, searching for his juvenile record. When
she found it, she saw the offense right off: subject, 11, murdered stepfather with victim’s shotgun.

  The entry was recorded in a social worker’s neat, sloping penmanship beside Admitting Offense on the form used to remand Garland to a Georgia state facility for juvenile offenders. He had stayed there until the age of fourteen, when he had run away.

  The body of the entry, a single handwritten paragraph in the space allowed on the form, said:

  Subject was adopted by Stan and Susan Garland as a three-year-old, after having been in foster care from the age of seven months. Stan Garland subsequently left the family and Susan Garland filed for divorce. Susan Garland married Barry Davies, the victim. This marriage took place when subject was seven. Police records indicate multiple domestic violence calls to house before the time of the offense. Susan Garland Davies states that the victim was “a crazy drunk” and would beat her and subject regularly. Susan Garland Davies and Barry Davies both have numerous documented instances of alcohol abuse. Susan Garland Davies states that on the night of the offense, victim had beaten her and subject and subsequently left the house. When he returned, subject shot victim with a 12-gauge shotgun victim kept for household protection. Susan Garland Davies expresses anger at subject for killing victim, and is in the process of giving up her parental rights. Susan Garland Davies states that subject is “a mean little shit” and she wants nothing further to do with him now that he has killed her husband.

  Charlie was surprised to find that she had a lump in her throat as she finished reading. She was even more surprised to realize that her sorrow wasn’t for the victim, but instead for the abused eleven-year-old boy whose mother described him as “a mean little shit” and deliberately gave up her rights to him. Probably, given what Charlie knew of the juvenile corrections system, just when he needed her the most.

  Suddenly her own mother, difficult as her alcoholism had been to deal with, seemed worthy of mother-of-the-year honors. At least Charlie had never doubted she was loved.

  Charlie was just clicking through to the next page in Garland’s file when there was an urgent knock on the door.

  “Dr. Stone.” It was Kaminsky.

  “I’m coming.” Kaminsky’s tone set off alarm bells in Charlie. Shoving the laptop onto the nearest table, she jumped up and hurried to answer the summons. Before she could reach the door, Charlie heard a key in the lock. Kaminsky had sounded like something was wrong, and now she was coming in without waiting for Charlie to admit her.

  Whatever it is can’t be good.…

  Charlie discovered that her heart was pounding even as Kaminsky, still fully dressed, down to her shoes, burst through the doorway. Their eyes met for a pregnant instant. Trouble, was what Charlie read in that look, and then Kaminsky glanced around wildly.

  “What?” Charlie registered Kaminsky’s drawn gun and surrendered to a full-blown case of the nervous jitters.

  “Did someone come in here?” The agent’s voice was sharp. Shutting the door, she looked around with more care. Then, shaking her head at Charlie in a gesture that warned her to stay where she was, she started moving carefully through the living room, two-handing her gun, glancing behind the furniture and into corners before eyeing the kitchen suspiciously.

  “No one’s here but me,” Charlie assured her.

  “I saw a man in the hall right outside your door. I had just come up from the kitchen and stepped inside my room, and I caught a glimpse of him behind me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t see where he went, but there wasn’t time for him to go anywhere else. I—I’m almost sure he came in here.” There was the tiniest degree of hesitation in that last sentence, which told Charlie that Kaminsky was growing less sure by the second.

  “You saw a man?” Charlie’s eyes narrowed as a possibility occurred to her, but it wasn’t anything she could share. “What did he look like?”

  Having checked out the kitchen, Kaminsky was doubling back to search the bedroom. “Tall. Blond. Built. Way hot.” Kaminsky cast a suspicious look at Charlie before she stuck her head inside the bathroom and glanced around. “Naked.”

  Charlie blinked. “Naked?”

  “Starkers.”

  Charlie saw a shimmer moving through the air near the bathroom. Keeping a wary eye on it, she called to Kaminsky, “Believe me, there’s no naked man in here.”

  Just as soon as she said it, the shimmer turned solid and, sure enough, there was a naked man in there. It was Garland, of course, in all his tanned and muscular splendor. He cast Charlie an unfriendly look and disappeared into the bathroom.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kaminsky emerged from the bedroom looking confused. She held her gun in one hand, which was down by her side. An admission, via body language, that she’d been mistaken.

  “There’s no one here.” She sounded like she hated having to say it. The look she shot Charlie was distrustful. Despite Kaminsky’s continual prickliness, Charlie almost felt sorry for her.

  “No,” Charlie agreed, doing her best to keep her face expressionless. What could she do? Telling the truth wasn’t an option.

  “I know what I saw.” Kaminsky looked at her hard.

  Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “If you snuck some guy up here for a sleepover—”

  “I didn’t,” Charlie interrupted indignantly, her moment of feeling sorry for Kaminsky over. “Do you see a guy?”

  “I did. I know I did.” Kaminsky grimaced and strode toward the door. “He must have gone somewhere else. Let me do a quick search of the house.”

  “Isn’t the alarm on?” Charlie asked, with the aim of saving the other woman some effort. In fact, she knew the security alarm was on, because she had watched Kaminsky reset it after they had entered.

  “Yes.” Kaminsky pulled open the door and walked out into the hall, where she glanced swiftly around. With one hand still on the knob, she looked back at Charlie. “Maybe he was already inside when we came in. Maybe … I don’t know. But I have to check.”

  “I don’t think—” Charlie began.

  “Lock this door. Stay put,” Kaminsky threw at her without waiting for Charlie to finish, and closed the door.

  Charlie stared at the closed door for a second, concluded that there was nothing else she could do to discourage Kaminsky from wasting her time, and locked it.

  Then she went in search of Garland.

  He was in the bathroom. Naked. With his back to her, swiping in obvious frustration at one of the white bath towels hanging on the rack. If he was hoping to connect, he was out of luck: his hand passed right through it.

  A quick, comprehensive glance was all it took to emblazon on Charlie’s memory forever the absolute eye candy of his broad shoulders, corded arms, powerful back, narrow hips, tight ass, and long, strong-looking legs. Muscles upon muscles rippled as he moved. His hair was wet, slicked back from his face, curling just a little on the ends. His tan looked golden in the bathroom’s bright light. Gorgeous wasn’t quite the right word—it was too feminine to do him justice—but it was the first one that sprang to Charlie’s mind.

  Dangerous was the second.

  “Why are you naked?” she whispered accusingly, mindful of Kaminsky out there searching the house.

  “Why do you think? I just felt like stripping off.” He sounded angry. He turned to glare at her. His right biceps sported a tattoo, she saw: a cobra in green and black. But she saw that only in passing, because she was too busy getting a load of his full-frontal glory: wide, smooth pecs and a pronounced six-pack and …

  Of course he would be totally hung.

  Charlie jerked her eyes elsewhere as her body reacted with a carnality that, until now, she would have said was absolutely foreign to her nature.

  What’s wrong with you? It’s not like he’s the first naked man you’ve ever seen, she scolded herself. Then, in an annoying, involuntary corollary, her internal dialogue concluded with, He’s just the best-looking.

  He stalked toward her
, all hard-bodied and lean-hipped and rampantly male where it counted. He was looking her over. Charlie was suddenly supremely conscious of the messiness of the tousled hair that ten minutes earlier she’d shaken out of her shower cap, run a brush through, and tucked behind her ears; her scrubbed-clean face; the white robe belted around her waist; her bare calves and feet. As if in self-defense against his approach, her hands gripped the ends of the terry cloth belt and tightened it around her waist.

  “You want to fuck?” His growled question as he stopped in front of her snapped her eyes into shocked collision with his.

  “What? No.” At least she didn’t stutter like a flustered high-schooler. But she had a terrible feeling her cheeks had turned pink. Because the hideous truth was, for just a split second there, maybe she did.

  His eyes were blue as a summer sky and hard as glass and as sexually charged as a lap dance.

  “Then quit looking at me like that.”

  Charlie didn’t know how she was looking at him—she didn’t want to know—but fortunately anger snapped her out of it.

  “How do you expect me to look at you when you show up here naked?” The fact that she was whispering took none of the indignation out of her tone. “And just to set the record straight, I don’t think you can fuck anymore, Casper.”

  The look he gave her crackled with ill temper.

  “Oh, yeah? Let’s find out.” Garland reached out to yank her into his arms. Charlie squeaked and jumped back and would have—well, she didn’t know what she would have done, because instead of grabbing her, his hands passed right through her. She felt the electric charge of the miss clear through to her bones. Glancing down at his empty hands, Garland first looked surprised, then mad.

  “See?” Feeling both smug and way safer than she had just seconds before, Charlie smiled at him. She couldn’t help it; there was a taunt in there somewhere.

  “Enjoying yourself, Doc?” The words were soft. Too soft. The purr in his voice and aggressive set to his jaw would have given her pause not so long ago. But now …