“The FBI is having a sketch artist update the photo.”
“Let’s get it, then, so that we can get it out right away, send it to all the local stations. If he was here in the area, someone would have seen him. If we move now, we should be able to get a sketch on the early news. We’ll show it on all the subsequent broadcasts until we find him.”
“Find him quickly, Detective Crosby,” Annie said softly, thinking of Mara.
“First things first. That means convincing Chief Donner that we still have a killer on the loose. And after we’ve tackled that formidable task, we’re going to take a drive, the three of us. . . .”
“I can’t help it, Giordano, I keep coming back to you. We all keep coming back to you.”
Evan Crosby loosened his tie and scratched behind one ear. Across the ugly table with the marred Formica top, Vince Giordano smirked even as he ogled the two women who had accompanied the detective on his trip to the county prison.
“When you’re bringing along the eye candy, you can come back as often as you like.” The prisoner winked at Miranda Cahill.
“You’re not my type, Vinnie.” She rested both arms on the table and stared into his face with as little emotion as she could muster. “May I call you Vinnie?”
“You can call me anything you want, doll-face. You could start with ‘lover’—”
“Vinnie, there’s just something about men who kill kids. . . . I don’t know, it’s just a real turn-off for me.”
“I’m gonna be released, you wait and see,” he told her, even as the red flush spread from his neck to his face. “My lawyer called this morning. He’s petitioned the court for an emergency hearing because I been in here so long on a bad conviction. Could be as soon as tomorrow, day after. Thirty-six hours from now, I could be a free man.”
“And that would mean that you didn’t pull the trigger?” She continued to stare at him. “Sorry.” She lowered her voice. “You have sleaze written all over you.”
“Maybe I’ll come see you when I get out, Miss Mouth. Maybe we’ll find out we have a lot in common.”
“Actually, we do have something in common. Thanks for reminding me.” She turned to Crosby. “You have that sketch?”
The detective opened his briefcase and passed the file to her.
“This man.” She held up the picture of Channing. “I believe we’ve both made his acquaintance.”
“Never saw him before.” Giordano’s smirk was back.
“Oh, come on, Vinnie, take another look.” Miranda moved the drawing closer. “Now, when I met him, he called himself Curt Gibbons. Did he use that name when you met him, or did he use Curt Channing?”
“I told you, I never saw him before.”
“You buying that, Detective Crosby? You think Vinnie sounds sincere?”
“Nah. Now, here’s what we have, Vince.” Crosby took over. “We have a really odd set of coincidences. We have three women named Mary Douglas dead, all three murdered by the same person. Why? There’s nothing to connect them except their names. Then we find your ex-mother-in-law dead, a bullet between the eyes. And then, on top of that, we find Judge Styler—the judge who officiated at your custody hearing, the same judge who denied you visitation with your sons—murdered. In exactly the same way that the Mary Douglases were killed.”
“Hey, I heard about Styler. A tragedy,” Giordano deadpanned. “I don’t see what all this has to do with me. I never knew any of those women, those Mary Douglas women.”
“Ah, but you knew Mara Douglas. Mara,” Crosby emphasized. “The child advocate who recommended to Judge Styler that you not be permitted to see your sons because you couldn’t have a conversation with either one of them without beating the crap out of him.”
The corners of Giordano’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing.
“We figure that Channing misunderstood you. That he thought you said Mary instead of Mara, and didn’t do his homework before he did the deed.”
“We talked about this before, Crosby. I told you I’ve had no contact with anyone except my lawyer. I’ve had no mail, no phone calls, no visitors except you and your buddy Sullivan. So when would I have met this guy, this Channing?” Giordano smiled slyly. “And where? I’ve been locked up since the day after that hearing, and I haven’t been out of here except to go to court.”
Crosby stared at the inmate. Those were the very questions he’d been asking himself.
“And supposing I did meet this guy and asked him to do these terrible things you’re accusing me of. What incentive do I have to offer? I can’t pay him—my lawyer owns every dime I’ll make for the next forty fucking years. What could I possibly do to make someone—a complete stranger—want to kill three people for me?” Giordano sat back in his seat, the irons clanging softly. “Tell me that, Detective Crosby. Why would this man be willing to kill for me, even assuming that I wanted him to?”
“I don’t know.” Crosby shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s the missing piece of the puzzle.”
“That’s a pretty big piece, wouldn’t you say?” Giordano turned his attention to the two women who sat on the opposite side of the table. “You don’t have much to say, do you, blondie?”
“My job is just to observe,” Anne Marie said coolly. Blondie clearly rankled.
“Observe what?”
“You.”
“You came here just to watch me?” He snickered. “Baby, you come see me when I get out, I’ll give you something to look at.”
When she didn’t so much as blink, he said, “Well, it’s nice to see that the Lyndon Police Department finally hired some good-looking cops. I’m tired of looking at your ugly face all the time, Crosby.”
“We’re not Lyndon PD,” Miranda told him.
“Oh? Then what are you?”
“FBI.”
“Oh, hey, this must be something really special, the FBI is in town.” He made a silly face. “You an agent, gorgeous? What’s your name?”
“Agent Miranda Cahill.”
“Cahill.” He repeated the name softly to himself once, then again. “Cahill . . .” He studied her face. “We meet before?”
“No.”
“No. Guess not. I’d remember you, all right. I’d remember your face. I’d remember your body. . . .”
“Okay, that’s it for today.” Crosby pushed back from the table and signaled for the guard. “Guess there’s no point in me saying, ‘So when you’re ready to talk about Curtis Channing, give me a call,’ huh?”
Giordano laughed in his face. “Never heard of him till today.”
The guard stepped in to lead Giordano back to his cell. The prisoner stopped and turned to look at Miranda one more time, stared at her for a long minute before turning away and shuffling from the room.
“Well, that was enlightening,” Miranda said as they walked from the prison into the parking lot.
“Actually, it was,” Annie told her. “He was clearly lying through his teeth.”
“I agree. But how do we prove that? And how do we connect Giordano to Channing?”
“Find Channing,” Crosby said simply.
“That’s your job, Detective,” Annie replied as she got into the police car. “Do it before the son of a bitch finds my sister, will you?”
“And before Giordano gets out of here,” Miranda added, looking back at the gray stone building.
“Unfortunately, I have no control over that,” Crosby told her. “The state won’t deny his appeal because we think he has a connection to Channing. Who has not yet been confirmed as the murderer, Agent Cahill.”
“Then we’re going to have to connect the dots quickly, Detective. The good news is that we will then be able to kill two birds with one stone. We’ll have Channing, and we’ll have Giordano.”
“Sure. No problem,” he muttered as he got behind the wheel. “All we have to do is figure out where those two intersect. Giordano and Channing. Once we find someone who can actually place Channing in Lyndon, then maybe we can f
igure out what he did while he was here. Where he went, what he did. Besides kill five women, that is . . .”
Alone in his cell, Giordano was still smiling. The temptation had been so great. He’d had to bite his tongue to keep from asking, “So, Detective Crosby, how’s your little sister doin’ these days?”
But he wasn’t stupid. And asking about Crosby’s sister, when he was so close to the game, would be just too stupid for words. There’d be time enough, once he got out of here. . . .
He turned his attention to the matter that had been puzzling him all afternoon: Why did the name Miranda Cahill ring so loud a bell?
It came to him later that night as he lay awake on his cot.
Channing. He’d named his three for Archer, and Giordano had committed them to memory along with the names he’d been given by Archer Lowell.
Channing had named his old lady’s boyfriend, Albert Unger.
That writer, Joshua Manning, who’d done some books about serial killers.
And an FBI agent named Miranda Cahill.
Well, he could certainly see why she’d be memorable, and he could think of plenty of things he’d love to do to her, but killing her would be the least of them.
Though there was some appeal, he conceded, to have her on her knees, begging for his mercy. . . .
But that little number would fall to Archer.
Damn, didn’t that boy have the luck?
Damn if he didn’t . . .
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
“ARE YOU SURE I CAN’T DO SOME OF THE DRIVING?” Mara asked as she threw her bag into the cargo area of the Explorer. “I really don’t mind.”
“Positive.” Aidan threw his duffel in next to hers and slammed the door. “Come on, Spike. Time’s up.”
The dog took one last sniff of the shrub he’d been investigating before taking the long way to the car.
Aidan turned the key in the ignition, then waved a last good-bye to Chief Tanner, who stood on the end of his deck, arms folded across his chest, watching his guests depart. Aidan and Mara had stopped by late on the previous afternoon to bring Tanner up to date, as they’d promised. They’d also come armed with a couple of steaks and a bottle of wine and a proposal to test out that new grill on the chief’s deck. In return, the chief had offered another night’s lodging, which they’d gratefully accepted.
“Are you sure we can’t stop in Lyndon just for a minute?” she asked as they drove back toward town.
“Was there something you needed?”
“The weather’s turned warm again. I could use some lighter clothes.”
“I think you’re just going to have to make do with what you brought. I don’t think we should push our luck. Channing’s proven himself to be a pretty canny fellow, and we have no idea where he is right now.”
“I guess. Maybe Annie left some things at the cabin.”
“How long has it been since you’ve been to this place, anyway?”
“Oh, maybe two years.” She frowned, trying to remember exactly how long. “It was really—”
She stopped in midsentence, remembering, then shot him a guilty glance out of the corner of her eye.
“It was really what?”
“It was really Annie’s place. Hers and Dylan’s. It’s where they used to go to get away.”
“He’d mentioned that.”
“Does that change . . . well, your wanting to go there?”
“You mean, do I not want to go because Dylan used to visit there?” Aidan eased the Explorer onto the highway. She could not read his face. “Now, that would be silly, wouldn’t it?”
“Aidan, he didn’t just visit there. They more or less lived there those last six or seven months.”
“That’s nice, that he and Annie had that time together.”
“That’s why I haven’t been there in a while. It just was, well . . . their place. It didn’t feel like mine anymore.” She quickly added, “But that was okay with me. I didn’t like to be away from home much these past few years.”
“Were you afraid she’d come back and you wouldn’t be there?” No need to explain who she was.
“No. I was afraid she’d call in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t be there to answer.” She looked out the window. “Do you think that’s stupid?”
“Not at all. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope that your daughter would try to contact you at some time.” He stole a glance in her direction, choosing his words carefully. “Although, you know, there’s a good chance that might not happen until she’s older. . . .”
“What do you mean? Why would you say that?” She frowned.
“You don’t know what your ex has told her. He might very well have told her that you died and that’s why you’re not with them.” There was really no way to soften the words.
Mara rested her head against the back of the seat and stared straight ahead.
“Well, that would explain it, wouldn’t it? Why all these years, she’s made no attempt to get in touch with me. None that I know of, anyway,” she said thoughtfully. “Early on, after it first happened—oh, maybe four or five months after—Annie had suggested that very thing and I totally freaked out on her. Back then, I really believed that my daughter would know that I was alive, would know that I was waiting for her right there at home.”
“And now?”
“And now I don’t know what to believe.” She chewed on the end of a finger and watched the scenery go by in a blur.
They rode in silence for several miles.
“When I think of Julianne, I think of her as a small child. In my mind, I still see her as a five-year-old, even though I know she isn’t a little girl anymore,” she said, her voice tired and confessional. “I don’t even know what she looks like, Aidan.”
He reached out and took her hand in his and let her hold on.
“My daughter’s almost a teenager, and I don’t know what she looks like. What music she listens to. What kind of clothes she wears or what books she reads. Is she athletic? Did she go to dancing school? Did she dye her hair purple and get her nose pierced?” Mara shook her head slowly, pain etched into every line in her face. “I don’t know anything about her. I don’t know who she is. She’s the most precious thing in the world to me, but I don’t even know her.”
Aidan wished he could think of something clever to say, but there were no words that could soothe or comfort. So he merely continued to hold her hand to offer that small bit of human contact as consolation. It was inadequate, he knew, but at that moment, it was all he had to give her.
Mara closed her eyes, fighting back the sting. She hated that this gloom hung over her, followed her everywhere she went, and as much as she wanted her child back, she wished that she could shake some of that ache, once in a while, and have a day not colored by loss. She knew there was beauty and joy in the world, and more and more she found herself longing for a glimpse of it.
She opened her eyes and turned her head to watch Aidan as he flicked on the radio and began to search for a station. The only good reception seemed to be of country music.
“Is this all right with you?” he asked her, breaking the silence. “Can you handle a little country?”
“Sure.”
“Ah, this is classic stuff. Patsy Cline. My mom was a big Patsy Cline fan. I used to know the words to all of her songs.” He turned up the volume and began singing along, delivering his own somewhat off-key version of “I Fall to Pieces.”
Four hours later, they stopped for lunch outside Harrisburg. On the final leg of the journey, as they sped along on Route 78, Mara happened to glance out the window as they passed a sign that announced the exit for Hamburg was right ahead.
“Hamburg!” she exclaimed. “I remember Hamburg!”
“One of your old haunts?” Aidan laughed. She’d been so quiet for most of the drive, and her outburst had been so unexpected.
“My mother used to take Annie and me there.” She craned her neck to look out a
t the southeast stretch of Allegheny Mountains known as the Kittatinny ridge. “There’s a place out there, out beyond the town. It’s called Hawk Mountain. Mom used to pack Annie and me up and drag us there to watch the raptor migrations in the fall.”
“How far from here, do you remember?”
“No, I was too little. I just remember the name of the town because it made me think of hamburgers, which were, back then, one of my favorite foods.”
He pulled smoothly into the exit lane, his turn signal blinking away.
“What are you doing? Are you getting off here?”
“I am.” He checked the rearview mirror.
“Why?”
“Anything that can cause your face to light up like that must be pretty special. It can’t be all that far. It’s worth a look. And it’s not like we’re punching a clock. We have plenty of time.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, remembering. “You know, back then, people used to come from everywhere to sit on the rocks and watch the hawks and the eagles and the falcons. I used to complain and whine and grumble because she made us go, but I look back on those times now and just cherish that I had that part of her, that she shared so much of herself with us.”
“Well, let’s see if it’s all as you remembered it.”
“I’m sure it’s changed a lot. I read in the paper not long ago that there are new lookouts up there, new parking lots, and that they now attract thousands of visitors every year. When I was little, there’d only be a handful of watchers up there with us.”
“Guess bird-watching’s big out here,” Aidan noted, looking out at the mountains to their left.
“Well, it was set up as a sanctuary. I think it might have been the first one in this country. Years ago, hunters used to go there to shoot the hawks and the eagles when they migrated through every fall. They’d slaughter them by the thousands for sport. Then, about forty years ago, when it became apparent that the populations were way down—some species all but extinct—the sanctuary was established. It was my mother’s favorite place. We saw some awesome sights up there, the three of us.”
“It’s nice that you have such good memories of her.”
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