“Uh huh.”
Must be serious if she’s arranged replacements. Replacements? Plural?
“Caine is running a case? We’re going to leave Lee and Sam with two SWAT members and Delta B? While we go to Oregon?”
“Yeah,” she said with a killer smile. “Intrigued?”
“I am. When do we leave?”
“Two hours. Pack. Tell Rachel hi and I’m sorry. It’s work.” She shrugged.
“You can’t take Lee or Sam?” I had to ask. Going away with Conway would go down like a punctured lung in our house.
“Yeah sure. I can take either of them. If you want to stick with this case here.” Her smile shone from her eyes.
Accommodating.
We both knew I’d go.
“I’m not happy about you flying to the West Coast without medical supervision.”
Her eyebrows arched. “They have doctors over there I believe.”
“Smartass.”
“I’ll take Lee. I’ll be fine.”
Lee was an ex-army medic. She probably would be fine.
“I’ll pack and meet you at the office.” I paused. “What’s the case?”
She grinned. “Staties think they have a serial killer.”
“An epidemic of serial killings,” I murmured. Her grin became a smile and stayed, something was up. “What?”
“I think it’s related to our case.”
Fascinating.
* * *
“Will you take it slow once we touch down, please?” I asked as Conway gingerly moved in the plane seat. She looked sore. “Do you need pain relief?”
“Nope. I’m good. Just …” She paused and tried moving again. “… Uncomfortable.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing full well she wasn’t and she did need some pain relief. As much as I wanted to, sometimes, I couldn’t force medication on her.
Conway was stubborn, tough, beautiful, funny, intelligent, and contrary as all hell. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. She drove me crazy. End of story.
The long flight ended with a bumpy landing that shook me from my sleep.
“Jeez,” Conway exclaimed, blowing out a long breath, as the plane lurched down the runway toward the terminal buildings.
“Conway?”
“Yep,” she said, her fingers gripped the armrests.
“Pain?”
“Yep.”
Admittance. That was bad.
“Scale of one to ten, one being the least and ten being unbearable?”
“Three,” she muttered through clenched teeth, and took a slow shallow breathe. “Can we just get off this fucking plane?”
Three?
“That scowl on your face doesn’t match a three.”
She groaned. “I’m good.”
Three?
“More like a seven.”
She glared at me.
The plane continued taxiing to the terminal. The seatbelt sign flashed. A voice filled the cabin from the front. “You may now turn on your electronic devices. Please stay seated until the aircraft comes to a complete stop and the seat sign is off.”
A minute or two later the plane stopped, and seatbelt light flashed off. Movement in front of us told me the door was opening.
“Stay put, we’ll get off last,” I said.
I didn’t want her jostled by harried disembarking passengers. I used the time to call Sam.
“How’s it going?” I said when he answered.
“It’s interesting. Delta B need a lot of hand-holding,” Sam replied. “I heard from the Staties that called Conway regarding their case.”
“And?”
“They got a fresh body about an hour ago.”
“Our case?”
“Nothing new since last night.”
“Look for overlap Sam. I wanna know if our Unsub could be bouncing across the country.” I looked at Conway. Pale. Not good. The conversation with Sam continued. “I don’t see how it’s possible. Our guy is stalking the hell out of his victims, we think. Can you confirm that?”
“I’ve been to three houses and checked out the victims actual bedrooms. They are identical to the rooms they were found in, except, no …” He coughed. “… No toys in the bedside cabinets.”
Intriguing.
“You’re sure? Family haven’t removed anything to protect the victims’ reputations?”
“If they have no one is saying. It honestly doesn’t look like anything has been removed.”
“Any other differences?”
“The real rooms have electronics in the form of clocks, eReaders, and stereo … no jewelry boxes. Families say there were jewelry boxes.”
“Trophy?”
“Looks that way.”
“Let me know if you find anything else. Any chance of interviewing the live victim?”
“We’re heading back to the hospital in about an hour.”
“And the fourth house?”
“Going there before the hospital.”
“Nothing else has come up?”
“Nope.”
“Stay in touch, Sam. I’ll let you know if the scenes here are a match.”
I hung up. Conway looked out the window. Her reflection searched for something.
“What is it?”
“The Unsub’s are related,” she said. “Brothers.”
“Brother’s?”
“Yeah.”
I caught movement and noted a flight attendant walking towards us, through the empty plane.
“Time for us to leave,” I said, standing, and taking both our carry-on bags from the overhead compartment. I slung them over one shoulder and waited for Conway to join me. I followed her through the cabin and out. We walked side-by-side through the corridor to the main airport. Two police officers waited at the end of the corridor.
“They’re for us?” Conway asked.
“I think so. Let’s find out.”
We approached the uniformed officers.
“I’m SSA Henderson and this is SSA Conway.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the first officer said. “I’m Jed Cruickshank and this is Louise Sims.”
We all shook hands.
Louise spoke, “Do you have luggage?”
“No,” Conway replied. “Go bags. Hopefully we won’t be here too long.” She smiled.
“Follow us, we’re parked out front,” Jed said, leading the way.
I glanced at Conway before following the officers. Pale. Not good. I fell into step beside her.
“You feel all right?”
“I’m fine,” she replied.
“One day Conway you won’t make this so damn hard.”
A smile shone. “I’m fine, Doc. Let’s just get on with this so we can go home.”
* * *
Police had three crime scenes. Each one reminisce of the ones back in Virginia. Timing. It was all about the timing. None of the Virginia murders overlapped the Oregon ones but there wasn’t enough time for one Unsub to kill in Oregon and Virginia. Geographically too distant.
We stood in the latest crime scene. A dilapidated ramshackle house with one renovated room.
The victim was still present. She was a young woman. Pretty even in death. Conway skirted the body and carefully examined the room.
“Conway, the bedrooms aren’t just models, they’re renovations. That takes time,” I said, turning slowly on the spot.
“Builders,” she said, looking up. “You ever seen any of those house renovation programs on television?”
I shook my head. When do we ever have time to watch TV?
“Nope, you?”
“No, but my sister-in-law is hooked on them and tells me all about them. She especially loves the programs where someone gets a new bedroom as a surprise, or new living room. That kinda thing.”
“How quickly do you think something like this could be done? Taking into account the state of the rest of the house?”
“A day maybe.”
Conway turned and left the r
oom. I followed her out of the house. She walked past the two officers and leaned against the car in the sun.
“What?” There was something. I’d seen that look on her face before.
“Not sure. I need to talk to Sandra.” Conway made a call on her cell phone. I waited. Not listening just waiting. Whatever Conway saw or felt she’d tell me when she was finished. The wait wasn’t long. Conway pocketed her phone and tapped me on the arm.
“I think they streamed live video of the deaths,” she said. “To each other.”
“Is there any way in God’s little green earth we can confirm that?”
“Sandra is going to try. We have time of death in all cases and a location. She’s searching cell provider logs for anything that could match.”
“How close do you think she’ll get?”
Conway shrugged. “No idea, she’s looking for continuous signal and high band width activity near the crime scenes.”
“That could be gamers or people downloading movies …”
“Or someone streaming a murder.”
“What made you think of live streaming?” I asked.
“I could see a phone being held,” she said with a matter-of-fact tone and a small shrug.
Her eyes met mine with a single realization. “There are two Unsubs at each scene,” we said in unison.
Conway smiled. “Snap.”
“Can Sandra do the same here?”
“She’s looking for a signal that she can follow in both states.”
I smiled. As much of a needle in a haystack this idea was, it felt like we had an edge, something we could use. Maybe.
“Sandra will let Sam know,” Conway said. “Let’s go find out if they’ve done a door-to-door. Someone saw something, the bedroom renovations involved noise and supplies and furniture …”
“And coffee,” I replied. “We need coffee.”
“You sound like me,” Conway said and waved to Louise.
Louise joined us near the over grown front garden of the house. My mind considered the abandoned houses. That made sense, if you didn’t want to be disturbed. But renovating inside an abandoned house, Conway was right, that would draw attention.
I excused myself and stepped away a few feet to call Lee.
“Hey, abandoned houses,” I said, expecting him to jump straight into my thought pattern.
“We’ve got the details of the recorded owners. All the Virginian homes are recorded as having deceased owners,” Lee replied. Papers shuffled. “Took a bit of digging to locate that information.”
“Who’s paying the property taxes?”
“These are houses that have fallen through the cracks in the system. No one is paying and there is no record of taxes owed, hence owner information was not easily obtained.”
“How long have they been empty?”
“The longest … forty years.”
“And the million dollar question … how would someone know the houses were abandoned or the owners were deceased and there was no next of kin?” Or chance of disturbance.
“I’m working on it, Kurt,” Lee said. Keys tapped. His voice faded then came back. “There are websites dedicated to abandoned properties and whether or not they’re haunted.”
“Somewhere to start.”
“I’ll get back to you. How’s Ellie?”
“Lying to me as usual,” I replied, watching her from where I stood. “Insists she’s fine, she’s really not.”
Lee laughed. “Nothing’s changed then. Somehow that’s comforting.”
Comforting? I supposed so. Not frustrating?
“I’ll be in touch,” I said with a light laugh. “Miss Contrary is waiting.”
Conway tapped her left foot on the path. Impatient.
Something’s never change.
* * *
Conway spoke to Louise, “I’m going back in. I need to see the body again.”
Louise nodded. “You want company?”
Her head shook. “I’m good,” Conway said walking back into the house.
Company or not, I followed. The way she worked fascinated me. From the outside it appeared as though things popped straight into her head. I knew better. Her brain worked on many levels at once. She had the ability to read people and decipher clues that the rest of us never even saw. From the doorway I watched her crouch by the body. She whispered. Her words never made it to me. They weren’t meant for me. She was talking to the woman.
She looked up, not at me, but past me. I glanced over my shoulder. No one there. Conway smiled. Again not at me, but past me. A small frown flickered then faded from her face. She remained still, focused on whatever she could see.
Once upon a time the intensity of her expression and the earnest gaze at nothing would’ve worried me a lot more than it did now.
Minutes passed.
Conway remained frozen.
A rush of cold air hit me and kept going sending a shiver up my spine. Conway took a deep breath and stood up.
“Okay?” I asked.
“The link is one of those renovation television shows,” Conway said with care. Her shoulders relaxed. “All the victims applied to be part of a show being made by a small television company. A bedroom makeover show.”
“Do I want to ask how you figured that out?”
She smiled, her gaze again drifted to over my shoulder. The smile wasn’t for me. I looked. No one.
“Conway? Ellie?” I waved. “Hi. Who was there?”
She blinked a few times then focused on me.
“Chance,” she replied with a grin.
Christopher Chance. He’d appeared for the first time a few years ago when Conway had a near-death experience in Lexington. Despite the many times she’d said she got information from Chance or even her dead husband, Mac, it still freaked me out a little bit. More because the information was always solid and not something that I could explain. Delta learned a long time ago to trust Conway’s gut or Chance or Mac which amounted to the same thing.
I dragged my phone from my pocket and called Sandra with the new information.
With Sandra on the line I spoke to Conway, “He didn’t give you a production company name?” That might be too much to hope for.
“Caramel Sauce,” she replied.
“Say again?”
“The company is called Caramel Sauce.”
I gave the name to Sandra and waited.
Seconds later Sandra found the information. “Kurt, they are a television production company, based in Virginia with two satellite offices. One in Oregon and the other in Texas.”
“Can you …”
“Already on it. I’m checking the databases now to see if any similar murders have occurred in Texas. So far nothing in ViCAP,” she replied.
“Thanks. Get Sam and Lee to go to the head office and make some inquiries. In particular I want to know if they have brothers on the pay roll and the details surrounding their bedroom renovation show.”
“Doing it now. How’s Ellie?”
I made eye-contact with Conway.
“She’s good.”
“Talk soon.” Sandra hung up. I pushed my phone into my jacket pocket.
Conway leaned on the wall beside me.
“A television company. That explains how the Unsubs new exactly what the bedrooms looked like. They would’ve photographed the rooms,” she said. “Let’s go talk to Louise and Jed, I want to visit the Oregon office of Caramel Sauce.”
* * *
“SSA Ellie Conway. FBI,” she said, showing her badge to the receptionist. “I’d like to speak to whoever is in charge.”
The woman nodded, rose from her chair and scurried into an office behind her. Moments later a short, chubby man appeared. Red faced and puffing. The receptionist stood behind him, unable to get to her desk.
“How can I help?” he asked, extending his chubby hand to me and ignoring Conway. “John Glass, manager of Caramel Sauce.”
I shook his hand.
“SSA Kurt Hende
rson, FBI. We have some questions about a television show your company is making. Something about bedroom renovations?”
He beamed. “Come in, come in. That’s our new project, we’re very excited about it.” He ushered us behind the desk and into a small office. Conway opted to remain standing just inside the door. I sat in the lone chair in front of the untidy desk.
“Do you have a list of people who have signed up to be part of this show?” I asked, flipping my notebook open and hoping John didn’t ask why we were interested.
His chubby fingers moved papers around on the surface of the desk until he produced a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
“This the list of people taking part.”
Head shots, names, and addresses. I handed it on to Conway.
“How about people who applied but weren’t chosen? Do you keep that information?”
He frowned. His fingers shuffling through more paper.
“We do,” he mumbled lifting a dog-eared piece of paper from the mess and looking at it. He started to hand it over then paused. “Why?”
Damn.
“We are trying to identify someone.” Not exactly the truth but if the names of the Oregon victims were on that list then progress toward a resolution would be imminent.
He passed the list to me. I thanked him and scanned it. Recognizing all three victims. I handed it to Conway.
“Is that all?” John asked.
“Not quite. An employee list would be helpful. Who is involved in this project?”
He stood up then sat back down.
An attempt at a smile happened, stretching the skin over his fat cheeks.
“Do you need a warrant for this information?” he asked.
“Not if you are willing to help us,” I replied. “Of course you can refuse, which would then give us cause to get a warrant. Usually people with nothing to hide are willing to help.”
“What am I helping you with?”
“We’re investigating a series of murders. I am quite happy to get a warrant and have police turn your office upside down looking for the information we require while you and I continue this discussion at the local police station.” I smiled. It wasn’t a threat. It was just how it would go down. “I’m sure your reputation as a film maker is strong enough to weather the media attention that goes along with such an event.”
“That probably isn’t necessary. What did you need again?”
The Thrill List Page 17