Profiling a Killer

by Nichole Severn

  He had to find her. He had to make this right.

  The atmosphere in the office ratcheted higher. A swarm of agents jogged to the other side of the building. Nicholas rounded his desk, leaving his office, and spotted SSA Miguel Peters shouting orders from behind the conference room glass. Something had happened. He could feel it.

  Nicholas caught sight of Dashiell West circling around the doors and wound his way through the maze of agents. He pushed through the wall of the FBI’s finest, threaded his hand around West’s arm and spun the cybercrimes agent toward him. “West, what’s going on?”

  “There’s been an attack in the parking garage.” Color drained from the cybercrimes agent’s face, and dread pooled at the base of Nicholas’s spine. The surrounding agents stilled, the weight of their attention burrowing deep in his chest. “Security reported the camera in one of the elevators had been disabled. I went through the footage leading up to the blackout and discovered the surveillance in the garage had also been shut down. They’ve swept the garage, but the only evidence they were able to uncover was a book near your SUV.”

  Air caught in his chest. “What book?”

  “But First, Lipstick, the true crime book detailing the Extreme Makeover Killer’s investigation.” West seemed to prepare himself as though Nicholas would attack at the news that came next. “There was only one other person who got on the elevator with her, Nicholas, and we can’t locate or get in touch with him, either. It was Dr. Caldwell.”

  Son of a bitch. Aubrey had been right. He replayed the interactions between him and the killer. The bastard’s size, medical knowledge, his obsession with Aubrey. Hell, narcissistic behavior was common among medical professionals because of their overwhelming God complex of having lives in their hands. His background as an army combat medic, medical school and years on the job accredited the pathologist with enough experience around a scalpel, and the jealousy West had picked up on was more than enough motive to put Aubrey at the center of the killer’s sick game. Simon Curry might’ve had the means, motive, opportunity and connections to kill Kara Flood and Paige Cress, but so had the King County medical examiner. Dr. Archer Caldwell was a member of the same true crime book club both victims had met with, and his jealousy of Aubrey being invited to work the X Marks the Spot investigation had pushed him to the edge. With Simon Curry in custody, it was the only explanation. Dr. Caldwell had claimed the Extreme Makeover Killer’s nickname and left the book as a taunt. The parking garage. Nicholas released his grip on West. “Give me your keys.”

  “We don’t have a location yet.” West handed them over, and Nicholas raced toward the stairs. The agent’s voice barely registered through the pounding of Nicholas’s heart behind his ears. “How are you going to find her?”

  “He’s headed to the underground!” Nicholas had never been so sure of anything in his life. It fit the Extreme Makeover Killer’s MO. Caldwell would see Aubrey’s survival from the events at the slaughterhouse as a personal failure, possibly grounds to remove Aubrey as the one he’d chosen as his own masterpiece. If that was the case as Nicholas believed, the pathologist would retreat back to an MO he was familiar with, one he’d studied before moving on to look for another prize. One guaranteed to kill his victim. Samson Little had bound his victims before cutting their wrists and watching them slowly bleed out, but he hadn’t wanted them discovered. Just as he hadn’t wanted his wife discovered, but the dead always found a way to speak. Aubrey had taught him that.

  Nicholas pushed into the stairwell and sprinted down the stairs. The snap of the door slamming into the wall behind it exploded like a gunshot above, and he looked up long enough to recognize Agents Striker and West and SSA Peters following close behind. They had a location. They were going to find her alive. There wasn’t another option. Not for him.

  Stale air slammed into him as Nicholas ripped open the garage-level door. Targeting his SUV and the security team sweeping the area around it, he called to the security lead as his team spread across the garage from behind. “Any progress?”

  “No, sir. Not yet,” the team lead said. “I’ll report all findings to you as soon as we have something. We’re doing a sweep for Dr. Caldwell’s vehicle now and have contacted Seattle PD.”

  Nicholas ran for West’s SUV as Striker and the cybercrimes agent loaded into hers. SSA Peters climbed into the passenger seat as Nicholas climbed behind the wheel. He twisted the key in the ignition and ripped out of the parking garage. Sunlight pierced through the windshield as he fishtailed onto Union toward Second Avenue and Pioneer Square. “He’s headed for the Seattle underground. He’s going to use Aubrey to re-create the Extreme Makeover’s MO and leave her there for us to search blocks of underground to find her.”

  “This guy hasn’t stuck to any one MO since he started. There could be a thousand locations within the city alone he’s taken her if you’re wrong about this.” SSA Peters braced against the passenger-side door as Nicholas took the left onto Second above the speed limit. “What makes you so sure she’ll be underground?”

  “The book Dr. Caldwell left behind. Both victims were members of the same true crime book club, and one of the books on their shelves was But First, Lipstick, which gives an account of the Extreme Makeover Killer. According to Simon Curry, every member in the club took on a nickname of their favorite serial killer. Kara Flood was invested in learning about the X Marks the Spot Killer because Aubrey had been involved in the case. Paige Cress was the Gingerbread Woman, and Simon Curry claimed the Watcher.”

  If he hadn’t pushed to put Curry in the dark silhouette of their perp on the murder board, he might’ve seen it before. There weren’t more victims out there they hadn’t discovered. Not yet. “Caldwell had to have been in the same book club. He would’ve known their nicknames. He replicated his idols’ MOs to test his skills before he turned his attention to his real target.”

  “Dr. Flood,” SSA Peters said.

  “Aubrey isn’t a member. I think he got tired of Kara talking about her sister during the meetings. He’s jealous of her. He wants to make an example of her, to prove he’s the better pathologist and that he should’ve been the one to handle the X Killer case. He’s punishing her.” Nicholas tightened his grip around the steering wheel, and he pushed the SUV harder. “He left the book for me. He wanted me to know his nickname was the Extreme Makeover Killer and that that was exactly how he was going to murder Aubrey once his own MO failed to kill her.”

  “It’s public knowledge the Extreme Makeover Killer dumped all his victims’ bodies in the underground. Why make the game so easy?” SSA Peters asked. “Why follow an MO to a tee when police already have the location of the dump site?”

  “Because he thinks he can get away with it.” The ego and arrogance had been right in front of him all this time. This wasn’t about the manner Dr. Caldwell had chosen or with which he’d killed his victims. They’d been nothing but a convenience of which he’d taken advantage. Every move, every lead the BAU had taken uncovered nothing but pure narcissism.

  “He craves the chase, and he’s worked for the county as a medical examiner long enough to ensure none of the forensic evidence ties back to him. He’s been involved in the investigation. He’s had access to the remains of his two victims. He knows everything we had aside from the piece of tissue Paige Cress had between her teeth was circumstantial, and he’s probably already destroyed it. This is one big game to him, and he took her because I let my own trust issues get in the way of protecting her.”

  And he feared Aubrey wouldn’t be the last victim to pay the price if he failed.

  * * *

  HUMMING FILLED HER EARS.

  There was no pressure this time. No crushing pain other than the constant ache in her ribs as she filled her lungs with cold, dry air, and the pounding at the back of her skull where her attacker had hit her. She wasn’t upside down. Aubrey hauled her chin away from her chest, an old wooden chair
protesting as she moved. The torn skin of her left wrist burned under the friction of rope securing her to the chair.

  “Ah, Dr. Flood. Nice to see you again.” Dr. Caldwell’s outline darkened the spotlight shining into her face. He bent at the waist, coming that much closer to the point she caught hints of formaldehyde and cleaning agent. “While you were unconscious, I gained access to your recent X-rays after our first little meeting. Thank you for telling the truth about your diagnosis. Your fractured scapula and broken ribs, coupled with a change in binds, gives me confidence you won’t be able to struggle this time.”

  She swept her tongue through her mouth to chase back the dryness and taste of dirt. The edges of the gauze on her neck pulled at her oversensitized skin. Mustiness embedded into her lung tissue as she rolled her head to one side. An exposed brick arch and cement flooring materialized as her eyes adjusted to the overstimulation from the spotlight. Strong pillars had cracked under the pressure of the slight bulge in the ceiling, and Aubrey felt as though she were deep underground. Far enough no one could hear her scream. “Dr. Caldwell—Archer—what...what are you doing?”

  “I’m proving I’m better, of course.” The voice that’d been stuck in her head since the attack grated against every fiber of her being, but she hadn’t recognized Dr. Caldwell for the killer he was. The only explanation she had was his voice wasn’t altered by a ski mask now. “You, of all people, should understand that, Dr. Flood. You’ve gone out of your way to become the FBI’s favorite pathologist these past few years. Well, now I’m going out of my way to prove I was the better choice.” Dr. Caldwell turned slightly, the spotlight highlighting the sharp angles of his face and illuminating a cruel smile. “And believe me, after I’m finished with you, they’ll never doubt my abilities again.”

  Disbelief hardened the muscles along her spine. That was what this was about? Her sister had been strangled and mutilated because he hadn’t been chosen to work the X Marks the Spot Killer case? “You were in the same book club as Kara and Paige, weren’t you? You used their nicknames to replicate previous serial MOs, to show the FBI you were better at killing than the originals, and set up Simon Curry to take the fall.”

  “Everything would’ve gone according to plan if Paige Cress hadn’t bit me while I was trying to suffocate her with her own jacket, but as the official pathologist over this case, all I had to do was compromise the skin sample my assistant discovered during the initial examination. The lab will never be able to trace the DNA in that skin sample recovered from Paige back to me or connect me to Kara. Everything the FBI has right now is circumstantial.” Dr. Caldwell smirked, and Aubrey pulled at the restraints around both feet and her left wrist. “But you... You had to go and be your own hero in the slaughterhouse. You had to attract the affection of Agent James and bring the whole BAU team to my door.”

  Nicholas. Her insides hollowed as the last few minutes of their conversation in the observation room hit her all over again. She’d been right about Simon Curry. The true killer had methodically made Curry the FBI’s prime suspect while working under their noses from the beginning. Dr. Caldwell wasn’t just intelligent, as Nicholas had suggested in his profile. He was a genius, and right then Aubrey couldn’t see a way of escape.

  She followed the exposed pipes above to the end of a long corridor. The headache at the back of her skull intensified the harder she tried to map an escape route, and she rolled her injured shoulder back to test her rotation. Her right hand was the only extremity that hadn’t been bound to the chair, still useless in the sling. If she could distract Dr. Caldwell long enough and work through the pain, she might have a chance. “You used Kara to get to me.”

  “Would you believe me if I told you I’d joined the book club for the same reason as your sister?” His voice hitched as though paired with a smile, and her gut soured. “Kara was all too happy to regale me with stories of her big sister, the medical examiner who’d single-handedly taken down the X Marks the Spot Killer by narrowing down the kind of knife Cole Presley had used to carve his victims’ cheeks. That was why she became a member of our little group. She wasn’t sure how to talk to you about the investigation face-to-face, so she learned everything she could about the case in order to feel closer to you. A waste of time. Why study the pathologist assigned to the case when she could learn so much more from a killer?”

  Kara had been trying to learn as much as she could about the X Marks the Spot Killer case in order to be closer to Aubrey. Simon Curry had said as much during his interrogation, but it wasn’t until this moment she was able to process the information in the wake of losing her connection to Nicholas. Her body hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain in her heart. All this time she’d believed Kara had never understood her, never wanted to understand her, but the opposite had been true.

  Dragging a chair she hadn’t seen until then closer, Dr. Caldwell took a seat across from her, his expression cast into darkness from the spotlight at his back. “Seems everyone just can’t get enough of you, Dr. Flood, including your own family. I’ll be honest, I don’t understand the fascination. Kara’s, Agent James’s. You’re an above-average pathologist from Seattle, dedicated to your work with little social life or hobbies, as far as I can tell. No serious relationships. If I hadn’t known Kara was your sister from our conversations during book club or that your parents were still alive, I would’ve assumed you were utterly and completely alone. That leaves the X Marks the Spot Killer case. If it hadn’t been for that investigation—for your connection to such a high-profile case—you’d be nothing.”

  “Maybe the fact that I’m not a psychopath has something to do with it.” She blinked against the white lights developing across her vision from the unrelenting brightness of the spotlight.

  “I underestimated you before, Dr. Flood.” A low laugh punctuated Dr. Caldwell’s rise to his feet. He turned away from her. He disappeared into the shadows fighting to close in around the pool of spotlight, his voice more distant than a minute ago. Shuffling sounds ensued from the darkness, a hit of metal breaking through. Another scalpel? “But I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  Aubrey secured her jaw against the bone-deep ache in her shoulder and ribs as she pushed her elbow toward the outer edge of her sling. Dr. Caldwell had been assigned to an investigation of his own making. Her heart rate rocketed into overdrive as the pain spread outward from her scapula and nearly pulled a groan from her throat. She forced herself to keep her breathing under control as she worked her injured arm free of the sling. Too much force and the tendons keeping her bone from separating completely would snap, causing irreversible damage. Too little and she’d never get free. The lining of the sling scraped against her heated skin, but she couldn’t stop. She’d escaped Dr. Caldwell once before. She could do it again.

  Nicholas had believed the killer was driven by his narcissistic personality disorder, desperate to prove himself better than the men and women he idolized. That desperation meant he wouldn’t be able to turn down the opportunity to talk about himself. “You disposed of Paige Cress’s body on the pier to draw me there. There weren’t any signs she’d been killed in that shed. You had to have killed her somewhere else. The evidence on her body might’ve been compromised, but the scent of gasoline was still on her clothes when we found her. The forensic lab will be able to pick up traces.”

  A lie. The techs hadn’t been able to recover anything after the ocean had washed the victim’s clothes, but the Gingerbread Woman had attacked all her victims in parking garages. He’d stuck to every last detail concerning the X Marks the Spot Killer’s MO. Made sense he’d do the same for the Gingerbread Woman’s. “It was a garage, wasn’t it? Agent James and the rest of the BAU will find which one. It’s only a matter of time before he ties you to these crimes.”

  “Your profiler surely believes I’m a narcissist, and you’ve interpreted that to mean getting me to talk about myself and the way I kill will give you a
chance for escape. You’re wrong.” Dr. Caldwell stepped back into the spotlight, and every cell in her body spiked into awareness. The outline of a blade in his hand, similar to the shape of a No. 11 scalpel used to make fine incisions during an autopsy, demanded attention as he stepped closer. He leaned into her, setting the cold steel against her cheek.

  “You’re forgetting I was the pathologist assigned to examine the victims, and I ensured none of the evidence the forensic lab tested would trace back to me. Cole Presley, Irene Lawrence, Samson Little—they might’ve been the inspiration for my masterpieces, but I’ve risen above them. Even if the BAU arrests me for the deaths of Kara Flood and Paige Cress, they’ll never be able to prove it, and you won’t live long enough to tell them what happened here today. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Dr. Flood, but I can’t be beat.”

  The steel of the scalpel warmed against her cheek. Aubrey twisted her head sharply and bit down on her attacker’s hand as hard as she could. Blood penetrated the seam of her lips and filled her mouth, triggering her gag reflex, but she only clamped her teeth harder. Her attacker’s scream echoed off the brick walls, and he tore his hand away. But not fast enough. She forced herself to swallow as he held on to his bleeding hand, and a sense of accomplishment filled her. “Let’s see you compromise that sample.”

  Dr. Caldwell arced the scalpel down toward her wrist bound to the chair and sank it deep through tendon, veins and muscle. Aubrey’s scream rivaled her abductor’s and intensified the pain in her head, but she couldn’t pull away. His hand shook around the blade as he stared down at her. “Let’s see how much you bleed.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “All tourists have been accounted for and evacuated, Agent James.” The Seattle PD officer’s staticky voice barely registered from the radio strapped to Nicholas’s vest.