by Ellie Marney
They crunch across the gravel together. The interior of the Plymouth is warm, almost stuffy. It’s still better than standing outside the asylum, feeling the building loom.
Emma rubs a hand across the bristles at her nape. “Okay, tell me.”
Bell dumps the folder on the seat between them like it’s heavy. “Everything I’ve got is from the media. There’s four victims in the case so far. The first was in Crozet, three months ago. The second was in Luray in April. The most recent victims were found in Pennsylvania, between Harrisburg and Carlisle—two in one hit. All the victims are under twenty-one. All the bodies were found in garbage dumps.”
“What other commonalities?”
“All of them had their throats cut.”
Emma tries not to flinch. “Anything else? All women?”
“No—and he’s crossing racial lines as well. Two of the victims were white, but the boy in Luray was African American and one of the Carlisle victims was Puerto Rican. The first two were still dressed, but the most recent victims were found in their underwear.”
“So they were tied up? What about sexual assault?”
“I don’t have information on that. Evidence of ligature use, but they’d been untied before they were dumped. No fingerprints. This guy is very careful.”
“And he’s on a monthly cycle.” When Bell nods, she asks the necessary question. “What do the police think he’s doing with them?”
Bell hesitates, checks her face. Tells her anyway. “He abducts them, ties them, holds them for about twenty-four hours. Then he hangs them by the ankles and bleeds them out.”
Everything Emma’s been doing for the last few days comes in on her suddenly. She has to fight it, leans forward over her knees. When Bell calls her name, she sits back up. “I’m all right. Gimme a minute.”
“Cooper’s coming, you don’t have a minute. And we haven’t looked at the questionnaire yet.”
“That’s okay.” Her chin firms. “I’ve got a few things to say to Cooper that should keep him distracted.”
When Cooper slides into the driver’s seat and turns to check on them, the first thing he sees is Emma’s level expression. “What is it?”
“Gutmunsson knew who I was. He knew it in the space of one conversation and he wasn’t even trying.”
“Miss Lewis—”
“No.” Her voice is cold. “You offered me up to Simon Gutmunsson like a jig on a line, knowing he’d take a bite. Someone like me is pure catnip to an offender like Gutmunsson, and you needed something to tempt him.”
Cooper has the grace to look abashed. “Miss Lewis, I’m—”
“If you apologize to me right now I swear to god I will get out of this car and walk back to Quantico.”
Bell shifts awkwardly. “Uh, this conversation might be—”
Emma stops him with a raised hand. “You’re a part of this conversation, too. You really think it was an accident that you, of all people, were recruited to help me interview Simon Gutmunsson? Whatever Agent Cooper has to say, he can say it to both of us.”
Bell closes his mouth. Looks from Emma to Cooper and back again. His expression turns flinty.
Cooper watches the interplay, settles on Emma. “I told you Gutmunsson was smart.”
“You told me he was smart. Right. You didn’t tell me he followed the press. He tagged me from the logo on my T-shirt, my name, and the newspaper reports.” She wrangles with her anger. “He’s got something you want, doesn’t he? Something on Pennsylvania.”
“That’s not—”
“Do you know what Gutmunsson said to me? Tell Agent Cooper he chose well. He knew the score on this before I even walked in the building.” Emma shakes her head in disgust. “Was the interview unit stuff all just bullshit? Was it all leading up to this?”
There’s a silence. Cooper’s expression cycles as he considers holding the line, before he gives up with a sigh.
“The interviews aren’t bullshit. The interviews are important. But I needed to know you could handle yourselves before—”
Bell swears loudly, looks away.
“Gutmunsson is a special case—”
“And we were the only people you could use for this?” Bell demands.
“You’re the only people of his age who report to the bureau.” Cooper’s jaw clenches. “You’re the only people we haven’t tried.”
Bell exhales through his nose. Emma steps up to the plate.
“Mr. Cooper, would you please just be honest? What is going on? What did Simon Gutmunsson send you? You said he communicates with you, and he talked about how he’s been asking to see you.” Emma chases Cooper’s line of sight. “Look, you don’t need to play me, I’m already here. I want to help. But if you’re gonna jerk me around, I’d rather go back to Apple Creek.”
Cooper purses his lips, thinking. Finally comes to some kind of decision.
“He’s sent me three letters.” Cooper’s voice is quiet. “One after Crozet, one after Luray. The last one was just after Pennsylvania.”
“He gives you details about the murders,” Emma prompts.
“Not details. Insights. I guess he’d know better than anybody how this new killer thinks.”
“Is any of the information Gutmunsson’s offering helpful?”
“I don’t know. He’s promised to share more if I go see him. But trying to insert themselves into police investigations, or grandstanding for more attention, is something these guys do. So… I’m wary.” Cooper rubs a palm across his face. “On the other hand, we’ve been going in circles on this new case and I’m trying every lead I can find, no matter how off base.”
Bell’s arms are folded. “Sir, I know the Pennsylvania case is tough. And I understand you’re in a bind with it. But if you’d told me the real purpose of this unit was to interview Simon Gutmunsson—”
“You never would have joined up.” Cooper meets his eyes. “I know. And I’m sorry. The thing is, Mr. Bell, I’ve got four dead teenagers in the morgue and likely more on the way. What would you have done, in my position?”
Bell bites his lip hard enough to leave a mark. “Okay. I get it. But the way you’re doing it, it’s not gonna work. If you’re sending Lewis in to get leads off Gutmunsson, you gotta give us more information. Send her in blind, without any authority, and he’ll just toy with her.”
“Bell’s right,” Emma says. “We need more information. Not to mention we deserve more.”
Cooper winces. “I can’t give you any details about active cases. Donald Raymond, the section chief, was very specific—”
“Fine.” Bell is determined. “Then officially, we’re not involved. Unofficially, we’ll be more use to you if we’re better informed.”
“We’ll play,” Emma agrees. “But not if we’re being played.”
Cooper looks between Bell’s solid resolve and Emma’s defiant insistence. “Okay. Fine. You want in, I’ll tell you what I know. And when we get back to Quantico, I’ll get you some access to the Pennsylvania files.”
“Good.” Emma refuses to show gratitude.
“Give me Gutmunsson’s questionnaire first.”
“No. First, the files.”
Cooper narrows his eyes. “Miss Lewis, I said I’d share information, but I’m not horse-trading with you. You’re gonna have to trust me.”
Emma hesitates, looks at Bell. A pause, then Bell nods. She passes over the folder.
“Thank you.” Cooper glances back at them as he reaches for the key, turns to start the engine. “You kids drive a hard bargain.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A large bedroom early on a Friday morning, dark inside, plush sound-dampening carpet and the curtains tightly drawn. The family-sized house is on a cul-de-sac. Not even traffic sounds intrude.
The digital clock on the nightstand ticks over to 6:00 AM—there’s a single discordant bleat before a hand reaches, touches the button. Anthony Hoyt, white male, six-two, brown and brown, no identifying marks, woke before his alarm and h
as been lying in bed contemplating the day to come. Now the alarm is his signal that events are starting, that life is moving in the direction of his choosing, so he flings off the sheets and gets up.
He showers and dries in the bathroom and pads back out to the bedroom. The built-in wardrobe opposite the bed has sliding doors on a long runner, and one door is entirely mirrored. Standing in front of it naked, Hoyt does a thorough check: His hair is glossy, his face is good, the skin over his cheekbones firm and tight. His whole body is nicely toned. Overall, the results of the treatments have been outstanding.
He slides open the wardrobe and selects his clothes, gets dressed. Feeling a tremor, he takes out the bag with the other clothes in it. Then he goes into the kitchen to make breakfast.
At exactly 7:15, Hoyt leaves the house through the garage door, tucks everything in the back seat of his Mustang Ghia—a present from his grandparents—and clicks the switch to open the garage to the outside. It’s a two-hour drive, and the weather is fantastic: sunny and becoming warm. Hoyt slips his sunglasses on as he drives out of Annandale, merging with outbound traffic, humming along to Hall & Oates on the radio until news time. He listens to the news with interest, finally reaches Charlottesville by 9:10.
In the bathroom of an underground parking garage, he changes into the clothes from the bag: a white undershirt, loud Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and loafers. The wig is new, and he practiced putting it on a few times at home in his room until he was comfortable with it. He puts a ball cap—GO HURRICANES!—over his now longish blond hair. The blond makes him look even younger. He returns the bag to the car, collects his alternative identification, and walks to the real estate agency, enjoying the sun.
Burt Wagner, the agent, meets him at the door of the office, and banter is exchanged about the weather and how it’s almost too nice a day to drive to the site.
“But we’d be a while walking,” Wagner admits, “and you’re probably keen to see the place, right?”
They take Wagner’s Ford. The drive is about forty minutes and Hoyt keeps up inane conversation about the state of the town and the local climate compared to Miami, maintaining the illusion that he actually lives in Miami. State Route 810 winds out of Boonesville, past an old Methodist church, then uphill along Tabletop Mountain Road, toward the more marginal wilderness area abutting Shenandoah National Park.
Wagner turns the Ford sharply off the tar and onto a dirt road that snakes past the fence of an agistment pasture and into the trees. Finally they pull onto the road to the property. There’s a farm gate, and overhanging trees that peel back to reveal a large old house: single story, shaded wooden porch. Nearby, the barn.
“Well, here we are,” Wagner says. “You said your grandfolks wanted privacy.”
“Yes, for sure,” Hoyt agrees. He’s careful to keep the accent steady.
“Damn nice of you to come get the place set up for them. Lord knows, I wish my grandkids would do the same for me.”
They step high over the long-neglected grass to the porch. Wagner walks Hoyt through the house, noting the difficulties of the proposed renovation and how that will bring the price down. “But a young fella like yourself, you won’t have any trouble with the work.”
“Mm.” Hoyt makes some noises about a generator for power tools. He has no trouble spinning the tale to fill in the detailed edges: He does want to improve the house. He wants to fix the guttering, clean the place up. He has plans. Big plans.
At last they walk to the barn. From the moment he stepped out of the car, Hoyt has felt the presence of the barn nearby like a fizz in his blood. Now Wagner pulls open the great door, reveals the extent of it. Hoyt crosses the threshold, feeling like he’s entering a church.
“Concrete floor,” Wagner points out approvingly. “Lots of natural light. Hayloft. Faucets there hook up to tank water. Just the one stall, over on the left—rest of the space is open. I think they used it mainly for machinery. You got the grease drain in the floor and the big crossbeams there. See the chain? They were lifting John Deere engines here, most likely.”
Hoyt finds it hard to keep the excitement out of his voice. “Granddad said it’ll be good to have someplace I can lock up tools while I’m working on the place.”
“Well, it’s secure.” Wagner slaps the solid hardwood walls. “Better condition than the house, really. And if you’re running a drop saw, a nail gun, and so on, you’re far enough away from neighbors that you won’t get complaints about the noise.”
“Mm.”
“You could store lumber here. Base of operations, so to speak.”
Hoyt looks around the interior of the barn. He looks at the faucets, the concrete floor with its helpful drain, the high crossbeams, the chains. This is so much more suitable than the disposable locations he’s currently using. The extraordinary potential of the space uncoils behind his eyes. The possibilities make him break out in a wide, sincere smile.
“It’s perfect,” he pronounces. “Just perfect.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sky is glowering over Quantico early Friday morning and—still buoyed by the success with Cooper—Emma runs in the rain. On the way back she’s flagged by Betty, who delivers Simon’s questionnaire. Emma holds the folder by the corners as she returns to her room. She showers and dresses, then heads down, carrying her paperwork and two cafeteria mugs in the elevator all the way to basement level.
At the door to their gray office, she discovers a hand-lettered sign that reads THE COOL ROOM Scotch-taped to the wood. Emma tucks her papers in her armpit and detaches the sign with the hand not holding the mugs, pushes open the door with her butt.
“Hey.” Bell is distracted as he scrawls on a notepad at the desk. “Grab a chair. I’m finishing off the McMurtry report. It’s anyone’s guess if Cooper still wants it, but I thought it couldn’t hurt.”
“I think he still wants it. Want me to read it through?”
“Yep. Check I got your info down.”
“I wrote up the Gutmunsson interview last night.” She sets her papers and the mugs on the desk, tosses the sign his way. “Did you see this on the door?”
“Thanks.” He takes a mug, examines the writing on the sign as he slurps. “Huh. FBI pranking, I guess. We’re supposed to be researching cold cases, get it?”
“Wow. They really dug deep for that one.”
“And y’know. We’re teenagers, so…”
“So that makes us cool? Are we cool, Bell?”
“Last time I checked, no. But that could change any minute.” Bell, amused.
“Jesus.” She hesitates. “You want to read through my report?”
“Not really.” He tosses the sign into a nearby wastebasket.
“You must be sick of talking about Gutmunsson.”
“It’s fine. It’s like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer over and over. After a while you don’t feel it.”
Emma bites her lip. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” He puts his coffee down and stands. “I mean, really, don’t worry about it. I’ve got the Pennsylvania file. Cooper dropped off a copy a half hour ago.”
Emma feels a thrum inside, as if someone has plucked her heart chord. “You’ve got it? Have you looked at it yet?”
“Nope. I waited for you.”
Bell collects a nondescript drab-green folder, the hanging type used in filing cabinets, returns to the desk with it. Emma has already dragged her chair around to sit beside him.
Before she opens the file, she pauses. “We should take notes. Wait, what do we already know from Cooper?”
Bell pulls his notepad closer, detaches the pages with the McMurtry report, and sets them aside. He clicks his pen. “Three garbage dump sites, four murders—Crozet, Luray, Carlisle. All victims were inverted and exsanguinated. No sexual assault.”
Bell probably got the cop lingo from his dad. Emma tries to keep up. “Ligature marks, no fingerprints. Teenage victims. Increasing number of victims. One event a month, for the
last three months.” An awareness has been hovering in the recesses of her mind; now it takes on a solid shape. “It’s a new month—already June.”
“There’s still time.” Bell meets her eyes. “There’s still time to catch him.”
The file sits there like a malignancy. Emma opens it. She’s steeled herself for the crime scene photos but they hurt all the same, like a deep, damaging blow to the kidneys. A display of dead teenagers: She’s been in scenes like these.
The photos are xeroxed copies of the originals, and some of the finer details are blurred. The graininess makes the images just a little more unreal. But what is actually unreal is that there’s a person in the world who could do this. And not just do it once, but do it again and again and again—
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Bell whispers.
Emma is reminded that he puts up a good appearance of being in law enforcement already, but Bell has only ever been in training. She herself has viewed this kind of thing before.
It’s different, though. Not just in execution but in tone. The girl from Crozet lies abandoned in a puddle of oily-looking gray water, surrounded by garbage: household waste and metal parts, old diapers, smashed bottles. The Luray boy, dumped carelessly, his limbs collapsed at awkward angles, part of him obscured by a ripped tarpaulin. Then, Pennsylvania—two bodies thrown out together, sprawled on top of each other, undignified, their semi-nakedness making a gruesome parody of intimate relations.
I didn’t use my models and then throw them out with the trash. Emma bats at the thought.
Her voice comes out low and rough. “He doesn’t value them at all, once he’s done with them. He’s taken their blood and now they’re just… empty.”
Bell also sounds muted. “Why does he take the blood?”
“It’s part of his process, or he’s using it for something.…” She clears her throat, tries to steady. “Blood has lots of meanings—the color, the way it shines, as essence. It’s the red of love hearts, of virgins. It’s used in religious rituals.”