by Sandra Brown
Talia was about to move off him, but he wrapped his arms around her, one under her bottom, the other just below her shoulders. He raised his head and pecked a kiss, then left his lips against hers. “Stay here.”
“Like this?”
“Just like this.” He dabbed the corner of her mouth with the tip of his tongue. “I’m not ready to leave you yet.”
“I may get heavy.”
“I may snore.”
She returned her cheek to his chest and closed her eyes, feeling more languid and safe than she could ever remember feeling. “You thought my pajamas were ugly?”
He answered with a soft snore.
Chapter 33
At some point during the wee hours, Drex had disengaged from Talia, moved her off him, and turned her onto her side so they could spoon. He woke up with his arm tingling from having gone to sleep supporting her head. He checked the clock on the night table and was surprised by the time. He hadn’t planned to sleep that long. It would be daylight soon.
As tempting as it was to stay snuggled with Talia, he had thinking to do.
He eased his arm from beneath her head and scooted off the bed without waking her. He took only his phone and pistol with him as he tiptoed from the bedroom and into the bathroom. Five minutes later, he emerged, showered and dressed in the clothes he’d worn the day before and which had remained on the bathroom floor all night.
Downstairs, he brewed a cup of coffee, then sent Mike a text asking for an update on Gif. Mike called him back. Keeping his voice low, Drex answered on the first ring. “How’s he doing?”
“I got to see him around four-thirty. He had woken up, but was still under the influence. Wanted to know what had happened to him.”
“He didn’t remember?”
“Remembered a throng of people. He was making his way through as best he could toward the cordoned-off crime scene. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground, in pain like none other, paralyzed. Couldn’t even breathe.”
“He never saw his attacker?”
“He wasn’t looking for one.”
“Right,” Drex said. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Couple of hours. You?”
“Some.”
“Talia okay?”
“She’s still asleep.”
The unasked question hovered between them. Drex chose to ignore it. “Have you heard from Locke?”
“Check your email. He sent the coroner’s reports about ten minutes ago.”
“I haven’t turned on my laptop yet. I’ll get to them as soon as we hang up.”
“No surprises in the one on Elaine Conner. The woman last night? He came up behind her, probably caught her in a nelson, snapped her spinal column, C-six.”
“Jesus.”
“Tell me.”
Drex said, “What worries me most is the cheekiness of it. He killed that woman and hung around.”
“In the hope that you would show.”
“No doubt, but staying in the vicinity is out of his norm. He’s done it twice now within twenty-four hours. Takes balls.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Mike said. “It takes a psychopath. He’s accelerating.”
“Spiraling at the speed of a tornado.”
“Because you’ve come too close.”
“He’s taunting me. These two dead women are his red cape.”
“We’ve got to put this cocksucker out of commission, Drex.”
“I know. But listen, Mike, you can’t come back here.”
“I already figured that.”
“Beyond the chance of leading Rudkowski to Talia and me, I need you to stay with Gif.”
“Figured that, too. At least through today to make sure he’s on the mend.”
“Are you okay with hanging out there?”
“I’m better off than Gif.”
“I know, but—”
“Did you hug a nurse?”
“What?”
“A nurse. Gray hair, smiling eyes?”
Drex remembered her now. “She promised to take good care of Gif.”
“Well, she must’ve enjoyed that hug. Since you aren’t here, she’s taken me under her wing. Fetched me a pillow and blanket last night. This morning, she brought me a washcloth and towel. I took a sponge bath in the men’s room. There’s a large cafeteria. I’ve got my laptop and charger. I’ll be doing for you here what I’d be doing for you there. I’m fine. So long as Rudkowski leaves me alone, but I doubt he’ll make another scene like he did last night.”
“Thanks, Mike. I’ll stay in touch. Let me know if you see an opportunity for me to talk to Gif.”
“Will do.”
They disconnected. Drex made himself another cup of coffee and set up his laptop on the eating bar. He opened the email from Locke, whose message was: No connection between the two homicides except gender and birthdays in April. You still think it’s him?
“You bet your ass I do.” But Drex knew he would need more than, “I feel him,” to convince the law enforcement community that the man who was missing and feared lost at sea was on dry land, alive and well and lethal.
He opened the first attachment in the email, which was the coroner’s report on Elaine Conner. He read it word for word. As Mike had said, it didn’t contain much that Locke hadn’t already shared with them.
The report on Sara Barker, the woman murdered last night, was difficult for Drex to read. It was a heinously wasteful act. Jasper being his most self-indulgent.
After going through the report once, Drex left the bar and wandered into the living area, where he turned on the television. Network morning shows were in full swing. During the brief break-in for the local station, a story was aired about Sara Barker’s murder. A spokeswoman for the family described her friend as a giving, loving person. “Who would do such an unspeakable thing?”
“Who indeed?” asked the young female reporter, looking straight into the camera, affecting a tragic tone and expression.
“The same man who buried a woman alive,” Drex replied.
When the reporter began chatting energetically with the weatherman, Drex muted the TV and returned to the bar. He pulled up the report on Elaine Conner again. “Come on, Elaine. You loved to talk. Talk to me. Tell me what I’m missing.”
It had to be here: Weston/Jasper’s trademark, initial, stamp, signature. Something. What the hell was it?
He read the report again out loud, as though speaking the words would sharpen their definitions and make them revelatory.
And then he read a word, and, as soon as his mouth formed it, his mind slammed on the brakes. Returning to the beginning of the sentence, he read up to that word, and stopped on it again.
His hands got clammy. His heartbeat sped up. But before he let himself become too excited, he went back to the report on Sara Barker. He scrolled through the various forms until he found the one he sought. He magnified it to make the print larger on his monitor. And there it was. The same word. In a seemingly innocuous notation in the autopsy report.
He broke out in goose bumps.
In his haste to get up, he knocked the barstool over backward. He mounted the stairs two at a time and painfully banged his shoulder against the doorframe as he barged through it and into the bedroom.
“Talia!” He rounded the bed and sat down on the side she was facing as she slept. “Talia.” He shook her shoulder.
She roused and blinked up at him, then smiled sleepily. “Good morning.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders, as much to stabilize himself as to focus her. “Tell me again about Jasper’s wardrobe being custom-made, keeping his tailor busy.”
She struggled to sit up, dragging the sheet up over her breasts and pushing her hair off her face. “What? Has something happened?”
“You said he fussed over things, like buttons.”
“Yes. He recently had his tailor replace buttons that he called ‘outmoded.’”
Drex’s gut clenched. “He did?”
“No
more than a week ago. He had old buttons swapped out for new ones on several pieces.”
Drex held still and let it sink in, then released her and sat back on his bent knee. Staring into near space, he said quietly, “He takes a button.” Coming back to Talia, he looked into her gaze, from which all sleepiness had disappeared. “He takes a button.”
Getting off the bed, he paced the length of it. “He’s collected them. He puts them on garments he has custom made and wears them in plain sight of everybody. His trophies are on display, no one suspecting they came off the bodies of women he killed. That’s his joke on us dumb slobs.”
He ran his hand over the top of his head, then down the back of his neck. It was still difficult for him to breathe evenly. His heart was racing, and not from climbing the stairs at the pace he had.
“How did you come to this conclusion?” Talia spoke softly as though not to derail his train of thought or interrupt the flow of deductive reasoning.
“In the coroner’s report on Elaine, he described her body as it was on the beach. The position it was lying in. So forth. She was fully clothed. A black, low-heeled sandal was on her right foot. The left one was missing. She was dressed in black capri pants and a light blue shirt. The coroner noted that a button on the shirt cuff was missing.
“The woman last night was wearing a skirt with decorative buttons down the left side. Here,” he said, running his hand along the side of his thigh. “According to the autopsy report, which included photographs of her clothing, the last button in the row was missing.”
Talia processed all that. “How does this help you?”
“It links the two homicides, Elaine’s and Sara Barker’s. It’s a telltale signature that I never had before, because there has never been a corpse before. Until Marian Harris.” He gave Talia a sharp look, then left the bedroom and clambered down the stairs, snatched his phone up off the bar, and called Mike. When he answered, Drex said, “He takes a button.”
“Come again?”
Sputtering in his haste to get it out, Drex told him of his discovery.
“Possible coincidence,” Mike said.
“It’s possible for me to be voted pope, but how likely is it? Did that deputy in Key West send you the coroner’s report on Marian Harris?”
“We never asked for it.”
“Shit! You’re right. Gray—that’s his name—mentioned the decomposition of the remains. I was focused on the atrocity, and then on getting that party pic enhanced. I’ll call him now. If Marian was clothed when the creep buried her, forensics would have a description of the garments, even if they were partially disintegrated. The report would include the detail of a missing button.”
“You hope.”
“I hope. But this feels right, Mike. If we can connect Marian’s murder to these most recent two, Rudkowski can’t deny that we’re chasing a serial killer. If he does, we’ll jump the chain.”
“But you’ve still got to prove that Jasper Ford is the creep.”
“One step at a time. This is a leap. Stay handy. I’m putting in a call to that deputy now.”
Talia came downstairs as he was rifling through his duffel bag looking for the cell phone that had Gray’s phone number logged. Her hair was still wet from the shower. She smelled of the gel, the scent of which would forever call to mind that erotic experience.
As she walked past him on her way into the kitchen, he said, “By the way, good morning back,” and leaned over for a quick kiss on the mouth, then resumed replacing a battery in the cell phone.
Talia said, “Jasper had his buttons switched out recently so he could take all of the trophy ones with him when he disappeared.”
“That’s my theory. They’re small, portable.”
“When he moves on, he’ll have them sewn onto other clothes, adding the newest two.”
“He would, but he’s not going to move on, Talia.” He clicked on the back of the phone. “He’s not getting away this time.”
He pulled up the number of the sheriff’s office in Key West and hoped to God Gray was on duty. When the main line was answered, he asked for him and, while he waited, watched Talia make herself a cup of coffee. Her hands were shaky. When she turned to face him, he said, “You okay?”
Her smile was tentative. “Yes. It’s just that this pushes it beyond speculation. It’s become very real.”
“I know.” He went over to her and stroked her face. “I’m sorry.”
She covered his hand with hers, holding it against her cheek. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t be sorry at all.” He gave her another tender kiss, then righted the barstool and guided her onto it.
“This is Deputy Gray.”
Drex jerked his attention back to the phone call. “Gray, it’s Special Agent Easton.”
After a brief silence that teemed with resentment, the young deputy said, “Agent Rudkowski called me about half an hour ago. He told me all about you and what you’ve done. I can’t talk to you.”
“Deputy—”
“Sorry.”
“Gray! Don’t hang up. Listen. I need—”
“I can’t talk to you.” He was emphatic, but spoke in an undertone, as though afraid of being overheard. “I’ve been warned by the FBI not to talk to you, or send anything to you. Rudkowski also reported all this to my sergeant, who is furious.”
“Okay. Busted. I manipulated you, and my tactics have been questionable.”
“Questionable? Did you really run off with a material witness?”
“Yes, in order to try and save her life. I don’t want her to meet a fate similar to Marian Harris’s. Which is why I’m calling. I think I’ve found a link between—”
“You’re not hearing me, Easton. You have no authorization. I can’t help you.”
“All I’m asking is that you send me the coroner’s report on Marian Harris.”
“That report is exempt from public disclosure because the criminal investigation is ongoing.”
“That sounds memorized.”
“It was. Rudkowski suggested it, so I’d have a reply if you had the gall to contact me again.”
Drex spat out an expletive, but he forced himself to remain calm. Being overbearing wasn’t going to work on Gray, who had been cowed by pressure coming at him from all sides. At any other time, Drex would feel bad for having exploited the green officer’s initial willingness to help.
He said, “All right. I understand your reluctance to send it to me. Instead, send it to Agent Mallory. Remember him? You sent him—”
“Rudkowski said I wasn’t to feed him anything, either. Or somebody named Lewis. He said you three have formed a league of your own. That you’re impeding two homicide investigations. He also told me that this isn’t the first time you’ve pulled illegal and unethical stunts.”
Drex pinched the bridge of his nose. “Will you at least read through that report, and then let me ask you some questions pertaining to it?”
“I. Can’t. Talk. To. You.”
“I’m not asking you to talk. A simple yes or no. In fact, you don’t even have to speak. You could cough. Once for yes, twice for no.”
“Rudkowski said you’d turn it into a game of some kind or another.”
“I’ll limit it to one question. One. That’s all. Will you do that much?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Lives are at risk, Deputy Gray.”
“Rudkowski told me you’d say that, too. He said you’re—”
“I’m…?”
“Delusional.”
“Do you think so?” The deputy remained silent. Drex said, “I suppose you were also instructed to pass along this phone number if I called, so Rudkowski can use it to locate me.”
Drex heard him swallow hard. “I’m sorry, Easton,” he said and hung up.
“Michael Mallory?”
Mike was in the process of trying to hack the police report on last night’s murder of Sara Barker. He looked up, expecting to see someone on the hospital staff. Instead, facing h
im were two uniformed sheriff’s deputies, one of each gender.
He closed his laptop. “That’s me.”
“We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Check with detectives Locke and Menundez, Charleston PD. They know all about it. The man attacked last night at Waterfront is my friend. I have their permission to keep vigil.”
“Maybe. But it was an FBI Agent Rudkowski who told us where to start looking for you.”
Mike didn’t like the sound of that. “Well, you found me.”
“Do you know a Sammy Markson? Also known as—”
“I know all Sammy’s aliases.”
“So you do know him?”
“I helped put him away for his first stint.”
“A few days ago, did you drive a vehicle provided by him from Lexington, Kentucky, to Atlanta?” The woman deputy consulted her small notepad. She read off the make, model, and license plate number of the minivan. “Blue in color.”
Mike scowled. “Why’re you asking?”
“Did you?”
He mulishly held his tongue.
“If you’re unwilling to answer,” said the male deputy, “we’ll have to take you in for further questioning.”
“First, you need to tell me what for, and, if you’re taking me in for an interrogation, once we get there, you must provide me with legal counsel before I say a word.”
“This is an informal interview,” the woman said.
Mike snorted. “We all know there’s no such thing. What’s your probable cause for hassling me?”
The two looked at each other and seemed to come to an agreement. The woman said, “Last night, Sammy Markson was arrested and charged with several counts of grand theft auto.”
That little shit. He was cutting deals with the Fayette County, Kentucky, sheriff’s department.
Mike had notified Sammy that he was coming to Charleston and that he had left the minivan at the Atlanta airport for retrieval at a later date. It had seemed the decent thing to do. He could now kick himself.
The male deputy said, “Markson provided your name as someone who would vouch for him.”
“Vouch that he’s guilty or vouch that he’s innocent?”
“He didn’t specify. Which is our probable cause for hassling you.”