Sense of Evil Read online

  “Yes, sir.”

  When the young officer had hurried from the room, Isabel said, “Is this people starting to panic? I mean, is this an unusual increase in women reported missing?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. In the past three weeks, we've seen the reports jump tenfold. Most come home within twenty-four hours or are discovered visiting relatives or talking to divorce attorneys, or just at the grocery store.”

  “Most. But not all.”

  “We still have a few missing in the general area, but we haven't yet been able to rule out a voluntary absence in any of the cases.”

  “We'll probably see even more of this,” Isabel commented.

  “Problem is,” Mallory said, “we have to treat every report seriously, just as Rafe said. So we'll waste a lot of manpower searching for women who aren't really missing or who ran off and don't want to be found. Lady last week cussed me out good for finding her.”

  “Motel?” Isabel inquired sapiently.

  “Uh-huh. Not alone, needless to say.”

  “Still, we have to look for them,” Hollis said.

  Rafe nodded. “No question. I'm just hoping it won't muddy the water too much. Or deplete resources needed elsewhere.”

  “In the meantime,” Isabel said, “those of us in this room at least have to focus on what we know we've got. Three murdered women.”

  Rafe said, “You told me there's always a trigger. Always something specific that sets him off.”

  “There has to be,” Isabel responded. “You said yourself that five years is a hell of a long cooling-off period for a serial killer; it is, especially after a fairly frenzied six-week killing spree. A gap that long usually means either that murders in another location have gone unnoticed or at least weren't connected to him, or that he's in prison somewhere or otherwise unable to keep killing.”

  “I gather you're certain that isn't the case here.”

  “When he hit in Alabama five years ago, we combed through police files of unsolved murders from coast to coast. Nothing matched his M.O. except for the series of murders five years before that. We were convinced he had been inactive during that five-year gap, yet there was also no even remotely likely suspect we could find who had been in prison for exactly that length of time. And according to all the information gleaned from databases we had Quantico double-check yesterday, he's also been inactive in the five years since Alabama. Until he started killing in Hastings a little over three weeks ago.”

  Mallory rubbed her temple, scowling. “So something sets him off and he kills six women in six weeks. Then, apparently sated for the time being, vanishes before the cops can even get close to catching him. Why six women?”

  “We don't know,” Isabel replied. “The number has to be important, since it's been exactly the same twice before, but we don't know how or why. We can't even be absolutely positive he'll stop at six this time. He could be escalating. Most killers of this sort do sooner or later kill more or get more viciously creative in the killing itself.”

  Mallory shook her head. “Great. Because we didn't have enough to look forward to. So he kills at least six women. Moves on to a new location. Then waits five years—it's not exact, is it?” she interrupted herself to ask.

  Isabel shook her head. “Not to the day, no. The gap between the first and second set of murders was actually four years and ten months. The gap between the last set and this one was five years and one month. Give or take a few days.”

  “Okay. But he moves somewhere new after his six-week killing spree, settles down, settles in. Which has to mean we're looking for someone who's been in Hastings no more than five years, right?”

  “Or someone who used to live in the area and has moved back. Or someone who works in Hastings but lives outside the town—or the other way around. Or someone who takes long vacations every few years; that's at least possible.”

  “Goes on vacation to kill people?”

  “We've encountered stranger things. He could scout out his hunting grounds in advance, maybe start picking his victims, and return later for the actual kill.” Isabel shook her head. “Honestly, if you look at a map, the two previous hunting grounds and Hastings are all within a day's drive, despite being in three different states. So we can't even rule out the idea that he lives in an area central to his hunting grounds and has just somehow managed to spend enough time in each to get to know his victims.”

  “Oh, hell, I was hoping we could narrow down the possibles at least a little bit.”

  Hollis said, “The universe never makes it easy, remember? Probably the only people we can even begin to rule out are those who have lived continuously in Hastings during the last fifteen years at least. And I mean continuously: no vacations longer than, say, two weeks; no going away to college; no out-of-town visits, no day trips fitting the right time periods.”

  Mallory grimaced. “Which is just not possible. Even those of us who've lived here our whole lives tend to go away to school or travel or something. And day trips? Lots of good shopping in Columbia, Atlanta, other places within a day's drive.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Isabel said with a sigh.

  With a nod, Mallory said, “That sort of thing is so common I doubt we could find anybody who was absent or took weekly day trips out of town during those six-week stretches specifically, not without questioning every soul in town and probably not then. Who remembers specific dates from years ago? And like I said, people travel on vacations or for business, go away to school. I was away in Georgia three years finishing college. It was four for you, wasn't it, Rafe?”

  “Yeah. And I went to Duke, in North Carolina.” He sighed. “It's like Mal said, we've all traveled, been away from Hastings, most of us more than once. And people do take regular day trips, even out of state, for shopping or business. I get the feeling this isn't going to help us narrow the list all that much.”

  “Probably not,” Isabel agreed. “Although if we get lucky enough to find a suspect or two, we have some concrete questions to ask . . .”

  Hollis didn't intentionally tune out the discussion. She didn't want to; despite the repetition of details she already knew, she was still new enough to the investigative process itself to find it interesting, even fascinating.

  She wasn't even aware at first that Isabel's voice had faded into a peculiar hollow silence. But then she realized the discussion around her had gone distant, deadened. She felt the fine hairs on her body rise, her flesh tingle.

  It was not a pleasant sensation.

  She looked around the table at the others, watching their mouths move and hearing only a word now and then, muffled and indistinct. And they themselves appeared different to her. Dim, almost faded. They seemed to be growing ever more distant moment by moment, and that frightened her.

  Hell, it terrified her.

  She opened her mouth to say something, or try to, but even as she did, a new and unfamiliar instinct urged her to turn her head toward the doorway. Again without meaning to, without wanting to, she looked.

  Standing near the doorway was a woman.

  A blond woman.

  She was clearer than the people around Hollis, brighter somehow, and more distinct. She was beautiful, with perfect, delicate features. Her hair was burnished gold, her eyes a clear, piercing blue.

  Eyes fixed on Hollis.

  Her lips parted, and she started to speak.

  A chill swept through Hollis and she quickly looked away, instinctively trying to close the door, to disconnect herself from the place from which this woman had emerged.

  It was a cold, dark place, and it terrified Hollis.

  Because it was death.

  Mallory rubbed her temple again. “Okay, back to what sets him off. What sets him off?”

  Isabel answered readily, if not too informatively. “Something specific, but we don't know what that is, at least not yet. The gaps between his killing sprees can and might be explained by his need to get to know these women.”

  “Mig
ht,” Rafe said. “But you aren't sure?”

  “I'm sure he has to feel he knows them. For whatever reason, they can't be total strangers to him. Maybe in getting to know them, he discovers something about them—at least the initial victim—that sets him off, something that pushes his button. Or maybe he has to win their trust; that could be part of his ritual, especially since these women appear to be leaving their cars and going willingly with him.”

  “He doesn't pick out all six women before he starts killing, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have made his list.”

  “Good point.” Isabel nodded. “It's also a point that he is able to look beyond the woman he's currently stalking in order to take note of, and even choose as a future victim, another woman. Even though this guy's actual killings are frenzied, it's becoming clear that he's quite able to think coolly and calmly right up until the moment he kills them.”

  “We have to find her.”

  They all looked at Hollis. Her voice had been tight, and her face showed visible tension. She was chewing on a thumbnail, which, Rafe noticed, was already bitten short.

  “He's stalking her even now. Watching her. Thinking about what he's going to do to her. We have to—”

  “Hollis.” Isabel spoke quietly. “We'll do all we can to find her before he gets to her. But the only way we have of doing that is by starting with the women he's already killed. We have to find out what they all have in common besides the color of their hair. What connects them to each other. And to him.”

  Hollis looked at her partner almost blindly. “How can you be so calm about it? You know what's going to happen to her. We both know. We both know how it feels. The helpless terror, the agony—”

  “Hollis.” Isabel's voice was still quiet, but something in it caused her partner to blink and stiffen in her chair.

  “I'm sorry,” Hollis said. She pressed her fingertips briefly to her closed eyes, then looked at them again. “It's just that—” This time, no one interrupted her.

  But something did.

  She turned her head abruptly as if someone had called her name, staring toward the closed door of the room. Her eyes dilated until only a thin rim of blue circled the enormous pupils.

  Rafe sent a quick glance toward Isabel and found her watching her partner intently, eyes narrowed. When he looked back at Hollis, he saw that she was even more pale than she had been before, and trembling visibly.

  “Why are you here?” she whispered, looking at nothing the others could see. “Wait, I can't hear you. I want to. I want to help you. But—”

  Softly, Isabel said, “Who is it, Hollis? Who do you see?”

  “I can't hear her. She's trying to tell me something, but I can't hear her.”

  “Listen. Concentrate.”

  “I'm trying. I see her, but . . . She's shaking her head. She's giving up. No, wait—”

  Rafe was a bit startled to feel his ears pop just an instant before Hollis slumped in her chair. He told himself it was his imagination, even as he heard himself ask, “Who was it? Who did you see?”

  Hollis looked at him blankly for a moment, then past him at the bulletin board where they had posted photos and other information about the victims.

  “Her. The first victim. Jamie Brower.”

  5

  Friday, June 13, 2:30 PM

  EMILY BROWER WOULDN'T HAVE admitted it to a soul, but she was a horrible person. A horrible daughter. A really horrible sister. People kept coming up to her with shocked eyes and hushed voices, telling her how sorry they were about Jamie, asking her how she was holding up.

  “Fine, I'm fine,” Emily always replied.

  Fine. Doing okay. Holding up. Getting on with her life.

  “I'm okay, really.”

  Being there for her grieving parents. Allowing people she barely knew or didn't know at all to hug her while they whispered their condolences. Writing all the thank-you cards to people for their cards and flowers, because her mother couldn't do anything except cry. Dealing with all the phone calls from Jamie's college friends as the news rippled out.

  “I'm getting through it.”

  I'm a hypocrite.

  They had never been close, she and Jamie, but they had been sisters. So Emily knew she should feel something about Jamie being dead, being horribly murdered, something besides this slightly impatient resentment.

  She didn't.

  “I don't know what she was doing those last few weeks,” Emily told Detective Mallory Beck in response to the question she'd asked. “Jamie had her own place, a job that kept her busy, and she liked to travel. She came to Sunday dinner a couple of times a month, but other than that . . .”

  “You didn't see much of her.”

  “No. She was six years older. We didn't really have anything in common.” Emily tried not to sound as impatient as she felt, even as she stole glances at the tall blond FBI agent who was across the living room standing before the shrine.

  “So you don't know who she might have been dating?”

  “No, I already told you that.” Emily wondered what the FBI agent found so fascinating in all the photos and trophies and awards littering the built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace. Hadn't she ever seen a shrine before?

  “Do you know if she had an address book?”

  Emily frowned at Detective Beck. “Everybody has an address book.”

  “We didn't find one in her apartment.”

  “Then she must have kept it at her work.”

  “The one in her office held business information and contacts only.”

  “Well, then I don't know.”

  “She had a good memory,” Agent Adams said suddenly. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled at Emily. “There are awards here for spelling and science—chemistry. Jamie didn't have to write things down, did she?”

  “Not usually,” Emily admitted grudgingly. “Especially numbers. Phone numbers. And math. She was good at math.”

  Agent Adams chuckled. “One of those, huh? My sister was good at math. I hated it. Used to turn numbers into little cartoons. My teachers were never amused by that.”

  Emily couldn't help but laugh. “I always tried to make faces out of the numbers. My teachers didn't like it either.”

  “Ah, well, I've found there are numbers people and words people. Not a lot who do well with both.” She reached out and lightly touched a framed certificate that was part of the shrine. “Looks like Jamie was one of the rare ones, though. Here's an award for a short story she wrote in college.”

  “She liked telling stories,” Emily said. “Made-up ones, but stuff that happened to her too.”

  “You said she traveled; did she tell you any stories about that?”

  “She talked about it sometimes at Sunday dinner. But with Mom and Dad there, she only talked about the boring parts. Museums, shows, sightseeing.”

  “Never talked about any of the men she met?”

  “Nah, to hear her tell it she was a nun.”

  “But you knew the truth, naturally. Was she seeing anybody, locally?”

  “She didn't talk to me about her private life.”

  Agent Adams smiled again at Emily. “Sisters don't have to talk to know, do they? Sisters always see what's there, far more than anybody else ever does.”

  Emily wavered for a moment, but that understanding, conspiratorial smile combined with the stresses and strains of the last few weeks finally caused her resentment to escape.

  “Everybody thought she was so perfect, you know? It all came so easy to her. She was good at everything she tried, everybody loved her, she made loads of money. But underneath all that, she was scared. It really showed in the last few weeks before she died. To me, anyway. Nervous, jumpy, rushing around like she had too much to do and not enough time. She was scared shitless.”

  “Why?” Detective Beck asked quietly.

  “Because of her big secret. Because she knew how upset and disappointed our parents would be, other people would be, how horrified. It's
just not something you do in a little town like Hastings, not something people could accept. And she was always scared they'd find out. Always.”

  “Scared they'd find what out, Emily?” Agent Adams asked.

  “That she was gay.” Emily laughed. “A lesbian. But not just any sort of lesbian, mind you, that's not the part she was terrified people would find out. Lovely, sweet, talented, good-at-anything-and-everything Jamie was a dominatrix. She dressed in shiny black leather and stiletto heels with fishnet stockings, and she made other women crawl and fawn and do whatever she wanted them to.”

  Agent Adams didn't seem in the least surprised. “Are you sure about that, Emily?”

  “You bet I'm sure. I've got pictures.”

  As they got into Mallory's Jeep a few minutes later, she said, “Did you know about Jamie Brower going in or pick up something there in the room?”

  “Picked it up while I was there. That house was practically screaming at me.”

  “Really? Amazing how much people can keep hidden. Because we didn't get any of this before, and both Rafe and I talked to Emily several times. And Jamie's parents, friends, coworkers. Not so much as a hint that Jamie led any kind of unconventional life sexually.”

  “Yeah, I read the statements you guys collected. Jamie even dated local men, and at least two claimed fairly recent sexual relationships.”

  Mallory started the Jeep but didn't put it in gear, turning her head to frown at Isabel. “They weren't lying about that. I'd bet my pension on it.”

  “I think you're right. Just the fact that they were willing to admit to intimate relationships and put themselves in that police spotlight makes it fairly certain they were telling the truth. But I don't believe Jamie was truly bisexual, that she enjoyed sex with men and women.”