Disarming Detective (6 page)

Logan settled into the chair next to her, a respectable distance that somehow still felt too intimate.

“You’re the expert,” he said, his tone normal, as if he hadn’t had his tongue in her mouth last night. “Where should we start?”

She fiddled with her pen, then managed to look up at him. “Let’s just...” Ella glanced at the door, making sure it was closed, before she continued, “I just want to be clear that what happened yesterday was an anomaly.”

“An
anomaly
?” Laughter curved Logan’s lips, but it quickly faded, his tone immediately becoming stiff. “You were pretty clear yesterday that it was a mistake. I got it. It won’t happen again.”

She nodded. “I know this case is important to you. I’m staying. But if it gets out that I’m not supposed to be here...” She stared into those unreadable green eyes. “I could lose my job.”

His hand closed over the top of hers, igniting all the sparks she was trying to ignore. “I’m not going to do anything to put your job in jeopardy.”

She pulled her hand away. “Thanks. Okay, let’s get to work. Tell me about the car.”

“The car?”

“Theresa’s rental car. Was it processed?”

“They’re still working it, but prints are a bust. The front of the car had been totally wiped down. Nothing there. We found some prints in the trunk, but those were ruled out. One set we’ve identified as Theresa’s and one was my dad’s, probably from when he took her luggage out of the trunk.”

“Hmm.”

Frustration rang in Logan’s voice as he said, “My dad was cleared. My whole family was cleared. The coroner narrowed her time of death down to a pretty small window and we were at a town function. Practically the whole town can alibi us.”

“That’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking it’s too bad he wiped down the whole front of the car instead of just one side.”

“Because now we don’t know if the killer was in the driver’s side or the passenger side?”

“Right. Although possibly he was in both. She could have picked him up voluntarily, placing him in the passenger side, and then later, he drove the car to dump it.”

“But you don’t think so?”

Ella studied the table, considering, then gazed back up at Logan, working it out aloud. “Well, since Theresa wasn’t meeting anyone and was headed for the airport when she disappeared, it looks like an ambush. So, either he stalked her beforehand and waited for his opportunity or he picked her at random because he was looking for a victim and she came along at the right time. Either way, why would she pick him up? Given his knowledge of the dumping spot, he’s probably been here a while, so it seems unlikely he’d be hitchhiking.”

“Theresa wouldn’t pick up a hitchhiker.”

“Are you sure?”

Logan gave a tired nod, leaning back in his seat. “She roomed with the sister of a homicide detective in college. Trust me, I drilled that kind of thing into Becky. Call me an overprotective brother, but I asked her about Theresa’s safety habits. If anything, I think Becky’s stories made Theresa overcautious.”

“Okay, well—”

“The spare was on the car.” Logan swore. “It didn’t really occur to me before, but maybe this guy caught up to her when she was changing her tire. Although obviously, she put the spare on, so he didn’t grab her then.”

“Maybe that was just the way to meet her. He caused her tire to blow, helped her fix it, then grabbed her.”

“He caused the flat? How?”

“Maybe a tack board in some deserted stretch of road he knew she’d take to the airport.” An ambush. The way Maggie had been ambushed ten years ago.

Ella pushed back familiar anger and kept going. “That’s assuming he was stalking her. Can you think of a spot along the route to the airport that would fit?” To her embarrassment, she’d fallen asleep on the drive from the airport near Fort Meyers to Oakville. Logan had needed to wake her when he’d arrived at her hotel.

Logan clenched his fists and Ella understood every ounce of his frustration. His sister’s friend was dead and there wasn’t a thing he could do to change that. He could only stop it from happening to someone else.

“Well, Theresa was staying with my sister. The fastest route to the airport would be directly through town to the highway. Once you get on the highway, there are some pretty deserted stretches, just marshland on one side and empty land on the other. It doesn’t get busier for a good ten or so miles, once you get closer to Naples.”

“Maybe we should have some patrol officers drive it,” Ella suggested. “Not the whole route, but the stretch you’re talking about. See if they locate any evidence of a blowout, or if we get lucky, maybe something of Theresa’s, since none of her personal items have turned up.”

Logan sighed, rubbing his temple. “I’ll go talk to the chief. Hang on.”

While he was gone, Ella unfolded the map she’d grabbed at the airport and studied the distance from Oakville to Cape Coral, Florida. That was where the Fishhook Rapist—who’d started with Maggie in DC almost ten years ago—had assaulted his most recent known victim. It was only forty miles up the coast. The woman had started her first job after college when she’d been grabbed. Like Maggie, she’d been given Rohypnol before she was raped and branded on the back of her neck with the image of a hook.

Then, just like Maggie, just like every other victim over the past ten years, he’d released her on September first and disappeared. Until the next year, when he would reappear somewhere else in the country to do it again.

Ella had always assumed he’d gone to ground between abductions. She’d never considered that he was claiming victims between each September first. But maybe the ones he released were simply his way of getting attention. Maybe the rest he killed and dumped in marshes so their bodies—branded with his signature—were never found.

And maybe he’d finally made his first mistake.

* * *

“
T
HAT
’
S
NOT
HOW
he abducted Theresa,” Logan announced when he returned to the conference room, tucking his cell phone in his pocket. Luckily, he’d called Becky before asking his chief to send a bunch of officers to follow a bad lead. He didn’t need any more trouble with Chief Patterson.

“What?” Ella quickly folded a map and tucked it in the briefcase by her feet, drawing his attention to her bare legs.

In deference to the Florida heat, she was wearing a skirt that didn’t make it any easier to keep his distance. It figured that the first woman he’d been this attracted to in years lived in another state and was determined to keep things professional while she was here.

She’d acted flustered during dinner last night, and his mom had definitely guessed something was up. Ella’s inability to hide her feelings was such an odd contrast with her ability to quickly dissect the personalities of killers that he was tempted to probe the inconsistency. Preferably with more kissing.

A smile pulled on his lips, and he fought to contain it.

Ella’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“I called my sister.” Logan rejoined her at the table. “Theresa’s tire went flat when they were together, not when she was on her way to the airport. Becky says it blew close to her house the day before Theresa left and the two of them changed it. That’s not how the killer grabbed Theresa.”

“So, we still don’t know how he targeted Theresa or how he grabbed her. Or where. But it still looks like an ambush to me, so he must’ve gotten her to stop along the way to the airport—maybe to help him if he pretended
he
had a flat tire?”

Logan shrugged, not convinced. “It’s possible, but honestly, I don’t see Theresa stopping in a deserted area by herself. Calling the cops to tell them someone was stranded seems more likely.”

“Well, let’s assume he got her to stop somehow. Maybe he blocked the road.”

Logan felt his back teeth grind together as he imagined Theresa punching down on the brakes, relieved not to have hit someone, only to be abducted. As he’d done over and over again during the past few days, he tried not to think about what his sister’s friend had endured after that.

When he didn’t say anything, Ella suggested, “The other option is that he met Theresa sometime earlier in the week and set up a meeting with her, but from everything we know, that seems unlikely.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right about the ambush.”

“Well, like I told your sister yesterday, an ambush abduction—instead of some kind of charm approach—suggests the killer isn’t likely to have talked to Theresa beforehand. Followed her, yes, but not gotten too close.” Her words picked up speed, and he could tell she was in her zone now. “He’s probably socially awkward, unmarried, a loner.”

Logan grabbed his pen, started jotting notes. This was what he’d been waiting for—the profiling magic that would help him stop this killer. “Okay. So, I’m not going to find him trolling for victims in the local bar?”

“Probably not. If he is, he’s the guy sitting in the corner by himself watching everyone.”

“Well, that sounds creepy.”

“Which is why I don’t think he’d do it. People might remember him. Plus, he’d be uncomfortable.”

Logan readied his pen. “Okay, so if I’m not going to find him by hitting the clubs Theresa and Becky went to, then what?”

“You should still retrace their steps. He might be trolling in the same places. And if he’s worried about the fact that we have a body—which he probably is—he might try to talk to the cops to find out what they know.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Really? That doesn’t seem very inconspicuous.”

“Well, he’d either try to play it casual—act like a concerned citizen who’s shocked at the murder and wants to know how we’re keeping everyone else safe. Or, if there’s reason to talk to him in the course of the investigation—say, he’s working at one of the places Theresa went—he might use that opening to try and find out what we know. Your patrol officers should get the name of anyone they talk to about the case.”

Logan frowned, but jotted down the suggestion anyway. “That could be a long list. We don’t get many murders in Oakville. We’re questioning everyone. What else can you tell me about this guy?”

“He’s intelligent. He knew to wipe the car down for prints
and
he dropped it in a spot seemingly unconnected to Theresa’s abduction. He disposed of the body in a way that meant we almost didn’t have one. Plus, he abducted her once everyone here thought she was already home and apparently no one in Arkansas had noticed she wasn’t back yet.”

“You think that’s important?”

“It would be quite a lucky coincidence. And I don’t believe in those. So, yes, I think it’s important. I think it means he stalked her first. And I think once the thrill wears off, he’ll be trolling for his next victim.”

Theresa had been stalked. Logan had gone to dinner one evening with Becky and Theresa, and had joined them for ice cream another day. And all his police training had failed him. He hadn’t noticed the man who was watching and would ultimately kill Theresa. And that man was still out there, still a threat.

The guilt gnawed at his insides, making his throat constrict. He looked away from Ella, but it was too late.

Her hand on his wrist was light, but it affected him more than a stack of case files dropped on his head. He sucked in a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“I understand. I have a case like this, too.”

He whipped his head back, his guilt morphing into frustration. Since Theresa had died, too many people had told him they understood. Too many people had pretended to know how he felt investigating the person who’d killed his sister’s friend, in the town where he was supposed to have kept her safe. He was tired, and he was tired of the placating. His words came out rough and angry and staccato before he could rein them in. “You have a case where you didn’t protect someone and that person was murdered?”

He knew he’d crossed the line even before her dark brown eyes shifted to near-black, before her jaw jutted out, and she replied, “Well, that’s not what I was talking about, but actually, I do.”

She didn’t give him time to apologize, just grabbed his hand and placed it just underneath the hem of her skirt.

His brain instantly shut down. When it started working again, he realized the skin on her thigh was puckered and rough. A scar.

“I got one bullet to the leg. Just missed my femoral artery or I wouldn’t be here. My partner got two bullets, both to the chest. He didn’t make it.”

She jumped to her feet and turned her back to him, but he heard her shaky, indrawn breath. “I was a newbie in the gangs unit. My partner had been there for years. We got a tip and it went bad. Intellectually, I know there was nothing I could have done, but that doesn’t really stop me from feeling it was at least partly my fault.”

She spun back around, and her anger was palpable. “Let’s take a break.”

She had already left the conference room before he’d finished saying sorry.

Almost instantly, she ran back in. “Logan, get out here.”

“What?” He jumped to his feet and followed her.

At the front of the station, through the glass separating the area open to the public from the secure area, he could see a group of cops gathered around someone. Even Chief Patterson was there, his body hunched forward. Logan didn’t need to be able to hear what they were saying to read their tone, and it was grim.

He hurried past the station’s bullpen out through the key-card doors to the front desk area, with Ella right behind him. They pushed their way around the crowd until they could see the focus of the cops’ attention.

It was a woman in her twenties, wearing a T-shirt she’d put on backward and jeans. Her long blond hair fell in a tangled mess. Thin streaks of mascara bled down her face, tears still falling, and even from a distance, the smell of alcohol seeped from her.

“I’m telling you, this isn’t like her,” the woman cried. “She should have been back at the hotel by now!”

“How long has she been missing, ma’am?” the chief asked. His calm tone didn’t match the anxiety radiating from him.

“My name is Kelly. And she went missing yesterday. We were planning to drive home this morning, but we decided to stay a few more days, so we went to the club last night.”