Disarming Detective (7 page)

“Did your friend leave with anyone, Kelly?” the chief pressed.

“No. Look, I lost track of her at the club, so I went back to the hotel and fell asleep. When I woke up this morning, she still wasn’t back.”

“Have you tried calling her? Is it possible she went home with someone?”

“Yes, I tried calling her! It goes straight to voice mail. And Laurie’s not like that. She likes to party, sure, but she doesn’t go home with random guys.”

“Do you have a picture?” Ella spoke up.

Kelly turned toward Ella. Maybe because she was the only other woman in the room, Kelly rushed over, digging around in the purse dangling from her shoulder until she pulled out a camera. “Here.” She held it out to Ella, an image on the screen.

Logan leaned over Ella’s shoulder to see it and an anvil seemed to punch through his chest, leaving behind a deep fear of just what evil Oakville was facing.

The woman in the picture had long, dark hair, just like Theresa. She looked like a college student, just like Theresa. And right before she was supposed to leave town, she’d gone missing. Just like Theresa.

Oakville’s serial killer had found his next victim.

Chapter Five

“Let’s go over it one more time.”

Logan’s expression was mild, but even through the one-way glass, Ella could see the strain lurking below the surface. Across from him, Kelly slumped in her seat, her hands trembling around her third cup of coffee. It was hard to tell if the coffee had sobered her up or just made her jittery, along with hungover.

“I’ve told you everything,” Kelly groaned. “Why are we still talking? Go out and find her.” Her voice shook when she added, “Look in the marsh where that other girl was found.”

Logan leaned closer, his face softening. “We have officers searching for Laurie right now. I’m asking you to tell me again because sometimes the smallest detail—the thing you think is unimportant—is what matters.”

He was good at this. Ella had listened to a lot of police interviews in the past two years and she’d learned that the best detectives were patient. Kelly had already told the story twice, but certain little details had been off just enough that Ella knew she was hiding something. Whatever it was, it might be the key to finding Laurie—and maybe to finding their perp.

“So far the marsh is clear.”

Ella spun to face the officer who’d come into the observation room as he dragged a chair toward the glass and slumped into it.

“What about the bars?” It had been four hours since Kelly had shown up at the station and officers had been sent out to talk to everyone who worked at the bars she and Laurie had hit before Laurie disappeared.

The officer blinked bloodshot eyes, and Ella realized he was one of the second shift officers who’d been called back in to join in the search. “So far, we’ve got a number of people who remember Laurie. Apparently, she was drinking a lot and being pretty loud. And dancing with half the local boys.”

“Does anyone remember her leaving with someone?”

“Not yet. But we have two reports of her mentioning that she was driving home first thing in the morning.”

Ella frowned. “Kelly says they changed their mind about leaving this morning, that they were going to stay a few more days.”

The officer shrugged. “That’s all I know.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

Ella glanced down at him. “Maybe that’s what Kelly’s lying about. Maybe they really did plan to leave today.”

“Why would she lie about that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Why do you think she’s lying about anything?”

Ella gestured through the one-way glass to where Logan had gotten Kelly back to the point in her story where she said she’d lost track of Laurie.

Kelly fidgeted, staring down at her coffee cup. “I just turned around and realized she wasn’t there anymore. I couldn’t find her, so I figured I’d see her back at the hotel.”

“And you were on the dance floor when you realized this?”

“Yeah.”

Logan didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Kelly looked back up at him. “When you talked about this earlier,” he said, “you told me you were up at the bar.”

Kelly scowled, turning the coffee cup around and around. “Whatever. Why does it matter?”

“You did talk to her before you went back to the hotel, didn’t you, Kelly?”

Kelly’s shoulders dropped just as the chief walked into the observation room behind Ella. “Yeah, okay. I was afraid you wouldn’t look for her if I told you...”

The chief crowded between Ella and the officer, leaning toward the glass. “I knew there was more to this,” he muttered.

“She was talking to a couple of guys, okay? She wanted to stay at the bar longer, but I was tired.”

“We need a description of these guys, Kelly,” Logan said, only a hint of frustration in his voice.

Kelly waved a hand in front of her. “Okay, yes, she was trying to pick one of them up, but it wasn’t going to happen!”

“We still need those descriptions.”

“She texted me an hour later. Said the guy had a girlfriend, and she was going to have another drink and then come back.”

Ella glanced at the chief, who was standing so close to her she could see the individual strands of silver weaving through his dark blond hair. “I knew it,” he mumbled, but he sounded relieved.

The officer straightened in his chair. “Maybe she wasn’t grabbed on her way back to the hotel. Maybe she went home with someone.”

Ella frowned. “Maybe.”

The chief looked at Ella as Logan had Kelly describe the men Laurie had talked to at the bar. “I thought you said the killer was socially awkward?” the chief pressed.

“Well—”

“The profile you gave Logan said he wasn’t charming these women, that he wouldn’t troll at bars.”

“That’s true—”

“So, either Laurie went home with someone she picked up at a bar who
isn’t
the killer or your profile is wrong. Which one is it?”

“Profiling isn’t an exact science,” Ella said as the door opened again and Hank O’Connor ran in. “I don’t think this killer would be picking up women at bars, but—”

The chief gestured to the interrogation room. “It sure sounds like she didn’t leave that bar alone.”

“That’s true,” Hank said. “We’ve got reports from a couple of tourists at the last bar they hit that Laurie left with another spring breaker. Tall blond kid who was hitting on every girl in the room.”

The chief looked pointedly at Ella, his tone mocking. “That sound like your serial killer?”

* * *

A
FTER
SPENDING
A
long day trying—and failing—to track down Laurie, Ella fell into a deep sleep. If she dreamed of bodies surfacing in marshes and women with burns on their necks, she didn’t remember it. She woke to the sound of a door slamming.

“Let’s
go
!” a man’s voice, full of panic, called.

Ella blinked the sleep from her eyes and threw off the covers. When she peeked into the hotel hallway, she saw a pair of women hurrying toward the front lobby, lugging suitcases behind them. Across the hall, a man pushed open his door, holding it for a woman who was still jamming clothes in a duffel bag as she walked.

“Excuse me,” Ella said, “What’s going on?”

The man gave her an incredulous look. “You didn’t hear? There’s a killer in Oakville. Some sicko targeting women on spring break. If you’re alone, I’d get out of here now. I’m taking my girlfriend home.”

The woman, a tiny brunette in her early twenties, rolled her eyes as she passed her boyfriend. “We’re heading up the coast. We’re going to find a beach that doesn’t have a serial killer feeding people to the alligators.”

Apparently the news was out. The locals at least had already known about Theresa, but the serial killer angle hadn’t seemed to catch on. Until now.

“Thanks,” Ella managed, closing the door to change out of her pajamas and into another skirt and T-shirt that would be sticking to her by midday.

She grabbed her phone, but instead of calling Logan, walked to the hotel lobby. Near the check-in desk was a stack of newspapers. Weaving through the crowd of tanned and hungover spring breakers standing in line to check out early, Ella opened a paper.

The headline for the lead story screamed out, Serial Killer Stalks Coeds in Oakville.

Dropping some change for the paper, she carried it back to her room, reading as she walked. The reporter had led with a quote from Kelly about Laurie’s disappearance. After a few paragraphs theorizing on the serial killer angle, he’d shifted into summarizing Theresa’s murder—including details of the burns she’d sustained.

Ella cursed as she let herself back into her room. If Theresa’s killer had murdered before, he’d managed to destroy all evidence in the marsh. Now, between Theresa’s body showing up, Laurie’s disappearance and the sudden media flurry, he was either going to go to ground or he was going to forget about being careful and troll for as many victims as he could, as fast as he could.

Which meant she needed to get to the Oakville police station and help them find him before either of those things happened.

She picked up her briefcase and crammed her notes back inside. She was locking the hotel room behind her when her cell phone rang. “Logan,” she answered without looking. “I’m on my way.”

“Good to know. But this isn’t Logan,” Scott drawled.

“Scott.” Ella forced herself to keep moving. The police station was two blocks over; usually Logan called and picked her up, but today she was glad to have the time to herself. “I’m sorry I haven’t called.” She tried to put a cheery note in her voice. “How’s California?”

“Well, I’d rather you were the one hitting the spa with Maggie, but otherwise, not bad.”

Ella couldn’t help feeling guilty. Normally when the three of them went on trips together, she and Maggie spent a certain amount of time pampering themselves while Scott took off on his own, usually chasing skirts. “You’re not letting her out of your sight, are you?”

“Are you kidding me?” There was nothing funny in Scott’s tone. “Maggie may be the SWAT agent, but I’m still her big brother. I’m sticking close.”

Not that Maggie should be in any immediate danger, even if Ella was wrong and the Fishhook Rapist wasn’t still in Florida. He had never gone back for any of his victims. But they’d planned the vacation a few months ago, when Maggie had gotten a letter, in which the writer claimed to be him.

The letter hadn’t made any threats. If the sender hadn’t made reference to an evening in September nearly a decade ago, you might have thought it was a love letter. It made Ella feel nauseated just thinking about it.

Follow-up by a case agent had revealed that he hadn’t communicated with any of his other victims. The FBI lab hadn’t been able to get anything useful off of Maggie’s letter. And none of them were really sure how the Fishhook Rapist had tracked down Maggie’s address. Follow-up on the postbox in Georgia from which the letter had been sent hadn’t given them anything useful. Without any real leads, that had seemed to be the end of it.

But ever since the letter had arrived, she and Scott had made a vow to watch out for Maggie. Between the three of them, Scott and Maggie were the most trained and skilled in a fight. Maggie had been with the Washington Field Office’s SWAT team for the past four years and Scott had joined the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team as a sniper a year ago.

Ella knew she could help best by being here, and now that she had just Scott on the phone... She opened her mouth to tell him why she’d bailed on their vacation, but he spoke first.

“Maggie got another letter.”

Anger flooded her system, mixed with a heavy hit of fear. Sudden contact like this wasn’t good. Especially if it was escalating. “When?”

“The day we left for California.”

Which explained why Maggie had looked so uneasy at the airport. The guilt Ella had been holding back burst like a broken dam. “Where was it postmarked from?”

“Some town in Florida.”

“Not Cape Coral?”

“No. Somewhere north of there.”

So not Oakville, either. “What did the letter say?”

“Same old crap,” Scott said, fury simmering in his voice. “No overt threats, just...his sick fantasy.”

“I’m so sorry I’m not there.”

She’d spoken so quietly she wasn’t even sure Scott had heard her until he replied, “Are you going to tell me why you’re not?”

“I got a case—”

“I’ve known you all your life, kiddo.” Beneath the anger over what was happening to Maggie, there was a hint of annoyance in his tone. “Give it to me straight.”

“Really. Logan came to me with a case. I was planning to read the file, give him a quick analysis, and get to the airport. But when I read it...” Ella let out a heavy breath. “Scott, I’m in Florida. A place called Oakville, south of Cape Coral. The victim here was murdered and dumped in the marsh, but first she was burned on the back of her neck. Too much decomp to tell for sure, but it could be a hook.”

There was a long pause before Scott said, “You took the case on your own.”

It wasn’t a question, but Ella answered anyway. “Yes. I still don’t know if they’re connected, but this girl looks a lot like Maggie did ten years ago. And if it is the same person... Scott, I might be able to catch him before another September first comes around.”

There was a strong protective note in Scott’s voice when he warned her, “Be careful, Ella. And call me. I want updates. Every day, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. You’re not going to say anything to Maggie, are you? Not until I know for sure?”

“No, I’ll wait. She actually bought your story. And she’s relaxed for the first time in months. The beach is doing her good.”

“That’s great.” Ella raised her head and realized she’d reached the police station. She didn’t even remember walking there, didn’t remember leaving the long dirt trail behind the hotel and arriving in the main part of town, where the station was located. “I’ve got to go.”

“Be careful, Ella. Hurry and get this guy and join us in California, okay?”

“Believe me, I’m trying. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Hanging up, Ella walked into the station, which was brimming with cops, but not as many as yesterday. One of them let her into the locked back area and she spotted Logan almost immediately, pouring himself a cup of coffee from one of the station’s carafes that seemed to be everywhere. His hair was sticking up on top, she could tell even from a distance that there were circles under his eyes, and he was still wearing the jeans and green T-shirt he’d had on the day before.