Midnight Caller (12 page)

Trevor lowered his shirt. “I've had busted ribs before. Trust me, you know if you've got one. All I need is an ice pack and I'll be good as new in the morning.”

“This is my fault. If I'd stayed put—”

“In case you haven't noticed, I have a habit of getting
myself
into trouble.” He indicated the scabbed cut on his forehead. “It's a safe bet I'd have run into those guys on my own.”

His casual comment didn't seem to appease her. She shook her head. “The killer wrote your ID on the wall. First the necklace in your car and the note he left you after Friday's show, and now this?”

“He's baiting me. It isn't unusual for the unsub to maintain contact with law enforcement. It increases his feeling of superiority. Dante figured I'd end up there sooner or later.” Trevor only wished they'd been able to learn more from the teenagers. But after another fruitless hour of questioning club-goers, he'd called it a night. At least they had a first name and phone number that would most likely allow them to identify the victim.

Rain's hazel eyes were questioning. “What took place at the club tonight—is it typical of your job?”

“You mean do I get my ass kicked every night?” He attempted a smile. “No. But what happened means my being there made someone uncomfortable.”

“You were attacked with a
knife.
The fact that you're taking something like that in stride tells me it's not the first time.”

“I'm a federal agent working violent crimes, Rain. Getting into scrapes is part of it sometimes.”

“Regardless, it has to affect you.”

“Is that your psychologist's opinion?”

Rain gazed up into his face, her expression concerned. “That's an opinion from someone who cares.”

They stood close together. Trevor studied her pretty features, fairly certain she could hear the heavy beating of his heart. He was mindful of the physical attraction he felt to her—he'd been attuned to it, in fact, since nearly the first moment Brian had introduced them.

“I do what I have to.”

Her voice remained soft. “Then you should make sure it doesn't get the better of you.”

Rain's hand lingered against his shirt. He thought of earlier that night, when he'd brushed the silken strands of hair from her face. And before that, the way his fingers had curved around her small waist as he pulled her against him on the dance floor. Both gestures had been spontaneous, nearly on
instinct, but they'd left him feeling a little dazed. For a fleeting moment, his brain had pushed away the responsibility that came with his job. The way she was looking at him now, he believed she felt the same intense chemistry between them.

“You're part of this investigation, Rain,” he said quietly, a reminder as much to himself as to her.

“I know,” she murmured.

“Then you understand why—”

Rising on tiptoe, she kissed him tentatively. Trevor stood frozen as desire warred with his self-control. Her body pressed lightly against his, and her palms slid upward to rest against the solid line of his collarbone. Silence passed between them as Rain pulled back finally, her lips slightly parted and her eyes liquid and uncertain. Trevor let go of a breath. Then he cupped her face in his hands and gently tilted her head back before covering her mouth with his own. She responded in a way that sent his pulse racing faster. He deepened the kiss briefly before reluctantly breaking contact. His eyes held regret as they stared at one another.

“I'm going to check the house before I go,” he managed to get out in a hoarse voice. Rain nodded. When he returned to the foyer a few minutes later, she stood in the same spot, but her eyes were distant.

“Set the alarm after I leave.”

Outside, Trevor spoke to the uniforms in the squad car. Then he climbed into the sedan. He waited until the parlor light was extinguished, leaving the house's bottom floor dark.

Trevor felt shaken, and not by the confrontation at the Ascension. In an investigation of this magnitude, Rain was a complication he couldn't afford. With the taste of her still sweet on his lips, he started the engine and drove away.

H
is mouth full of oyster po'boy, McGrath glanced up from his computer screen as Trevor exited the precinct's interview room.

“Find anything out from the roommate?”

“Not yet. She's pretty upset.” Trevor felt tired down to his bones. Despite the late night at the Ascension, he'd been going full speed since just after seven that morning. The number from the club had been traced to an apartment a few blocks off the Tulane campus, identifying the victim as Rebecca Belknap, an eighteen-year-old freshman from Memphis. For the past half hour, Trevor had been trying to get some useful information from the dead girl's roommate, who the NOPD had picked up from a college classroom and brought into the station house.

Thibodeaux left the interview room behind Trevor. He swung the door open to briefly reveal the girl, who sat red-eyed and sniffling with a pile of crumpled tissues in front of her.

McGrath shook his head once the door had closed. “In my day, girls weren't allowed to live off campus. They lived in dorms with dorm mothers. They had curfews, too.”

“Times have changed.” Thibodeaux swiped several French
fries from the glistening heap boated in a paper tray on McGrath's desk. The food reminded Trevor that he'd agreed to meet Brian for lunch that day, something he now regretted, considering his schedule.

Chewing, Thibodeaux pointed a fry at Trevor. “So what do you think, FBI man? That girl in there one of them goth kids, too?”

“She doesn't seem like it,” he said.

Little had turned up inside Rebecca Belknap's apartment, which the roommate had given permission to search. In Rebecca's bedroom, there were some goth-style clothes mixed in with the otherwise normal college attire of jeans and sweatshirts, tank tops and shorts, but not much else was out of the ordinary. An FBI field tech had gone with Trevor and confiscated Rebecca's laptop, which he hoped might give some insight into who she had been in communication with, perhaps through deleted e-mails, or a MySpace or Facebook account.

He walked to the watercooler and filled a paper cup, but a call from McGrath regained his attention.

“Hey, we got a hit on your knife prints, Rivette.”

Trevor joined Thibodeaux in peering over McGrath's shoulder at the computer screen. An olive-skinned male with scraggly hair and black eyes stared back at them from a mug shot. Even without the goth makeup, Trevor recognized his knife-wielding attacker. McGrath switched the screen to a second photo that revealed the man's sharpened incisors.

Thibodeaux let out a whistle. “You weren't kidding about the teeth. You think he filed those himself?”

“Let's see who we have here.” McGrath adjusted his bifocals and read aloud from the screen. “Maurice Girard. Age thirty-five. Most recent conviction for possession with intent to distribute. He's been out since January, early release from Angola State Prison for good behavior.”

“I'm bettin' he's a regular choirboy now,” Thibodeaux quipped. “I'll put an APB out for him.”

The information precluded the possibility of his attacker also being Dante, Trevor realized, since a number of the murders had occurred during the time Girard was in prison. Nor did Girard match the FBI profile. Of course, neither did the male who'd been seen with the victim at the Ascension prior to her murder. Marcy Cupich, the girl he'd talked to at the club, was scheduled to come in later that afternoon to meet with a sketch artist.

He continued scanning the on-screen information. “Do you know Girard's parole officer? Marvin LaRoche?”

“Marvin the Roach, we like to call him,” McGrath said. “We'll pay ol' Marv a visit, see if he knows where Girard's hanging out these days.”

He pulled a piece of paper from the stack in his in-box and handed it to Trevor. “We got the full autopsy report back on the Belknap girl, too. Toxicology indicates Ecstasy, as well as Rohypnol.”

Trevor looked at the report. “The date-rape drug? That's new.”

“Maybe this one didn't go along so willingly.”

“Hey, Rivette. You gonna sit in on that shrink's talk show again tonight?” Thibodeaux settled on the edge of McGrath's desk and snagged another fry.

He nodded. “You want to come along?”

“And listen to that touchy-feely crap? I don't think so.” The detective wiped grease from his fingers with a paper napkin. “Besides, the Belknap girl's parents are flying into Louis Armstrong tonight. McGrath and me are the lucky bastards who get to go meet 'em.”

“Lieu's orders,” McGrath grumbled. “The father's a big-time contributor to the university. You know what that means?”

He pulled a roll of antacid tablets from his desk drawer and popped a pastel-colored wafer into his mouth before answering his own question. “It means we need to find this vampire son of a bitch.”

 

Returning to the interview room, Trevor sat across from Rebecca Belknap's roommate and placed the water on the table in front of her.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. Melanie Cantella was mousy-haired and bookish, with a round face and lackluster brown eyes hidden behind thick glasses. Slightly overweight, she wore shapeless denim overalls and a blue T-shirt with the Tulane University seal.

“Feeling better?” Trevor asked.

“I'm sorry for…crying,” she stammered. “It's just that I can't believe Becca's…dead.”

“I know it's a shock. But we need your help if we're going to find out who did this. Any information you have could be useful.”

“I'll try.”

“Let's start over. We already know Rebecca visited a club called the Ascension the night she disappeared. Can you tell me anything about that?”

Melanie sniffled and wiped her nose with a tissue. “She only started going there lately. She was really into the clothes. She got a tattoo a few weeks ago, too. I warned her that when her parents saw it they'd have a fit.”

Trevor recalled the ink cross at the base of the victim's spine. “Did you ever go to the club with her?”

“No.”

“What about Rebecca's friends? You didn't meet anyone new recently?”

“I already told you and the detective, I didn't really know a lot of her friends. I already gave you a list of the ones I knew
about from phone messages and stuff. She never brought them to the apartment.”

“Why not?”

Red splotches infused her face. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and avoided Trevor's eyes. “I think she was embarrassed of me. We were roommates only because we're from the same hometown. My dad works for Becca's dad, and her parents thought I'd be a good influence on her, make sure she studied. I'm sort of an A student. They said if she got an apartment off campus, it had to be with me until she brought her grades up.”

Trevor felt as if he was hitting a dead end. McGrath and Thibodeaux had gone to meet with Girard's parole officer, but he'd stayed behind to finish the conversation with the roommate. “You don't remember her mentioning any guys? You shared an apartment, Melanie.”

“Becca didn't tell me much. She thought I was spying on her for her parents.” She shredded the tissue with her fingers. “The only way I knew she'd hooked up with a guy was if she didn't come home for a day or two. That's why I didn't report her as missing. I just thought—”

She stopped speaking and tears glinted behind her glasses. Trevor nudged the cup of water closer, encouraging her to take a sip.

“Melanie, do you know if Rebecca ever listened to
Midnight Confessions?
”

She nodded dully. “All the time. Becca liked to brag about knowing a celebrity.”

He looked up, uncertain he'd heard her correctly. “You're saying she
knew
Rain Sommers?”

“She used to. Becca's parents were making her see a therapist. She had bulimia, you know…make herself throw up to lose weight?”

Trevor pondered the revelation, confused. Rain had given
no indication that she recognized the dead girl. In fact, she'd gone with him to the Ascension to circulate the morgue photo and try to get an ID.

“Do you recall how far back it was that she was seeing Dr. Sommers?”

Melanie shrugged. “It was a while ago. Last fall. Rebecca only went a couple of times.”

“Why'd she stop?”

“Her parents sent her to someone else. They're real strait-laced, and when they found out who Dr. Sommers's mother was, they canceled her sessions. I remember Becca was pretty mad about it. I think she dyed her hair that red color because she wanted to look like her.”

A tear rolled down Melanie's plump cheek. “Becca wasn't always nice to me, but I never wanted anything bad to happen to her.”

“I know,” Trevor said understandingly.

“We were both going home for the summer in a couple of weeks.” Her shoulders shook as she began to sob again. “What am I going to say to her parents?”

 

Trevor watched through the plate-glass window as a police-woman guided Melanie into the back of a squad car to drive her home. He stood in the sixth-precinct lobby, still trying to wrap his mind around the information that Rebecca Belknap had been one of Rain's patients. It made it a strong possibility the selection of the latest victim hadn't been random, and it also created another link between Dante and Rain. But how was it possible that she hadn't recognized her former patient? Trevor retrieved his cell phone from his pocket. He was about to call her when he saw someone approaching. It was Brian. And he looked pissed.

“I lost track of the time,” he explained when his brother reached him.

“I've been waiting at Zombo's for over a half hour.”

“I got tied up. We got an ID on the second victim this morning.”

“You know that thing you're always carrying around with you?” Brian pointed to the phone in Trevor's hand. “Ever think of using it? Or at least checking your messages? I've called you twice.”

“I said I forgot. I'm sorry.”

Heaving a sigh, Brian relented. “So you identified the body. That must be good, right?”

“It'd be a hell of a lot better if I caught this psycho before another one turns up.” Trevor stared onto Royal Street, where a television-news van had arrived. The
Times-Picayune
article the previous day had kicked off media activity, making the likely presence of a serial killer a top story on the local news. In response, Trevor had been put in charge of formalizing a task force between the FBI, NOPD and the district attorney's office. He was aware the media attention would only increase when the identity of the second victim was released that afternoon.

“Have you eaten yet?” Brian asked.

“No.”

“Spare me a half hour, then. It's not the fried catfish at Zombo's, but there's a deli near Riverfront Park that makes a good muffuletta.”

Trevor shook his head. “I can't—”

“Half an hour,”
Brian urged. “We can watch for paddle wheelers like we did when we were kids.”

A short while later, seated on a bench next to a waxy-leafed magnolia, Trevor and Brian dug into their sandwiches. The river stretched in front of them like a sea of butterscotch under a cerulean-blue sky. People strolled on the park's brick promenade, most of them tourists, judging by the shopping bags and cameras. Trevor watched as, farther down, several
small children waded in a public fountain. He checked his watch—he was expected at the FBI field office near Lake Pontchartrain at one-thirty.

“Sorry I gave you hell for forgetting about lunch.” Brian took a sip from a sweating bottle of root beer. “I know you've got a lot on your mind.”

Trevor merely nodded. He didn't want to ruin Brian's meal with the grim details of the case. Instead, he took another bite from his sandwich.

“The truth is I wanted to talk to you,” Brian said.

“About what?”

“Annabelle. She's worried about you.” Brian squinted against the sunlight. “Actually, so am I.”

Trevor said nothing. He returned his gaze to the group of children. A young mother supervised them from the fountain's edge. She squealed as one of them kicked out a spray of water, dousing the front of her sundress.

“Annabelle told me she found you outside her old room. She said you were upset.” Brian paused. “She thinks you were having some kind of flashback.”

Trevor wadded up the wax paper holding the remains of his sandwich. He tossed it into a receptacle next to the bench.

“Have you ever talked to anyone, Trevor? About what happened?”

“It was a long time ago. Let's leave it in the past.”

There was a lapse of silence and then Brian said, “The past is never dead. It's not even the past.”

Trevor laughed faintly. “Now you're quoting William Faulkner?
There's
a guy who knew something about tragic Southern families.”

“Trevor.” Brian's voice was soft.

“Let it go, Brian. I'm already on overload with the case. I got about three hours' sleep last night. I can't handle a conversation like this right now.”

Looking out over the park, Trevor's vision was drawn to a row of crepe myrtle trees, their limbs weighed down with pink blossoms. Heat shimmied up from the brick walkway, and he felt a drop of sweat roll down his back underneath his dress shirt.

A child's wail came from the fountain. Trevor saw the mother wading in after one of her charges. It was then that he noticed the man on the pavilion's periphery. Despite the heat, he wore a long black trench coat. His hair looked unwashed and stringy, and his pale face held mocking dark eyes. He'd been watching them have lunch, of that much Trevor was certain.

He barely heard Brian still talking beside him. He stood and began winding his way through the tourists. But the man was moving as well, shrinking farther from his line of sight as he slipped between the trees at the edge of the promenade and headed back toward the French Quarter. Trevor broke into a run after him, barely aware of Brian calling after him. He cut through a chain of shrubs and sprinted across the street at the edge of the park. A car blew its horn, but he kept going, his eyes on the figure's flapping dark coat a block in front of him.