Once Gone (2 page)

He heard a nearby voice.

“Fucking Feds.”

Bill glanced up at the three local cops, standing a few yards away. They were whispering inaudibly now, so Bill knew that he was supposed to hear those two choice words. They were from nearby Yarnell, and they clearly weren’t happy to have the FBI show up. They thought they could handle this on their own.

The head ranger of Mosby State Park had thought differently. He wasn’t used to anything worse than vandalism, litter, and illegal fishing and hunting, and he knew the locals from Yarnell weren’t capable of dealing with this.

Bill had made the hundred-plus-mile trip by helicopter, so he could get here before the body was moved. The pilot had followed the coordinates to a patch of meadow on a nearby hilltop, where the ranger and Spelbren had met him. The ranger had driven them a few miles down a dirt road, and when they’d pulled over, Bill could glimpse the murder scene from the road. It was just a short way downhill from the creek.

The cops standing impatiently nearby had already gone over the scene. Bill knew exactly what they were thinking. They wanted to crack this case on their own; a pair of FBI agents was the last thing they wanted to see.

Sorry, you rednecks
, Bill thought,
but you’re out of your depth here.

“The sheriff thinks this is trafficking,” Spelbren said. “He’s wrong.”

“Why do you say that?” Bill asked. He knew the answer himself, but he wanted to get an idea of how Spelbren’s mind worked.

“She’s in her thirties, not all that young,” Spelbren said. “Stretch marks, so she’s had at least one child. Not the type that usually gets trafficked.”

“You’re right,” Bill said.

“But what about the wig?”

Bill shook his head.

“Her head’s been shaved,” he replied, “so whatever the wig was for, it wasn’t to change her hair color.”

“And the rose?” Spelbren asked. “A message?”

Bill examined it.

“Cheap fabric flower,” he replied. “The kind you’d find in any low-price store. We’ll trace it, but we won’t find out anything.”

Spelbren looked him over, clearly impressed.

Bill doubted that anything they’d found would do much good. The murderer was too purposeful, too methodical. This whole scene had been laid out with a certain sick style that set him on edge.

He saw the local cops itching to come closer, to wrap this. Photos had been taken, and the body would be removed any time now.

Bill stood and sighed, feeling the stiffness in his legs. His forty years were starting to slow him down, at least a little.

“She’s been tortured,” he observed, exhaling sadly. “Look at all the cuts. Some are starting to close up.” He shook his head grimly. “Someone worked her over for days before doing her in with that ribbon.”

Spelbren sighed.

“The perp was pissed off about something,” Spelbren said.

“Hey, when are we gonna wrap up here?” one of the cops called out.

Bill looked in their direction and saw them shuffling their feet. Two of them were grumbling quietly. Bill knew the work was already done here, but he didn’t say so. He preferred keeping those bozos waiting and wondering.

He turned around slowly and took in the scene. It was a thick wooded area, all pines and cedars and lots of undergrowth, with the creek burbling along its serene and bucolic way toward the nearest river. Even now, in midsummer, it wasn’t going to get very hot here today, so the body wasn’t going to putrefy badly right away. Even so, it would be best to get it out of here and ship it off to Quantico. Examiners there would want to pick it apart while it was still reasonably fresh. The coroner’s wagon was pulled up on the dirt road behind the cop car, waiting.

The road was nothing more than parallel tire tracks through the woods. The killer had almost certainly driven here along it. He had carried the body the short distance along a narrow path to this spot, arranged it, and left. He wouldn’t have stayed long. Even though the area looked out of the way, rangers patrolled through here regularly and private cars weren’t supposed to be on this road. He had wanted the body to be found. He was proud of his work.

And it
had
been found by a couple of early-morning horseback riders. Tourists on rented horses, the ranger had told Bill. They were vacationers from Arlington, staying at a fake Western ranch just outside of Yarnell. The ranger had said that they were a little hysterical now. They’d been told not to leave town, and Bill planned to talk to them later.

There seemed to be absolutely nothing out of place in the area around the body. The guy had been very careful. He’d dragged something behind him when he’d returned from the creek—a shovel, maybe—to obscure his own footprints. No scraps of anything left intentionally or accidentally. Any tire prints on the road had likely been obliterated by the cop car and coroner’s wagon.

Bill sighed to himself.

Damn it
, he thought.
Where’s Riley when I need her?

His longtime partner and best friend was on involuntary leave, recovering from the trauma of their last case. Yes, that had been a nasty one. She needed the time off, and the truth be told, she might not ever come back.

But he really needed her now. She was a lot smarter than Bill, and he didn’t mind admitting it. He loved watching her mind at work. He pictured her picking away at this scene, detail by minuscule detail. By now she’d be teasing him for all the painfully glaring clues that had been staring him in the face.

What would Riley see here that Bill didn’t?

He felt stumped, and he didn’t like the feeling. But there wasn’t anything more he could do about it now.

“Okay, guys,” Bill called out to the cops. “Take the body away.”

The cops laughed and gave each other high-fives.

“Do you think he’ll do it again?” Spelbren asked.

“I’m sure of it,” Bill said.

“How do you know?”

Bill took a long deep breath.

“Because I’ve seen his work before.”

 “It got worse for her every day,” Sam Flores said, bringing up another horrific image on the huge multimedia display looming above the conference table. “Right up to when he finished her off.” 

Bill had guessed as much, but he hated to be right.

The Bureau had flown the body to the BAU in Quantico, forensics technicians had taken photos, and the lab had started all the tests. Flores, a lab technician with black-rimmed glasses, ran the grisly slide show, and the gigantic screens were a forbidding presence in the BAU conference room.

“How long was she dead before the body was found?” Bill asked.

“Not long,” he replied. “Maybe early evening before.”

Beside Bill sat Spelbren, who had flown into Quantico with him after they’d left Yarnell. At the head of the table sat Special Agent Brent Meredith, the team chief. Meredith cut a daunting presence with his broad frame, his black, angular features, and his no-nonsense face. Not that Bill was intimidated by him—far from it. He liked to think that they had a lot in common. They were both seasoned veterans, and had both seen it all.

Flores flashed a series of close-ups of the victim’s wounds.

“The wounds on the left were inflicted early on,” he said. “Those on the right are more recent, some inflicted hours or even minutes before he strangled her with the ribbon. He seems to have gotten progressively more violent during the week or so that he held her captive. Breaking her arm might have been the last thing he did while she was still alive.”

“The wounds look like the work of one perpetrator to me,” Meredith observed. “Judging from the mounting level of aggression, probably male. What else have you got?”

“From the light stubble on her scalp, we’re guessing her head was shaved two days before she was killed,” Flores continued. “The wig was stitched together with pieces of other wigs, all cheap. The contact lenses were probably mail order. And one more thing,” he said, looking around at the faces, hesitant. “He covered her with Vaseline.”

Bill could feel the tension in the room thicken.

“Vaseline?” he asked.

Flores nodded.

“Why?” Spelbren asked.

Flores shrugged.

“That’s your job,” he replied.

Bill thought about the two tourists he’d interviewed yesterday. They had been no help at all, torn between morbid curiosity and the edge of panic at what they had seen. They were eager to get back home to Arlington and there hadn’t been any reason to detain them. They had been interviewed by every officer on hand. And they’d been duly cautioned to say nothing about what they’d seen.

Meredith exhaled and laid both palms on the table.

“Good work, Flores,” Meredith said.

Flores looked grateful for the praise—and maybe a bit surprised. Brent Meredith wasn’t given to making compliments.

“Now Agent Jeffreys,” Meredith turned to him, “brief us on how this relates to your old case.”

Bill took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

“A little over six months ago,” he began, “on December sixteenth, actually—the body of Eileen Rogers was found on a farm near Daggett. I got called in to investigate, along with my partner, Riley Paige. The weather was extremely cold, and the body was frozen solid. It was hard to tell how long it had been left there, and the time of death was never exactly determined. Flores, show them.”

Flores turned back to the slide show. The screen split and alongside the images on the screen, a new series of images appeared. The two victims were displayed side by side. Bill gasped. It was amazing. Aside from the frozen flesh of the one body, the corpses were in almost the same condition, the wounds nearly identical. Both women had their eyes stitched open in the same, hideous manner.

Bill sighed, the images bringing it all back. No matter how many years he was on the force, seeing each victim pained him.

“Rogers’s body was found seated upright against a tree,” Bill continued, his voice more grim. “Not quite as carefully posed as the one at Mosby Park. No contact lenses or Vaseline, but most of the other details are the same. Rogers’s hair was chopped short, not shaved, but there was a similar patched-together wig. She was also strangled with a pink ribbon, and a fake rose was found in front of her.”

Bill paused for a moment. He hated what he had to say next.

“Paige and I couldn’t crack the case.”

Spelbren turned to him.

“What was the problem?” he asked.

“What
wasn’t
the problem?” Bill countered, unnecessarily defensive. “We couldn’t get a single break. We had no witnesses; the victim’s family couldn’t give us any useful information; Rogers had no enemies, no ex-husband, no angry boyfriend. There wasn’t a single good reason for her to be targeted and killed. The case went cold immediately.”

Bill fell silent. Dark thoughts flooded his brain.

“Don’t,” Meredith said in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped the new killing.”

Bill appreciated the kindness, but he felt guilty as hell. Why couldn’t he have cracked it before? Why couldn’t Riley? There were very few times in his career he had been so stumped.

At that moment, Meredith’s phone buzzed, and the chief took the call.

Almost the first thing he said was, “Shit.”

He repeated it several times. Then he said, “You’re positive it’s her?” He paused. “Was there any contact for ransom?”

He stood from his chair and stepped outside the conference room, leaving the other three men sitting in perplexed silence. After a few minutes, he came back. He looked older.

“Gentlemen, we’re now in crisis mode,” he announced. “We just got a positive ID on yesterday’s victim. Her name was Reba Frye.”

Bill gasped as if he’d been punched in the stomach; he could see Spelbren’s shock, too. But Flores looked confused.

“Should I know who that is?” Flores asked.

“Maiden name’s Newbrough,” Meredith explained. “The daughter of State Senator Mitch Newbrough—probably Virginia’s next governor.”

Flores exhaled.

“I hadn’t heard that she’d gone missing,” Spelbren said.

“It wasn’t officially reported,” Meredith said. “Her father’s already been contacted. And
of course
he thinks it’s political, or personal, or both. Never mind that the same thing happened to another victim six months ago.”

Meredith shook his head.

“The Senator’s leaning hard on this,” he added. “An avalanche of press is about to hit. He’ll make sure of it, to keep our feet to the fire.”

Bill’s heart sank. He hated feeling as though he were over his head. But that’s exactly how he felt right now.

A somber silence fell over the room.

Finally, Bill cleared his throat.

“We’re going to need help,” he said.

Meredith turned to him, and Bill met his hardened gaze. Suddenly, Meredith’s face knotted up with worry and disapproval. He clearly knew what Bill was thinking.

“She’s not ready,” Meredith answered, clearly knowing that Bill meant to bring her in.

Bill sighed.

“Sir,” he replied, “she knows the case better than anyone. And there’s no one smarter.”

After another pause, Bill came out and said what he was really thinking.

“I don’t think we can do it without her.”

Meredith thumped his pencil against a pad of paper a few times, clearly wishing he was anywhere but here.

“It’s a mistake,” he said. “But if she falls apart, it’s
your
mistake.” He exhaled again. “Call her.”

The teenage girl who opened the door looked as though she might slam it in Bill’s face. Instead, she whirled around and walked away without a word, leaving the door open.

Bill stepped inside.

“Hi, April,” he said automatically.

Riley’s daughter, a sullen, gangly fourteen-year-old, with her mother’s dark hair and hazel eyes, didn’t reply. Dressed only in an oversized T-shirt, her hair a mess, April turned a corner and plopped herself down on the couch, dead to everything except her earphones and cell phone.