Profiled (24 page)

“But she didn’t.” Lexie felt sorry for the two young lovers who dared defy a cult.

“No. Hannah snuck around with Logan. Everyone at school knew about it, because she didn’t keep secrets from her friends, but her family and the rest of the Fellowship were in the dark. Or at least we thought they were.”

“How about the other kids she hung around with, other members of the group? Did any of them get upset with her for dating Logan?”

John nodded, remembering the heated discussions they’d had with Hannah at that time. “Everyone did, me included.” Then he thought more about the conversations around the lunch table at school. “No, that’s not true. The guys were all upset with her. The girls were proud of her for sticking up to her folks and getting the guy she wanted.”

“Makes sense. The girls were thrilled she went after the happily ever after, while the guys were ticked she wasn’t vying for their attention anymore.”

He nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“I’ve seen Hannah’s picture. She was supermodel pretty.”

“Yeah, the prettiest girl in Macon at the time, without a doubt.”

“And she had the boys hooked.”

“Every guy around wanted to be with Hannah Sharp.”

Lexie wrapped the afghan around her like a cocoon. “You’re included in that number, right?”

“Yeah, but Hannah dated all the guys in the Fellowship at one time or another. She liked boys, got along well with them. You know, she was the kind of girl who could be your best friend, but also—”

“Make you think about being more than friends,” Lexie finished. “But did she think about it, or did she do more, with the guys from the Fellowship? To fit the criteria, she’d have been pregnant.”

John felt odd talking about Hannah when he believed she’d experienced a horrible death way back then instead of running off with the guy she loved, as everyone believed. But to get to the truth of the present, they had to unearth the truth of the past. “She was extremely sexual, especially to be so young. And although we never discussed it, for fear of getting cast out of the Fellowship, I’d venture to say that every one of the guys she hung around with slept with her. She’d hang around after school, then ask someone to drive her home.”

“And more than driving happened?”

“Yeah.”

“I think she didn’t feel loved at home, so she looked to find it elsewhere, you know.”

“What I’m wondering is whether her sexuality killed her. What if some guy she slept with wanted more, or if he thought that when she decided to elope with Logan Finley, she chose Logan over him. Jealousy has caused its share of murders, and if it were someone in the Fellowship, the religious tie-ins would make sense. The symbolic numbers, the Easter kills, all of it. But we still don’t know whether she was pregnant.”

“She was.”

Lexie’s eyes widened. “How do you know?”

“Zed called me after he met with Mable. Seems Hannah told her grandmother, and a few trusted friends, about her pregnancy. She didn’t want her parents to find out, and she wanted to marry Logan, so they planned to elope. Mable said Hannah visited her to tell her goodbye, and that Mable thought she’d talked her into staying. She said Hannah promised she’d stay if her family would allow her to marry Logan, which Mable believed they’d do rather than lose their daughter.”

“Then Hannah went missing.”

“And Logan did too. We all heard the rumors that they were eloping, so everyone thought they’d followed through with their plan. But according to Mable, she never heard from her again, and Hannah’s family assumed she was ‘taken from this earth’ because she’d sinned.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Terrible, but befitting a diehard member of the Fellowship.”

“You said she told a few trusted friends, but you didn’t know. Weren’t the two of you still friends then?”

“We were friends, like all of the Fellowship teens were friends, but we’d stopped talking as much by that time.”

“Why?”

“Before she met Logan, Hannah and I had gotten pretty close. Matter of fact, even though we were just kids, she talked about marriage and babies, the whole nine yards. I guess I kind of got spooked by the whole thought of growing up so fast. I told her we were too young. We were only sixteen, after all.”

“That didn’t go over well?”

“She didn’t speak to me for three months, until she started dating Logan and forgot about those old feelings. He wanted the kind of relationship she wanted. Like I said, she wanted to be loved, and he loved her. You could see it all over him whenever they were together.”

“But when were they together? He couldn’t go to the Fellowship’s gatherings, right?”

“Right, but they managed. Hannah would skip school every couple of weeks and spend a day with him, and he’d come to Central High to see her in the afternoons. Her folks figured she had track practice, or whatever other excuse she fed them. When Hannah made her mind up about something, she did whatever it took to make it happen.”

“And she’d made her mind up about Logan.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you remember any of her old boyfriends, or guys she’d been with, getting overly upset about her feelings for him?”

“None come to mind. But like I said, none of the folks in the Fellowship were all that thrilled.”

“The killer was a part of that group. You don’t happen to have a list of all the members, do you? Where we could determine which members of the Fellowship fit our profile?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t keep any reminders. Didn’t want any.”

“Tell me something, why did the group break up?”

“Horace Waters—Brother Moses—left in ’88. No one knew why, but we figured it had something to do with the Fellowship. It had to. He lived for that group. But the authorities didn’t do any real investigating. I believe the State had become concerned at the numbers of the group and at the power they had over local government. I mean, my father was the sheriff and a Fellowship deacon.”

“You think someone had Horace Waters killed?”

“Or forced him to leave and never come back. And I know from listening to my father’s conversations that no one wanted to take Horace’s place for fear of the same thing.”

“Whoever led the group was going to die.”

“That’s the message they got.”

“So they split up when? In ’88?”

“I think that’s the year it ended, but some folks still follow the group’s laws, according to Zed. He said the Sharp family is still practicing.”

“And the killer is too.”

“Seems that way.”

Lexie squinted as bright lights pierced the darkness while a vehicle crept down the street toward her home. “Kind of late to be taking a leisure drive. Goodness, those lights are bright.”

“Yeah, they are.” The car rattled as it edged down the street. The hair on the back of John’s neck stood up, and he moved his hand to rest beside his gun. Ready and waiting.

“Something wrong?” Lexie straightened and followed his gaze to the car, now nearly even with her house.

“I don’t know.” He wasn’t the type to overreact. Maybe his gut tensed because they had been discussing the killer, but in any case, he didn’t like the look of the car, and he didn’t feel safe sitting out in the open like big, easy targets.

The vehicle slowed to a near stop, and the driver lifted his hand.

John already had his finger on the trigger when he recognized the driver. “Elijah.”

Lexie waved at the photographer, then watched him pass. “Late for him to be out cruising, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I do think.”

“He’s all the time talking about scooping out the best leads, though. Maybe he drives around at night trying to catch something on film. Maybe he’s trying to catch the killer.” She sounded impressed with the photographer’s ingenuity.

“He’s close to the cases,” he thought aloud. “And he’s the right age.”

Lexie’s mouth dropped open. “Was Elijah Lewis part of the Fellowship? Part of your group back then?”

John nodded. “His grandfather was an elder and Reverend Waters’ right hand man, but Elijah never quite fit in. Always odd, like he is now, and way too nosey. We didn’t hang around with him. No one did.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s him.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I saw the killer.”

“You said you couldn’t remember his face. Have you remembered something else?”

“No, but I can’t help but think—hope—that I’d sense something whenever I meet him. Don’t you think I’d know, somehow, if I ever saw him again? However, Elijah is the one who started the rumor that Angel was pregnant. He said he saw her at Dr. Weatherly’s office, then told Etta—and a few other people—that he thought she might be pregnant.” Lexie pulled her phone from her pocket, glanced at the display. “She was supposed to call me tonight.”

“You want to call her?”

She shook her head. “No, she could still be at the police station. And we’re not supposed to be all that close, you know. Just members of the task force.”

“Females are always a little closer than average coworkers, aren’t they?”

She smiled. “Yeah, but I’m sure she’ll call later.”

John thought about the man who’d so quickly started the rumor that Angel was pregnant. “I wonder why Lewis went by Dr. Weatherly’s place.”

“Probably taking photos at the park. The paper is always reporting the park activities in the Life section.”

“Maybe.” John decided to keep a closer eye on the odd photographer.

“Elijah may seem a bit quirky, but he hasn’t ever made me feel uncomfortable. I think that means something.”

“I hope you’re right.” The thought of Lexie being face-to-face with the killer and not recognizing him bothered John. Then again, the thought of her being face-to-face with the killer at all bothered him just as much.

“There’s one more thing about his signature that I don’t get. I’m sure it must have something to do with the Fellowship, but no one has mentioned it, so I can’t be sure. Then again, it could be because of Hannah.”

“What?”

“The blonde hair. Why do all of his victims have blonde hair?”

“It’s a sign of purity, particularly if it’s so blonde it’s nearly white. Angelic is the way it’s described in the Fellowship’s creeds. A woman with hair of an angel is an angel on earth. If she doesn’t live up to that statute of purity, that is, if she doesn’t remain a virgin until marriage, or stay true to her husband after marriage, then she equates to a fallen angel and should therefore be condemned.”

“Condemned, as in killed?”

“They never specified, but I always assumed that’s what it meant.”

“Hannah didn’t have a chance. And neither did those women he singled out. They had every bit of the criteria he wanted, and he made it his mission to kill them.” She paused, swallowed. “Including Aunt Bev.”

He pulled her closer. “You’re still shivering. You should go inside.”

“It’s okay. I want to understand why he picked her, and even though it still doesn’t make sense to me, at least now I see how she fit his criteria.”

“We will get him, you know.” John hoped she believed him and prayed he told the truth.

“I know.”

“And the police will pull it off without you having to pull the trigger.” He tried to lighten her mood, uncertain whether anything would succeed.

She looked up at him and smiled. “If they find him first, that’s fine. But if I find him, or if he finds me, I won’t let him win again.”

“No, I don’t expect you will. But I pray to God that doesn’t happen.” John stood from the swing, then he walked her to the door, watched her go inside, and prayed that very thing.

Lexie got ready for bed then glanced out the window to verify that her personal protector hadn’t left. Sure enough, John’s Grand Cherokee held its usual spot in her driveway. She couldn’t see inside, but she knew he was watching, so she lifted a hand, then turned to crawl into bed.

Her cell phone buzzed from the nightstand with a text. Expecting it to be from John, she picked up the phone, saw the caller listed as RESTRICTED and opened Angel’s message to confirm her fear.

Positive.

Chapter Thirteen

Dr. Weatherly’s first available appointment for a new patient was twelve days after the EPT confirmed Angel’s suspicion that she was indeed pregnant, which meant twenty-five days remained until the killer struck again. Unless they stopped him first.

In case they didn’t, she planned to be the most blatant, obvious choice for his target. Lexie’s nightly broadcasts had conveyed what he looked for in a victim. If they got the point across, in twenty-five days all blonde, single and pregnant women will have gotten away from Macon. Far, far away. While Angel would be here. A blonde, single and pregnant thorn in his side. She’d already had two vomit-induced sprints to the restroom during task force meetings and had confessed the truth to Captain Pierce. No, she hadn’t thought she was pregnant when he asked her before, but she’d been wrong. The FBI, in spite of Pierce’s objections, had no problem with her current state and agreed with her newfound condition providing the perfect scenario for Angel to serve herself up to the killer as prime bait.

Pierce refused to share her pregnancy with the task force and provided a viable rationale to Leon Hawkins and the guys at Quantico for keeping quiet, since three members of the task force were potential suspects. The powers that be agreed, and Angel went along with their assessment, but she made no effort to hide her slowly growing stomach from the group, or the fact that she had this doctor appointment.

She climbed out of her Tahoe, tossed her hair, then strolled across the parking lot to Dr. Weatherly’s office. Before entering, she turned toward Richard Barnes, the cop watching the place, and smiled. He thought she felt protected as long as he stood guard, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Somewhere in the crowded park, or at one of the offices across the street, or perhaps even in the form of a hidden camera, the killer watched her now. Angel sensed his presence, and she knew better than to doubt her agent’s intuition.

Throughout the past week, she’d perfected her profile for the man. She’d added above average intelligence to the criteria she’d listed. This came through when she analyzed the autopsy protocols for all victims. Even the most careful criminals slipped up every now and then when their murders were so similar. They’d forget a tiny detail, overlook a clue they left behind, or do something that told a little too much about their personality.

This killer didn’t make that mistake.

Throughout all of the murder series, not one piece of DNA remained at the scene. No fibers, no hair, no semen, no anything. Their killer had perfected clean-up, which made Angel look at the police, and those members of the task force, even more closely.

But even with John Tucker’s name eliminated from the list, she still had Ryan Sims and Lou Marker. Two suspects, rather than one. And two, any way you look at it, is one too many.

She didn’t want to follow in Stanley Carlton’s footsteps and accuse an innocent man. She pressed a hand to her stomach and thought of her fellow profiler, the father of her baby. After this case was over, she’d have to tell him about the pregnancy. But she’d worry about that after she, Lexie and John caught the killer.

Like Lexie, Angel believed in John Tucker’s innocence. The three of them discussed the case daily via Angel’s secure line and Lexie’s speakerphone at her home, and they’d finally agreed with Angel’s theory: they could only catch the killer by forcing him to pick a certain woman, then have the tables turned. The method had worked time and time again with the profilers in Angel’s unit. Though primarily used in robberies, the system had also been applied to other
criminal offenses as well. The profilers determined what the killer looked for, then eliminated that scenario from all areas but one.

And, in this case, the “one” was Angel.

When Angel had to solve a series of bank robberies in Memphis, she determined what type of situation the criminal preferred. In that case, he’d wanted a bank with no windows so he couldn’t be viewed from the street, a place where the alarm had been tripped a few times during the week prior, and a location with a majority of female employees. An armed guard as a regular presence in the lobby also deterred the robber.

Therefore, Angel and her colleagues selected one bank as the premier target for their criminal and gave him everything he wanted. All women tellers and loan officers, no guard in the lobby, no windows, and an alarm that had been tripped three times the week before, meaning police would respond more slowly, in a criminal’s point of view. Then they placed police officers and guards in plain sight at all other branches, while keeping the federal agents in plain clothes at the site of choice.

Sure enough, the robber struck the selected bank, and Angel attributed another arrest to her credit.

For the Sunrise Killer, however, she’d use an approach similar to the tactic she’d used with the Oklahoma City rapist. With the news media on top of his criteria, and with Lexie’s broadcasts humanizing his victims, Angel believed most women fitting his criteria would leave town before the next strike. She, on the other hand, would stay. And to further ensure he selected her, she taunted him daily.

Though, at Pierce’s insistence, she hadn’t formally announced her pregnancy, Angel could tell that most of the task force suspected the truth. She’d had a pack of crackers in her purse at all times in case she had a sudden urge for a snack, had started wearing blousy shirts, and had been “craving” spinach-artichoke dip. Her pregnancy would draw the killer to her like a bear to honey, and she knew it. But little did he know, this honey was good with her Glock.

She entered the office, signed in, then watched three graphic births on the television before a nurse called her back. Within minutes, she’d provided a urine specimen, given blood and awaited the doctor’s arrival in her designated examination room.

Angel’s pulse skittered as the knob turned and Yvette Weatherly, her belly swollen with her own child, entered.

“Good morning, Ms. Jackson.” Dr. Weatherly closed the door.

“Good morning.”

Yvette sat down on the rolling stool near the exam table, shook her head, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “I must say, your phone call and your request caught me off guard. I realize you’re FBI and all. But are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.” She’d never been more certain of anything. This would help her catch the man who’d killed her mother.

“All right, then.” The doctor frowned as she annotated the information on Angel’s chart. “You were correct. You’re pregnant. Nearly eight weeks along. And I’ll have your chart notated as such, as well as my computer files.”

“Perfect.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this, treating you instead of referring you to a doctor away from Macon; that’s what I’ve been doing with all of my blonde, single and pregnant patients. But I can’t argue with the points you made. From what you said, you’ve done this kind of thing before to catch killers, and I agree that we need to catch this guy, particularly now that I know he’s
targeting my patients.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll catch him.” Angel hopped off the table and picked up her purse. “So, when is my next appointment?”

“With a normal pregnancy, you won’t return for four weeks.”

“I can’t wait that long. He needs to see me here. Is there any reason you’d see patients more often?”

“If it were a high risk pregnancy. For older women who are pregnant, I’d see you more often. At your age, if you were hemorrhaging or something of that nature, then I’d also see you more often.”

“What would cause a woman to hemorrhage at this stage in the pregnancy?”

“At eight weeks, it’s very early yet, so it’d most likely be stress-related.”

“Can’t get more stressful than hunting a serial killer.” Angel grinned.

“No, I dare say you can’t. So you’re wanting to come back in, say, two weeks? In case you have any stress-related problems?”

“Yes, and so he can see me here again.”

The doctor annotated the information on Angel’s chart. “You’re sure this is the only way to catch him?”

“It isn’t the only way, but I believe it’s the best way.”

“Well, Ms. Jackson, take care of yourself.” She raised her voice so the nurses and additional patients outside could hear. Then she headed for the door. With her hand on the knob, she lowered her voice again. “I mean that. Be careful.”

Angel nodded, waited for her to leave then got her things.

Lexie carried a copy of her questions for tomorrow’s interview to the conference room. It would be the most difficult one to air, until the one for Aunt Bev. But tomorrow the segment would feature Abigail Lynette Tucker, and Lexie didn’t relish having to remind John how his wife had died.

Although the task force had picked up on their relationship—Elijah Lewis had announced to the world that he’d seen the two of them cozy on Lexie’s porch and that he suspected John spent his nights there—they were determined to convince the group that their personal relationship stayed separate and apart from their professional one.

In order to do that, Lexie couldn’t treat him differently than any of the other family members she’d interviewed. But to let the public see the victim as a real person, she had to ask very personal questions. Questions that sparked memories. Questions that hurt.

And she didn’t want to hurt John.

After Elijah’s gossip made its way through the police department, every office at the television station and the majority of the city, they hadn’t made a secret of their relationship. But Lexie had done her best to let everyone know John guarded her each night from his car. She thought, and hoped, that most believed the truth. The majority of Macon had hoped the notable homicide detective would find love again. They’d known how he’d been hurt following his wife’s murder; moreover, they’d watched him face accusations from the former profiler and had seen his stellar reputation questioned by the media. In other words, they wanted to see John Tucker happy.

So did Lexie.

For the past two weeks, they’d spent every night and much of every day together working on the case, working with the task force and becoming closer than she’d believed possible. Maybe
because they shared a history with the killer, John losing Abby and Lexie losing Aunt Bev. Or maybe because a part of her knew John’s father had helped her so long ago on that horrible day, and the actions of the father drew her even closer to the son. Or perhaps because ever since that night on the porch, they’d discussed religion together almost daily, as well as how their backgrounds affected their beliefs and their faith. Lexie had discussed her concern for Angel’s lack of faith and how she prayed her cousin would find God.

With all of their talks, she and John connected on a deep, emotional level. They understood each other, so much that they could communicate without words. John looked at her, and she knew what he thought, felt, needed. Sometimes the strength behind that emotion sent a shiver down Lexie’s spine.

Like right now.

She entered the conference room and looked at him, seated on the other side of the table by Ryan Sims. Those penetrating blue eyes connected with hers, and she knew what consumed his thoughts. In a little while, the two of them would have to discuss Abby, what his wife meant to him, and the killer that took her life.

Talking about his deceased wife wouldn’t hurt their own relationship, Lexie knew. Far from it. She suspected it would make them even closer, because they would have tackled a difficult situation and survived it together. But that didn’t make either of them more eager to perform the task.

“How are things going?” She placed her folders across from him at the table. “Anything new?”

He gave her a slight smile and Lexie’s heart melted. Everything would be okay. They’d do the article on Abby, then on the previous victims, and they’d catch the killer in time. They had to. But they had no leads yet, and everyone at the table knew it. Lexie prayed for a new lead, because she couldn’t stand the thought of offering up Angel and her unborn baby as bait. Deep down, she knew she couldn’t let that happen, though she had no idea how to stop it.

“Nothing new.” Ryan dropped his pen on the table next to his notes. “No one’s come forward with any new information, and if nothing surfaces we’re going to be sitting here just like last time, waiting and watching while he kills someone else. If you ask me, we’re not doing enough to catch this guy. Seems like our profiler should be able to give us something to work with. That
is
the FBI’s job here, isn’t it? Come in and tell us what the problem is, then tell us how to fix it. Seems she owes us a bit more in that department.”

As if on cue Angel made her entrance, and by the fire in her emerald eyes, she’d heard the lieutenant’s comment. “I have a new avenue I want to recommend to the team, one that I believe will shake our killer up a bit. I’ll explain as soon as the others arrive.”

Lexie knew Angel’s recommendation had nothing to do with her pregnancy. She’d agreed to keep her condition to herself for the time being, though Lexie hadn’t missed the knowing glances from the other task force members any time Angel left the room with an upset stomach.

Lou Marker and Zed Naylor entered the conference room at precisely 11:00, followed by Captain Pierce, and Lexie tried to control her worries for her younger cousin so she could find out about the “new avenue” Angel planned to pursue.