Serial Love: Saints Protection & Investigation (9 page)

He caught her giggle as she met a young man at the bottom of the steps and watched as they walked toward the dorm together. He palmed his crotch, but the urge was not there. He felt nothing. Turning, he climbed into his little, nondescript sedan, smiling to himself.
You’re safe tonight, little girl. I don’t need anyone now.

*

Two weeks passed
while Jack and his Saints were busy with combing the campuses and digging for more information. Jack moved to his porch with his morning cup of coffee, having already run the perimeter and taken a shower. He had attempted to force his mind to not think of Bethany every time he ran by the area where he had first seen her.
Or captured her, to be exact.
But he was unsuccessful. He thought of her anyway. Every. Single. Time.

His attention was diverted when Chad’s SUV parked in the driveway, followed by Cam and Bart. Monty was still at the FBI headquarters, coordinating some shared information with them. Marc had pulled the all-nighter in the command center below and would soon be replaced by Blaise.

Giving head jerks in acknowledgment they met in the kitchen, all pouring coffee before moving downstairs. Assembled around the conference table, they once again shared information.

Cam spoke first. “Looked into a missing student from Washington College and talked to her roommate. The missing girl was Nola Talbot. From what I can find out, she was a really sweet girl but not the greatest student so when she just left school, everyone assumed she dropped out due to grades.”

“But didn’t she leave all her stuff behind?” Blaise asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“She had no family, so no parents to check with. The roommate did file a missing person’s report but never heard anything back. And when the semester ended, the college, per policy, threw out all of her unclaimed possessions.”

“So we got nothing on this girl at all,” Jack growled.

“Well, she had been in the foster system in high school, so there are records if a body ever turns up.”

Jack turned his gaze to Chad. “What’ve you got?”

“I checked on Laura Polinis from Bluefield College and Lisa Mullins from Tech. Laura went missing one weekend after a church revival. Her friends had gone to a huge musical festival which, of course, was synonymous with drugs and alcohol. She really wanted to go with her friends, but had promised to sing in a church revival first. She was going to meet her friends there later, but never made it to the festival, nor was heard from again. Her parents still hold out hope that she will surface. Lisa Mullins was quiet and very reserved. She came from a single parent home, who like the Polinis still hold out hope she’ll be found. She worked at a pizza place and never made it home one night.”

Each man studied the information on their laptops in frustration. “Except for a few descriptions, these girls, as a whole, have no fucking thing in common,” Jack bit out once more.

Luke spoke up, “I’m adding all of this new data into the system to see if we can get any feedback at all on what another commonality might be.”

“Meanwhile,” Bart added, running his hand through his shaggy blond hair, “This guy is probably already studying who his next victim is.”

“So far the victims, including the missing girls, have been redheads, blondes, brunettes, green, blue, and brown eyes. They’ve been wealthy right down to the state paying tuition. Religious, not religious. Some worked, some played sports. Some lived in dorms and others in apartments,” Cam reiterated.

“Were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time?” Chad asked.

Blaise glanced over. “Some guy gets the urge to kill and stalks whoever looks easy?”

Chad shrugged. “Just throwing it out there.”

“So what do we have?” Jack asked the group.

Luke glanced up and said, “All victims were female, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three. All were current college students here in Virginia. Monty’s profiler said the killer usually did not travel too far, but when we pinpoint the victims’ locations, we can see they are somewhat centrally located.”

The team focused their attention on the large screen, seeing a map of Virginia and the locations pinpointed in red. “I’ve numbered them in terms of the approximate time that the student was missing or murdered. You can see it’s as though a noose is getting tighter,” Luke commented.

They stared at the map of Virginia with all of the colleges, universities, and community colleges marked. “The first missing girls were in schools that were about two hundred miles from the capitol. Then the first body that was found was about one hundred fifty miles away. The next missing girl was about one hundred miles away and our final two bodies were within one hundred miles of Richland,” Blaise noted.

“Is this a specific pattern or is he purposefully moving closer to the capitol?” Cam wondered out loud.

“He’s getting more comfortable,” Jack stated firmly, causing the others to jerk their gazed from the map to their boss.

He continued, “He started farther away. That gives him time to make a get-away and if her body is found, he won’t be anywhere near the scene. Remember what the profiler said? It’s not that serial killers want to be found out but that they gain more confidence so they take more risks.”

Mark interjected, “You think this guy was just getting warmed up with the first ones and he’s now more comfortable staying closer to home?”

Jack nodded. “I’ll bet my life this asshole lives in the Richland area. Now of course that’s a fucking big area but it’s something to go on.”

“I’ll send this to Monty,” Luke said, “and let him get it to his FBI contacts.”

The room fell quiet for a moment, each man studying the reports.

“All the women were pretty,” Bart added. Seeing the looks of the others, he shook his head. “Just sayin’, guys. Look at the pictures…not a homely one up there.”

The others had to agree that he was right and the fact was that Bart knew pretty. With his tall frame and bulky muscles, he usually walked away with the prettiest girl in the bar. He continued, “So for similarities, our killer likes them to be young women, with a certain education, and pretty. Other than that, he’s not too discriminating.”

“Fuck,” Cam bit out. “That doesn’t exactly narrow the focus down too much.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “I want Bart, Cam, Monty, Blaise, and Luke to stay on this, continuing to sift through everything coming from the interviews, different police records, and what Monty brings back from the FBI.”

Tossing two files down the table, he said, “Chad and Marc, we’ve got some security escorts to provide assisting Tony Alvarez’s team back in Richland.” Marc grinned, having worked alongside Alvarez Security before.

Looking at his Saints, he continued, “Men, you’ve all worked hard and traveled a lot. Take a breather this weekend and we’ll convene back on Monday morning here to see what information Monty can provide.”

As the men stood from the table, stretching their tall frames, Jack added quietly, “Just as a reminder, a couple of weeks ago, I gave Ms. Bridwell a tracker bracelet for her grandmother to use. She’s to call here if Ann wanders again.”

The men nodded their approval, but could not hold back the grins.

Jack looked at the familiar faces of the men he trusted and saw the shared glances. Men that had his back and he had theirs. Men who now looked like they were in on a fuckin’ secret. “Don’t read more into it than what it is,” he growled. “Nothing personal. Just watching out for them.”

“You been back around to see her?” Chad asked. Seeing Jack’s stoic expression, he pushed. “Why not, boss?”

“Jack, you marked her as yours when you told us to back off and didn’t want any of us checking into her,” Blaise reminded.

The men made their way to the kitchen, where Jack pulled beers out for them before they settled on his back porch with its own view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Each taking a long pull from their bottles, the companionable silence was easy to take.

Finally, Jack spoke, “Spent my time in the military protecting people and taking care of the missions that came my way. Loved my brothers, but we had to do a lot of fucked up shit in a fucked up war to give people back home their peace. And some of you did a tour over there, or somewhere, in your former lives so you know what I mean. Spent the last years building up this business knowing what I wanted to do and how to go about doing it.” Jack looked around at the men on his deck. “There’s still a lot of fucked up shit in our own country, but I do this so most people can sleep in their beds at night and have pleasant dreams.” He paused, turning his gaze back to the sun setting over the mountains. “But I also knew that this life wasn’t leading to a white picket fence kind of a world for me.” Then his voice softer, almost on an afterthought, he added, “And she deserves that kind of world.”

No one said anything, the summer heat broken by the breeze that flowed down from the mountains. From the outside, it appeared just as it should—a group of men enjoying each other’s company on a Friday evening on the porch of one of their nice houses with acres of unspoiled land surrounding it.

But inside this home was a command center that allowed them to utilize the equipment, resources, and contacts that Jack had built. His business. His world. The kind of world each of them committed to making safer was not pretty. And the little they had seen of Bethany Bridwell, Jack was right…she deserved pretty.

That still sucked. For their boss and friend. And for them, as they silently pondered what their lives would bring.

“You get me now,” Jack said, his voice taking on its typical gruffness while he took another long pull on his beer. “I went over, gave her the bracelet, and confess that I stayed a bit, getting to know her. I liked what I saw and liked what I heard. But I need to keep this world separate from her and the only way I can do that is to not get personal.”

Chad growled and Jack’s eyes turned toward him. Jack watched him, the most selfless man he had ever met, finish his beer while standing next to the rail admiring the view. Chad had spent his early years in the military, working on a bomb squad. He did two tours and then left the military do work for ATF continuing to volunteer for bomb duty. Jack held his gaze when Chad turned around.

“Boss?” Chad started. “You giving it all up for the business means that you never really get to enjoy this world that you’re making better. This is magnificent,” he continued, his hand making a sweeping motion toward the mountains. “But this alone for the rest of your life…not so great.”

Jack just stared at the men nodding in agreement, giving him head jerks as they finished their drinks and headed into the house. He did not walk them to the front door. He could hear them leave and he stayed on his porch. Alone. And wondered if there could be a place for a blue-eyed, blonde with a heart of gold in his world.

*

The noises in
the next room irritated the man. Why did they have to be so loud? Finally, unable to stand the commotion, he went into the bathroom, shutting the door. Splashing cold water onto his face, he blinked as he looked into the mirror. Taking several deep breaths, he forced his mind to calm. With a glance at the door, making sure it was locked, he turned to the air conditioning vent. Carefully unscrewing the cover, he placed it on the toilet lid before reaching his hand into the duct. He curled his hand around the black handle of the long knife before sliding it from its concealment. The long, slim blade glistened under the bright florescent lights of the bathroom. Scrubbed clean and bleached, there was not a speck of dirt…or blood…on it.

Memories flooded back as they always did, calling to him from many years ago. He had never been what his father had wanted. And his mother? What a weak bitch. Watching his father use the knife with expert precision he yearned for the time when he could wield it himself.

He remembered the last one—how she had wept and begged.
Don’t they understand that they have to die? It’s not about them. It’s about me. What I need to do? They don’t matter.
He never liked talking to them, but the moment when they recognized him gave him such a rush. Sucking in a deep breath, he smiled slowly as the memories soothed over him. Their naked bodies, ripe for the taking. The precision of what he must do.