Spoilt (26 page)

She shrugged.
“I couldn’t tell you. I suppose anybody is capable
of almost anything when they put their mind to it. When he just
disappeared on Chelsea we were all surprised and couldn’t
understand it. Something must have happened or perhaps he held some
kind of grudge. It was all very strange.” She paused. “Please find
my baby.”

“
We’ll do everything we can, Sarah. I promise.”

* * *

Carrie located Lucas at his desk, head in hands. She couldn’t
recall seeing him this distraught, not since that fateful night.
She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“
Lucas, come home with me for a while, get some rest. You can
come back in the morning, when you’re fresh.”

“
How can I sleep, Carrie?” He lifted his head and his
expression broke her heart.

“
Lucas, please just come home with me.”

“
I can’t lose her, she is the best thing that has ever
happened to me,” he said with such anguish that he worried Carrie
further.

She grabbed his hand, guided him out to her car and took him
to her house. The children were asleep and Nathan was waiting when
they arrived.

“
Can I get you anything?” Nathan asked.

Lucas shook his head. Nathan said he would go and check on
the children and catch up on some work in the study. Carrie sat him
down beside her on the couch. He rested his elbows on his knees,
his hands dropped despondently between his legs and his eyes on the
floor.

“
Lucas,” she paused and waited for him to look at her. “She’s
still alive and can be found.”

“
Carrie, what he did to those girls …”

“
Don’t think about it.”

“
I can’t help it. For the first time since becoming a cop, I
don’t know what to do next.”

“
Do you know who
it is?”

Lucas shook his head and returned to his eyes to
the
ir
scrutiny of the floor. “Not for certain. He could be Chad Wilson,
he could be Wesley Robinson. He could be anybody. Maggie showed the
sketch to Sarah and she couldn’t be sure. I still think Robinson is
behind this. Chad could be Wesley’s accomplice. There could be two
of them doing unspeakable things to Chelsea, unimaginable things …
we have no idea who has her or where she is ...”

“
Oh, honey.” She pulled him into a hug.

They both sat for hours, holding onto each other.

Chapter 28

Anna

Friday

Maggie decided to get an early start and found Lucas already
at his desk.

“
You haven’t been here all night have you?”

“
No, I was at my sister's for a while. I’ve been here about an
hour.”

“
Well, I’m glad Carrie came and got you.”

“
Ah, so you rang her then?”

“
Yes, Lucas, I’m worried about you.”

“
It’s okay, I’m better this morning and determined to find
this son of a bitch and my girl. How did you go last night, Maggie?
Any witnesses?”

“
No, as usual, no-one saw much. One witness said she’d seen
them leave the house but assumed they were going on a date because
his arm was around her, which probably just indicates he had the
gun on her. She said the car was a dark colour sedan but she didn’t
know the make.”

“
We can’t trace a car to either Wesley Robinson or Chad
Wilson, so the vehicle is probably stolen or in another name
entirely. We could look up all dark stolen cars, which would be
like trying to find a needle in a haystack. We don’t even know how
long he’s had the car, if it’s even stolen.”

He shook his head, frustrated again. Why wasn’t anything
falling into place when they had so little time?

“
There would also be a lot of dark coloured sedans to go
through. It could be black, blue or green, who knows - it was
dark.”

“
The results came back on the hair from Lindsay’s autopsy,
and the DNA matches the one found on Kate. It doesn’t really help
us much we have nothing to compare it to.”

Maggie’s phone rang and as Lucas listened to the one-sided
conversation the realisation hit him hard. A body had been found.
Chelsea!

“
Maggie?” he asked when she’d hung up.

“
It could be Anna.”

“
What if it’s not?”

“
His MO suggests it is. It’s too soon for Chelsea.”

Lucas drove to occupy his mind. Every moment of the past week
passed through his mind and his heart set up a permanent residence
in his throat. He told himself it wouldn’t be Chelsea. Maggie was
right, it was too soon. He couldn’t even comprehend or consider the
idea of a life without Chelsea, a world where she wasn’t in it.
He’d given his heart and soul to her. If she was dead, his life
would be over too.

Lucas pulled up at the warehouse but couldn’t bring himself to
get out of the car.

“
I’ll go and check,” Maggie said.

His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were
white and the pain helped divert the torment in his heart. He
closed his eyes, lent his head against the seat and waited for the
long excruciating minutes until Maggie returned. He didn’t want to
allow the images of her into his mind but they came regardless. A
flash of her laughter and the thought of her kiss caused his chest
to tighten and panic to surge through his body. What type of cruel
world would take away someone else he loved, especially someone as
lovely as Chelsea? He clenched his jaw against the pain threatening
to consume him.

The last image of Chelsea saturated his mind - her engaging
smile as he dropped her at her door the previous morning. As he’d
driven away she’d blown him a kiss. Would that be his last moment
with her?

He nearly leapt out of his skin when Maggie tapped on his
window. He lowered the window and stared at her. She shook her
head.

“
It’s Anna Jones.”

Relief filled his chest, which instantly turned to guilt
when he realised he was happy that it was Anna. This only
intensified his fury towards the kidnapper, whoever it
was.

“
It’s perfectly normal to be relieved, Lucas.”

“
Doesn’t make it right
,
though.”

“
I asked Dave to do a preliminary ASAP so, if he finds
anything, we can move on it straightaway.

When they got back to the station, Wesley Robinson’s file was
waiting on Lucas’ desk.

“
Anything in the file we can use?”

“
Probably not, but his record is for manslaughter.”

“
Who’d he kill?’

“
His father when he was sixteen. After years of physical and
emotional abuse, he slit his father’s throat one night after
another particularly nasty bashing. The court went easy on him
because of the abuse and he was released when he was eighteen after
serving nearly two years. He grew up with nothing. His mother left
and his father was an alcoholic who drank his wages.”

“
It looks like it could be Wesley Robinson after all. Same
MO. He grew up poor and probably resents Chelsea because she
didn’t. They were getting married weren’t they?” Maggie
said.

“
Yes,” he said with a clenched jaw.

“
So he could have just married into the wealth. Why leave her
and then plan to kill her?”

“
I guess that is only something he can answer. I haven’t been
able to work that out either. Years of abuse obviously affected
him. He also worked in the kitchen as a baker’s assistant while
inside.”

“
There’s our flour. He must have been working somewhere, but
where?”

“
If we could find that out, maybe we could get his address. I
already checked and haven’t found any employment records,” Lucas
said.

“
Perhaps we could show his photo around at the café, see if
he ate there. Maybe someone knows something about him. If he didn’t
go there, maybe there is another way he knows all the girls. This
could be a way to lead us to him. We can read over the files with
Robinson in mind now, particularly the calls. Maybe we’ll be able
to link something up.”

“
It’s worth a try, I suppose. What else do we
have?”

Maggie’s phone rang as they were leaving. “The ME has finished
his preliminary report on Anna and wants to see us,” she told him
after hanging up.

They made their way down to the lower level to David’s office
and lab.

“
Good afternoon, Detectives.”

“
What have we got, Dave?” Maggie asked him.

“
Well, cause of death is consistent with the other four girls.
The wounds again have different levels of clotting.”

“
Did you find any trace substances?”

“
Not this time. No trace of flour at all that I can find. This
girl has either been cleaned or he didn’t transfer any this time.
No seminal fluid or hairs from the rape kit but signs of trauma, so
once again he may have used a condom or didn’t ejaculate. I would
be more inclined to go with the latter as there were no traces of a
condom having been used, same as before.”

“
Any other differences, besides the flour?” Lucas asked
him.

“
Yes. With regard to the wounds, this time the cuts were
inflicted over a shorter period of time, as though he rushed, or
there was less time between each cut.”

“
So, he’s either escalating or he was in a hurry to move on,”
said Lucas with a grim expression. “This means we could have less
time.”

“
He could have been in a rush to reach his real target in
Chelsea. He might take his time again with her.”

Lucas glared at her.

“
This is a good thing, Lucas. It means we have more time to
find her. The quicker we do, the lesser the injuries.”

“
I hope you're right. Anything else?” Lucas asked the
ME.

“
Not at this stage. I have only done the preliminary. I’ll let
you know if I find anything else inconsistent.”

“
Thanks, Dave.”

“
Was he working somewhere? Where was the flour coming from?
Why isn’t there any this time?” Maggie now sounded as aggravated as
Lucas felt.

They were waiting impatiently for the lift to take them back
to their floor.

“
He must have been working somewhere using an alias.” He
paused. Lucas turned to Maggie as a thought entered his mind.
“Wesley Robinson and Chad Wilson are the same person.”

Chapter 29

Chad Wilson

Friday

“
Of course, this is why there was no flour on Anna’s body,
because he kidnapped her after he stopped going to work. Wait, the
sketch doesn’t look like the photo and they didn’t recognise him,”
said Maggie. “

“
It’s an old photo. I wouldn’t have guessed they were the
same person.” He held up the photo and the sketch. “See the nose is
wrong. Different face shapes. Maybe he’s had his face
altered.”

“
Didn’t Jenkins say that the manager and girl couldn’t agree
when they described him?”

“
Yeah, that could explain the differences. Maybe if I’d shown
Chelsea...”

“
Don’t beat yourself up.”

“
We should go back to the bakery to find out about a vehicle
and show them a photo,” Maggie suggested. “We should check at the
café too.”

“
If only I’d thought of this yesterday. We could have been
onto this sooner. It should have clicked when we were going over
the notes
,
but with everything going on .... I have to be more focused
than this.”

“
I missed it too, partner. Even if we could have been sure
they were the same person, we have no clue where he lives. They
still may not be the same guy.”

“
After we’ve been to the bakery and café, if our suspicions
are correct, I’ll call Peterson and Stewart to let them know that
Wesley is Chad, just in case they come across him while doing their
door-to-door, and they can ask the neighbours about both
names.”

“
Good idea. We haven’t briefed them on our updates
yet.

The same assistant was at Ben’s Bakery when they
arrived.

“
Hello Detectives,” she said after they walked in. “How can I
help you?”

“
We just need to ask you a couple of questions about Chad
Wilson,” Maggie began.

“
Sure go ahead.”

“
Do you recognise this man?” she asked showing her a photo of
Wesley.

“
It looks a little like Chad, I think.” She looked closely
at the photo for a moment. “He looks younger there but it could be
him.”

“
Did you ever hear him referred to as, or use the name, Wesley
Robinson?” Maggie said.

“
Not that I remember.”

“
I assume no employment records have turned up?” Lucas
asked.

“
No.”