The Pawn (2 page)

“Our love will unite us forever,” she whispered.

“Our love will unite us forever,” said Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid.

He held up his hand and watched the blood spill from his wrist. Watched as the patterns trailed down his arm and into the water. Watched as little rivers of blood dripped from his elbow and then twirled into the current, across his legs, around his heart, toward his girlfriend.

She took the knife, placed the blade against her left wrist, looked up at him. “Forever,” she said.

“Forever.”

She pulled the knife sharply across her left wrist and let out a gasp. He’d shown her how to do it right. The cut was more than sufficient. They’d practiced together using a butter knife to get the angle right. They’d rehearsed it all, down to the last detail. And this cut was not the tentative probing of someone who was unsure. Paramedics called those “hesitation marks.” But she wasn’t hesitant at all. No, she wasn’t just doing it for attention. She believed in everything he told her. He knew she did. She believed in Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid more than anything in the world.

“I’m doing this for you, Aaron,” she said. And the look in her eyes told him it was true. She would have done anything for him; had done everything for him. “I love you.”

“I know.”

Aaron watched her stare at the whirlpool for a moment. Blood was pumping out of her opened wrist now, pouring out. Swirling all around her in crimson currents as her body emptied itself of life. He wondered what she was thinking.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

“Don’t be scared. We’re going to be together now. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just do the other wrist like we practiced and hand me the knife.”

“Nothing can keep us apart,” she whispered, pressing the blade against her right wrist. “Nothing.”

“Nothing.”

She tried to make the cut, but the tendons had been damaged. Her hand trembled. “Help me,” she said feebly.

He eased over to her side of the whirlpool, took her hand in his, and held the knife firmly against her skin.

Then he pulled.

She grimaced, then twitched, then relaxed her arm. “Thank you,” she said.

He let go of her hand, and the knife dropped into the water—this second cut was even deeper than the first.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

The water became darker and darker as the jets of the whirlpool chugged on. Curling and pumping. A deeper, sharper red. She had dropped her arms into the water now and was slumping a bit to the side. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Hold me.” She tried to reach out to hug him but could barely lift her arms above the water. Blood kept coursing from her wrists.

He leaned close to her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He held her until her arms dropped into the water one last time.

Then, instead of reaching for the knife, he stepped out of the water and picked up a towel.

She’d done it. She’d done just what he asked. Yes, he’d had to slice his own wrist, that was true, and he’d had to help her, but she had agreed. She had listened. She’d been obedient to the very end.

No one had seen them together. He could easily hide the wound on his wrist until it healed. No one would ask any questions. It was even easier than he’d imagined it would be.

Father would be proud.

“Everything is going to be all right, Jessie,” he said softly as he stared at her. He tried to imagine what it was like for her in that moment . . . darkness clouding into the sides of her vision . . . the image of her boyfriend leaving her alone in the whirlpool . . . water and blood dripping together onto the linoleum.

Water and blood. Water and blood.

“Where are you going?” Her words were soft, hardly audible. A whisper.

“Don’t worry, Jessie.” He was holding the towel up against his wrist to stop the bleeding. “Everything is going to be just fine.” Her mouth formed a silent question for him, but the words never came. Her arms quivered slightly and then stopped moving forever as Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid sat down beside the gently humming water to watch his girlfriend bleed to death in her parents’ whirlpool.

Oh yes. Father would be very proud.

1

Thursday
October 23, 2008
Somewhere above the mountains of western North Carolina
5:31 p.m.

I peered out the window of the Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV, helicopter of choice for both the Georgia State Patrol and the Department of the Interior, as we roared over the mountainous border of Georgia and North Carolina. Clouds rose dark on the horizon.

The colors of autumn were still lingering on the rolling slopes of the southern Appalachians, although winter had started to creep into the higher elevations. Far below us, the hills rose and fell, rose and fell, zipping past. For a few minutes I watched the shadow of the helicopter gliding over the mountains and dipping down into the shadowy valleys like a giant insect skimming across the landscape, searching for a place to land.

Even though it was late fall, ribbons of churning water pounded down the mountains in the aftermath of a series of fierce storms. In the springtime these hills produce some of the most fantastic whitewater rafting in all of North America. I know. I used to paddle them years ago when I spent a year working near here as a wilderness guide for the North Carolina Outward Bound School. Now, it seemed like those days were in another life.

Before I became what I am. Before any of this.

But as I looked out the window, the waters weren’t blue like I remembered them. Instead, they were brown and swollen from a recent rain. Wriggling back and forth through the hills like thick, restless snakes.

I glanced at my watch: 5:34 p.m. We should be landing within the next ten minutes. Which was good, because with the clouds rolling in, it didn’t look like we had a whole lot of sunlight ahead of us. Maybe an hour. Maybe less.

My good friend Special Agent Ralph Hawkins had called me in. Just a few hours ago I was in Atlanta presenting a seminar on strategic crime analysis for the National Law Enforcement Methodology Conference. Another conference. Another lecture series. It seemed like that was all I’d been doing for the last six months. Sure, I’d consulted on a couple dozen cases, but they weren’t a big deal. Mostly I’d been teaching and researching criminology. Trying to forget.

I’d have to say that despite how disoriented my life had become, the biggest casualty had been my sixteen-year-old—wait, seventeen-year-old—stepdaughter Tessa. After the funeral, I tried to get close to her, but it didn’t work. Nothing did. Eventually we just drifted into our separate routines, our separate lives. Case in point: here I was in the Southeast while she stayed with my parents back home in Denver.

Ralph wasn’t the kind of man to waste time or words being cordial. He’d jumped right to the point when he called my cell earlier in the day. “Pat, I hear you’re back in the game.”

“Trying to be.”

“Well, you heard about what’s going on down here?”

“Yeah.” I followed the postings of all the major cities’ crime labs and FBI listings. Occupational hazard. I was a regular VICAP junkie—the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program is a way to track crimes across jurisdictions, so I’d read about the murders. Even the details they weren’t releasing to the public. There’d been at least five so far, just since February.

“You found another one,” I said.

“Yeah. Some hikers stumbled across her about an hour ago. We’re out at the site now, and, well, I could email you some stuff, but I gotta say, I could use your eyes over here. There’s got to be something we’re missing. The signature is the same. It’s the same guy, Pat. The press is calling him the Yellow Ribbon Strangler.”

Ralph knew that I hated when the press got involved. I’d looked at my watch: 4:02 p.m.

“I don’t know, Ralph . . .”

“I can have a chopper over there to pick you up in twenty minutes. You’ll be back at your hotel tonight. That’s why I could use your eyes right now. Supposed to be some more storms coming through, and I don’t want to miss anything here. What do you say?”

And I’d said yes.

Because I always say yes.

“Email me the photos your men took at the other crime scenes,” I said, “and video if you have it, and I’ll look them over on my way down.”

And now, less than two hours after giving the keynote address to 2,500 law enforcement professionals and intelligence agency personnel from around the world, I was on a chopper to meet Ralph and look at the body of another dead girl.

I scrolled through the crime scene pictures on my laptop. Even though I try to stay detached, the images still bother me. They always have. Probably always will.

I glanced out the window. The shadow of the helicopter skirted over a road and hovered for a moment above a parked car on a scenic overlook. A man and a woman who were standing beside the guardrail didn’t seem to notice the shadow. They just kept staring at the sprawling mountains folding back against the horizon, totally unaware that a shadow was crawling over them. Totally unaware.

The killer hadn’t made any attempt to hide the bodies. Whoever was killing these women wanted them found. After all, there were plenty of places in the hills of western North Carolina to hide a body forever. Or a person. The serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph had hidden here for five years during one of the biggest manhunts in history and was only caught when he wandered into town to scavenge food from a dumpster behind a grocery store. No, our guy wasn’t into hiding; he was into flaunting. And there was something else. Something that hadn’t been released to the public. Something very disturbing. Which was why Ralph had called me.

I leaned forward and yelled to the pilot, “How much longer?”

He didn’t answer, just pointed at a nearby mountain and tipped the LongRanger toward a clearing.

I closed up my computer. It was time for Patrick Bowers to go to work.

2

A bank of dark, steely clouds churned in the western sky as we pivoted on the edge of the air and the pilot lowered the chopper to the ground.

Someone had strung up a boundary of yellow police tape along the trees surrounding the meadow. It fluttered and snapped in the wind kicked up by the chopper’s blades.

I grabbed my computer bag and jumped down, using one hand to shield my eyes from the fine spray of sand thrown into the air by the rotors. It was like trying to ward off a fog of biting flies, but I didn’t want to wait one moment longer than I had to.

I could see the hulking shape of Special Agent Ralph Hawkins waving a meaty hand at the helicopter like a traffic cop who’d lost his way and ended up on top of this mountain. Ralph was as thick as a bear. As an All-American wrestler in high school and former Army Ranger he could still break out of a pair of handcuffs with his bare hands. But still, even though he was over six feet tall, I had him by two inches. Bugged him to no end.

“Pat.” He threw the word at me along with his hand. Hearing his gruff, thunderous voice made me feel right at home. We’d worked lots of cases together for the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, back before . . . well, back before everything came spinning apart.

“Good to see you out on the turf again.”

“Yeah,” I yelled.

Now, the rotors were easing to a stop, and the wind swirling around us found its natural rhythm again as the blades slowed and finally hung limp and still above the dome of the helicopter.

Half a dozen agents wearing black FBI windbreakers stalked around the top of the mountain surrounded by a pack of bored-looking state troopers and four park rangers. It reminded me of a construction site at break time where everyone just stands around expecting someone else to be the first one to go back to work. They were all staring at me. Some were exchanging comments with each other. Others were snickering.

Apparently, it was pretty rare around here to bring in someone like me—on the other hand, it might have been my age. Even though I’ve worked fifteen solid years in law enforcement, I won’t be turning thirty-six until January. And people often tell me I look younger than I am. That’s why I go for the scruffy look. When I shave I look twenty.

Two people stepped forward—a woman wearing a black FBI windbreaker and a rotund man wearing a tie that looked like a bib. He offered his hand. “Dr. Bowers?”

“That’s me.” I shook his hand.

“Sheriff Dante Wallace, Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department.” Sheriff Wallace looked like he enjoyed his football games best from the center of a couch. The bristles of hair sticking up from his mostly bald head looked like tufts of gray grass.

“Good to meet you,” I said.

“And I’m Special Agent Lien-hua Jiang,” said the dark-haired woman beside him. “I’m Ralph’s partner.” Elegant. Close to my age, maybe a few years younger. Asian descent. Great posture. Like a model. Or an athlete. I wondered if she’d maybe studied dance. She had a tiny chin that made her smile even broader. She reached out her hand and nodded politely. Nice grip. Nice body.

“Great,” I said, trying not to look like I was staring. Besides, I was anxious to get to work before the rains came. “It’s good to meet you both.”

Agent Hawkins rescued me. “All right. Now that we’re all on a first-name basis, let’s go take a look at our girl. Or at least what’s left of her.”

The Illusionist watched carefully as Patrick Bowers wandered around the top of the mountain with all those other federal agents and idiot cops. Morons! They would never understand. None of them would. Not really.

He knew about Bowers. Oh yeah, he knew all about Patrick Bowers, PhD. He’d read both of his books. For research. Very helpful. A worthy opponent.

The Illusionist grinned as he watched them. He was happy. So happy! He almost started giggling right there. But he didn’t. He didn’t make a sound. He was in control of everything.

He had a pair of Steiner binoculars in his jacket pocket, but he didn’t even need them. He was that close. He was that close to everything! Most of the cops just stood around like the complete and total imbeciles and half-wits that they were. Oh, he was loving this. He was loving every minute of it. They were heading over to the girl. He closed his eyes for a moment and remembered what it was like to be with her. Alone with her. Yes. Oh yes. She’d been the best one so far.