Twisted (31 page)

“With one exception,” Larry taunted good-naturedly. “Now that I’m a consultant, I actually get paid. You know, real money, not like the Bureau salaries.”

At his end of the phone, Bill chuckled.

“We’d really like you both on board,” Sloane answered. “That’s why I reached out to you, and Derek reached out to Bill. This case is getting broader in scope. We could use both your expertise and the resources of the Bureau. Larry, the Trumans have offered to pay whatever fee you quote them, plus all your expenses. Their only stipulation is that you make this top priority.”

“Meaning they want me up there yesterday.”

“Exactly.”

He drew a thoughtful breath. “I’ve got another urgent case to wrap up. That should happen tomorrow. I’ll drive up there as soon as I’m done. In the meantime, I can get started down here. If you either e-mail or fax me any case-file data, I’ll review it. Then we won’t lose any time. I’d need a day to familiarize myself with every detail of the case anyway.”

“Consider it done.” Sloane was relieved and grateful. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s faster than I could get started,” Bill said truthfully. “We’ve got a couple of sensitive cases in the works right now, and I’m pretty much up against a wall. So Larry driving up there to do the investigative work would be ideal. He can check out the crime scenes, work up the victimology with you, and get the ball rolling. In the meantime, now that I have Derek’s official request, you have the full cooperation of the
BAU
. If I’m tied up, you can speak to my partner, who’s an excellent profiler. I’ll e-mail you her contact information. Then I’ll brief her, and our major-case specialists. You’ll be in good hands. And I’ll make myself available to you as often as possible. Let’s schedule our first video conference for the seventeenth.”

“Fine with me,” Larry agreed. “Does ten o’clock work?”

“It works and it’s now on my calendar.”

“I’ll reserve the video conference room in New York, and we’ll make ourselves available,” Derek said, after receiving Sloane’s nod.

“Before we hang up,” she jumped in quickly. “Is there anything you can suggest that would make us more productive at our end, at least until Larry gets here?”

“Send Larry everything you’ve got
ASAP
. Do preliminary searches in
VICAP
and
CODIS
based on what you know so far. Derek, ask one of the task-force detectives on C-6 to get you access to the
NYPD
database, and do the same kind of preliminary search in
RTCC
. When Larry gets to New York, share all the results with him and let him do his investigative work. We’ll review everything on the seventeenth and see if we can derive additional patterns in either the crimes or the offender, which will allow us to further detail the profile.”

Sloane didn’t look heartened, and Derek understood why. All the databases Bill had mentioned were only as useful as the data law enforcement officers provided. If pertinent violent crimes hadn’t been entered,
VICAP
wouldn’t have them. If their Unsub didn’t have a police record, there’d likely be no record of his
DNA
in
CODIS
. As for RTCC—the NYPD’s data warehouse to stop emerging crime by establishing patterns—it might shed a few insights. Could it benefit them? Maybe. But was it even close to a panacea? No way.

“Was there anything we gave you that would lead you to think in any one particular direction?” Sloane tried.

Bill blew out a breath. “I understand how frustrated you feel. Honestly, I’m not giving you the runaround. But that’s a tough question to answer, since we have very little to go on and every case is different. Based upon the pattern and the targets—all attractive women on college campuses taken at knifepoint—plus the fact that none of them have resurfaced alive, I’d say we have two nobody homicides and an attempted third one, committed by a serial sexual killer.”

“What about the fact that all the victims knew or were connected in some way to Sloane?” Derek asked. “Isn’t that an anomaly in your basic profile?”

“It’s specific to this case, yes,” Larry explained. “But we can’t give you a full analysis on its significance until I’ve done my investigative work. In general, serial killers who commit sexual homicide—including no-body homicides—have no direct connection to the victims. They choose them based upon availability, vulnerability, and/or desirability. If there’s a variation to that profile—namely the victims’ ties to Sloane—we’ll probe it fully. What we do know about this offender is that he’s organized. His attacks have been planned, and his victims were targeted. Thanks to his third victim’s escape, we have a basic physical build and body type, a suspicion that he served in the military, a knowledge that he’s Caucasian yet speaks some Chinese dialects—”

“Fukienese,” Derek interrupted. “All the phrases our C-6 language analyst came back to with were either Mandarin or Fukienese. They’re still working on the first phrase. It’s possible Tina misunderstood it.”

“Good. We know Fukienese is a much rarer dialect than, say, Cantonese. All these things will factor into our analysis. Till then, all we can give you are the generalities you already know. Our Unsub is a white male, uses a combat knife as his weapon, probably has vivid sexual fantasies, some of them violent, and kills for sexual gratification. Offenders that fall into this category have a different assault site, murder site, and disposal site. We know that our Unsub’s assault sites are college campuses, but we don’t know his murder or disposal sites.”

“We also don’t know his motivation,” Sloane murmured.

“Or his trigger,” Bill added. “Something incited him to act at this particular time, something emotionally impacting. But until we know more about him, it’s impossible to guess what that might be. Again, once Larry gets there, we’ll start filling in the blanks.”

“Well, here’s another blank we can fill in,” Derek announced, leaning over his laptop to read an e-mail that had just arrived in his in-box. “It’s no great shocker, but it is an important piece of information. The
DNA
results from the sweat stains and strands of hair found on that custodial uniform at the hospital just came in. They match the unknown blood splatter found at Tina Carroll’s crime scene. And the drops of blood found on the custodial uniform belong to the murdered nurse. So we can add a few more crimes to our Unsub’s résumé—homicide and drug theft. He ripped off morphine, Nembutal, fentanyl, and OxyContin plus a bunch of syringes.”

“The morphine must be for his pain,” Bill mused. “Nembutal is a pretty strong, fast-acting barbiturate, probably what he’s injecting into the women he grabs to knock them out.”

“Bill…five o’clock meeting.” Somewhere in the background at the
BAU
, Bill was being summoned.

“Listen, we’ve got more than enough to get started with.” Derek brought the conversation to a close. “We really appreciate both your time and what you’re doing to help us. Larry, I’ll get you everything we’ve got on the case. See you soon.”

“I’ll start reading as soon as I get your case file. I look forward to meeting you, Derek. And, as always, to seeing you, Sloane,” Larry replied.

They hung up, and Sloane turned to Derek. “That went well. I wish we could do more now, but at least I feel as if we’re
finally
making some headway.”

“We are. And that e-mail I just got confirms it.”

“I never got the chance to ask you—what translations did your language analyst come up with?”

Derek grimaced. “She verified the phrases we already knew. As for the other two,
chao ji bei
is, shall we say, a degrading Fukienese term used for certain types of women. It translates into ‘stinky bitch.’ But let’s just say that
ji bei
is a crude reference to a female reproductive organ, and leave it at that.”

“Lovely.” Sloane’s tone was dry. “And nothing on
tai kee
?”

“Just on close-sounding substitutes. She verified the phrase you came up with that means ‘birthmark’ in Mandarin. The only phrase that came closer was
tai chee,
which means ‘too late’ in Cantonese.”

“I guess ‘too late’ can be ominous. Maybe he meant it was too late for Tina.” Sloane frowned. “Although the context is off. Tina said he used it like a proper noun.”

“There’s no point in beating our heads against the wall,” Derek concluded. “If there’s something to find, Yan Dié will find it.” He stood up and stretched. “It’s almost five o’clock. I want to check in with Joe, see if he found anything on that video footage. After that, I’m going to head back to the city, get the case file to Larry, and see if I can start on those preliminary searches.”

“Don’t you have to be in Atlantic City?”

“Not if I’m running down a lead in the Truman case that requires my being in New York. I need to get one of my former
NYPD
detectives who’s now part of the C-6 task force to get me into Puzzle Palace so I can access
RTCC
.” He glanced at his watch. “Why don’t you make photocopies of your notes on the case, so I can include them in the material I send Larry. Also write down any specifics you want included in my database searches. I’ll combine your specs with mine, and compile a list of criteria to run against the databases. Right now I want to call Joe. I got the sense he has something for me. His last e-mail came in twenty minutes ago, and it sounded optimistic.”

“Then call him,” Sloane urged. “I’ll photocopy my notes and make that list. You get Joe’s update, and head back to the city to get started.”

“You do know that a relief security detail is on its way to your house,” Derek reminded her. “Manny Gomez. He’s a great guy. Went from retired
NYPD
sergeant, to semiretired and going crazy, to running a small security company. He’s got a top-notch team working for him. You’ll be in good hands. He’s due here at six. I’ll wait till he gets here, introduce you, and then hit the road. Manny will drive you over to Elsa’s house when you’re ready to go.”

“Okay.” Somehow, Sloane didn’t feel like arguing. In fact, she welcomed the knowledge that a detective would be keeping an eye on her. Until her trigger finger was up to par, she wasn’t in a position to shoot down an armed killer, no matter how good her reflexes were. She was fast, but a bullet was faster.

She went to get her file, and Derek went to the phone.

“Joe,” she heard him say. “Did you isolate that red flash you spotted?” A pause. “Sure I’ll wait a minute—if you send me something worthwhile.” A long silence. “Yeah, I’m at my laptop. Fire away.”

A minute later, the
bing
of the incoming e-mail sounded. The
click-click
Sloane heard was Derek, opening the jpeg attachment.

“Damn, you’re good,” were his next words. “Let me get Sloane in here to see if she can identify the woman.”

“Here I am.” Sloane dashed back into the room, leaning over to study the screen. It was a woman, dressed in red, standing behind a tree and sipping a bottle of water. The picture wasn’t crisp or full face, but Sloane could clearly make out the profile.

The years melted away, and the knot in her stomach tightened. “That’s Penny,” she confirmed without hesitation.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay, we have confirmation of the victim’s identity. Now let’s see what else we’ve got.” Derek opened the next jpeg.

In this photo, Penny had put away her water and was about to take a step toward the path. At the same time, her head was angled slightly toward the camera, and she looked puzzled, as if someone in the woods had called her name.

Sloane must have made a pained sound, because Derek looked up at her. “You all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Ready for the last one?”

“No. But open it anyway.” Sloane clenched her teeth as Derek complied.

The third photo appeared on his screen.

A dark, hooded figure had his right arm across Penny’s throat, and his left hand over her mouth. Their faces were angled away from the camera, and the lighting in that area was poor—no surprise, given that he was restraining her in a thick cluster of trees—so it was hard to make out the details. But from the seclusion of the spot he’d picked, it was no wonder none of the students strolling along the lake path had noticed anything or were even glancing their way. The two of them were practically invisible.

Sloane strained to make out what was happening. The man was behind Penny, but there was no missing the silver glint of the weapon protruding across the left side of Penny’s throat.

It was a long, Bowie-type combat knife.

Bile rose in Sloane’s throat. Suspecting what had happened to her childhood friend, and seeing it unfold before her very eyes, were two different things.

“You okay?” Derek asked quietly.

Sloane gave a tight nod. “We’re going to get this son of a bitch,” she said in a hard, no-bullshit tone. “And when we do, he’s going to wish he was never born.”

DATE:
10 April

TIME:
1600 hours

I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as last time. This time I’d use my tranquilizer gun. No direct contact. No threats at knifepoint. I’d render her unconscious from a distance, firing one simple tranq dart. Then I’d drag her body into the woods, tie her up, and bind each leg to a tree. I’d wait until she came to, then make her feel the pain of her betrayal.

I raised my weapon—and stopped.

She was stretching before she got started on her usual jog around Lake Ceva. Two solidly built guys arrived simultaneously, one settling himself at the far end of the lake with a textbook, the other strolling the perimeter, drinking in the fresh air. Then a third guy showed up in shorts and a T-shirt. He joined Tyche in her run, keeping a comfortable pace beside her.

Their disguises were pathetic. Even a moron could tell they were cops.

So I went away, returning now, with my tranquilizer gun, when classes are over and she’s back in her dorm.

Biao zhi.

Campus police pretending to be college students, sitting in the archway outside each building entrance.