Blood Moon (3 page)

He could see Epps struggling with himself, but finally he nodded reluctantly. “Agreed.”

Roarke breathed an inner sigh of relief, then took control. “So. Her last known whereabouts are the cement plant. We know that she steals cars for transportation. She has a master key for Hondas at the very least.” He turned to Singh.

“I have been monitoring reported car thefts in Southern California,” she said in her musical lilt. “There were none that checked out in the Blythe area on the night she disappeared.”

Roarke nodded. “The most likely scenario is that she took off in a car or a truck she stole from the plant site. Given how she was wounded, I can’t see her getting out of there any other way.” Privately he’d wondered if she might even have taken one of the criminal ring hostage, forced him to drive her out, and disposed of him on the way. He could see it happening in a heartbeat.

Epps chimed in. “None of the arrestees are admitting to a vehicle being stolen that night, but why would they? They’re not cooperating on anything else, and it was probably stolen to begin with.” He glanced to Roarke. “She’s probably already ditched that vehicle, though.”

Roarke looked toward Singh. “Keep on the stolen cars reports. It paid off for us before. As to where she would go from there… Singh, I’d like your take.”

Singh looked grave. “I believe that Cara has several practically perfect IDs. She’s demonstrated that she knows how to set them up. Unfortunately the name she gave the Sebastians was not attached to any existing identity papers or financial accounts; it appears to have been a name she invented on the spot. This woman knows how not to be found. And she has been hiding not for mischief, but for survival. If she is alive, she may well have gone somewhere that she has set up as a safe haven long ago, quite possibly years.”

“And we know she’s got plenty of money to get lost with,” Jones added. Cara had come into over a million dollars of insurance money from the deaths of her family. The money, plus substantial interest, was hers the day she turned twenty-one, and she promptly disappeared from all public and financial records.

Epps’ face was stony. “I say Mexico. No one’s keeping track of anything down there. Anyone can set up a new life. That night at the cement plant we were two hours from Mexicali, tops. Why wouldn’t she just cross the border?”

Roarke glanced toward the police sketch of Cara mounted on the corkboard: the delicate features behind sunglasses, the light and luxuriant hair. He willed himself to look away. “A blonde —
that
blonde — in Mexico? Trying to stay hidden?” He shook his head. “She knows the U.S. The Western U.S. That’s her comfort zone. She’s not going to be down there dodging
federales
and
narcos
.”

“Why not? That seems right up her alley,” Epps said tensely. “Take a bunch of the fuckers out. If she’s after bad guys—” He stopped, remembering himself. “If she
thinks
she’s after bad guys,” he qualified, too late, “that would be a good place to start.”

“No doubt,” Roarke said. “But I don’t see it.”

Epps stared at him hard, and Roarke knew that he was revealing himself. “You don’t see it,” his man said softly. “So what do you see?”

Roarke locked his eyes for a beat. “If it were me? I’d go east.” He did not know if he meant it at all. “Get out of her known hunting grounds.”

“She doesn’t know what we think her hunting grounds are,” Epps pointed out. But Roarke suspected she did. In the little contact he’d had with her, she seemed to read him well enough to figure some things out.

“I only said it’s what
I
would do. If I knew what she would do, I’d say that.” Roarke was aware his voice was far too taut for the circumstances.

“We’ve got less than two weeks to another full moon,” Epps said, glancing at the board, at the moon chart where Cara’s killings were chronicled. Most had taken place on nights when the moon was full. It was a not-uncommon characteristic of serial killers; the Reaper, the killer of Cara’s family, had also killed during full moons.

“I’m not so sure we have as much to worry about now,” Roarke said aloud. From almost the beginning of Roarke’s hunt for Cara Lindstrom, he had been consulting with his old mentor Chuck Snyder, a legendary profiler from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, and they had discussed this point in depth. “Snyder was very clear that the violent decompensation Cara was experiencing last month was triggered by the twenty-five year anniversary of her family’s deaths.” Anniversaries of traumatic events were known triggers for unstable and violent people. “After the bloodshed of that night, he thinks it’s unlikely she would be feeling the same kind of compulsion to kill again so soon.”

“Got it out of her system?” Jones suggested.

Roarke paused, and qualified, “For now.” Most serial killers had a rhythm of killing that included a long build-up of fantasizing about a kill before the actual kill, and then a “cooling-off” period after the frenzy of the kill. Not that Cara, or any woman, could easily or even usefully be compared to male patterns of sexual homicide. The motive for women to kill was completely different, and there was simply not enough data available to develop a useful profile.

“But we don’t know,” Epps said.

“No. We don’t know.”

Singh spoke up, with that serene calm that always made Roarke’s blood pressure lower a few notches just listening to her, no matter how gruesome the subject matter. “I am monitoring VICAP for all killings of adult men by slashed or slit throat. I also have a nationwide bulletin out asking for reports of such crimes from local law enforcement.”

“But there have been no more incidences in the country in the last two weeks?” Roarke asked, feeling himself tensing as he waited for the response.

“Nothing in which the perpetrator was not immediately arrested.” Singh answered. She reached for a stack of files, the gold armbands she always wore glinting on her wrists. “I am watching for all new cases. I also have a list from VICAP of all killings of adult men by slashed or slit throat from 2001 on. All states. And a nationwide bulletin out asking for reports from local law enforcement, previous cases that may not have made it into the VICAP database.”

“How many cases on that list?”

“Just under two thousand.” The temperature of the room dropped.

Singh acknowledged the reaction with a nod as she brushed her thick fall of dark hair back from her shoulders. “Most will be eliminated. I will start with the western states and work my way through it.”

“See you next century,” Jones muttered.

“You can start by working with just the kills that correspond to the full moons,” Roarke said.

“Yes, the moon is the first sign,” Singh agreed. “And I will ask local officers I speak with about the turtleneck or high collar.” Cara wore high collars to conceal the old scar on her neck. “I am also narrowing the field by victim profile, looking only at sex offenders or men who have had sex offenses alleged against them.”

“We don’t know that’s the only killing she’s done,” Epps said, with a dangerous edge.

“No, that’s right, there was also the mad bomber planning on killing hundreds of people on a single day,” Roarke said, and as he stared across the room at Epps, tension crackled between the two men.

“It is a tendency,” Singh said calmly, and Roarke had the sensation she’d just stepped in between him and Epps, as distinctly as if she’d done it physically. “Using a victim profile merely narrows the field for my initial search.”

Roarke was on his feet, walking the room. He never could stay in a chair for long. He focused on the board, that empty middle section.

“So Singh will be looking to fill in anything she can find on these years.”

And then he looked at the middle chart, the teen years, the bleak list of Cara’s residences: the foster homes, the group homes, the juvenile prison in Southern California. At the top was the photo he’d found of her in one of those case files, a slim blond waif of thirteen with enormous and watching eyes, too intense to be called beautiful, too mesmerizing to look away from.

“There,” Roarke said, and put his hand on the list pinned to the board below the photo. “These are the people who knew her. The only places she ever stayed long enough for anyone to know her were the places she was confined. These are real people from those years who had prolonged interaction with her. During that time she may have dropped clues to what she did after she disappeared. Places she talked about, people she knew whom she may have sought out.”

It was a slim thread, but it was something.

There was another thread he didn’t mention: the real possibility that her first kill had been when she was only fourteen years old, the year she was released from nearly three years in juvenile detention. A former counselor at the group home where she’d been arrested for assault had been found with his throat cut. Roarke had not put that fact into the case file. He hadn’t let himself consider why.

“It’s someplace to start,” he continued aloud. “Interview the family members—” he stepped to the board and read names: “Patrick and Erin McNally, the cousins she lived with briefly after the deaths of her family. They would have been too young to remember her at the time of the massacre, but possibly she visited her aunt over the years. Families talk, especially about black sheep. And there’s the aunt’s second husband, Trent, the one who left the family after five-year old Cara came to live with them.”

His eyes skimmed the rest of the board. “Then teachers, counselors, whoever I can track down.”

“You’re thinking of going down to So Cal, then,” Epps said.

Roarke answered evenly, “It’s the most concrete trail to her habits, her thinking.” He turned to Singh. “And while I’m on the road: Singh, you’ll be tracking down any crimes in the last ten to twelve years that can be connected to Lindstrom.”

“Yes, chief.”

Just as Epps called him “boss,” Singh called him “chief.” He could not break either one of them of the habit; he’d long ago stopped trying.

“Epps will continue coordinating with the San Luis Obispo sheriffs and local agencies on the Salt Lake City and Portland cold cases. And Jones…”

He looked to the remaining member of the team, who had been holding the fort on the investigation into
Ogromni
, a transnational criminal organization that the team had been focused on until Greer had met his fate with that truck.

“I’m counting on you to move us forward on
Ogromni
. Check in with our CIs. Best case, we wrap up the investigation into Cara Lindstrom soonest and we can return our focus to
Ogromni
.”

His words came out with a forced optimism, even to himself.

Singh spoke up. “One more thing. I ordered an age progression from the photographs we have of Lindstrom as a child. I thought it might be useful to have a photograph for the various agencies, since all we have of Lindstrom as an adult is the police sketch. But you will have to tell me if it is accurate.” Her eyes rested briefly on Roarke.

He looked down at the manipulated photo. It was Cara, but not. The photo that had been progressed was of a child who had never experienced what Cara had. She was smiling, she was radiant, she was joyful. None of the things that Cara was now. The adult woman in the photograph was beautiful, calm, and entirely forgettable.

“Better stick with the police sketch,” Epps finally said beside him.

“Yeah,” Roarke said.

As Singh and Jones left the room, Roarke could see Epps lingering at the table, waiting to talk to him. This time there seemed no way to avoid it, and Roarke felt his stomach turn over in dread as Epps came toward him like a dark avenging angel. Then at the last minute Epps’ trajectory was halted as Special Agent in Charge Reynolds stepped into the doorway and looked toward Roarke.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

Epps stopped mid-stride. Roarke gave an inner cheer, and just as instantly was seized with guilt.

“Not at all, we’re just finished,” he told Reynolds with relief, even though he knew this was most likely more of an “out of the frying pan into the fire” kind of rescue than a “saved by the bell” moment.

Epps’ jaw tensed. His one veiled glance at Roarke all but shouted “
We’re not done, here
,” but he left gracefully.

Reynolds remained standing in the doorway. “OPR is processing the investigation into the shooting last night. I don’t anticipate a problem.”

“There won’t be,” Roarke said.

The SAC walked into the room and stopped, taking a moment to study the case board.

“I’m not entirely comfortable with this case,” he said, finally.

That makes at least three of us
, Roarke thought.
I’m not at all comfortable with it. Epps sure as hell isn’t comfortable with it, as he’s never going to stop reminding me. There’s nothing comfortable about it
. He said none of that as the SAC continued.

“Your unit is Criminal Organizations. The sooner you’re back on that job, the more comfortable I’m going to be.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Roarke said.

Reynolds glanced at the board again. “We have to bring this one in. No doubt in my mind. Vigilante, serial killer, whatever she is, she can’t be out there on the streets.”

You forgot child abductor
, Roarke thought, silently.
Of course she saved the kid from an imminent fate of sexual exploitation and God only knows what else
. But he didn’t say it.

Reynolds turned and looked at Roarke a moment as if he had heard, anyway. And then he repeated himself. “She can’t be out there on the streets. But I wish it wasn’t this unit that had to deal with her.”

“What can I do to make you feel better about it?” Roarke asked coolly.

Reynolds sighed. “Build your case. Arrest her. And turn it over to the prosecutors as soon as possible.”

“We’re on the same page,” Roarke told him.

He moved out into the hall with a feeling that he’d dodged some kind of bullet.

Someone stepped up to him from behind and he twisted around. It was Epps, waiting for him in the hallway. Roarke realized he hadn’t quite dodged that bullet after all.