Cold Fear (20 page)

She wasn’t dead, but she was smarter than that. She had to be.

Chapter Twelve

F
RAZER DID NOT
handle downtime well and generally used it to either practice at the gun range or go to the gym. Right now, he pounded the sand, sweat pouring down his back despite the cold breeze coming off the Atlantic. This was the worst part of any investigation. The waiting. It helped that he had so many agents and so many cases to keep track of, but most were still on vacation. Darsh Singh was working a series of homicides in DC and Moira Henderson had flown up to Alaska to help examine several bodies that might be the victims of a serial killer who’d died in custody last year. Jed Brennan was playing happy families while recovering from gunshot wounds. Matt Lazlo was taking a couple of weeks to sort out the mess that surrounded the wrongful conviction of former FBI agent Richard Stone, at the same time supporting his new girlfriend and also—if Frazer was any judge—his future mother-in-law. Richard Stone was now receiving the best treatment possible for his cancer. All they could do was pray the man lived long enough to enjoy being exonerated.

The fun never stopped at the BAU.

Rooney was still under observation but signs were good. Alex Parker had sounded more relaxed in their last conversation—less
I-can-kill-you-forty-different-ways-and-still-make-it-look-like-an-accident
and more
I’m-a-millionaire-cyber-security-expert-don’t-tell-me-how-to-do-my-job-jackass
.

Considering he and Parker had almost come to blows when they first met, it still surprised him how quickly they’d become friends. There wasn’t anyone he’d rather be working with right now.

Frazer didn’t know anything about computers beyond the basics. Parker was running phone records and had hacked into the prison’s Internet server to see if he could find any recent communications between Denker and anyone on the Outer Banks. All emails went to the prison, not to individual inmates. Still, there were plenty of ways to communicate if you knew how.

He wanted background checks on all the guards and to find out as much information on the lawyer and the groupies that had attached themselves to the violent predator. Parker was also cross-referencing his ViCAP searches, examining any reports of rapes and/or murders where the victim’s shoes were taken and seeing if there were any other factors to link the crimes. The shoe thing was complicated by the fact so many victims were never found, and many who were found were completely naked—so a killer with a shoe fetish or who took shoes as a souvenir to extend the fantasy and relive the crime might not be immediately apparent.

IDs on the two bodies pulled from the sand were the most important pieces of information to tie down. Trace evidence from Helena’s body would be next. He shoved the image of her out of his mind—again. Once Frazer had more details he could get more people involved using the geographical profiling angle. Right now he was stuck waiting—hence the sweat on his brow and fire in his lungs.

A news conference was scheduled for tomorrow morning at nine, but he didn’t intend to be there. His face on this case would raise flags. He’d contacted his friend, Robin Greenburg who owned a media conglomerate and had given him an advance statement and requested he have his editors downplay the investigation. Frazer had saved the guy’s life years ago and at the time Robin had promised he’d do anything for him. Frazer held the guy to it. The great thing about Robin was he was happy to help manipulate killers so the cops could nail them. And if Frazer or the FBI repaid that cooperation with exclusive interviews or some inside information at the appropriate time, who was to say it wasn’t for the greater good?

It worked for Frazer.

After hypnotizing Jesse Tyson he’d tried to catch up on some sleep, but as soon as he closed his eyes the image of Helena Cromwell merged with the images of other victims for whom he’d never found justice.

Jesus. When was the last time he’d seen a naked woman who wasn’t dead?

He ran faster until his lungs strained to bursting point. Some days it felt like no matter how hard he worked, no matter how many bad guys were incarcerated or taken out, there were always two more ready to take their place. This case had started out as an operation in damage control, but it had become a reminder of why he did what he did.

To protect people.

To get the bad guys off the streets.

Not to hobnob with presidents or bigwigs.

The fact he was using these powerful people should have made him feel some measure of guilt, but his motives were pure. And he’d saved the lives of some of those same people because he was good at his job. Turnabout was fair play.

But something about Helena’s spirit, her goodness and innocence spoke to him, reminded him it wasn’t the powerful or rich who needed his help the most. It was the poor and the voiceless.

In addition to the Denker connection he needed to consider all the usual suspects in her murder. Her father’s alibi was weak because the rest of the household had been asleep. The unsub had worn a condom, presumably the one stolen from Jesse’s wallet—he made a mental note to get Randall to ask Franky Cirencester what brand he’d bought, see if they could match it to residue.

Most serial rapists would carry a condom in their rape kit, so the attack on Helena hadn’t been planned. Chief Tyson was running background checks on all the male residents on the islands, looking for arrests for breaking and entering, peeping toms, stalking, sexual assault. Anything that might give them a place to start looking. After another mile, he turned around and started back to the beach house. Randall had checked into Damien Ridgeway. The young man had a history of supplying drugs to classmates at his old school. It would be quite the jump to rape and murder, but not impossible. His alibi for Helena’s murder was Kit, who by her own admission had been wasted. But they couldn’t find any connection between Damien Ridgeway and Ferris Denker yet, and that was the key to solving this thing.

The agents working the Denker case back in the nineties hadn’t thought Ferris had a partner, and maybe that was the most chilling aspect of this case. That some accomplice had been out there killing for the last seventeen years and the authorities had never suspected a thing.

Frazer’s breath was rough in his throat. Leg muscles were starting to burn after seven miles.

Randall was creating a list of dirt bike owners on the island. The agent had so far kept his boss at bay, but Frazer would have to deal with her at some point in the next few hours. Maybe he
should
call in the troops? Hanrahan’s work had been solid and the conviction was good. The fact was, he didn’t want other officers on this case. He didn’t want to have to relinquish control and head back to Virginia. He wanted to be in control. He wanted to solve this thing. Find justice for Helena. Maybe, after all he’d been through in the last few months, he needed to prove himself again.

And if that wasn’t a God-complex he didn’t know what was.

It wasn’t just the case taxing his mental energy. His unwanted attraction to Isadora Campbell pissed him off. The only consolation was she looked as disheartened about whatever was going on between them as he felt. She wasn’t some romantic fool who dreamt of happily ever after—like he’d ever fall for a woman like that. They were both pragmatists, too busy with their jobs and lives to get too involved. He did not need the distraction. But she intrigued him with the secrets that shadowed her eyes, with her dedication to her country and the ungrateful teen in her care, and that damn beauty spot that kept dragging his attention to her lips when he was supposed to be thinking about serial offenders.

A jangle of metal at his side had him glancing down. Izzy’s dog, Barney, had joined him along the homestretch of the beach and kept up with an easy lope. The dog he could handle. The woman was best kept at arm’s length. He grinned through the exertion as he neared the edge of Rosetown.

The woman he was trying not to think about sat on the sand on a yoga mat, a small cooler off to one side. Barney went straight in for a wet kiss, making Frazer resent the hell out of the dog. She laughed and pushed the mutt away.

“Yuck.” She wiped her mouth.

Frazer stopped a few feet away, braced his hands on his knees and bent over catching his breath. The dog jogged off to drink out of his water bowl. Frazer nodded toward Izzy’s water bottle with a questioning brow.

“Go ahead.” Her expression was serene, but the look in her eyes carefully guarded. “We’re supposed to be getting another storm.” She nodded toward the water. “You’d never know it from the slick cam.”

“Slick cam?” They both glanced at the flat ocean.

“It’s what the locals say for dead calm.” Her smile lit up her eyes. “Whole other language they’ve got out here. Pizer means a porch. Whopperjawed means something isn’t straight. And you’re what they call a dingbatter.”

His heart finally slowed enough for him to say more than a few words. “Do I want to know?” He drank more water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“A name they use for someone not from around here,” she filled in.

“You say ‘they’ like you don’t consider yourself one of them either.”

Isadora shrugged her shoulders, emphasizing the hollows of her collarbones—places he desperately wanted to taste. “I was away for a long time.”

And some people never fit in, no matter where they were born or how long they stayed.

“How do you do it?” she asked suddenly.

“Do what?” He finished the water.

“Chase killers?”

The strain of the recent murder was starting to show in the dark circles around her eyes and in the whiteness of her knuckles as she wrapped her arms around her knees.

He shrugged one shoulder. People asked him this question a lot. “I like stopping the bad guys.”

“But what makes someone enjoy killing another human being? Are they born evil? Is it genetic?” She buried her face against her knees.

“Latest research suggests there
are
genes associated with being a murderer.”

She looked up, horrified.

“Doesn’t mean that everyone who has those genes is going to become a killer.” He sat down in the sand beside her, settled in, comfortable talking about what might create a murderer—far more than thinking about how pretty Isadora’s hair was in the sunshine. “Brain scans of convicted killers show reduced activity in the pre-frontal cortex—”

“The emotional impulse control center.”

He smiled because she was smart and he liked smart. “And higher activity in the amygdala—the area that generates emotions.”

“So the image of a sociopathic killer not feeling emotion isn’t quite accurate?” she asked.

“I’m not sure they’ve conducted thorough enough studies to clinically diagnose mental health status of all the killers they tested, but no, that study suggests murderers generally are more likely to feel anger and rage, but be much less able to control those emotions.” He sat up. “Researchers found a gene that produces an enzyme that regulates neurotransmitters involved in impulse control—if men lack it, or have a low-activity variant, they are predisposed to being violent. It’s found in about a third of the male population.”

“But a third of the male population are not violent, right?”

He eyed her long legs in those clingy leggings. “The theory is that if males with the gene are the subjects of child abuse, and therefore more likely to suffer brain damage, then the gene is triggered. Mental illness is also a possible factor.”

He watched a shudder make its way across her shoulders. She trailed a hand through the dry sand between them.

“So the killers can’t help it?” she asked.

He pressed his lips together and stared at the ocean. “Blame genetics or crappy childhoods. They still make the choice to kill others even though they know it’s wrong. My job is to stop them, and I’m good at it because when I’m not, people die.”

Her gaze caught his. Those soft green eyes full of understanding and empathy. He reached out and touched her hand. She let his fingers curl around hers, and squeezed him back. A jolt of something fundamental shot through him. From the way her eyes darkened she was feeling it too.

And then something struck him about the case. “Know anyone who owns a metal detector?”

*     *     *

I
ZZY HANDED
F
RAZER
a cold beer from the cooler she’d brought down from the house. Today was about relaxing and trying to forget there was a killer out there somewhere. Of course, her pistol was nestled inside her bag within arm’s reach.

“Thanks.” He chinked his bottle against hers and tipped it back, swallowing large gulps just as he had with the water. It was impossible not to watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down the strong column of his throat. Streaks of perspiration darkened his blond hair. His t-shirt and shorts were damp too, and her eyes roved over him hungrily. His body was toned and taut, long legs lightly covered in golden hair. Powerful looking thighs and a flat stomach, which didn’t seem to have an ounce of extra flesh. She’d thought it was the fancy suit that made him look so damn perfect, but even dressed down and sweaty, he owned it.

She dropped her gaze and sat cross-legged, sipping her beer even though she wanted to down it in one gulp. “Why do you want to know who has a metal detector around here?”

“Humor me.” He’d sprawled his lean length down in the sand beside her.

She passed him a blanket so he didn’t freeze to death as he cooled down after his run.

“Well, I haven’t done an inventory”—he quirked his brows as if amused—“but there’s actually a treasure hunting group or society or some such—I know because I give the members regular tetanus shots when they cut themselves on old coke cans. Pastor Rice fancies himself quite the expert, although he likes to go alone, says people distract him, and he likes to commune with God. Uncle Ted has one that my mom bought him when he retired. She hoped it would give him something to do besides look after her.”

“You have an uncle?” He took another long swallow of beer. She tried not to watch a line of sweat roll down his temple into his hair. It shouldn’t look sexy, but it did.