Eleven (42 page)

“Nadia.”

“I’m here. Just a sec…” She opened the email, and as she read the finding her stomach flopped. “You’re not going to believe this boss. Give me a sec, and I’ll call you back.”

“Nad—”

This time she hung up on him.

Paige opened her eyes. The room was dimly lit. She strained to hear anyone or anything.

Where was Brandon?

She was on her side, her neck cocked at an unhealthy angle toward the ground. Her head pounded and her neck ached. She went to rub it and found her arms constrained. She stretched out and realized her feet were tied together with rope. She pulled in her legs, tucking them as far to her chest as she could and rocked herself to a seated position and looked around the room.

The lights were off, and the only illumination came through two windows at the other end of the room. When she noticed the poster on the wall of the coinherence symbol and a large cross, fear labored her breath.

She saw a coffin in the corner with a silver lock securing it shut and moved toward it, inching her way there like a worm, knees to chest, pull, knees to chest, pull.

“Brandon?”

She felt he was close, yet far away. She feared he was dead inside there. They had upset Amanda’s killing method by getting too close. She could break from the norm and kill without holding and torturing. She would still have a male for her eleventh victim.

Paige called out louder. “Brandon?”

Silence.

She rested her forehead on the cool wood of the coffin and cried.

 “Did I miss anything while I was gone?” Amanda walked into the college foyer, passed a smile to the receptionist. She was a simple woman, easily manipulated.

“No, I don’t think so.” She smiled back, pleasantly. “How’s your aunt?”

“She’s still having a rough go of things, but we’re hopeful.” Amanda slid a hand along the counter. “Have a great afternoon if I don’t see you again.”

“You too Miss Knowles.”

Amanda opened the door to face her one o’clock class. She smiled at her students—bright, intelligent minds who were interested in exploring the greater power of the universe. In this room, she had the ability to influence them and to make a difference.

 
“I want all officers out looking for her Kia. If she so much as goes on the highway, we’ll know about it.” Jack barked the order to Chief Brennan.

“And now you want our help?”

“It’s not a request.”

“You’re pulling out the
feds trump local
, are you?”

“Whatever it takes.” Jack lit up a cigarette, pulling back on it and living from the nicotine high that never lasted anymore.

“Then I don’t have much choice.” Brennan disconnected the call.

Jack hung up and merged back into traffic. “Cocky bastard.”

They were stuck in a stream of cars. There was barely any forward movement.

Zachery hung up from his call. “I just got off from the car rental. They don’t have tracking systems in their cars.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“We’ll find them. I know it. We’ve faced worse.”

Jack looked over at Zachery. “I don’t believe in hope.”

“Maybe it’s time to start?”

Jack’s cell rang, and he answered, “You’re on speaker.”

“It’s Nadia. I just received an email from forensics. Doctor Jones in Salt Lick pulled a hair off the tenth victim, who we have already identified as Sally Windermere. The MtDNA is a match to Anna Knowles.”

“The killer is related to Knowles.” Zachery elaborated, “The MtDNA profile from Knowles would have been on file to help identify the remains back in ’86.”

“And there’s more. The DNA has been confirmed as belonging to a female, but it has markers similar to that of Bingham’s.”

“Bingham didn’t have any children,” Jack said.

“As least not according to any legal record.”

“And we’re certain it ties back to Anna Knowles as well?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So Lance Bingham and Anna Knowles had an affair, she got pregnant with Amanda, and Lance found out about it.”

Zachery drew out the rest of the scenario. “This must have been his initial stressor. He grew up with the need to be perfect in the faith. When she got pregnant as the result of adultery, he saw his reflection in Anna, yet held her responsible for the trespass.”

“So then the question is, how did Amanda find out who her father really was, and can we prove Bingham knew about her being his daughter?”

“We need a conference video call set up to connect us with Kentucky correctional and Sean Atwood immediately. Route it through the Sarasota PD. We’re headed there now.”

“Right on it.”

The call ended.

“For some reason traffic’s not even moving.” They might have moved three feet since the start of the phone call.

“It might be better to leave the car and run there.” Zachery made the suggestion.

Jack hesitated but took the keys from the ignition and got out. “Smoking hasn’t killed me yet, running shouldn’t.”

“Hey asshole, back in your car!”

Horns honked, and people were swearing. Not that they could see it, but Jack was smiling.

CHAPTER 41

My skin was drenched with sweat, and my heart palpitated wildly. My eyes opened to darkness. My breathing was labored as I reached my hands out to feel the size of the space I was in. As they touched the sides, I remembered I was inside of the coffin.        

I pushed on the lid. It didn’t move. I paused, attempting to get a solid breath and to get my heart rate under control. Nothing I thought of was successful.

“Help!” I didn’t want to die in here. I banged on the lid.

“Brandon?”

I heard Paige’s voice come through, but it was shallow as if in the far distance.

“Are you okay? Brandon?”

“Get me out of here!” I could barely breathe. The confined space closed in, constricting my chest as a boa constrictor. I tried to shift my position, but there wasn’t adequate room to move much.

“There’s a lock.” I sensed hopelessness in her voice. “My hands are tied up behind me and I can’t get you out.”

I banged both hands on the lid of the coffin as if sheer determination and will to escape would break the lock and lift the lid. My efforts were pointless. I stopped moving and again tried to focus on breathing.

This wasn’t personal. The killer wasn’t after Paige or me. We had interrupted her plans.

I focused on my breathing.
Inhale. Exhale
.

My heartbeat slowed little, but I said, “I think I know who her eleventh target is.”

Jack and Zachery flashed their creds to the officer at the front desk. She was the regular one they had come to know over the last couple of days as Rita. She released the lock on the secured doors for them to enter.

“I’ll call ahead of you,” she yelled out to them.

They rode the elevator to the floor where Chief of Police Brennan and Sergeant Haynes were pacing outside of a conference room.

“It’s all set up.” Chief Brennan held out a hand to gesture them into the room.

Both local law enforcement officers followed behind Jack and Zachery. Inside the room, there was a table that would seat eight comfortably and a television on a mobile cart at the end of it. The screen showed a man sitting inside a private prison visiting room. A plastic coffee cup sat in front of him, but he kept running a hand through his hair.

“That’s your Sean Atwood,” Sergeant Haynes said. “Apparently he hasn’t said too much to the Sheriff down there. Where is Salt Lick anyhow?”

Jack ignored his question. “Have we heard back from the cars sent to the college?”

“They’re still about ten minutes out.” Haynes pulled out on the collar of his shirt.

Brennan sat back in his chair. “I believe it’s time you gentlemen tell us what’s going on here. We’ve been very cooperative. I’ve authorized the use of our city’s resources to assist you with whatever you need. In return—”

“You’ve only done what you must and won’t be charged with obstructing justice and standing in the way of a federal investigation.”

“I understand you have two agents out there.” Brennan clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “It’s all about time, time we don’t have.”

Jack held eye contact with Brennan.

“We are fully prepared to back you, but if we knew what was going on we’d have a better chance of—”

Jack thought of the pack of cigarettes in his left shirt pocket, but he wouldn’t be able to satisfy that calling, at least not right now. He studied the Chief’s face, and then directed his words to Sergeant Haynes. “A week ago ten bodies were discovered in Salt Lick, Kentucky. That’s a little blip on a country road in the middle of nowhere. The property owner is in prison, but on charges unrelated to murder. His name is Lance Bingham.” Jack watched the two men, but the name had no impact based on their facial reactions and body language. “The victims were held for about eleven days and tortured daily before being killed. They were sliced and disemboweled alive.”

Haynes’ pasty skin paled another shade.

“But there was reason to believe the job wasn’t finished. There was another burial site—”

“For an eleventh victim,” Chief Brennan piped in.

“That’s correct.”

“How did you end up here?”

“The find in ’86.”

“Find? Ah, yes.” Brennan’s eyes lit with the recollection. “I remember that. Eleven victims. You believe they’re connected.”

Jack bobbed his head. “Along with other things, Bingham’s history traces back to Sarasota. We don’t believe it to be a coincidence.”

“You said the man’s in prison already?”

“Lance Bingham is. His follower isn’t.”

“His follower?”

“Bingham didn’t work alone. Evidence indicates he may have started off that way, but it didn’t stay like that.”

“Shit.” The word escaped from the Sergeant’s lips.

“Our investigation had led us back here, to the beginning. And now we believe our unsub is Amanda Knowles.”

The room remained silent for at least thirty seconds before the volume on the television was turned up and communication was confirmed online with Kentucky Correctional.

Sheriff Harris paced behind Atwood.

Jack did the questioning. “Do you communicate with your cousin Amanda Knowles?”

Atwood looked around the room. The Sheriff pointed at the camera.

Atwood stared in the lens. “She is my cousin.”

“Did you bring unauthorized mail to Lance Bingham, an inmate in your wing?”

Atwood reached for his cup but didn’t lift it.

“Answer the question.”

“Yes.” He looked to a corner off camera. “Please don’t fire me. I need this job.”

A wrist brushed in the way of the lens and was black. Also based on Atwood’s words it must have been the prison warden.

Jack reclaimed the interrogation. “This mail, was it passed between Lance Bingham and your cousin Amanda Knowles?”

Atwood moved the cup around on the table.

“Answer the question.”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time something was passed between them?”

“Saturday.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know.”

Jack punched a fist into the conference table. Although Atwood couldn’t see him, only hear him, the bang caused the man to jump. “You don’t know what you gave him?”

“Amanda just told me to pass it along.”

“It? What was it?”

“An email.”

“What did it say?”

“I…I don’t know—”

“Not acceptable.”

Atwood ran a hand down his face. “She sends them sometimes to me, for Bingham.”

“Keep going.”

“I’m not to read them. She…she puts his name in the subject. I’m just to print and deliver.”

“So you have no idea what the one from Saturday said?”

Atwood shook his head. “No, I respect their privacy. What is this about anyway?”

“You are an accessory to murder.”

“Whoa, wait a…” Atwood straightened. “I didn’t do anything. Bingham….he killed some cows and assaulted a neighbor, that’s it. He’s not a bad man. What’s going on here? Accessory to murder?” His voice cracked at the arch of his question.

“You helped a serial killer communicate with his partner.”

“He killed cows. His partner? Amanda?”

“Bingham’s killed a total of twenty people that we know of. We suspect Amanda has killed at least one and helped in others.”

“No. Not possible. Nope.”

“Keep him locked up, Sheriff. Absolutely no contact with the outside world. We don’t need him alerting his cousin that we’re coming after her.”

“I didn’t do anything. Mandy, she would never—” Atwood lowered his head.

Another phone rang in the conference room. The Sergeant silenced the connection to the prison and answered the incoming line. “This is Sergeant Haynes. You’re on speaker with Chief of Police Brennan, FBI Agents Harper and Miles.”

“It’s Officer Millbrooke. Amanda Knowles isn’t at the college. They said we just missed her.”

“Son of a bitch!” Jack slammed the side of a fist into the table.

“But there’s more. They said that she has a sick family member right now and she’s been missing classes lately.”

Zachery turned to Jack. “It could account for her being in Woodbridge at Brandon’s house.”

“Did they say what family member?” Jack asked and turned to Zachery. “Possibly the next target?”

“No, they didn’t remember.”

Jack directed Sergeant Haynes, “Turn the audio back on.”

Haynes hit the button for the feed to Kentucky Correctional.

“I need you to think about this real hard.”

Atwood’s head lifted.

“If your cousin isn’t at the college where would she go?”

“I don’t know. Home maybe.”

“Where else?” Jack raised his voice. They had already sent uniforms there.

“I don’t know. I don’t know her that well.”

Jack turned to Zachery, and in a lower voice mocked Atwood’s earlier words, “Yet she would never kill a person.” Back to Atwood, “When did she and Bingham start communicating?”

“Um, back about six years ago. They met when she came up for a family visit.”

“And you never questioned why your cousin wanted to talk to Bingham?”

“I didn’t think it mattered—”

“No, you just didn’t think.”