I Can See You (26 page)

Micki glanced at Jack, looking chastised. “We’re still
trying to find out where he got the snake. But why only the snake with Christy?
Why change his MO now?”

“And how will he change it the next time?” Jack asked
grimly.

“I don’t want a next time,” Abbott said. “Micki,
anything else from the scene?”

“Yeah.” Again the cautious look at Jack. “The snake
had just ingested a mouse.”

Jack grimaced. “Oh God.”

“It hadn’t digested it yet. It must have swallowed it
right before the killer blew its head off. We found a puncture in the mouse. It
had been dosed with ketamine as well.”

“Why?” Jack mouthed the word.

Remembering the snake bite on Christy’s foot, Noah
knew why. It made him ill.

“The mouse would have remained alive, warm-blooded,”
Noah said. “Attractive to the snake. The mouse just wouldn’t have been able to
run away.”

“The mouse was bait,” Carleton said, his voice thin
and horrified. “Dear God.”

Abbott cleared his throat. “Keep the mouse out of the
paper.”

Jack pulled his palms down his face. “I don’t want to
think about that. Give me a few minutes to pull up the all-night waffle houses
in the area and we can roll.”

“Christy Lewis’s last meal was waffles,” Noah
explained. “We figure she ate it in the middle of the night, so we’re off to
check the twenty-four-hour waffle houses and diners.”

Faye, their admin, stuck her head in the door. “Call
from Ramsey in the DA’s office, Captain. You got your search warrant for that
apartment next to the Brisbane woman.”

“Thanks,” Abbott said. “I’ll have Sutherland and Kane
do the search. What about Taylor Kobrecki? Do we know any more about him?”

“I met his best pals,” Jack said. “He might be hiding
with one of them.”

“I’ll have them checked. We will hold a press
conference this morning. We have flyers made up with the victims’ photos to
give to the press. If somebody saw them the night they died, we can start
retracing their steps.”

“What about warning potential victims?” Micki asked.

“Do we even know who to warn?” Carleton asked.

“We know who the study’s heavy users are,” Jack said.
“They’re the likely targets.”

“Wait.” Carleton held up his hand. “How do we know who
the heavy users are?”

“Our CI gave us a list of study participants,
organized by usage patterns. Jack and I will dig up contact info on the heavy
users, but which he’ll target next is anybody’s guess.”

Abbott hesitated. “How many people are on the list?”

“Five hundred,” Noah said, “but only sixty that are
both women and heavy users. Five ultra-users, like Martha.”

“Give me the list,” Abbott said. “Let me think about
it.”

“We’re off to interview the study supervising
professor. He and his assistant have direct access to the list. Then we’ll
check waffle houses.” Noah had pushed away from the table when his cell phone
rang.
Eve
. “What’s happened?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Do you know a reporter named Buckland?” she asked,
her voice strained.

His heart sank. “Yes. I assume you do, too. How did he
find you?”

“He saw my car at Christy’s. He paid me a visit today.
He may be a problem.”

“Buckland’s already a problem. What did he say?”

“Oh, lots of things, but mostly he wanted to know
about the murders. I didn’t tell him anything. Listen, I need my car. Is it
possible someone could drive me up to get it?”

Noah frowned at the breathlessness in her voice. “Are
you running?”

“Kind of. Dr. Donner’s assistant is out looking for
me.”

“Define ‘out looking for me.’ ”

“When Buckland left, so did I. Donner’s assistant
followed me outside. He’s checking buildings and cars, definitely looking for
me.” There was fear in her voice. “I’m sticking to the alleys. Noah, this is
like something out of a bad Jason movie. This is insane.”

It certainly was. “Can you get to the Deli?” It was a
combination coffee house and sandwich shop near the campus. Next to Sal’s, it
was a favorite cop haunt.

“Yeah. I’ll meet you there.”

“We’ll have a couple of officers there. You don’t have
to sit with them, but they’ll be watching. Wait for me.” He turned back to the
team. “Our CI’s run into some trouble.”

Jack was buttoning his coat. “I like the Deli. They
have fantastic pastrami.”

“Wait.” Carleton stood. “I know you’re trying to keep
your CI safe, and presumably employed. But I’m not the ethics police. I won’t
turn him in. I may even be able to help.”

Noah was listening. “How?”

“If I don’t know who’s running your CI’s study, I’ll
know somebody who does. If your CI is running into trouble, I may be able to
smooth the way with his boss.”

Noah nodded. “Right now the issue seems to be with the
boss’s assistant, but I’ll tell the CI you’ve offered to help. Thanks, Carleton.
Really.”

“We’ll give you all the info soon,” Abbott added.
“It’s not that we don’t trust you.”

Noah knew this had to be particularly awkward for
Abbott. He and Carleton Pierce went way back. They all did. They’d used
Carleton’s profiles to solve dozens of homicide cases over the years. But
they’d promised Eve.

“I know that, Bruce. I don’t like it, but you
obviously believe I’ll have a conflict of interest with this and I have to
respect that. I’d offer to find another psychologist to do the profile, but
you’d have the same issue with whoever had my role. Besides, this is a
fascinating personality. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to study him.”

“I’d prefer it if you were studying him from closer
range,” Abbott said dryly. “Like with him behind bars. Go,” he said, waving
Noah and Jack toward the door. “I’ll have a squad car sent to the Deli. Call me
when the situation’s clear.”

Tuesday, February 23, 9:30 a.m.

Eve bought a coffee and blindly grabbed a magazine
from the rack, trying to blend in with the other coffee-breakers. The Deli may
have been just a sandwich joint in the past, but now it was an upscale bistro
where students and professors—and cops—came to meet, greet, see, and be seen.
Kind
of like Ninth Circle, without the bad band.

“Now, he’s something,” the guy behind the counter
said. Eve looked down, grimly unsurprised to see the face of Jack Phelps
staring up at her. She’d “blindly” grabbed
MSP.
A Freudian slip.
Yeah,
right
. The barista winked. “He can book me any day.”

“Yeah. He’s something.” Now Jack’s partner… was
something else. Eve wished she knew what. She had told him she didn’t want him,
told herself she couldn’t have him, but when she got scared, Noah’s had been
the first number she’d dialed.

With a quiet sigh, she sat behind two officers who
casually sipped their coffee. They might be the cops Noah sent or they might
really be on break. Either way, she felt safer close by.

She flipped pages until she found herself looking at
the picture of Noah Webster as she had before, so many times. Jack’s face was
something. Noah, though… His face was rugged, hard.
Thuggish
was the
word that always came to mind.

Dangerous. But his green eyes could be warm.
And he
makes me feel safe
.

The bell on the Deli’s door jingled and she lifted her
eyes to see Jeremy entering, searching the room. He came straight toward her
table, giving her only a moment to debate asking the cops behind her for help
should she need it.

If you do, you’ll be admitting working with them.
She wanted to delay that as long as she could, for
the sake of Noah’s investigation. The longer the Shadowland connection went
undisclosed, the longer Noah would have to hunt a three-time killer.

“Can I join you?” Jeremy asked, breathing hard. “Thank
you.” He sat, without giving her time to say no, then took off his glasses,
wiping away the condensation that had formed by coming into the warmth from the
cold. “You’re a hard woman to catch, Eve.”

She dug deep, found a tone that felt right. One that
was wounded, but still bristling from her altercation with Kurt Buckland. “I
didn’t realize you were looking for me.”

“Donner told me to watch, that you might go to the
press. You little conniving bitch.”

To the press. Not to the cops. Donner had immediately
assumed she’d grab notoriety versus doing the right thing.
Why am I not
surprised?
“I didn’t go to the press. That guy came to me. And in case you
missed it, I didn’t cooperate with him.”

“A very convincing act, but as you came here to meet
him it’s not going to fly.”

Eve shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

He pointed behind her. “Your reporter.” Eve was
stunned to see Buckland watching with a smug smile.
How long had he been there?
“You’ll be thrown out of the program for this,” Jeremy said with satisfaction.
“You never should have been here anyway.”

She turned back to Jeremy, shaken, but hoping it
didn’t show. “Why not?”

“Most of your undergrad work was online. Your degree’s
from a state school.”

She tried to focus on the weasel in front of her
versus the snake behind her. “So?”

“
So
you got in because you’re a little victim,
not because you were qualified.”

There was venom in the man’s voice, jealousy in his
eyes. “And you are qualified?”

His jaw cocked. “Hell of a lot more than you.”

And then she understood. “You didn’t make the cut.
That’s why you’re Donner’s office assistant and not his graduate assistant.”

A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I made the cut. But
they let you in instead just because some guy slashed you. They thought you’d
bring an ‘interesting point of view.’ ”

That she’d been admitted on something other than her
own merit stung. Buckland’s observing them made it worse. But Jeremy was no
longer talking about the cops.
Where are you, Noah?
“How would you
possibly know that, Jeremy?” she asked.

“I know everything,” he spat contemptuously. “I see
everything. I know every medical fact, your grades, your favorite color, and
that you hate beets and heights. I can see it all.”

I can see it all
… Her grades, likes, dislikes…
Sonofabitch. He hacked into my file
.
Eve didn’t know whether to laugh at the irony or be angry. In the end she did
neither, opting for a weariness that was not an act. “I did not call that
reporter today, so you can go back and tell Dr. Donner that whatever he was
worried I’d say, I didn’t.”

Jeremy shrugged. “I’m not leaving until Donner gets
here. If you didn’t tell the press, then you told the cops. Otherwise, you
wouldn’t have been with them last night.”

That was the first logical leap he’d made. “Donner’s
coming here? Why?”

“To escort you back to his office, where he’ll
formally kick you out of the program.”

Alarms went off in her head. Donner was coming.
For
me.
“Which would open up a spot for you?” she asked, forcing a smile.

He nodded, graciously. “Yes.”

She kept her tone friendly. “So you think I went to
the cops about… what?”

“Don’t know,” Jeremy admitted. His eyes dropped to the
magazine. “That’s Webster, isn’t it? The cop that reporter saw you with.”

Indeed it was. And
that
was Webster, getting
out of his car on the curb. He’d be coming through the Deli door in about ten
seconds and would validate everything Jeremy and Buckland suspected. The
seconds ticked and she made a decision.

There was a way to explain away her presence at both
Christy’s and Martha’s homes yesterday, hopefully shutting down both Buck-land
and Jeremy. She just prayed Webster would understand and play along.

She smiled proudly, running her thumb over the small
photo. “Yes, that’s my Noah. I think
he
should have been on the cover,
but I
am
a little biased.” She stood, waving broadly as the doorbell
dinged and Noah came in. “Noah, honey, I’m over here.”

Webster’s eyes flicked down to the stunned face of
Jeremy Lyons, then without missing a beat, he approached, his smile warm. Her
heart thumped hard in her ears, harder in her chest. She knew what she needed
to do. Channeling Greer and every imaginary character she’d ever created, she
reached both arms up around his neck and pulled his faced down for a hard kiss
on the lips, making it linger a few seconds longer than might have been
appropriate.

His arms came around her naturally, as if they’d done
this a thousand times. He was rock solid, just as she’d known he’d be. But his
lips were far softer than she’d expected. And sweeter. And hotter.
What have
I done?

She eased back, rocked to the soles of her feet. There
had been a split second of shock in his green eyes, quickly obliterated by a
flare of desire. It was still there, tempered by his control.