R. E. Bradshaw - Rainey Nights (27 page)

Danny was waiting in the kitchen when Rainey emerged from the bedroom dressed in black jeans, a black silk shirt, black linen blazer, and her favorite black tennis shoes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, hanging out the back of her FBI ball cap. Danny poured a cup of coffee for her, before sitting down at the kitchen table.

“I have to say that is the most comfortable couch I’ve ever slept on.” Danny smiled cheerfully.

Rainey peered out from under the bill of her hat. “I’m glad someone got some sleep.”

Danny eyed her up and down. “I see we’re done following the FBI dress code.”

“I’ve never understood how we are supposed to chase down criminals in heels,” Rainey protested.

“You’re not required to wear heels.” Danny grinned.

“Yeah, try wearing dress slacks with flats. Not a good look.”

Danny sipped his coffee. Then he said, “Besides, you aren’t supposed to be chasing them. That’s for someone else to do. We profile them, they catch them, that’s how this works.”

Rainey stared down at her coffee cup. “I’m not waiting for someone else to catch this guy.”

“I know, ‘you’re hunting and I’m to stay out of the way,’ but Rainey, you know the way we do it works. The cop with a score to settle storyline rarely works out for the best in real life. You’re ignoring years of experience that tells you I’m right. I’m going to ask you one more time, please don’t paint a target on your back. We’ll catch this guy.”

“I am using my experience. You know we would be trolling for this type of UNSUB. We’d have undercover all over this, hoping one of them would attract his notice. He wants me; more specifically he wants Katie, then me. I need to be right in front of him. I have to draw his attention from Katie and any other woman in his path. At least, I’m prepared for him. I’m afraid these other women, including Katie, would be dead the moment he said hello.”

“Okay, I see your point.” Danny leaned forward, placing his freckled forearms on the table. “Here’s the other thing, if we blanket this one bar, what’s to say he doesn’t move to another one?”

Rainey had thought about that. “He hit the same location twice on purpose to draw us in. He had to involve me in the case, somehow get close to me. This type of UNSUB needs to control the situation, so he’s studied this location. We might find a personal connection to this particular place, after we catch him. The location of the abductions, my involvement in the case, this is all part of his fantasy.”

“You are ignoring the obvious conclusion here, Rainey. He’s also fantasized about the trap he’s set for you. He knows you won’t be alone. He’s not going make a move in front of all those people and the cops he knows are there. His strategy has to include getting you alone. How has he planned to do that?”

“It’s going to come in transit. I don’t think he wants to confront me on my own turf, here at the cottage. When I’m in my car is the only time I’m alone.”

Danny hammered home, “Again, you’ve missed another way he gets to you. He draws you to him, using Katie.”

Rainey narrowed her eyes. “But you promised me, she is safe. Danny, I can’t do this if I should be with Katie. If there is any doubt in your mind about her welfare, then I’m not leaving her side, period.”

Danny tried a lighter tone, when he said, “As long as she doesn’t try to elude her body guards, I have a hard time believing anyone could even speak to her without a well trained officer in very close proximity.”

Rainey smiled at Danny’s use of the word “elude.” Katie had not attempted to elude her last set of bodyguards; she simply forced them to do what she wanted.

Rainey stood up and walked to the sink, while saying, “I made her promise to go nowhere without an escort.” Rainey started laughing, while rinsing her coffee cup.

Danny joined her at the sink. “What’s so funny?”

Rainey chuckled, under her words. “Her sisters are coming today. I think I’d much rather be bait for a killer than have to stay in that house with those women.”

#

Danny’s cell phone rang, as they were walking down the steps of the cottage. He saw the caller ID and turned on the speakerphone. “Good morning, Miss Brooks. I have Rainey here with me. She can hear you, so don’t talk about her like you usually do.”

“McNally, you are not nearly as funny as you think you are.” Brooks’ voice cracked into the morning air. She didn’t give Danny time to respond. “How’s my girl, this morning? I saw the crime scene photos when I came in - Gruesome - Just some fucked up people in this world, I’m telling you, just fucked up. And most of them know your name. You need to get a new name like Jane Smith or some shit…”

Rainey had to distract Brooks from her diatribe. She had obviously had too much coffee. “I’ve thought about that,” Rainey interrupted, then quickly asked, “Hey, did you find anything on that church?”

It worked. Brooks was redirected appropriately. The information Rainey sought came through the speaker in Brooks’ highly caffeinated voice, “You were correct about the bogus P.O. Box, but not like you think. There was a box rented two years ago by a John Paul Pope. Of course, there is no such person connected to the San Diego area. I did find several though, which amazed me. Anyway, the place is a mail service, mostly dealing with military personnel. That’s why they did not find it unusual to have been forwarding the mail to another box in Raleigh for the last eighteen months, where the mail was picked up regularly until the first body was found. The mail has stacked up there and is being held for you at the main downtown post office.”

Brooks took a much-needed breath and continued, “The Church does not actually exist, as you might have guessed. To pass a simple security check in the prison mailroom, the church listed a physical address, email address, and contact person - the same Mr. Pope - all of which is one big fairy tale. The address is an empty lot. The email address is Gmail that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, from multiple devices, and bounced through several filters and additional mail servers. The address has only received mail, except for the spam we all must endure, from the two prisons Dalton has been housed in.”

Rainey interrupted again, “Has there been any activity on the account?”

“No activity, if you don’t count the regular clearing of said spam, and a monthly mailing of the bulletin to another Gmail account that bounces back to this one. That’s just to keep the account active. No other outgoing mail except to verify the address for prison security; once, two years ago when the bulletins started arriving in Virginia, and three months ago when Dalton was moved to Central Prison.”

Danny asked, “Did you trace the monthly uploads of the bulletin?”

“Yes, I did. They were uploaded from Internet hot spots starting in San Diego, two years ago. Then at the same time his mail began to be forwarded the UNSUB started using networks in the Raleigh-Durham area, on the coast, in the mountains, really all over the state of North Carolina, and up into Virginia. Your boy is a sightseer. He uploads at different times of the month, so no pattern there. He trolls through neighborhoods until he finds an unprotected network. I checked out the families. No leads. He never hits the same place twice. There is literally no way to trace him, unless he tries to upload now. I got his ass, if he even peeps into that account.”

Rainey thought back on what Brooks said about no mail since the first body was found.

“Danny, he must have another way to communicate with Dalton. He knew we would search his cell. Why didn’t he get rid of the evidence? Why give us this line of communication to his pupil?”

Brooks chimed in. “You might think I’m crazy, but Charles Manson had a cell phone and a Facebook account. I’m just sayin’.”

Danny was adamant. “I would have found a cell phone. He’s been moved, anyway. He certainly doesn’t have it now.”

Rainey didn’t miss a beat. “Did they do a cavity search?”

#

Danny drove away, headed for Durham. Rainey walked down to the office, where Ernie was waiting for her to sign the weekly checks. Rainey would join Danny and the others, as soon as she was finished. The crime scene guys had come and gone by the time she and Danny came outside. Rainey glanced at the dock. The crime scene tape had been cleared away and someone made an effort to wash the blood off, but there was still a dark stain where the head had been. Entering the main office, she found Ernie sitting on the couch, an unusual place for her.

“What? Are you lounging on the couch already? I suspected that’s what you did when I wasn’t here,” Rainey teased.

“How did he get that close, Rainey?” Ernie was in no mood for playful banter.

Rainey sat on the couch beside the older woman and told it plain, the way she knew Ernie expected it. “We think he came up on a boat. The motion detectors only work when you cross from land to the dock, or vice versa. If he never came down the dock, he would have remained in complete darkness.”

Ernie turned to look at Rainey. “How would he know that?”

“Because he’s been here before. People come up here all the time in boats, thinking we’re still a bait shop. If he came on the water at night, then set off the motion detectors, I wouldn’t have paid much attention if the lights went right back off. It’s such a common occurrence.”

“Katie might be right,” Ernie began. “It’s not safe out here, you two alone, so far away from help and exposed.”

Rainey stared out the window toward the cottage. “I don’t know what I can do to make this place safer, short of building a compound and that’s no way to live.”

Ernie patted Rainey’s leg. “You’ll think of something. Right now, you have to return a call to ‘the Hill.’ She’s called three times since the newscast yesterday.”

‘The Hill’ referenced Chapel Hill and Rainey’s mother. She had forgotten to call her, not thinking she was in real danger. Rainey had so little contact with her mother that she doubted the killer was interested in her or her stepfather, but she should have called. Having her mother find about Rainey’s involvement in the case from the news was sure to bring down the wrath of Constance Herndon.

“Oh God, please tell me I don’t have to talk to her today.” Rainey pleaded with Ernie. “You call her back. Tell her I’m fine and I’m sorry I didn’t call her.”

“No, ma’am. I’ve already had the pleasure twice this morning. I’m good for another year or two.”

Rainey cringed. “That bad, huh?”

Ernie pushed off Rainey’s knee and stood up. “Constance is on the warpath, honey. Stick your head up and let her take her best shot, before she gathers any more steam.”

Rainey fell back against the couch, exasperated. “Can my life get any more complicated at this moment?”

Ernie had reached her desk when she turned to face Rainey. “Sure honey, Katie could call and tell you why she reacted the way she did the other night. She’s been taking hormones for the last month and is scheduled to be inseminated next week.”

Rainey popped up into a rigid sitting position. “You’re making that up.”

“No, darlin’, I’m not. She wanted to surprise you. Surprise!”

#

“Hello, mother,” Rainey said into the receiver.

She was seated at her desk, signing checks, and praying this conversation would be as brief as possible.

“Caroline Marie, I cannot believe you were on the news and did not warn John and me.”

John Herndon was Rainey’s stepfather. He adopted her, which Rainey had demanded reversed when she discovered the existence of her real father. He was a nice enough man, but he was no match for his wife, and no source of comfort to Rainey. She ignored her mother’s insistence on calling her by the name she was given, after her grandmother, who thought “Rainey” was base and uncivilized, had changed her birth-name. Once she knew her real name, she had insisted on being called “Rainey,” to her grandmother’s severe disapproval. Her mother called her Rainey most of the time, unless she was in trouble. She called her “Caroline Marie” when she was in really big trouble.

Rainey talked fast, so her mother would have no time to comment. “Mother, I did not call you because I didn’t want to alarm you. Just so you’re caught up, I have been temporarily reassigned to the Bureau and I may appear on TV several times before this is over. I appreciate your concern, but I’m surrounded by good officers that won’t let anything happen to me.”

Constance leapt in with both feet. “I am not talking about your career choices. Quite frankly, I’d rather have a daughter in the FBI than one who chases lowlife bail jumpers for a living. What I am calling about is your announcement to the world that you are a lesbian. Do you have to continue to rub it in our faces? I won’t be able to go to the club, until John Edwards gives them something else to wag their tongues about.”

The truth was out. Her mother cared more about her bridge club than Rainey being hunted by a serial killer. She barely remembered the years when her mother was kind and loving. That was before Rainey’s grandmother fully sunk the teeth in and changed Connie into Constance forever. It did not surprise Rainey that her safety was the least of her mother’s concerns.

Rainey took a breath and let it out slowly. Then, as calmly as she could, said, “I did not make an announcement about my sexuality. I answered a few questions and told off an obnoxious reporter. I assure you, attracting your attention to my personal life was the last thing on my mind.”

“Don’t take that superior tone with me,” Constance shot back. “I think that attack on you did something to your brain. Your father would be so disappointed in this leap into sexual debauchery. Living in sin, in his house. Bill would never have approv…”

Rainey, who for the most part tried to be, at least, respectful of her mother on the rare occasions that they spoke, launched into her mother with all the built up frustrations of the last week for fuel.

“I may not be the daughter you wanted, but my father was proud of me and loved me for who I am. Don’t presume to speak for him, not now, not ever. Do you understand? Shut up now, or I’ll never speak to you again, or is that what you want? If so, lose my number, disown me, claim you found me in a ditch and did what you could, but alas, I was just too common to fit into your world. Fuck you, Connie. Is that clear enough for you?”