Twisted (6 page)

She laughed politely.

“This your first time in Washington?”

“It is, actually.” She tucked the iPod into the pocket with the book. “I was supposed to be on the eleven o’clock, but I was so early, and they had a seat on this one, so . . .” She sighed. “Then I found out my friend—she’s at Georgetown?—she couldn’t meet me because she has a midterm at one. I told her I’d take a taxi. You think I’ll have to wait?”

“I know you will,” he said with authority. Ice cubes rattled as he sipped his drink.

Jason had been on Mark’s radar since the boarding area. New blue jeans. Old tattoos. Sinewy build. No luggage. Mark had taken one look at him and made him as an ex-con—a very recent one.

Isabella managed to stuff the earbuds into her ears for the rest of the flight, but Jason chatted her up on the way off the plane until she smiled and bid him good-bye.

Mark caught up with her in the baggage claim area, even though he made a point never to check bags when he traveled for business.

“Excuse me, Miss?”

She kept walking.

“Miss?”

She turned around, startled, and gave him a “who, me?” look.

“Do you have a moment, please?” He was careful not to stand too close to her, but she looked suspicious anyway, which he thought was ironic.

“That man you were talking to on the plane. Jason.”

She took a slight step back. “What about him?”

“He’s going to offer to share a cab with you. Don’t accept.”

Inside Mark’s pocket, his phone vibrated.

“But . . . how . . . ?” She looked puzzled and definitely uncomfortable being approached by a strange man more than twice her age.

“Don’t accept,” he repeated. “You don’t want to get mixed up with him.”

She watched him skeptically, still uncertain what to think. Her gaze darted to a nearby security guard.

“Um, thanks.” She slunk away.

Mark sighed. His phone continued to vibrate and he pulled it from his pocket. “Wolfe.”

“Hey, it’s me.”

Allison Doyle. It had taken getting out of Texas for him to hear the Southern lilt in her voice. He heard something else in it, too—urgency.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Where are you?”

“Just landed at Dulles.”

“
Damn
it.”

“What happened?”

The baggage carousel groaned to life, and a throng of people eased forward. Isabella and the other Austin passengers vied for a spot near the front.

Jason walked up to her, smiling. They exchanged words. She shook her head. More words and she shook her head again. The man’s smile vanished and he stalked away.

“Mark? Are you listening?”

He watched the man disappear through the automatic doors. Then he turned his full attention to Allison.

“I’m listening.”

“Stephanie Snow. I saw the autopsy photos. He cut off her hair, right? That’s what you were talking about.”

“He does it to all of them.”

“It jarred something loose in my mind, something from a year ago. A woman up in Wayne County, couple counties north of here. Jordan Wheatley.”

Mark gritted his teeth. A
year
ago. Jesus, how many had he missed?

“She was kidnapped from a park there. Raped. Beaten. The whole thing. He cut off her hair and slashed her throat, ear to ear.”

Mark’s shoulders sagged. He felt tired suddenly. And he knew he couldn’t be tired. Tired was a luxury he couldn’t afford, not with that date looming on the calendar. He tried to think how he was going to juggle his heavy caseload and his meeting schedule and all the dozens of things he had to do besides provide long-distance assistance to nail an active UNSUB.

But she wasn’t talking about long distance.

“Mark, we need you on the next plane. We need you here. I need your help with the interview.”

“What interview?”

“Jordan Wheatley. I’m going out there tonight.”

“You mean—”

“Mark, this woman survived.”

Mark Wolfe pulled into the station house parking lot in the same model car he’d had yesterday, only this Ford Taurus was dark blue instead of burgundy. Allison shoved her hands into the pockets of her barn jacket and hunched her shoulders against the cold as he claimed a space beside an idling patrol unit. She ignored the cop’s curious glances at the tall guy in the suit, so obviously an out-of-towner. Didn’t take much to start the rumor mill around here.

Mark got out and leaned an arm on the top of the door. He looked her up and down as she tromped over, clearly not impressed with her choice of attire for a witness interview.

“She canceled,” he stated.

“Postponed. Something about her husband. She’s available tomorrow morning, first thing.”

He muttered a curse and checked his watch. Then he surveyed her appearance again, and his gaze lingered on her muddy duck boots. The cuffs of her jeans were muddy, too.

“You have anything else to wear?” she asked.

“No.”

“Not even some jeans or, I don’t know, khakis?”

He just looked at her, and she sighed. She trudged across the parking lot to her truck and opened the toolbox in back.

“What are you, a twelve?” She glanced over her shoulder, and he was frowning at her from beside her back bumper.

“Thirteen.”

She rummaged through everything—tire jack, road flares, traffic cones—until she came across a pair of battered work boots. She pulled them out and handed them over.

“Whose are these?”

“My ex-boyfriend’s.” She glanced at his feet. “They’ll pinch some, but you’ll live.”

He leaned a palm against the truck as he rested his foot on his knee and unlaced the shiny black wing tips. “Where are we going?”

“Crime scene.” She smiled as he stuffed his feet into Roland’s boots, which looked pretty ridiculous with the suit pants. “Don’t worry, no fashion police out there.”

Mark pulled the keys from his pocket and headed back to his sedan. “I’ll drive, you navigate,” he said over his shoulder.

“How about I drive, since I know the way?”

He stashed his dress shoes in back and slid behind the wheel.

Annoyed, she slammed the toolbox shut and crossed the lot. She hesitated for a second before giving up and climbing in. It was deliciously warm inside, but she gave him a scowl.

“Your controlling side is showing.”

He started the engine without comment. No cough. No sputter. He glided backward out of the space.

“Where to?” he asked.

“North.”

He glanced at the digital compass before turning right onto Main Street.

“How was your flight?”

“The usual.”

“You have time to go home first?”

“Went by the office instead. Picked up some work for the week.”

So he planned to stay. She tried to hide her relief, but he was good at reading body language. And anyway, he was probably used to women wanting him around. It wasn’t only his looks—which would have been fine on their own—but also the way he radiated a certain masculine self-assurance, as if he’d seen a lot and was prepared for anything. Allison knew better than to let all that alpha-male confidence have an effect on her, but it did.

“Third light up ahead here, you’re going to hang a left.”

She scanned the storefronts as they drove through downtown. Most businesses on Main Street shut down at six o’clock. Those near campus stayed open later—the bars, the restaurants, the convenience stores. He approached University Boulevard, and she glanced around. Not much pedestrian traffic for a Friday night, but that was probably because of the cold snap. The temperature had dropped this afternoon, and it was expected to sink into the twenties tonight.

She turned to look at him. “You’re holding out on me. Don’t think I don’t get that.”

He glanced at her, then back at the road.

“How’d you know about her hair? You didn’t even see the ME’s report.”

“I talked to Reynolds,” he said.

“I’m surprised he told you about it.”

“He didn’t. But he didn’t deny it, either.”

Allison looked out her window again. “What else? There has to be more. You got on a plane for this case, without even knowing the specifics. Something tipped you off.”

Mark hung a left onto the road that led to the outskirts of town. He looked at her as if debating whether to trust her, and she felt a spurt of irritation. Why was he being so secretive? He was the one who’d come down here and stirred up all this business about a serial killer when everyone in her department had been perfectly content with the suspect they already had.

“There are other elements in play here,” he said vaguely. “Things that haven’t been in the media. We need to keep it that way.”

It was the second time that day a fellow investigator had implied that she might leak something to the press, and she was starting to get ticked off.

“It’s an online connection,” he elaborated, probably picking up on her annoyance. “That’s why I flew down here. It’s part of his pattern.”

“You mean he’s stalking these women online?”

“And communicating online.”

“With who?”

“Us. Law enforcement. It’s part of this game he’s got going.”

“What do you mean by ‘communicating’?”

“Before each murder, he posts these taunts on various Web sites. He’s got certain phrases, lines of poetry he uses over and over.”

“If he’s online, shouldn’t we be able to track him?”

“We should, yes.”

“How can you be sure it’s him?”

“Because of the first one. He posted a photograph.”

“Crime-scene photos sometimes get leaked. Are you sure—”

“She was still alive when the picture was taken.”

Allison’s blinked at him.
Alive?
That was just . . . she didn’t know. She didn’t have words for what that was.

Mark pulled up to a stoplight. He reached behind her and took a thick manila file from the backseat, then rested it in her lap.

“Here.” He glanced up at the light to make sure it was still red as he flipped open the folder. After shuffling through a few pages, he tapped his finger on what looked like an e-mail. “Read this.”

Allison checked the date. It was from ten years ago, almost to the day. The sender was listed as E. Poe and the recipient was a K. Langford at some company Allison had never heard of.

“Where’d this come from?”

“Our UNSUB. Dara Langford’s father got this in his in-box at work the week after his daughter’s body was recovered.”

Allison read the words aloud: “ ‘In the startled ear of
night / How they scream out their affright / Too much horrified to speak / They can only shriek, shriek.’ ”

A chill snaked down Allison’s spine. She pictured a grieving father reading a message like that.

“I assume you tried to trace this?”

“We’ve had some of our best people on it,” Mark said as Allison thumbed through the other papers in the file—police reports, interview notes, an autopsy report. “He’s been good at covering his tracks, unfortunately. His communications have been completely untraceable. Is this the turn?”

“Veer right up at the fork.”

Allison stowed the file at her feet as they approached the sign for Stony Creek Park, which until this morning had been closed to the public. The CSIs had finished days ago, but the chief had wanted to deter curious teens and reporters from nosing around. Not that that had stopped them. Allison had been here this afternoon and seen the tire treads of what she guessed were news vans.

Mark turned onto a dirt road that led to a trailhead. The trail was flat, making it a favorite for joggers and dog walkers. It made a three-mile loop through the woods, skirting the property where Allison’s apartment was located. He pulled up beside a wooden sign and looked at her.

“I’m assuming you’re on this case now?”

She opened her door. “That depends on tomorrow.” If he could be vague, so could she.

She climbed out of the car and stood there for a moment in the near-darkness. Mark left the headlights on,
and she heard the persistent ding of a warning bell before he closed the door.

“Place closes at sundown,” she said, surveying the empty lot. “Sometimes we get teenagers who come out here to park, although the murder’s probably scared them off for a while.”

“Or made them curious.”

Allison dug into her pocket and pulled out a mini flashlight, which she pointed at the path. The footprints in the mud were new, and they didn’t look like athletic shoes. Reporters, maybe? Allison switched the light to her left hand, freeing her right hand, just in case. Last night’s humiliation was still fresh in her mind.

She trudged into the woods with Mark close behind her. The air smelled of damp leaves and earth. As they moved into the trees, they lost the light of the parking lot and everything darkened.

Her flashlight beam landed on a familiar tree stump. She stepped off the trail.

“Through here,” she said, ducking under a branch.

“You’ve been out here already?”

“Earlier this afternoon, with one of the detectives—Jonah Macon. You met him yesterday.”

“Briefly,” he said. “How many entrances to this greenbelt?”