Steven studied the scene with a clinical eye. It was a clearing, identical to the one where they’d found Lorraine Rush, surrounded by the pine trees that had given this suburb of Raleigh its name: Pineville, North Carolina. Soon this pretty little town would be known for a hell of a lot more than its Christmas tree farms. Soon it would be known as the hunting ground for a new serial killer.
Lorraine Rush found four days ago. Samantha Eggleston reported missing yesterday morning. Both pretty high school girls. Both missing from their beds in the middle of the night. No sign of forced entry or evidence of an intruder in either case. With the current facts in hand it seemed they were related. Steven couldn’t afford to think anything else until he proved otherwise.
The clearing was deserted now, but something had happened here within the last few hours. There was a patch of flattened grass, roughly five by three, which could have held a body at one point. It didn’t now. The area to one side of the flattened grass was spattered with blood—presumably from the dog that belonged to the owner of this land, although Kent would thoroughly check to make sure none of the blood was human—belonging to either the missing girl or her abductor. The blood trail went from the clearing back to the owner’s house, about a mile away on the other side of the trees, where the dog had shown up an hour before, stabbed and bleeding.
The old man had acted quickly, following the trail of blood from his house to the clearing. The man’s old eyes were sharp—he’d noticed the scrap of white that fluttered beneath the graceful limbs of one of the pine trees. It was a pair of women’s underwear, size four with delicate little flowers— the same size and pattern worn by Samantha Eggleston. The old man had immediately called the sheriff, who’d immediately called Steven.
Kent sat back on his heels and pushed the monocle up and out of his line of sight. He glanced up briefly. “I found a hair,” he announced, deeply satisfied. “Dark. Very straight.”
Steven’s pulse spiked and he gingerly approached the area of flattened grass Kent was still inspecting, avoiding the areas that were spattered with blood. Samantha Eggleston’s hair was dark but very long and curly. That the single hair belonged to their perp was almost more than he would dare to hope. “Unbelievable. I can’t believe you found anything in all this mess.”
Kent grinned before lowering the monocle and dropping back down to his hands and knees. “I’m good.”
Steven shook his head. “And humble. Don’t forget about humble.”
“And humble,” Kent added, now talking to the ground. “Bullshit,” Steven said mildly. “Tell me that hair has a follicle and I’ll buy that you’re good. Otherwise you’re just one more geek in a welder’s mask.”
Kent chuckled. “I wish I were a welder. I’d probably make a hell of a lot more money.”
Steven crossed his arms over his chest. “Stick with me, welder-boy. Follicle or not?”
Kent’s smile dimmed. “No. Sorry.”
“Dammit,” Steven hissed. Without the follicle they’d have no DNA analysis.
“Hold your horses,” Kent said patiently. “I still may be able to get you a DNA print.”
“How many days?” Steven asked, gritting his teeth. “Seven to ten.” Kent sat back on his heels again. “Where’s the dog?”
Steven looked over to one side where the sheriff stood with his arm around the shoulders of the dog’s owner. “Probably back at the owner’s house. The vet should be on his way to patch him up.” He hoped the dog was treatable, for the old man’s sake, but the Lab had lost a lot of blood during whatever altercation had occurred here in this clearing. “Why?”
“I want to swab the dog’s teeth.”
Steven’s brows went up. “Why?”
“If the dog bit your perp, there might be some skin cells lodged in his teeth.”
Steven reconsidered the young man who’d joined the SBI only a few months before. “Okay, I stand corrected. You are good. I wouldn’t have thought to check the dog’s teeth.”
Kent grinned again. “Can’t take credit for that one. Saw it on Law and Order.”
Steven rolled his eyes. “Of course. We should bypass the academy and just make all our recruits watch Law and Order reruns.”
“It’d save the taxpayers money,” Kent said with another chuckle, his eyes glued to the grass.
Steven smiled in spite of himself. He was finding he liked the young man’s easy manner a whole lot more than Kent’s boss’s waspish edge. Kent’s boss would have normally supervised an investigation of this magnitude, but Diane was currently sunning herself on a cruise ship. It gave Kent a chance to show his stuff and gave the rest of them a much-needed break from Diane. “I’ll make sure the vet doesn’t do anything that would compromise the dog’s teeth.”
“Thanks. Tell the old man I won’t hurt his dog,” Kent added, dropping his head back down to search.
Steven looked over to where Sheriff Braden and the old man stood silently watching on the other side of the yellow tape. “Any more than he’s already hurt,” Steven murmured. Sheriff Braden’s eyes met Steven’s and in them Steven saw a wild mixture of abject anguish and terrified helplessness. Samantha Eggleston was Sheriff Braden’s sixteen-year-old niece.
Looking now at Braden’s shoulders bowed in grief and terror, Steven felt a connection with the man that went past the polite but inadequate empathy law enforcement felt for the victim, past the kinship for a fellow cop. Steven knew how Braden felt. Knew how Braden’s sister felt. Knew how it felt to live with the terror that a madman held your child.
Steven carefully made his way to where Braden and the old farmer stood watching his approach. “We may have something,” Steven said and Braden nodded, tight-lipped. “You did a good job in securing the crime scene. Mother Nature helped by holding off the rain,” he added when Braden said nothing. Steven wasn’t sure Braden could speak and Steven couldn’t blame him. Braden had seen the dog’s wounds, and undoubtedly his mind was conjuring every possible outcome while his heart broke at the mental picture of his niece at the mercy of a vicious abductor with a knife. Steven reached out and briefly clasped Braden’s shoulder, meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I really do know how you feel.”
Braden swallowed hard. Cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he managed. Then he straightened his back, lifted his chin, and dropped his arm from the old man’s shoulders. “My men are chompin’ at the bit for something to do here. Anything you guys need, just name it.”
Steven looked over his shoulder. Kent was still on his hands and knees while Harry was searching the woods. “I think the best thing would be to limit the number of feet trampling the crime scene at this point, but they could reassemble the search party. How many acres are here?”
Braden deferred to the old man. “Bud?”
“Three hunnerd and sixty-two,” the old man answered without hesitation. His voice was stronger than Steven would have expected given the old man’s whole body shook in constant trembles. One gnarled old hand gripped a cane. The other he stuck out in greeting. “Name’s Bud Clary. I own this land.”
Steven shook the old man’s hand. “I wish we were meeting under other circumstances, Mr. Clary. I do have a special request. Your dog, sir.”
One gray brow went up. “Pal?” Mr. Clary asked.
“Yessir. We want to check his teeth when the vet is finished sewing him up. There might be some evidence there if Pal bit the person who stabbed him.”
“Hope he did,” Clary muttered. “Hope he took a chunk outa the sonofabitch.”
“Me, too,” Steven agreed grimly. “Sheriff, can you tell the vet not to touch Pal’s mouth?”
Braden was already moving toward his cruiser. “Will do.” Steven turned back to Mr. Clary. “Do you need to sit down, Mr. Clary?” Steven gestured toward his car. “I have a folding chair in my trunk.”
Clary nodded and Steven quickly retrieved the chair and set it up. He’d sat in it next to every stream between Raleigh and William’s Sound, fishing for
whatever would take his bait. “It might smell a bit fishy,” he said as Mr. Clary lowered himself into the chair.
“It’s okay, boy,” Clary replied, attempting a tired smile. “So do I.” He settled himself, then drew a deep breath. “I have Parkinson’s and the shakes get worse when I’m stressed.” He looked over his shoulder at Kent, still on his hands and knees in the middle of the bloody grass, then back at Steven, his old eyes clear and piercing. “Will you find Samantha, Agent Thatcher?”
Probably not, Steven thought, considering the vicious attack on the dog and the fate of the first victim. Not alive anyway. Still, he forced optimism into his voice. “I hope so, Mr. Clary.”
Clary shook his head. “Call me Bud. Callin’ me Mr. makes me feel old.”
Steven smiled down at the old man. “Bud it is, then.” He sobered and watched Bud Clary do the same. “Can you tell me what happened, sir?”
Bud sighed. “Pal’s always takin’ off after a bird or a rabbit or somethin’. Sometimes he’ll be gone for a couple hours at a stretch, so I didn’t think anything about it when he took off about ten this mornin’.”
“You’re sure about the time, sir?”
Bud nodded. “I had to take my wife into town for some sundries. We left about ten and Pal followed us out of the house, then took off after a squirrel.” He looked up, the midafternoon sun making his eyes squint. “You need to know where we went in town?”
“Not right now, sir. What time did you get back?”
“It was around twelve-fifteen. Pal was lying on the back porch, bloody and all tore up. The missus saw the trail of blood and right off thought to call the sheriff.”
Steven’s lips curved at the obvious pride in Bud’s voice. “Mrs. Clary’s a sharp thinker.”
“Always has been,” Bud answered with a satisfied nod. He thumbed over his shoulder. “I took the tractor across the field, following the blood trail until I got to the trees, then I walked the rest of the way till I got to this clearing. Took me twenty minutes or so from the house.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Then I hightailed it back and called Sheriff Braden again and I guess he called you.”
Then they’d all driven to this clearing, accessing it from an unpaved dirt road that forked off the main highway. Which was how Samantha’s abductor had brought her here. And taken her away.
“What exactly did you see when you first got to the clearing?” Steven asked gently.
Bud swallowed. “I knew I’d see some blood—Pal bleedin’ like he was. I guess I didn’t expect to see so much blood. I got off the tractor to see if there was anything else, then I saw somethin’ white when I got closer.”
“Samantha’s underwear?” They were in an evidence bag, on their way to the lab.
The old man’s jaw clenched. “Yeah. Her underthings were off to the side, blown under the limbs of one of those pine trees.”
“Did you touch anything, Bud?”
Bud frowned up at him. “No, I did not,” he replied indignantly. “I may be old, young man, but I’m far from stupid.”
“Sorry. I’m supposed to ask.”
Bud settled back into the chair, arms crossed over his chest, slightly mollified. “All right, then.”
“When you came close to the bloody area of grass, did you notice anything else?”
Bud nodded, his ire suddenly cooled. “Yeah. The blood was still warm.”
Steven’s brows came together. “I thought you said you didn’t touch anything.”
“I didn’t. I could smell it. I slaughtered pigs on this farm for fifty years, boy. I know the smell of warm blood.”
Steven drew in a breath and let it out. So close. Bud Clary must have stumbled on this clearing less than an hour after Pal was stabbed. At least they could pinpoint the time. Given twenty minutes from his house to the clearing, Bud would have arrived at twelve-thirty-five. That meant Samantha had still been here at eleven-thirty. “That’s helpful, Bud.” He pulled a business card from his pocket. “If you remember anything else, can you give me a call?”
Soberly Bud took the card. “I will. Please find Samantha, Agent Thatcher. This is a small town. There’s not a soul around that doesn’t love Samantha Eggleston or her family. She baby-sits my great-grandbabies.” Then he bitterly added the phrase Steven heard far too often. “This kind of thing just doesn’t happen in Pineville. We’re a peaceful town.”
Too bad evil people sometimes live in peaceful towns, Steven thought. His job would be so much more uneventful if all the evil people congregated together, killing one another instead of innocent people.
Steven was walking back to the grassy area when his cell phone jangled. One glance at the caller ID told him it was his assistant. “Nancy, what’s up?”
Nancy Patterson had been his assistant since he’d been at his post. She’d been secretary to the special agent before him and the one before that. She was a computer whiz with invaluable experience and Steven trusted her as much as he trusted any woman.
“You’ve had several calls from one of Brad’s teachers.” Her tone and his own growing worry over his oldest son made Steven stand straighter. About a month before, almost overnight, Brad had changed from a warm, happy boy to a sullen stranger. Any attempt to breach the wall Brad had built was met with sarcasm and anger. They’d been through teenage rebellion, years before. This was different. And now his teachers were seeing it, too. He forced his heart to calm. “What’s wrong?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. She insists on speaking with you in person. She’s called twice already since lunch. She’s very... insistent.”
Steven looked around him. They were still gathering evidence and he needed to stay. But his son needed him more. “Did she leave a number where I can call her back?”
“Just the school’s main number. The first time she called on her lunch break, the second time between classes. She said she wouldn’t be free again until four o’clock.”
Steven glanced at his watch. He could just about finish up here and make it to Brad’s school by four. “Can you call the school and leave her the message that I’ll meet her in the lobby at four?”
“Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you, Steven?”
“Story of my life,” he responded grimly.
“Steven!” Harry yelled. “Come here!”
Steven looked over to where Harry stood next to the road. “Nancy, I have to go. Tell Brad’s teacher I’ll meet her at four o’clock. Call me back if she says no. Oh, and, Nancy? Which teacher is this?”
“Dr. Marshall. She’s his chemistry teacher. Steven, are you okay?”
Steven’s mouth flattened. “Tell Lennie I’m fine,” he said grimly. “I’m not planning to freak out and blow the investigation.”
“He doesn’t think you will, Steven,” Nancy admonished gently, making him feel like a truculent child. “He’s worried about you. So am I.”
Steven sighed. “Tell him I’m fine. But if I feel stressed I’ll go to Meg. Okay?” Meg was the staff psychologist who had continually pestered him to meet with her after Nicky. He’d finally gone, just to get the infernal woman off his back. But she’d helped. A bit. Offering to see her at this point should make Lennie Farrell a happy supervisor.
“Okay. I’ll call Brad’s teacher. Dr. Marshall,” she added, reminding him. She knew him well.
“Thanks.” Committing the name to memory, Steven slipped the phone into his pocket and carefully made his way to where Harry impatiently waited, holding a syringe in his gloved hand. “Damn,” Steven muttered and looked back to the flattened grass, the shape of its perimeter clean. “That would explain no evidence of a struggle.”
“We’ll get it back to the lab along with the hair.” Harry gestured to where Kent was examining the trail of blood leading back to the house. “Kent wants to watch the vet swab the dog’s teeth.”
Steven sighed. “I just hope we find a lead in a hurry. We’re running out of time.”
Friday, September 30, 3:50 P.M.
“So, di
d you call Brad’s dad?”
Jenna looked up from cleaning lab tabletops to find Casey standing in the doorway of her classroom. “Kind of. He was out in the field, so I talked to his secretary. He’s coming to meet me in”—Jenna checked her watch—“ten minutes.”
Casey’s brows scrunched. “Out in the field?”
“He’s a cop.”
“Hmm.”
Jenna paused mid-scrub and looked up. Casey looked thoughtful and that was always a dangerous sign. “What?”
Casey smiled and sent a chill down Jenna’s spine. “I don’t know. Cop, widower. Brad’s a pretty good-looking kid, so Dad’s got to have some good genes . . .” She shrugged. “Possibilities.”
Jenna shook her head, feeling a familiar tightening behind her eyes. Casey considered finding Jenna a mate one of her personal goals. Jenna walked to where Casey stood, deliberately towering over her. “Don’t go there, Casey,” she warned. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
Casey stared up defiantly. “You’re taller today.”
Jenna’s eyes narrowed. “Because I’m wearing these damn shoes you convinced me would be perfect with this suit. My feet hurt and I don’t have time for this right now. Promise. No contact with Mr. Thatcher. That includes telephone, telegraph, fax, sticky note, and smoke signals.”
Casey sulked. “I promise. Dammit.”
Jenna backed away. “Good.” Gathering her papers into her briefcase, Jenna glanced over her shoulder to find Casey looking thoughtful again. Seeing Jenna’s stare, Casey brightened.