Jonah’s spine was so stiff and straight that it hurt. “I can contribute to this team. Macey knows that—Macey trusts me.”
“I get that Macey went to bat for you, but I also know why. You were helping her track Haddox, weren’t you?”
He had to tread carefully. “I was helping her look for patterns. Patterns are the key, you see. You might not even know that a killer was hunting, not until you looked at the patterns in an area.”
Tucker blinked and then his whole expression seemed to lock down. “That’s how you find where serials are hunting.”
“Yes!” Maybe the guy did get it. “You don’t even need all the boots on the ground.” That was old-school thinking. “We can analyze from missing persons’ reports. NamUS. We can look at the times of the year when the disappearances occur. I’ve even made a program that can predict victim-type based on previous disappearances and—”
“Have you used this program of yours on any serials out there now?” Tucker’s voice was too flat. His face was blank, and no emotion showed in his eyes.
And he was talking about me not responding the right way.
“Just practice runs, nothing substantial, not yet.” But he planned to take his program to Samantha Dark as soon as this case was tied up. Now that he was on the team, Jonah knew it was time to take things to the next level—
“Because I can’t help but notice, we have a perp here who has been hunting serials. He took out Daniel Haddox. He took out Patrick Remus. He found Curtis Zale. He used profiling tricks and he predicted where they would be. Sounds a whole fucking lot like the program you’re discussing.” His head tilted. “We already thought the guy had a background in law enforcement.”
“Wait! Wait!” Jonah laughed and the sound was raw to his own ears. “You aren’t serious.” Anger began to stir in him when Tucker just stared back at him. “You think I’m involved in this? That I’m a killer?” He’d gone from not having the right reaction after a shooting to being a killer? Was that jerk for real?
“I think I’m not exactly sure when you arrived in Gatlinburg. We came separately, and all I know is that you got to the cabin that had been booked for us sometime before dawn.”
“I was in the area,” he snapped. “I drove over myself because I’d just finished some vacation time. I was in Asheville—”
“That’s damn close. So close that you could have gone to Daniel Haddox’s home on a quick trip from Asheville. So close that you could have come here and taken Patrick Remus. So close—”
Jonah surged toward him, standing toe to toe. “This is bullshit. I’m a fucking FBI agent! I’m on your team, and you’re going to throw this crap at me?” He shook his head in disgust. “I wanted to prove myself to you. Wanted to show you that I could do the job, and now you’re suspecting me...because what? Because I have a shitty past and you think I might fit your profile? I was in Asheville because that’s where my family’s home is—not my real family, because as you pointed out, they’re all dead. But the last foster family I wound up with? I stayed with them...my foster mother is still in Asheville and I try to visit her every now and then.”
“So that would make you very familiar with this area.”
Yes, he was familiar with it. So what? “I created my program because I wanted to stop predators. I wanted to hunt the killers, not be one of them.” He shouldered around the other agent. “Now, I’m going back to the police station with the cops out there. I’ll be finding material on the computers that connects us to the real killer.” In the doorway, he stopped, and his hands flew up to grab the door frame.
“They’re shaking now,” Tucker said.
Jonah fired a glance over his shoulder. “Because I’m pissed off. I thought you were going to accept me. I thought the whole team would. Isn’t that the point of our unit? We’ve all got ties to killers. I’m freaking FBI. And you dare to suspect one of your own?” He was done. Done. He marched away without giving Tucker a chance to respond.
Tucker Frost could go screw himself. Jonah had a job to do. He’d do it. He’d prove exactly who was guilty.
* * *
TUCKER WAITED UNTIL Jonah had stormed away. Then he pulled out his phone and called Samantha Dark. He knew it was the middle of the night, but that didn’t matter. Samantha would be waiting for his call. After all, she was the one who’d tipped him off about Jonah moments before he’d walked into that office. If it hadn’t been for her call, he never would have pursued his line of questioning with the other agent.
She answered on the second ring. “Well?”
“You’re sure the leaks in the office go back to him?”
“I’ve got five techs working on this.” Her voice was weary but firm. “He’s been slipping into personnel files here. He wanted to know more about our team. That raises every red flag I’ve got.”
Especially since their perp knew so much about Bowen’s life.
“Jonah said he made a program to track serials,” Tucker told her. “But he told me that he’d only used it on practice runs.” He wanted to be fucking wrong. He wanted Samantha to be wrong. What practice runs? Who was his guinea pig? Was it Daniel Haddox? Patrick Remus? Why hadn’t Jonah told him?
There was a moment of silence on the line, and then Samantha announced, “We need to notify Macey and Bowen about the discovery of the personnel leaks at the FBI. And I’m getting on the jet and coming to Gatlinburg tonight.” Tension crackled in every word. “I want you to stay close to Jonah, understand? We could be wrong, but it’s not adding up.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Maybe he’s not involved in the crimes,” Samantha said. “I still need to know why he thinks he can sneak into confidential records for other agents. He has no business doing that.”
No, he didn’t. And that was a huge problem. “Jonah just left to get a ride with the cops downstairs. Said he was heading back to the police station.”
“Stay with him, Tucker. Every step of the way, got it?”
“Got it.” He hung up and hurried downstairs. He threw open the door. The crowd had dispersed—people were finally going home for the night. About time. It’s nearing midnight. He saw the two officers he’d passed earlier, and they were still loading the confiscated computer equipment into their van. He jogged toward them. “Where’s Agent Loxley?”
They turned and frowned at him.
“The agent who told you to pack up all of this equipment,” he clarified because there had been a ton of local agents running around earlier. “Where is he?”
“Don’t know,” one of the officers replied. “Haven’t seen him.”
No, that didn’t make any sense. Jonah had just gone that way. Tucker yanked out his phone. He dialed Jonah. It rang once, twice—
I hear the phone. He turned away from the cops. Went to the side of the building, and right there, with its screen cracked, lay Jonah’s phone. It was still ringing, but Jonah was nowhere to be found.
Just the broken phone.
Tucker’s heart lurched in his chest.
We have a big fucking problem.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“THE VICTIM IS a woman,” Dr. Sofia Lopez said as she pointed toward the skull with a gloved hand. She bit her lower lip. “But, um, you both already know that, right?”
Right.
“Men tend to have heavier skulls,” Dr. Lopez added. “Thicker ones. They’re also generally bigger than female skulls.” Her gloved finger moved toward the eye socket. “And you can see the sex here, too. Women have an, um, the ridge here is sharper than for a man.”
“Any idea how old she was?” Bowen asked. He was right beside Macey, and his arm brushed against her.
“Oh, yeah, that was something else easy to see. It’s all in the teeth, you know.” Dr. Lopez flashed them a vague smile. “All of the teeth have erupted. Usually teeth finish erupting by around a per
son’s twenty-first birthday. This skull—I mean, this victim—she had a lot of dental work. She even still has her bar in place.” She indicated the bar that was attached just behind the bottom teeth.
Macey stared at the skull. The nails had been removed, and now gaping holes were left in the skull. It wasn’t white and gleaming, but brown. Almost stained? “Did he paint the skull?”
“Yeah, I think so, I chipped off some samples and I sent them in for testing,” the ME replied. Her face turned considering. “I think he did it to give the appearance of it being an old skull.”
“How did she die?” Bowen asked.
Dr. Lopez lifted the skull. “See this hole here?” She tapped it with her finger. “This didn’t come from a nail. Her skull was cracked.”
“Blow to the head,” Macey concluded.
The ME nodded. “That would have done it. That would have killed our vic.”
Macey glanced at Bowen. “Peter kept saying it was an accident.”
“What? You think the vic fell and hit her head?” His lips twisted. “Don’t buy it. He kept the skull. He was covering up his crime. He killed her.”
“And he might have killed more, right?” the doctor blurted.
Macey and Bowen both glanced back at her.
She swallowed. “I, um, I went ahead and got to work on Captain Henry Harwell. And I noticed something really interesting. Something you’ve got to see.” She put the skull back down on the exam table and hurried toward the line of storage lockers.
They weren’t in McKinley’s lab, but instead were in another space just down the hallway. When Macey had walked in, she’d seen the uniformed police officer standing in the hallway. He’d demanded to review their ID before allowing them inside.
Dr. Lopez opened the locker and pulled out the slab. She unzipped the body bag, and Macey saw Henry Harwell’s still face.
“I had him transferred in,” Dr. Lopez said. “Now look at this.” She turned his head sideways and Macey realized that the ME had shaved the hair around his wound.
“It’s exactly the same size,” Dr. Lopez said. “His wound matches the wound in the skull you gave me! Both are the exact same diameter. Both caused the exact same kind of damage, and I believe,” she added, eyes gleaming, “they were made with the exact same type of weapon.”
“A hammer,” Macey said.
The doctor nodded. “Damn straight.” She rolled back her shoulders. “So maybe you do have your killer. Your Peter Carter killed this mystery woman and Captain Harwell. He could have killed them all!” Dr. Lopez added, as her voice hitched. “Maybe Harwell was his intended target all along, but he killed the others to throw you off his scent. He wanted you to think the murders were for another reason, when all along he was just working his way up to Harwell—”
“No.” Macey’s quiet voice cut through the other woman’s tumble of words.
The ME blinked.
Macey eased out a slow breath. “I know you followed Haddox’s crimes, Dr. Lopez.”
“I studied them extensively,” she said, her eyelids flickering. “I knew about Haddox, and I’ve studied other big serials, too. There’s so much to learn from them—”
“You don’t hunt down some of the most infamous serial killers in the US because you want their deaths to be cover for you.” No, there was much more at play. Macey shared a quick look with Bowen.
He cleared his throat. “These serial killers were hidden, well hidden. They were predators at their core. It would have been very hard to catch them unaware, and Peter Carter...to go and kill them just so that he could work his way up to Henry Harwell? That would have created unnecessary risk for him.”
The ME’s gaze dropped to Harwell’s body.
And Macey’s phone rang. The shrill cry caused Dr. Lopez to jump.
“Excuse me,” Macey murmured. She backed away as she saw that Tucker’s number appeared on the screen of her phone. She exited the lab space and nodded toward the uniformed officer who still stood guard. Macey put the phone to her ear. “Tucker? Is there news?”
“Jonah Loxley is missing.”
Those were the last words she’d expected. “What?”
“There are some things...shit, there’s some stuff you need to know, okay? Listen, where are you and Bowen right now?”
“We’re at the ME’s building with Dr. Lopez.”
“Get to the police station. I’m on my way there now.”
“Tucker, what happened?”
“Jonah walked out of the museum and vanished. All I found was his busted cell phone.”
Her heart lurched in her chest. “You think he was taken by our perp?”
She heard voices in the background.
“I’ve got an APB out for him now,” Tucker said. “I’ll tell you more at the station, okay? Meet me there in twenty minutes.”
He hung up.
She heard the lab door open. Her gaze swung to find Bowen standing in the doorway. She could see the concern in his gaze. “I—I need to talk with you.” Dr. Lopez was peeking over his shoulder. Macey cleared her throat. “Dr. Lopez, please update us right away when you learn new information.” But the ME couldn’t possibly stay there all night. “Did you get your room in town settled?”
“I did. I’m heading there now.” Wearily, the doctor rubbed at the back of her neck. “I just need to crash for a while, and then I’ll be back at it. Count on me calling you the minute I have news.” She eased around Bowen, then nodded to both him and Macey. “Thank you for bringing me onto this case. Thank you for trusting me with the job.”
Macey’s hand flew out and touched the other woman’s shoulder. “No, thank you for helping us. I know that you and Dr. McKinley are friends—”
“He’s been a mentor to me,” the ME replied, and for a moment, tears gleamed in her eyes. “He’s...he’s going to be okay, right?”
“Yes.” She was certain of this. He would recover. “He spoke highly of you, Dr. Lopez. He said he trusted you to get this job done.”
Her shoulders straightened. “I will get it done.”
A few moments later, the cop escorted Dr. Lopez out of the lab and toward the waiting elevator. Macey and Bowen were left in the hallway. She walked over the tiled floor, her gaze drawn helplessly to the spot that had been marked by McKinley’s blood. Someone had done a very good job of cleaning the scene.
As soon as the elevator doors closed and Dr. Lopez was gone with her cop, Macey turned toward Bowen. “Jonah Loxley is missing.”
He shook his head, even as surprise had his eyes flaring.
“That was Tucker on the phone. He said Jonah left the museum and vanished. The only thing he found at the scene was Jonah’s cell phone.”
“Fuck.”
“Tucker wants us at the police station, right now.”
“He thinks the perp took Jonah?”
“He didn’t say, but what else could he think? This killer went after a cop, he went after the ME and now he’s taken an FBI agent.” He’d been taunting Bowen all along, and she’d feared he’d be the one attacked by the killer. Her hands were clammy. “He took one of our own.” The fact that Jonah was missing—that proved that Peter Carter couldn’t be the perp they were after. Had he killed his girlfriend? Yes, she believed he had.
But the man they were after...
He was still hunting.
He wasn’t in some hospital bed, under police guard.
He was somewhere in Gatlinburg, and he had new prey.
* * *
MACEY FELT AS if she were running on empty. She and Bowen rushed into the police station, and they found Tucker waiting on them. He gave a jerking motion of his hand and they filed into the conference room. As soon as the door closed behind them...
“Samantha Dark is on her way to Gatlinburg,” he announced flatly. “She’s going to be joining us
for this investigation, but she’s actually been working on the case all along.” His gaze swept between them. “Samantha found...glitches, I guess you could say, in the FBI’s personnel files.”
“Glitches?” Bowen repeated as his brows shot up. “What kind of glitches?”
Tucker crossed his arms over his chest. “It was your file that was the red flag. Someone accessed it illegally. Dug into the reports on your talks with the FBI shrink, revealed the case history you had with Arnold Shaw—”
“In other words, someone ripped into my life.”
Bowen inclined his head. “Not just someone... The hack has been traced back to Jonah Loxley.”
Macey took a quick step back, shocked to her core. “What?” But then, before he could respond, Macey shook her head in denial. “There’s a mistake here. He wouldn’t do that—”
“No mistake. She thought he might be the patsy for someone else—that was her first suspicion, so Samantha pulled in a whole team of cyber analysts. They traced the hacks back to Jonah Loxley’s home. And these hacks? They’ve been going on for months. Ever since Samantha created her team.”
She could hear a dull ringing in her ears. But I trusted him. He was my friend.
She’d trusted him, the same way she’d trusted Daniel Haddox.
“Jonah hacked into the files of everyone on Samantha’s team,” Tucker said grimly. “And by the guy’s own confession to me, he’s been developing a program that will help him to track and identify serial killers, to find them when they’re hiding.”
Bowen swore. “Hiding...just like the Doctor. Like the Pyro.”
“They could have been test runs,” Tucker said.
Macey could only stare at them both, in shock. “You’re not serious.” Hacking into computer files at the Bureau was one thing, but what they seemed to be suggesting... “This is bullshit! He’s one of us! He’s missing now—”
“He’s missing.” Tucker nodded. “He went missing right after I threw my suspicions at him. Less than five minutes later, the guy went AWOL. That timing, it’s a little too convenient for me.”