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Chapter Eight
“Caught the press conference.”Nyle looked up from the computer in the conference room at RCMP headquarters in Halifax, which was fast becoming their point of operations. The building was nearly empty, save for this area. “Sort of surprised the brass didn’t pressure you to release your profile while they had you onTV.”
Alexa grimaced as she strolled into the room. “They tried. We had a phone conference with Captain Campbell prior, and he shared that request from the Commissioner. It took some doing, but I convinced them it would be of little value to the public.” She hadn’t been surprised by the request. It was a common one from law-enforcement departments seeking to calm a jittery public. “Profiles are tools so investigators better understand the offender they’re tracking. Using them in media communications is just a glitzy bone to throw a public that spends too much time watching Hollywood’s idea of investigativework.”
Nyle let loose a surprised laugh. “Agreed. But I’m surprised you managed to change theirminds.”
“I had help from Ethan,” she admitted as she drew a chair out from the conference table and sank into it. She couldn’t be completely sure whether it was because Ethan held profiles in low esteem, or if he agreed that making the information public wasuseless.
“Where is henow?”
“Holed up with Captain Sedgewick.” And he’d been on the phone the entire drive over, giving directives to the other task force members and the police personnel on loan from HalifaxPD.
“I heard he was in contact with Toronto police,” Nyle said. “They’ve locatedArmand
Vance and have spoken tohim?”
Her stomach rumbled. With a jolt, she realized they hadn’t eaten since this morning. “Yes. Vance denies that he ever had any plans to travel to Nova Scotia, which, apparently would be a violation of his interim judicial release before trial. When I spoke with Fornier again, he claimed his intel said Vance was coming here secretly for a taping of Jeanette Lawler’sExposéshow.”
“So the information was bait to get Simard toHalifax.”
She nodded. “It seems so.” Not for the first time she thought about how familiar the UNSUB was with his victim. He’d known exactly what it would take to draw Simard to Nova Scotia. “I still don’t understand why the offender didn’t attack Simard in Ontario. That makes him the first victim who was killed outside his homeprovince.”
Nyle pushed away from his laptop, where it appeared he was accessing the DMV website and jotting down information for owners of older Econoline white cargo vans. The list was depressingly long, and probably a waste of time. But they couldn’t rule out the possibility that the UNSUB resided in the province. He could have decided to entice Simard here because it was the offender’s hometurf.
“Lots of details about Simard’s killings were different than the other victims,” he reminded her. “I got the idea from Fornier that they hurt this Anis Tera quite badly once they caught up with him after his blackmail attempt. If Tera is the UNSUB, he might have sought to avoid Montreal, where he could berecognized.”
“And where Simard had muscle at his disposal.” Alexa glanced at the door, wondering what was keeping Ethan. “You’re right, it could have been an attempt to isolate him. To level the playing field.” She tapped a finger against the table as she thought. “Before the New Brunswick victims, the UNSUB had been inactive for three years. Fornier claims they had dealings with Anis Tera about that longago.”
Nyle nodded slowly, rubbing his chin. “Actually, I’m surprised he didn’t kill him. Nothing we know about Simard paints him as the forgivingtype.”
And if Alexa had read Fornier correctly, the man enjoyed brutality for its own sake. “If Anis Tera is the offender we’re after, maybe his injuries were severe enough to keep him inactive for threeyears.”
“You think this escalation is just him making up for losttime?”
“Whatever triggered him—maybe near-fatal injuries if indeed it’s Anis Tera—might have created this urgency in him. Perhaps even a near rage. He feels justified in his killings, remember. And how inherently unfair it must have seemed to him to sufferso.”
Nyle snorted. “Unfair. That’s a good one. So, is he done here ornot?”
The door opened, and Ethan walked in on Nyle’s question. “I don’t know,” Alexa admitted. “But I’d feel a lot better if we knew that Jeanette Lawler was safely at home.” The woman might have been part of the elaborate ruse used to bring Simard to Nova Scotia, as Vance was. At least Alexa hoped so. She’d researched the reporter on the way back here, while Ethan had driven and spoken on the phone the entire way. Lawler resided in Vancouver, but she often flew to where her guests lived and filmed onlocation.
“We need food. And a truckload of Timmies,” Ethan announced as he pulled out a chair and dropped intoit.
Alexa smiled. It’d been a long time since she’d heard the uniquely Canadian word for the coffee from the popular Tim Hortons chain. “I could get on board with that. Especially thefood.”
Ethan loosened his tie, which looked as though it had been mangled since the press conference. “To catch you up, I now have the commissioner’s assurances that all evidence from this case will go to the front of the queue in thelabs.”
Nyle looked as impressed as Alexa felt. If the crime lab in Ottawa was anything like the ones in the States, evidence could languish for weeks or longer waiting to be processed. It wasn’t unheard of for a case to go to trial before the forensic tests were completed. “He’s also assigned two forensic analysts to work specifically with the task force. One is IT, which should come in handy with these new victims’ computers and other technologydevices.”
“But not cell phones,” sherecalled.
“We have none in evidence because the UNSUB has always made damn sure to get rid of them. He probably deactivated them immediately to avoid being tracked.” Ethan stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. “However, we’ve gotten the previous victims’ phone records. There’s never been a number on them that could be traced back to the offender.” He took his cell out again. This time, Alexa noted, he was looking up pizza places. “We have a stop-and-search authorization for any white van fitting our description at each exit route from the country. Commissioner Gagnon wouldn’t permit it province-wide at thistime.”
Nyle muttered a curse and Ethan nodded in agreement. “He said we needed irrefutable evidence linking the van to the offender before he’d inconvenience the public to thatextent.”
“At least now we can hope to contain the offender,” Alexa murmured, transfixed for a moment by the sight of Ethan’s undoing the top button of his shirt. She attempted to slam the door shut on the mental images that threatened. Wasunsuccessful.
His fingers moving down the back of her flowered sundress in the front seat of his used Impala, undoing zippers and snaps with a finesse belied by his years. Of his hands moving…everywhere. His touch leaving a path of fire on herskin.