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“Want some coffee?” Cameron asked as he stretched, then stepped into his shoes and wandered in the direction of the food tables.
Tate nodded as he sat down to check messages and missed calls. He was scanning through the list when he noticed a familiar number that made his skin crawl. It was the stolen phone that the Stormchaser had been using ever since they came on the case. They’d taken over paying for the number to make sure they had a way to stay in touch with him.
“The son of a bitch,” he said softly.
“What’s wrong?” Wade asked as he walked up behind him.
“The Stormchaser just sent me a text. He knows we’re here, which means he must be, too.”
“Well, hell,” Wade muttered. “What did he say?”
Tate read the message aloud. “‘I’ve been having all this fun without you. What took you so long?’”
“The bastard,” Wade said.
“Who’s a bastard?” Cameron asked as he walked up and handed Tate a coffee.
Tate handed him the phone, letting Cameron read the message for himself. Cameron’s thoughts were the same as his.
“If he’s here, why the hell can’t we recognize him? We’ve been at every kill site from the second one on, and we know he’s been there watching us. We have crowd shots and film footage from every press conference we’ve held, and there are no repeat faces in the crowd. What is he, a chameleon?”
Tate blinked. “Actually, that’s something we haven’t thought about.”
“What do you mean?” Cameron asked.
“A man of a thousand faces? Makeup. Disguises. Nola said he was wearing a parish police uniform, remember? That’s information we never had before, that he shows up prepared to pass as someone else. And she said he was middle-aged, with salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache. All of that could be a disguise to go with the clothes he was wearing. Go ask Beaudry if he ever ran that info down about a missing uniform. If our killer’s turning up with a good ID and a new face at every scene, that explains why we never see a familiar face.”
“On another note and speaking of press conferences, who’s going to handle the one this morning?” Wade asked.
Cameron pointed at Tate. “He needs to. He’s the profiler. We just need to figure out what to say that can force the bastard to get careless.”
“Or we’ll only make him kill again just to prove he can,” Tate muttered. “I need to think.”
Cameron left to talk to Beaudry, and came back a few minutes later.
“The chief says the local cleaners reported a robbery just after the river went over its banks. The only thing missing was a uniform belonging to a local cop.”
“I don’t suppose they dusted the scene for fingerprints?” Wade asked.
Cameron shrugged. “Nothing was destroyed, and the uniform was the only thing missing, so no. They didn’t even know it was a crime scene.”
“Then how did they know it happened?” Tate asked.
“The cop came in to pick up his dry cleaning, and when they realized his uniform was gone, he did a little investigating, found scratches on the door plate where the lock had been picked and went from there. It was too late to bother looking for prints, though.”
Tate frowned. “How did our killer even know there might be uniforms there? He has to be coming on scene far earlier than we imagined, using the weather reports to lead him to likely disaster scenes. So where would he stay? How would a total stranger blend into the scenery without sticking out like a sore thumb?”
All of a sudden Tate stood up.
“What?” Wade asked.
“Travel trailers, motor homes. Laura Doyle mentioned it earlier. There are volunteers from around the state who come to help out at disasters. Sometimes they bring their own accommodations. This is the first site he’s struck that was so small. All the others were in larger cities and we assumed he was moving from motel to motel. But that isn’t possible here, so he could be traveling in a motor home or with a camper. Could have been doing that all along, and we just didn’t know it.”
“Is there a trailer park here?”
“Yes,” Tate said. “A pretty large one, actually. It’s cheaper to pay a mortgage on a trailer home than a regular house. So why don’t we find out how many volunteers showed up early and see if something pops?”
“You’re working on the press conference. I’ll do it,” Wade said. “Does the owner live on site?”