Page 23 of Closer Than You Know (Vera Boyett #2)

Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office

Thornton Taylor Parkway, Fayetteville, 4:10 p.m.

Vera had intended to be on time for the meeting, but that hadn’t happened—at least that’s what she told herself. Instead, she’d spent two hours with Deputy Conover going over the scene at the old hospital where Nolan had been taken and then at his apartment. It was ridiculous actually. She had known there was nothing to find, but the effort helped distract her. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. There was no easily or readily identifiable reason why ... just a need.

In the end, she and Conover had arrived at the same conclusion—the one she had known they would reach. The perp at the hospital, as well as the one who had entered both Nolan Baker’s apartment and Vera’s home, hadn’t left fingerprints or any damned thing else. The ones Conover found on the old hospital’s windows—the ones where the blinds had been removed and then reinstalled—had belonged to a local who’d spent the night in the place on a dare months ago.

Conover wasn’t happy about not finding anything at any of the three scenes, but Vera had reminded him that no one, not Memphis PD or the FBI, had found a single shred of evidence at ten crime scenes during the Messenger’s decade of activity. The bastard had been far too careful. Some said there were no perfect crimes, only imperfect investigations. Others insisted that in cases like the Messenger’s, given time, a perp—no matter how smart or how careful—was bound to make a mistake.

But not the Messenger. Not until Gloria Anderson. And Vera was convinced that misstep had not been a mistake.

Maybe that was the part that had always bothered her. She’d been a brand-new detective with only a few cases under her belt, and certainly none as complex as the Messenger case. She had followed the case closely from a distance. The whole city had. Even after ten years, the police were no closer to finding the serial killer than when they had started.

Victim eleven, Gloria Anderson, disappeared, and that long-standing record changed. Suddenly there was a variation in his MO. Or maybe Vera’s unexpected involvement had caused the mistake ... the misstep.

Or maybe there had been another perp—an associate or protégé—and he got ahead of himself and caused the misstep. Without evidence, it was an unprovable scenario. It also wasn’t nearly as likely as the idea that Solomon was orchestrating this current situation from his prison cell.

She entered the long corridor that would take her to Bent’s office. Eight, no, ten minutes past four o’clock.

Bent would not appreciate her lack of punctuality.

Outside the door with Lincoln County Sheriff displayed across the front, Vera paused to draw in a deep breath. She squared her shoulders and walked inside.

Myra looked up over her reading glasses. “They’re waiting for you.”

Vera flashed her a fake smile. “Thanks.”

She opened the door and entered the office. Both men stood. Bent from behind his desk and Eric from one of the chairs on this side.

“Vera.” Eric stepped toward her and gave her a hug.

“Eric.” She drew back, smiled. “Good to see you.”

The sparkle in his eyes reminded her of all the times she’d returned from training in some other city and Eric would be waiting. He looked great, as always. Navy designer suit, matching shirt and tie. He could be a model from the cover of a popular magazine or the hottest new media influencer. With Eric everything was always perfect. Flawless mahogany skin and the darkest chocolate eyes. An enviable wardrobe by anyone’s standards, draped on a very handsome man. More important than all the rest, a kind heart and a fiercely intelligent brain.

Vera felt utterly underdressed and wholly ill prepared. Eric likely wondered how she’d gone downhill so far in only seven months.

“Why don’t we sit,” Bent suggested, “and get started?” His gaze held Vera’s a moment before shifting back to Eric.

“I apologize for being late.” Vera settled into a chair. “I’ve been running behind all day. I hope the two of you started without me.”

Actually she was glad she’d been late. Kept her away from that initial awkward meeting between these two. Bent knew little about Eric, but he must suspect there was more to the story. Eric, on the other hand, knew all about Bent. Vera had spilled her guts about her first love to the man who could have been her second love if she’d opened herself that far. Instead, he’d been more of a best friend—as well as a respected colleague.

“We’ve only chatted briefly,” Eric said. “Sheriff Benton wanted to wait for you.”

Vera looked to Bent. “Shall we get started, then?”

Bent began with “Nolan Baker, a local reporter, disappeared about seventy-two hours ago. We first believed he’d been taken by a repeat perpetrator we’ve referred to as the Time Thief, but that turned out not to be the case.”

Vera hoped Bent wouldn’t go into the story about Elizabeth. The woman was the epitome of a small-town rich woman of privilege who wanted all the attention on her family. So not worth the discussion.

Bent looked to Vera then, as if he’d read her mind.

“We first became aware,” she began, “there might be someone affiliated with the Messenger involved in Baker’s disappearance when he left a message for me.”

Bent leaned forward and spread the crime scene photos from her house across his desk. It wasn’t until that moment that Vera realized her nightshirt and panties lay on the floor between the shower and the toilet in the corner of one photo. The creep of red up her neck was like a flame licking a path. If she were lucky, no one would notice the scrap of black since the tee she slept in was black too. There was no mistaking the face on the shirt, however. Jon Bon Jovi’s image, with his eighties hair, had faded but was still there.

“Wow.” Eric looked to Vera. “I’m sure that was one hell of a surprise.”

“To say the least.” Though, at the moment, she wasn’t sure they were talking about the same thing. She eased deeper into the chair, told herself to relax. Didn’t help that both men were watching her. “In keeping with the Messenger MO, no evidence whatsoever was left behind. No one saw or heard anything. Frankly, there are no close neighbors in either situation to have seen or heard anything.”

“He did step outside the usual MO,” Bent said, “when he left the message on the mirror in Baker’s apartment. He picked up the key from the victim’s father, Carl Baker. We have a sketch artist with him right now, though we’re not particularly hopeful about the results.”

Eric’s smooth forehead lined just a little. “So he didn’t get a good look at him when he provided the key?”

“He didn’t,” Bent explained. “The perp wore a baseball-type cap. Dark sweater—black, he thought—and maybe jeans. And sunglasses, so Carl remembered basically nothing about his face or even his age. I have my doubts whether anything he recalls at this point will be accurate.”

“Mr. Baker wasn’t suspicious that the man didn’t wear a uniform?” Eric’s eyebrows pulled together in surprise.

“Baker was worried sick about his son,” Vera explained. “His entire focus was to do whatever necessary to help get him back safely. Anything else was irrelevant.”

Eric nodded his understanding. “Of course.”

“What have you found on your end?” Vera felt confident there wasn’t that much to share, but she could hope.

“Not a lot, unfortunately,” he admitted. “I checked various databases, called my contacts and found no known activity matching that of the Messenger.” To Bent he added, “Obviously there are plenty of serial killers who send their victims messages, but not like this one. He always—without exception—announced his intentions. Never deviated. Never left a job unfinished.” He turned to Vera then. “Until Gloria Anderson.”

Bent looked to Vera. “You didn’t go into a whole lot of detail about how you came to be involved with the investigation.”

“I was interviewing an elderly woman who’d claimed that she saw a man and woman struggling by an unfamiliar vehicle in the street in front of her house,” Vera explained. There were things she still didn’t want to tell Bent, but with Eric here she might have no other choice. “The woman couldn’t say what the couple looked like, other than that they were White. She didn’t recognize the make of the vehicle. It was too dark, and she’d been frightened. A patrol unit had come to her home and found nothing amiss, but the lady demanded to speak with a detective, and I landed the call. As I was leaving the interview, I heard a sound ... like a crash at the house next door. It was an old neighborhood with those small post–World War Two houses right on top of each other.”

“Like in Huntsville’s medical district,” Bent suggested.

“Yeah.” Vera nodded. “So I listened for a moment, then I started for my car again, and”—she shrugged—“I just got this feeling that I should knock on the door. I can’t explain it. Maybe it was something the woman said that stuck in my head. I have no idea.”

“It’s called cop’s intuition ,” Eric reminded her, “and yours was very highly developed early in your career.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “I knocked on the door. No answer. Knocked again and again. Every time I knocked and there was nothing but silence, my skin tingled, heart rate climbed. I couldn’t stop. Then I heard another sound. Not a crash, not a scream, but something muffled. I walked slowly around the house, knocking on walls and windows until I heard it again, louder this time—a muffled cry.”

“That,” Eric said, “is when she kicked in the back door.” He grinned at her. “She always leaves that part out. But she burst into that house and found Anderson, naked and bleeding. She saved the woman’s life.”

“But then the Messenger was pretty pissed,” Vera admitted. “He started sending me messages.”

“Ironically,” Eric put in, “Vera fit the profile of his preferred victim. Smart, blond, attractive. The game was on. He intended to have her.” His gaze locked with Vera’s. “That’s how she and I met. I was on the task force.”

“So,” Bent suggested, “you used her as bait to reel in the Messenger.”

Eric’s jaw tightened.

Vera sent Bent a look.

“She volunteered,” Eric countered. “If you know Vera, you know once those messages started coming, she wasn’t backing down.”

“In the end, we trapped him and he confessed,” she said, moving on.

Even now, all these years later, she wondered if they really had trapped him or if he’d set the trap. The fact was, in those final days of the investigation, the whole task force had been so focused on her and the messages she was receiving that Gloria Anderson was taken a second time right under their noses. No one had seen that one coming. It was bad enough the woman had gone through that hell once, but to live it twice was the worst kind of nightmare. Particularly considering the second time around was for one sick, sadistic purpose—to send Vera a message. Her insides twisted at the memory.

And that final message was delivered right to Vera’s doorstep. Carved into the flesh on the back of Gloria, his final victim: I’m going to enjoy killing you. The upside was that, like Nolan Baker, Gloria was alive. As Vera looked back, it was obvious that it was the Messenger who had set the trap. Maybe, after all these years, he’d finally decided to make good on that promise.

She shook off the thought. Not going there until she had no other choice.

“Which brings us to where we are now,” Bent said. “Palmer Solomon is in prison—has been for more than twelve years. There’s been no other activity matching his MO until now.”

“Which can only mean,” Eric admitted, “that we have a copycat who has access to information that was never released to the public.” He turned his hands up. “Since there was no trial, there were things that simply never came up publicly.”

“Or,” Vera argued, “he has a surrogate doing this for him. We need to know if he got close to anyone who was recently released. The other option is the one no one wants to consider—that there was someone else involved before he was caught and that protégé has decided on a comeback now.”

Eric acknowledged her points with a nod. “Which is why I’m here. The more eyes we have on this case, the better. We do not want a repeat of what happened before.”

Vera cringed inside. Like the part she had not told Bent. That she hadn’t told Eve or Luna. It just wasn’t the kind of thing you shared.

“So you’ll follow up on any close associates he may have had in prison?” she asked, skirting the subject he’d brought up.

“Absolutely,” Eric confirmed, looking a little confused. “We’re already looking for ways he may have reached out to someone beyond those prison walls, which, as you are aware, is the most logical scenario.”

For those involved with the original case, it’s the cleanest for sure, she opted not to say. Not to mention it happened all the time.

“I’m sure you’re ready to settle in,” Bent said to Eric. “We can reconvene in the morning at eight and go from there.”

“Excellent.” Eric stood, reached a hand across Bent’s desk. “I look forward to working with you, Sheriff Benton.”

Bent gave his hand a shake. “We’ll take all the backup we can get.”

Vera pushed herself to her feet, picked up her bag, and hung it over her shoulder.

“Vera, are you free for dinner this evening?” Eric asked.

She produced a smile. “I am. I was about to ask you the same thing.” It would be rude not to. Plus, there were things they needed to talk about. “Are you staying at the Hampton Inn?”

“I am, yes.”

“The cantina next door at seven sound okay?”

“Sounds great.” He gestured to the door. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Can you stay a minute, Vee?” Bent asked.

“Sure.” She smiled at Eric. “See you at seven.”

When he was gone, she settled her full attention on the man watching her so intently. “Eric really is one of the best analysts at Memphis PD. He will be an asset.”

“I’m sure.” Bent studied her another moment. “Did you two have a thing?”

She stiffened, though she had fully expected the question. “Define thing .”

“Is he the one you said you almost married?”

Shit. She had mentioned the one serious relationship during the two decades they were apart. She just hadn’t said with whom. “Yes, but that was a long time ago. We’re just friends now. We have been for a long time.”

Bent nodded slowly. “Got it.”

“See you in the morning.”

Vera walked out of his office, surprised he didn’t insist on accompanying her or demand to know her schedule for the next couple of hours. Maybe he was as unsettled as she was. There was something—she couldn’t pinpoint the feeling that welled inside her as she walked away from him. Something she didn’t want to touch ... something with the potential for pain ... for disrupting her life further. Something old that had never let go.

By the time she reached her SUV, she felt ready to run.

Her cell vibrated, and she was grateful for the distraction.

Eve.

“Hey,” she said as she climbed into the driver’s seat.

“We need to talk.”

Vera stifled a groan. Whenever her sister called needing to talk, it was never a good thing. “The usual place?”

“I’m headed there now,” Eve confirmed.

“On my way.” Vera ended the call.

She hoped this was not the “what else” she’d wondered might be coming.