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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“ I ’m done.”

Addie gripped the phone. “That was fast.”

“Yeah, well,” Dr. Carlton said. “Maybe I’m trying to impress the new fed in town. What can I say? I work long hours, and I don’t have time for Bunko group even if I wanted to play games.”

Addie felt the amusement bubble up. “What about a book club?”

“When do I have time to read? My commute is six minutes. Do you know how many workdays it would take me to listen to a twenty-two-hour epic that’s supposed to be tragic, and I’ll be destroyed by it?” Sarah sighed. “I see that every day, and they don’t want to hear about my tragic story.”

Addie turned and sat on the edge of the desk, the phone sandwiched between her shoulder and ear. That thought only made her hungry for an actual sandwich. How long had she been at this? “I don’t suppose there’s a twenty-four-hour diner in the vicinity of Fourth and Trenton that serves cheeseburgers and milkshakes.”

“Be still my heart. I think I just found my new best friend.”

Addie chuckled. “You know if we do this, that Rizzoli and Isles thing is never gonna die.”

“You think those two would care about that? No. They just keep wearing uncomfortable heels that look fabulous and do their jobs.” Sarah paused. “Not that I want to be there to catch the bad guys.”

“Noted.” Addie remembered Sarah’s reason for calling. “So, Doctor Carlton, how did Celia Jessop die?”

“Petechiae on the face and bruising to the trachea suggest she was strangled.”

Addie blew out a breath, and her throat tightened reflexively.

“It was done from behind, and I estimate that her assailant was taller than her.”

“She was what, five six?”

“Seven and a half.”

Addie pulled over a notepad and wrote that with the stub of a pencil she’d found in one of the drawers. “Thanks. Anything else?”

“No signs of sexual assault, though she was active recently.”

“DNA?”

“None.”

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t about power.”

“True.” Sarah paused. “Were you serious about that milkshake?”

“One question before we switch topics.” Addie tried to fight the shudder. “Were there signs she was bitten? Like a spider or some other kind of bug.” She realized she’d started thumbing the inside of her thigh just up from her knee.

“Actually, yes.”

Addie stretched out her fingers. “I’ll need a copy of your report when it’s finished. And seriously, would you ever joke about a milkshake?”

Sarah was quiet for a second. “No way. Especially if it’s chocolate.”

Addie smiled. “Call me when you’re done for the day. I’ll meet you there.”

“And if it’s two in the morning? I mean, you mentioned twenty-four hours, and I know just the place.”

Addie looked at the clock on the wall. It was just after eight in the evening. “Doesn’t matter what time.”

“Okay.” Relief rang in Sarah’s voice. “Gotta go.”

Addie hung up the phone and stayed where she was. Her legs ached from standing for so long. Since that interview with Jake earlier, she’d spent hours pulling files from boxes. Noting case details. Trying to establish a pattern.

A white board standing on wheels the police had brought in was to her left. After she filled that she’d asked for at least four more and they’d delivered.

One board held three-by-five cards that detailed a case number for reference, and basic details like the victim’s race, manner of death, the date, and anything else she’d deemed relevant.

One board was about cause of death. Another was mapped locations of crime scenes where the bodies had been discovered. Even if she wasn’t sure the perpetrator was the same for each crime, Addie wasn’t ruling anything out by assumption. Not until she knew for sure.

The next board had witness sketches from three of the cases and everything compiled about the person who did this—the beginning of a profile. Anything and everything that might prove relevant to her solving this case.

Hank had been right that this appeared—at least at first glance—to be the work of one person. Or a small group of people. If she aligned the kills in the order they were done, it did look like someone who was gaining skill.

She’d looked at the victim he’d mentioned, Thea Ackerman. Even if she didn’t see significance she planned to start there.

“Knock, knock.”

Addie flinched around to the doorway.

“Sorry.” Russ held up both hands.

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, I was deep in thought.”

He nodded and scanned her office. The boards had been arranged in a semi-circle. Tables in the center held all the boxes in a semblance of order, but she was going to have to fix that fast or she’d lose all sense of where anything was and what it related to.

“You’ve been busy.”

She pushed off the desk and strode to the board that listed the manner of death for each victim. “Take a look at this for me. Tell me what you think it looks like.”

He met her at the board and tugged his glasses from the pocket in his shirt. Russ slipped the readers on his nose and still squinted.

He smelled so familiar, like an old ache for a lost dog. For a moment it caught her off guard.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

She ignored his question. “It keeps hitting me how fast this all happened. Seems like one minute I’m working with a task force in DC, and the next I’m back here, and nothing’s changed. Or everything has changed. I can’t figure out which.”

She’d been part of a team. Now it seemed like everything was riding on her being successful solo.

He studied the photos and reports on the board. “Bad thing?”

“Just different.”

“Work is a safety net. It’s familiar. It doesn’t matter where you do your job, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” She didn’t tell him how she might’ve made a friend. She’d never had many of those, even as the captain of the cheerleaders. At least not friends of any quality. Jake had been the best thing in her life until everything went wrong.

“What’s this?” He motioned at the crime scene and autopsy photos.

“First one was summer six years ago. She was cut up left to bleed out. Looks like slowly. Judging by what was reported by the investigating detectives.” She slid her finger to the right. “I made a timeline. Next, a couple years later, there are two more. Now we’ve gone from a blade to blunt force trauma.” It correlated with another element. “He’s got a new method to try and subdue them. Makes it messy. One he finished off with a gun. But a couple of these, I’m not even sure they’re the same guy.”

“But that one.” Russ pointed at the collection at the end. “Two years ago?”

“I think he’s trying out different methods. Experimenting. The captures are cleaner, and the manner of death is…cold.” Addie’s brain tried to connect the dots figure out some kind of pattern. “And now I think he’s started up again.”

“Okay, back up from that fact for a second.” Russ shook his head. “Why did all these get flagged?”

“I was given a lot of cases by PD. I asked for these as well, and several others. I still need to nail down what’s the same guy and what just relates in some way, but I can rule them out.”

“Okay.”

“In each autopsy, with a couple of exceptions where the death was caught up in my search for other reasons, it was noted the victim had received a bug bite prior to their death.”

“A bug bite?”

She shivered again even though she tried to stop it.

Russ turned.

“I know what you’re gonna say.”

“Do you?” He pulled off his readers. “You know me so well you know exactly what I’ll say? Seems to me like you haven’t been around much. Your sister is practically a stranger to you. I’m not much more than that.”

“Is that the reason you came here?”

Russ sighed.

“Don’t worry about it. You can go. I’ve got plenty to do.”

“Sure. Keep pushing away what’s perfectly obvious to everyone else.”

“Russ.”

“What?”

“It’s not him.” She bit the words out. “Ivan Damen is in prison where he belongs. He didn’t do this.” She waved at the boards.

“And your job is to find who did. No matter that it eats at you from the inside.” He folded his arms.

Addie closed her eyes. “You’re determined to make this as hard as possible, aren’t you?”

“You do that to yourself,” he said quietly. “Pushing away what’s real so you can pretend things are okay. You did it with your mom because it was easier to deal with her when she was gone. You’re doing it now.”

“Maybe I want to understand.” She stared at one of the victim photos. “Maybe I want to see the truth.” Of why Mom left.

“What if there’s nothing to understand. Just pure evil. That doesn’t mean it was your fault.” Russ tapped a finger on a young woman, terror in her dead eyes. “You think this was her fault?”

“Of course I’m not—” She exhaled. “I know what you’re doing.”

Addie was fully aware she had become an FBI agent to understand what she’d been through. To give a voice to the victims no one had been able to save, the way she was rescued. Addie could bring the empathy of knowing exactly what they’d felt and experienced. To help walk a victim or witness through that first step toward healing.

“It’s not a bad thing.” Russ lifted a hand. “It’s what life gave you. What the Good Lord chose for you to carry. Until you’re willing to give it to Him.”

Addie didn’t even know how to do that. Maybe she wanted to carry it. After all, it was hers and it didn’t belong to anyone else. What she’d been through made her who she was. Without it, she wasn’t sure who was left over.

“Just don’t forget that the rest of us are still here. We’ll be here.”

Addie loved that earnest, pained look on his face. She always had, even if it meant she’d disappointed him. He cared about her. As much as she tried to make herself believe she didn’t need anyone.

“You got a whole lot of work done in just a few hours,” he said. “But if you need help, I’m happy to come in.”

She lifted one brow.

“I won’t give you a hard time.” He patted the buttons on his shirt. “I think I got it out of my system.”

Addie lifted her chin. “I’ll talk to Mona. Hang out with her.”

“She needs you. And I think maybe you need her, too.”

Addie didn’t want to admit that was true, at least not out loud. “This assignment is supposed to fix something in me.”

“Maybe it will. Is that a bad thing?”

“Someone at the Bureau thinks I could be more than I am, but they think Benson is holding me back.”

“Is it?”

Ugh. His questions were infuriating. “Like everyone doesn’t have hang-ups? Does every agent have to go back to where their trauma happened and get over it so they can get promoted, or assigned somewhere good or whatever?” This made no sense—and she needed to figure out what the deal was.

Russ chuckled. “You sound like Mona.” He shook his head. “Maybe not, but if someone thinks this assignment is worth it for your career trajectory, and the PD has something on their hands—they need extra personnel with a particular skill set—then maybe it’ll be worth it in the long run. Maybe we need you to fix something in Benson.”

Addie pressed her lips together to keep from saying something she would regret.

“Spit it out, baby girl. This old man can take it.”

Maybe the point was that he shouldn’t have to, but she said it anyway. “I don’t want to get stuck here. I mean, how long is this assignment for, anyway?”

“Worried you’ll start to like it?”

Addie wasn’t worried about the location so much as her attachment to the people here. She preferred being somewhere that emotions didn’t need to be a factor. Like her entire relationship with Matt Zimmerman. It might’ve been a mistake or a diversion at best. A way to release the stress of the job. Even if she’d never admit that to Russ.

There were far too many feelings attached to the places here. The people. The church. The longer she was here, the less she’d be able to ignore that still small voice.

This case might take from her everything she’d tried to build in fifteen years. All her reserves and strength. Digging into this would break it all wide open. Instead of working past her history, she would wind up destroyed by it.

The whole assignment was going to be a nightmare.