Page 19 of Scorched (Killer #2)
Paul strode through the office, heels hitting hard on the tiled floor. “Mel? You here?”
Mel’s head popped up over the top of her cubicle. “I’m here, though I’d rather be out of this stuffy office. Whatcha got?”
“In my office, ASAP.” He paced behind his desk until Mel closed the door.
She stood with her shoulders back, her hands crossed at the small of her back in a perfect parade rest. “What happened, boss?”
“Whoever left Elise that note, broke into her home and wrote another across the wall in her bedroom.”
“Shoot.” Mel let out a long breath. “The woman could use some better locks.”
“I need you out there as soon as possible to collect any evidence you can find. And get a locksmith. I want all the doors on her house rekeyed. ”
“I should get hold of Joe in Forensics.”
“No, I promised her we wouldn’t get more people involved than we already have. She’s expecting you and the sooner you’re out there, the better I’ll feel.”
“Gotcha.” Mel dug a small steno pad out of her back jeans pocket. “I spent my day out in Breuer as well, interviewing the first victim’s friends and family. It seems Lauren Alice Pendley worked in the high school cafeteria as a lunch lady. She quit just a month ago to go to work at the pharmacy.”
“Elise’s high school?”
Mel nodded. “One and the same.”
“I think I need to spend more time on campus.”
“On campus in general, or with Elise in particular?” Mel’s smile came and went with the searing glare Paul aimed her way. “Anything else, boss?”
“Yeah, keep an eye open for a Hispanic teen about six feet tall. Caesar Valdez. He threatened Elise in school today and I think he was also responsible for throwing a brick at her car windshield.”
“Think our Alice Klaus has enough people gunning for her?” Mel shook her head. “And here I thought you were just out enjoying the cool hill-country weather.”
Paul ran a hand through his hair, his shoulders tense, the muscles screaming for the release of a good workout.
And maybe a workout would help him clear his mind and body of the feeling of Elise’s lips on his, her body pressed to him.
He really needed to clear his mind of her.
If he hurried through the paperwork, he might get in a run before dark. “She’s scared, Mel. Go easy on her.”
“You don’t have to tell me, Paul. I can just imagine. Seems like the world is gangin’ up on her.”
“Tread lightly around the kids, too. The oldest boy knows about his father.”
Mel sucked air past her clamped teeth. “That’s a darn shame. Gotta be a blow to the kid to know that much.”
“Yeah.” Paul frowned at Mel. “When did you start talking like a Texan?”
Mel shrugged. “It grows on you.”
He glared at her. “Quit it, it doesn’t sound right on someone from the east coast.”
“You might not like Texas, but I plan on staying here as long as the Bureau lets me.” She hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and rocked back on her cowboy boot heels.
Paul shook his head. “Go on. I don’t like Elise being without protection too long.”
“You kinda like her, don’t you?”
Paul jerked his thumb toward the door. “Get the hell out of here, will ya?” As soon as Mel closed the door behind her, Paul stared down at his desk.
A neat stack of papers sat in the middle with a note on top from Agent Cain. Assignment complete. Next?
He rose to check Trevor’s desk. The man wasn’t there, the desk was clean and the pencils neatly standing in a coffee mug. What did he expect that every agent in the office should work overtime every night like him ?
“He’s been gone most of the day.” Alvarez walked up behind Paul.
“Working the fraud case?” Paul held out his hand to Agent Alvarez.
Alvarez shook his hand and nodded toward Cain’s empty desk.
“That’s what I thought, but I called one of the witnesses he was supposed to talk to today and he hadn’t seen him.
I called some of the others Cain was supposed to have checked with and they all said the same thing. Did you give him an alternate mission?”
“No.” He’d have to talk with Cain first thing in the morning. Paul sighed. He really needed to spend more time with the man and either mentor or transfer him. Cain obviously had an issue with his new boss and assignments.
The cell phone clipped to his belt buzzed. “Fletcher.”
“We found Mary Alice.” Sheriff Engel’s voice came across the line old and tired.
Paul scrubbed a hand over his face, his chest constricting, making it hard for him to breathe. “Where?”
“Same river, different bridge. And the body’s fresh.” The sheriff called out orders, his voice muffled by a hand over the receiver. “He’s getting sloppy.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s not dark yet and we have a witness who may have seen the vehicle drive away.”
“Yeah? Did they get a make and model?”
“Not a make and model, but he said a dark SUV, either black or navy blue, entered the highway from the access road beside the river bridge around five-thirty this afternoon.”
“Did they get a license plate?”
“No.” The sheriff paused. “Does the FBI have anything they want to share about this case? What about the idea you suggested about this being a copycat of the Dakota Strangler? Anything new in that department?”
“As a matter of fact, I was just about to call you. I need a favor.”
After the sheriff agreed to keep Elise’s identity secret, Paul filled him in on the notes and the writing on the wall.
“Agent Fletcher, you know I’ll have to see it,” Sheriff Engel said.
“I know. I have Agent Bradley on her way out to collect the evidence. I’ll have her let you in.”
“If it helps, I’ll swing by my house, change into plain clothes and then head over to Ms. Johnson’s.”
“Thanks, Sheriff.” Paul agreed to meet with him the following day to compare notes and clues. In the meantime, he had duties as the head of the regional office to complete before he returned to Breuer.
He hung up and called his buddy, Agent Nick Tarver.
“I was about to call you.” Nick didn’t bother with pleasantries. It wasn’t his style.
Paul grinned. “Good to hear from you, too.”
“I didn’t find anything. No John Does, Smiths or Jones checked into any hospitals downstream of the flooding with burn wounds or smoke inhalation during the six weeks following the flood two years ago.”
“What about the hospitals within a 200-mile radius?”
“Checked them. No one fitting his description. No unidentified patients, no one in a coma with burns or smoke inhalation there either.”
“Nobody, no patient lying in a hospital. Nothing,” Paul voiced his thoughts aloud.
“You got it.”
“This guy has to be a copycat.”
“Agreed. Brenna checked out the local library of all the books written that mention the Dakota Strangler. Each of them details how the victim was strangled and tied up with an Ethernet cable.”
“Yeah, but the Dakota Strangler strangled his victims with the cable, then tied them with the murder weapon.”
“This guy didn’t?”
“The first victim was strangled, the coroner thinks with an arm around her throat. No signs of the cable around her throat. Then she was bound at the hands and feet and tossed into the Guadalupe River.”
Nick heaved a sigh. “Not quite the same.”
“Which could mean something or nothing. It’s been two years.
If Stan Klaus is still alive, he might have changed his method.
Then again, if it’s a copycat, how did he find out Elise Johnson is really Alice Klaus?
” Paul paused to breathe. “Hell, I didn’t even know who she was and where she’d relocated until you and Brenna called. ”
“Any chance the kids inadvertently let it slip?”
Paul hesitated. Brandon knew his father had killed. “Maybe. But to whom? They go to elementary school. So far, the victims have all had some connection to the high school in some way.”
“How big is Breuer?”
“Just under ten thousand people.”
“A small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business?”
“Not quite. Most of the people who live here in the hill country commute to San Antonio. It’s like a really large suburb of the city.”
“Still, word could have gotten around.”
Paul didn’t like the idea of questioning Brandon, but he had to follow all the leads. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
He ended the call and had just set his cell phone down when it rang again. The name on the caller ID made him pick up. “What’s wrong, Elise?”
“I got a call from him.”
The tone of Elise’s voice told Paul all he needed to know about who “him” was.
Paul gripped the phone hard. “Tell me.”
Elise busied herself with getting the boys through homework and their nightly routine.
She didn’t want to slow down long enough to think about what the killer had said, nor did she want to relive the scream she’d heard in the background.
She’d probably hear that scream echoing in her nightmares for the rest of her life.
Promptly at eight-thirty, she had Luke and Brandon bathed and tucked into their beds, forcing herself to take the time to read a story to them, when all she wanted was to run screaming through the house.
Normalcy was what they needed in their lives.
Normalcy was what she prayed for every day, though her prayers had gone unanswered.
Agent Melissa Bradley had called thirty minutes earlier to say she’d be there around eight forty-five with the sheriff.
The entire time Elise read to her boys, her thoughts strayed to that phone call and anger surged through her veins. Surged and ebbed away and surged again.
She knew she had to tell the police about the notes and the phone call, but still Elise couldn’t help dreading the exposure of her and her children to the scrutiny of the police and, ultimately the press.
Elise leaned over Brandon and kissed his forehead. Nowadays, he only let her kiss him when he was sleeping. Kissing was for babies, and Brandon was the man of the house. She’d told him so and he’d taken his responsibilities seriously.