Page 30 of Unbearable
“Are you? In the market for a new doctor?” she teased.
“Not really. No.” He found his smile matching hers. That was the thing about Bailey, he never felt anything but happiness from her. It was another world from Brooke, and it was becoming a problem. “Though, you never know. How old did you say?”
She laughed, and in that moment, all was right with his world.
CHAPTER 11
“Burning the midnight oil?”Knox said, stepping into the incident room. Dover had been standing at the front of the room staring at the boards for the last half hour. Everyone else had already headed home. There wasn’t anything more they could do today, but she just couldn’t bear to leave. There had to be more, if she could just see it.
“How did you get up here?” she asked without turning around.
“Charm,” he answered. “Works every time.”
“My credentials might have had a little something to do with it too,” another voice said. This time she turned around to find her brother-in-law, a GQ-worthy man with cheekbones that could cut glass standing next to Knox.
“Should have known it was the G-man brother-in-law,” she said.
“That sounds ominous. You know you shouldn’t believe everything he tells you.”
“I’ve figured that out, yeah. What I don’t understand is why he thought we needed a fed just to follow my brother’s no-account girlfriend around. I mean, I don’t think she’s deadly.”
“You don’t know that. Besides, I’m just trying to keep it in the family. He could use some time away from our sister anyway. A sort of impromptu vacation.” She noticed the smirk Dex fired at Knox.
Somehow, she doubted anything involving Knox turned out to be a vacation. From the stories he had been telling her, death and destruction followed in his path.
“Don’t let the fancy clothes fool you, he’s good at his job,” he continued.
“You’re going to spoil me being this nice,” Dex said, smoothing away the nonexistent wrinkles in his starched polo shirt.
“Saved my ass a time or two also.”
“Now you’re just gushing.”
Dover watched as the two men sparred good-naturedly. She wondered if the entire family was nuts or if she had just drawn the crazy ones. It made her curious to see what the rest of her siblings were like.
“Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you,” Dex said, motioning to the whiteboards.
“Yeah, we could use a break,” she agreed. “No one remembers seeing these guys downtown, but the bar scene gets pretty hectic on the weekends. There’s something here, I just can’t see it.”
“Do you mind telling me what you do have? Sometimes it helps me to talk through the evidence.”
“Sure, it’s worth a try. Death was by manual strangulation with some sort of belt. All of the victims were staged at private school athletic fields,” she said. “A religious medal on each body. All the bodies were nude.”
“The St. Matthew medal is interesting. There’s a lot to unpack. Does he crave power? Control? Are they sexually motivated?”
“Sean…I mean, the medical examiner found no trace of sexual assault.”
“Okay, I would wager there is a sexual element somewhere though. What does the private school mean? Is there a socioeconomic meaning?” Dover watched as Dex trolled over the boards expressing his thoughts. “Did he attend one of the schools. Is he Catholic, or is that a red herring?”
“One of the schools is Episcopal, so I don’t think he’s necessarily Catholic,” she said.
“I know St. Matthew is the patron saint of the money lenders. I have quite a few of my students who are on scholarship. They’re brilliant, they just don’t have the funds,” Knox said, taking a seat.
“That’s true. Did something happen to him at a private school? Was he bullied? He’s comfortable moving around them. I assume there’s not great CCTV coverage of the fields.”
“Not really. Danny sent what we could get to tech, but they haven’t found anything.”
“It’s a good guess he didn’t start with these three. He had to have worked up to this. So what was his first kill? I would look through records for any other offenses within the private school community.”