Page 14 of Zero Divergence
Royce looked around the typically immaculate space. Sawyer had spread open files across the gleaming mahogany desk in one corner of the spacious room and on the glass coffee table in the sitting area on the opposite side of the office. Along the built-in bookcases lining one wall, Sawyer had taped up copies of each victim’s driver’s license photo.
“You’re going to damage the finish on the wood,” Royce said, nodding to the bookshelves.
“I found an old roll of painter’s tape,” Sawyer countered. Bones jumped on the desk and strutted across the stacks of files. “Traitor,” Sawyer said when the big feline plopped his furry ass between Sawyer and the paperwork in his hand.
“He was worried about you. Do you know what time it is, asshole?”
Sawyer glanced over at the antique clock on the bookcase, and his eyes widened when he saw the time. “Oh, wow. It feels like I just sat down.”
“What time did you start?”
Sawyer worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “A little after eleven.”
Royce’s brows shot up. “You’ve been at this for nearly five hours already?”
“It doesn’t seem like it, but the clock doesn’t lie.”
“Well, you should almost be ready to solve the case, then.”
Sawyer snorted. Then he rose to his feet and crossed the room. “I know you don’tneedme to say this, but I will anyway. You and Marcus conducted an extensive investigation into all four deaths of those young women. The reason Humphries is free on the streets has nothing to do with your dedication or competency.”
Royce hooked an arm around Sawyer’s waist and pulled him closer. Sawyer was correct. He didn’tneedhis praise, but he liked hearing it. “Maybe you’re not that much of an asshole.”
“You’re still a ginormous dickhead,” Sawyer countered, kissing him thoroughly before pulling back and walking over to the row of photos. Royce noticed Sawyer’s range of motion and ease of movement were improving each day. “The things these women have in common are staggering. At first glance, it might not seem that way since they all have different height, weight, hair, and eye color, as well as race. Some serial rapists and killers prey on women who meet specific criteria. They choose slender brunettes with blue eyes and long, straight hair worn parted down the middle who remind them of their mothers or something.
“These victims’ similarities are in their socioeconomic statuses. All of them were poor, attending South University on scholarships, and working jobs at the school to help offset their tuition. None of them were enrolled in Humphries’s classes or were part of his mentor programs though. Still, he would’ve crossed paths with a library aid, janitorial worker, a server in the cafeteria, and the dean’s assistant numerous times. Each of them lived off-campus in low-income-housing apartments where there were no security cameras.”
Royce looked at the faces of the women Franco Humphries had raped and killed, and it felt like they were staring back at him, urging him to get justice for them. Four women who had their lives ripped away from them at the hands of a fucking monster. What made Humphries scarier was he didn’t resemble the evil predator their mothers had warned them about when they were little girls. These were mothers whose hearts Royce had shattered when he delivered the news that their daughters were murdered. He would carry their broken sobs in his heart for the rest of his life.
Humphries was the exact opposite of the sadistic killers portrayed in movies and on television. He was handsome, highly educated, well-spoken, and used his charisma to disarm people. As a licensed psychologist, he knew how to manipulate people in a way they couldn’t see coming until it was too late. As a professor, his access to young, impressionable minds was limitless.
“He keeps a Venus flytrap in his office,” Royce said softly. “How fitting.”
“Who? Humphries?” Sawyer asked.
“Yeah. I noticed it when we interviewed Humphries after Harper Thompson’s murder.” Royce tapped the photo of the fresh-faced African American woman who died a week before her twenty-first birthday. Even in her state-issued ID, you could see the dreamer in her dark eyes. “Harper was an inspiring writer with big plans for her future. Her mother Emma gave me a poem Harper had written. It was titledMetamorphosisand compared going off to college to a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly. I keep it in my locker at the precinct to remind myself why I do this job.” He would cherish the poem for the rest of his life.
“Harper was his second victim, right? You didn’t interview him after the first college coed died?” Sawyer asked.
“All the ladies lived off-campus, so when we discovered Abigail, we focused on the men she came in direct contact with at the school,” Royce said after a brief pause.
Royce shifted his focus to Abigail Madison’s smiling face. She was Humphries’s first victim, and at eighteen years old, she was also his youngest. Abby was blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and barely weighed a hundred pounds. She would’ve been no match for the tall, fit man who was more than twice her size.
“She loved children and wanted to become an elementary school teacher. From everything I learned about Abby, it would’ve been a perfect fit for her.”
“We’re going to nail him, Ro,” Sawyer vowed. “Tell me about the other two women.”
“Christina Delmar was his third and oldest victim. She’d led a pretty hard life and hadn’t started college until she turned twenty-two.” The redhead with the amber eyes stared back at him from the picture taped to the bookshelf. “Her father died when she was twelve, and her mother struggled financially, working two or three jobs to pay the bills. Christi fell in with the wrong crowd in her early teens, got into drugs, and dropped out of school. She took off for the West Coast when she was seventeen to pursue a music career. She eventually got tired of living out of a VW bus and called her mother for bus fare home. She got clean, obtained her GED, and enrolled in college classes. She died a week before graduation.” Royce paused for a minute. “After interviewing Christi’s friends and family, I realized we were dealing with someone more skilled than the average serial killer. She was cynical, cautious, and harbored a great mistrust of men, yet she opened her front door for him to walk right in. I know most serial killers are highly intelligent, but smarts alone wouldn’t have been enough to lower Christi’s guard.”
“Is that when you started to suspect Humphries?”
Royce nodded, staring at Christi’s picture until it started to blur. “I remembered the Venus flytrap in his office and the psychology degree on the wall along with framed published articles he’d written. Humphries had the demeanor of a psychologist—soft-spoken, patient, and comforting. He said the right things, and he acted the way a concerned professor would about students being raped and murdered in their beds, but there was just something about him I couldn’t ignore. He was too…perfect.”
“Tell me about Tara Riker,” Sawyer said. “The crime scenes from the first three murders were identical except for the victims. There were no signs of a struggle and no bruising or abrasions around their wrists or ankles. According to the ME reports, the only bruising was from the ligature marks around their necks when he strangled them with their bras. The women had either consented to have their wrists and ankles bound, or they were drugged with something that had already faded by the time their bodies were discovered. GHB only stays in the systems for twelve hours. Tara’s crime scene was very different. Why?”
Royce ran a hand over his face, mentally recalling every minute detail about her scene. Tara’s right foot had been severely bruised, and she’d broken two toes when she repeatedly kicked and tried to fight off her attacker. The ligature marks cut deeply into her wrists and the one ankle still attached to the bed from her attempts to get loose. Her face was covered in contusions, and she had a bloody lip.
“Tara was more of a fighter than a dreamer, I think. She was a former standout athlete at her high school, playing field hockey and basketball, and was a criminal justice major. She had grit. With the first three murders, maybe Humphries convinced them he’d let them go if they were good. They might’ve been too traumatized to react. Everyone acts differently when faced with a dangerous situation. Honestly, the biggest difference between her assault and the other three was Tara’s footboard breaking, which freed her right ankle and allowed her to fight back. The first three didn’t get the chance.”