The 7th Victim

Cynthia Arnot, of what she had. While she was on the line, the email vanished from her inbox.

“It’s gone?” Cynthia asked.

“Gone,” Vail said, furiously scrolling through her Outlook inbox. “Like it was never there. All my other messages are there, but this one just . . . disappeared.”

“Check your Deleted Items folder. Maybe you accidentally deleted it.”

“I didn’t delete it, Cynthia.” Nonetheless, Vail clicked to the folder. “Not there.”

If she’d been able to retain the email, they could’ve gone into the originating server, tracked the routing information, and traced it using digital clues largely unknown or poorly understood by the average computer user. The offender may think he’s smart; the Bureau’s experts were often smarter. But without the message. . . .

“I did get a screen shot of it.”

“Very good, Karen. Send it over, let us take a look at it.”

“I’m not losing my mind. I didn’t delete it. Could it be some kind of virus?”

“Not likely. But there is some interesting stuff out there that can make messages unprintable, make them self-destruct, allow them to spy on your movements and passwords—”

“This isn’t just spyware, Cynthia. I’m working Dead Eyes. I’ve got reason to believe this message was from the offender. This could be huge.”

“We’ll do our best. Meantime, shut it down and unplug the PC. I’ll send someone over to get it, we’ll need to go through the hard drive. Just because a message is deleted doesn’t mean we can’t pull traces of it off the disk. But it’ll take a while.”

Vail glanced at the clock and realized OPR would be arriving soon. “Would it help to tell you we don’t have a while?”

“Nope.”

Vail leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Didn’t think so.”

“OKAY, LISTEN UP,” Bledsoe said as they walked through the door to the op center. “I hope everyone made good use of the hour off, because we’ve got more work to do. More legwork and more brain-work. I know you’re all tired. So am I.” He ripped open a box of Danish and set them on the table in front of him. “Before we get started on the new vic, I want an update on all our loose ends. This thing is threatening to get away from us real fast, and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The detectives and Hancock took their seats. Vail’s chair was conspicuously empty.

“What about Karen?” Sinclair asked.

Bledsoe stood in front of the whiteboard at the short end of the living room. “We go on without her. I’ll brief her later.” He pulled the cap off a marker and wrote “Dental patient lists.”

“Sin, you’re first up.”

“Right. Vic worked for three dentists. I’ve gotten patient lists from each of them and have someone at my office crunching the names. No correlations so far, but they’re not done yet. I had them start with the most recent two years.”

Bledsoe made a couple of notes on the board. “Good. Hernandez, you were doing the employee lists.”

“Still gathering info. But I’ve got a few things I’m working on. Hits on three registered sex offenders. I’m running their sheets and talking to co-workers. I’ve got appointments with the personnel managers to correlate work shifts, days off, days called in sick, and so on.”

“Interviews with victim families, friends, neighbors . . . we’re all doing that. Anybody still have open appointments?”

“I’ve got one parent to follow up with,” Manette said. “Parents are divorced, father’s out of town.”

Bledsoe made some notes on the whiteboard, then recapped the marker. “Ex-cons with facial disfigurements? Who’s got that?”

“Mine,” Sinclair said. “Had thirty-five to choose from. I’ve still got a dozen to get through, but so far it’s a dead end. A few are dead, six or seven are in the slammer again, and the rest had solid alibis.”

“Anything on the massage therapy angle?”

“Nothing,” Sinclair said.

“I got myself a free massage from a major hunk,” Manette said.

“I’m happy for you,” Bledsoe said. “I owe all of you the soil analysis on Sandra Franks’s place. Lab said it was all native to the area, mainly from the vic’s backyard.” He tossed his marker on the desk in front of him. “Make sure Vail gets your VICAP forms so she can correlate all the victimologies. Maybe there’s something in there.”

Manette snorted. “That’d be real helpful, seeing as we got dick right now.”

“Oh,” Bledsoe said. “Something else on Franks. Autopsy and x-rays showed antemortem bruising on her right cheek as well as a broken nose. Appears the UNSUB punched her.”

Robby leaned forward. “That’s new. Maybe something tipped her off and she and the UNSUB got into it. She was into working out, maybe she fought back and landed a good shot. Any defensive wounds?”

Bledsoe consulted a pad in front of him. “No, but the left hand is missing. If she punched him with her left hand, there’s no way to know.” He turned the page. “And she is—was lefty.”

“So maybe our offender has a big, ugly bruise on his face,” Sinclair said.

Bledsoe pursed his lips. “Without any suspects, I’m not sure that helps us. Makeup can hide shit like that, and in a few days it’ll be gone.” He tossed down the pad. “Okay, keep your same assignments for today’s vic, Denise Cranston. Anything else?” With everyone remaining silent, Bledsoe said, “Let’s get back at it.”

twenty-eight

He stood beside the potter’s wheel, watching the blonde place her hands on the wet clay. The last of the other students had just left, the door clicking shut behind him. The studio was quiet, except for the hum of fluorescent lights.

The blonde looked up at him with round, sapphire blue eyes. “Can you help me with this?”

He hesitated for a second. If only you knew, bitch, if only you knew. He put on his best smile, the one he used for his students, and said, “Sure.”

She was new; this was only her second class, and he’d already covered the nuts and bolts of modeling, painting, and firing . . . the usual beginner’s course. He liked to hit the basics as fast as he could, then let them get their hands on the clay, because there was simply no substitute for feeling the slippery stuff slither between your fingers. He always tried to gauge his students’ artistic abilities by their reaction to the consistency of the clay. What they did with it once they got their hands on it told him a great deal about them.

This one liked the clay’s cold wetness; he could tell that. But as to her ability . . . he didn’t think there was much promise. But she wanted to stay after class to try the wheel, which surprised him.

It’s amazing, really, how trusting some people are. Especially the bitches. They think they’re immune to all the bad things that can happen. They go places alone at night, the supermarket or the ATM, thinking they’re safe. Thinking that nothing will happen to them. Are they just dumb, or so convinced of their immortality that they can’t allow themselves to believe they could be the next victim?

Oh, some are, indeed, afraid to go out. He’d seen the news reports, read the papers. Experts advising single women to go places in groups. To avoid high-risk areas—as if he preyed in high-risk areas! —and to be aware of their surroundings. Yeah, that sage advice would do them a lot of good when he’s standing at their front door in a suit holding up his FBI badge and asking for assistance.

He stood behind the blonde bitch, the sweet peppermint scent of her shampoo whispering across his nostrils. He sniffed deeply, enjoying the smell. He looked at her left hand, at the diamond ring on her finger. Such an unimaginative setting. Plain vanilla. Probably what she would produce with the clay. Not art, but something only marginally better than a gaudy, imperfect piece later tossed in the garbage—or the equivalent, sold in a garage sale for fifty cents. His impressions about her creative ability were suddenly reinforced.

But more important than the horrid design of the ring was the fact that she was married. And blonde. With blue eyes. Clear eyes that reminded him of the sky.

He leaned into her, his arms extending out alongside hers, then took her hands in his. The wheel was spinning, the clay a lump of formless material. He asked her if she realized the power she held in her hands. “To