“Sure. I’ll be there.”
“I’ll see you in an hour.”
This was it. After years of sitting behind a desk in Cleveland and profiling killers from afar, this was his chance to prove himself and join the real hunters. So why did he feel sick to his stomach?
Tully made his way back to his daughter and her friend, anticipating her disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Emma, I’ve got to leave.”
Immediately, her eyes grew dark, her smile slid off her face.
“Josh, did you say you were here with your mom?”
“Yeah, she’s getting us popcorn.” He pointed to an attractive redhead in the line. When she noticed Josh pointing, she smiled at him and shrugged at the stagnant line in front of her.
“Josh, Emma, would you mind if I ask Josh’s mom if Emma could join you for the movie?” Tully steeled himself for his daughter’s panic and horror.
“No, that would be cool,” Josh said without hesitating, and Emma immediately seemed pleased.
“Sure, Dad,” she said.
Tully wondered if she knew how cool she was pretending to be right now.
When he introduced himself to Jennifer Reynolds, she also seemed pleased to help him out. He offered to repay her another night by treating all of them to another movie. Then he kicked himself when he noticed her wedding band. But Jennifer Reynolds accepted his offer without hesitation, and with a flirtatious look that even an out-of-practice, newly single guy didn’t need to decipher. Despite his curiosity, he couldn’t help feeling a bit excited.
He smiled all the way to his car, greeting people in the parking lot and jingling his car keys. The evening was still warm and the moon promised to be brilliant despite wisps of clouds. He slid behind the steering wheel and checked his reflection in the rearview mirror, as though he had forgotten the configuration of his face when it was happy. What an unusual feeling, happiness and excitement, and all in the same evening. Two things he hadn’t felt in years, though he knew both would be short-lived. He drove out of the theater’s parking lot feeling he could take on anything and anyone. Maybe even Albert Stucky.
CHAPTER 11
Tully followed Cunningham’s directions and turned at the intersection. Immediately, he saw spotlights in the back alley of a small strip mall. Police cruisers blocked the street, and Tully pulled up beside one, flashed his badge and drove through the maze. He tried to take a lesson from his daughter’s new friend Josh by pretending to be cool. Fact was, his stomach felt hollow and perspiration slid down his back.
Tully had seen plenty of crime scenes, severed limbs, bloodied walls, mutilated bodies and sick, disgusting killer signatures that ranged from a single long-stemmed rose to a decapitated corpse. But all those scenes, up until now, had been only in photographs, digital scans and illustrations sent to him at the FBI Cleveland Field Office. He had become one of the Midwest’s experts in developing precise criminal profiles from the bits and pieces law enforcement officers sent him. It was his accuracy that had prompted Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham to offer Tully a position at Quantico in the Investigative Support Unit. In one phone call and without ever having met him, Cunningham had offered Tully a chance to work out in the field, starting with the hunt for one of the FBI’s most infamous fugitives—Albert Stucky.
Tully knew Cunningham had been forced to dismantle the task force after months of nothing to show for their time and expense. He also knew he owed his good fortune to the agent he had replaced, an agent who had been temporarily assigned to teaching at law enforcement conferences. Without much digging, he discovered the agent was Margaret O’Dell, whom he had never met but knew by reputation. She was one of the youngest and one of the best profilers in the country.
The unofficial word was that O’Dell had burned out and needed a break. Rumors suggested that she had lost her edge, that she was combative and reckless, that she had become paranoid and obsessed with recapturing Albert Stucky. Of course, there were also rumors that Assistant Director Cunningham had sidelined Margaret O’Dell to protect her from Stucky. The two had played a dangerous game of cat and mouse about eight months ago that had eventually led to Stucky’s capture, but only after he had tortured and almost killed O’Dell. Now after months of studying, searching and waiting, Tully would finally meet the man nicknamed The Collector, if only through his handiwork.
Tully pulled the car as close to the barricades as he could. Cunningham jumped out before Tully had it in park. He almost forgot to turn off the lights. He noticed his palms were sweaty when he pulled the key from the ignition. His legs seemed stiff, his knee suddenly reminding him of an old injury as he hurried to catch up with his boss. Tully stood four inches taller than the assistant director, and his strides were long, yet it took an effort to keep up. He guessed Cunningham to be at least ten years his senior, but the man had a lean, athletic body, and Tully had witnessed him bench-pressing twice the weight the academy recruits started at.
“Where is she?” Cunningham wasted no time asking a police detective who looked to be in charge.
“She’s still in the Dumpster. We haven’t moved a thing, except the pizza box.”
The detective had a neck as thick as a linebacker’s and the seams of his sports jacket bulged. He was treating this like an everyday traffic check. Tully wondered which big city the detective had come from, because he definitely had developed his no-nonsense manner somewhere other than Newburgh Heights. He and the assistant director seemed to know one another and took no time for introductions.
“Where is the pizza box?” Cunningham wanted to know.
“Officer McClusky gave it to the doc. The kid who found it sorta dropped it, and the stuff got all jostled.”
Suddenly the smell of stale pizza and the sounds of police radios made Tully’s head hurt. During the drive, the adrenaline had pumped him into action. Now the reality was a bit overwhelming. He ran unsteady fingers through his hair. Okay, this couldn’t be that much different than looking at photos. He could do this, and he ignored the recurring nausea as he followed his boss to the Dumpster where three uniformed officers stood guard. Even the officers stood a good ten feet away to avoid the stench.
The first thing Tully noticed was the young woman’s long blond hair. Immediately, he thought of Emma. He could see over the Dumpster’s edge easily, but waited as Cunningham pulled up a crate. His boss’s face remained emotionless.
Though covered in garbage, Tully could tell the woman had been young, not much older than Emma. And she had been beautiful. Discarded lettuce and spoiled tomatoes clung to her naked breasts. The rest of her was buried in garbage, but Tully saw glimpses of thigh, and then realized she wore only a blue baseball cap. He could also see that her throat had been slashed from ear to ear, and there was an open wound in her side, almost at her lower back. But that was all. There were no severed limbs, no bloody mutilation. He wasn’t sure what he had expected.
“She looks like she’s in one piece,” Cunningham said as though reading Tully’s thoughts. He stepped off the crate and then addressed the detective again. “What was in the box?”
“Not sure. Looked like a bloody glob to me. Doc can probably tell you. He’s over in the van.”
He pointed to a dusty silver van marked with the Stafford County emblem on the side. The doors were open and a distinguished gray-haired man in a well-pressed suit sat in the back with a clipboard.
“Doc, these gentlemen from the FBI need to see that special delivery.”
The detective turned and started to leave just as a media van pulled into an adjacent parking lot.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. Looks like the zoo visitors have arrived.”
Cunningham stepped up into the van, and Tully followed, though it seemed crowded with the three of them. Or was Tully the only one having problems breathing? Already he could smell the contents of the box, which sat in the middle of the floor. He sat on one of the benches before his stomach started to churn.
“Hello, Frank.” Assistant Director Cunningham knew the medical examiner, too. “This is Special Agent R. J. Tully. Agent Tully, Dr. Frank Holmes, deputy chief medical examiner for Stafford County.”
“I don’t know if this is your man, Kyle, but when Detective Rosen called me, he seemed to think you might be interested.”
“Rosen worked in Boston when Stucky kidnapped Councilwoman Brenda Carson.”
