“She half enclosed me with her arms She pressed me with a weak embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face. ’Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly ’twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart.”
Taylor could hear what sounded like paper being brushed against the phone. She envisioned Baldwin raking his hand through his hair.
“That’s what we found at the motel room where Christina Dale was killed. But you said ‘The Flea’ came in last night?”
“I have to pull it up and double-check the time stamp, but it came in sometime after Quinn and I left Whitney’s house yesterday evening. I take it you didn’t have any missing persons reports when you left Asheville?”
“No, we didn’t. But if this follows the pattern, he has taken another girl. Dammit, this guy’s on overdrive. I better get the word to Grimes, but we can’t be absolutely sure he struck in Asheville. Of course, he could have taken someone that no one’s missed yet. Listen, I’ve got a meeting as soon as I get into town. I’ve got to talk to the CEO of the company that owns some of the hospitals where three of the girls were employed. It’s called Health Partners, he’s going to go over some of the-”
“What did you say?”
“I’m meeting with the CEO of Health Partners,” he said, and he could hear Taylor’s breath quicken. She spoke softly.
“Baldwin, Quinn Buckley’s husband works for Health Partners. He’s a big time VP. There has to be a connection there, that’s got to be what Whitney Connolly found out. You don’t think…”
“He’s a vice president, you say? I bet he does some traveling. Let’s get together before I go over there. Can you meet me at your office? I’ll be there in less than thirty minutes.”
“Hurry, Baldwin.”
Thirty-Four
H e flashed by the car with the FBI agent in it. How funny was that? Here the man was looking all over the Southeast for him, yet if he had looked to his left, just for that one moment, he would have seen the grinning visage of the man he was trying to find. Such a pity really, they just didn’t have a clue what he was up to.
He’d been watching the tall man from the FBI. He’d seen him stand quietly over Christina’s body, seething, wondering. He wouldn’t need to wonder much more. It was nearly time.
He wrinkled his nose. The smell in the car was getting worse. He was going to have to give his car a bath. Clean out the trunk, too, that was for sure, get some fresh ice for the cooler. It was a good thing that he had tinted windows, the look on his face must have been enough to cause some stares. There was always the bag on the floorboards in the back seat. A relatively nondescript leather bag, it was the contents that would get the tongues wagging.
The man smiled. This was going too well. He only had one more to go, then it was time for his triumphant return to watch the fireworks from the safety of his own home. He just hoped she was getting the picture at last. He knew how smart she was. This would make everything right.
Thirty-Five
Taylor sat at her desk, tapping her fingers on the bleached wood. Where the hell was Baldwin? She had caught his excitement over the phone and had been trying to go through the case herself. She was lacking the details, and the frustration mounted. She wanted to be out there chasing the killer rather than sitting in her office. She knew she’d helped, but damn, it would be great to be out there, gun in hand, stalking the stalker.
Lincoln and Marcus came into Taylor’s office, interrupting her fantasy of shooting the bastard between the eyes. She started and smiled at them. For at least an hour, she’d forgotten all about Betsy Garrison and the Rainman case. She tried to play it off.
“Hi, guys. Good timing. Did you catch me a rapist?”
“Would that it was so easy to woo me, lady, simply drop a bad man in her lap and call him rapist.” Lincoln gave her a smile through his pidgin Shakespearean answer.
“I take it that’s a no?”
“It’s a no. The print you lifted belonged to Brian Post. So that was a dead end. Marcus and I have been going through all the personnel files from the area, looking for a cop who lives in the general vicinity that would go to those stores and that gym. We also asked around about the gym, and there are a few guys that go there. Problem is, none of them match the description of the cop that the latest victim is giving. And we talked to Betsy, and she can tell us for sure that it isn’t any of these guys. She’s familiar enough with them that she really didn’t think they were worth looking at any further.”
Taylor nodded to the chairs in front of her desk, indicating that they should sit. They did and she leaned back in her own chair.
“Marcus, what do you think? Do you think it’s a cop?”
“No, I don’t. At least not one of Metro’s. Now, it’s possible that she got the uniform or the car wrong, that it belongs to a Williamson County cop or something like that. We don’t have the right to go into their files as of yet. We did go through the victim’s background a little bit. She has a collar for resisting arrest and a DUI. I’m just wondering if she’s fingering the cop that arrested her during her DUI, whether consciously or subconsciously. She has a restraining order filed against a guy named Edward Hunt. Thought we’d have a chat with him, as well. See if maybe he’s been hanging around. Maybe she’s just seeing things. Rape’s traumatic enough. Anyway, it would be nice to get the DNA back from the TBI, but I suppose that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
“Well, sounds like you have a plan, then. Go bug the TBI, see if they can help. I’m going to be working with Baldwin for the rest of the day, but I’ll have my phone if you need me.”
They both looked at her but shrugged. It was her prerogative if she wanted to work off the reservation for an afternoon. They went on their way and Taylor opened Whitney Connolly’s laptop, clicking on the button that took her into the dead woman’s e-mail. There was nothing new, so Taylor got out of the program and started trolling through files until one caught her eye. Whitney had a file marked “Notes” that was dated the day she died. It had last been accessed that very morning.
Taylor opened the folder and saw a jumble of remarks and annotations. Whitney took notes on the computer in modified shorthand that would make more sense to a teenager text messaging her best friend. It was garbled and words were shortened, but she saw the six poems in their entirety with the postscripts, and the letter Q appeared several times. There were a few QJB entries, which she assumed stood for Quinn and Jake Buckley. But the rest was too garbled for her to make sense of. She knew some journalists took notes in a proprietary way so no one could steal their work, and it was obvious that Whitney was one of them.
She closed that file and started going through others. They were almost all in her peculiar shorthand. Better to wait and let Baldwin or one of Whitney’s workmates figure it out.
Just as she thought of him, Baldwin appeared in her doorway as if she’d conjured him up from the dark recesses of her mind. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him. Taylor got out from behind the desk and gestured for him to come in and close the door. He did, and she put her arms around him, drawing him into a hug.
Baldwin gave Taylor a deep kiss, one that she returned almost gratefully. He could sense that something was off, something had been off for a few days now, but he thought he knew her well enough to know that she’d talk to him about it when she was ready. In the meantime, he needed to find out if there was another victim out there.
Taylor broke off the kiss and gave him a smile, running her hand along the back of his neck in a way that made him want to forget all about the case and take her right there on the table. But she stopped, smiled a
