Baldwin ran his hands through his already disheveled hair. “Remember what you said back there, about the eye being transported to Asheville rather than Fitz actually being moved around the state? They could have staged all of it, right down to the letter. If the Pretender has multiple people working for him, it might not be in his handwriting after all. And then we’re off on yet another wild-goose chase.”
“But how would the imposter get her hands on the forensics? They intercepted the SBI agents early this morning. Surely that evidence has been in safe-keeping for a few days. They found it last week.”
“Hall said the Western Branch brought everything down here for his people to process. They only have one lab for the whole state. We’ll have to see when it was logged in and who had access to it, but it’s all a waste. Nothing of use.” He slumped in his chair.
“Do you think she has a personal connection to him? A lover? Or is she just a tool, someone he met along the road? He seems to have an affinity for finding people to work with. Dial-a-Psychopath, perhaps?”
“No, this was someone close to him. Someone who wanted to impress him. I can feel it.”
Taylor took his hand. “Baldwin, are you sure? You’re not just…reacting, are you?”
The engines revved, then screamed, and they were pushed back into their seats by the force. The plane lifted off within moments, banked hard left, to the west. When it leveled out and Cici began moving about the cabin, Baldwin spoke again.
“No, Taylor, I’m not reacting. I’m being very, very careful. I’ve got Kevin Salt running a background check on the real Renee Sansom as we speak, trying to find out why she was targeted. How did she and her team come to be working on this case? Is he recruiting people? And from where? How did he arrange for the plants to be in place so quickly? This took major forethought.”
“Well, the Pretender has been off our radar for almost a year. He’s had plenty of time to lay the groundwork.”
“Yes, he did. I’ll tell you one thing. We can’t trust anyone on the outside.”
She thought about that for a moment.
“Between your team and mine, we at least have some people we can be sure of. Fitz was so evasive, I got the impression that he didn’t want to talk in front of the SBI. He must have suspected something.”
“Absolutely. He’s smart. He might have seen something, overheard something.”
“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
“He will be. It will take some time, but he will.”
They sat quietly for a few moments.
“So we’re on our own. Again,” Taylor whispered, mostly to herself.
Baldwin put an arm around her, an awkward move considering the seats were positioned so far apart.
“That’s just the way I like it,” he said.
Nine
T hat wasn’t the truth though. Baldwin didn’t like being left out in the cold, and that was exactly where he felt he was at the moment.
Taylor was staring out the window, intensely quiet. He glanced over at her, worried. She was strung much too tight. Avoidance was one of the greatest attributes in her arsenal, and she was employing it to full effect now. The events of the past week were going to catch up with her soon.
He could barely keep up with the insanity himself. The Pretender had weighed heavily on both their minds for the past year. He’d made contact for the first time after the Snow White case had blown up: a letter sent to their home. The letter stood out starkly against his mind’s eye, two lines full of threatening portent.
An apprentice no more.
You may call me the Pretender.
He’d named himself: the fundamental sociopathic tool. The ones who named themselves were so narcissistic they were almost always caught. Almost always.
The Pretender had disappeared for a while, then popped back up like a possessed jack-in-the-box. That was when the intimidation began in earnest-phone calls to their home and cell phones, more letters. He began getting involved in Taylor’s cases, always on the periphery, but always there. He’d become a malevolent presence in their lives for over a year, threatening, parading, seemingly unlimited in his access and information.
There had been more to the profile that he hadn’t shared with Renee Sansom’s imposter. They hadn’t gotten into the Pretender’s vast online network of contacts, other killers, sadists, people who lived for cruelty and discord. Posing as a necrophiliac aptly named Necro90, he’d befriended the international duo of necrosadists, Il Macellaio and the Conductor. He egged them on, planted evidence at one of the Conductor’s crime scenes, and made sure Taylor knew he’d done it to help her.
He seemed to love the control he got from manipulating others. Almost as much joy as he got from killing.
They hadn’t taken the drubbing lying down. They were fighting back the only way they knew how, with justice, with their own team, their own tools. Finding the man who was threatening his woman was paramount. And Taylor hadn’t been privy to everything Baldwin knew.
Kevin Salt, Baldwin’s computer forensics expert, had found the Pretender’s online signature and had been tracking his movements throughout the web. Kevin could follow him most anywhere; the IP addresses the Pretender used had been uncommonly consistent for the past few months. Salt documented everything, drew geographical profiles, and found the key that Baldwin was most concerned about. The physical addresses came back again and again to Nashville. The bastard was close.
His influence was spreading again-the attack on the SBI agents had taken cunning, and time. He’d obviously been recruiting people to help him; whether they knew his real plans or not, they were unknown resources.
Now he was ready. Whatever whacked-out strategy he’d been putting in motion was officially in play.
How many people would have to die for the Pretender to be satisfied?
Taylor had seen another mass attack today, and he knew she would blame herself. The Pretender was putting on a bloody show for her benefit, consistently placing the wounded around her, for her to see. Add to that her obvious but misplaced guilt over the shooting of her last suspect, and he was starting to wonder just when the dam was going to break.
He could feel it building, the sense that things were moving quicker and quicker, that the world was spinning one-tenth too fast on its axis. If he didn’t grip down, hard, he might go spinning off with it, and that wouldn’t do. No, he needed to resolve this, and keep his woman settled, too. Because if Taylor were to come undone, he didn’t know if he could stand that. Seeing her in pain made his stomach throb dully, and each time the Pretender poked at her it made his eyes blacken with rage.
The phone next to his chair buzzed discreetly. There was only one person who knew they were on this plane at this moment-his boss, Garrett Woods. Taylor glanced at him; he smiled with what he hoped seemed like reassurance as he answered the phone. “Hey, Garrett.”
“Are you headed to Nashville?”
“Yeah. Thanks for getting the chopper diverted. I’ll feel better having Fitzgerald close.”
“Sure thing. What’s happening there? Where did it all go south?”
Baldwin filled him in on what they knew so far, then asked, “Anything new from Nags Head?”
“Other than the director wanting to know why in the hell a suspended FBI agent sent up a red flag for some rather expensive help after a mass shooting?”
Baldwin groaned. “He found out?”
“Baldwin, son, the whole country knows. It’s been on all the news stations. Both you and Taylor were on camera leaving the station.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. Have you told her yet?”
“Well, no.”
