“So you can assume the assailant is older, more patient. He’s able to blend in around town. He wants to be in control. He’s methodical. Prepared.”
Jeffrey wanted her to be wrong, because that type of assailant was the hardest to find.
He asked, “Did you smell bleach on Beckey?”
“No.” Sara paused, thinking. “What does that mean to you, that five months ago with Tommi, the attacker brought a hammer and the rag with bleach, but yesterday, with Beckey, he used a hammer and probably wiped her down with something unscented?”
“He’s altering his M.O., learning how to get better.” Jeffrey couldn’t consider the ramifications for the town. “What about the Gatorade?”
“Blue,” Sara said. “The undigested food blocking Beckey’s throat had a blue color consistent with Gatorade.”
“So did her vomit.” Jeffrey had thrown away his shirt and pants. He needed to get them out of the trash in case they were needed as evidence. “There must’ve been a drug in the drink.”
“Rohypnol? GHB?” Sara guessed. “He wanted her to be immobilized. Either one of those drugs would cause loss of muscle control, drowsiness, memory loss, a sense of euphoria.”
“Date-rape drugs,” he said, because he worked in a campus town and he was very familiar with the substances. “The attacker told her to keep her eyes open. He wanted her to know what he was doing, but he didn’t want her to stop it.”
“Drugging her would take away her awareness. Tommi said he waited for her to wake up in the woods. I’m certain she was still slipping in and out of consciousness. What she told you about the actual physical details of the rape, there’s more to it than that.”
Jeffrey shook his head. He wasn’t ready to hear the more right now. “What about the knitting needle he threatened Tommi with? Could that be the tool that was used to paralyze Beckey?”
“No.” Sara explained, “The puncture that we saw on Beckey’s MRI was too small in circumference. He used something else.”
“He learned to use something else,” Jeffrey said. “You think he has medical knowledge?”
“I think he has the internet,” she said. “You’re right about him learning, though. The violence from Tommi to Beckey feels like experimentation. He told Tommi to pretend she was paralyzed. He made sure Beckey didn’t have a choice. He wants them to be aware of the rape, but he doesn’t want them to be able to fight back. That’s his kink. He’s had five months to work on perfecting it.”
Jeffrey stared at the empty street ahead of him. Leslie Truong was still missing. They had combed the woods last night, but that was a lot of territory to cover in the dark. She could be lying out there, trapped in a half-alive, half-dead state.
He asked Sara, “Are there more girls, former patients, you’re not telling me about?”
“No.”
Jeffrey didn’t have time to feel relieved. “There has to be a fantasy element. He strategizes before he acts. He hunts them. He follows them. This man is a predator.”
“What did you mean when you asked Tommi if she was missing something?”
“Caterino had a hair clip that was important to her. Apparently, it wasn’t in the place where she usually left it. Leslie Truong was missing a headband, but that feels different. Some clothes were missing, too. She thought her roommates were stealing from her.”
His phone rang. Jeffrey dreaded looking at the caller ID, but it wasn’t his mother again. It was the station. He answered, “What is it?”
“Leslie Truong,” Frank said. “A student found her body in the woods.”
Jeffrey felt like a broken piece of metal had imbedded itself inside his chest. “How bad is it?”
“Bad,” Frank said. “You need to bring Sara.”
Atlanta
13
Will sat at his desk inside GBI headquarters and tried to focus on the words on the paper in front of him. He used a six-inch metal ruler to anchor each line, but the letters still switched and bounced around like fleas. He had stopped carrying a notebook years ago. He dictated his observations into his phone, then he printed out the pages, then he used a comb binder to hold them all together. Will had learned the hard way that he shouldn’t trust spellcheck. Proofreading was the last hurdle. Contractions were particularly problematic. Normally, he could recognize familiar phrases and spot where the problems were. Right now, he wasn’t sure he could recognize his own face in the mirror.
He sat back in the chair. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. His back ached. His brain felt bruised. His knuckle started bleeding every time he flexed his fingers.
He had ended up at Faith’s last night, sleeping in Jeremy’s twin bed on his faded Star Wars sheets. Will’s feet had hung off the end of the mattress. He was reminded of being back in the children’s home. Which was great, because why not pile onto the misery?
There were not enough lunch trays in the world for him to compartmentalize what had happened with Sara the night before. Will had never put Sara in any category even remotely close to his ex-wife, but suddenly, Sara was doing that thing that Angie had done, the thing that had made him feel crazy and angry and frustrated and self-loathing all at the same time.
His entire relationship with Angie had been marked by anxiety. She was with him. She was with someone else. She disappeared. She came back. She pushed him to the brink. She jerked him back in line. She had chiseled away at Will since he was eleven years old. There wasn’t one moment of their life together where Will had felt safe.
And now he felt like he was teetering on the
