Thomas raised his eyebrow. “What kinds of mistakes?”
“Well, he took his girlfriend for one,” Shaun answered pointedly, crossing his arms. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Mr. Blake, we have work to do.”
They left Thomas standing in the hallway glaring after them.
“Thanks,” Aidan said to Shaun.
“The Blake family gets on my nerves.”
“I hear that,” Aidan muttered as Shaun’s phone began ringing.
He answered, said a few words, and then ended the conversation with a thank you.
“The casting of the print was sized ten and a half. We believe it's from a pair of running shoes. Nike's or something like that. The blood by the dog house was canine.”
“Do we have any suspects left?” Aidan asked. “It’s not Jordan. Unless he killed his own dog and is an extremely good actor, he’s not our killer. Thomas still doesn’t have an alibi, and the offender used his house. And no paper trail from the rent money is curious.”
Shaun shook his head. “I don’t know. To kill his own nephew’s dog? That’s just plain heartless.”
“Because he’s been showing true heart all these years,” Aidan said dryly.
Shaun didn’t reply to the comment. “Maybe it’s someone we haven’t interviewed yet. Maybe—”
“Killers—especially when it’s planned—become invested in the investigations. They are either the most helpful witnesses, watching from nearby, or both. The Carnations Killer is proud of what he’s done. He’s proud that he managed to elude us for so long. Why else would he hand over the album of all eighty-six of his kills?”
Aidan shook his head slowly, trying to unravel the mystery.
The offender used a taser to subdue his victims. He moved them to a location where he abused them with a tire iron. After a week, he would strangle them until they were dead, then dump them at a chosen location. As far as Aidan could tell, the victims had no relation to each other. The crime scenes were chosen at random. He still believed whoever he was held a job which allowed him to travel.
Aidan continued to stare through the windshield at the WJFX News studio.
“We know who he is. But—”
“We just don’t know who,” Shaun finished his thought.
Shaun pulled out of the parking lot so they could grab an early lunch at McDonald’s, then take it to the office and review the files once more.
69
“TWO MONTHS AGO, Maya Gibson was murdered the same way most of the other victims were: tased, beaten, strangled. Same MO with Jane Ridgeway. We had believed Sherry Finch was his first victim, but when he took Cheyenne, he told us every woman he’d murdered.”
Aidan glance at Shaun, who stared at his computer screen.
“Who was the first?”
“Um…” He flipped through the database until he gave him an answer. “…Georgia Rivers.”
“What do we know about her?” Aidan jammed a stale French fry into his mouth.
Shaun said she was born in Manhattan in 1972 to John and Marcia Davis. Her parents divorced in 1978. Georgia’s mom remarried a man named Ben Rivers and they moved to Aiken, South Carolina in 1983. They adopted a five-year-old boy who had been in and out of foster care since he was three.
“This is interesting...apparently, Georgia was telling her mother her new brother had issues. She’d seen him throw the family cat across the yard, threw rocks at the birds in the trees. They even had a dog, but he went missing. Georgia claimed her brother had killed him. But there was never any proof.”
“What do we know about the brother?”
Aidan waited until he searched for the information.
“He’d been sent to the Trouble Teens of North Carolina, a small boot camp in Morganton. There’s no more mention of the brother anywhere beyond that.”
“Are the parents still living?”
“The mother is in a retirement center in Charleston. Her husband was killed in an accident five years ago, and Carol’s biological father died twenty years ago from lung cancer.”
“Let’s go visit the mother and see if she can tell us anything about her son.”
The Charlotte Retirement Center was an appealing place, its trees and flowers giving visitors and occupants a sense of security and peace. Even the warm breeze of the south seemed inviting. In the courtyard, Aidan noticed a young couple sitting with an elderly man in a wheelchair by the fountain. They had a little boy with them and it looked as though he was reading a book out loud.
Shaun and Aidan stepped inside the doors of the retirement center. To the left was the reception window. To the right were four chairs and a table. Directly ahead were various halls leading to what Aidan guessed to be rooms for the elderly.
They walked to the window and showed the clerk behind the glass their ID badges as they introduced themselves.
“We’re looking for a woman named Marcia Rivers,” Shaun said.
“Oh, sure,” the middle-aged woman behind the glass chirped. She kept her voice low. “Let me contact my supervisor first and let her know you’re here.”
“No problem,” Aidan replied. “Thanks.”
They waited, and a few minutes later, the receptionist informed them that her supervisor would be right with them.
They thanked her and took a seat at the table nearby.
Aidan used the time to reread the information about Georgia Davis. She was murdered in her bed during the summer of 2000. Georgia was found by her mother, beaten then stabbed numerous times. It appeared he was spending his early years trying to perfect his method of torture and death.
Aidan presumed he decided using a knife on his victims proved to be too messy. Or maybe it was nothing more than a fit of rage. The crime scene photos revealed blood on the walls, sheets, and nightstand. The second victim in the album was strangled. Looking at the woman’s neck, he clearly
