“Dr. Caldwell, it’s Ray Zimmerman. I didn’t interrupt a game of golf, I hope?”
“Not this morning. How are you, Ray? Haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“Doing well, Doc. Thanks. Listen, I wanted to ask a bit of a favor.”
“Shoot.”
Zimmerman started his car. “I was wondering if you could put in a records request on a doctor who works for me.”
“You have a doctor working as an EMT?” he asked.
“Odd as that sounds, yes, I do. His name is Theodore Bishop. From what I understand, he was licensed in Rhode Island.”
“Are you looking to dig up something on this guy, Ray? Is there a reason you’re asking for this?”
“We’ve known each other for a long time, Doc. I think you know I wouldn’t ask something like this without good reason. Will you help me?”
“I’ll see what I can find and shoot it over to you just as soon as I can.”
“Thank you. It’s important, Doc.”
For the first time in a long while, Nick felt as though he could breathe. That he had been freed from the elephant on his chest. He knew the reason was that Kate was in Denver consulting on an investigation. The odd sensation that he felt better without her around meant their relationship was in worse shape than he thought. Maybe this break was necessary for the both of them.
As he sat in his office, coming to terms with his new role on the team, he wanted to dive back into his work. That was how he chose to handle things. He pushed down the problem and refused to let it consume him. The phone on his desk rang. “Scarborough here.”
“Nick Scarborough. How the hell are you, man?”
Nick creased his brow. “Good, man. What’s going on?”
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“It’s been a long week. I apologize, but no.”
“It’s Mitch Palmero, man.”
Nick pushed back in his chair and wore a smile. “Palmero? Wow. It’s good to hear from you, brother. Where the hell you been?”
“Still riding it out in Houston. But you. You’re in with the big boys now. Quantico. That’s crazy. Senior unit agent. Never thought I’d see the day.”
Nick closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m not in the role anymore. But I am still here with the BAU team. Cameron Fisher is the senior unit agent now.”
“Oh.”
The pause was long enough that Nick thought he’d lost the call. “You still there?”
“I’m here, man. Look, it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re the one I need to talk to.”
“You have something cooking?” Nick asked in an effort to push past the awkward admission.
“As a matter of fact, I just might. I got a call from our satellite office in Corpus Christi. You remember that hurricane a few weeks back over in Oakview, near Galveston?”
“Yeah, of course. It was all over the news.”
“It was, yeah. The media split just as soon as the worst of it was over, forgetting all about the cleanup efforts. But anyway, that’s not why I’m calling you. There’s this detective in Oakview who got involved with a couple of suspected murder cases that took place during the rescue efforts.”
“Holy shit,” Nick replied.
“Holy shit is right. People out there needing help and hell, I don’t know. It’s messed up. Anyway, it’s too late to make this long story short, but I’ll do my best to sum it up. I think we could be dealing with a serial-type killer. What makes this shit scarier is this person appears to have had medical training of some sort. I don’t know for sure if that’s the case, but I can say with almost certainty that the individual last seen with these two victims was an out-of-state EMT volunteering his services.”
“Don’t suppose you were lucky enough to get a name?” Nick asked.
“Well now, wouldn’t that make things nice and tidy? We’re in the process of hunting down registries for the volunteers as well as trying to find any other volunteers who might’ve come across this person.”
“Have you considered looking at ViCAP to see if you get a hit? Out of state means this guy could live anywhere and be doing the same thing,” Nick added.
“We did, in fact, check out the database. And that’s the reason why I’m reaching out to you now. I don’t have final confirmation just yet, but it’s looking like there’s a coroner in Riverside, California who had a similar situation with three victims. He took it to the cops and the detective entered the cases. I’m still working on making a more solid connection to see if this is real. Can you and your team lend us a hand?”
“I’ll have to run it by Fisher. Let me do that and I’ll get back with you.”
“Thanks, man. It’ll be good to do some work together. Been way too long. I’ll wait for your call.”
Nick hung up the phone and pushed up from his desk. He made his way to Fisher’s office and stood just outside. “Hey. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure. What’s going on?”
Nick walked inside and sat down. “I got a call from an old acquaintance at the field office in Houston. I’m waiting on additional details, but he thinks there’s an unsub out there killing off people he’s supposed to be rescuing.”
“What?” Fisher creased his brow.
“That’s what I said. Look, I can’t say this is in line with our typical case, but it does seem interesting. And might be worth a look.”
Fisher laced his fingers behind his head. “Tell me more.”
Zimmerman clocked in for the second shift. He still awaited word from his friend and chief of surgery on the records for Theodore Bishop. He didn’t know what he was going to do with them, but maybe they would shed some light.
“Evening, Boss.” Bishop strolled into his office. “I’m back. Just like I said
