“So I return to Charlene, I ask about other childhood friends.”
“No,” Quincy corrected immediately. “Don’t ask about friends, ask about the girls who were never friends. The loner in the classroom. The girl who always sat by herself at lunch, the outsider, looking in.”
“But you said the killer has above average communication skills. When has that loner had above average communication skills?”
“Maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe Randi and Jackie opened their doors out of lingering pity for a former classmate, not warm welcome of a charismatic stranger.”
“Okay, okay. I can do that,” D.D. muttered. “But even if Charlene remembers a name, I’m down to forty-eight hours to track a person for a case that isn’t even yet my case. Given the time line, maybe this girl is already in Boston, on the hunt for Charlene…”
“You want a strategy that is more proactive?”
“I want to draw the killer to us. I was thinking of setting up a Facebook page, something commemorating the anniversary of the murders, honoring the victims. I want to stir the pot. Crawl inside the killer’s head. How do I do that?”
The phone line fell quiet. She could feel Quincy considering the matter.
“I wish I could come to Boston,” Quincy muttered. “I would feel better, I think, if I were in Boston.”
“Hey, nothing personal, Mr. Former Fed, but Boston PD is not a bunch of local yokels. We try to keep at least one person alive a year. I’m thinking this year that’ll be Charlene Grant.”
“I’m worried about her,” Quincy said quietly.
“You should be,” D.D. said bluntly. “I spent an hour with the girl. She needs to gain about twenty pounds, sleep twenty days, and lay off the twenty-two. Other than that, though…”
“My wife and I. We’ve recently adopted.”
“You have a baby?” D.D. was shocked. She hadn’t seen a photo of the former profiler to determine age, but given that his daughter was a full-grown fed with kids of her own…
“Not a baby. We are much too old for that,” Quincy replied dryly, as if reading her mind. “A ten-year-old girl we fostered first. We love her dearly. And if we are very lucky, one day we hope she will be able to feel that love. But she isn’t there yet.”
“Project,” D.D. said.
“Potential,” Quincy corrected gently. “My wife is a former law enforcement officer as well. We’ve seen both sides of the equation. We know what we’re up against. When I heard of Jackie Knowles’s murder…It was good to have a child in the house again. It was good to remember the promise of the future and not just dwell on past regrets.”
D.D. didn’t say anything. Quincy’s words made her think of everything she loved about coming home to Jack. She’d worried in the beginning that having a baby would limit her ability to do her job. And maybe Jack did limit her hours, but he also balanced the equation. Children, the hope for a better tomorrow, was everything a homicide cop worked for. You took the hit, so your child wouldn’t have to. You put in the long hours, as her case team had done last night, so that other kids could feel safe.
“Fourth friend,” Quincy said.
“What?”
“That’s what you need. Based on your own analysis. You need to create a fictional fourth friend. A fresh target to distract your killer.”
D.D. frowned, turned it over. “But how? If we assume the killer is someone from childhood who knew the trio, the murderer will know it’s false.”
“You need to be the fourth friend.”