Kendra jerked her thumb at Lynch. “Well, he may have. But I’ll keep him in line.”
“Nice,” Lynch said.
She leaned back in her seat. “Did the doctors give you any idea exactly what we were exposed to?”
“They’re still not sure. They treated us as if we’d been exposed to fentanyl or a derivative and that seems to have done the trick. It can be deadly in its purest form. I guess we can consider ourselves lucky.”
“If you say so. Why in the hell would Zachary line the hallway with that stuff?”
Lynch shrugged. “Crude security system?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was a trap.”
“A trap for you?”
“Me or anyone else unlucky enough to find the trail back there.” Kendra bit her lip. “It’s all a sick game to him. He might not have wanted to kill us. It might just be his way of toying with us.”
Lynch grimaced. “You have more experience with this brand of psychopath than I do, but that seemed plenty lethal to me.”
“Well, it did one thing for us.” Kendra looked outside her window. “The chemical gave us one more way to try and track this guy. If it helps us find him before he kills again, it will have been worth it.”
“How self-sacrificing of you. Personally I’d prefer to spare myself that extreme discomfort, but it did rouse my killer instincts.” He added grimly, “And that might make Zachary tossing out his poison seeds like Johnny Appleseed an even greater mistake.”
CHAPTER
9
THEY KNEW THEY WERE approaching the construction site a full block away due to the blinding white light which now lit up the entire scene. There were over a dozen vehicles in the unfinished parking lot, including several police cruisers, a pair of Hazardous Materials trucks, FBI crime scene vans, and a fire engine. Kendra counted at least twenty people moving around the structure.
Lynch leaned toward the driver and pointed to Griffin, who was talking to one of the uniformed cops. “Pull alongside him. He’ll be happy to see us.”
The driver stopped next to Griffin, and Kendra and Lynch hopped out.
Griffin looked their scrubs up and down. “Interesting fashion statement.”
“Thank you.” Lynch motioned back toward the cab driver. “Pay the man, Griffin.”
“Why me?”
“They took my wallet at the hospital. It will probably be thrown away and if I’m lucky, the cash, credit cards, and driver’s license will be returned to me after they’ve been given a nice soapy bath.” Lynch leaned back to glance at the meter. “By the way, that explanation just cost you another fifty-five cents. I recommend you pay him before it costs you any more.”
Griffin paid the driver, who was obviously curious about the work lights and activity at the half-completed motel.
“Please tip him better than that,” Lynch said. “He earned it.”
Griffin shook his head as he shoved a few more dollars into the cab driver’s hand. “Just when I start to forget what a complete pain in the ass you are…”
Kendra stepped toward the structure. “What have you found?”
“Nothing yet. The hazmat team just gave us the all-clear a few minutes ago. The floor has been scrubbed clean, and they aired the place out. Our evidence team is giving the car a once-over before we tow it to the garage.”
Kendra nodded. “The car’s interior looked as if it had been wiped. I doubt you’ll find prints, but there may be something else there. Let’s go inside.”
She started for the entrance, but she found herself slowing almost involuntarily before she reached the doorway. She stopped.
Lynch placed his hand on the small of her back and whispered, “You don’t need to do this. We can look at the car at the FBI garage.”
He was trying to be supportive, but the gesture only annoyed her. It only pointed out this moment of weakness and the fact that it should be herself at which that annoyance should be aimed. “No. It’s fine. Let’s go in.”
She moved through the wood-framed entranceway and made her way to the rear corridor, which was now brilliantly illuminated by work lights on tall stands. The floor was wet and the dead rats and most of the construction debris had been removed.
As they walked down the hallway, she saw that the boards had been removed from the opening at the far end, exposing the hallway to the night air. The car was now flooded with light and the doors were open. Crime scene techs leaned inside, inspecting the seats and floors.
The dream team stood a few feet away.
Agent Gale stepped toward them. “We didn’t expect to see you here.” He gave their scrubs only a cursory glance and then returned to what was important to him. “Good work finding this place.”
Kendra peered into the open car door. “Have they found anything?”
“Nah. No prints. They swabbed for skin oil on the door handle, but they’re not optimistic.”
Kendra pointed at the magnetic Vroom sign on the car door. “What about the sign? Any way we can narrow down to where it came from?
Ed Roscoe turned and approached with a pseudo-sexy strut that made Kendra slightly ill. Was that something he developed before his movie or after?
“No such luck,” Roscoe said. “Amazon and dozens of other online retailers have been selling ’em for years for seven bucks a pop. Anyone can order one.”
Kendra looked down at a green cardboard disc at her feet. She glanced around and saw that there were half a dozen more placed around the car. “These weren’t here before.”
“They’re mine,” Trey Suber said from the other side of the car. He held his tablet computer in front of him, snapping photos of the scene from various vantage points. “I use them for reference. I link up the dots between pictures taken from different angles, then my software creates a 3D model I can rotate and examine any way I want.” He showed Kendra his tablet, which displayed a view of the car. As he ran his finger over the glass screen, the room twirled left and right as if the camera were flying over and around it.
“I saw you doing that at the harbor this morning,” Kendra said. “It’s amazing. You do this for all the cases you work?”
Suber nodded. “And for locations in old cases I study. I can show you some of your old crime scene locales, if you’d like.”
Kendra slapped her hand over his screen. “Don’t.”
“I just thought—”
“Not interested. I have no desire to even think about those cases ever again, you understand?”
He backed away. “Sure.”
Agent Gale’s sour expression softened slightly and for a moment Kendra thought he might smile. “The kid tried to show me some of my old scenes during lunch and I almost decked him. You think he would’ve learned his lesson.”
Suber lowered his tablet. “I thought you people might have more curiosity about your own cases.”
“Kid, we lived them,” Gale said. “No need to rehash unpleasant memories. Haven’t we been doing that enough this week?”
Suber shrugged. “I just don’t feel that way.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Lynch said. “That’s because you live, breathe, and eat this stuff. It’s why you’re such a good profiler.”
“Exactly,” Suber said.