“Are my eyes bleeding? Check and tell me if my eyes are bleeding.” Sloane pushed away from the table and yawned delicately, stretching her arms over her head to arch her back. After a rundown of their respective days, they’d worked largely in silence, transcribing their reports and reading over those submitted by the various law-enforcement entities partnered on the case before turning their attention to the seemingly endless information from the Willard and TMK investigations.
Ignoring her remark, Mark sat back in his chair, staring broodingly at the computer screen. “Did you know the agency has another profiler? I hadn’t heard they’d replaced Luther Sims in that position.”
The woman moved her shoulders tiredly. “Who, Greg Larsen? I knew he’d been taking some extra training. I haven’t ever worked with him in that capacity, though. Why?”
“Because my SAC mentioned that Larsen is familiar with the Willard case. If he’s acting as agency profiler, I’m guessing he’s pored over the TMK files.” He tapped the screen, indicating the e-mail he’d been reading. “Might not hurt to get his perspective on the offender. I talked to Sims and got his.”
“You did?” Sloane eyed him. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Mark shrugged, avoiding her gaze. It probably wasn’t necessary. She’d reverted to a casual businesslike persona that he already knew could be turned on and off at will. For the first time, he wondered if he’d been the first colleague she’d come on to during a case. And if he’d been the first to turn down her offer. Sloane Medford was a tenacious investigator and an assertive agent. She was doing a fast rise at the BCI. A year ago, he wouldn’t have doubted that her ascent was based solely on merit.
Now he was questioning that perception. But not as much as he was questioning himself. His conversation with Kelli last night had been stilted. They’d been fine as long as they’d stuck to Nicky. But when she’d asked about the older agent’s replacement, Mark had frozen. Finally muttered something about Kelli not knowing him and changed the subject.
Him. A lie, because Sloane Medford was definitely not male. He’d deliberately worked past the time for a call tonight. It was getting harder and harder to rationalize the omissions and half-truths.
He hadn’t cheated five months ago. Mark’s face flushed as he shoved aside the memories that threatened. Yeah, he was ashamed at how close he’d come. In bed. Both half-undressed. Hands racing . . . everywhere. But he’d come to his senses. He’d walked away. Eventually.
The memory was uncomfortable. Shunting it aside, he refocused. “I wouldn’t mind comparing Larsen’s take to Sims’s.” In fact, it might be interesting to see where the two men’s views on the case intersected and diverged. Before he could forget, he quickly composed an e-mail to that end and sent it to Larsen. Since it was the weekend, he probably wouldn’t hear back from the man until Monday.
She shrugged disinterestedly. “I don’t put a lot of stock in that kind of thing. Evidence is what solves a case.”
“Yeah, well, you may not have noticed, but there’s been a shortage of that so far in this investigation.” They had plenty of unanswered questions. Lots of potential subjects of interest. But they’d struck out with the Starkey family, and they hadn’t yet landed on the one solid lead that would put this case to rest. And until they did, Whitney DeVries remained in the hands of a monster.
“Do you think she’s still alive?”
He was getting used to the way Sloane could fix onto his thoughts. “Yeah. He keeps them for a while, according to Sims.” That had also been documented in the infinite TMK files. “No evidence of sexual assault, but plenty of signs of physical abuse. Some torture.” Had that come from Sims or the files? Mark couldn’t recall. All the details of the past serial cases were starting to run together. “But we’re at the two-week point since the girl was taken. She’s almost definitely still alive.”
What she’d endured to this point, Mark thought grimly, was another matter.
“So.” The topic seemed to have refueled Sloane’s energy. She inched her chair up to the table again. “There’s been nothing new from cyber forensics?”
“No.” And there wouldn’t be, Mark knew. The offender was too wily for that. Patrick Allen’s hacked Facebook persona had been used only long enough to get Whitney to give the man her phone number, when their communications had switched to text messages at his suggestion. “You can bet he’s destroyed the burner phone.” This offender was too smart not to do that. If indeed they were dealing with the TMK, he’d evaded capture precisely because he didn’t make rookie mistakes.
“One thing Sims mentioned during our conversation has stuck with me.” He swiveled his chair to face her as he spoke. “Something about a victim they were able to prove was the work of a copycat. With no body for Willard, and DeVries taken so recently—”
“There’s no way to be certain if either of them were indeed TMK victims, or the work of someone wanting us to think so.” Sloane tapped a finger on the table before her. “Which is why I think it’s a mistake to get too tied up in what the profilers say about the Ten Mile Killer. We have no way of knowing if that’s who we’re dealing with.”
That was only one of the sources of the frustration that was starting to eat at him a little more each day. “And no way to know if we’re not.” He used his phone to check the time and stood up abruptly. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting Brian DeVries. I’m going to hit him with everything we’ve discovered on this Starkey thing.”
“He’s had plenty of time to get his story straight,” she observed, rising as he did and grabbing her coat. “Want me to go at him? Maybe he’ll respond better to a softer approach.” She buttoned her coat.
Mark shrugged into his coat. “We’ll play it by ear.” On the way out the door, his cell rang.
“Agent Foster, this is Sergeant Rossi of the Allama County Sheriff’s Office. I’ve been meaning to give you a call to apprise you of a situation that occurred this evening. Just now got the chance.”
They reached Mark’s car, Sloane meeting him at the driver’s side, her hand out, waggling her fingers for the keys. He moved the phone away from his mouth. “You drive when we take your car.” She rolled her eyes but rounded the hood and got in on the other side. He settled himself behind the wheel, buckling himself in one-handedly while he hung on to the cell. “What do you have, Sergeant?” Mark started the car and nosed it out of the motel parking lot, heading south for the address DeVries had given them.
With each passing mile, Mark focused less on his upcoming meeting and more on the information being relayed. When the officer had finished, he said, “Thanks for the call, and I’d appreciate being kept apprised of your progress.”
“You got it.”
Disconnecting, he slipped the phone back in his pocket and slowed to a stop at a red light as his mind flipped through a mental Rolodex of names. Came up with the one he was searching for.
“Well?” Sloane drawled. “That was the locals, I gather. My mind reading’s a little rusty. You’re going to have to share what that was about.”
“Do you recognize the name Herb Newman?”