Where’s your sidekick?
He grinned and pulled up a chair. “Agent Medford headed back to London this morning. I have a few more loose ends to tie up.” Sloane had left before Mark had spoken to Whitney. The girl’s revelation about Sims’s statements when he’d attempted to strangle her had lent a whole different slant to the man’s past, and things had been moving at warp speed since, especially for a weekend. He’d been on the phone half a dozen times with the BCI profiler, Greg Larsen, and SAC Bennett.
“Your statements have given us real insight into Luther Sims.” Her expression darkened at the name of her former captor, like a light abruptly extinguished. “They’ve actually driven our investigation into his history.” He’d forwarded copies of Betsy’s statements to Larsen. They made for difficult reading. Decades of emotional and physical abuse as Sims’s “wife.” She’d faced numerous surgeries on her hands and feet, which had borne the brunt of his torture. And it was after years of his failed attempts to impregnate Betsy that the next kidnapping had occurred, starting the longest string of serial homicides in Ohio’s history.
It was all tied up in the man’s warped idea of family, Mark had told Larsen. But whether the man was re-creating something he’d lost or something he’d never had remained unanswered.
Until he’d spoken to Whitney this morning. Now he was here, seeking verification. “I need to ask you one last question. At least for now.”
Betsy nodded grimly, her mouth a firm straight line.
“I want you to remember back to a difficult time. When Luther Sims choked you and nearly killed you. Do you remember him saying anything as he did so?”
In what seemed to be an unconscious movement, one of her hands moved to her throat. Her lips quivered, and she bowed her head. Her fingers remained motionless on the keyboard. But just when he thought she wouldn’t answer, she began to type slowly, one key at a time. When she was done, she held the tablet out to him.
Damn you, Margaret! Always you disappoint.
The quick lick of adrenaline up his spine was tempered by the haunted look in Betsy’s eyes. “I know that was hard,” he told her. “But with your help, we’re going to put him away for the rest of his miserable life.”
Mark stepped into an empty hospital waiting room to take the incoming call. “Where are you?” SAC Todd Bennet demanded.
“Still at the hospital. Betsy Graves just verified Whitney DeVries’s story. Sims said much the same thing when he attacked her, calling her Margaret.”
“Called them both by his sister’s name. Have you shared that with Larsen yet?”
It sounded like a lumber wagon was going by the room. Mark checked the window to see an orderly pushing an overloaded laundry cart. “I just texted him. Any updates since the last time we talked?”
Bennett gave him a rundown of the events of the last few hours, ending with, “Sims is being transferred Monday.”
That was news to Mark. The plan had always been to move Sims to a more secure jail location in Franklin County with in-house medical care, but from the way the man’s doctors had talked a couple of days ago, that time was at least a week away. “That’s a welcome development.”
The man had been out of surgery for two days, and between overconcerned hospital staff and the man’s steadfast refusal to speak to anyone, no one had gotten a word out of him. Several from BCI had tried, Mark included.
“I just got a call from one of the guards we have stationed at his room. Sims has been asking for you for the last hour. Only you. He made that clear. You ready to take another run at him?”
Anticipation raced through him. It would be a pleasure to hit the man with everything they’d learned that day. “I just need to go out to my car to get the recorder.”
“You do that. And Mark? We’ve already got him wrapped up pretty tight. Put a bow on it for us.”
“Foster.”
Mark pushed Sims’s hospital door farther open and walked into the room. “Luther. I hear the operations were considered successful.” The man looked stronger than he had a day out of surgery. But heavy bandages showed beneath the hospital gown, swathing his torso and shoulder. Mark guessed the man’s thigh was dressed similarly.
The links manacling one of his wrists to the bed rails jangled as he raised a hand, making a dismissive motion. “They say there will be some permanent damage.” His tone didn’t indicate interest one way or the other.
There was a certain satisfaction in seeing the man in chains, much the way he’d secured his victims. As much satisfaction as he got from looking at the two wounds Whitney DeVries had inflicted on his face a week earlier. He was hoping they’d scar, leaving the man with a permanent reminder of his sins.
Mark had left his coat and weapon outside the room with the guard stationed there. He set the tape recorder on the small table between the bed and a straight-back chair. He turned it on, stating the date and their names.
Sims’s mouth twisted. “You aren’t going to need that. This isn’t an interview. I just wanted to ask you a question.”
“Okay. And then you’ll answer one of mine.”
Ignoring Mark’s response, the man said, “What happened to David Willard?”
“He went free. You admitted to planting DNA on his daughter’s body to incriminate him. It’s the reason you changed dump sites. It’s even why you chose to place her in a body bag instead of exposing her to the elements. You wanted to make sure the DNA didn’t erode or blow away.” He pulled out the chair and sat. “It’s why you put the necklace in the bag. You wanted Kelsey Willard found and ID’d.”
“I didn’t admit to anything. You fabricated that, and there were no witnesses to our conversation to prove otherwise.”
That was true enough, Mark silently acknowledged. But the word of a current BCI agent weighed a lot more heavily in a court of law than that of a former one who’d been found with a badly abused missing girl locked in his basement. Another kidnap victim confined in his bedroom.
“There was a breakin at the lake house three years ago. That’s when you hid the body, isn’t it?”
“It’s obvious that Willard attempted a copycat crime. He deserves punishment.” There was a glitter of hatred in the man’s gaze. “Men who betray the trust of their families don’t deserve to have them.”
He’d said something similar once, Mark recalled, at their first meeting. That all the victims had a parent who was deficient in some way. After long conversations with Larsen, Mark realized the talk was all part of the man’s rationalization for a decision he’d already made when he’d selected their daughters. Using his own twisted logic, he was rescuing the girls from his perceived failings of their parents. But there was more at work than that. Paraphilia often had its roots in childhood. And Sims’s childhood had apparently had some very dark corners.