Slowly he ran his hand through her hair. Thick. Lovely. But wrong. He gathered it at the top of her head, and with his shears, cut through the thickness until the long ponytail was free. Her hair fell around her face. Setting the ponytail aside, he cut away at the remaining locks until they weren’t more than a half inch from her scalp.
Next came hot wax. With a flat edge, he picked up a dollop of wax and smeared it over her scalp. Quickly he laid a strip of cloth on the wax and pressed it into her hair and skin. Then with a quick practiced jerk, he pulled back the cloth, ripping the hair from her scalp. She moaned, still drugged but unable to completely escape pain.
“Shh,” he said gently. “You have to suffer a little to be beautiful.”
Sharp called Stanford Madison but landed in voice mail. Instead of leaving him a message, he decided to pay him a visit in person. He drove to the man’s Hanover Avenue address, located a few blocks from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Many of the older homes built in the early twentieth century had been renovated and now went for good money. Wrought iron framed the windows, and porches made each home as distinctive as the massive old trees that lined the streets.
Stanford Madison’s corner-lot art studio and second-floor apartment was located in an old converted grocery. Its facade included a red door paired with a large plate-glass window. The window displayed the portrait of a woman with dark hair, rich mocha skin, and green eyes.
Sharp got out of his vehicle and walked up to the building. He peered through the large front window.
Inside, the structure’s historical details had been gutted to create a long simple space with whitewashed walls and tiled ceiling. Hanging on the walls was a collection of portraits of women. Each exhibited the same extreme detail.
He knocked on the door and waited. When there was no response, he knocked again. Still silence. “I will be back.”
As he headed back to his car, he received a call from the Sunday-night bartender who’d rung up the credit card of “Terrance Dillon.” The man introduced himself as Liam Hunter, also the bar owner, and said he was working tonight.
The bar was less than five miles from his current location, so he made the detour south to speak with Liam Hunter.
Traffic was light, and he easily cut through the side streets until he spotted the bar. He pushed through the front doors into the darkness as a cue ball smacked against a freshly racked stack of balls. He noticed the early-evening crowd was light as he strode up to the bar, where a tall, thin man stood polishing bar glasses.
Sharp reached for his badge. “Agent Sharp. Virginia State Police.”
The man glanced up from his glass, studied the badge, and nodded. “I’m Liam Hunter. I own the place.”
He tucked his badge back in his breast pocket. “Thank you for getting back to me.”
“Sorry I missed your call. I was called away on a family matter. Normally I’m always here. You said something about a credit card receipt. Terrance Dillon, right?”
“Yes. I’m looking for the guy that used the card.” Sharp pulled his notebook from his pocket and flipped through a couple of pages. “According to the time stamp on his credit card, the card was used about eight on Sunday night.”
Liam flipped the towel over his right shoulder. “I don’t remember the transaction, but you’re in luck—we haven’t scrubbed the security footage yet.” He nodded his head toward a camera pointing toward the bar and cash register.
“Best news I’ve had all day.”
The bartender asked a waitress to take his place before he led Sharp past a collection of well-worn pool tables that smelled faintly of beer and cigarettes to a backroom office. A small desk was crammed in the corner and piled high with invoices and papers. Above the desk on a shelf were three monitors for the security cameras. The first camera captured the store’s entrance, the second covered the bar, and the last an exit door from the outside.
Despite the clutter on the desk, Sharp could see the surveillance was high-tech. “Nice setup.”
Liam pulled dark-rimmed glasses from his pocket and slid them on. “We had a few robberies last year and then a waitress who was skimming the till. I decided to beef up the surveillance.” He pushed aside a stack of papers, revealing a laptop. He opened it, selected the cameras, and typed in the date and time.
Sharp leaned in as nighttime footage from Sunday emerged on the screen.
“This is the camera covering the bar,” Liam said.
The color image showed Liam at the bar, ringing up a purchase and handing a credit card to Jimmy Dillon. As Dillon was turning from the bar, he fished his cell phone from his pocket. Dillon’s face melted into a frown. He glanced around the bar and moved quickly to the back exit.
“Where does that door go?”
“Back alley.”
“And you said you have a camera outside there?”
“Yeah.” Liam pressed more keystrokes, and the back alley materialized. Dillon moved in the alley, the phone pressed to his ear as he paced back and forth. He pressed a fist to his forehead and scowled. He ended the call and continued to pace before heading along the alley to the parking lot. The time stamp read 8:25 p.m. That would have given Jimmy Dillon just enough time to make the twenty-five-minute drive north to meet Terrance at the parking lot. So who the hell had Jimmy been talking to on the phone? Agitated body language suggested he’d encountered a problem.
“Can you send me a copy of that?” He handed the man his business card.
“Sure.”
“Anything about him strike you as odd?”
“Now that I see the tape, I remember him. He drank a few beers. Kept to himself. A couple of the ladies hit on him, but he didn’t seem too interested. He looked impatient.”
“Did he say he was expecting a meeting?”
“It was a busy night. My barback was late getting to work, so I didn’t have a lot of time to chat.”
The medical examiner had put Terrance’s death between midnight and 2:00 a.m. on Monday.
Liam stared at the screen, now frozen on Jimmy’s face. “So you think this guy killed that kid?”
“I don’t know. But finding him is a top priority.”
Seconds later the DVD copy popped out, and Liam handed it to Sharp. “Good hunting.”
It was nearly eight in the evening when Sharp received a call from Vargas. The Emerys were willing to meet with them now.
Vargas told him that the home of Diane Richardson’s parents was located at the end of a cul-de-sac in the gated community on the James River. The Emery family was from Sharp’s small town but had moved closer to Richmond ten years ago when Mr. Emery was named senior partner in his law firm. Mrs. Emery was a public relations professional who worked mainly for nonprofits. Diane was their only child and the sole beneficiary of a generous trust fund from her grandmother.
Sharp got out of the car, jangling his keys in his hand as he stared at the ivy-covered home with its wide front double doors. A dark mourning wreath with a silk bow hung on the door.