Sharp paused the picture and magnified the image only to discover the Virginia license plate had been obscured by splashes of mud. He sat back in his chair and replayed the footage dozens of times, searching for any scrap of evidence that would tell him who owned or drove the van. There was a two-second portion of the video when the driver’s side of the van slid under the light. The driver was male, but a black skullcap and an upturned collar hid his face. The splay of light on the vehicle revealed no markings on the van, though there were faint shadows of past lettering. The windows were tinted, and the back fender was dented.
The van remained in the park for ten minutes and thirty-two seconds, and when it left, the driver kept his face turned from the cameras. The vehicle drove southeast away from the park.
Sharp pulled up satellite maps of the area and discovered there were no stores or gas stations equipped with cameras in that direction.
“You’ve thought this through carefully, you son of a bitch,” he whispered.
He then flipped through the discs collected from the homes around Diane Richardson’s house and searched for signs of the white van. He plowed through several weeks of footage. He was hoping the tapes covered more time but quickly discovered the cameras had storage-capacity constraints.
One camera across the street captured footage of Stanford Madison going up Diane’s front steps twice, bearing flowers. The first time had been eight weeks ago. Madison rang her doorbell several times, and when she didn’t answer, he pounded on her door. Finally, when she didn’t appear, he threw the flowers at the front door and left. Six weeks ago, Madison visited Diane a second time. This time she answered the door, but she didn’t come outside. He shouted. Raised a fist. She slammed the door.
From the camera mounted on the house next to Diane’s, the recording caught footage of parked cars and houses across the street. On the far west corner of the block, he spotted a white van. The resolution was too blurred for him to see the driver or get a plate, but the white van sat there for over an hour before it slowly drove off.
The killer had been stalking her.
Sharp called Vargas and updated her on his findings. She promised to meet him at the artist’s studio right away.
He drove to Madison’s studio and parked across the street. As he crossed, Vargas pulled in behind his car. A few quick steps and she caught up to him.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” she said. Dark under-eye smudges told him she’d not been sleeping much either. “Doesn’t look like there are any signs of Madison.”
There were no lights on. The display windows had been shuttered from the inside, and the front entrance was locked.
“He’s gone.”
“Think our visit spooked him?”
“Maybe.” Irritated, Sharp nodded toward the narrow side alley that led around the building.
“He could be distraught over Diane’s death. You said the footage suggested he was trying to give her flowers. Men give flowers when they’re trying to get out of the doghouse.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“Basically.”
He’d never given Tessa flowers. Never brought them to his mother’s or sister’s graves. “Flowers are an empty gesture.”
Vargas shook her head. “Spoken like a man.”
Would Tessa have liked flowers? She’d never struck him as the flowers type. But then he’d consistently read her wrong from the outset. He could recall dozens of details about her. The way she sang in the shower. How his T-shirts skimmed the top of her thighs as she was cooking breakfast. The feel of her rubbing the tension from his neck. She could make him so damn hard with just the simplest of touches. But did she like flowers?
“You like to receive flowers?” Sharp challenged.
“Sure.”
“Even if the guy is in the doghouse?”
“In that case, he would be required to give a very expensive bouquet.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I see that. It’s a wonder you got out of your marriage alive. I’d have killed you.”
“I’ve no doubt.”
Large green trash cans lined the back of the building, and each was piled high with rubbish. Removing latex gloves from his pocket, Sharp opened the first of three cans. The first trash can held dozens of rags covered in paint, thinner, balled-up newspapers, and brushes. They needed a search warrant for the inside of the building, but the garbage placed outside was fair game.
“I love it when people throw out evidence.” Vargas pulled on latex gloves.
“Maybe he doesn’t care or he assumed the trash man would carry it all away before we got here.”
“Figured wrong, didn’t he? By the way, I received the doll from Mike Bauer. Very creepy doll if you ask me. It looks like Diane Richardson. I’ve asked the forensic guys to go over it. But I’m not holding out hope. Bauer wiped it clean so he could give it to his daughter.”
“Doesn’t hurt to check.”
Vargas lifted a broken paintbrush from the can. “A man who has given up on his art?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
The second can was filled with blank canvases, unopened paints, and drop cloths. The last can was packed full of frameless canvases twisted into tight rolls. Sharp pulled out several and unrolled them.
“They’re all of Diane,” Vargas said.
The paintings contained exquisite detail and created an eerily lifelike rendering. In each, she stared at the artist with a direct, almost amused gaze. Diane had been a stunning woman.
Vargas dug deeper into the can, pulling out several canvases that had been shredded with a knife.
“He’s upset about something,” Sharp said.
“Losing her is too painful? He can’t bear to look at her anymore?”
“Maybe.” Sharp thought about the surveillance footage of Madison at Diane’s front door. “Or he was angry and aggravated with her and wanted to permanently mark her as his own.”
Frustration deepened her frown. “I’m having his cell records pulled as well as his credit card purchases.”
He glared at the pictures. What the hell was going on with this son of a bitch? “Right.”
“You look like you could eat nails,” she said.
Sharp met Vargas’s gaze. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a Halloween picture of Kara, Diane, Elena, and Tessa.
The extra focus on Kara this last week had torn open a lot of pent-up emotion. He drew in a breath and handed her the picture. “My sister is the one on the far left.”
Vargas dropped her gaze to the picture and studied it. “She looks like you. I bet she ran that gang.”
The image coaxed a small smile. “She was bossing everyone in the house from the day she could sit up.”
“Who are the girls?”
“Look closely at the brunette to her right. She’s only eighteen, but she didn’t change too much.”
“Diane Richardson.”
“Diane Emery then, but it looks like her. And the woman to her right is Elena Hayes.”
“Who I haven’t been able to speak directly to on the phone,” Vargas said. “She responded to my voice mail with a text, but she’s yet to call me back.” Vargas tapped Tessa’s face. “And the other woman is Tessa McGowan?”
“Yes.”
Vargas shook her head as she dropped her gaze back to the picture. “Ah, Tessa. The wife. Hence the flower discussion?”
“No.”
She laughed. “So you think Tessa might have had a grudge against these ladies?”
“What? No. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”