Wyatt schooled his expression to reveal nothing of the wild thoughts running rampantly through his head. He forced away the mental speculations about the killer's gender, knowing he would have to deal with them later. Giving his full attention to the CSI, he replied, "He might have been unable to move." If the pattern held, anyway.
"Tied up, you mean?"
"Not exactly." He did not elaborate. The autopsy would have to reveal whether Dr. Fuller's spinal cord had been severed with a sharp blow to the back. In the other cases, the men had apparently walked into the rooms and been struck from behind, left instantly crippled and helpless.
There wouldn't be much other evidence. There almost certainly would be no witnesses. The person doing this was careful and thorough. No one would have heard a thing. These out-of-the-way hotels were cheap and anonymous, barely eking out a living for their owners, with most rooms empty on any given night of the week. The bill would have been paid by the victim, who would have reserved the room by phone. He would also have instructed that it be left unlocked, the old-fashioned key on the dresser. Just as he had been instructed by the person he had come to meet.
And because this place looked to be surviving guest by guest, the staff would have done it.
As if he had read Wyatt's mind, the detective said, "The manager pulled the room records for me."
"The victim paid for the room himself," Wyatt murmured.
"Yeah. With one of those disposable gift-card credit cards."
Harder to trace.
"His wife didn't even know he had it. And he booked the place for four nights."
Acting to pattern. Dr. Fuller had paid for a few days on either end of the night in question, thinking to cover his tracks. Arrive anonymously, depart the same way, nobody to mark the time of either one. Which would explain why the body had lain here to decompose thirty-six hours, rather than being discovered by the staff or the next guest.
This type of hotel didn't have regular maid service, changing the beds only between guests-if then-and giving out towels at the front desk. There were no magnetic key cards, never any security cameras, no curious neighbors. Not in establishments like this, which dotted back roads and rented rooms by the hour to cheating couples having clandestine affairs, or by the month to newly released felons with nowhere else to go. The unsub would have parked off-site and walked in through the woods dotting the perimeter, waiting for the prey. Leaving something in sight to draw his victim deeper into the room-a toy, a doll?-he'd have waited behind the door for Fuller to walk all the way inside, presenting his vulnerable back for the ax.
It all played out in his mind, a scenario that had become familiar in the past several weeks, since he'd first read about the New Jersey case and gone up to talk to the investigating officers. The FBI Cyber Action Team he ran was tasked to solve Internet-related murders, so the case had been a natural one to cross his desk. The first victim had, after all, been lured over the Internet by an unsub he had met in an anonymous child-porn chat room.
Yet something about it had stood out since the first moment he'd read the file. Had made him keep that file close to his chest, go up, and poke around on his own.
It had been the name of the child the victim had been going to meet: Zach. Cute little seven-year-old Zach, according to the e-mails the victim had exchanged with his killer. That popular name shouldn't have aroused his suspicion, but it did, some sixth sense telling him this needed his personal attention.
Then came the second case, in Virginia. With it, a second name that was all too familiar.
Laura.
Normal names. Nothing unusual about them and they should have had no significance to the murders. Because there never had been a child, male or female, waiting in one of those hotel rooms. They were phantoms used to draw predators in for their own executions.
But those names had meant something to him.
Zach and Laura.
The coincidence had struck him. Just as striking had been the flowers, the lilies. The first a calla lily, the second the Easter one. But this, the tiger lily, was even more important. More telling.
Tiger Lily. The name she used on that last case before everything went so horribly wrong.
Damn. This was really happening. And he really was going to have to do something about it. Starting with talking to Brandon Cole about what had gone on here. Brandon, more than anyone, would be stunned by the significance of the type of lily their unsub had left behind this time. You re the one who started calling her Tiger Lily, aren't you?
"I should have left you out of it," he muttered, ignoring the curious glance from the CSI. Wyatt regretted bringing Brandon any further into this. It could be explosive-could be the end of both of their careers- and he hoped like hell that if he went down, he didn't bring the younger man with him.
He'd just needed a second opinion, needed to know if he was crazy for reading something into the types of flower, into the children's names. Brandon had acknowledged the possible significance. But there was no possible about it anymore. Not in Wyatt's mind. The names, the flower, the victims, the motivation, the fury-all were too specific.
Other than the two of them, no one else knew about his investigation. None of the special agents or IT specialists who reported to him. So much for the unity of the team, the loyalty, the camaraderie. Their ability to work in sync, to trust one another completely, had been of enormous benefit in solving the cases they'd worked so far. And now he was the one who'd veered off course, taking his youngest and most inexperienced agent with him.
You had no choice. He's the only one who knows the truth.
The truth about Lily Fletcher, one of his former team members.
"Lily," he whispered.
Lily, whose seven-year-old nephew, Zach, had been murdered by a sick monster.
Lily, whose twin sister, Laura, had been crushed by the grief of it.
Lily, who'd been taken by a vengeful deviant whose online name had been Lovesprettyboys-a monster who had liked to brutalize youngsters in cyber playgrounds.
Lily. Sweet and bright and lost forever.
Could this murder-all three flower murders-have something to do with what had happened to her?
He didn't know. But he knew where to go to start looking for answers.
Maine.
Chapter 2
How strange it sometimes seemed that she had ended up living at the beach.
After what had happened, what she'd experienced, she should never have wanted to go near the ocean again. Memories of that night-feeling her life slip away on a cold, windswept shore, the crashing waves hiding her pathetic calls for help-should have made her want to be anyplace else. The salty air should have smelled like pain and tasted like death.
Yet she loved it here. The churning of the Atlantic's waves in an endless rhythm soothed her soul in a way nothing else could. Therapy, meditation, medication, physical training, solitude-they'd all helped. But the tide was what lulled her to sleep each night. And every morning it was what called her forth into the sad world she still sometimes longed to escape.
It could be because it was so steady, impervious to time or humanity. Nothing interfered with the crashing violence of the water against the rocks or the strong lapping of it slipping back out again. It was unstoppable, imperturbable. Strong and aloof. Much like she wanted to be.
When offered this refuge on the rocky coast of Maine, she hadn't been thinking about the sound of the waves or the possibility of being strong and unstoppable. She'd thought only of escaping the darkness. Healing. Being away from the world. Not forever, just for as long as it took to reclaim herself.