Merselus entered with a turn of the key and locked the door-lower deadbolt, upper deadbolt, and then the chain. The venetian blinds were drawn, though it was superfluous; the lone window in the apartment was boarded over from the inside, iron bars on the outside. The only light in the room was the glow from a laptop computer, which he’d left open and running on the desk. The Google satellite image was still on the screen, displaying the result of his last search: Little Havana/Tamiami Trail. His eyes narrowed as he studied it again. The slope from the highway to the brown canal. The knee-high brush along the shoreline. The perfect place to drop a warm body that Merselus wanted the police to find quickly, before his handwritten message fell to decomposition. All of it, as captured in the satellite image, was virtually identical to the actual place he’d visited a little later in the day. He gave a thin smile of appreciation to the technocrats in Silicon Valley who had made it so easy to plan.
He wondered if any of them even remembered him, ever wondered what he was up to these days.
Merselus sat on the edge of the bed, dropped his backpack between his feet on the floor, and opened it. First, he removed the essential tools of his mission-latex gloves, which left no fingerprints; a nylon cord, in case he met with resistance; the serrated diving knife, in case he met with even greater resistance. He laid each of them neatly on the bed, side by side. Deeper inside the pack, in a separate pouch, was his latest acquisition. He unzipped the pouch and carefully, almost lovingly, collected his prize. A “trophy” was what one of those self-proclaimed geniuses in criminal profiling would have called it, like the panties, jewelry, and other keepsakes that serial killers took from their victims in order to relive their fantasy, over and over. Collecting such objects was part of the sociopath’s compulsive personality. So said the experts, whom Merselus had watched repeatedly on BNN and the Faith Corso Show, all of whom uniformly overlooked one crucial fact: Their profiles were based on the assholes who got caught. Merselus didn’t consider himself a serial killer, though his work could be measured in more than one victim. He didn’t think of himself as a sociopath, either, though that term was thrown around pretty loosely these days. And he was definitely no trophy hunter.
He just thought Rene Fenning’s necklace was cool.
It was made of polished copper, the kind of necklace that kept its shape and didn’t collapse like a chain when taken off. He put his hand through the necklace, which made the opening seem small. Like Rene’s gentle neck. It almost fit his wrist like a bracelet, a testimony to the size and strength of his hands. He reached over and switched on the lamp to get a better look.
The glass bead on the front of the necklace was most intriguing. It opened with a tiny latch. Inside were three pebbles, each about the size of a BB. It was unlike anything Merselus had ever seen. He laid it on the white bedsheet and took a photograph. He took several more until he got the right lighting, a pristine image. Then he went to his computer and uploaded the image. He wasn’t certain that his image-recognition software would find a match on the Internet, and it wasn’t at all crucial. But he was curious-not just to check out the trinket, but more to test the limits of the software. This kind of search tool wasn’t something the average person on the street could have walked into the Apple Store and purchased. In the private sector, only the most elite security firms could get their hands on it. It was a trade secret still in development. A stolen trade secret.
Merselus hit SEARCH.
It took a couple of minutes to populate the results, another minute for him to eliminate the extraneous hits. Then he found a match, though the one pictured on the computer screen appeared to be larger than the one fastened to Rene’s necklace.
“A gris-gris,” he read aloud. “An amulet originating in Africa which is believed to protect the wearer from evil or brings luck.”
That brought a smirk to his face. Not very lucky for the good doctor.
He closed the software program, impressed by its performance-and pleased, as always, to be one step ahead of the good guys on the technology curve.
With great care, Merselus carried the necklace across the room and opened the closet. Taped to the back of the door, right below a coat hook, was an eight-by-ten photograph. It was the image of Sydney Bennett that the prosecution had shown the jury at trial-the one of Sydney laughing off the effects of tequila, the hands of at least three different men pawing her tight body, her clingy white halter unable to hide her protruding nipples.
Of all his Sydney photographs, this one was Merselus’ favorite.
“For luck,” he said as he hung the necklace on the coat hook above the photograph. “See what good care I take of you?”
He closed the closet door and lay on the bed. Not nearly enough rest last night, with all the preparation. He could have nodded off in a moment and slept through till the next morning, but he forced himself to set an alarm: six thirty P.M. Barely time for a catnap.
There was more work to do. Tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rene’s death changed everything. Almost everything.
“This won’t change us,” said Jack. He had wanted to sound sure of it, but it probably hadn’t come across that way. “We can’t let it,” he added.
They were in Andie’s car, driving to Jack’s house on Key Biscayne. For five minutes and without a single interruption, Andie had listened to Jack’s full explanation-how Rene had contacted him after Celeste was admitted to Jackson, how she’d been his source for the Laramores’ lawsuit against BNN, how their coffees in Little Havana had had nothing to do with rekindling a romance. Jack was certain that Andie had heard it and understood, but whenever there was work to be done, Andie’s ability to put personal moments on hold was unmatched. At her behest, a couple of FBI agents were already on the way to Jack’s house-a tech guy, a surveillance expert. She was in full-fledged FBI mode, focused on stopping a killer.
“Jack, I don’t have it in my head that you were chasing an old girlfriend two minutes after I said we should take a step back, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She reached across the console and brushed the back of her hand against his face, a proxy for not looking him in the eye while driving. “I know you better than that.”
“Thank you.”
Her attention was on the road, and Jack’s gaze locked onto her profile. It was little more than a silhouette in the dark car, but against the sparkling Miami skyline in the distance, it was like a work of art. The views of downtown Miami and the financial district were killer from the causeway to Key Biscayne, especially at night-the south Florida version of Manhattan as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge.
“I also know the mind-set of Rene’s killer,” said Andie. “He didn’t leave that message because he thought Rene was ‘someone you love.’ He’s like a shark. He draws closer and closer to his prey, tighter and tighter circles. Each one of those circles allows him to live out the perfect fantasy he has created in his head. Eventually, he’ll move in for the ultimate kill, the fulfillment of the fantasy.”
“Someone I love?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“My take is that he probably believes all the BS on BNN that you and Sydney couldn’t wait to rip off each other’s clothes the minute she got out of prison. Yeah, he threatened to hurt someone you love, which could be anyone from me to an old girlfriend. But if you ask my professional opinion, he isn’t taunting you just because he thinks you know where Sydney is hiding. He could threaten her parents, if that’s all he wanted out of this. His anger-his hatred for you-is driven by his belief that you’ve actually had your way with Sydney.”