That flinch said more than a million words Winnie Freed might have uttered.
If this scumbag hadn’t beaten his wife at least once a week since he’d married her, Dean would give up his badge. Nearly choking on the disgust of it, he had to turn away and stare out the window, noting the decrepit, rusting swing set rising like an ancient ruin from the scraggly, knee-high grass.
Poor Lisa. No safe, happy playgrounds for her. Not for a very long time.
“I promise you, we’ll catch whoever did this,” Stacey added. “And God willing, we’ll find her remains soon so you can bury her.”
The victim’s mother must have heard the resolved certainty in Stacey’s tone. That word bury seemed to sink in like nothing else had. The finality of it. The harshness of it. Because she stopped moaning, stopped shaking, stopped hoping.
As he entered Brandon and Lily’s joint office Saturday afternoon, Wyatt felt the frustration thick in the air. It was evident in their frowns, the tension of their bodies, the angry jabs of their fingertips on two computer keyboards.
His two IT specialists had been working since just after dawn, trying to keep up with the sick inhabitants of Satan’s Playground. Especially one sick inhabitant. But the site kept throwing up barricades, stumbling blocks that its “legitimate” users obviously knew how to get around. Unwelcome visitors, however, didn’t find it as easy. Even visitors as brilliant as Brandon Cole.
“Have you found anything else?” he asked. He hadn’t checked in since noon, not wanting to pressure the two, who’d put in hours just as long as his own since this Reaper case had started.
“He’s gone. He put up that sign, let the crowd worship him, then disappeared.” Brandon sprawled back in his chair and shook his head. The young man scowled at the monitor in disgust, watching the sick acts taking place all over it. “He crawled back into his hole and hasn’t come out again, though I can tell by the users list that he’s online, watching. Just not participating.”
Or maybe not sitting in front of his computer. But always there, hovering, like some damned malevolent presence.
“Keep trying,” he said.
Lily, he noted, kept her head down, focused only on the long strings of numbers rolling across her computer screen. Her chair was turned, slightly, as if to absolutely ensure she didn’t get a random glance at anything happening on Brandon ’s monitor. Something had hit her hard this morning; he had the feeling it was witnessing the actions of one cartoonishly frightening predator in the Playground, who’d made a great show of taking young children into his gated mansion.
He knew enough about her to know that she wouldn’t let herself be distracted from the job. He also knew that if she had the chance, she’d do whatever she could to bring down the pedophile.
Now, though, her thoughts went in only one direction: toward the Reaper. But the frown of concentration and the curl of disappointment on her mouth said she wasn’t having any better luck with the financial tangle than Cole was with the site itself.
“I’ve been making calls, keeping an eye on all missing persons cases,” Wyatt said. “Nothing new has come in, not yet, anyway.”
“Meaning he hasn’t grabbed his victim?” Lily asked, appearing, for the moment, hopeful. “He usually gives himself seventy-two hours, right?”
True. But Wyatt wasn’t sure he agreed with her. They’d already lost a full day. And they knew their unsub was very careful. He’d allow himself plenty of time to commit his crime, record it, then go over every millisecond of that recording to ensure he didn’t leave anything that might hint at his identity.
He didn’t want to admit it, but Wyatt suspected there was a better than fifty percent chance they were already too late. Just because no young woman had been reported missing in any nearby state didn’t mean one hadn’t already been removed from her life with surgical precision. There could be any number of reasons for a delay in a report-a victim living alone, one who was known to travel. All kinds of possibilities.
“I mean, he’d have to find someone first, right?” Lily said, her usual optimism not allowing her to give up on the idea. “The conditions would have to be just right; he can’t simply snatch a woman the moment the auction is over.”
“Unless he’s had one under surveillance and knows exactly who he’s going to grab each time,” Brandon said. No optimism there. He was thinking along the same lines as Wyatt. “He might have a whole list of possibilities that he keeps tabs on, knowing how and when to make his move, given the location and time of day.”
Wyatt revealed something he’d just discovered when scouring through every word of the case files. “One of the victims told a friend she’d seen a strange-looking guy in a long black coat watching her a few weeks before she was snatched. The friend didn’t think too much of it, until after the victim’s body had been found.”
“Oh, God,” Lily murmured, a stricken look appearing on her face.
“He wouldn’t leave anything to chance,” Wyatt explained, gentling his tone. “In every previous case, he’s known exactly where and when to strike to minimize the possibility of witnesses. In one case, he shot out surveillance cameras. He doesn’t leave anything-like waiting to choose his prey-until the last minute. I don’t think the unsub would have scheduled the auction if he didn’t have his eye on his next victim.”
The two computer experts remained momentarily silent, acknowledging what he was saying. Then both, as if sharing the same mind, spun in their chairs and went back to work, more determined than ever to find something they could use to stop the nightmare.
Stacey and Dean spent much of the morning in the stifling little house on State Street. They told Lisa’s mother what they could, offering few details, but a lot of comfort and promises of justice.
And they asked questions.
These people knew Lisa the best. If there was a personal connection between her and her killer, here was the best place to start trying to find it. They needed to learn everything they could about the men she’d dated, those she’d fought with, anything that might have been a motive for murder.
So far, they’d learned nothing Stacey hadn’t already known about the young woman.
“I don’t know who her boyfriends were,” Winnie said, probably for the tenth time. “She was a popular girl; she was so pretty. Nobody would want to hurt her.”
Stacey didn’t quite accept prettiness as the reason for Lisa’s popularity. And she knew plenty of people who had reason to dislike the young woman. But she let it go.
Across the kitchen, Stan mumbled something, apparently in response to his wife’s statement. It wasn’t the first time he’d had an under-the-breath comment. So far, nearly all his answers had held a note of belligerence, and more than once he’d made a disparaging remark about his stepdaughter. Prick.
Seeing the way the cowed woman’s eyes constantly shifted toward her husband before she answered anything, Stacey finally had enough. “Winnie, why don’t you and I go into Lisa’s room to talk, while Special Agent Taggert gets a few details from Stan.”
Her husband immediately began to object. Winnie, though, leaped from her chair. “Yes, yes. Her room. It’s exactly the way she left it.”
“Win…” Stan said, his voice holding a note of warning.
“Mr. Freed, if you wouldn’t mind,” Dean said, smoothly distracting the man by stepping between him and his wife. “I really would like to talk to you.”
The older man frowned. “I need to go shower and get ready for work.”
Work. Hours after being informed of his stepdaughter’s murder. That really ought to go on his husband-of-the-year application.
“I’m sure they’ll understand if you’re late, given the circumstances,” Dean said, somehow managing to disguise the disgust she suspected he felt. His quick, unguarded glance in her direction confirmed it.