Bobby scanned the flowered spread, the carpet, the furniture, looking for anything that might be out of place. Nadine had been killed elsewhere. Probably somewhere remote, where no one could hear her screams. And then the copycat had managed to not only identify the hotel and room where Diana was staying, but haul in a body unseen.
There might be security video.
“My punishment,” Diana said, her voice barely a whisper. “Just like Dryden said. Just what Nikki warned me about.”
“Let’s go outside, get some air.”
“No, no, I—”
“This is a crime scene, Di. I need to get you out of here.”
“Oh, of course. Sorry.” She followed him back down to the lobby. After filling in the desk clerk and reporting the body, Bobby ushered Diana into the cool, humid night. They took a seat on a bench to wait for the police’s arrival.
Eyes glazed and sunken, Diana stared into the darkness as if in a trance.
Bobby had seen that vacant look in victims’ eyes before. Emotional trauma. Shock. Of course, in the past two days, Diana had suffered an avalanche of it. “You said you were seeing a therapist, right?”
She nodded, but Bobby got the feeling she wasn’t really listening.
“You might want to call that person now.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“You sure about that? I’m not sure I’m okay yet.”
If Bobby could, he’d make all of this go away. The whole nightmare. As it was, his best bet was to get Diana out of here as soon as they’d talked with police and then find a way to convince her to leave town.
“He said the next time he saw me, he wanted me on my knees. I knew this was coming. I should have done something to stop—”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
Diana looked at him. “She died because of me.”
“No, she didn’t.” At least he could relieve that burden from her shoulders.
“He had the copycat kill her to punish me.”
“I don’t think so.”
Diana frowned.
“A body’s muscles start to become rigid three or four hours after death.”
“Rigor mortis.”
“Right. The medical examiner will be able to tell us more, but to me, Nadine’s body looked like it was in a pretty advanced stage of rigor. If she wasn’t killed until after you talked to Dryden, she shouldn’t be anywhere near this far along.”
Diana didn’t respond.
“I’m guessing your punishment was finding her in your bed. Unless he planned that all along too.”
She still looked pale, her eyebrows pinched. But there was a strength in the way she held her spine he’d never noticed before. As if she was preparing herself to fight back. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Just being honest with me. Explaining things instead of trying to fix everything.”
Bobby felt like a fraud accepting credit he didn’t deserve, but he nodded anyway.
The bleat of a cell phone cut the air.
Bobby pushed his suit coat to the side and glanced at the phone on his belt. “Not mine.”
Diana fished her phone from her purse and held it to her ear, her hand visibly shaking. “Hello?”
Her eyes grew wide and shot to Bobby’s face.
“What is it?” he said.
“Oh, okay. Yeah. See you tomorrow.” She pulled the phone from her ear and held it out to him. “Sylvie and Bryce found our brother. And he lives in the Madison area.”
Bobby took the phone. So the killer who had struck tonight, the man revisiting Dryden’s sick fantasies, might be Diana’s own blood.
The son of Ed Dryden.
The Copycat Killer
She couldn’t see him from here, but he could see her.
CK, as he’d taken to calling himself, watched from the park across the street, shielded by darkness and several tall bushes. Diana Gale’s blond hair gleamed in the lights of the hotel’s portico as if caught in an onstage spotlight.
So beautiful.
So fresh.
Whenever he was around her, it was all he could do to keep himself from smelling her hair. Or touching her skin. Or tasting her.
He tugged the lacy pink panties from his pocket, held them to his nose, and pulled in a long drag.
It didn’t take much to make him hard when she was around. And this… this… watching her and smelling her at the same time… it was perfection.
He lowered his fly.
He’d been barely able to keep from whipping it out as soon as he’d gotten inside her hotel room, but then he hadn’t had time. He’d had work to do. Damn hard work; lying his way into a spare passkey and then hauling a body around in a laundry cart without being noticed. Old bitch had been so heavy. But he’d done it, and when he saw the panties discarded in a bag marked dirty clothes, he hadn’t been able to keep from taking them.
They were his reward.
He deserved a reward.
He’d done everything his mentor said. Everything to the last detail. And now he’d earned something for himself.
Not just something. This.
He pulled himself out and let the fantasy wash over him. She wasn’t like the others. He wouldn’t hunt her. Wouldn’t follow the steps Dryden laid out. He wanted everything with her to be perfect. With her, it would be a love story. A real romance.
She might play hard-to-get at first, but she’d come around. He knew she would. In time, she’d grow to love him. She’d let him do whatever he pleased.
Diana Gale was the love he deserved.
And as soon as he finished this last to do list from her father, he was done. With all of it. And then their future together could begin.
Diana
The next morning found Diana and Bobby back at the taskforce’s new headquarters. Neither one of them had gotten much sleep. As Diana had assumed, Bobby had worked through the night. She’d gotten a new hotel room, for what good it did. Every time she’d closed her eyes, she’d seen Nadine Washburn’s mutilated body. Every time she’d slipped into a dream, her mind had bombarded her with questions about Ed Dryden’s son. Finally she’d given up the idea of sleep altogether.
Bobby steered Diana to a cubicle just inside the office suite and pulled up a file on the computer. “Since you’re here, you might as well get some work done.”
Diana squinted at the monitor. “Missing persons reports?”
“These are from last September and October from all over the Midwest—or at least from those jurisdictions that have computerized their reports. I narrowed these down to the women who match the characteristics of our unidentified victim. The second woman we found. Approximate age, weight, hair color.”
“The woman who was burned.”
“Yes. And mutilated. Teeth and hands removed.”
Diana had read some of the gruesome details in the paper after Sylvie and Bryce had rescued her. Sylvie had even said that for a time, Detective Perreth had thought the body was Diana. “So she doesn’t fit the profile. Not exactly.”
“We think he was trying to hide her identity. That’s why it’s so important to find out who she is. But either she’s not among these reports or there’s something I’m not seeing. That’s where you come in. You saw things we missed before. Maybe you can do it again.”
Diana settled into the chair. Bobby might be simply providing her with busywork, but she supposed it didn’t matter. At least it gave her something to do while they waited for Sylvie and Bryce to arrive from up north.