“I met his best pals,” Jack said. “He might be hiding with one of them.”
“I’ll have them checked. We will hold a press conference this morning. We have flyers made up with the victims’ photos to give to the press. If somebody saw them the night they died, we can start retracing their steps.”
“What about warning potential victims?” Micki asked.
“Do we even know who to warn?” Carleton asked.
“We know who the study’s heavy users are,” Jack said. “They’re the likely targets.”
“Wait.” Carleton held up his hand. “How do we know who the heavy users are?”
“Our CI gave us a list of study participants, organized by usage patterns. Jack and I will dig up contact info on the heavy users, but which he’ll target next is anybody’s guess.”
Abbott hesitated. “How many people are on the list?”
“Five hundred,” Noah said, “but only sixty that are both women and heavy users. Five ultra-users, like Martha.”
“Give me the list,” Abbott said. “Let me think about it.”
“We’re off to interview the study supervising professor. He and his assistant have direct access to the list. Then we’ll check waffle houses.” Noah had pushed away from the table when his cell phone rang. Eve. “What’s happened?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Do you know a reporter named Buckland?” she asked, her voice strained.
His heart sank. “Yes. I assume you do, too. How did he find you?”
“He saw my car at Christy’s. He paid me a visit today. He may be a problem.”
“Buckland’s already a problem. What did he say?”
“Oh, lots of things, but mostly he wanted to know about the murders. I didn’t tell him anything. Listen, I need my car. Is it possible someone could drive me up to get it?”
Noah frowned at the breathlessness in her voice. “Are you running?”
“Kind of. Dr. Donner’s assistant is out looking for me.”
“Define ‘out looking for me.’ ”
“When Buckland left, so did I. Donner’s assistant followed me outside. He’s checking buildings and cars, definitely looking for me.” There was fear in her voice. “I’m sticking to the alleys. Noah, this is like something out of a bad Jason movie. This is insane.”
It certainly was. “Can you get to the Deli?” It was a combination coffee house and sandwich shop near the campus. Next to Sal’s, it was a favorite cop haunt.
“Yeah. I’ll meet you there.”
“We’ll have a couple of officers there. You don’t have to sit with them, but they’ll be watching. Wait for me.” He turned back to the team. “Our CI’s run into some trouble.”
Jack was buttoning his coat. “I like the Deli. They have fantastic pastrami.”
“Wait.” Carleton stood. “I know you’re trying to keep your CI safe, and presumably employed. But I’m not the ethics police. I won’t turn him in. I may even be able to help.”
Noah was listening. “How?”
“If I don’t know who’s running your CI’s study, I’ll know somebody who does. If your CI is running into trouble, I may be able to smooth the way with his boss.”
Noah nodded. “Right now the issue seems to be with the boss’s assistant, but I’ll tell the CI you’ve offered to help. Thanks, Carleton. Really.”
“We’ll give you all the info soon,” Abbott added. “It’s not that we don’t trust you.”
Noah knew this had to be particularly awkward for Abbott. He and Carleton Pierce went way back. They all did. They’d used Carleton’s profiles to solve dozens of homicide cases over the years. But they’d promised Eve.
“I know that, Bruce. I don’t like it, but you obviously believe I’ll have a conflict of interest with this and I have to respect that. I’d offer to find another psychologist to do the profile, but you’d have the same issue with whoever had my role. Besides, this is a fascinating personality. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to study him.”
“I’d prefer it if you were studying him from closer range,” Abbott said dryly. “Like with him behind bars. Go,” he said, waving Noah and Jack toward the door. “I’ll have a squad car sent to the Deli. Call me when the situation’s clear.”
Tuesday, February 23, 9:30 a.m.
Eve bought a coffee and blindly grabbed a magazine from the rack, trying to blend in with the other coffee-breakers. The Deli may have been just a sandwich joint in the past, but now it was an upscale bistro where students and professors-and cops-came to meet, greet, see, and be seen. Kind of like Ninth Circle, without the bad band.
“Now, he’s something,” the guy behind the counter said. Eve looked down, grimly unsurprised to see the face of Jack Phelps staring up at her. She’d “blindly” grabbed MSP. A Freudian slip. Yeah, right. The barista winked. “He can book me any day.”
“Yeah. He’s something.” Now Jack’s partner… was something else. Eve wished she knew what. She had told him she didn’t want him, told herself she couldn’t have him, but when she got scared, Noah’s had been the first number she’d dialed.
With a quiet sigh, she sat behind two officers who casually sipped their coffee. They might be the cops Noah sent or they might really be on break. Either way, she felt safer close by.
She flipped pages until she found herself looking at the picture of Noah Webster as she had before, so many times. Jack’s face was something. Noah, though… His face was rugged, hard. Thuggish was the word that always came to mind.
Dangerous. But his green eyes could be warm. And he makes me feel safe.
The bell on the Deli’s door jingled and she lifted her eyes to see Jeremy entering, searching the room. He came straight toward her table, giving her only a moment to debate asking the cops behind her for help should she need it.
If you do, you’ll be admitting working with them. She wanted to delay that as long as she could, for the sake of Noah’s investigation. The longer the Shadowland connection went undisclosed, the longer Noah would have to hunt a three-time killer.
“Can I join you?” Jeremy asked, breathing hard. “Thank you.” He sat, without giving her time to say no, then took off his glasses, wiping away the condensation that had formed by coming into the warmth from the cold. “You’re a hard woman to catch, Eve.”
She dug deep, found a tone that felt right. One that was wounded, but still bristling from her altercation with Kurt Buckland. “I didn’t realize you were looking for me.”
“Donner told me to watch, that you might go to the press. You little conniving bitch.”
To the press. Not to the cops. Donner had immediately assumed she’d grab notoriety versus doing the right thing. Why am I not surprised? “I didn’t go to the press. That guy came to me. And in case you missed it, I didn’t cooperate with him.”
“A very convincing act, but as you came here to meet him it’s not going to fly.”
Eve shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
He pointed behind her. “Your reporter.” Eve was stunned to see Buckland watching with a smug smile. How long had he been there? “You’ll be thrown out of the program for this,” Jeremy said with satisfaction. “You never should have been here anyway.”
She turned back to Jeremy, shaken, but hoping it didn’t show. “Why not?”
“Most of your undergrad work was online. Your degree’s from a state school.”
She tried to focus on the weasel in front of her versus the snake behind her. “So?”
“So you got in because you’re a little victim, not because you were qualified.”
There was venom in the man’s voice, jealousy in his eyes. “And you are qualified?”
His jaw cocked. “Hell of a lot more than you.”
And then she understood. “You didn’t make the cut. That’s why you’re Donner’s office assistant and not his graduate assistant.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I made the cut. But they let you in instead just because some guy slashed you. They thought you’d bring an ‘interesting point of view.’ ”