Monday, January 29, 7:15 a.m.
“Alex. Wake up.”
Alex opened the bedroom door at Meredith’s hiss. “No need to be quiet. We’re both awake.” She pointed to Hope, who sat at the bedroom desk, her bare feet swinging inches from the ground, her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration. “She’s coloring.” Alex sighed. “With red. I got her to eat a little cereal.”
Meredith stayed in the doorway, dressed in her running clothes and clutching a newspaper in one hand. “Good morning, Hope. Alex, can I see you out here?”
“Sure. I’ll be just outside the door, Hope.” But Hope gave no indication she’d heard. Alex followed Meredith into the sitting room. “When I woke up she was sitting at the desk already. I have no idea how long she’d been awake. She didn’t make a sound.”
“I wish I didn’t have to show you this.” Meredith held out the newspaper.
Alex took one look at the headline, then sank onto the sofa as her legs gave out. Background noise faded until all she could hear was her own pulse pounding in her ears. MURDERED WOMAN FOUND IN ARCADIA DITCH. “Oh, Mer. Oh, no.”
Crouching, Meredith met her eyes. “It might not be Bailey.”
Alex shook her head. “But the timing’s just right. She was found yesterday and had been dead two days.” She made herself breathe, made herself focus on the rest of the article. Please, don’t be Bailey. Be too short or too tall. Be a brunette or a redhead, just don’t be Bailey. But as she read, her pounding heart began to race. “Meredith.” She looked up, panic shooting like a geyser. “This woman was wrapped in a brown blanket.”
Meredith grabbed the paper. “I only read the headline.” Her lips moved as she read. Then she looked up, her freckles standing out against her pale cheeks. “Her face.”
Alex nodded numbly. “I know.” Her voice was thin. The woman’s face had been beaten beyond recognition. “Just like…” Just like Alicia.
“My God.” Meredith swallowed. “She was…” She looked over her shoulder to where Hope sat, coloring as furiously as before. “Alex.”
She’d been raped. Just like Alicia. “I know.” Alex stood up, willing her knees not to buckle. “I told the Dutton police something terrible had happened, but they wouldn’t listen.” She straightened her spine. “Can you stay with Hope?”
“Of course. But where are you going?”
She took the newspaper. “This article says the investigation is being led by Special Agent Daniel Vartanian, GBI. GBI’s the state crime bureau and they’re in Atlanta, so that’s where I’m going.” She narrowed her eyes, back in control. “And by God, this Vartanian better not even consider ignoring me now.”
Monday, January 29, 7:50 a.m.
He’d expected the call ever since he’d picked his paper up from his front porch this morning. Still, when the phone rang, he was angry. Angry and afraid. He snatched the receiver, his hand trembling. But he kept his voice neutral. Even a little bored. “Yeah.”
“Did you see?” The voice on the phone was as unsteady as his own hand, but he wouldn’t allow the others to see his fear. One sign of weakness and the others would fall like dominoes, starting with the one who’d taken a stupid risk in calling him like this.
“I’m looking at it right now.” The headline had grabbed his attention. The article had grabbed his gut and squeezed, leaving him nauseated. “It’s nothing to do with us. Say nothing and it will just go away.”
“But if somebody starts asking questions…”
“We say nothing, just like we did then. This is just some copycat. Act naturally and everything will be fine.”
“But… this is really bad, man. I don’t think I can act naturally.”
“You can and you will. This has nothing to do with us. Now stop whimpering and get to work. And don’t call me again.”
He hung up, then read the article again. He was still angry and afraid. He wondered how he could have been so very stupid. You were just a kid. Kids make mistakes. He picked up the photo on his desk, staring into the smiling face of his wife with their two children. He wasn’t a kid any longer. He was an adult with far too much to lose.
If one of them broke, if one of them told… He pushed away from his desk, went to the bathroom, and threw up. Then pulled himself together and got ready to face his day.
Atlanta , Monday, January 29, 7:55 a.m.
“Here. You look like you need this more than I do.”
Daniel smelled the coffee and looked up as Chase Wharton sat on the corner of his desk. “Thanks. I’ve been looking at these missing persons printouts for an hour and I’m starting to see double.” He gulped down a swallow, then winced when bitter dregs slid down his throat. “Thanks,” he repeated, far less sincerely, and his boss chuckled.
“Sorry. I had to clear the bottom of the pot before I made a fresh one and you really did look like you needed it.” Chase looked at the stack of printouts. “No luck?”
“No. We got no hits on her prints. She’s been dead two days, but that doesn’t mean that’s when she disappeared. I’ve gone back two months and nobody stands out.”
“She might not be from around here, Daniel.”
“I know. Leigh’s requesting missing person reports from departments in a fifty-mile radius.” But so far their clerk hadn’t found anything either. “I’m hoping she’s only been gone the two days and nobody’s missed her, since it was the weekend. It’s Monday morning. Maybe somebody will report her today when she doesn’t show up for work.”
“We’ll cross our fingers. Are you going to have an update meeting today?”
“At six tonight. By then Dr. Berg will have done the autopsy and the lab will be finished with the crime scene.” He drew a breath. “Until then, we’ve got other problems.” From under the stack of printouts, he pulled the three pages that had been waiting for him on the fax machine when he’d arrived that morning.
Chase’s face darkened. “Sonofabitch. Who took that picture? What paper is this?”
“The guy that took the picture is the same one that wrote the article. His name is Jim Woolf and he owns the Dutton Review. You’re looking at today’s headline.”
Chase looked startled. “Dutton? I thought this victim was found in Arcadia.”
“She was. You might want to sit down. This could take a few minutes.”
Chase sat. “All right. What’s going on, Daniel? Where did you get this fax?”
“From the sheriff in Arcadia. He saw it when he stopped to get his coffee this morning. He called at six a.m. to let me know, then faxed me the article. From the angle of the picture, he’s thinking Jim Woolf was sitting in a tree watching us the whole time.”
Daniel studied the grainy photo and his anger surged again. “Woolf has got all the details in there that I would have held back-the victim’s broken face, her being found wrapped in a brown blanket. He didn’t even have the decency to wait until they’d finished zipping her body bag. Luckily Malcolm’s blocking most of his shot.” Her body was hidden, but her feet were visible.
Chase was grim. “How the hell did he get through your barricade?”
“I don’t think he got through, not if he was sitting in the tree Corchran thinks. There’s no way we wouldn’t have seen him climbing that tree.”
“So he was there before you got there.”
Daniel nodded. “Which at a minimum means that somebody tipped him off. Worst case, it could mean he tampered with the scene before we got there.”
“Who called this in? I mean initially?”
“Biker in the race. He said he called 911 without ever getting off his bike. I already filed a warrant to check his cell phone records to see if he called anyone else first.”