Rafe cleared his throat. “And since she’s shaved…”
Isabel didn’t seem at all embarrassed or disturbed, and nodded matter-of-factly. “Not uncommon in S amp;M scenarios, according to the list Quantico sent us, but pubic hair would at least have given us a hair color, and probably natural. I didn’t see a birthmark, tattoo, even a blemish that might help us I.D. her.”
She paused, then added, “Several things interest me about this little twist. We don’t know if any or all of Jamie’s playmates lived here in Hastings, though my guess is that more than one isn’t very likely.”
“A few weeks ago,” Rafe said, “I would have said investigating a serial killer in Hastings would be the next thing to impossible. A few S amp;M games seem fairly tame by comparison. Hell, almost innocent.”
“Yeah, but not innocent to Jamie. If she was so afraid of discovery, it could well have been because her partner-at least the most recent one-lives here and maybe isn’t as good at keeping secrets as Jamie was. That might explain what Emily saw as Jamie’s increasing worry and fear. Another thing is that we don’t know where these photographs were taken, and though Emily claims she borrowed these three from a photo box full of them, your people found no sign of the box at Jamie’s apartment when they did an intensive search.”
“I’m surprised Emily found it,” Rafe said. “This is not the sort of thing you’d leave lying around, I’m thinking.”
“Oh, you can bet Emily snooped. She said she caught a glimpse of the corner of the box under her sister’s bed and was curious, but she had to be looking for secrets. She knew her sister was afraid of something, and she wanted to know what that was. It was the first chink she’d seen in Jamie’s armor.”
“Why take these?” Rafe wondered.
“Proof. Even if she never planned to show them to anyone-including Jamie-she had something that proved to her that Jamie wasn’t as perfect as her family believed she was. That was probably enough for Emily; she doesn’t strike me as a blackmailer or the vindictive type.”
“Yeah,” Rafe said, “I’d agree with you there.”
Isabel shrugged. “I’m also willing to bet that she left the box just enough out of place to make Jamie uneasy about it. If it really was filled with photos, then she couldn’t be sure any were missing. But she had to wonder if her sister found the box. That’s probably why we haven’t found it.”
“Because she hid it somewhere safer.”
“I would have. The question is, where? Your people checked her office thoroughly, but I wouldn’t have expected to find something like those photographs there anyway. Did she have a safe-deposit box?”
“Yeah, but the only items in it were legal documents. Insurance policies, deeds to some property she owned, stuff like that. I’ve got some people putting together a list of the properties, what they are, where they are, but nothing else in the box provided anything in the way of a lead.”
Mallory came into the room in time to hear that, and said, “Jamie’s lockbox? I just double-checked, and that’s the only one she had. No other bank has her on their customer list.”
“At least not under her real name,” Rafe said.
Mallory sighed. “I can go around to all the area banks and show them a picture of her. Or, better yet, send a few of the guys out on Monday to do that, since it’s too late to get a decent start today. Although you’d think someone would have come forward after seeing all the pictures of her in the newspapers.”
“People generally don’t,” Isabel said. “Don’t want to get involved, or honestly don’t believe they have any knowledge of value.”
“And secrets of their own to protect,” Rafe noted.
“Definitely. It’s amazing how many people get nervous about some little transgression they’re afraid we’ll be interested in.”
“Transgressions can be entertaining,” Mallory noted.
Isabel grinned, and said, “True enough. But in this case, we hardly have time for them. Pity we can’t make that announcement publicly. It’d probably save us time.”
“And trouble,” Rafe agreed.
“Yeah. Anyway, if Jamie had a lockbox under another name, she may well have worn a disguise of some kind when she visited. Just a wig, most likely, something that wouldn’t have looked too phony. You probably won’t have much luck showing her photo, but it’s something that needs to be done. And we might get lucky.”
Rafe nodded. “We do need to do whatever we can to make sure we’ve covered all the bases. But I’m not holding out much hope either. Especially after finding out she was pretty good at keeping secrets.”
“Maybe a lot more secrets than we’ve yet discovered,” Isabel said. “I know she made very good money, but she’s also invested quite a bit in properties in the area, and she lived very well. I’m thinking that maybe the S amp;M stuff wasn’t all fun and games for Jamie.”
“Shit,” Rafe said. “Mistress for hire?”
“Lots of people, apparently, willing to pay to be humiliated. Jamie was a smart businesswoman, so why wouldn’t she charge for all her talents?”
Cheryl Bayne had been working hard on her career, doing all the frequently boring and certainly fluffy junk demanded of baby reporters-and female reporters. Especially when they worked for fourth-place TV stations. Dumb filler pieces on what the society ladies were wearing this season, or the mayor’s daughter’s birthday party, or the baby lion cub born at the zoo.
She was really sick of fluff.
So when her producer had offered her the chance to come to Hastings and cover this story-because a woman would play better, he’d said, and she was brunette, after all-Cheryl had jumped at it.
Now she was mostly just jumping at shadows.
Presently, on this Friday afternoon, she felt relatively safe standing in front of the town hall under the shade of a big oak tree. Her cameraperson was off getting background shots of the town, but she wasn’t really alone, since the area was crawling with media.
“This is getting old.” Dana Earley, a more experienced reporter for a rival Columbia station, sidled closer, studying the police department across Main Street with a slightly jaundiced eye. “Whatever they know over there, they aren’t anxious to share.”
“At least the chief called that press conference yesterday,” Cheryl offered.
“Yeah, and told us squat.” Dana reached up to tuck a strand of blond hair behind one ear. She looked at Cheryl, hesitated, then asked, “Have you had the feeling you were being followed, watched, especially at night? Or it is just us blondes?”
A little relieved to be able to talk about it, Cheryl said, “Actually, yeah. I thought it was my imagination.”
“Umm. I’ve been asking around, and so far every woman I’ve talked to has had the same feeling. Including, by the way, a couple of female cops who refused to speak on the record. I’d say it was just paranoia if it was only one or two of us, but all of us?”
“Maybe it’s just… nerves.”
Bluntly, Dana said, “I think he’s watching us. And I have a very bad feeling about it.”
“Well, you’re blond-”
Dana shook her head. “I just got a peek at a list of women missing in the general area. And very few of them are blondes. Watch your back, Cheryl.”
“I will. Thanks.” She watched the blond reporter walk away, hearing the hollowness in her own voice when she added half under her breath, “Thanks a lot.”
“Jesus,” Mallory muttered.
“She wouldn’t have considered it prostitution,” Isabel pointed out. “Merely a fee-for-services-provided arrangement. Especially since she was the one in charge, the one making all the rules. No emotional involvement to clutter up her life, yet she gets the satisfaction of dominating other women. Maybe men as well. We don’t know all her lovers-or clients-were women, after all. We only have Emily’s word for it, and even she claims she didn’t look through all the photos in that box.”