Dead Wrong (9 page)

“Almost, but not quite,” Annie corrected him. “I think he goes a little wild with the knife while he’s in the process of raping them, then when he’s finished, he redresses them. And I don’t think he blindfolds his victims to keep them from seeing what he’s going to do to them. I think he doesn’t want them to see him. I think he knows he turns into a monster and I don’t think he wants anyone to witness that transformation, however fleeting it may be. I think the only time he comes close to losing control is when he’s stabbing them, and even then he controls the number of times he stabs them and the exact location where he puts the knife.”

“And this is the man you think is after me?” Mara’s face had drained of color.

Annie nodded.

“Okay, if I wasn’t convinced before, I’m convinced now.” Mara took a deep breath. “Aidan stays till this is over.”

“I was hoping you’d come around.” Annie’s smile was grim.

“You’ve made a pretty compelling case.”

“I just wish I could get a handle on motive.” The set of Annie’s jaw clearly conveyed her frustration. “No one kills without a reason, and to plot out these detailed murders, all so carefully staged, someone must have a pretty definite motive. But I just can’t seem to get a focus on it. I’m missing something, and I just can’t . . .”

“And you’ve looked carefully at the victims?” Aidan prompted.

“Of course. Know the victims, know the killer. But I can’t find any connection between these women except that they shared the same name. That’s the only common thread. That, and the manner in which they were killed, of course. Significant similarities, to be sure, but neither is bringing us closer to finding our killer.”

“And none of the victims was an obvious target?”

“Not that we can see. These aren’t high-profile women with backgrounds that would seemingly put them at risk.” She shook her head slowly. “These are just . . . well, for want of a better term, average women with average lives. No domestic problems, no neighborhood feuds, no money to be fought over. The police believed that the best bet was the husband of the last victim, who was having an affair. The theory had been that he’d killed the first two to make the police think that some crazy was killing women named Mary Douglas.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not a great theory, but it was the only thing they could come up with.”

“And then the husband was found dead, and the mistress had been out of town when the killings took place,” Mara recalled.

“And that theory—flimsy though it might have been—went out the window, leaving us with nothing.” Annie stared out the window. “Except three identical crime scenes.”

“Maybe there is someone killing Mary Douglases to deliberately throw off the police,” Mara said. “Why would that be so crazy?”

“It’s not logical to me. Not that there’s always logic in murder, but most of the time things are pretty clear, once you get the focus.” She shook her head. “This time, I just can’t get the focus.”

“Who’s working the case for the Bureau?” Aidan asked.

“We have several field agents working with the locals. Two from the Philadelphia office, two from Mancini’s unit.” Annie remembered that was Aidan’s unit, as well. Or had been. “Miranda Cahill and Jake Domanski.”

“I thought Domanski went with the terrorist unit.”

“He changed his mind.”

“I worked a case directly with Cahill a few years ago. One of her first cases, I think. She had a lot of promise,” Aidan recalled.

“She’s a good agent.” Annie nodded. “She and her sister are both top-notch.”

“Have you thought about a contract killing?” Aidan’s thoughts returned to the crime. “Maybe the reason the killer keeps going after women named M. Douglas is because he has a name but no idea of what M. Douglas looks like.”

Annie leaned her head back against the chair and looked up at the ceiling, as if in deep thought. “Most contract killings are conducted with much less emotion. A shot to the head. A slice to the throat. Strangulation. Not this . . . this
drama
. . . that he keeps playing out. I’ve never seen a contract killer who behaved like this. And frankly, the rape scenario is not typical of contract killings. There’s something else at play here. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“The repetition of the same scene. The stabbings, the covering of the victim’s face. The rearranging of the clothes, covering up the rape.” Aidan repeated the facts as Annie had spelled them out for him. “The answer is in the crime scene.”

“Exactly.” A grim Annie turned to look at Aidan. “It all speaks to playing out a rape fantasy. The stabbings were very deliberate. Even if he killed for someone else, the rape thing, that was clearly all his own.

“But regardless of the motive, our man is no novice. He’s killed before. Many times. He’s too highly organized, too methodical, to be a beginner. The knife wounds on each of the victims were very specific, very precise. The wounds from victim to victim matched almost perfectly. He’s honed his craft very, very well.”

“And I’m assuming you put all this into the computers at the Bureau. . . .”

“Of course.” Annie nodded. “We’ve had some limited response to certain aspects—the rearranging of the clothes, for example—but not the whole package.”

“And no fingerprints that matched up with any on file.”

“We have nothing. We have a killer who’s obviously been practicing his trade for years but hasn’t left so much as a partial print or any fluids that we could test for DNA. He wore gloves, and a condom, each time.”

“You referred to him earlier as a serial killer,” Mara recalled.

“Oh, no question about it. Our UNSUB—hired man or otherwise—is a serial killer.” Annie turned to Mara. “And if he is going through the phone book to pick his victims, and you are next on his list, you go nowhere—I mean nowhere—without Aidan in your back pocket until this is over.”

Annie stood, her hands on her hips, her face grave. “Like it or not, Mara, you’ve got a new housemate. And he stays until the police have made an arrest, so I suggest you get used to each other.”

CHAPTER
FIVE

“Y
OU MIGHT AS WELL BRING YOUR STUFF IN,”
A
NNIE
called over her shoulder to Aidan as she began to gather her own bags.

“Can I give you a hand with those?” He reached for her suitcase.

“No, no, I’m fine. I just thought that since I was walking out, you might want to walk with me.”

“She means she wants to talk to you without me there,” Mara called from the kitchen, where she was finishing up the dishes from the impromptu dinner the three of them had shared.

“Oh.” Aidan went to the doorway and picked up the largest of Annie’s suitcases. “You could have just said so.”

“She’s such a smart-ass,” Annie said under her breath.

“Last minute instructions, Mom?” Aidan held the front door open for her, then closed it behind them.

Annie’s step slowed. “Mara’s the only person I know who permits almost as few people in her personal space as you do.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that she . . . she’s been pretty much alone—except for me—for the past seven years.”

“Why?” He frowned.

“She’ll have to tell you that. If she wants to.”

“Why bring it up if you’re not going to tell me?”

“Because I want you to know that, well, just that she’s used to being alone, that’s all.” Annie opened her trunk, dropped her bags in, then turned back to him with worried eyes. “Watch out for her, Aidan. Guard her with your life. She’s all I have.”

“I’ll be here.”

He stepped back onto the sidewalk and stood with his hands in his pockets, watching Annie’s car until it disappeared around the corner, then retrieved his own bag, a beat-up navy blue duffel that he’d had in college and found in the front closet of his apartment. He hesitated at the rear of the Corvette. He hated to leave it out on the street where who knew what could happen to it. He glanced at the driveway. There was plenty of room behind the Jetta.

Mara was standing in the doorway, watching as he backed up the Vette and parked it behind her car.

“Do you mind?” He stopped halfway to the door. “I didn’t want to leave it parked out there overnight. It could get rear-ended or sideswiped.”

“No, I don’t mind, but you’ll have to move it before I go to work in the morning.”

“Well, since I’ll be following you, that won’t be a problem,” he told her as he walked up the front steps.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, really.” She stepped aside to let him in.

He didn’t bother to respond. He’d do what he was going to do. There was little point in discussing it.

“So. I guess you want to get settled.” Mara stood in the center of the living room, feeling awkward. It had been a very, very long time since she’d been alone in her house with a man. Any man. “Second door on the right. Annie said she made the bed up for you before she left.”

“Thanks.” He nodded somewhat stiffly as he went up the steps, obviously no happier with the situation than she was.

Great,
she thought with a grimace.
This should be one hell of a fun time.

Thanks, Annie.

“Annie didn’t mention that you had a daughter,” he was saying as he came down the stairs.

“What?”

“I said, I didn’t know you had a daughter. Where is she?”

Mara appeared frozen where she stood, her face without color.

She wet her lips and turned her head away from him.

Aidan stood on the last step, confused. Her entire demeanor had changed in the blink of an eye.

“I’m going to take Spike for a walk. I won’t be long.” She hurried brusquely into the kitchen and returned with the dog and leash in tow.

“I’ll go with you.” The mention of her daughter had obviously upset her, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

“No, no need. Same walk I take every night.” She was fumbling with Spike’s collar. Her hands were visibly shaking, and her best efforts to hide the fact were not quite good enough.

“Wait up . . .”

“I said no need. I’ll be back.” She walked out the door.

Aidan followed.

“I said you didn’t have to come with me. I don’t want you to come with me.”

“I promised Annie I’d keep an eye on you. Tough to do if I’m sitting on the sofa, playing with the remote, while you’re out roaming around town in the dark.”

He fell in step with her. She responded by gravitating to the far edge of the sidewalk, as if to put as much distance as possible between them.

“Look, obviously I’ve upset you somehow but I don’t know what I’ve done.”

“It’s okay. Forget it.” She brushed him off without looking at him.

They walked the entire four-block square without speaking further, Aidan doing his best to keep up with her, but she was in far better shape than he was.

He wished she had one of those big, lumbering dogs that took their time, the ones that sort of waddled as they ambled along, instead of this speedy little thing that buzzed along the sidewalk at breakneck speed.

He wished she’d slow down.

He wished his hip wasn’t bothering him. It was almost enough to make him wish that he’d finished his therapy program.

All in all, it was a pretty pathetic effort on his part.

And it was awkward, wondering just what exactly had set her off like that. Then again, with her in a huff, he wasn’t pressed into making conversation, and for that he was grateful. By the time they returned to Mara’s house, he was pretty much out of breath, and his left leg and his right hip were nagging at him in concert, exacting a painful duet upon him for his effort.

He tried his best not to limp.

“I’m going to close up the house,” she announced as she locked the front door. “You can go on up to your room, or stay down here and watch TV. Whichever you prefer.”

“I’ll check the back.” He started toward the back of the house.

“I said I’d do it. I’m really not helpless.” She made an effort to soften her tone just a bit. After all, he was doing her a favor by being here.