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Authors: Max Allan Collins

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BOOK: Finishing School
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If the frame he'd constructed was as tight as he thought, his foil would take the blame for everything that had happened here, and perhaps the events in Georgia as well.
He entered the town and eased down the main street. Cohasset was too small to have a police department—a plus for him. With a population of 2,500, their protection came from the Itasca County Sheriff's Office. Today, after the word went out, the police departments of Coleraine, Grand Rapids, Hill City and Deer River would all be involved as well. He knew that. He also knew that by the time they started blocking roads, he'd be long gone—and so would the girl.
He made sure none of the deputies' cars were in front of the diner. In a town with no police, he'd feel humiliated after planning this shopping trip so carefully, only to have it go to h-e-double-l because some deputy was having lunch two blocks from his target.
Luckily, the diner, though busy, showed no signs of law enforcement. He traveled southeast on U.S. 2 past the diner, before turning left on Columbus
Avenue, then circling the block back to the highway.
He crossed the highway to the southwest on First Avenue NW and rolled over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail crossing—the only thing that could disrupt his plan. Three routes of exit from the neighborhood he was entering would take him back to U.S. 2. He could come back the way he came, or use two other outlets to the north. The only downside was that all three crossed the railroad tracks at some point.
One off-schedule freight train, and he would be boxed in.
He had checked the train schedule carefully and found a train due through here just after one, but that still gave him over an hour. You heard about trains being late, but never about them running early! That better hold up today. The only other way out was a four-mile sprint dead west on a two-lane county road. If the police got in front of him, it would all be over.
The house he was looking for was on Fourth Avenue, a north-south street with only four residences on the west side between First and Second streets. The third house on the left, a white clapboard bungalow, was the home of the little blonde girl he had his eye on.
He had seen her for the first time in the diner back on the highway. After stopping there for lunch one afternoon (in the summer when he had been
working in the area), he became mesmerized by the little girl when she came in with her mother. As they ate, he had watched them, and dawdled over several cups of coffee after he'd finished his lunch, then followed them out when they left. The woman had loaded the child into a car seat in the back of a blue Ford Focus. He memorized the license number just in case he lost them. Wasn't like it was that big a town. . . .
He spent another half hour following the Focus to a gas station, then to the post office, before the woman had finally driven home. Two more trips over the end of summer and into the fall had determined that the Focus was always parked in the gravel driveway. As he eased past the house, he noted the Focus in the driveway—Mommy was home, presumably, which meant the girl would be there, too.
In a town this small, he did not dare park; the chance of somebody noticing his car was too great. Again, as he had in Hibbing, he'd rented a car. This Ford Taurus was unassuming and looked as if it might belong to the insurance salesman he pretended to be. To cover his tracks further, he had stopped at a roadside restaurant for breakfast.
He'd chosen the restaurant because the parking lot had another Taurus—a different color than his rental, but that didn't matter. The subterfuge didn't have to hold up for long; it just had to buy him a few more minutes. Any edge, however small, was a good edge.
Since he had neither the skills nor the nerve to steal a car, he did the next best thing: He parked next to the other Taurus, and—under the pretext of tying his shoe—knelt behind the vehicle and, his heart pounding, got out a small screwdriver.
Working quickly and cautiously, he removed the rear license plate, tucked it under his Windbreaker, then rose, returned to his car, tossed the plate into the trunk, and shut it. He hoped the other Taurus would pull out of the lot with its driver not missing his rear plate—and even if the plate's absence
was
noticed, the driver would hardly heed the car next to him—he'd simply think that vandals had swiped the plate or, perhaps, that the bumpy Minnesota two-lane roads had knocked it off.
Walking to the restaurant, he struggled to get his breathing under control. He even stopped and bought a
USA Today
out of the machine and took three deep breaths as he took one more look around the lot to make sure his petty theft had gone unnoticed. He realized he was breaking his own rule of never committing a misdemeanor while committing a felony, but he had not, as of yet, committed that felony. So, he thought, the argument at this point was purely academic.
That thought gave him a smile as he entered the restaurant and had a hearty breakfast. He even left the waitress a better-than-usual tip, so she would remember him—he had still been wearing his company shirt and jeans under the company Windbreaker. After breakfast, he drove to one of his
inspection points. He performed the inspection, then, with the rental car parked well off the road, changed into his suit and switched the rear license plate for the one from the diner.
Now, an hour later, feeling he'd covered his tracks, he made one more pass through the neighborhood, pretending to be looking for a house number, but really checking out the block for walkers and anyone stepping out onto their porches. From his vantage point, the neighborhood looked quieter than the forests he knew so well.
He turned into the driveway, took a deep breath to try to settle his grinding stomach, then checked his disguise in the rearview mirror. The fake mustache and cheap black wig weren't terribly believable up close, but from a distance should work. Next, he slipped on a pair of latex gloves. He wasn't in any fingerprint database that he was aware of, never having been arrested or served in the military, but taking chances was ill-advised.
He stepped from the car with a black shoulder bag that he hoped would make his insurance man disguise more believable, should any neighbors spot him. More importantly, he had the top flap open and one hand stuck inside. There was only one chance here, and the prize was breathtaking.
He had to get it right.
He climbed the two concrete steps to the door, and rang the bell. A screen door separated him from the locked inner door, half wood, half glass with curtains. Through the divide, he could see the
blonde woman coming to the door. She seemed perplexed by this interruption in her day. Her eyes cut down the hallway toward what he presumed was a bedroom, and he hoped that the little girl was taking a midday nap. That might make his job easier.
When the woman's eyes fell on him, he smiled. Though the confusion didn't completely leave her face, the small-town girl smiled—pretty, almost as tall as him, slim with her blonde hair tied back today. She wore faded jeans and a maroon University of Minnesota sweatshirt with gold lettering and Goldy, the team mascot, on it.
She unlocked the dead bolt, opened the inner door, and, in what was a very helpful move to him, opened the screen.
Her smile was wide if still uncomprehending. “May I help—''
That was as far as she got before his hand came out of the shoulder bag with the Taser clutched in his fist.
He fired the weapon and the tiny darts struck her in the chest. The woman's eyes widened almost comically and her mouth formed a soundless O as she jumped and jerked, falling backward into the house.
He glanced around, saw no one on the street or on the porches of the nearby houses, and simply followed the still-shuddering woman inside. She fell to the hardwood floor of the living room, the wires between them dancing as she convulsed. He looked around at the room—tastefully decorated
with a brown cloth-covered sofa, love seat and wide chair with hassock. A squat rectangular table sat in the middle of the grouping, the little girl's toys cluttering the floor.
He closed the door, looking through the window once more to make sure the coast was clear. Looking down, he noted the woman had passed out. He bent to her and pulled the darts out of the Minnesota sweatshirt—most of Goldy the Gopher's face had been obliterated and droplets of blood were left behind on the maroon sweatshirt.
He withdrew a small bottle of chloroform from the bag, along with a rag, undid the cap (careful to keep it at arm's length) and poured a little onto the cloth. To make sure he had time to accomplish his goal, he held the thing to the woman's nose for a count of ten.
She was definitely going to be out for a while. He hoped she wouldn't remember anything about him, but if she did, she'd be hard-pressed to come up with anything beyond his disguise.
As he turned toward the hallway to the bedrooms, he saw the small blonde girl staring up at him, her expression perplexed.
“What did you do to my mommy?'' she asked.
“She was tired,'' he said gently, his voice low and even, despite his surprise at seeing the little girl. “Now she's taking a nap.''
Her cornsilk hair framed a heart-shaped face; she had a glowing porcelain complexion. Her blue eyes were the color of the sky on a sunny day, even as
they filled with tears and she ran to her fallen mother.
But she did not wail or scream, nor did she run away from him. Instead, she knelt at her mother's side as if to say good-bye. It was almost as if she'd chosen to go with him, which warmed his heart as he scooped her up and put the cloth over her mouth.
She struggled for only a moment.
He rested the quiet child on the floor, using her mother's arms as a pillow. The little girl was so beautiful—he felt a tear roll down his cheek. This gift would make His Beloved so happy.
A thrill came from being inside this foreign house. He had only been in one other such house—that of Ellen, their first, with her parents sleeping in the next room. All he had been able to do then was collect his precious gift and run.
Today, he could shop for accessories.
The first thing he did was tie up the mother and gag her. Fifteen minutes later, he'd packed a small bag of toys and clothes, which he ran outside with and put in the trunk, leaving the lid up. The neighborhood remained quiet and he rushed back inside to gather his blanket-wrapped prize. Carrying her down the two steps and across the yard, his heart pounding, he slowly scanned every house across the street, watching for anyone who might see him.
Nothing. No one.
After placing her carefully in the trunk, he closed the lid and once again looked around before he
climbed into the car and, as calmly as he could, backed out of the driveway and headed for his own vehicle. He hated having to put the precious child in the trunk, and was anxious to get her safely into her waiting car seat.
 
Bemidji, Minnesota
 
Dr. Spencer Reid ached from head to toe.
The youngest of the BAU team felt one hundred years old. The lack of sleep, from working nearly twenty-hour days with no breaks, had worn him out, both physically and mentally. He had a pounding tension headache and wanted nothing more than to close his eyes for an hour or two.
What kept him going was knowing that Hotchner, Morgan, and Jareau felt at least as drained. In the five days they'd been here, they had made significant progress; but they'd sent two members of the team to Georgia, making more work for those left behind. Even Detective Garue, who'd been with them every day, looked like he'd been on a weeklong stakeout.
The video feed on his laptop came alive and Reid found himself staring not at Garcia, but at David Rossi.
‘‘Hotch there?'' Rossi asked.
Hotchner stepped over to Reid's laptop, Morgan on his heels. ‘‘You have something, Dave?''
Rossi held up the evidence bag with the purse in it. ‘‘This belonged to one of the girls,'' he said. ‘‘She was buried with it.''
‘‘And?''
‘‘And inside, there was a tampon.''
They all stared blankly at the laptop for a long second as if they had heard Rossi wrong.
Reid got it in an intuitive flash. ‘‘He loves them as girls, but he can't tolerate them as women. That's why he kills them—they're turning into women.''
Eyes flaring, Morgan said, ‘‘That goes along with our theory that he's an incomplete personality—that he can't maintain a normal relationship.''
‘‘Also speaks to his control issues,'' Hotchner said. ‘‘Once they start menstruating, they've moved beyond his control, at least in his mind, and he can't stand it.''
Reid blurted, ‘‘But we've been working as if this UnSub is a pedophile.''
In the room, Morgan and Hotchner stared at him, and from the laptop, Rossi did the same.
‘‘I'm just saying,'' Reid went on, ‘‘pedophiles have very narrow interests. This UnSub has been holding these girls for long periods of time, much longer than a normal pedophile would.''
‘‘True,'' Rossi said, frowning from the laptop. ‘‘I think Reid might be onto something. This problem might be more complicated than simple pedophilia.''
‘‘All right,'' Morgan said. ‘‘So—where does that leave us?''
For several moments no one said anything, as they all reconsidered their information so far.
BOOK: Finishing School
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