The Last Victim (14 page)

“We’ve got nothing,” Kaminsky said flatly before Charlie could reply. Kaminsky’s tone had an edge to it. She seemed to take personally Charlie’s failure to recognize the Boardwalk Killer among the crowds.

“The man I saw that night at the Palmers’ isn’t in any of the photos
I’ve seen.” Addressing her response to Bartoli, Charlie kept a grip on her patience with an effort. Kaminsky’s attitude was really starting to wear on her nerves. Reminding herself that she was operating on maybe four hours of unrestful sleep and was not perhaps at her most calm and centered was the only thing that kept her from snapping Kaminsky’s head off as the agent sent photo after photo to her monitor, saying, “Really? You don’t recognize
anyone
?” every time she replaced an image with another one.

“Assuming you even remember what he looks like,” Kaminsky said now, casting her a dark look.

“I remember what he looks like.” Charlie’s reply was tart. “But after fifteen years, he’ll have changed. For one thing, if it’s the same guy, he’ll be—wait for it—fifteen years older.”

“Our age-enhancing software is pretty good. That picture up on the right-hand corner of your screen”—the age-enhanced image of the sketch made from Charlie’s description of the Boardwalk Killer that night at the Palmers’ was a tiny constant on the monitor—“is pretty much who you’re looking for. That’s why it’s there.”

“There’s no way to be sure how accurate that is,” Charlie retorted. “He might be balder. He might be fatter. He might be wearing a hat. Who knows? And it might not even be the same guy. It might be a copycat.”

“Which would make this whole thing pretty useless,” Kaminsky summed up.

This whole thing
meant
you
, Charlie knew.

“We got a possible lead on the heart,” Bartoli intervened before Charlie could respond. Probably a good thing, because her annoyance level at Kaminsky was rising dangerously. “The Sanderling holds a barbecue and dance every Friday night during the summer.”

“The Meads were killed and Bayley Evans went missing on Wednesday,” Kaminsky pointed out.

Bartoli held up a hand. “Let me finish.” He was clearly a patient man, certainly far more patient than Charlie was at this point. Charlie decided that she liked that. In fact, she liked just about everything she’d seen of Tony Bartoli, from his dark good looks to his apparent willingness to work until he dropped to find the missing girl alive.

“When someone pays admission, the staff at the Sanderling
stamps the back of the customer’s hand with a red heart and the date,” Bartoli continued. “We’ve been talking to Bayley Evans’ friends, and a group of them went to the Sanderling this past Friday night, the last Friday night before the whole thing went down. The group included Bayley Evans.”

“Which, since Dr. Stone thinks the unsub has a red heart on the back of his hand, means there’s a strong possibility he was there as well,” Crane added on a note of barely suppressed excitement.

“Is Dr. Stone ever going to clue us in on the technique she used to come up with the theory that the unsub has a red heart on the back of his hand? Because I still don’t get how she could possibly know that,” Kaminsky objected, darting another less-than-fond look at Charlie.

“That’s the whole point of bringing in an expert,” Bartoli answered before Charlie could. “To tell us things we don’t know. A lead’s a lead, and this seems like a solid one. That’s all that interests me.”

As rebukes went, it was mild, but Kaminsky definitely got the point. Her eyes darkened. Her mouth thinned and firmed.

“Today’s Friday,” Crane stated the obvious, and Charlie wondered if he meant to deflect attention from Kaminsky’s chagrin. “There’s going to be another dance tonight.”

“So we’re going to check it out?” Kaminsky stood up abruptly, her relief apparent. “Suits me.”

Charlie knew how she felt: at this point, just about anything that would get them away from the computer and out of the tin can (RV) was a welcome development. And a dance—Charlie had a sudden flashback to Holly wearing sausage curls and puffy pink prom dress. The nightmare Holly who had come to her in the hospital all those years ago. The killer could have forced her to dress up as if she were going to a dance.…

Charlie’s pulse picked up the pace.

“Yup.” Bartoli looked at Charlie with the slightest of smiles. “You up to going on a field trip, Dr. Stone?”

“Absolutely.” Far be it for her to look a gift horse in the mouth, but … “There’s just one problem: even if the killer did come into contact with Bayley Evans at this place, he has her now. It’s unlikely he’s killed her yet, so he has no reason to go trolling for another victim. He shouldn’t be there. He has no reason to be there.”

“Unless he works there,” Crane pointed out. “Or has some other reason to hang around the place.”

“He won’t stay with the victim all the time.” Charlie mulled the possibilities over as she spoke. The image of Holly in that garish prom dress stayed stuck in her head. Of course, it wasn’t anything she could share. “He’ll try to go about his normal daily routine as much as possible to avoid attracting attention. So if he works at this place, you’re right: he should be there.”

“Then let’s go.” Not even trying to disguise her eagerness, Kaminsky pulled her jacket off the back of the chair and headed for the door. She wore another of her form-fitting skirt suits. This one was navy blue, with a white short-sleeved blouse bisected by her shoulder holster. Watching Crane watch Kaminsky walk past, registering his expression, Charlie wondered once again what was between them, because clearly something was. But it wasn’t any of her business—and in any case, she really didn’t care, Charlie concluded, standing up at last, glad for the opportunity to stretch.

“Think we could grab something to eat while we’re there?” Kaminsky threw the question back over her shoulder. “I’m starving, and fast food is getting old.”

“No reason why we can’t,” Bartoli agreed, as he waited for Charlie to precede him then followed her out into the semi-organized chaos that was the rest of Central Command. “As long as we eat fast.”

The RV’s main living area had been retrofitted as one large office. In it, phones rang, computers hummed, a couple of administrative assistants manned phone lines and keyboards, and various law enforcement types went about their business. Over in a corner a pair of guys in suits—local FBI agents Sy Taylor and Frank Goldberg; Charlie had been introduced to them earlier—were using a large black marker to X through gridded areas on a map.

“They’re marking off search areas,” Bartoli told her, seeing where her gaze lingered. “The local cops are conducting a physical search for the girl or anything that turns up that might lead us to her. Thousands of volunteers are out there combing every square inch of every neighborhood and marsh and woodland in the vicinity.”

Charlie nodded. Once again, she found it comforting to realize just how huge the effort to save Bayley Evans was.

“Any leads?” Bartoli asked Taylor as the agent glanced around at them.

“So far, nothing worth mentioning, but it only takes one time to get lucky.” Taylor’s bulldog eyes were almost lost in the pale folds of his drooping eyelids. Shiny, bald, and bulky in the way of weight lifters, looking to be in his late forties, he was, so Kaminsky had told her earlier, a career agent with over twenty years in the local office. Goldberg, some ten years his junior, was tall and thin, with slicked-back dark brown hair and handsome, aquiline features.

“It’s like she vanished into thin air.” Goldberg sounded frustrated. “Where the hell does he take them?”

“That’s what we’ve got about four days to figure out.” Bartoli’s grim reply reminded everyone that the clock was ticking. Taylor made a tired huffing sound as he and Goldberg turned as one back to the grid.

Kaminsky pulled open the RV’s door. The slice of brilliant blue ocean and sugar white beach Charlie could see through it glittered in the sun. Waves rushed toward shore with a muted roar that blocked out the sounds coming from inside the RV. Wet and heavy, the air smelled of the sea. The sky was starting to show the striated shades of lavender that heralded the approach of night, but near the horizon it was still dotted with fluffy clouds as white as the froth that curled in on the surf.

“Just one thing, Kaminsky: before we get there, you need to lose the shoulder holster. And the attitude. If our unsub is there, we don’t want him to make us as feds the minute we walk in,” Bartoli said.

“You want me to go in unarmed?” Kaminsky sounded mildly outraged. She and Crane were already standing on the asphalt driveway as Charlie, eyes narrowed against the sudden brightness of the golden evening sunlight, started down the rickety metal steps of the RV. Even at this relatively late hour, the heat and humidity were intense enough to make her feel like she was stepping into a steam bath. Her sapphire shirt was sleeveless, thin silk. Nevertheless, it was too much, and immediately felt like it was clinging to her skin. With it she wore slim black slacks and low-heeled pumps, professional attire that, since she had left her jacket behind in her rooms that morning, she’d expected to be comfortably cool in. Now, walking into the wall
of humidity, she felt way overdressed for the heat, and for the beach town in general. Bringing up the rear, Bartoli closed the door behind them. Glancing back at him as she stepped down onto the pavement, Charlie registered his suit jacket and long-sleeved shirt and tie and quit feeling sorry for herself. Clearly a better person than she was in that regard, Bartoli hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“It’s a dance, not a gunfight,” Bartoli told Kaminsky dryly as he rattled down the steps. “I think you’ll be fine.”

“You’ll have Bartoli and me for backup if you need it,” Crane added. “We’re armed.”

“Oh, wow, I feel better now,” Kaminsky retorted as Bartoli reached the ground.
“Not.”

“Think of this as an undercover operation.” Bartoli started walking, and the rest of them followed toward the end of the RV. “We’re tourists out for a social evening. If the unsub even begins to suspect we’re there looking for him, he’ll disappear like that.”

He snapped his fingers.

“Special Agent Bartoli? Do you have any comment on the progress of the investigation? Or any information at all that you would care to share with our viewers?” A reporter with a microphone jumped in front of them, seemingly out of nowhere, catching them by surprise as they emerged from the alley formed by the RV and the house. Blond and willowy, she was accompanied by a camera crew that instantly zeroed in on the four of them as the reporter thrust her microphone toward Bartoli for a reply.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Taking in the reporter’s gauzy orange sundress, Charlie felt a stab of envy: in something like that, she would at least stand a chance of beating the heat.

Before Bartoli could answer the woman’s question, a shout went up from somewhere to Charlie’s right. Glancing in that direction, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding sunlight, Charlie saw to her dismay that a whole pack of media types was rushing toward them. Apparently the “secret” location of their imported team was no longer a secret.

“Special Agent Bartoli! Any leads on Bayley Evans?”

“Do you think she’s still alive?”

“What’s being done to find the victim?”

“Is this the Boardwalk Killer again?”

Reporters yelled questions as the news crews mobbed the four of them. Mobile klieg lights which were brighter than the brilliantly setting sun blinded Charlie to the point where she had to look down at the heat-softened asphalt underfoot. A shuffling wall of legs and feet surrounded her, backing away incrementally from the four of them as the cameramen jostled for position.

“I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” Bartoli responded
tersely, his hand closing on Charlie’s upper arm, pulling her along with him as he forced his way through the horde by, as far as Charlie could tell, sheer force of personality.

“Have there been any ransom demands?”

“Were the other girls tortured?”

“How were the victims killed?”

The shouted questions came so fast and furiously that it would have been difficult to reply even if Bartoli had wanted to, which he clearly didn’t. Stone-faced, he plowed through the crowd with Charlie in tow and Kaminsky and Crane right behind them. Half blinded by the lights and wary of the cameras anyway, Charlie kept her head down and kept going.

The black SUV in which she and Bartoli and Crane had driven from the airport was parked just a few yards behind the RV. Unlocking it with a click, Bartoli pulled open the front passenger door and thrust Charlie inside. Even as she registered the suffocating heat in the interior of the vehicle, Bartoli slammed the door on her. Fortunately the windows were tinted. Charlie was fairly certain that the flashes aimed at the SUV could not penetrate them. Still, she ducked her head.

“Are our citizens safe in their homes?”

“Can you at least tell us if you’ve identified any suspects?”

As the vehicle’s other doors were jerked open almost in unison the media’s shouted questions peppered Charlie’s ears like hail.

“Should we expect more murders?”

“What is it that the victims have in common?”

A moment later the other three were inside and the SUV was once again closed up tight, doors locked against the onslaught. To Charlie the scene felt surreal, as though the four of them were barricaded inside the sweltering vehicle against a mob. Bartoli, who was driving, looked over his shoulder as he backed the SUV away, slowly and carefully so as not to hit an importunate reporter. The cameras kept filming even as the vehicle broke free of the crowd at last. Still reversing toward the street, the SUV picked up speed.

“Damn.” Bartoli flicked a glance at Charlie. “What are the chances they’re not going to run your picture all over the eleven p.m. news?”

She grimaced. “Maybe they’ll think I’m just another agent.”

“We knew they were going to find out who she is sooner or later.” In the backseat with Crane, Kaminsky rolled down her window to let in air despite the running, shouting, filming camera crews that were doing their best to keep up. It was so hot and airless in the vehicle that Charlie didn’t blame her. Besides, the cameras were by that time too far away to capture much, and she was in the front seat, which made the chances of them getting a good shot of
her
even more remote. The sounds of all the commotion going on outside coupled with the whoosh of air coming through vents as Bartoli cranked the air-conditioning made it necessary for him to raise his voice as he replied.