automatically. He handed a file to me.
I took it and looked at it. The details flooded back to me. Single male in his thirties works in lingerie at a department store. I thought that detail odd at the time, it still struck me as odd.
“What?” I asked.
“He’s probably not our guy,” Lucas said.
“He’s a bit different,” I responded.
“Yeah, like Trevor different,” Lucas said with emphasis. “Wanting a human Barbie doll is odd, but it doesn’t make you a serial killer.”
“I’m aware of that,” I was currently Trevor’s human Barbie Doll. “But the other stuff in the file is why I flagged it. He doesn’t seem to like women much, he got a degree in cooking, and he had a terrible relationship with his mother and four sisters.”
“So?” Lucas asked.
“So it raises red flags,” I stated.
“He could be Trevor’s brother then,” Lucas said.
“That he could be, but I still think he’s worth checking out. Just because Trevor isn’t a serial killer, doesn’t mean that this guy can’t be,” I said.
Lucas took the file back. I was right and he knew it. Lucas was usually the one that got personally involved in every case. From experience, I knew he slept soundly and well, but the how was still a mystery.
Xavier took vitals for the hundredth time that day. Lucas grabbed the files and walked out the door. Satisfied that I wasn’t going to keel over, Xavier slumped in his chair.
“I don’t think he’s in those files,” Xavier finally said.
“Me either, but we might get lucky,” I leaned back against the headboard.
“Yeah, we might find a different serial killer,” Xavier said. His voice held an edge to it. The wheels of his brain were churning. You could tell just from the way he spoke.
“Or another Norman Bates,” I said.
“What are your thoughts on this case, complete thoughts?”
“I think it’s a cop. What better way to find victims?” I responded.
“There would be tickets.”
“Not necessarily. When I was in high school, my friend had this car with some sort of weird short in the taillights. She got pulled over dozens of times for it. She always showed them the mechanic’s receipt saying he had worked on it. They would let her go. No warning, no tickets, nothing. Occasionally, they would thump the car to see if the light would come on, but there was never any evidence that she had been pulled over, except the cop reporting in that he was making a traffic stop,” I shrugged.
“Then he uses the police computers to find the victim’s address,” Xavier said.
“Again, not necessarily. Even if you just have a taillight out, they want identification. Someone with a good memory could remember it and write it down when they got into their squad car,” I said.
“That is a terrifying thought,” Xavier said.
Sixteen
With the new serial killer and mass murder laws in place, the police served warrants on our seventeen suspects. They could be detained for forty-eight hours without being charged. During that time, they would be interviewed and when they were in their cells, their behavior monitored.
Xavier and I were sitting at the desk in my motel room. Michael had patched us into the feeds coming from the police station. Lucas and Gabriel were currently interviewing the third suspect on the list.
Suspects one and two had been about as useful as a nun in a swearing contest. Three wasn’t turning up anything useful either. Xavier and I listened to the audio and watched the interview in silence. Xavier was munching popcorn. It smelled really good, but I also knew that chewing popcorn while listening to the audio was nearly impossible. The chewing and crunching noises inside my head would be louder than the speakers on the computer.
“I think finding Bigfoot would be easier,” Gabriel said as suspect three left the interview room.
“Agreed,” I said into the little microphone on the table. It fed into earpieces that Gabriel and Lucas were wearing.
“What is that noise?” Lucas asked.
“Xavier chewing popcorn,” I answered.
“What did you think of that one?” Gabriel asked.
“He should remove his online dating profile before his wife finds out,” I answered.
“We’re taking a quick break and will then start on number four. Why doesn’t Xavier finish his popcorn, it’s distracting as hell and you get twenty minutes of sleep?” Gabriel told us.
“A whole twenty minutes?” I smiled.
“Well, maybe fifteen by the time you get out of that chair and into bed,” Gabriel took out his ear piece and put it on the table.
“I can give you something,” Xavier mumbled through the popcorn.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just go wash up,” I told him, brushing chewed popcorn bits off my jeans.
The harsh lights in the bathroom did nothing to improve my looks. I looked rough. My eyes were blood shot and had dark circles under them. My cheeks looked sallow and sunken in. The visit to the stylist some weeks earlier was wearing off, exposing grey patches of hair. The shorter pieces of hair were jutting out at all angles from my scalp, making me look unkempt and possibly deranged.
When we got back, Trevor would probably insist on making me an emergency appointment to get my hair done. If he found out about the migraine, he’d also insist on a day of homeopathy. He’d put cucumbers over my eyes, make me soak in a bathtub, he’d hire someone to come in and give me a massage. All the things you’d do to rejuvenate your living doll. Of course, a massage sounded like an excellent idea and I could stomach the other crap to get it.
I ran hot water in the sink and used one of the scratchy washcloths to wash my face. I pulled the hair down from the bun. It was getting long, well past my shoulders. Fake curls flowed around my face from where the hair had been twisted and put up. There was a visible line where the curls started.
Using the washcloth, I wet the hair and started pulling it back.
“Leave it down for a while. You aren’t at a crime scene,” Xavier said, tossing his popcorn bag into the trash.
“But I could be,” I told him.
“So, run a brush through it now and if we get called, you can spin it up then,” Xavier shrugged and left the bathroom doorway.
I considered it and left it down. I picked up the brush and roughly yanked through the tangled curls. It took a few minutes, but I finally got my hair brushed.
Xavier was stretching when I exited the bathroom. He smiled at me and I heard something pop as he moved his arms.
“Better?” I asked.
“Much.”
“Are they back yet?”
“No, but they will be soon. Sit down.”
I sat down and Xavier took my blood pressure and heart rate. I ignored him while he did it. The routine was familiar. I rarely got migraines while we were working, but I got them often when we were off. Xavier said it was because my mind was too busy putting together the puzzle pieces to hurt when we were hunting down serial killers or mass murderers.
“They’re back,” I said as Xavier counted my heartbeats.
“They can wait another minute,” he said starting over.
“Are you with us?” Lucas asked.
“Need a minute, Xavier thought he needed to check my vitals again,” I answered.
“She’ll live,” Gabriel said.
“Maybe,” Xavier sat down. “Ready.”
Time passed slowly as they went through one suspect after another. My eyelids felt heavy and my body was cramping from sitting in the chair for so long when they stopped. Gabriel and Lucas both stood up. They stretched. I mimicked their behavior. We’d made it through seven more suspects. None seemed to fit the bill.
“It’s morning,” Xavier said.
“We know,” Lucas yawned. “I think we are going to catch a nap before we interview anyone else.”
“Sleep would be good,??
? Gabriel rubbed his face. “How many of us think we are barking up the wrong tree?”
“Me,” I said.
“Me,” Xavier answered.
“Me,” Michael’s voice came through the speakers.
“Suggestions?” Gabriel asked.
“Not really,” I lied.
“Ok, we are coming back to the motel for a while,” Lucas disconnected.
Xavier shut the laptop lids. He glanced at me, a frown appearing on his lips.
“If I thought you looked bad earlier, life has proven you can look even worse. You have about as much color as a zombie,” he said to me.
“Sleep deprivation.”
“No, this is different, I’ve seen you sleep deprived and this isn’t it. Are you having a rebound?”
“No,” I told him.
“Hangover from the migraine meds?”
“That is possible,” I yawned.
Xavier booted the laptop back up. He did something with the keys and Nyleena appeared on the screen.
“Does she look as bad as I think?” Xavier asked the flickering figure on the screen.
“Yes,” Nyleena answered. “I’m guessing she has a migraine.”
“Had,” I corrected.
“She eating properly?” Nyleena asked.
“She is now,” Xavier answered.
“Then she needs some sleep. How long has she been up?”
“Twenty-three hours,” Xavier answered.
“Give her something to get some sleep. She’ll look better when she wakes up. I have to be in court in three minutes,” Nyleena hung up.
“I think we can avoid drugs, I think I’ll sleep without them,” I slipped out of my jeans and into my pajamas.
“I’ll stay here for a while longer,” Xavier shut the lid on the laptop. I curled up into bed and slept.
I didn’t dream. I didn’t sleep