The hooker had awakened, gasping for air, thinking she was being strangled. Then, she really was. He did love it when fantasy met reality with such perfection.
He climbed off the girl, yanked on the concrete slab, and winced. The girl from Sunday wasn’t quite done yet. He stared into the pit for a moment, troubled. Two days. He’d never gone only two days between kills.
He had to be more careful, he thought as he dragged the hooker’s body from the bed, rolling her into the pit. He’d never gone to the same street twice, but he had tonight. It was like he’d been on autopilot as he’d driven away from Eve’s.
It was the stress. When this was over and he was done, he’d go back to his old way. Things would be normal again. He donned his protective gear, performed his duties, tossing the girl’s clothing in after her. When he was finished, he pulled the slab closed and picked up the girl’s cheap stilettos, carefully placing them heel out on the shelf next to Christy Lewis’s very expensive Manolos.
He stood back, surveyed his collection. It was a veritable time capsule of women’s shoe fashions spanning nearly thirty years. Most were, of course, on the most flamboyant fringe of fashion, the shoes no respectable woman would be caught dead wearing. Most were small sizes, as his victims had been. It was a more efficient use of his energy that way. Smaller victims were more easily overpowered. More easily transported. Leaving all his energy for what happened in this room, as it should be.
There were exceptions. His eyes lowered to the bottom shelf, far left. Next to the worn pair of work boots he’d removed from the man who’d dug his pit were a pair of scuffed pumps, black, size eleven. They were plain. Ugly. Matronly, even. They’d been out of style thirty years ago. Which was why they’d been relegated to the church charity bin.
He remembered her digging them from the bin along with the articles of clothing that had been too worn to make decent rags. A few dresses for herself. Trousers for her sons that would be too short for the older, and far too large for the younger. But she didn’t care. Didn’t care that everyone knew every stitch she wore was fished from the charity bin. Didn’t care that her sons were laughingstocks of the entire town.
She’d had no pride. No shame. Nothing but a selfish, unquenchable thirst. He carefully took one of the pumps from the shelf, studied it, remembering. They were scuffed because she’d fallen down all the time.
She’d fallen down all the time because she was drunk. As were the constant stream of paramours she entertained to earn her next bottle. Except a few of them hadn’t been as drunk as she. And a few of them had come with a different price in mind for that next bottle.
His hand clenched into a fist and he abruptly relaxed it. No point in damaging the most valuable of his souvenirs. He remembered the day he’d taken these shoes from her feet, minutes after he’d taken his hands from her throat.
Seconds after he’d taken her miserable life.
He remembered the sight of her swinging from the tree outside the rusted-out trailer she’d had the nerve to call their home. No pride. No shame. Now, no life.
He’d chosen the branch carefully. She’d been a tall woman. That she hadn’t passed those genes to him had often struck her as funny.
He’d laughed about it himself as he’d hoisted her up, left her feet dangling. It had taken more energy than he’d expected, but it had been worth it. Of course tying the noose had been no problem. He’d had months to practice the technique. There hadn’t been much else to do, in juvenile detention. Not much more to do than watch his own back and dream of his hands around her throat.
He’d expected the moral satisfaction, even the thrill as she drew her last breath. What he hadn’t expected was the pure, sexual release. It had caught him off-guard, that first time. He lifted his eyes, surveyed his collection. He’d known to expect it every time that followed.
He looked back at the shoe in his hand. He’d strung her up and left her swinging. No one had questioned that she’d killed herself. Everyone had been relieved that she was finally gone. His only regret was that she’d been dressed in the cast-off Sunday dress she’d pulled from the church charity bin and not like the whore she was. And that he hadn’t had his pit then. He would have enjoyed walking over her any time he chose.
He placed the shoe back on the shelf, straightened it neatly. The next pair of shoes he placed on the shelf would be Rachel Ward’s, victim five of his six, who’d already agreed to meet him tomorrow night. Tonight, he amended.
But the next body into the pit would be Eve’s. Eventually, he’d have her here. She’d be silenced, her worst fear realized. She’d almost died twice. Third time was a charm.
Tuesday, February 23, 4:30 a.m.
Harvey Farmer sat drumming his fingers on his kitchen table when Dell returned, looking cold and tired. “Where have you been?” Harvey snapped.
“Following Jack Phelps, just like we agreed.” There was attitude in his son’s voice that Harvey did not like and he smelled like perfume. Again.
“And what did Phelps do?”
“Went to a bar, then sat outside for a few hours waiting for some guys to come out.”
Harvey’s brows lifted, sniffing a break. “Guys? Really?”
“No, not like that. Phelps is very much into women. He was waiting for these guys to come out so he could write down their license plates. I guess they’re suspects.” Dell dragged his palms down his face. “This plan of yours isn’t working.”
“It will. Be patient.” He jumped when Dell’s hand slammed down on the table.
“I’m done being patient. How long have you followed them, hoping they stumble?”
Harvey cocked his jaw. “Since I put your brother in the ground.”
“And so far? Nothin’.”
“Not nothing. Pages of notes on what they’ve done, who they’ve seen… You’ve been at this three weeks.” Fired by the article that made my son’s murderers look like gods. Harvey had welcomed Dell’s rage. Now he needed to harness it before Dell did something wild. “They’re on a big case. They’ll be under pressure to make an arrest.”
Dell scoffed. “They couldn’t find a crook if they tripped over him.”
“Exactly. When they can’t arrest somebody, they’ll find a scapegoat.”
“Like VJ,” Dell murmured.
“Like VJ,” Harvey repeated. “Here are the pictures I took of Webster tonight.” He handed the memory card from his camera to Dell. “Group them with the ones you took of Phelps and print them out. We’ll regroup in the morning.”
Tuesday, February 23, 6:45 a.m.
“You’re here early,” Jack said, dropping into his chair.
“I had a busy night. Somebody tried to break into Eve’s place last night.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried. Left you a message on your cell. Figured you were just sound asleep. If the unis had found anything, I’d have called your home phone and woke you up.”
Jack frowned at his cell phone. “There is no call from you in my log.”
Noah wanted to tell him to cut the bullshit, but didn’t have the energy. “Maybe you need a new phone,” he said wearily. “I asked Micki to check the area around Eve’s apartment this morning. We’ll see what she finds. Is one of those for me?”
Jack had two full cups from his favorite coffee house. “They were both for me, but you look like you need it more.” He slid a cup across their desks. “What’s that?”
“Eve’s test participants. I’m comparing them against the suicide reports.”
“She gave you the list?”
“I didn’t have to ask twice. So far, no matches. That’s the good news.”
“Bad news is you’ve got a long list and we don’t know who he’s targeting next.”
“It’s not that bad. Eve separated out the heavy users. If he’s luring them to meet him somewhere, it stands to reason that he’d have a better chance of encountering them in the virtual world the more frequently they pl
ay.”
“Makes sense to me.”
Noah sat back, pushing the list away for a little while. “So why are you here early?”
“I found Taylor Kobrecki’s pals at a bar last night. The bar was the first number on Kobrecki’s grandmother’s LUDs. She called the minute you left her yesterday.”
“I bet his pals say they haven’t seen him in weeks and Taylor would never hurt a fly.”
“Almost word for word. When I asked their names, they gave me every crank-call name in the book, so I waited for them to leave and copied down license plates. I’ll run their addresses. One of them could be hiding him.” Jack tossed his hat to his desk. “Although if Kobrecki’s IQ is anywhere near his Neanderthal pals’, there’s no way in hell he’s smart enough to have pulled this off.”
“Did you talk to any of the women who filed complaints about him?”
“Two of the three. Both caught him staring in the bedroom window. Both filed a complaint and suddenly things started breaking in their respective apartments. Finally both moved out, saying Mrs. Kobrecki would lie like a rug to protect her grandson.”
“So he’s a peeper and a sniffer. Could he have moved to murder? It’s a big step.”
Jack shrugged. “Like I said, based on the friends he hangs with, I don’t think he’s got the brains. But we’ll keep looking for him, if for no other reason than to cross him off.”
“Speaking of lists, I need to get back to this one. We’re going to have to decide if we begin contacting the heavy users on Eve’s list or not. If we do, Eve will bear the brunt.”
“And if we don’t,” Jack said seriously, “we could find one of them hanging from a rope. There’s really no choice, Web.”
“I know,” Noah said. “And Eve knows that, too.”
“Give me half of the names,” Jack said. “I think our time is better spent identifying potential victims than tracking Taylor Kobrecki.”
“You’re right.” Noah gave him half the stack. “Focus on the heavy users.”
They worked for twenty minutes in silence, and then Jack spoke in a strained tone. “Web, I think I found Samantha Altman.”
Noah’s head jerked up. “What? Eve said she wasn’t on the list.”
“She wasn’t, not as Samantha Altman.” Jack handed Noah a single sheet across their desks. “I put a check next to her name.”
“Samantha Porter,” Noah read, then he remembered. “She’d just gotten divorced. Porter was her married name, but she’d gone back to Altman.”
“But when she signed up for this study, she was still Samantha Porter.”
“Eve’s got her in the lightest user group. Zero to five hours a week.”
“Samantha couldn’t play if she was dead,” Jack said dryly, then he frowned when Noah picked up the phone. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Eve.”
“At this hour?”
“She won’t mind.”
“Noah?” Her voice was husky with sleep and he pushed the distracting mental image of her snug in bed from his mind. “What’s happened?”
“We found Samantha Altman, the first victim, on the list you gave me last night.”
He heard the creak of bedsprings. “That’s impossible. I checked myself. Twice.”
“She’d just gotten divorced and Altman was her maiden name. She’d registered with you as Samantha Porter. She was in the light user group.”
There was a pause, then a quiet sigh. “Because she was dead. She would have been at the zero end of zero to five hours a week. Oh God.”
“Can you check her usage history, find out when she stopped playing?”
“Already checking. Hold on… Two weeks ago she went from six hours a day to nothing. I must have seen this. How did I miss this?”
“If you had seen it, you just would have thought she’d lost interest in the study.”
“You’re right.” She drew a breath. “Hysterics won’t help. What do you need?”
Noah’s respect for her ratcheted up. “I take it you never saw the avatar who was with Christy Sunday night.”
“He wasn’t on.” She went quiet. “I’d convinced myself that a local killer trolling for local women was more likely to find my test subjects as we’d geographically stacked the deck. But now, three for three… Somebody has access to our subject list.”
“Jack is here. I’m going to put you on speaker. Who has access, Eve?”
“Jeremy Lyons. He’s Dr. Donner’s secretary. He typed the names in. And anybody who has access to Jeremy’s office. Jeremy keeps his user name and password on a sticky note under his desk blotter. If his computer is on, you can get in.”
“So anybody wanting the files would have to physically go to his office?”
“Well, no. If you connect to the university’s server from an outside line, you could also get in.” She hesitated. “With Jeremy’s password, that’s pretty easy to do.”
Which was how she’d found Christy’s address. “Who had access to his office?”
“Anybody who enters the building. Jeremy takes a lot of bathroom breaks and leaves his computer unattended. Anybody who knew about the study could have managed it.”
This wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. “Which includes who?”
“Dr. Donner, the committee that approved my thesis proposal, any of the members of the study itself, most of the grad students in the department, and ShadowCo.”
Noah frowned. “Why ShadowCo?”
“They sponsored my research. Not a huge stipend, but enough so that their PR people could say they put money toward responsible use of role play games.”
“In other words,” Jack said, “a helluva lot of people.”
“Well, maybe somebody saw him with Christy on Monday night,” Noah said. “If he broke into her house, we should have seen evidence of forced entry. If he lured her out, hopefully somebody saw them. Does Shadowland keep track of conversations?”
“It’s up to the individual. A lot of gamers don’t want anyone to know where they’ve gone or who they’ve met. Anonymity is a benefit of the game.”
“If the user does choose to save the conversations, where do they go?” Jack asked.
“They’re saved to the gamer’s hard drive. I suppose ShadowCo may store them on their servers, but that seems unlikely given the volume of conversations. It would be like if the wireless companies kept track of each individual text message or IM. They don’t because they simply don’t have the capacity. Did you get Christy’s computer?”
“Yes, but it’s… unlikely that we’ll find anything on it.” Especially if the killer had switched Christy’s computer as he’d done with Martha’s.
“We may have to resort to old-fashioned detective work,” Jack said with a wry smile.
Noah didn’t feel much like smiling back. “Eve, for now, I’d like a list of anyone you know who could have accessed the files. We’ll start with alibis for Donner, Lyons, and the grad students. I’ll be in touch.” Noah hung up and leaned back in his chair. “Well?”
Jack lifted his brows. “I was right. She would have been great at phone sex.”
Noah gritted his teeth, irritated. “Jack.”
“You have no sense of humor,” Jack said and Noah gritted his teeth harder.
“Christy Lewis. She’s online chatting up avatars around midnight Monday morning. She’s gotta be dead before nine o’clock, because she doesn’t show up for work.”
Jack grimaced. “And there’s a snake involved.”
Noah took the lid off the coffee cup Jack had brought him and stirred in his normal four packs of sugar. “We can’t forget about the snake. Why use a snake?”
“ ’Cause he’s a sick bastard. You don’t need all that sugar. This coffee is good.”
Sugar had become his vice when he’d quit the booze. “Habit. Okay, so we know he’s a sick bastard. He’s killed three women. Still, why the snake?”
“Maybe Ian can tell us more after he finishes the autopsy.”
/> Noah stood up. “He said he’d do it last night. Let’s find out if he’s done.”
Tuesday, February 23, 6:45 a.m.
Liza cooked the last egg they had. They were always low on food, but she’d been afraid to spend any money until Lindsay came home. If she ever comes home. The police weren’t looking for her. Nobody was looking for her, nobody except me.
She closed her eyes, so tired. She’d covered miles the night before, only to come up empty-handed. No one had seen Lindsay. She’s dead.
A wave of grief washed over her. Don’t give up. If Lindsay was lying in an alley somewhere, hurt, she was frozen by now. Don’t give up.
She lifted her chin. She had an English exam today. When Lindsay did return, she’d kick Liza’s butt for failing a test and losing her chance for a scholarship.
She went back to her room to get ready for school.
Tuesday, February 23, 7:25 a.m.
Noah and Jack found Ian at his desk, typing a report. “I was going to bring a report to Abbott’s 8:00 a.m. meeting,” Ian said. “You didn’t have to come down.”
“We’re stuck on the snake,” Noah said. “We don’t know why he used it and were hoping you found something that would shine some light on it.”
“Because he’s a sick bastard?” Ian said sourly.
“Told you so,” Jack said.
“I was hoping for a more scientific explanation,” Noah said. “Anything, Ian?”
“Plenty.” He pulled the sheet from Christy’s body. “She has the same puncture on her neck and was positive for ketamine, just like Martha. Unlike Martha, Christy was restrained at her ankles. The rope burns are only on the front, bruising on the back.”
“She was tied to a chair,” Noah said.
“I think so. There is also swelling in her elbows.” Ian looked up, his eyes weary. “We see that elbow swelling when the arms are kept crossed over the torso for long periods of time, like this.” He demonstrated. “But there’s no evidence of arm or wrist restraint.”
Jack frowned. “Straitjacket?”
“It makes sense,” Ian said. “A straitjacket will immobilize without leaving marks. I found bruising between her shoulder blades, same height as the chairs around her dining room table. I think she struggled, repeatedly rocking back against the chair.”