The Next Accident

  “My daughter’s death wasn’t an accident,” he said. “Rainie Conner has evidence that the UNSUB tampered with her seat belt.”

  “Oh no,” Glenda said immediately, and meant it.

  “We believe he befriended her, gained her trust. There is no telling what all he knows. Hobbies, likes, dislikes, personal habits, personal quirks. Friends of mine, where they live. He most certainly has the address and phone number of this house. You shouldn’t be here alone.”

  “I’m not,” she said automatically, for the Bureau would never send an agent alone in the field. “There’s Special Agent Montgomery . . .”

  Quincy merely looked at her. Then he let his gaze roam the empty rooms.

  “Montgomery’s been busy,” she said defensively.

  “Why is he on this case? He doesn’t exactly seem the cavalry type.”

  “He requested it. You’re one of us. It’s important to get to the bottom of this, so we can all be safe.”

  Quincy looked at her again. She was beginning to understand his reputation now. That direct, probing stare. Those hard, compelling eyes. She broke, her gaze skittering away.

  “Montgomery . . . Montgomery was on the Sanchez case. First.” She didn’t have to say anything more. It was common knowledge that the first agent had botched the Sanchez case fifteen years ago. He’d insisted that they were looking for a single, charismatic sociopath, à la Ted Bundy, when the police already had evidence that more than one killer was involved. Further, the presence of cement dust had the LAPD wanting to check out blue-collar workers, not the local law schools. The police had finally thrown a fit. Montgomery had been removed. Quincy had come in. The rest was now law enforcement history.

  “That would explain his language and dress in front of Everett,” Quincy commented.

  She smiled thinly. “No point in auditioning for the Bureau fast track when your career has already been derailed.”

  “His mistake. Apparently he’s made a few. Don’t let the next one involve you.”

  “I’m fine here. You have a wonderful security system, plus we’ve taken the liberty of upgrading. Let me show you.” She led Quincy to the front door, where a new security box had been installed next to his doorbell. His old system had been a simple four-by-four keypad inside the entry. Now the system entailed a significantly sized plastic case boasting a keypad, scanner, and multicolor digital display located outside the front door.

  “It combines a pin code with fingerprint technology,” Glenda explained. “Instead of unlocking the front door, then rushing in to enter the security code, this box controls the front door. You enter in your personal pin number twice, then hold your index finger over the scanner to be read. If you match the print on file, the system automatically disarms and allows you into the house. The minute you close the door, it automatically resets for the next guest. In other words, the house is always protected and it now takes more than a simple sequence of numbers to gain access.”

  “It’s set up for multiple people?”

  “Yes. We’ve entered your fingerprints, Montgomery’s, and mine into the system. More can be added as necessary. This way, we can come and go as we please. Plus, it eliminates having a key, which frankly poses another security risk as keys can be stolen or copied.”

  Quincy nodded. “What about lifting someone’s fingerprint? The UNSUB has already stolen my name. Perhaps he got my fingerprints off a piece of mail I sent to my daughter.”

  “No good,” Glenda said. “The scanner not only looks at ridges, but also analyzes the fingerprint for temperature and electrical properties. A lifted print wouldn’t register the right temperature or have electrical properties.” She smiled tightly. “Nor for that matter, would a severed digit.”

  Quincy nodded again. She could tell that he liked that. “What about override protection? There must be ways to circumvent the scanner. After all, a homeowner might end up with his hand in a cast, or cut his finger, temporarily altering his own fingerprint. The security company must also consider those things.”

  “The security company has thought of them, and is even more devious than you are, Quincy. All ten digits are on file. As long as the homeowner has one available finger, he can enter his home.”

  Quincy rocked back on his heels. He finally looked impressed. “Why didn’t I buy this before?” he murmured.

  “You weren’t a corporation. It’s just now becoming available for private residences.” Glenda punched in her pin number twice, placed her index finger on the scanner, and opened the front door. Walking back into the house, she said, “So we have a state-of-the-art security system, cameras monitoring most rooms, and wiretaps on your phone lines. And if by some chance our mysterious UNSUB makes it through all that, I always have this.” She patted her trusty 10mm, snug in its shoulder holster.

  “Fair enough. But bear in mind that my ex-wife also believed her security system would keep her safe, she had taken night classes in self-defense, and she was most certainly nobody’s fool.”

  “She didn’t know to expect trouble. I do. Don’t underestimate me.”

  “I won’t underestimate you, if you promise not to underestimate him.” Quincy offered her a half smile. Instead of lightening the mood, however, the twist of his lips made him look sad. He was worried, she realized for the first time. Worried and truly hurting. She wondered if even he knew how badly.

  “Where are you going?” she asked more gently.

  “Out of town. My daughter is wrapping up her affairs now. Rainie is attending to a last few details. First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll depart. He knows too much about us here. Our homes, our family, our friends. In a fresh location, I hope to negate that advantage.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “Well, I am an expert. Just ask Bethie. Or Mandy.”

  “Quincy—”

  “I need to get going.”

  “What should we tell the Philadelphia P.D.?”

  “Tell them I’m tending to my daughter, but that I’ll be in touch.”

  “The crime scene,” she tried again. “You know there are issues.”

  He didn’t say a word.

  “Quincy, it’s staged. You know it’s staged, I know it’s staged, but the homicide detectives . . . They’re going to interpret that fact as yet another indication that you did it. After all, who better to stage a crime scene than a federal agent?”

  “I know.”

  “And that note . . . Left in the victim’s abdominal cavity. That’s cold, Quincy. It’s also very personal, and that won’t help you.”

  “You have word on the note?” he asked sharply.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s too soon. I mean simply that I don’t think it convinces them that you’re a target. At least it doesn’t convince them enough. You are the ex-husband, after all; it’s easier to make you their primary suspect.”

  “I didn’t kill Elizabeth.”

  “Of course not!”

  “I mean that, Glenda. You’re a good agent. And I didn’t murder my wife.”

  She faltered. She would have to be dense not to catch the undercurrents in his voice and she had not advanced so far in the Bureau by being dumb. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “This person”—Quincy’s voice sounded almost far away—“he’s very, very good.”

  “He may be good, but we’ve gone up against good before. We’ll find him.”

  “Really? Because I’ve been going through my old cases and I haven’t seen a hint of him yet. Glenda, for the last time, don’t stay here alone.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t think you understand. I’m removing my daughter from the playing field. With her out of reach, it’s anybody’s guess where he’ll strike next.”

  20

  New York University, New York City

  “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

  Kimberly sat in Professor Andrews’s office as the last rays of daylight gave way to a slinky gray dusk. Day One, K
imberly called this Thursday. Day One without her mother. She gripped the edge of the old maple seat harder, as if that would keep this day from ending. Day One would only be followed by Days Two, Three, and Four, then Months One, Two, and Three, then Years . . . Tears slid down her cheeks.

  She had come here with the intention of being professional. She had to leave town. She would provide a rough sketch of the last few days for her professor. She would end by calmly stating that circumstances now warranted the resignation of her coveted internship position. Dignified. Firm. In control. Those were her goals. She was nearly a master’s student, for heaven’s sake. She had buried her sister and had now lost her mother. If she had been a young woman once, she wasn’t anymore.

  She had stepped into the warm, crowded office with its hodgepodge mix of precariously stacked papers and dying plants and her composure had instantly dropped like a rock. Her eyes welled up. She stood in front of a man she respected almost as much as her father, and bits and pieces of the last few days burst out of her mouth before her throat finally closed up on her.

  Dr. Andrews had led her to the chair. He had brought her a glass of water. Then he had sat patiently on the other side of his cluttered desk, his hands folded and his expression steady while he waited for her to recover. He didn’t offer any platitudes or comforting noises. It wasn’t his style.

  In his ten years at NYU, Dr. Marcus Andrews had garnered a reputation for reducing even the most brilliant Ph.D. candidates to tears with his unwavering blue stare. Speculation placed his age anywhere between sixty and older than dirt. He had thinning gray hair, a perpetual scowl, and a penchant for tweed. While in reality he was an average-sized man, trim from a lifelong devotion to yoga, he had an uncanny ability to seem four times his natural size as he stood at a podium and railed at his students to try harder, think broader, and for heaven’s sake, be smarter.

  According to the grapevine, he’d started his career as a psychiatrist assigned to the fabled San Quentin prison. The work had intrigued him so much, he’d gotten a Ph.D. in criminology and made a name for himself doing groundbreaking work on the institutionalization of criminals, and how the very nature of prisons guaranteed further acts of brutality when hardened inmates were released back into society.

  He was hard, gruff, and demanding. He was also brilliant, and Kimberly respected him immensely.

  “Maybe you should start at the beginning,” he told her.

  “No. I don’t want to go through it again. It’s painful, and I can’t afford to be in pain right now. It’s funny, I never understood how my father could come home from his job and look so composed. All the cops on TV, they came back from crime scenes and they drank, or smoked, or cursed, or raged. My sister and I, we understood that. It made sense to us. Then my father would come home again, and it was . . . He was like a pool of still water. No matter how long you studied his face, you never saw a thing beneath the surface. I get that now. The job is war. And you can’t afford any emotion. It’s your enemy.”

  “What do you think your father would feel right now if he could hear you?” Dr. Andrews asked.

  “He would be hurt.”

  “And this person who is targeting your father, what is his goal?”

  “To hurt him,” she replied, then bowed her head as she saw his point.

  Dr. Andrews gave her his lecturer’s stare. “If this is war, Miss Quincy, which side is currently winning?”

  “My mother hated his job.”

  “Law enforcement has a disproportionately high rate of divorce.”

  “No, she hated his job. The violence. The grit. The way he seemed to belong more to it than to us. She created a beautiful home. She produced two beautiful daughters. And still he’d rather live in the shadows.”

  “It’s a calling. You understand that.”

  “But that’s my whole point. My mother is dead and I’m sad and I’m furious but I’m also . . . motivated. For the first time in months, I feel awake. One moment I was existing in some sort of fugue state, and now . . . I want to find the bastard. I want to read the crime-scene reports. I want to trace this monster’s steps, I want to tear apart every little facet of his personality and unmask him. And I am thinking about him more than I’m grieving for my mother. Dr. Andrews, what is wrong with us?”

  Dr. Andrews finally smiled, an unheard-of softening of his hard-lined face. “Ah, Miss Quincy. Haven’t you ever noticed that criminologists never do a study on criminologists?”

  “We’re sick, aren’t we?”

  “We’re intellectualists. Our desire to understand why things happen outweighs our rage at the events.”

  “Rage is purer,” she said bitterly.

  “Rage lacks constructiveness. Think of it this way: Cops are doers. They get angry at what they encounter. They make arrests. In that way, they help control crime, but their intervention is always after the fact. Criminologists, sociologists, criminal behaviorists, are thinkers. We get curious. We do studies. We come up with things like profiling, which enables law enforcement to prevent future atrocities.”

  “When I was growing up,” Kimberly said, “I used to think of my father as a general, off fighting in some foreign land. It made me proud. Even when my feelings were hurt, even when I was mad because he missed my soccer game or my birthday, I was proud.”

  Dr. Andrews leaned forward. He said gently, “You say you’re proud of your father, Miss Quincy, and I believe that you are. But lately, you’ve also been distancing yourself from him. Why is that?”

  She stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The anxiety attacks. You’ve mentioned them to me, but I get the impression you haven’t mentioned them to him.”

  Kimberly bowed her head again. Her fingers fidgeted in her lap. “I didn’t . . . I don’t know. I tell myself I don’t want to worry him. But I don’t think that’s it. I think . . . I don’t want to seem high-strung. You know—like Mandy.”

  Dr. Andrews winced. He sat back, and for the first time, Kimberly noticed how troubled he appeared. The lines were deeper in his face, his eyes didn’t have that stern stare she’d grown accustomed to. For a moment, he almost appeared human. “I have a confession to make, Miss Quincy. I think I might have led you astray.”

  “What do you mean?” She sat up straighter. Her heart began to pound again.

  No, she thought. No mistakes from you. No mere mortality from NYU’s most-feared professor. Her world was falling apart and even if it was immature of her, she needed the gods in her life to remain gods.

  “I’m the one who originally attributed your anxiety attacks to stress,” Dr. Andrews said.

  “My sister had died, it made sense.”

  “But now we have additional data points. Think of what your father said. Someone has targeted your family. That someone has been at this for at least two years.”

  “Yes.” She looked at him quizzically, then it suddenly clicked. The blood drained out of her face. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. “My feeling of being watched. You think . . . you think it’s him.”

  “We can’t rule it out,” Dr. Andrews said quietly. He added with the most kindness she’d ever heard from him, “I am truly sorry, Miss Quincy. I rushed to the most obvious conclusion. Perhaps it’s time to listen to my own lectures.”

  “He’s stalking me.” She couldn’t get over that idea. The concept was a curious one. It made her feel at once violated, yet relieved. Violated because some unknown predator had invaded her life and hunted her down like cattle. Relieved because the violation was real, not just in her head. All those times. The goose bumps, the cold chills creeping up her spine. She hadn’t gone mental. Strong, logical Kimberly was still strong, logical Kimberly. Oh thank God . . .

  “It fits his MO,” Dr. Andrews was saying.

  “Goddammit, he’s been stalking me!” She was mad now. The rage brought desperately needed color to her cheeks, and stiffened her spine for the first time in weeks. Hunted? She would not be hunted.

 
Dr. Andrews was studying her. He must have liked what he saw, because he nodded encouragingly. “Remember what we were saying. Get curious. Put yourself in the predator’s shoes. What makes him tick?”

  She took a deep breath. “Games,” she said after a moment. “He likes playing games.”

  “That is consistent with what we know. What else?”

  “He doesn’t want a quick kill. It’s not about the murder, it’s about the process. Personal. He wants it to be personal. Intimate.”

  “He won’t be a stranger to you.”

  “But I might not have met him yet,” Kimberly said slowly. “That feeling of being watched . . . If I had already met him, he wouldn’t have to monitor me from a distance; he’d already be part of my life.”

  “Reconnaissance,” Dr. Andrews theorized. “When did the sensation begin?”

  “A few months ago. So he’s been doing his homework. Looking for an opening.”

  “New boyfriend,” Dr. Andrews offered.

  “Too obvious. He’s done that ploy, first with Mandy, and then with my mother. Though he upped the ante with my mother—we think he also posed as someone who received one of Mandy’s organs.”

  Dr. Andrews blinked. “Brilliant.”

  “I’m supposedly the smart one,” Kimberly murmured softly, still thinking out loud. “That’s what Mandy and my mom would have told him. I’m the serious one, the one who’s always wanted to join law enforcement. The one who started taking martial arts at the age of eight, who likes tackle football and guns . . .” Her voice trailed off, her mind already forming a connection with one new person in her life. A charming gun pro who just happened to join her rifle association six months earlier. Doug James.

  “You have an idea?”

  “I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

  “Better to be safe than sorry, Miss Quincy.”

  She smiled. “That’s the first platitude I’ve ever heard from you. I didn’t know that you knew any. Then again, duly noted.”

  Dr. Andrews smiled. “You’re leaving, yes? I assume that is what you’re here to tell me. Strategic retreat is a perfectly valid option.”