17. 16
I make my way to the coffee maker after a workout in the office gym later that week. I’m all freshly showered and ready to get some work out of the way when Chester corners me. He’s got this brooding aura around him and I can’t read him at the moment.
“Want one?” I say holding up my fresh cup.
“No,” he says.
“No?”
“Too twitchy.”
“Since when does that stop you?”
He shrugs. “Since I’m trying to pinpoint a serial killer.”
“How’s that different from saving kids?” I question him, failing to see the difference. We start walking to my Ivory Tower and Chester makes a beeline towards the windowsill. I could open my computer, but I choose to sit down on the floor underneath him. I’m warming my hands on my cup and wait for him to answer.
“I can compartmentalize with the kids. I see all the kids we save as a bonus. All the women we can’t save with the serial killer? They feel like failure. It’s personal and I can’t let it go.”
I’m not sure I completely understand, but to some extent I do. I just feel like all the kids we can’t save are failures as well. “So you stop drinking coffee?”
“I do when I get twitchy.”
“You get twitchy when you don’t drink coffee,” I counter. He grunts, and I lay my head in my neck looking up at him, smirking evilly before I take a sip of coffee.
We just sit in silence for a moment, which is something that rarely happens. Life gets in the way and there’s always something that’s making noise. Usually it’s Chester himself, but right now I caught him at a silent moment. Up here in my office there’s no background noise from the people working downstairs. And it’s peaceful. I almost start laughing when I catch myself referring to the work floor as downstairs, as if those three steps count for going up a floor. I like being at our offices, it’s the place that feels the most like home besides the house. The killer is trying to fuck with that feeling, invading my private space by sending me stuff that’s related to the killings. Makes me think about those pizza boxes being delivered here.
“Ches?”
“Hm,” he says, eyes closed and the back of his head against the windowsill.
“What did they get from the pizza boxes?”
He starts biting his bottom lip, tapping a rhythm I can’t hear on his thigh. “Nothing much. Forensics found nothing. All the hair matched the victims. But there’s no fingerprints on the boxes, no DNA, nothing. Boxes were generic, tape was generic. Motherfucker really knows how to get away with it.”
“Fuck,” I swear. Only thing that teaches me is that in terms of an organized or a disorganized killer, he definitely fits the first. I don’t know much about serial killers, I never had to, but I’ve read some stuff the last months, just to find out what we’re dealing with.
“I found something on the camera feeds though. Cameras in the hallway are property of the building, once you enter the doors they’re my cameras. Suffice to say that the cameras in the hallway don’t have the same security as I do. That’s one of the main reasons he left them in the hallway I think. He hacked the security feed from the building and erased the footage of the time he was here. I think he left through one of the stairwells, because I can’t find anybody going in o rout at the time he’s supposed to.”
I scrunch my eyebrows. “So he’s good with computers.”
Chester shrugs. “He knows a few party tricks I’d say. But the way he hacked the system was sloppy. I can find traces of him in the system. He didn’t hide his tracks as well as he thought he did.”
“And you can’t find him with what you’ve got?”
He shifts, pulling one of his legs closer to his body. “You’re asking me to find a specific baker only using crumbs of one of the loafs he baked. I’m good, but I’m no miracle worker.”
I snort. Guess I deserved that.
The silence returns, only this time I feel bummed out. Staring at the wall on the other side of the room isn’t making me feel any better. I’ve about reached my limit in sitting still, I gotta get up - do something.
“Got it down to four,” he says before I can get into action. He uses his tongue to go over his teeth as if there’s something stuck there, but I figure it’s a nervous habit. He’s spinning his thumb ring like crazy too.
“Possible suspects?”
He nods. “I don’t have any way to narrow it down any further, and I figure four is still too many.”
It’s true. Getting four people in for questioning would be too much. But perhaps Beckett and Winny can help narrow it down further. Then again, if Chester can’t, odds are they can’t either.
I’ve been thinking about that first encounter with the killer lately. It feels like something is missing. But I don’t know if it’s just me wanting to see stuff, or it’s more than that.
“What if I have an addition to the profile?” I ask.
“Talk,” he says. Fuck, he’s grumpy without his coffee.
“He got out through the woods. He had a rope hanging there, ready for him to get out. He got into a ravine with nothing but the clothes on his back. He must have some kind of wilderness skills, right?”
Chester falls quiet. “That might narrow the results down a little. But it’s not like there’s a database for wilderness experience. Could be that one of them has loads of experience, but I won’t be able to find anything about it.”
He starts spinning his thumb ring again, lost in deep thought for a while. I let him be, silently finishing my coffee. When I think we’re just going to be sitting here for the remainder of the day, he suddenly gets up.
“I’m going to be needing a lot of energy drinks for this.”
I smile, push myself up from the floor and see to it that my little hacking genius will get the appropriate amount of caffeine to work through this.
I make my way through the precinct to the room where Beckett and Winny conduct their business. I contemplated just calling, but I found myself driving over to come see them in person. They’ve been working with the police to get to all the kids Farid stole based on the information they got from his electronic devices. Last I heard they were still trying to get the man to talk, without much luck so far. Perhaps they’ll let me have a crack at it.
With a very short knock on the door, I announce my presence before I just open it and step into the conference room that both agents have confiscated and made into their own case room. Winny looks up from her laptop, giving me a broad smile. Beckett is standing at one of the whiteboards with details on all the victims of the killer. His eyes widen when he sees me and he pulls his shoulders back. My heart starts racing.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he answers.
“Wow, such eloquent welcoming,” Winny snorts observing both of us. Her eyes have a curiosity to them and the look she has makes me understand why she makes a good profiler. It’s like she’s sucking up information just by looking around.
“Can I… uh… get an update about the kids that are being retrieved?” I mutter. Fuck this, I have a totally viable reason to be here. Why am I acting like I’m trying to break into the principal’s office?
“Sure,” Beckett replies a little too quickly.
“Yes, you two get out of here. Let me read my file in peace and go talk somewhere else,” Winny says, already focused on her file again.
I open the door again and step back out in the hallway, looking around trying to figure out where we’re going. Beckett follows me a few seconds later, closes the door to the conference room and stalks through the hall with huge strides. He always takes big steps, seeing as he’s huge, but right now he seems to take even larger steps than normal as if he’s in a hurry to get away from me. I follow him, almost jogging to keep up with him, until we reach a room at the end of the hall.
He takes out a key and opens the door for me, waiting until I step in. The room is dark, and I don’t know where the light switch is, but I figure Beckett will fix that - so I step in. He follows me immediately, closes the door without turning on the light, covering us in darkness.
Two big hands grab my shoulders and turn me around so that I’ve got my back to the door. I can feel my heart beating in my throat, my mouth suddenly dry. When he forces me to take a step back, I oblige and come to a halt when I’m pressed against the door. He cages me with his hands right next to my head, the warmth of his body enveloping me.
He presses his lips against mine and it’s like the dam breaks. I grab his shirt with both hands, pulling him closer to me, my heart beating so loud I think he can probably hear it. When he bears down on me my body seems to come alive. He’s big and firm and all consuming.
He licks my lips and I open up to meet him halfway. Our kiss deepens, and I’m rubbing myself all over him. He produces a sound that reminds me of a growl, and I’m all here for it. Time stops ticking and for that brief instance we are in our own bubble where everything feels right again.
I didn’t come over for this, but I can’t say I’m disappointed by the result. There’s nothing soft about his kiss, it’s everything and I can feel it through my entire body.
He breaks the kiss suddenly by pulling his face back, and it’s the worst idea in the history of bad ideas if you ask me.
“I’m so…”
Before he can finish saying he’s sorry I kiss him again. Pushing myself away from the door I manage to make him take a few steps back while I continue my exploration of his mouth. He stumbles against what I assume is a desk in the dark and is forced to sit down on it when I keep walking him back.
My hands leave his shirt and my fingers weave in his hair, while his hands glide down my back and cup my ass. I almost climb him right then and there, until he stops kissing me again.
“Abby,” he says in a pained tone.
“Shh,” I try before I start kissing his jawline, his stubble bristly against my lips.
He grabs my head with both his hands, plants a kiss on my lips and then pulls my head back again.
“Abby,” he says again, his tone more definitive this time.
I sigh. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For kissing you like that.”
“I’m not.”
He snorts. “I’m mauling you first thing after you walked through the doors. That’s not who I am. Certainly not at work.”
Suddenly the conversation is weird, because the room is pitch black and I can’t look at him to see how he really feels about all this.
“Do you know where the light switch is?” I ask him.
He laughs. “That’s what you want to go with?” I feel him getting off what’s possibly a desk and hear him walk towards the door where he flicks the light on. The sudden brightness makes me blink a few times before I find Beckett observing me.
“So?” he asks
“So what?”
“What now?”
“Well, I for one, would love to keep doing what we were just doing.” I bite the side of my lower lip, contemplating whether I should just jump him or not.
“You’re okay with this?”
“Have you ever kissed a woman like that who wasn’t okay with it?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Well, there you have your answer.”
He hums. I briefly turn around, just to see that it was in fact a desk. When I face Beckett again he looks like a tiger ready to pounce on its prey and my heart rate picks up. I can understand why people would be afraid of the man who’s standing in front of me. Six feet two, all hard muscle. If I was a different kind of girl, I’d be scared shitless if I’d run into him like this in a dark alley. But I’m not a different girl, and this is not a dark alley, and all I can think about is getting my mouth back on him.
Somewhere.
Anywhere, really.
I’m a greedy little thing right now, and I’m not afraid to admit it.
When my phone starts ringing and I contemplate just throwing it out, but my loyalty won’t have it. Glancing at my screen, I see it’s Chester, so I answer the call.
“Yeah?”
“I narrowed it down to three with your addition. Can you get in touch with Beckett and Winny? Maybe if I pitch them the three men I’ve got left they can make some sort of sense of it. Where are you by the way? I thought you’d be at the office today?”
Beckett lifts his chin, wanting to know what’s going on. He’s nosy when he gets the chance. I mouth ‘Chester’ to him, and he subtly nods his head.
“You’re in luck,” I tell Chester, “I’m with Beckett and Winny.”
“Why? Has something happened?”
“Came to ask for an update on the kids Farid took,” I answer, remembering my original goal for coming over.
“Oh, how’s that going?”
I glance at Beckett, who’s now leaning against the doorpost with crossed arms and looking amused at me.
“We, uh, didn’t get that far yet.” This is the point where my cheeks start heating up.
Beckett chuckles, opens the door and starts walking towards the conference room. I follow him while I tell Chester to hold on for a sec so we can get to Winny and he can tell everyone at once.
In the conference room we find Winny sitting over some kind of file, reading her little heart out. She doesn’t even look up when we enter or acknowledge us in any other way. Beckett has to physically touch her to make her look up.
“We didn’t actually have to leave the room for her to concentrate, right?” I mutter to Beckett when I see through the lie Winny told us. Both of them give me a crooked smirk. Do partners start to look like each other when they work together long enough? I bet their menses are synced.
I lay my phone down in front of Winny, put it on speaker and sit down. “You’re on speaker, Ches. We’re all here.”
“What’s this about?” Winny asks, putting her file away and sitting back in her chair.
“I took your profile and all the evidence, and I made a list of possible suspects and I’ve narrowed it down to three.”
“Three?” Beckett asks, sitting down on the edge of the table Winny is at, speaking directly to the phone. “That’s a short list. That’s impressive.”
“It’s still two people too long,” Chester says, his perfectionism shining through. “Thought I’d tell you about them and maybe you can narrow it down further. Send you what I found on those three names. Should be in your email, Becky.”
“Stop calling me Becky,” he says as he walks to his laptop and opens it up.
“Never.”
Winny and I look at each other, trying to hide our grins, but failing miserably.
“You fucking asshole,” Beckett mutters when he unlocks his laptop and opens his email. Chester laughs and when Beckett opens up the email Chester sent, I see that the sender is Beckett himself. My funny, fun loving, hacking lover hacked his email again. Just for shits and giggles.
“For old times’ sake,” Chester starts, and I can hear the way he must be smiling through the phone. “Anyway, we’ve got three possible suspects left. Alson Hemmingway Montgomery, Art Alexander Beau Rivers and Wayne Daniel Ridgefield. Want to start with one of them in particular?”
“Yeah,” I interrupt, “Hemmingway as a second name? Really? That’s so fucking pretentious.”
Winny laughs. “Is it a case of more money than brains?”
“All of them are a case of more money than brains. But that’s mostly because they’re fucking loaded. Anyway, starting with Alson. He’s the second child of the Montgomery family, first born is a daughter. I don’t give a flying fuck about this, but in these circles it does matter. He’s named as the sole heir of their fortune while his big sis is sent off with a trust fund that will leave her well off for the rest of her life, but nothing special. The family moved here about thirty years ago from Montana. Father is an English literature graduate and has published some books. Thinks he’s the next big thing, but his last novels bombed. He can afford it though. That’s where the name comes from, but that’s just guessing, not based on evidence.”
I can’t help but smile.
“Back to Alson. He went to university, where he took a bunch of fun classes. His grades were very good, but it could be he or his parents bribed the school. There are some reports about his fraternity getting written up for violence, and his name pops up in those searches. He doesn’t have a job, but he does like to go hiking and participate in mud runs. Which is reason in itself why he’s suspicious if you ask me. He has strong roots in Portland, lives smack in the middle of where all the women are Being taken. And the weirdest thing is that I can’t find anything about him online. Besides some mentions of his score on mud runs, it’s like he’s a ghost.”
“Do you know him?” I ask when I remember that he told me the chances were high that the suspect was someone he knows.
“I know of him. They didn’t attend any functions, and my parents never invited his parents. Something about paper that could be pressed into cold hard cash getting wasted on good for nothing books is what my father would say. Maybe Alson is a bit of a loner because his parents are as well. I don’t know. This isn’t exactly data I can find somewhere.”
“Sounds about right,” Beckett gives him. He’s looking at the files Chester sent while he’s speaking, but it doesn’t look as if he finds anything that interests him.
“He got my interest because he was suspected of the death of Mila Figera twelve years ago. She was a student and was killed on campus. Strangled. They never arrested anyone for it, but they suspected Alson. He was dating her at the time and everyone who was asked pointed in his direction, but they never got any evidence. If Scott’s theory about the killer having a first victim that was not in the clocks is right, then this could be it. She was a blonde with blue eyes though, so she doesn’t fit the victimology, but then again, some of the girls in the earlier clocks deviated from the victimology as well.”
I look at a picture of a thirty something year old man with blue eyes and dark hair. He doesn’t give me the creeps or anything, in fact, he doesn’t make me feel anything. If I would run into him on the streets I’d walk right past him and never look back.
“Sounds like a good candidate,” Winny remarks.
“I agree,” Beckett says.
It’s like they’re watching The Bachelor together and talking about the contestants rather than looking at possible serial killers. Is that how it works when you catch enough of them? Do you become desensitized? My mind is still boggled that seemingly normal people can turn out to be serial killers. I know that they’re just people like you and me, but living it up close is a different thing.
“Second guy I found, Art Alexander Beau Rivers. This one I actually know, my parents made me play with him. He was always trying to start fires. Only child and sole heir to the Rivers’s fortune. They moved here from Texas a little over thirty years ago. Daddy Rivers made his fortune in oil before his wife made him pack up his bags and move to Portland. Wifey dearest couldn’t handle the Texan heat.”
Beckett pulls up another file that shows a man with blue eyes, glasses, a little beard and dark hair. For some reason he does give me a feeling of unease and I wring my hands when I stare at the photo.
“Our dearest Art doesn’t do anything for a living. He’s the everlasting college student. He’s smart and has completed many studies, has a PhD in Psychology actually. He just doesn’t do anything with all his education. So he’s got the brains and the knowledge to be our guy as far as I’m concerned. I couldn’t really find anything in terms of wilderness skills, but he loved going out into the woods and making fires.”
“Did he ever hurt animals?” Winny asks, tapping the tips of her fingers against the others.
“Not to my knowledge. But that might just mean he didn’t do it around me. I never was one to help him start fires.”
“Is there someone who could’ve been his first victim?” I ask, tapping my foot against one of the legs of my chair. This is starting to get very real and it creates something that churns in my stomach. I want to get out of my chair and start pacing. Sitting down doing nothing feels like a burden.
“Multiples. Two of the maids went missing. They were immigrants and nobody put any effort into looking for them when they were reported missing.” I can hear the disdain in his voice and share the sentiment. If only I had enough time in a day to right all the wrongs in the world. “And to top that off, his mother went missing. Dad wanted to move back to Texas after that, but died of a heart attack before he could. And so Art remained all alone in Portland. Nobody ever found the mother, but nobody is actively looking for her. There were some payments to the police dating back to when the father was still alive, so I don’t know who paid and why. But the bottom line is that she’s gone and everybody is acting like that’s normal.”
I get up out of my chair and start pacing. “What do you think?”
Beckett and Winny share a look, one that only people who know each other through and through can manage to have and seem to share some thoughts.
“Might be it,” Beckett says, “but my gut says it’s not.”
Winny silently nods.
“Why?” I ask, curious what made his gut go off. Everything I’m hearing about him is screaming killer to me.
“He might have something to do with the disappearances, but our killer wouldn’t be an everlasting student. The social aspect of getting an education is not his thing,” Beckett tells me while his green eyes follow me when I keep pacing back and forth.
“Last one?” Winny asks. Beckett looks back at his laptop
“Wayne Daniel Ridgefield. Son of Balthazar Ridgefield.”
“Wait!” I yell when I see the photo that goes along with this Wayne Ridgefield. “We know him, Ches.”
“We do?” he asks.
I stare at the photo of a black-haired, blue-eyed man. My heart is beating like crazy. This one gives me proper hinky vibes. But I’m positive we ran into this guy on the shooting range a while back.
“Remember when we were at the range and walked back to the car? Right before we wrecked the arcade? This guy complimented you on the target I shot. He really seemed to like the idea that I can shoot.”
“Oh, pervy hallway guy?” Chester says.
“That’s how you remember him?” Winny asks with a smile on her face.
“He’s not wrong,” I say, remembering the time we met.
“Well, tell us all about the pervy hallway guy, because him running into you tells me something,” Beckett says, staring at the photo on his screen.
“Well, he’s an only kid. Dad’s crazy rich. They’re Portland locals though. Always lived in the area. I can find all sorts of stuff about his father, but Wayne is a little bit of a mystery. His dad hangs out in my parents’ circles, but Wayne doesn’t. From what I could find he followed classes online to get a degree in computer programming. Doesn’t work for a living though. He’s attended some criminology classes, but never finished the courses.”
“That’s a whole bunch of rich kids who don’t work,” Winny remarks while she scrunches her nose.
“Having loads of money sounds nice, right?” I ask her.
“Hell no, I’d go stir fry in a day.”
The corners of my mouth curl up. “Same. I’d still do what I do now, only with better funds.”
Chester scrapes his throat, and everyone’s eyes fall on the phone again. “So. Wayne. The only thing I can find about him is that he takes women into the woods and he teaches them self-defense classes. Other than that, I have no idea who the man is and what he does in all his spare time.”
“He teaches self-defense? In the woods?” I say incredulous, quickening up the pace I have going. I’m now going at the speed of an average Tasmanian devil, finnicking with the hem of my shirt all the time.
“I say that counts as wilderness skill,” Beckett gives, focusing on me instead of his screen.
“I feel like those are major creeper skills,” I mutter. When I walk past him, he grabs my hand and starts rubbing the back of it with his thumb. I’m dumbstruck and look down to see what he’s doing. At least he managed to stop my pacing. I catch Winny eyeing the way he holds my hand and for some reason that makes my cheeks heat.
“Well, major creep has some Big Ben alarm bells going off as well. His next door neighbor was murdered when she was sixteen. Found in the woods by her house. Strangled with a rope they never found. They didn’t have any suspects. But the woods behind their houses are two hundred acres of untouched forest, and they didn’t search it because of its size. My guess is that the evidence is out there somewhere. What’s left of it anyway.”
A shiver runs down my spine and the hairs on the back of my arms stand up. I don’t have any reason to suspect this Wayne more than the other two, but I do. Everything about him screams killer.
Winny sighs. “We need to go over all of this. Do our own research.”
“It’s a lot,” Chester says. “Do you want everything on everyone I’ve eliminated?”
“Not right now,” Beckett answers, rubbing his face with his free hand. The other one is still holding onto me.
“But you’re going to arrest them, right?” I say, a hint of panic in my voice.
“We will, once we know more,” Winny answers.
“But the fourth of the month is close! He’s going to take another innocent woman!”
“We’ll make sure we have the killer in custody before the fourth, even if it’s only to ask questions. Him using the calendar as part of his M.O. is making him predictable. It also means we still have time left. Let us do our job,” Winny explains calmly, her finger twirling with the end of her braid.
“No more murdered women,” I try to bargain as if I have anything to say about it.
“Not if we can help it,” Beckett answers, his eyes staring into my soul, grabbing it, and making it a pinkie promise.
It feels like the world is spinning. I’m stone-cold sober, but it feels as if everything is upside down. I’m completely out of control and I hate it. I left Beckett and Winny at the precinct with all the information Chester sent them and they started to conduct their own investigation. Back at the office I stared at my screen, doing nothing, before I decided to go home. I made myself a whole tray of fresh mac and cheese, the one from Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook, ate two bowls, but still feel very much uncomforted. So I go for my next line of defense whenever I want comfort. I call my aunt.
“This is Peter,” Peter answers Aunt Viv’s phone.
“Intruder alert!” I say in a robotic voice. “You’re not Aunt Viv!”
“That’s why I said it was Peter,” he states, forcing a smile on my face. Peter has been in my life the same way Aunt Viv has been. He thought he was starting his adult life by marrying the love of his life, and as a reward he got a grieving twelve year old. He never complained about it, tried being there for me the best he could. Still I always favored Aunt Viv, and sometimes I feel like I never gave him enough credit for what he means to me.
“Well, not-Aunt-Viv-but-this-is-Peter, how are you?”
“Busy, as always. Who knew that raising three boys would be so exhausting?”
“You mean you thought that raising kids would be a walk in the park?”
“No, I mean that walking in the park with three kids is exhausting.”
I laugh. “How are they doing?”
“The little thugs are doing wonderful. All healthy, growing like crazy, getting smarter and mouthier by the day. And they never stop fighting. I always hear about girls being mean to each other, but these three have got it down to a science.”
“Ah, our next generation of politicians.”
Peter groans. “That’s not even a very unrealistic idea.” I hear something stumbling in the background, right before I hear Aunt Viv’s voice.
“Who’s this?”
“Your favorite niece slash adoptive child slash pain in your ass.”
“Good, I was afraid you were having a nice chat on my phone with one of my three secret lovers,” she says conspiratorially, but I can hear the smile all the way from over here.
“Three lovers?” I hear Peter say. “Where the hell would you find the energy for three lovers?”
“Drugs,” she answers and I snort. “So, what’s up kiddo?”
“Well, now I want to know all about your three secret lovers.”
“Ah, Niklaus, Mohamed and Pablo. Yes. Very secret. Very much lovers. Et cetera, et cetera.”
Peter and I both laugh. Aunt Viv is as loyal as they come and we both know it.
“I just wanted to hear your voice, I guess,” I say, steering the conversation away from made up secret lovers.
“Anytime, Abby. What’s up with you?”
“A lot. But I can’t really talk about a lot of it. But I do have three not so secret lovers. Or well. Two. Two and a half maybe. Maybe three.”
“I think it’s best you make up your mind about how many lovers you have. If you end up on two and a half, would you get rid of the top half of the third, or the bottom half? The top half talks, but the bottom half could be more fun. Or would it be a situation where you pick either the left side or the right side?”
I sit back in my chair, thinking about it. “I don’t think half will do. I think it’s a take it or leave it situation.”
She’s quiet for a while. “Sounds wise. So, two, possibly three lovers. When are you going to stop collecting them all?”
“I think I’ve about reached my limit.”
I hear kids screaming in the background and the rustling of someone moving with the phone.
“Viv?”
“Yeah?” she whispers.
“Are you hiding from your kids?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because those dipshits are exhausting.”
I laugh and talk to Aunt Viv while she keeps quiet and hides in the closet that houses the cleaning supplies (‘They’ll never look here’) until everything calms down again. Then we spend some more time talking about everything and nothing, until my feet are both back on the ground and I don’t feel like my head is spinning anymore.