Chapter 3
THREE
Durham, New Hampshire
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
10:14 a.m.
The box slipped off the stack she’d carried to the second floor.
Leigh braced for the impact.
A body plunged into her peripheral vision from the single door in the claustrophobic stairwell.
“I got it!” He did not, in fact, have it. The box hit the cement, one corner denting inward. A grumble of a laugh vibrated through her as her would-be rescuer set his gaze on her. Intensely dark. The color of a clear summer night in the middle of nowhere. Except there was a hint of warmth in his features. Near black hair and a clean-shaven face somehow brightened his smile, but she’d learned from experience that looks—even as handsome as his—were almost always deceiving. He was older, maybe twenty or twenty-one to her eighteen, but could still rely on a few boyish charms. She couldn’t help but smile as he collected the box but didn’t move to restack it. “Well, damn. Guess speed isn’t one of my superpowers. I’m Dean. One of the resident assistants for Christensen Hall.”
He stretched out a hand, expecting her to somehow manage to keep hold of her possessions and meet him in the middle. Then laughed as he withdrew. “Sorry. Habit.”
“I’m Leigh.” She shifted the remaining boxes to one hip, arms already tired from the multiple trips she’d made up the stairs. Christensen Hall was one of the most competitive residence halls on campus with its proximity to Dimond Library and the campus bookstore, and the most crowded due to its first-year-student status. Didn’t make it any easier to move into. The halls were too narrow, the dorms too small for more than a twin-sized bed and a desk, and the idea of a communal bathroom she had to share with the rest of the floor really made her want to start a “no shampoo” campaign.
Still, she’d made it all the way to college despite a depressing GPA her last year of high school. That was what happened when your father was convicted of murder, your mother barely spoke or left her bed, and you had to become a parent to your thirteen-year-old traumatized brother. Leigh tried to keep the thoughts of that last one from bleeding into her face. While she’d applied and been accepted to Granite State for the next four years, her brother couldn’t go back home as long as his abductor was still on the hunt. So he was coming to Durham, too. Homeschooling from her dorm. Staying out of sight until she knew he’d be safe on his own. “If a single one of my pillows comes away damaged, I’ll know who to blame.”
“On your left!” a voice yelled a few steps back.
Leigh tried to maneuver out of the way of the guy coming up the stairs behind her. Managing to shove the corner of her box into Dean’s gut. Heat flared up her neck and into her face. She managed to balance the last box in one hand, reaching for him with the other. “I’m so sorry!”
Dean lifted a hand in surrender, doubled over to catch his breath. A too-wide nose with a slight bend in the middle dominated his face but somehow managed to fit him perfectly and accentuated the laugh lines leading down to his mouth. He was handsome in a rough way. Obviously confident with his muscular frame, and her eighteen-year-old brain automatically jumped to wondering how many more muscles his T-shirt and low-cut jeans tried to hide from inexperienced and clumsy girls like her. “It’s all good. Move-in day isn’t for the faint of heart. I needed the reminder.”
“You should probably run while you still can.” Leigh couldn’t get rid of the embarrassment working into her voice. Her fingers ached as she clutched on to the box in her arms. What the hell was wrong with her? She’d stood up to her entire hometown in defense of her dad, but she couldn’t manage a simple conversation with a cute guy? “I’m new to all of this, and every second you’re with me is another chance you might break something important. Or worse. I could accidentally knock you over the railing and send you plummeting to your death.”
“I’m not the one who looks like they want to rabbit out of here.” He straightened, his smile back in place, and the stairwell didn’t seem so crowded anymore. As though there wasn’t anyone else in the building. “But who said I don’t like a challenge?”
Durham, New Hampshire
Wednesday, October 9
9:45 a.m.
“Durham PD narrowed down their suspect pool during their investigation eighteen years ago to one man. Dean Groves.” Leigh faced the stuffy office crowded with campus police, Marshal Ford, a handful of Durham police, and the president of the university himself. Most notably the should-be-retired professor who’d wedged himself into the corner of the room against an overstuffed shelf of books no one had ever read. Age had been kind to him, merely adding a few patches of white against his polished hair and beard. A few more lines had carved around his mouth and across his forehead, but ultimately, he hadn’t changed a bit. Time hadn’t altered his preference for open button-down shirts and blazers with hand-sewn patches in the elbows. He remained quiet, out of the way. Waiting for her to notice him. Her heart rate picked up at his lopsided smile. Meant for support. Alliance. Comfort. It was the first stage of his trap. “At the time, Groves had ties to the victim, Teshia Elborne, and access to the arsenic and cyanide used to kill the victim through his research internship in the biomedical lab.”
The medical examiner had taken possession of the body twenty minutes ago. If she looked out the massive window behind the oak desk overrunning the bookshelf-lined walls, she could see straight down to the crime scene outside. Whoever had dumped this victim wanted to be noticed. To send a message.
Question was, who was it meant for?
While it looked as though Alice Dietz had been killed in the same manner as the victim during Leigh’s freshman year, they wouldn’t have any solid connections until the results of the autopsy came back. Her nerves took a backseat as she recalled any detail she could about the man she’d considered a lighthouse in the storm that was her life back then. Maybe that was why arresting Ava’s mother for murder hadn’t hurt as much as she’d expected. She’d already been through this all once before.
“Groves would be forty years old today. He’s highly intelligent and strategic, and professionally intimate in biomedical and toxicology. Investigators at the time were able to trace the arsenic and cyanide used to poison a victim in 2006 back to the biology lab where Groves spent a good amount of his nights. The victim, Teshia Elborne, was his ex-girlfriend. From what police had been able to put together, the breakup was anything but amicable when he discovered she’d been cheating on him for months before her death.”
Leigh packed all those pieces—clues—she’d tried to ignore into a dark box at the back of her mind. She slid her hands into her slacks. All too aware she had nothing there to ground herself to in the moment.
“Groves was arrested for the crime, but no charges were brought against him as a fellow student alibied him for the night of Elborne’s murder. Upon release, he disappeared off local, state, and federal agency radars.”
“Disappeared to where?” one of the Durham PD officers asked.
Wouldn’t she like to know? Finding him certainly hadn’t consumed hours and hours of sleepless nights in the weeks following his disappearance. And he certainly hadn’t invaded her dreams since.
“At the time, investigators believed Groves managed to secure himself a new identity and has been using the alias since. We don’t know where he’s been residing, where he works, or if he’s even returned to Durham. He has no living family, and he’s never bought property, registered a vehicle, or filed taxes under his own name. While suspecting Groves would be the easy route for this latest murder, it’s possible whoever killed Alice Dietz may be trying to use the Teshia Elborne case to make a name for themselves or attract our attention.”
“I think it’s pretty damn clear there’s a connection between Ms. Dietz and the poor girl who was killed under the watch of my predecessor, Ms. Brody.” The president of the university sat forward in his over-cushioned leather chair, elbows on the edge of a desk that could swallow him whole. Pure gray hair swooped into the president’s face as he set cold blue eyes on her. Compared to the professor positioned behind him, the university president held himself to a strict standard of appearance and control. “Groves was never caught. Now he’s back to rub it in your faces, and one of my students paid the price.”
Dread suctioned her stomach to her spine. “It’s Agent Brody, sir. And it’s too premature to make assumptions at this point. We won’t know if there’s a connection until the autopsy results are finalized by the ME, but the FBI, the Marshals Service, and Durham police are considering every possibility. Of course, our number one priority is the safety of your administration, staff, and student body during this investigation.”
“How? How are you going to protect anyone on this campus? Police couldn’t charge him back then because you, of all people, gave Groves an alibi.” Tension radiated down the president’s neck. He had to tip his head back to keep his hair out of his face. Thin, weathered skin told her his life was harsh, and sitting behind this desk hadn’t been part of the plan or even close to a dream job. None of that was her problem, however. She was here to do a job. Not stroke his ego. “Are we supposed to believe you’re here out of the goodness of your heart? Maybe you’re here on Groves’s agenda.”
Heaviness shifted into her legs, pinning her in place. She was standing in front of the chief of police back in her hometown all over again. On display. Answering for crimes she hadn’t committed.
“You realize you just accused a federal agent of aiding and abetting a fugitive.” Ford’s reaction gave voice to the shocked expressions pasted on everyone else’s faces. The marshal shoved to stand, out of place with the academics in this room and barely in place with the officers. “Do you have any proof Agent Brody is guilty of misconduct, or are you projecting your fears on everyone else in the room? Because I will personally vouch for the work she and her team have done if anyone has a problem with her being here.”
Her blood warmed at the defense. People weren’t jumping at the opportunity to stand up for her considering her background, and she wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. Ford was the kind of man who kept his word. In every regard. The weight of his attention grounded her from spiraling at the thought, and a thread of confidence returned. “What Marshal Ford means to say is I have a long history of consulting with law enforcement on cases similar to this. While I may have a personal connection to the Elborne case and this university, we are not certain Dean Groves is involved here. We will do whatever it takes to find the killer responsible for Alice Dietz’s murder.”
The president sank back in his chair. It was always the men at the top who couldn’t handle confrontation. The ones who folded the quickest when the room didn’t sway their way, and she couldn’t help but nod gratitude toward Ford. “Marshal Ford.”
She sidestepped to give the marshal room.
Ford raised his phone, screen bright. “Each agency will receive the incident reports of previous victims the USMS believes to have a connection to this latest murder. Four victims, not including Alice Dietz. Our suspect not only murders his victims, he becomes them by altering his appearance and manner of speaking, using their identification, embracing habits and routines, and integrating himself into their lives over a matter of weeks. If Alice Dietz’s murder is connected to my investigation, there’s a chance our killer has already become someone new. Someone we wouldn’t suspect.”
A tree limb slammed against the oversized window behind the president’s desk in a burst of noise that brought the entire room to life.
Every nerve in Leigh’s body fired at the impact. Her heart rate took longer than it should have to settle, and from the reach of several officers toward their sidearms, she hadn’t been the only one. Trees swayed violently through the glass. The storm was picking up. Potentially destroying evidence in and around their crime scene.
“Campus police have been asked to conduct student and staff interviews concerning Ms. Dietz’s whereabouts and movements over the past week leading up to her disappearance and report back. I want a timeline of where she went, which classes she attended, and any significant relationships in her life,” Ford said. “Durham PD, the fact our killer used the university as his preferred location to dump a body makes me think he won’t stray far. I want a grid pattern search up to three miles around campus while forensics pulls apart our crime scene.”
“The storm is going to make that hard, Marshal,” one of the officers said as rain started ticking against the window glass.
“I believe in you.” Marshal Ford turned compelling dark eyes on Leigh. “Agent Brody, you’re familiar with the Elborne case and the way serial offenders think. Any words of advice?”
Leigh raised her chin a fraction of an inch, memorizing the faces in this room, and settled her attention on one. The professor still watching her from the corner of the office. “Watch your backs. No one else will.”