Chapter 24
Matt and Kara had been missing for forty-eight hours.
Catherine was stuck. Jim was back with the ME and talking to Quantico about the lab results, but hadn’t returned with anything
actionable. Michael was finishing the third round of staff interviews. Sloane had good information from Blanche Richardson,
but only about Garrett’s personality.
Still, everything Catherine was learning about Garrett’s personality was shifting her profile of him. What particularly stuck
was that Blanche still cared about him. He hadn’t hurt her—physically or emotionally.
Garrett was kind to the women he used. He was honest—they knew he wanted money and nice things, and they happily gave him
everything he wanted because he gave them something they wanted. She didn’t think it was just about sex, though that was certainly part of it. It sounded as if Garrett listened, which
made him a good observer of human nature.
Jeff Maddox also had keen insight. The fact that he appreciated Garrett’s help and intelligence while distancing himself from Garrett because of his lack of empathy showed Catherine that Garrett was either uncomfortable with emotions or incapable of feeling them.
Becca McCarthy was an outlier. Both Maddox and Blanche believed that Garrett had once been serious about his high school sweetheart.
That indicated he had some sort of emotional core, though it was twisted and off-kilter.
And the biggest takeaway: no one suggested that they had seen any violence in him. Just the opposite. Garrett Reid walked
away before confrontation. Even his parents and his brother said he wasn’t violent. He had no history of violence, though he had tormented people emotionally—such
as hitting on his sister-in-law and seeming to enjoy her discomfort. What his college roommate said was key—he just didn’t
care. He didn’t connect with people emotionally, but could fake it when it benefited him.
If he truly had no natural leanings toward violence, did that mean his partner, his female partner, was the violent half of their relationship? Did he kill to make her happy?
He had participated in the killings, assisted in the abductions, yet . . . the murders were hands-off. They weren’t personal
acts of homicide—like stabbing, or strangulation, or even poison.
One victim fell to his death. Another bled out. Another died of blunt force trauma, but it was a repeated trauma that resulted
in internal bleeding, which killed him. One drowned. Perhaps Garrett and his partner were one step removed from the deaths.
They all died by circumstance, not by a specific act.
Catherine was reasonably certain that Garrett didn’t personally know any of the victims. She suspected that wasn’t true of
his partner. One of these victims—most likely one of the women—was personal. One of these women had a connection to the partner,
Catherine would stake her reputation on it.
She looked at the photo of Emily Henderson. An accomplished lawyer at thirty-six. Newly married. Attractive, wholesome, girl-next-door . . .
Thirty-six. She was also the oldest of the three women—four, if Catherine included Kara. Did that mean something?
The first victim—or victims, in this case—were almost always connected to the killer, but they hadn’t found any connection
between these victims and any of the potential suspects on their list. Ryder was looking at a suspicious death in Scottsdale
during the time that Garrett Reid worked there, but it seemed like a long shot.
Yet . . . what if one of the women working at the resort had a connection? That was a much narrower pool to work from.
She called Ryder. “Do you have a list of single, Caucasian female employees under forty?”
“Michael has it. He’s been including them in his interviews all morning.”
“Okay, thank you.” She should have known that Ryder and Michael were on top of it. “Have you received a report from the sheriff’s
department regarding Reid’s activities?”
“He hasn’t left the hotel.”
She straightened. Why hadn’t she thought of this last night when she learned Graves took him to a hotel? “His partner—she
was there.”
“Excuse me?”
“They need to see each other. She was at the hotel last night. Ryder, we need to go there now and look at the security footage.”
“Do you want me to have Michael meet you?”
“Can you come? You’re the fastest with computers and we need to work fast.”
“Yes. I’ll contact the security office at the hotel and have them get the recordings ready, then have a car brought around
to the lobby.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
For the first time since Catherine learned that Matt and Kara were missing, she thought they finally had a break.
Michael read the text from Catherine.
Michael frowned, pocketed his phone.
“What?” Sloane asked.
“Nothing. Let’s talk to Alena Porter again.”
He walked out of the conference room, Sloane on his heels. “You don’t think Catherine is right,” she guessed.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. He didn’t want to get into this now, and he didn’t like to criticize other team members when they
weren’t around to defend themselves.
“Michael, I know I’m new on the team, but don’t ice me out.”
“I’m not.”
“Then talk.”
He stopped walking, glanced around to make sure no one could overhear them, and still kept his voice low. “Catherine used
to be one of the best profilers in the Bureau. After her sister was killed, she has second-guessed herself repeatedly, and
she was wrong about Reid. She never considered, or considered and dismissed, that he has a partner. Because of that error—a
major error, not a little whoops—Matt and Kara could be dead.”
He hadn’t meant to say that, because he had been working to convince himself that his friends were alive.
“Profiling is not a science,” Sloane said.
“I know. But when you act like your word is gospel, you can’t be wrong.”
“So you think she’s wrong about the hotel.”
“I don’t know, and that bothers me. I don’t want to doubt anyone on my team, but I’m asking myself if this is a good use of our time.
Ryder is our rock. He’s the backbone of this entire operation, whether he knows it or not, and the most computer savvy among us.
We need him working the backgrounds, following up with Reid’s employers, finding Becca McCarthy.
Having him escort Catherine to view security footage when she could have asked a deputy to take her? ”
He was talking fast and getting angry, because anger kept him from falling apart.
But he recognized it and stopped. He didn’t want to dump on anyone, and his frustration wasn’t getting the case solved. “Sorry,”
he mumbled, turned and walked out of the security building.
“It’s okay, Michael,” Sloane said, following him across the courtyard.
It wasn’t, but he didn’t say anything as he opened the side door of the main building and held it for Sloane.
Maybe Catherine was right. But was it going to help them find Matt and Kara? That was the million-dollar question. He felt
as if they were barely treading water.
Michael asked the concierge for Alena Porter.
“I haven’t seen her yet,” he said. “She doesn’t generally work on Mondays and Tuesdays.”
“She told me she would be here,” Michael said.
“Let me check. Please wait.”
He stepped away from his desk and went down the hall to the management offices.
Michael scrolled through the list of all female staff members that met the criteria Catherine established. Alena made the
cut, so Michael wanted to talk to her again. He also wanted Sloane’s impression.
There were two women on the list who Michael hadn’t spoken to at all, though they’d been interviewed by Matt or Detective
Fuentes on Friday. One worked in Housekeeping, and one was a bartender. Both in their early thirties and single and had worked
at the resort for less than a year. And then Hope Davidson, who worked in the gym and saw Matt and Kara on Sunday morning.
He wanted to talk to them in their working environment. See what their reaction was when he and Sloane walked in. Nervous? Confused?
He knew that women could kill, but it was difficult to put any of these women into the murderous role of Reid’s partner.
The concierge returned. “Alena isn’t in her office and hasn’t answered her page. However, her assistant said she is somewhere
on the property. Shall I have her reach out?”
Michael slipped him his card. “My cell number is on the back. I need to talk to her as soon as possible, and I’m happy to
meet her anywhere at the resort.”
“As soon as she calls in, I’ll give her the message.”
Alena Porter spent all morning—on her day off—writing memos, changing protocols for security, and a very uncomfortable thirty
minutes talking to the lawyer of the resort ownership group. Then she was late for her meeting with the event planner for
a fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration two weeks from now.
Her head was spinning, and she worried she might just lose her job when this was over. They claimed she’d done everything
right, but as her dad always said, shit rolled downhill.
And in the back of her mind, she couldn’t get that photo of the female maintenance worker out of her head. She knew that person,
but she didn’t know why or how.
It wasn’t that she knew them, but she’d seen someone who looked just like her walking through the resort, and there was just something familiar about
the memory that she couldn’t place.
The concierge texted her that the FBI wanted to speak with her again, and she said she’d be back at her office in an hour.
She had nothing to add, and her vague feeling that she might know the woman in the image was just that . . . a feeling. Nothing she could articulate. Someone she saw in passing who was . . .
She felt an itch, sort of like the hair rising on the back of her neck but all over her body. She detoured from going back to her office and headed to the gym instead.
She’d seen that uniform, she realized. Sunday morning, it was in one of the lockers. She thought it was strange, but hadn’t
really focused on it. Staff were allowed to use the facilities during their days off—it was a perk. And while they had programmable
locks available for guests, no one on staff used them unless they had valuables.
She entered the locker room via the poolside entrance and went over to the locker where she had seen the uniform. If it was
still here, she would definitely reach out to the FBI—they might be able to find evidence on it. But when she opened the door,
it was empty.
“Alena, are you looking for something?”
Alena yelped, a hand to her chest, then laughed slightly when she recognized the woman. “Hope, you startled me!” She closed
the door to the empty locker and said, “I thought I saw a uniform in here Sunday, and the FBI is asking questions about a
woman in a maintenance uniform. Did you see it?”
“No,” Hope said.
“Have you talked to the FBI?”
“Yeah, twice now. Do you need something?”
“No, thank you. I’ll talk to the FBI about it, it’s probably nothing.”
“Good idea,” Hope said. “By the way, since you’re here, I wanted to show you something in the yoga room—we might need to get
Maintenance in to fix the mini-fridge.”
“Just put in the work order,” Alena said.
“Well, I have an idea about that, not just a repair, but we might be able to do something fun with the area, something we
did at one of my old gyms. But if you don’t have time . . .”
“Sure, since I’m here.” Alena followed Hope through the gym and into the yoga studio, which wasn’t currently in use. She only half listened to Hope’s idea, then said, “Sounds good, how about if you bring it up at the next staff meeting and if there’s a consensus, we’ll do it.”
“Great!” Hope reached into the refrigerator and took out two flavored waters. “Want one?”
“Thanks, it’s hot in here. Is there something wrong with the A/C?”
Hope unscrewed the cap. “No, it’s just from hot yoga this morning, though it’s almost back to where it’s supposed to be.”
She motioned to the opposite wall, which listed the schedule each day. Alena never understood the allure of yoga, but their
guests enjoyed the classes. “Should be comfortable in an hour for the next class.”
She took the water from Hope and drank half of it as they walked out into the gym. Hope walked behind the counter and Alena
headed toward the hotel. She still felt hot from the yoga room. Maybe she was coming down with something.
Her phone vibrated and she saw a text from the concierge. But her eyes ached and her vision blurred momentarily. She would
deal with the FBI tomorrow. All she wanted now was to take a nap, and pray she didn’t come down with a cold. Not when she
had so much on her plate.