Chapter 11
"I see you've lost the infernal sunshine. Pity. But at least I may get some real peace today."
"Haha. Breakfast first. Then we'll get started. I can stay here with Pierce if you want to run the evidence back to St. Louis.” Pierce had requested the state lab in Indianapolis return what physical evidence they felt was probative.
It would be reprocessed by the PAVAD lab, using more sophisticated, updated technology.
Knight and Miranda would have to go over it and sign off chain of custody before it left Indiana.
"No need; I called Ward. He is on his way to pick it up. That will save us some time." He'd been up and ready to roll two hours ago. But after the first time they'd worked a cold case together and he'd woke her at six-thirty, she'd practically shredded him. “He’ll be here by one.”
She might look all sweet and farm girl wholesome, but the woman had some serious claws.
In any other lifetime, he would have fallen head over heels for this woman. Even before he'd nearly been killed by that damned sociopath several years ago—Miranda would have been the kind of woman he adored.
Then.
Not any longer. He had to remember that.
He tended to avoid working with her as much as he possibly could. Best to avoid temptation. But it wasn't possible to never work with her, either. PAVAD just didn't work that way. And he respected the woman's mind far more than he did anyone else's on the planet.
He just wished she didn't look so damned tempting just by breathing.
"Going on the theory that this wasn't his first kill, I think we need to call Dani. Have her check surrounding states, going back at least twenty-five years." She flashed him a pointed look, then tossed him the car keys. "You drive. I know you have control issues."
Knight just grunted. That wasn't what he'd call it. It was mere self-preservation. The woman was just the most menacing thing behind the wheel he had ever seen. He feared for his life every time she drove. "So what's on the agenda today, boss? Meeting your big blond boyfriend?"
"Not for a while. He was called out to a domestic incident that resulted in shots fired down in a place called Shoals.
He was griping about the roads up there being overgrown and nothing but gravel and probably still iced over.
He said some of the damned shit roads have grass growing down the middle.
Get this, the school mascot for Shoals is a rock.
Based on some weird rock formation, I think he said.
I mean, can you imagine? The rocking rocks?
Mascots can be so weird. I really love small towns.
I may go over there and poke around when we are finished with this one.
For my future book someday. He'll probably be there for hours.
It's just us today. I made copies this morning in the hotel's office.
Of Aimee's day planner. She was the center of their social planning.
Coordinated everything. That's not an uncommon role for the mother in a family.
It's one reason why men who are widowed suddenly as seniors tend to be adrift socially for several years. Or remarry extremely quickly."
"So...what are we going to do with this information?"
"We're going to retrace Aimee's steps over the preceding week."
Asher had already done that, but they’d go over everything and look for what was missed.
Cold Cases had a lower solve rate than the other PAVAD units—the cards were stacked against them simply because of time.
But she was very dogged when she was working.
If a case in their unit could be solved—it would.
They were all committed to that. "So you're taking point on this case? "
"Something like that. Aimee was the target, Knight.
I'm almost one hundred percent certain it was her that drew him first. The sexual assault and stabbing were his end results.
His end purpose. He wanted Aimee. She was an attractive woman.
He kept her alive for hours after killing her husband and son.
He assaulted her multiple times and ways, only to mimic the sex-act by stabbing her repeatedly.
I'm going to have an easier time getting into her head than you will. "
"I saw the similarities." Aimee Gibson had been five-ten, athletic and curvy.
She'd had long strawberry blonde hair, and big blue eyes behind wire-framed glasses.
Her son had been just over two years older than Miranda's when Cruz had been killed.
Yes. Knight had seen the similarities. They were impossible to miss.
"We'll share point, Sunny. You are not doing this alone. "
That was one promise he had made to himself long ago—this job they did, it could destroy. Haunt the men and women who chose to do it. Knight would not let that happen to her. He just wouldn’t. He’d long ago accepted that.
They spent the next several hours wading through everything again.
And finding nothing to redirect. They signed off on physical evidence collected—fifteen boxes they’d loaded into the rear of Ian’s SUV—and returned to their borrowed room.
FBI work wasn’t glamorous and exciting like on crime dramas.
There was a lot more paperwork than the lay person realized.
"It's going to take a while for PAVAD to reprocess the evidence we send back. And Dani said she's searching VICAP for other cases, plus state databases she can access, and going through some of her other magic web skills."
"Not my first rodeo." He was silent for a long moment as she settled into the seat and fastened her seatbelt. "I don't think it was this guy’s, either."
"No. That is something I'm sure of. It was too efficient. Even cleanly done, considering.”
"It was. He knew exactly how to take out the father and the son—to get what he wanted the in the most efficient manner possible. By the time he finished with Derek Gibson and moved on to the boy, it was too late for all of them."
"Aimee and Terra could have made it to the back door, depending on where they were in the house. It wasn't a big house. Aimee had been making dinner." The remnants had been found on the stove. Untouched. Scorched. "Aimee was right by the back door. She could have run. Except..."
"Shock. Fear. Terror and trauma from seeing what had just happened to her husband, her son."
She shook her head. “No. More than that. Her daughter was still in the house somewhere. Most likely down the hall in her bedroom. Aimee wasn't going to go anywhere and leave her daughter with the killer."
"No. She wouldn't." By all accounts Aimee and Derek had been good parents. Loving and protective. Aimee Gibson wouldn’t have run, abandoning her daughter.
"But how did our shooter know Derek would answer the door and not someone else?"
"Educated guess. I'd say they may have even left the door unlocked. The Gibsons had two indoor cats at the time—no dog. Even though one was later found in the garage. No warning system. How many of the houses in this town do you think have their doors locked consistently?"
"Probably not many. This town is over twice the size of Masterson. But...that is still a very small population."
"Even if the door wasn't unlocked. If he knocked or rang the bell, odds were good the father would answer the door.
" Knight would have. If he had had a wife and kids.
It would be instinctive—the urge to protect.
Not just practicality. He would have put his body between his family and any threat.
Hell, he did it with her all the time when they were in the field together, and he doubted she'd ever noticed it.
A man protected those who mattered. "He may have even seen them in the window. May have waited until Aimee was distracted in the kitchen and just rang the doorbell.”
"And what? He just waited until the door opened and then just shot Derek? That seems too risky. The houses are close together here. Someone should have heard. Why didn’t they?"
“Elderly neighbor to the left was deaf. Eighty-eight years old. She passed away two years after the murder. Other neighbor was at work—night shift. People across the street weren’t home…Everyone had a reason…And if he used a suppressor—no one would have heard.”
“Another indication this was premeditated. He came prepared. With his murder kit. And we're certain he shot Derek immediately after entering?"
"Yes. I bet that was exactly what he did.
Walked right in and fired." Just like had happened to Knight years ago.
When he'd opened the door to a man he'd considered a friend and the bastard had shot him in the damned head.
Knight would never be that careless again.
Trust no one, period. It had served him well ever since.
"Because...it wasn't a stranger, Sunny. They opened the door and let him in because they thought he was a friend.
They knew him. They had to. Maybe he engineered that, deliberately befriending one of them.
But I'd stake my badge on them already knowing him, at least in some way. "
"We need to figure out to what depth that knowledge was. It might narrow our focus. Then we need to focus on Aimee's contacts in her Blackberry. That might be our best chance at digging him out. We don’t have Derek’s contacts—no social media, and he only called a handful of numbers on his phone—wife, three kids, ex-wife, and work, that was his life. ”
And Derek had died protecting them.