The Last Victim Read online

  “He used a stun gun.” Having left without explanation about half an hour earlier, Bartoli was back, standing in the doorway, looking as tired and wired as Charlie felt. His eyes were bloodshot, the top button on his shirt collar was unbuttoned, and his tie was slightly askew. Stubble darkened his cheeks and chin, and his hair looked like he’d been running his fingers through it. He was still handsome, which Charlie absently noted in passing even though her thoughts were almost totally consumed with gruesome things. “We just had that confirmed a few minutes ago. The marks were right up past the hairline on the base of the neck, so they weren’t immediately apparent. They were present on the other adult male, too.”

  The first case, which involved the slaughter of the Breyer family and the abduction and subsequent murder of their eighteen-year-old daughter, Danielle, included an adult male victim, Danielle’s father, whose first name Charlie had forgotten for the moment. The second case was the Clark family, consisting of two pre-pubescent sisters and their mother, as well as the teenage victim and presumed target, seventeen-year-old Caroline. The attacks had come three weeks apart, in separate small beach towns along the North Carolina coast. The teenage girls had been determined to be the primary target. Both their bodies had been found within ten days of the murders of their families and their abduction, buried under nearby boardwalks. It was only after the third attack, which was on Bayley Evans’ family, that the FBI had gotten involved, because until then no one had put the crimes together and suspected they were dealing with a serial killer, or connected the new killings to the unsolved Boardwalk Killer cases of fifteen years before. The local FBI had in turn contacted ViCAP, or the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, a specialized group that tracked serial killers, among other particularly dangerous violent criminals. Bartoli, Crane, and Kaminsky were an elite Special Circumstances FBI unit that was sent around the country to investigate serial killers as an offshoot of ViCAP, and they were assisting local agents in this case. When Bartoli had filled her in on these facts on the plane ride down, Charlie had been impressed with how fast the FBI had worked. In not much more than twenty-four hours, every available investigative force had been mobilized.

  Including herself.

  “That explains a lot,” Crane said, while Kaminsky threw him a triumphant look.

  “And you thought they had to have been drugged. Told you that would have been way too hard to coordinate,” she said.

  “You like being right way too much,” he retorted.

  “This making any kind of sense to you?” Bartoli asked, his eyes on Charlie. She was looking at autopsy pictures of the other two adult female victims—the mothers, although she didn’t like to think of them in that way—whose wounds confirmed what she already knew.

  “You’re looking for a Caucasian male who was raised by a single mother.” Charlie swiveled her wheeled chair around to fully face Bartoli as she spoke. Crane moved to keep the camera on her. “His mother was overbearing and abusive, certainly physically and psychologically and possibly sexually. There were no siblings in the household in which he grew up. He is heterosexual, probably with an addiction to pornography. He wet the bed, most likely past the age of twelve, and was severely punished for it. As an adolescent, he would have had trouble in school and been socially isolated. Wherever he went to high school, he’ll have a disciplinary record. There may be instances of fire-starting or voyeurism, or possible animal cruelty in his background, any of which might have drawn the attention of authorities, so he may have a juvenile record. I am almost certain that he either lives or works within a few mile radius of his victims, which since they are located in three separate towns means he is itinerant in some way. And there will have been a trigger event, something that precipitated the killing spree, probably within a month of the first murder. Most likely a divorce or romantic breakup, goading him to lash out against the victims, who are acting as substitutes for the female who rejected him.”

  Bartoli lifted his brows at her. “You work fast.”

  “I’m good at what I do.”

  Bartoli’s tense face relaxed into a near smile. “That’s why we wanted you.”

  “I would place his age at twenty-five to thirty-five, except for one thing: if he is indeed the Boardwalk Killer, then he would have to be older, forty to fifty.”

  “You cannot possibly tell that from those pictures.” Kaminsky looked at her with palpable disbelief.

  “No, I can’t,” Charlie agreed. “I know how old the Boardwalk Killer was because I saw him. He looked to be around thirty.”

  Kaminsky’s eyes widened. Then she grimaced. “I forgot about that. Sorry.”

  “That’s another reason you’re here,” Bartoli said imperturbably. “We’ve got the sketch of the unsub you assisted the police with fifteen years ago. We’re having it age progressed as we speak.”

  “I’m not convinced it’s the same man. The dormancy period has been too long.” Charlie kept her voice steady, even though remembering the circumstances under which she had helped the police artist make the sketch made her palms grow damp. The artist had come to her in the hospital. Charlie had tried to stay calm, but by the time the sketch was finished she’d been shaking and crying: a mess.

  And in the end, none of it had helped Holly.

  I can’t think about that.

  “We’re not one hundred percent convinced, either. It’s a possibility we’re exploring,” Bartoli told her.

  Charlie looked up at Bartoli. “He will have taken a trophy of some sort from the primary victims, like a piece of jewelry or clothing. Always the same type of object, which he will keep as a memento. Do you know what he’s taking for trophies? Because that will tell you something about him.”

  “Not yet.” Bartoli signaled to Crane to turn off the recorder, then looked at Charlie again. “You up to visiting the crime scene tonight? If you’re exhausted, we could hold off until tomorrow, but …”

  His voice trailed off. There wasn’t any need to say more. Everybody in that room knew that every second counted in the race to find Bayley Evans while she was still alive.

  Charlie refused to think about what she was letting herself in for. “I’m up to it.”

  “Let’s go, then.” He looked at Crane. “You can get busy pulling up the juvie records for two periods of time: twenty-five to thirty-five years ago, and seven to seventeen years ago. Whether this guy is the Boardwalk Killer or not, that should cover his teenage years. Look for what Dr. Stone said: fire-starting, animal cruelty, any kind of predatory violence. Also, run Dr. Stone’s original sketch through the juvie databases to see if we can find a match.”

  Crane nodded. “On it.”

  “And you”—Bartoli’s gaze shifted to Kaminsky—“start looking for someone who’s been out of commission for the past fifteen years and has just resurfaced. Caucasian male of the right age who’s been in prison and was just released, been out of the country, been in a hospital, you know the drill.”

  “Got it,” Kaminsky said.

  Ten minutes later, with Bartoli beside her, Charlie was heading for the Mead’s rented beach house, which was pastel blue and located next door to the pink one the RV was parked beside. The pink house, she had learned, had been chosen precisely because it was the next property down from the crime scene, although the two houses were separated by a considerable expanse of sea oats–covered sand. Walking along the wooden sidewalk that wound through the dunes—Bartoli had nixed driving; he didn’t want to alert the media (presently being kept at bay out front by the local cops) to their arrival—Charlie let the brisk wind blowing in from the ocean do what it could to soothe her. It smelled of salt and the sea, and lifted tendrils of her hair that had worked free of the loose knot at her nape and slid beneath the V-neckline of her sleeveless white blouse to caress her skin. Even with the breeze, the night was warm enough so that the black blazer she carried over one arm was not needed. She was once again wearing black pants—clean black pants; she had a lot of them—with he
els. It was her professional but not-inside-a-prison look.

  A makeshift fence composed of a line of yellow crime scene tape surrounded the house, blocking the sidewalk in front of them. Bartoli circumvented it by the simple expedient of ducking beneath it, then holding it out of the way so Charlie could follow.

  Once on the other side of the tape, she took one last look at the house from the sanctuary of the beautiful summer’s night. It was a large, rambling, two-story structure, with a multitude of windows and a wide gallery on the second floor. Built back-to-front, as most beach houses were, it had the main living areas facing the ocean, while the garage and lesser areas, like laundry rooms, fronted the street. The curtains were tightly drawn, but inside the house blazed with light, making the windows seem to glow. It was a sad commentary on the situation that the darkness outside seemed way preferable to what awaited within, Charlie thought. For a moment longer she stood still, drinking in the night with its starlit, black velvet sky and palely gleaming beach and rumbling waves. Then she mentally squared her shoulders and let Bartoli usher her inside the house.

  It was still being processed as a crime scene: technicians were busy everywhere Charlie looked. There was a lot of activity, a lot of noise, a lot to see and hear.

  “We’re just going to take a look around,” Bartoli told the cop who admitted them, who clearly knew who Bartoli was. The cop was young, maybe late twenties. Military-cut dark hair, tall and thin in his dark blue uniform. “This is Dr. Stone. Dr. Stone, Officer Price.” Charlie nodded politely, but she didn’t say anything: she was too busy bracing herself for what lie ahead.

  Price nodded. “Help yourself.”

  “We think the perp came in through the garage,” Bartoli told Charlie as the cop moved away. “The side door has a cheap lock, and there’s some evidence that it may have been jimmied with a credit card.”

  Busy looking around, Charlie merely nodded in reply.

  They had entered through French doors that opened from the deck, directly into the kitchen, which was large and modern. Bartoli had indicated a white-painted door next to the refrigerator. The door stood ajar. Beyond it, Charlie saw at a glance, was the garage. Its light was on, and a red mini-van was parked inside. Some evidence that investigators had been at work in the garage was visible, but nothing drew her. Turning her head, she surveyed the downstairs. A dining area with a glass-topped table and four chairs adjoined the kitchen, and beyond that was a living room furnished with lots of white wicker. The floors were white tile, the walls soft blue, and the cushions on the wicker sported beach-y motifs. Nothing seemed out of place.

  Nothing seemed wrong.

  Charlie felt her stomach tighten.

  Maybe there’s no one here. Maybe they’ve already crossed over.

  “We should go upstairs first.” Bartoli was beside her, steering her toward the front of the house. Charlie saw the entrance hall, saw a flight of stairs leading up, and realized why the atmosphere down here felt relatively normal even as Bartoli spelled it out for her. “The victims were found in the bedrooms.”

  Okay, then.

  Taking a deep breath, Charlie allowed herself to be escorted to the stairs. Glancing into the front hall, she caught a glimpse of a technician dusting the doorjamb for fingerprints. As she walked up the stairs with Bartoli behind her, she could hear a TV playing somewhere on the second floor, and then as she neared the top it went silent. As they reached the upstairs landing a man of about fifty, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut and a grim expression, walked out of what she presumed was one of the bedrooms. He moved with a slight limp, and had the burly, paunchy build of a former football player gone to seed. He was wearing civilian clothes—a navy sport coat and gray slacks—but no one would ever mistake him for anything but a cop.

  “Bartoli,” he greeted them with a marked lack of enthusiasm. His eyes were impossible to read behind thick, black-framed glasses. “You back?”

  “Haney,” Bartoli responded just as flatly. “This is Dr. Stone. Detective Lou Haney. Kill Devil Hills PD.”

  “I’m in charge of the investigation,” Haney said. Then he shot Bartoli a look. “Or at least I was until the feds showed up.”

  “We’re only here to help,” Bartoli replied.

  Charlie would have offered Haney her hand, except her palm was damp with sweat. She nodded at Haney instead. He was looking her up and down, and from his expression he wasn’t real pleased with what he saw.

  “This is your serial killer expert?” The look Haney shot Bartoli was scornful.

  “That’s right, I am,” Charlie answered before Bartoli could reply. She was no stranger to having to defend her credentials. Her youth, looks, and gender tended to work against her being taken seriously, she knew. That’s why she was still letting Bartoli and the others address her as Dr. Stone instead of inviting them to call her Charlie. If she wanted them to give weight to what she had to say, she first had to have their respect.

  “Hell’s bells,” Haney said.

  “Good to meet you, too.” Charlie’s tone was cool.

  “Anything new?” Bartoli asked. As Haney’s gaze shifted to him, Charlie glanced around. Her heart was picking up the pace, and she didn’t know if it was in dreadful anticipation or because at some deep, fundamental level she sensed a presence she would really rather not know about.

  Haney shook his head. “We’re rerunning some tests. Guy had to leave something behind.”

  “You’d think,” Bartoli replied as his hand moved to rest in the small of Charlie’s back, silently urging her forward.

  But Charlie didn’t move, or at least not in the direction he obviously wanted her to take. She could once again hear the TV. Four doors opened off the spacious landing, and the sound was coming from the room on the far left. The one Haney had exited as she and Bartoli had reached the top of the stairs. Moving away from Bartoli’s would-be guiding hand, Charlie took a couple of tentative steps toward the sound.

  Every sense she possessed seemed to quicken. She felt like a bird dog on alert.

  “The master bedroom is over here. That’s where we probably want to start,” Bartoli said behind her, but Charlie barely registered the words.

  “The TV …” Breaking off, she headed determinedly toward the room from which the sounds were emanating. Just inside the doorway, she paused. A glance showed her marine blue walls with a sailboat-themed wallpaper border at chair rail height. Glossy hardwood floors. A pair of twin beds with dark wood, ship’s wheel–style headboards, stripped of their mattresses. A matching dark wood chest with a small flat-screen TV on top of it. A tan corduroy armchair in a corner, facing the TV.

  The TV was on. Some weird dragon-fantasy thing filled the screen.

  A kid—the blond eleven-year-old from the autopsy photos—curled in the armchair, eyes fixed on the TV, a game controller clutched in both hands. Skinny and undersized, he was clad in soccer ball–dotted blue pajamas and had a determined expression on his face.

  Charlie watched as he busily punched buttons on the controller.

  “Damned TV keeps switching on by itself.” Haney’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away. “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with it.”

  Even as Charlie gathered her wits enough to realize Bartoli was watching her closely, Haney brushed past her to walk over to the TV and turn it off, stabbing the button with a little more force than the action called for. The kid looked around then. His eyes widened as they fastened on something. Charlie didn’t think it was any of the three of them, or anything at all that was still real and present. His gaze seemed to fix just beyond her. For a second he simply stared. Then, face contorting in fear, he cast the controller aside, leaped to his feet, and fled toward a white-painted door in the wall. A closet, clearly. He grabbed the knob.…

  Then disappeared. Gone, just like that. Not as much as a shimmer.

  Charlie didn’t even have time to brace for the wave of nausea before it hit.

  CHAPTER SIX

  �
�Dr. Stone.” Bartoli’s hand curled around her upper arm. Charlie felt the warm strength of it against her chilled skin, glanced around to find his eyes on her face, and did her best to suck it up. So she’d seen a ghost, and now she wanted to hurl. Absent a convenient toilet and a little privacy, hurling wasn’t happening. And there didn’t seem to be a damned thing she could do about seeing ghosts. Sad as it was, it looked like that was her fricking fate.

  What’s up? Bartoli’s eyes asked, but he didn’t say it. Maybe because Haney was watching them. Maybe because Bartoli knew what she would reply: Not a thing. After all, they’d had the equivalent of this conversation before.

  “This was the boy’s room, right? Where was his body found?” Charlie strove to sound normal as she unobtrusively detached her arm from Bartoli’s hold. Her skin was cold and clammy; her pulse was jumping. As long as Bartoli was touching her, he was privy to proof positive that something in her world wasn’t all fine and dandy. It was always difficult, trying not to reveal what she saw. Which was one among a number of really excellent reasons she tried not to see anything everyone else didn’t see. Glancing around, she spotted the chalk outline between the beds on the hardwood floor, and had the answer to her question even before Haney moved to the foot of the nearest bed and pointed it out.

  “Trevor was found right there,” Haney said.

  Oh, God, I can’t think of the kid as Trevor.

  There were bloodstains on the floor where Trev—the kid had died.

  Charlie felt cold sweat breaking out around her hairline.

  “We think he was asleep when the unsub attacked him,” Haney continued. “The amount of blood on the sheets leads us to believe he was stabbed in his bed, then either managed to get up before collapsing on the floor—or rolled or was pulled onto the floor, where he died.”