He opened his toolbox and said, “Maybe not. But let’s just make sure if he does show up, he won’t get in. Damn. I need a different screwdriver. You have a Phillips?”
“In the garage, in the workbench.”
“Great. I’ll be right back and finish up.” He started for the garage but sent a smile in her direction. “That bastard’s never getting in here again.”
Who, who, who?
Pescoli couldn’t get the case out of her head, even as she waited for Jeremy to come home and she heard Bianca in the bathroom, taking what had to be the world’s longest shower. Whereas Pescoli could be in and out of the bathroom, teeth brushed, showered, her hair shampooed, and in her pajamas in less than ten minutes, her daughter took a minimum of an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, which could be a problem since the house had only one bathroom and, unlike her son, Pes
coli didn’t find off the deck a secondary toilet. No matter how often she admonished him, Jeremy didn’t feel the least bit abashed at “taking a leak” into the surrounding woods.
So now, while Cisco was curled into a ball in his dog bed near the Christmas tree and Bianca went through her major beauty routine on the other side of the locked bathroom door, Pescoli fired up her laptop and went over everything she knew about the ice-mummy case. There were photographs of the crime scenes and lists of people who knew the victims, more photographs of people who had stopped and looked at the scenes. The department had gathered security tapes from surrounding businesses, interviewed neighbors, checked traffic cams for large vehicles driving near the crime scenes late at night, talked to relatives and friends, listed enemies and come up with people who would benefit from the victims’ disappearances.
Nothing came together.
A question that had been bandied about was the operation itself. Where did the killer take his victims to kill them, and freeze their bodies in blocks of ice? It would take days for the water to solidify and then be carved into the intricate patterns, all of which had been studied. Did he have a large, commercial freezer? Was a warehouse complete with refrigeration and freezers involved? Could he be doing his work at home, but where? Did he live alone, or did he have an accomplice?
There had been no physical evidence aside from what appeared to be the tiniest drop of blood in the ice surrounding Lara Sue Gilfry’s body, so little it was almost overlooked, maybe missed by the perpetrator.
The lab had been working on it; the blood was rare, didn’t match the victim and had come from a male, as had the single short hair found on the floor mat near the door of Brenda Sutherland’s car.
The FBI was running comparisons with known criminals, but so far they’d ended up with a big fat goose egg. There had been no latent prints on the card, envelope or photo, the last of which was computer generated, nor had the envelope tested positive for saliva. The creep had obviously been watching too much CSI.
But he would trip up; they always did.
Eventually.
How in the world did Alvarez connect with the killer and the known victims? There had to be a thread. The killer hadn’t robbed her house and left his mark, in the way of her jewelry, on the victims for no reason.
Uh-uh.
Like a dog marking his territory, or Jeremy peeing off the deck, this maniac had taken Alvarez’s jewelry for a reason, to make himself known to her.
She had a smaller version of the map in the task force room on her computer and she studied it again. There had to be a connection between where these women worked, where they were abducted, and where they lived ... right? This guy was nothing if not organized. No one plots to break in to a homicide detective’s home, steal her jewelry and display it without a plan.
He had to be someone Alvarez knew.
Possibly someone she knew, too.
So who the hell was he?
A child? Selena Alvarez had borne a child? And now his identity could be discovered?
As he, alone in the house, watched the television in his office, he wondered why he hadn’t put two and two together before. His mind raced and he mentally went over all the information he had on the woman.
Of course there were holes in what he knew about her, but not many. He’d been meticulous but had never understood why she’d moved away from her parents in her high school years, transferred schools. He’d thought it was because she was in some kind of accelerated program or that her parents had moved her out to get her away from running with the wrong crowd, but he’d never really considered that she’d been pregnant. Not these days, because even fifteen years ago, it was acceptable to have a child as a teenager; if not the norm, certainly not something to be ashamed of.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t considered the possibility.
He’d suspected she might have had a baby, of course, by tracking down her school records and addresses. She’d been moved away from her family when she was still in her teens, for just a year, but he’d never come back to the idea that she’d had a secret baby.
A mistake on his part.
An omission and one he didn’t like.
But now, he knew.
His blood sang with that special little sizzle of adrenaline he always felt when he sensed everything coming seamlessly together. He’d thought he would lure her with her stupid dog ... but this, a child, was so much more certain to force her to do what he wanted, what he needed.