“I can be up and back to West Livingston in a day. Even if I have to drive. But when they go I want in.”
“Brody Winchester runs a tight ship, Jo. If he’d have wanted you on this outing he’d have called.”
“It’s not about what he wants. Smith was willing to talk to me on Saturday. He won’t talk to Winchester.”
“Those two have a long history. Smith had said more than once he respects Winchester.”
“Respect doesn’t mean much if he refuses to talk.”
She reached for the phone on her desk. “Winchester is not shutting me out.”
Dr. Anderson pulled off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with the edge of his sweater. “Why did Smith want to see you?”
“I can only assume it’s my dissertation I wrote on him a couple of years ago or the subsequent presentations I gave. And there is an added element.” She explained her past connection to Brody.
He raised a brow, but made no comment on the marriage. “I remember in your presentation that you said he wouldn’t consent to be interviewed.”
She’d written him several letters, but she’d received no responses. “That’s right.”
“And now he wants to talk.”
“He did the other day at least. Now, let’s hope he will keep talking.” She cradled the phone under her ear as she looked up Brody’s number in her cell phone. “He’s running out of time.”
Dr. Anderson shook his head. “I’m not so sure it’s about time. Smith always had a second and sometimes third motive.”
Three messages from Jo blinked on Brody’s phone by five thirty. He’d listened to the first message seconds after it hit his phone, but he’d chosen not to respond. Jo wanted to see Smith again. She’d received updates on the case and hoped another conversation with Smith would reveal more. She wanted in on his next trip to West Livingston.
Jo was smart, likely smarter than anyone he’d ever met, but he would not expose her to Smith again. The old man had stared at her with a lean, hungry look that had tested Brody’s patience. His smile had remained intact but instinct demanded he pummel Smith unconscious.
Smith gave no information away for free and whatever price he expected for his assistance, he’d exact it from Jo.
Brody understood too well how this psychopath could get into a mind. When Brody had been tracking Smith, he’d crawled inside the killer’s mind, hoping to anticipate his next kill. He’d done what he’d set out to do and trapped the animal but the cost had been high. He’d lost sleep. Cut off friends and family. His girlfriend had ended their relationship.
Brody didn’t want Smith’s kind of ruin to burn its way into Jo’s life. She might resent him protecting her now when he hadn’t all those years ago. But she’d have to get over it. This time he would protect her. Whether she liked it or not.
Brody closed his phone and got out of his car. He studied the mobile home surrounded by a chicken-wire fence adorned with Christmas lights. The dirt front yard was decorated with a collection of pinwheels, and aluminum foil covered the windows of the trailer.
A car door slammed shut, signaling Santos’s arrival. Dirt kicked up around his boots as he moved toward Brody. “The home of Ginnie Dupont.”
Brody caught a whiff of the garbage pile in the backyard. “That’s right.”
“Can’t wait to meet her.”
Hands on guns, they approached the trailer. Brody pounded on it with his fist and both men stood to the side while they waited. Footsteps sounded inside the trailer, the aluminum foil on the window closest to the door raised and the door opened.
The woman standing there was in her midfifties. Thin, with wrinkled skin, her hair was as white as snow. She wore jeans, a flannel shirt and flip-flops. “Ranger,” she said.
Brody touched the brim of his hat. “Ms. Ginnie Dupont?”
Gray eyes narrowed. “That’s right. You come to talk to me about those letters again?”
“We have.”
She smiled and moved outside. “I was working on a new one. Been two days since I’ve written, and I didn’t want Mr. Smith to think I’d forgotten him.”
“No, ma’am,” Santos said.
“When’s the last time you heard from Smith?” Brody knew Smith had no outgoing communication, but sometimes asking a direct question awarded him an unexpected answer.
“I heard from him last night.”
Brody remembered the profile the warden had relayed on Dupont on the phone. “Is that direct communication or in your dreams like before?”
“In my dream, of course.”
“And what did he say, ma’am?” Santos said.
She twisted a braided bracelet that wrapped around her thin wrist. “That he loves me, of course. And that one day he’s gonna come for me.”
“And bury you like the others?”
She smiled. “That’s right.”
Robbie stared at Bluebonnet as she lay on her side, curled in a ball on the bed in his trailer. When he’d refused her sexual advances, she’d lain down on the bed, thinking he’d change his mind. He hadn’t and she’d slept while he’d gathered his resolve.
He touched her on the shoulder. “It’s time to go.”
She rolled on her back and stretched. “I need to get back. Daddy is going to be mad.”
“Daddy?”
“My pimp.”
“Ah. Well, we wouldn’t want to upset Daddy, now would we, Bluebonnet?”
“My name is Hanna.” She rose and slipped back on her jeans, top and boots.
“Maybe, but to me you will always be Bluebonnet.” He pulled a silk bluebonnet from his pocket. For several seconds he twirled it between his fingers before he gently tucked it in her hair.
She removed the flower and stared at it. “Pretty.”
“Like you.”
Outside, the sun blazed on the horizon, lighting up the land. Silent, both got back into his truck. He started the engine and headed down the dirt road and turned left onto the main road. Soon they were sailing. However, instead of taking the exit to the interstate, he kept on heading toward open land.
“Where are we going?” Bluebonnet said.
“A quick side trip.”
“Daddy said one hundred dollars an hour.”
He smiled. “We won’t be but a minute.”
Pale blue eyes flickered with curiosity. Her emotions were flat, which he’d first thought was drug-related. Now he’d come to see that it was a quirk of her personality.
“You’ll take me back?”
“I’ll take you.”
She faced him, the evening light across her face. “When?”
“Soon.”
“Daddy will want more money.”
“I understand.”
Satisfied, she settled in her seat.
His spirits light, he wasn’t so anxious or nervous as he had been with Christa, and he saw the change as progress. They reached the main road and drove for another fifteen minutes before he turned into a development so new, no home had been built yet. There were a handful of foundations in place.
Bluebonnet shook her head. “This isn’t a shortcut.”
“Yes, it is.”
She fisted her hands and frowned. “Keri says johns are tricky. I think you’re tricky.” She grabbed a hold of the door as if she wanted to jump out.
He pushed on the gas. “You jump out now and you’ll break a leg. Don’t be such a worrywart.”
She clung to the door as if it offered some kind of pathetic moral support. The car rocked and bumped as he drove deeper into the development.
“It rained the other day. Makes for softer soil. Tough on driving but rain is good. This drought has been rough on Texas.”
At the back of the development he parked at the end of a cul-de-sac. He turned off the truck and set the brake.
She jerked on the door latch, but the door didn’t open. “The door doesn’t work.”
“That door doesn’t open from the inside. Heck of an inconvenience. I’ll
come around and let you out.”
“Out? Why would I want to get out here?”
He slammed his car door and came around to her side. When he opened it she was clinging to the seat. “I am not getting out.”
“Yes, you are.”
She screamed as if someone, maybe Keri, had told her to do it.
He winced and then shoved a rag in her mouth. He pulled tape from his pocket and flattened it over the gag. A second later he had handcuffs out of his pocket and on her wrists. She moaned and struggled. “Now, now, Bluebonnet. Stop your worrying. This isn’t going to hurt a bit.”
When he’d killed Christa, he’d been awkward and afraid. Now fear didn’t overwhelm him. In fact, he felt energized and excited. Harvey would be pleased.