Alex Cross, Run (Alex Cross 20)

That seemed to be the case. There were no signs of sexual assault, or robbery. Mrs. Whitley’s blue leather purse sat clasped on a dresser by the window, and the heavy diamond studs in Keira’s ears had been left untouched.

Age didn’t seem to be a factor for this guy, either. The only real consistencies were the very clear physical type, the repetitive knife work, and of course, the chopped hair. It was virtually everywhere I looked—matted in with the blood on the furniture, but also lying in loose tufts, and endless random strands all over the room, and all over the victims themselves. It was as bizarre a scene as I’d been to in a long time.

But was one of those elements more important than the other? He was working something out, that was for sure. Maybe reliving a fantasy of some kind—over and over.

It was possible these women were surrogates for someone else, I thought. Someone whom our killer only wished he could get to. His dead mother, maybe. Or an ex of some kind. I didn’t really see a clear path to figuring that one out yet, but somewhere in my gut, the question felt like it was pointing me in the right direction.

Who was this guy—and who was he trying to kill, over and over again?

CHAPTER

55

BY THE TIME VALENTE AND I MADE A GOOD PASS THROUGH THE HOUSE, WE heard from the sergeant on the front door that a rep from Baseline Security had arrived. Errico radioed back to keep whoever it was outside, and we made our way out to the street to meet with him.

A black Range Rover was parked halfway between the Whitley home and the barriers at the end of the block. The man waiting for us there introduced himself as John Overbey, the owner of Baseline. His company worked for various neighborhood associations, providing video surveillance and away-from-home coverage where the city’s municipal cameras fell short.

It looked to me like business was good. Overbey’s green silk tie probably cost more than my entire suit.

“We’ve got one hundred percent coverage on this block,” he told us. “I started scanning the logs as soon as I heard the terrible news. And I’m pretty certain we’ve got your man.”

He kept eyeing the Whitleys’ town house while we talked. I’d want to get a look inside, too, if I were him, but Valente motioned for him to open his Toughbook right there on the hood of his car instead.

When the laptop screen flicked on, Overbey already had two side-by-side video images waiting. His time coding looked like a jumble to me, maybe some kind of in-house encryption, but he read it easily enough.

“That’s nine forty-six on Saturday night,” he said, pointing to the image on the left. “And the other is at ten fifteen. Both from the same unit, right over there.”

He turned and pointed up the block, to the corner of Cambridge and Thirtieth Street. In fact, I could see a small black box mounted under the second-floor window of the house on that corner.

“Let’s go chronologically,” Valente said.

Overbey brought the first image up to full screen and let the video play.

Unlike the city cameras, this one recorded a crisp digital color picture. The limitation was the fact that it had been taken at night. Cambridge Place was only sporadically lit by a handful of old-style street lamps along the brick sidewalk.

After a few seconds of empty footage, a man walked into the frame, heading up the block with his back to the camera.

“That’s him,” Overbey said.

There wasn’t much to see, except that he had a ball cap on, and a dark, knee-length coat. When he reached the Whitley home, he stepp

ed up onto the stoop and appeared to ring the bell.

It was chilling, knowing what was about to happen, and not being able to do anything about it.

The porch light came on. There seemed to be a brief exchange at the door, while the man pointed up the street several times. Finally, a blond woman stepped outside. It was too far away to tell if it was Mrs. Whitley or her daughter, but she put an arm around the man and helped him inside. As she did, he moved with a sudden, pronounced limp that hadn’t been there before.

“Probably told her he’d been mugged,” Overbey said, minimizing that recording and bringing up the other. “Now watch. This is twenty-nine minutes later.”

Again, we saw the same street scene as before, from the same camera. After a moment, the man stepped outside and closed the door behind him. He turned left off the stoop, then started back up the block, moving easily with no discernible limp at all.

As he came near the camera again, we saw his face for the first time. He even looked up, right into the lens for a split second, as he passed under it and out of sight.

“Right there,” I said.

“Yeah.” Overbey stopped, rewound, and froze the image.

The man seemed to be looking right at us. Valente leaned in to see closer, and then cursed under his breath.