I See You (Criminal Profiler 4)

Vaughan set the fresh cup of coffee, sugar, and stir stick in front of him and then sat kitty-corner to him. “Thought you could use this,” he said.

Foster blinked slowly and nodded. “Thanks.”

Vaughan sat back in his seat and casually sipped coffee he really did not want. There was an art to looking calm and friendly when all he wanted to do was reach across the table and grab him by the collar.

“Can I get you anything else?” Vaughan asked. “Are you hungry? I could get us a pizza or burgers.”

Foster let a breath trickle out over clenched teeth. He swayed slightly. “No. I don’t need anything else.”

Vaughan carefully sipped the coffee, categorizing the dozens of questions that demanded to be asked. Instead of firing the first, he paused, knowing if he built a rapport, Foster might believe they were on the same side. The goal now was not to get a pound of flesh but to find the girl.

“I know you’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress,” he said. “I can’t imagine how difficult the last few days have been.”

“It’s been the worst time in my life,” Foster said, dropping his gaze to his cup. “Never did I think I’d be here.”

“I believe you.” Vaughan set his cup down and reached for a pen in his breast pocket. He clicked the end of it and let the silence settle between them, knowing it could coax some kind of conversation.

Foster reached for the sugar packet and carefully tore off the top, poured it into the cup, and stirred. “Hadley hated it when I used sugar. She said it was poison for the body.”

“You’ve got to live a little,” he said, forcing a smile.

Images of Hadley Foster’s mutilated body, as well as the dead bodies of Galina Grant and Veronica Manchester, crowded around him. He took a mental step back from the memories as he added sugar to his coffee.

“That’s exactly what I used to tell her.” Foster took a sip and set the cup down carefully.

“Was she always so set in her ways? Disciplined, I guess?”

“Not when we first met.” His mind seemed to drift. “She was carefree and so much fun. In those days, I woke up and fell asleep thinking about her.”

“When a woman gets in your blood, it’s hard to shake,” Vaughan said truthfully.

Foster looked up. “A teenage boy never had a chance against Hadley Prince. She blew into my life like a hurricane, and I was never the same.”

He leaned back, shifting tactics again. “How did you meet Hadley?”

“She was running a register at her father’s shop. Once I saw her, I applied for a job.”

“You worked there for a summer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Marsha also worked there.”

“Yes.”

“Before we talk about Hadley, I’d like to talk about Marsha Prince.” Vaughan would work the conversation around to Hadley in a minute. “Were she and Hadley close?”

“On the surface, but Hadley resented Marsha because their dad’s business had been profitable enough to send her to Georgetown. The tables turned when it was Hadley’s time to go. Marsha was still going back to Georgetown, and Hadley was headed to community college, if she was lucky.”

“Did they fight?”

“Sure. Sisters fight. But Marsha didn’t instigate the trouble. Hadley did.”

“I have three sisters. My sister Kendra was always the one stirring the pot.” He sipped his coffee. “But Kendra would never kill any of our other sisters.”

Foster’s brow tightened with a frown as he stared into his cup. “And Hadley wouldn’t have killed Marsha. I always believed that deep down she loved Marsha. Hadley was never the same after Marsha vanished. She carried tremendous guilt over all the fights she picked with her sister.”

“It must have thrown her off after our visit,” Vaughan said.

“She was a mess. I couldn’t get her to calm down. I was supposed to go back to the office and offered to stay home, but she insisted I go. She wanted to be alone.”

“But she wasn’t alone that night, was she?”

He frowned and blinked, as if trying to remember. “No, I guess not.”

“When you got home that night, did you realize she’d been with Roger Dawson?”

He shook his head. “No. She was home when I got home. We didn’t speak until the morning.”

Vaughan reached for a memory, hoping it would appeal to Foster. “When my marriage went south, it didn’t happen right away.” The sincerity of his own words surprised him, and it wasn’t lost on him that he was having this conversation with a suspect in front of Spencer. “It was a slow and steady downhill slide.”

Foster’s hand trembled a little when he took a sip of coffee. “It sneaks up so slowly you don’t see it coming.”

Again he let the silence simmer. “Is that when you reached out to Veronica Manchester?”

He looked up, his gaze earnest. “Yes, but I broke it off.”

“Did you? Your phone records recorded multiple conversations recently, and we found no text that suggested a breakup.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a text. Maybe I called her from the office phone. I just don’t remember.”

“Where is she now?” he asked casually.

“Vacation. In France.”

“She kept in touch with her friends while she was traveling?”

“Not that I heard of.”

Vaughan tapped a finger on the table, trying to figure out if this guy was telling the truth or playing him for a fool. DNA, surveillance tapes, and possible new eyewitness testimonies would eventually tell the story, but what he needed now was to find Skylar.

“Tell us about yesterday. How did it start?” Vaughan asked.

“Like it always does.” Foster sipped his coffee. “It was very ordinary. I got up, and Hadley wasn’t in bed but out for a run. She likes to get up early and get a workout in before she sees her clients.”

“She’s dedicated.”

“More likely, obsessed.”

“Did that bother you?” Vaughan asked.

“Not when we first married. I knew she was carrying the guilt over Marsha. I thought it would get better, but it only got worse, and after a while, it bugged the hell out of me.” The frown lines on Foster’s face deepened, and he looked as if he was ready to slip back into his brooding silence.

Vaughan scratched his chin. “You wake up. She’s out running.”

He dropped his gaze to the coffee. “I went downstairs to make coffee. I checked email on my phone, and when the pot was brewed, I took a cup up to Skylar. She’s always slow to wake up.”

“You were downstairs having your coffee?”

“Yes, and then I went upstairs for a shower and to get dressed for work. I had an early morning. While I was putting on my tie, I heard Hadley come upstairs.”

Vaughan sensed the truth was thinning and the lies growing. “What happened next?”

Foster swallowed more coffee and, for a long moment, stared at a deep scratch in the wooden table. “After I gave Sky her coffee, Hadley called out to me. She was pissed about something, and I chose not to answer. It only fueled her anger, and she blurted out that she loved Roger and was leaving. I don’t remember much after that. I was angry because we were supposed to be trying to fix our marriage for Skylar’s sake. I saw white and barely remember going to the kitchen and getting the boning knife. I came back, and I stabbed that bitch in our bedroom.”