Eleven (13 page)

 “Oh, here we go, I’m in.”

“Nad—”

“He’s got a few.” She rhymed off snippets of messages. “Happy to have such a righteous person to follow, thank you for being a role model.” She read the last one slowly. “Do you think—”

“What’s the background on that one?”

“Devin Mercy.”

“Interesting last name,” Jack said.

More keys were tapped on the keyboard. “Five backgrounds come up with that name.”

“Narrow it down to anyone in the Salt Lick area. Try Owingsville, postal 40360.”

“Zero.”

“What about Sarasota?”

“Ah, zero.”

“Shit. Are there any links to pictures, or names mentioned in any of these messages?”

“Not that I see. Is something wrong?”

Jack told Nadia about my picture being mailed to Bingham.

“Oh my God, Brandon. Jack what—”

“We’ve got it under control.”

Glad he did.
Maybe it was because he wasn’t completely attached to the newest member of his team.

“We’ve got the photo and its envelope on the way for the LPOU.” The Latent Print Operations Unit. “Stay on top of them for the results.” Jack hung up and glanced over at the screen with my profile. “Sixty followers? You twit regularly?”

“Are we back to that? I
tweet
, sometimes. Not often.”

“About what?” He looked at the screen. “Your log-on name is WordAddict. Are you a writer or something?” Jack laughed.

It was time for a subject switch. “Why are you set against having and providing hope?” I referred to this morning when Jack gave me a hard time over a promise to find Sally Windermere.

“So you are a writer.” Jack pulled out another cigarette and lit up.

I took a deep breath and tried to conjure self-control.

CHAPTER 15

Paige and Zachery were in the corner table of Betty’s Place waiting for us. It was the best we could do for a conference room around here. Two plates on the table were empty with the exception of leftover coleslaw in small ramekins, and four red plastic toothpicks.

“Hope you don’t mind we went ahead and ordered something.” Zachery drew back on a can of pop.

“Looks like you ordered and ate.” Jack pulled out a chair from the table, letting it scrape across the floor. He dropped onto it.

 “Triple deckers,” I said.

“Turkey, bacon and cheese on whole wheat. You should try one, Pending.”

“I’m not that hungry—”

“He feels his life was threatened,” Jack interceded.

“Come on, why would someone throw away their life killing you?”

I studied Paige’s eyes. They communicated a vulnerability and empathic nature. Her hair framed her face with loose curls. I remembered putting my hands in that hair, sweeping it back from her face, taking her lips, kissing her neck. She let her eyelids fall slowly as if she were thinking the same thing.

She ended the eye contact. “There’s no need to be like that, Zach.”

“Why are you sticking up for him?”

“I take it seriously. Brandon is a Special Agent just like the rest of us—”

“Pending.”

He’d never let me forget I had a twenty-four month probationary period.

“We’re family. We look out for each other. What if it was your picture?”

The smile faded from Zachery’s face.

“Yeah, not so funny now.”

Jack leaned back into his chair. “This is normally when I’d say we don’t have time to eat but seeing as this is our only meeting place—”

My cell phone rang. The ring tone was different. It was my personal cell and it was Deb.

“Are you going to get that?”

I pulled out the phone and clicked ignore.

“Not important, Kid?”

My eyes were on Paige. Hers went to the table.

The ringing started up again.

“Sounds like you better get that.”

I walked away from the table and answered. “I told you I’m in the middle of a case—”

“Are you going to be home tonight?”

“We talked about this.”

“Brandon, I didn’t realize you’d be away for days at a time.”

“We talked about the possibility.”

Silence.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Brandon?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

To hear her voice change from confrontation to this tugged at my heart. My life was threatened. Who knew what tomorrow would bring? “I love you too. I’ll be home as soon as I can.” I hung up the phone and headed back to the table.

“That wasn’t personal was it Kid? We’re on a case.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Hope it doesn’t.”

I was learning something else about Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper. He ran his team like a dictatorship.

Jack and I both ended up eating a triple decker sandwich, following in the shadows of our colleagues. All I could think about was my photograph having been sent to Bingham. I swallowed in large bites and washed them down with chugs of water. I never took a lot of time to eat, but this was a record.

“If we could even connect victimology we’d have a better chance of catching the unsub,” Paige said. “All we know right now is the first victim was likely Bingham’s brother-in-law, and the most recent seems to be Sally Windermere.”

Zachery gestured toward the Bible and reference book on the coinherence symbol we took from Bingham’s cell. They sat on the table in plastic bags. “I think this is more about divinity. Bingham views his killing as a higher calling. It’s given away by his handle, The Redeemer. He’s taking it upon himself to save people from their sins.”

“Let’s talk about Sally Windermere then,” Jack challenged. “Why a young girl who wasn’t even married? What sin could she possibly have committed?”

Paige put a hand through her hair and tucked a strand behind an ear. “We’re pretty confident Bingham killed his brother-in-law. We know the man had beaten his sister. But we also know that the last kill at the burial site didn’t have their intestines removed—different killer, possibly a different motive?”

Zachery shook his head. “I’m not buying that part.”

“And why’s that?” Paige rested her chin in a cupped hand, her elbow braced on the table.

“The unsub is a follower. He respects and follows Bingham’s lead. I believe they kill for the same purpose.”

“Okay, I agree with the part that the unsub follows Bingham’s lead—”

“Bingham controls everything.”

“Stop agreeing there.” Paige sat back. “If he did the last vic would have been gutted. She wasn’t.”

“The other markings on the body are the same, the burial is the same. What we need to know is why she was targeted and we’ll have a better chance of finding our unsub. We need to think exactly like Bingham to draw the unsub in.”

Paige let out a rush of air.

“You don’t agree?”

“No, I do. Maybe that’s the problem.” A smirk creased the edges of her mouth. “I hate it when you have a point.”

“It happens too often?” Zachery’s smile grew and faded just as quickly. His eyes glazed over and he looked at me. “He told you to confess your sins and be forgiven.”

“Yes.”

“Evidence seems to lean toward him killing for a sense of righteousness. Think of the seven sins in the Bible.”

Jack tapped his shirt pocket and looked around the place.

“It’s been a long time since Sunday school.” I said.

“Don’t get smart, Pending. The seven sins are wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.”

“Okay, well we don’t think Travis was killed for any of those reasons.” The minute the words came out, I knew I should have given it more thought. “Wrath.”

“Exactly.” Zachery pressed a pointed index finger onto the cover of the Bible. “And think of yourself being a young girl, shouldn’t be hard to do.” He smiled. I cocked my head to the side. “She’s engaged to someone she loves. Where does that lead?”

“Lust,
” Paige answered. “She fornicated.”

Zachery snapped his fingers. “Yes. Nancy Windermere said her daughter knew Bingham. Maybe he sensed it off her, or she told him.”

Everyone went silent, and Jack’s cell phone rang.

He answered, “Nadia, you’re on speaker.” He pushed a button and placed the cell on the table.

“Okay, you’re going to love me.”

“We already do,” Zachery said.

“Oh, I mean even more—”

“Nadia.” That’s all Jack needed to say. His tone carried the implication of
get to the point
.

“I’m still working my way through all the Twitter followers, but I came across one I know you’ll be interested in.”

“Name?”

“One thing at a time. I logged onto his Twitter account. Now there wasn’t anything that stood out to me at first but I went to his messages again and there was a new message in there.” Nadia’s voice shrank. “It was about you Brandon.”

My heart palpitated. “What exactly?”

“It was from The Redeemer to a profile name of HighScore. The message was just your name without the at symbol.”

“He was pointing me out.”

“But there’s more. I found out the guy’s real name, pulled a background. He lives in Owingsville. That’s in Bath County too, only about eight miles west—”

“That’s where my photo was mailed from.”

She was quiet for a few seconds. “Now there’s more. His real name is Earl Royster—”

“The CSI,” I cut Nadia off and turned to Jack. “He led us through the tunnels, filled us in on the find. He’s the one who had the allergies and kept sneezing.”

Jack rose to his feet. “Let’s go pick him up.”

“Forwarding you all his info and address now.”

Jack’s cell chimed with notification of the message, and Nadia disconnected the call.

I found it hard to move. To think we had all been so close to a killer and didn’t even know made me realize what some assumed about FBI Special Agents wasn’t true. They weren’t a type of superhero. They were just people who possessed flaws, some of which could get them killed.

“Hello.”

Turning I saw Betty, but not before I heard Jack say, “Mrs. Miller, are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine.” Her body quivered as if fighting a chill. Her hands rubbed her arms. She looked around the space which was barren except for us and an employee. “I know you’re not in-investigatin’ missin’ persons. I can handle it. Was Sally one of the victims?”

Paige extended a hand to Betty’s shoulder. The older woman moved out of reach. “As I said, I’m fine dear.”

Paige stepped back. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“You people are treatin’ me like a child. I’m a grown woman. I can handle the truth.”

Jack gestured to a chair that remained pulled back from the table. “What have you heard?”

She reluctantly sat down, and the rest of us joined her. “Ten people murdered. All buried beneath that man’s property.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“People ’round here talk even when they’re not s’posed to.” Her eyes flitted to each of us. “Oh God!” A flattened hand clasped over her mouth. Her head shook. She must have read our eyes. “Y’all know sometimes I wish people were wrong. Bingham killed all of them?”

“We’re working on investigating who killed those people and why.”

“Why? Does that matter? Just lock up the son of a gun for life.”

“It doesn’t necessarily work that way. In order to get answers, sometimes we need to know why.”

Arms crossed.

“You can help us though.”

“How’s that?” Her eyes snapped up to meet Jack’s.