Set Up For Love (16 page)

Dane released Jill and opened the door. She was surprised, and oddly relieved, to see an attractive grandmotherly lady standing in the doorway. The youthful voice had fooled her.

The woman handed Dane a stack of mail, saying that the mailman must have put it in the wrong box. “The postal notice looks important,” the woman added. He thanked her, and when she turned away, he closed the door.

He flipped through the junk mail and bills and stopped at the notice to pick up a package. “I don’t believe it!” Dane said. “It’s from Charmaine Du Bois.”

Excitement ran through Jill. “Were you expecting something from her?”
They’d found ashes in a wastebasket at Charmine’s place and thought the journal had been burned. But what if it hadn’t?

By the time she had her jacket on, Dane was already at the door with keys in hand. She grabbed her purse and hurried past him toward his car. In her brain, a metronome counted the passing seconds.

She glanced at him. His eyes looked clear but she wasn’t taking chances. “Give me your keys, Dane.”

He paused for an instant, then shrugged and handed them to her.

On the way to the murder scene, he called Sammy from his cellular phone. “Meet me at the University,” he told him. “The Snuff Video Murderer has struck again.”

Anger ignited in Jill so quickly she felt the sizzle clear to her toes. Dane’s call to the newsroom shouldn’t have incensed her this much. After all, he was a reporter. The problem was, she’d let herself believe he was there for her, but he was along just for the story.

“Worked out good for you, didn’t it?” Flashes of streetlights between the darkness gave her a sense of hurtling through a black hole during an electrical storm.

Ray had warned her not to get involved with this reporter. But no, she wouldn’t listen. She’d been so sure she could handle him. What a joke. Her emotions had never been more erratic. If she didn’t regain control, her career, even her own life would be at risk. And worse yet, the lives of others.

Jill stared straight ahead out the windshield. They’d entered the campus and were already on the road that ended at the nurses’ center.

For the first time, she half wished she were in another profession. Anything instead of an FBI psychologist who chased the world’s psychos.

Gary’s hesitation about the murdered girl’s identity ate at her like acid. It wasn’t like him to hold back.
NEXT
had been written on the back of Tess’ photo. It was only a few hours since the maniac had claimed he held her captive.

Why was she tormenting herself this way? Jill took a deep breath.
Tess was fine. Oh, dear God, let me be right about that.
Dane reached over and touched her hand. She shook him away.

“Are you okay?” His concern sounded sincere, yet she knew better. He was only after his story.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Why not?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I watched videos while the maniac made a video of his own. Now another girl is dead.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jill took a fortifying breath as she parked Dane’s car askew on a grassy slope among with all the police and unmarked cars. Not waiting for Dane to hurry around the car, she opened the door and stepped out onto uneven, damp ground. Dane joined her like a flash, took her elbow, and kept her from slipping. Against reason, her body welcomed his touch.

A siren broke the quiet as she ducked under the yellow tape and hurried toward the group of police. Dane was on her heels. No one stopped him and her mind was on seeing the body. Harsh lights had been strung over the area. She followed a trail of brightly colored woman’s clothing: A shoe. A scarf. And half hidden in a bush, an open denim purse.

Her breath caught. She’d bought a purse like that for Tess on her birthday. Silent screams echoed in her head. The wallet. She had to see the wallet to prepare herself to look at the body. Mechanically, she slipped on her plastic gloves and bent to look. The wallet wasn’t inside the purse.

Jill stomach knotted. She placed one foot in front of the other, her body automatically going through the motions, following procedures as she’d done many times before. Dane stayed at her side.

Her knees trembled. Dane steadied her as she descended the slope. Two floodlights brightened the murder scene below, making it a grisly stage.
Oh, God.
At the bottom of the slope, face down, lay the shapely naked body—long blonde hair draped over her shoulders and onto the ground—blood everywhere. Jill pressed her hand to her mouth, fighting screams, nausea.

Don’t let it be Tess.

It looked like her sister, yet it didn’t—more like a discarded, bloody Barbie doll.

She felt Dane stiffen. He gripped her arm so tightly it should have hurt, but didn’t. She wished it did, needing to feel something besides the agonizing dread.

Jill bent and gently brushed back the hair to reveal the girl’s face. Dane was next to her, his hand on her shoulder.

She exhaled.
It wasn’t Tess.

Unable to hold back, she stood, ran to the bushes and allowed the nausea to pour out. Dane was at her side holding her hair out of her face, gently patting her back.

She waved him away, but he stayed. “Get it all out. You’ll feel better.”

Jill fought embarrassment—most agents had gone through this at one time or another. It was that type of messy work. What bothered her more was Dane hovering over her as though he believed she couldn’t handle this. And worse yet, he was doing it in full view of people who needed to be assured of her competence.

She drew herself up, did a fast clean up with tissues, then took a deep breath to regain her composure. “Look, I know you mean well, but I can handle myself. Now please, stay out of my way. I have work to do.”

He gave her a wry, measuring look. “Afraid someone might see a human being behind the FBI facade?”

Jill whirled and left him standing there. She didn’t have time to explain that psychologists had to fall apart on their own time.

She looked at the young woman again. The ill-fated soul had climbed from bed just as she had that day, dressed, and left home—not knowing that in a few hours she’d be murdered. Suddenly, Jill imagined Tess lying there and couldn’t look anymore.

Trying to distance herself from the pain, Jill glanced around, scrutinizing the scene. Moonlight filtered ominously through tall, spindly sycamores. If only they could speak. They’d seen the killing, heard the screams piercing the night, yet they mutely kept the maniac’s evil secret.

Jill dictated notes into her small recorder, noticing every bruise on the body, blood under the nails, every disturbed leaf and broken twig on the ground.

It was common among killers with similar MO’s to frequent places where young women congregated, beaches, discos, universities. And this monster had honed his ability to attract females to a science. He demonstrated good verbal skills and a high degree of charm and intelligence, enough to lure his victims to the selected murder stage. Like innocent sheep, they kept coming, and willingly.

All of the Video Killer’s crimes showed tremendous pre-planning. He had to have been totally covered, gloves, something over his hair. Except for the murder at the studio, he always brought and removed his weapon and props. The difference was, at the studio murder, he intended to set up Dane. All this care, and the way he picked his spots for photographic effect showed he operated in a controlled, orderly manner. He was what the Bureau called an organized killer. The most frightening kind.

Desperately seeking anything that wasn’t a part of the killer’s plan, Jill walked the area, then talked with the police. Gary hadn’t had any luck finding the wallet, so she helped him continue the search. Jill glanced toward Dane. He was interviewing the policeman who’d found the body. An anonymous call, the officer had told Jill earlier. Now Dane was getting the same information, asking questions, digging to the heart of the investigation.

When Sammy arrived, camera in hand, the officer must’ve realized they weren’t part of the Fed team because he escorted them back behind the yellow tape. Apparently unruffled, Dane and Sammy huddled in conference. From behind the barrier, Sammy took pictures while Dane dictated into his recorder.

Jill didn’t care what Dane did as long as he stayed out of the way, but she couldn’t help noticing how well he did his job. He pointed out a footprint that might have been overlooked. Maybe even by the killer, who generally only left prints to confuse. But this one, hidden under a bush, might be unplanned and that could be the break they needed.

When she’d done all she could on site, she headed for the car. Dane asked for his keys. His eyes looked clear, his speech lucid and not slurred. Time had passed since his last drink. And tromping around this gory site was enough to sober a falling-down drunk. There was no reason not to let him drive.

“Somebody has to go after these monsters, and I have the background for it.” She wouldn’t tell him about the constant tension in her neck or the nightmares.

“The crime scene drags me down, and I know it must be rough for you too. Especially tonight.”

Jill winced. He cared. Her defensiveness had been out of line. She tried to tell herself that she was always so ready to attack his questions because she was afraid of how he’d twist her answers in print. She didn’t dare admit to herself that she was really afraid caring for him might affect her judgment.

“Why did you become a reporter if you find it so depressing?”

“I planned to change the world, instead it changed me.”

She wondered what he’d been like before. Somehow she couldn’t imagine him ever being an idealistic, optimistic young reporter—not this joking cynic, with little, if any, respect for the justice system. His contempt made him extremely dangerous to her case. “I want to see the rough draft of your story before it goes to print,” she said firmly.

He gripped the steering wheel with a vengeance. “But you’re not in charge of me. So read it in the morning
Chronicle
like everyone else.”

“If you bait and excite the killer you’ll contribute to an escalation of the killing. Seeing his murders glorified in print feeds his ego. I thought you cared about the women, about Tess!”

“Look, I’m not the only reporter in the world. My silence wouldn’t change anything. There’s no way to control media attention to this case. But I told you before, I won’t say anything that will encourage this psycho.”

“Thanks for dinner and the ride, Dane,” she said softly.
And for the comfort
, she thought, remembering how he’d taken her in his arms at his apartment, soothed her. Kissed her. She touched her lips, imagining them still warm and swollen.

Dane backed in next to the driver’s side of her car, his tires squealing. She got out quickly, to keep from flinging herself into his arms. Once in her car, she rolled down her window. Dane had already lowered his—his muscular arm rested on the frame. Less than two feet separated them, but the emotional gap between them was miles apart.

“I’ll follow you home,” he said gruffly. “See you safely inside.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“Like it or not, and in spite of your FBI machismo,” he growled, looking like one of Rushmore’s stone faces, “I’m going to see to it that you don’t end up dead.”

Jill’s tongue burned with a sharp retort, but she resisted flinging the barb at him. She swallowed. “Look, it’s been a long, rough night and tempers are short.”