Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [675]
“He has a list of assault charges,” Racine suddenly said, coming from behind Gwen, startling her so much that she jumped. Racine didn’t seem to notice. She slapped a file folder on her desk, or rather one of the piles on her desk, then sat on the only corner clear of clutter. “No convictions. The good news is that we have his fingerprints on file, so we didn’t need to use your water glass, especially since it was obtained without his consent or knowledge. The bad news is they aren’t matching up to any prints on the stuff you handed over to us. Is that what he’s seeing you for? His little habit of beating the shit out of women in the guise of having sex?”
Gwen tried not to look surprised. Was she surprised? It came with the territory for someone like Rubin Nash. Men who were abusers had often been abused as children. Nor should it surprise her that he wouldn’t tell her. So he didn’t want her to know that his conquests were brutal. When did they turn fatal? Should she have seen those signs?
“I didn’t know he had charges filed against him,” she said and evidently sounded more guarded than she meant to, because Racine was frowning at her, disappointed or angry again. It was hard to tell which. With Racine both seemed to automatically go together.
“Is this part of that patient/doctor confidentiality crap?”
“There’s a fine line.” Gwen took yet another stab at trying to explain it to the detective. “Yes, why he’s seeing me is confidential. He’s not even a suspect yet. But our professional code of ethics also makes allowances for the need to warn.”
Racine rolled her eyes at her and let out a deep sigh.
“I can’t tell you why he’s seeing me,” Gwen offered calmly, slowly. “However, if you were to ask my professional opinion as to whether I believe he had perhaps a resentment toward women I could tell you, yes, I believe he does.”
This time Racine looked at her, tilting her head as if studying Gwen. She could almost see the sarcastic wiseass fade into the background while the puzzle-solver came to the surface.
“Okay, so in your opinion,” Racine said carefully, like someone testing the rules of a new game, “this type of…resentment, would it become such a problem that it might extend to others?”
“Others? You mean like people he knows—friends or family members?” Gwen was growing impatient even with her own game. “Dena wasn’t someone he had randomly chosen. I don’t mean to be rude, Detective Racine, but why am I here? These are things we’ve already gone over and your questions certainly could have been answered on the phone.” If Racine was going to file charges against her, Gwen would rather she just do it and not beat around the bush.
“I invited you here because I’ve been waiting on some new information.” Racine glanced over her shoulder then above Gwen’s head, looking for someone.
“New information? Oh, Jesus! Has there been another one?”
“Not sure. This one might not be connected, although there are similarities. It was in the Boston area and it was—oh, here it comes,” she interrupted herself, standing to meet the uniformed officer who came from behind Gwen to give Racine a set of papers. “Here it is, or at least what details they have so far.”
Racine shuffled the pages. Without looking up, she said, “O’Dell told me you’ve done consultation with the FBI to help them come up with criminal profiles.”
“That’s right, although it’s been a few years since I’ve worked a case.”
“We have a killer,” Racine continued, glancing at Gwen then back to the papers, flipping and scanning, “who