All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [89]
“I need to let Quinn know I’m taking the laptop,” she thought out loud. A neighbor walking her fluffy white lapdog gave her a funny look. Taylor just smiled and waved, then climbed into the truck, started it up and put it into gear. She’d call Quinn later, after she and Baldwin had gotten a chance to go over what was on the e-mails.
Baldwin was wending his way through East Tennessee, enjoying the view and drive as much as he could, considering the situation he found himself in. Six girls dead and he didn’t have a suspect. Hopefully all that would change once he got to Nashville and talked to the CEO of Health Partners. Maybe when he heard from Taylor with the poems from Whitney Connolly’s computer. His sixth sense was telling him that the two were related, he just needed to sit down and find out what that relationship was.
He’d left Asheville early, and had made good time. He was passing through Crossville on Interstate 40 when his cell phone rang. He was only an hour out of Nashville but he’d lost service a few times from the mountains to here, so he pulled over to the side of the road, happy to have a cell. When he looked at the display, he saw that it was Taylor calling.
“Hi, honey, how are—”
“Baldwin, I’ve been trying to reach you. Where are you?”
“I’m on 40 outside of Crossville. I rented a car and decided to head on back to Nashville for a couple of things. I’ll be back in an hour if traffic holds. Why, what happened?”
“I went to Whitney Connolly’s to get the e-mails. There was another e-mail, one that came in yesterday or this morning, after Quinn and I had left her house. If the e-mails and poems correlate to your poems, we may have trouble.”
Baldwin gritted his teeth. Damn. It was very possible that another girl had been taken from Asheville, and no one had reported it. “What was the poem?”
“I actually recognized it, it’s a few lines from ‘The Flea.’ John Donne. You know that one?”
“Actually, yes, I used to use it on girls all the time. Okay, I need you to do something for me. Do you have the poems in front of you right now?”
“Yeah, I just brought the whole laptop with me. In case there are other e-mails that come in from this address, I thought it would be best if we had the computer in front of us.”
“Okay, I’m going to start driving again. Bear with me a second. If I lose the cell I’ll call you right back.” He started the engine and pulled out onto the highway. “Okay, I want you to read what each e-mail says, starting with the earliest one.”
He could hear Taylor flipping through pages. The poems were going to match, he already knew that. He was starting to feel it, that connection that things were about to break all over the place. Taylor came back on the phone.
“The first one is dated a month ago. The content reads,
“A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of an angelic light.
“Uh-oh. There’s a postscript here I didn’t see before. This is the first time I’ve read them on paper, I didn’t see it on the screen. ‘This was at the crime scene.’” She paused. “Baldwin, she knew. She knew and she didn’t come to us. Stupid reporter.”
Baldwin’s heart started pounding. “That’s the same as the note found in Susan Palmer’s bag, without the postscript, of course,” he said quietly.
“All right, the next one came in two weeks ago. Here goes…
“A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food
For transient sorrows, simple wiles
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.
“Here’s the P.S. ‘This one was from LA.’”
“That’s Jeanette Lernier’s. Shit. This guy was sending Whitney Connolly the same poems that he was leaving at each kidnapping scene. That second P.S. makes it sound like she hadn’t figured it out, that he was giving her more to go on. Taylor, honey, you are the greatest. Please keep going.”