The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [113]
But she would not dare say any of that. Her life was in a precarious place right now, and the best course to follow was to keep her mouth shut. In situations like hers, no one got into trouble by saying nothing.
The phone rang again and the machine snapped on. She had turned the volume up so she could listen from the study, screening the calls in case it was one she needed to take. But it was another reporter, this one from southern California. She sighed and turned back to the Dead Eyes file. This copy she would carry with her wherever she went. But she knew it was a ridiculous precaution: too little, too late. The damage had already been done.
As she sat there, she began thinking the connection between her and the UNSUB had to go back to her relationship with Eleanor Linwood, Dead Eyes’ seventh victim. Her biological mother was the focal point of the killer’s rage, it seemed. That much had been evident by the violence imparted to Linwood’s face and body. Assuming Hancock was not involved. And as much as she wanted to believe he was the one responsible, something told her deep down that he was incapable of such fury. She had pushed him quite hard, challenged him and his abilities many times over. And not once had it caused him to come after her. Overtly or covertly. There was the threat, recently, at the op center, but she wrote that off as merely a tangle of testosterone and ego. Not nearly the same motivator as a love affair gone sour with all the emotions—anger, betrayal, rejection—that accompanied it.
But he had blamed Vail for destroying his career. Again, not as strong as breaking off an affair . . . yet it did seem to have caused him significant embarrassment. And it did have over six years to fester. . . .
She rubbed at her eyes, then consulted her watch. Time to get back to Robby’s. As she gathered the papers together, her phone rang again. This time it was a fax signal. On cue, her OfficeJet woke up and began receiving the transmission. She looked at the display and recognized the station identifier as one belonging to the profiling unit.
Finally, the cover page emerged: there was a handwritten note from Del Monaco indicating the geographic profile was to follow. Her heart seemed to thump faster as the pages rolled out. She struggled to read the text as the paper exited the printer.
Realizing it would be a long document, she walked out of the room to grab a Scharffen Berger mocha bar. Dark chocolate settled her nerves or at least seemed to mollify her agitated state whenever something was bothering her. These days, I should keep a box of these things in my car.
She heard the fax beep, signaling the end of transmission, and ran into the study. She pulled the stack of pages from the OfficeJet and called Bledsoe. “I’ve got the geographic profile,” she said. “Can we get everyone together in a couple of hours to discuss it?”
He said he would, and like a kid who’s just returned from trick or treating with a full bag of candy, she dove into the report.
forty-eight
The task force op center was blanketed in snow. It had been falling for the past two hours, the white powder sticking to the asphalt and making driving a challenge. Rather, the challenge was driving without skidding into a tree or another car.
Vail grabbed her leather satchel, then got out of the car, shooing the falling snowflakes from her face. She stepped onto the snow-packed cement, but slipped on a slick of ice and caught herself before going down. A sharp, electric shock shot through her left knee. Just what I need. She took the next several steps to the front door slowly, then gingerly wiped her shoes on the bristle mat—each slight movement intensifying the pain—and entered the house.
Del Monaco was already there, standing beside Bledsoe, pointing to a page of the report. His copy was in full color, which made the 3D diagrams and maps easier to evaluate. Vail’s fax was a third-generation copy, the colors translated into dark and darker gray tones. She limped in and walked over to Bledsoe.
“What happened?