Memory Man

Bogart nodded. “He’s sent you two messages. One coded, one not. That was a risk for him. He had to go back to the house where he committed the murders of your family to write one of the messages. Someone could have seen him. And he went to Debbie’s house. Again, with the risk of being seen. Now, anyone who kills is a risk-taker, by definition. But like you said, it’s a matter of degrees. A killer like this may not want to be caught. So he will minimize his risk. But that was outweighed by his desire to communicate with you. That’s important. Because it makes me believe that he feels he has a connection with you somehow that is very strong, very deep.”

Decker fixed his gaze on the other man. “You were at Quantico? BAU?”

“Behavioral Analysis Unit, yes. I was what the movie and TV folks would call a profiler. And I was pretty good at it.”

“There are no profilers in the FBI.”

“You’re right. Technically, we’re referred to as analysts. And sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong. Some say psychological profiling lacks empirical validation, and they may be right. But I don’t really care. All I care about is catching the bad guys before they can hurt someone else, and I’ll use whatever tools I have at my disposal to do so.” He peered more closely at Decker. “And I’m considering you to be one of those tools.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Meaning that I’d like you to work more closely with us. Together we may be able to make headway.”

Decker looked over at Lancaster, who had clearly heard this last exchange.

Decker rose. “I’ve already got a partner. But we break anything we’ll let you know.”

He walked off. Lancaster waited for a moment, flicked Bogart a tight smile, and scurried after Decker.

Special Agent Bogart remained sitting, staring after them both.

Chapter 30

Decker opened his eyes. He was lying in bed, but sleep was elusive. It was raining outside his room at the Residence Inn. This time of year — as fall hunkered down before giving way fully to winter — was always loaded with rain, usually with strong winds that beat the moisture right into your brain.

A size nine shoe. They had confirmed the size. On a guy six-two, two hundred or more pounds, with shoulders as wide as his. He closed his eyes and his mind whirred back to the image on the camera. But it only showed the man from the waist up. Decker now was sure that was intentional. Waist up. He had also walked in front of the camera in a way that was designed to hide how he had actually come into the school. Not from the rear doors, but from the cafeteria via an underground passage.

Yet Decker had seen something that didn’t make sense; he just wasn’t sure what or where. He never forgot anything, but that didn’t mean everything was always placed in the proper context opposite either a complementary or conflicting fact.

He was just starting to do that when he heard the noise outside his door.

The Residence Inn was set up so that each room opened directly to the outdoors. Decker was on the second story. A catwalk with a wrought iron railing formed the exterior of this floor, with stairs down at each end to the parking lot.

The noise came again. A scraping, it seemed, against the wall outside his door. The rooms on either side of his were empty. The first floor of the inn was mostly full. He sat up in bed and looked at the door. He reached out and his fingers closed around his gun, which he kept on the nightstand.

He chambered a round, moving the slide slowly so the sound of it moving back and forth was diminished. He threw off the covers, pulled on his pants, slipped his phone into his pocket, and skittered over to the door in his bare feet.

He stood to the right of the door, his gun held down with both hands. He listened. There it was again. The scrape.

Something was out there. Maybe someone was out there.

He would do this as he had many busts as a cop. Except in reverse. Going out the door instead of in. He slipped off the security chain, stood to the side, gripped the knob, counted to three in his head, and threw the door open. He catapulted through the opening, swinging his gun first left then right.

He stopped and stared up at her. She had been hung on the bracket supporting the exterior light. Her feet hitting against the side of the wall were the source of the scraping he’d heard.

He checked her pulse at the carotid, but did so only mechanically. She was dead, her eyes open, glassed over and fixed in a way the living could never achieve.

FBI Special Agent Lafferty had written down her last note.

He looked over her body but could find no obvious signs of how she had died.