Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff (6 page)

Just his luck, that the one woman who sparked his interest, who stirred a physical response just by her nearness was a victim in a heinous crime. Getting involved with a victim was kind of like trying to find love on a reality show...rarely successful.

Whatever he and Tamara might share now had nothing to do with real life. Any feelings that might arise between them would be based on too many other emotions...need, fear and, for him, the desire to do his job.

He’d seen other agents get embroiled on a personal level with victims and witnesses and it never worked out. Besides, he reminded himself, he wasn’t looking for anything romantic in his life.

Linda’s dismal marriage to her husband and her subsequent contentious divorce had been enough for Seth to reconfirm his commitment to remaining a lone wolf.

It was just after ten when they returned to Linda’s and Seth immediately got on his cell phone to begin the process of tapping into the resources he had at his fingertips.

He sat at the kitchen table with his laptop and phone and Tamara slid onto the sofa. The open floor plan of the house allowed him to watch her as he made his calls.

It must be terrifying to not know anything about yourself, to not have memories or images of any past, of any part of your life to identify what kind of a person you were, where you fit in the world.

It took him almost an hour to put into motion the people and programs that would give him all the information they needed about Tamara Jennings.

When he’d made all his calls and set up a meeting with Sheriff Atkins for later in the day, he got up from the table and went to join Tamara on the sofa.

He sat several inches away from her, but could still smell the clean, fresh scent of her. “Are you doing okay?” He seemed to be asking her that a lot.

“As well as can be expected, I suppose, considering I just learned my name, I’m in a town I don’t know and you dug me out of a sand dune.” She smiled and raised her chin a notch. “But at least I know my name now and hopefully by the time I go to bed tonight some more of my memories will return or you’ll be able to fill in some of the blanks.” Her smile fell. “Tell me more about the other two victims.”

He told her what he knew about the young Rebecca Cook, found after the wild party on the dunes and the second victim, Vicki Smith, who had recently moved to town and worked as a waitress in one of the local restaurants.

He watched the play of emotions sweep over her face. Sympathy, horror and the relief that she hadn’t become a third victim found dead in the sand, it was all there in her eyes, on her features. There was also a hint of guilt there, the guilt of survival, the guilt that so far she’d been unable to help them identify the killer.

She tucked a strand of her long silky-looking hair behind an ear and gazed at him thoughtfully. “So, don’t you FBI people work up a profile of some kind on the killer?”

Seth nodded. “We also work up a profile on the victims. But a profile is only as good as the facts of the crimes, and in these cases there are few facts to go on. Unfortunately two months ago when Rebecca Cook was discovered Sheriff Atkins made an error in judgment writing it off as a freak accidental death instead of investigating it like a homicide. Then a month later Vicki Smith was found and he knew he had a killer somewhere in town.”

“Does he have any suspects?” she asked. She shifted positions and once again he caught a whiff of her clean fresh scent.

“A few, although nobody who is at the top of a fairly pathetic list,” he admitted. “I intend to revisit all those suspects and reinterview everyone who had any part of the initial investigations. Hopefully I can pick up on something the sheriff and his men missed.”

“Was I drugged? Maybe that’s why I can’t remember anything? At least that would explain how I got in the sand and apparently didn’t fight my attacker.”

“Maybe, but doubtful. The tox screens for both of the previous victims came back clean for drugs. Rebecca’s showed a bit of alcohol but not enough to render her mentally or physically impaired. Dr. Kane should have your initial blood tox report back sometime today, but if it’s like the others, it won’t show any drugs.”

Her gaze remained locked with his and he could almost see that she was working to process everything he had told her. Her eyes had grown darker in hue, and the silver shards around her pupils looked more pronounced.

“So, Rebecca Cook’s body was found in the dunes in April. Almost thirty days later Vicki Smith was found, and then thirty days after that you found me. So, it appears that the killer is on some sort of thirty-day timeline,” she said thoughtfully. “Since I survived, does that mean he’s already hunting for a new victim or will he wait thirty days to act again?”

Seth released a sigh. “I can’t answer that. I don’t have enough information to know what he will do next.”

Worse than that, he couldn’t know if the killer would just choose another victim or if he’d try to finish what he’d begun with Tamara.

Chapter Four

It was just after six when Sheriff Atkins arrived at Linda’s house. Linda had left for her shift at the hospital an hour earlier, Samantha and the new puppy, Scooter, were in her bedroom, and Tamara, Seth and the sheriff all sat down at the kitchen table.

It had been a strange afternoon. Once Linda and Samantha had come home, Tamara had spent most of her time with Samantha playing with the new little black fur ball.

Seth had taken his cell phone, the files from Atkins and his laptop into the guest room where Tamara had slept the night before and worked through the afternoon. He’d tried not to get distracted by the sight of the bed where she’d slept the night before, the faint clean scent of her that lingered in the air.

He’d thought that by working in another room from where she was located, he wouldn’t be so distracted, but he’d been wrong. The thought of her long dark hair spilled over the white of the pillowcase distracted him. He didn’t want to entertain thoughts of how warm and soft her body would be against his underneath the bedsheets.

He just wanted to figure out what had happened to her and get her back where she belonged. He didn’t want to think about how lush-looking he found her lips, how much he liked the sound of her voice and how she created an ache inside him that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

She now looked at Seth from across the table, obviously eager for him to share the information he’d gathered about her throughout the afternoon, information he hoped would kick-start her memory and lead them to their killer.

Atkins appeared tired, but also anxious to hear what he had to say. Seth had a legal pad in front of him and once he’d offered the sheriff a cup of coffee and they were settled in, he began.

“Tamara Jennings, thirty-two years old, you live alone in an apartment in Amarillo, Texas. You were married briefly but divorced two years ago. You were fairly easy to find by a driver’s license and the photo on the license was good enough to make the identification.” He paused and looked up at her, waiting for some kind of an aha moment.

Her hair shone like black silk with the early-evening sunshine streaming through the window. She shrugged with a frown. “Nothing rings a bell. You could be talking about anyone.” Her eyes grew slightly glassy, as if she was fighting back tears, but she nodded for him to continue.

Seth glanced back at his notes. “Nothing criminal in your past, not even a speeding ticket. I couldn’t find any living relatives. According to your neighbors in the apartment complex where you live you don’t socialize with anyone in particular, you’re friendly but pretty much stay to yourself. Nobody I spoke to could give me the name of a boyfriend or even a close friend. You own a successful business designing and maintaining websites for a variety of businesses and work out of an office in your apartment.”

Once again Seth looked at her, hoping to see something, anything in her eyes that might indicate a glimmer of memory, but there was nothing in the blue depths but the swimming start of tears.

To Seth’s surprise it was Atkins who reached out and patted the back of her hand. “It’s all right. It will all come back to you in time. You’re just going through a rough patch, that’s all.”

Tamara cast him a grateful smile and Seth wished it had been he who had reached across the table to comfort her, he who had been the recipient of her smile.

He clenched his jaw muscles and looked back down at his notes. “According to DMV records you own a blue Ford Focus. It isn’t currently parked at your apartment building in Amarillo.”

“So, I probably drove it here to Amber Lake.”

Both Seth and the sheriff nodded. “I’ve got my deputies looking everywhere for the car, but so far it hasn’t turned up,” Tom said.

“I checked your ex-husband out,” Seth said. “He’s a real estate investor who moved to California months after your divorce.” He’d mostly gotten details about her ex out of curiosity, but he wasn’t about to admit that out loud. “He hasn’t been out of the San Diego area since the time you’ve been missing from your apartment. I ruled him out, but we all know that the killer we’re looking for is probably right here in Amber Lake.”

He turned his attention to Tom. “I don’t want to step on toes here, but I’m starting at the beginning with a reinvestigation into Rebecca Cook’s and Vicki Smith’s murders.”

“You aren’t stepping on my toes,” Tom replied. “I welcome the help and you know you have my full force at your disposal. Just tell us what you need and we’ll see that it’s done.”

“The first thing I want from you is your gut instinct,” Seth replied. “Is there anyone you’ve investigated so far that shot off any alarms in your head? Somebody that you felt might be guilty but had no evidence?”

Tom frowned and shook his head. “I wish I could tell you a name, but I can’t imagine anyone in this town having the capacity to do what’s been done to these women.”

Seth glanced over to Tamara, who appeared lost in thought, a delicate frown etched into her forehead. “Tamara, we really have no reason to hold you here. If you want to return to your home in Amarillo, then you can. We can’t keep you here, but I’d like for you to stick around here and see if we can find something or somebody here in town to shove past your amnesia. Right now you still remain our best lead to getting this guy.”

She turned her bright blue eyes toward him, hers holding the faint edge of inner haunting. “I’ll stay. The life you just told me about, the woman who lives in Amarillo, doesn’t feel like they have anything to do with me. I need my memories not just to help you and Sheriff Atkins, but so that I can truly get back where I belong, and I think the key to unlocking them is here in Amber Lake.”

Seth didn’t try to analyze why her decision to stay pleased him. He told himself it was simply because she was their best hope for catching a killer.

“So, what’s our plan?” Tom asked.

“Right now my plan is to get Tamara out first thing tomorrow and take her around town to see if anything strikes a chord with her. I also intend to reinterview everyone who had anything to do with the first two victims.”

Tom nodded. “We have a lot of abandoned barns and buildings in the area and we’ll start a grid search to find the missing car. It’s got to be somewhere not too far away and maybe it will hold some clues. And I’ll be glad to make available anyone you want to talk to at my office.”

“I appreciate it,” Seth replied. Once again he looked at Tamara, who stared out the nearby window where the light of day had begun to turn the golden hues that occurred just before twilight.

He wished he knew her well enough to be able to guess what she was thinking, although it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that she had to be feeling lost and so alone.

Half an hour later he walked Sheriff Atkins to the door and then returned to the kitchen to find Tamara in the same spot at the table, her gaze appearing to be captured by something in Linda’s backyard.

She turned to face him as he walked over to the coffeemaker on the countertop. “Want a cup?” he asked.

“Please.”

He poured them each coffee and then once again sat across from her at the table. She cupped her hands around the mug, as if seeking the warmth from the liquid within.

Before they could say anything Samantha appeared in the doorway with her pooch in her arms. “Scooter and I are going to my friend Amy’s for a couple of hours. Don’t worry, I already checked in with Mom and she said it was fine. I’ll be home by ten.” She flew out the back door without waiting for a response.

“I feel like I’m intruding into everyone’s lives here,” Tamara said once Samantha had left the house. “You’re sleeping on a sofa instead of a bed and I’m taking advantage of your sister’s generosity.”

“Nonsense,” Seth replied. “First of all, I’ve slept on a lot of sofas in my lifetime and Linda’s is one of the most comfortable. Second, you aren’t taking advantage of anyone. You’re an invited guest in this house.”

“And a useless key to a serial killer,” she exclaimed in obvious frustration.

“Maybe a little useless now,” he agreed, “but you never know when your memory is suddenly going to return and hopefully with that you’ll know a face, remember a detail that will give us what we need.”

She raised her mug to her lips and took a drink and then set the mug back on the table. “All I remember right now is sand...sand everywhere and the scrape of a shovel.”

“The scrape of a shovel?” He looked at her in stunned surprise. She hadn’t mentioned that before. “You were aware enough to hear a shovel while you were being buried?”

“I guess so.” Her eyes went a midnight-blue. “My only memory is of sand, covering me, suffocating me and the noise of a shovel digging and scraping nearby. I couldn’t move, but I know I was conscious while I was being buried.” A shiver shook her shoulders and she stood, as if unable to sit while those horrible images swept through her mind.

Seth stood as well, wanting...needing to lighten the darkness in her eyes, steal away some of the horror that lingered there. Without thinking about right or wrong, Seth reached for her and she came willingly into his embrace.