Waking Nightmare (15 page)

BOOK: Waking Nightmare

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“We never released the information about the two rapes being linked, and the media had details of politics and beauty pageants to fill their stories with. It wasn’t until the third rape in as many months that some enterprising reporter started asking questions and news of the task force leaked out. I heard Dixon has been up to his ass in media since the latest assault.” The man was welcome to the job. As long as the commander kept them away from the task force, Ryne would be happy.

“So maybe that explains his selection of Richards. It might be his way of saying, ‘Watch this. Do I have your attention now, Savannah?’ Because he couldn’t hope to have brought more focus to his acts than to attack that particular girl.” She turned her face to the window as they crossed the water.

God, he hoped she was wrong. Alerting the public to a threat was one thing, but whipping up a frenzy in the press created obstacles and headaches for investigations.

“It wouldn’t be unusual for this type of offender to hang around a scene, watch the police work.”

He nodded. “Can’t say any of the scenes drew a large crowd, but we videotaped them. Never saw the same person in more than one tape.”

“This UNSUB is motivated by attention. He’ll get off at what he perceives as his power over the police, too. He may try to insert himself into the case in some way. I know you’ve double-checked each of the individuals who found the victims. But it can also be someone who calls in a tip. Wanders into a precinct house for a trivial matter. Frequents a place where cops hang out after hours, hoping to hear some gossip.”

He nodded, mulling over her words. “We always check out the identity of people calling in leads, but it could be tougher to check the other areas you mentioned.” He made a mental note to have McElroy keep his eye out after hours. He knew the detective often joined other officers after shift at Sherm’s, a nearby bar.

“Is that it?” At Abbie’s raised brows, he added, “For your profile?”

“A profile is an evolving document. It develops as more evidence comes to light, much as the investigation develops as leads appear. I do suspect he had a poor relationship with his parents growing up. He may have been institutionalized at some point during his adolescence and he may have been sexually abused.”

“Cry me a river,” Ryne muttered. This was just the sort of psychobabble that solved nothing. And if he was supposed to actually feel sorry for the scumbag, she was wasting her breath. He said as much to Abbie as they began to traverse the Tybee Island streets lined with historic old homes.

“We don’t have to sympathize with him to understand him,” she said mildly. He had a feeling her mind was only half on him as they drew closer to the site of Richards’s assault. “And understanding him is the first step toward an arrest.”

“We may be close to an arrest already,” he reminded her. They’d caught some breaks with Juarez, but there was a lot of work to be done to tie him with any certainty to the rapes. Even if the rock in the tread of the shoes found in Juarez’s apartment matched the fill near Barbara Billings’s, it was likely sold by the truckloads for legions of yards and gardens in the vicinity and beyond. But the positive match on the woman’s blood found in his vehicle would be damning. Claiming the vehicle must have been stolen wasn’t going to hold any weight with the grand jury, if it came to that. Not if they could nail down means and motive.

“Let’s talk MO,” he said abruptly. “Is the drug part of this guy’s MO or his signature?”

“It might serve as both,” Abbie responded, “given its properties and effects on the victims. It debilitates them to some extent, which helps him enact the crime. But if it’s deliberately designed to enhance sensation, that makes it an important part of his ritual as well. His primary intent is to inflict enormous suffering on his victims for his own sexual satisfaction. Intensifying the pain from the torture would help accomplish that.”

He slowed, then swung the car into the long drive of Mayor Richards’s sprawling beach home. A two-car garage sat underneath the structure, and he pulled to a stop in front of one closed door. He wondered what kind of sick bastard would think of a drug to increase the agony of his victims. Like torture wasn’t enough.

He tried to apply everything she’d just said to Juarez. He had Holmes going through the man’s background, and he was anxious to hear what he found. Juarez’s sheet had included only misdemeanors before he’d been sent up on a drug charge, but that only meant he hadn’t been caught at anything worse. And he wouldn’t be the first criminal to evolve while in prison.

Ryne had spent more time than he’d like to calculate hunting down sick fucks like the one preying on women in Savannah. He no longer used alcohol to dull the effects of too much ugliness, and not enough success stories. The life was a part of him, of who he was, and he didn’t consider the whys or hows of it.

As he watched Abbie get out of the car to head up to the house, he wondered, not for the first time, what had compelled the woman to devote her life, her career, to tracking down scumbags like the Savannah rapist.

He got out of the car, following her up to the house. That question, and others about her, were beginning to haunt him, during times that would be better spent thinking about the case. Or at least about a much more important question.

Like why he even cared.

Abbie made Ryne show her the exact route into the house he’d figured the rapist had taken. From the file, she knew Amanda hadn’t had a garage door opener, only the key she’d had made. Unfortunately, once the UNSUB had her and the key she kept on her key ring, he’d had a way inside the house. The girl had admitted in her interview that she’d written the security code on the key itself with permanent marker.

The home had a huge veranda running around three sides of it, with a breathtaking view of the ocean. Ryne unlocked the side door and she stepped into the house after him.

“I assume the security was changed after the attack took place,” she said, looking around the home. Although the outside of the home hearkened back to an earlier century, the kitchen had been completely modernized. It opened onto a family room with vaulted ceilings and a glassed-in wall facing the Atlantic.

“Locks and codes were changed. The company providing patrol security was fired, although the officer did his job, near as I could tell.” Ryne led her down a hallway. “He was the one who called it in when he noticed a window open in the bedroom. Company gave him the go-ahead to check it out.”

“And that’s how Amanda was discovered,” Abbie murmured. “I saw from the report that you thoroughly checked out the officer.”

“We looked at him, but his alibi held up, for that night and for the first rape.”

When Ryne stopped in the doorway of a bedroom, Abbie stepped around him and took a moment just to
sense
. Raiker was constantly preaching that it wasn’t enough to go through photos of a crime scene. You had to
experience
it. Had to see and hear what the victim had seen and heard. And once the scene had been thoroughly processed, you had to touch what the victim had touched. Only then could you be transported back to the events of the assault. To the mind of the offender, who had arranged the events to suit his own needs.

And wasn’t she used to that?
The sly whisper slid across her mind as Abbie stepped into the room, and stared blindly at the furnishings. Know the victim, know the offender. That’s what Raiker would say. And in this case—in most of the cases she worked—knowing the offender meant putting him away. But it wasn’t always that easy. It wasn’t always that clear.

“This room has been completely redone.” Abbie started at Ryne’s voice behind her. “Even the floor looks new.” The glossy hardwood below their feet gleamed in the light afforded through the blinds. “Furniture is different. So’s the paint. The scene was pretty brutal. Blood spatters everywhere.”

There was no evidence of the brutality that had taken place here weeks earlier. No lingering sense of evil. The room was fresh, impersonal. It could have been a room in a chain motel. “Is this where Amanda usually stayed when she came?”

“No, that room is next door.” She followed him to the next room and looked inside, at the ruffled spread and matching curtains. There were no personal items sitting about.

The room across the hall was unmistakably the master bedroom. She walked in ahead of Ryne, noting the bank of windows facing the water, the attached bath and walk-in closets. If the offender had wanted to make this a personal strike at the mayor, wouldn’t he have chosen this room? Wouldn’t it have been one more twist of the knife to not only attack the precious granddaughter, but to do it in the mayor’s house, in his room, his bed?

She continued to the next room, mulling those questions over. It was smaller, also with a view. And maybe she was crediting the offender with more preparation than he’d actually taken. Perhaps he’d picked the room he had because it was the first one off the family room. He would have entered the house alone, rather than take a chance being seen carrying a limp Amanda into the house. Then he’d unlocked the garage, driven in. He could have gotten inside and had the vehicle safely out of sight in under two minutes. A small risk, but if he’d familiarized himself with the security company’s patrol route, a reasonable one to take.

She went back to the room where the attack had occurred and crossed to the window. Pushing aside the blinds, she looked out over the driveway to the street beyond. “Why would he open this window?” She turned to face Ryne, found him leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb. “Was it unseasonably warm that night? Because even if it was,” she continued before he could answer, “why not turn on the air-conditioning?”

“It was normal temperatures for the season, high sixties. The victim couldn’t tell us when he opened it.”

“The report said the houses on either side were empty,” she recalled. “How many permanent residents live around here?”

“None. At least not in this immediate area. These are strictly summer homes and it was the first week in May. A weeknight. The whole area was deserted, for at least three blocks, either direction. Although families occasionally spend weekends here throughout the year, Memorial Day weekend is the kickoff for the summer season.”

“The report indicated she’d been gagged, but given the care he takes, I have a hard time believing he would have chanced opening the window during the assault.”

“Maybe he heard a noise and checked it out. Or he could have left himself several escape routes as a precautionary measure, and forgot this one before leaving. Whatever his reason, it was one of the few mistakes he made, up until a couple days ago. The window tipped off the security guard when he was doing his rounds about three in the morning. He hadn’t seen it open at midnight. He found the victim, got medical help.”

Medical help that had kept Amanda Richards alive. Her wounds had been life-threatening, with copious blood loss. A thought crossed her mind, and she started to voice it, only to find Ryne no longer in the room.

She closed her mouth, the words going unuttered as she followed him through the rest of the house. Because the idea was pure conjecture, and she based her profile, her suggestions, on fact. That’s what she was staking her professional reputation on.

But if she were going to rely on instinct, she’d wonder if the rapist had had another reason for leaving that window open. Something that had nothing to do with forgetfulness or escape.

Like maybe ensuring that Amanda Richards lived.