Killer Heat

FORTY-SIX

An old army jeep," I said, as I watched the Suffolk officer lead Lydia to the patrol car to get her back to the mainland before travel became impossible. "What's the description of Wilson Rasheed's jeep that Edenton put out on the APB?"

"Willy MB, 1944," Mercer said. "Manufactured for the Department of the Army. Those little workhorses that could handle any terrain." Mike was giving Dickie Draper directions to Jimmy Dylan's Breezy Point house. "It's a five-minute drive from here. See who's at home. We need to reel Kiernan in."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mikey. Who died and made you the commanding officer? This frigging breeze is turning into a hurricane. I'm outta here."

"Don't panic just because they don't make life rafts big enough to hold you, Dickie. I didn't happen to come by car, so I'm counting on you to check it out."

The thunder and lightning were getting closer. It was almost high tide and the surf was raging. Joe Galiano came trotting over from the broken-up concrete pad on which we had landed. "We've got to get out of here now. It's going to be dicey. Winds are up to fifty miles an hour."

Mike didn't need to be told a second time. "Let's go, Coop."

"One call. Give me one minute." I held up a finger and backed into a corner of the long room so that I could hear once I dialed the number.

"You can fly in this?" Mike asked Galiano, as his hair whipped across his face.

"Seventy-four miles per hour makes it an actual hurricane. I'll get you home before that happens."

"If Coop moves her ass," Mike said, starting off behind Galiano.

"Mercer, she'll listen to you."

"Who you calling?"

"Nelly Kallin," I said. "On her cell."

Mercer tugged at my arm. I plugged one finger in my ear and held the phone to my other ear.

"Ms. Kallin? It's Alex Cooper. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Still with your sister?"

"Yes, yes, I am. And I heard the news about Wilson Rasheed this morning."

"I'm sorry we didn't call you about that. I don't mean to be rude, but I have to make this short, Ms. Kallin, because there's another girl who's been abducted."

I heard a noise competing with the sound of the wind and waves and turned to see that Galiano had started the rotors of the chopper.

Behind him, the city lights glittered as though it were midnight, powered up because of the darkness that had descended with the storm. "It's got to be Troy, Ms. Kallin. It's another old military facility where the victim worked, and he was probably driving his father's jeep.

She was a park ranger, wearing a uniform."

"Oh, God."

"You were right about his m.o., too. It wasn't a blitz attack. He somehow managed to convince her-convince Pam-to go with him." Mercer took my arm and started to walk me toward the door frame of the old building entrance.

"Those therapists taught him well," she said.

"We didn't get through all your files yet. And you know so much more about him than anyone else. The man who kidnapped Pam told her he wanted to show her where his family went for the holidays.

Does that mean anything to you? Did Troy talk about that at all?"

"What holiday?"

"I don't know which one. That's why I'm calling you. We may break up, Ms. Kallin. Call me back if you have any ideas. You seem to know things it will take us days to figure out."

"I have good reason to, Alex," Nelly Kallin said. "If you look at those photos I gave you, you'll see a small set of initials tattooed on Troy's right arm, up near his shoulder. PW, for the name of one of the young women he savaged, who couldn't identify him"

I was moving from the cover of the officers' club out into the rain.

"She's the daughter of my best friend. She never got her day in court, and she never really recovered from the trauma of the attack. I made it my business to try to see that Troy Rasheed never got a chance to hurt anyone else again. I've failed miserably.

"We wouldn't have a shot at this without you," I said, trying to pick up speed across the sand. It made sense that Nelly Kallin had been so interested in every detail of this prisoner's life.

"I had no idea you had any connection to one of his victims. "No one does, Alex. I've never told anyone."

"Easter. Fourth of July. Labor Day," I said, thinking that we were just days away from that holiday weekend. "Thanksgiving. Christmas. Was there a time the Rasheed family did anything functional together?"

"I can barely hear you."

"Those holidays, can you think of any significance to any of them?"

Nelly Kallin sounded dejected. "I don't know where they went. I hate to disappoint you. Thanksgiving was Troy's favorite holiday. They went away every year, but I just don't know where. He talked about it in therapy because it's the place he had his first sexual experience-a consensual one, he claims."

"The family traveled?" I asked, ducking beneath the rotors to follow Mercer up the steps of the sleek-looking helicopter.

"Not far from home. They used to go to one of the bases in the area for Thanksgiving weekend. They were able to stay for free because the base had a motel that Mr. Rasheed's company built for military families. I don't know if it was the turkey or the sex," Nelly Kallin said, "but the place made quite an impression on Troy."

A base with a motel. Didn't we see an old abandoned one on Governors Island? I was trying to remember what Mike had said about it.

"The name of it, Ms. Kallin. Do you remember the name of the motel?"

"What did Detective Chapman say about tattoos being the new postcards? Like I told you, Troy identified it with some kind of sexual experience, a pleasurable one. He's got the number eight tattooed in the small of his back. It was a Super 8 Motel.