Made to Be Broken

Chapter Twenty-five

Quinn called late the next morning. He said he would send his results through the anonymous e-mail accounts we used, then call Jack's cell and tell him the message was there, to keep me from racing off to check my e-mail every five minutes.

His timing was perfect. One couple had already checked out, and the other had left for lunch reservations in Bancroft.

Quinn had found another case similar to Sammi's and Deanna's. Two months ago, in Michigan, another pretty teen had disappeared with her infant son. Like Deanna, she'd been in a group home.

"It seems the killer started with group homes," I said to Jack as I read. "But he ran into a problem with this second one. The girl was the grand-niece of a city alderman, who insisted on a police investigation. A cursory investigation, Quinn says, and already shelved, but I bet it gave our guy a scare. He realized that living in a group home doesn't necessarily mean you don't have any family, so he started being more careful. And he decided to cross the border.

"A week before Sammi disappeared, a girl in Barrie complained about a guy matching our description wanting pictures of her and her baby. The police fluffed it off as a random pervert. Barrie 's an hour north of Toronto. He switched to Ontario. Maybe he thinks our law enforcement isn't as sophisticated. Or he's afraid of the cases being linked."

"Could be."

Jack's tone was no more laconic than usual, but it was like a spritz of ice water, reminding me to slow down.

"No bodies have been found yet," I said. "The second girl disappeared on a walk, like Sammi. He seems to prefer quiet, private kill sites. But that could just be a response to circumstances. After he kills the girl, he's stuck with a crying baby. As great as it is to have similar cases, I'm not sure how much they'll help in narrowing down who's doing the killing."

"Got some ideas. Run past Evelyn."

Jack consulted Evelyn. I wasn't thrilled with that, but it was the fastest way to narrow down the list. From her, he got the names of two hitmen possibilities, with the more likely one having moved to Toronto recently.

"Great," I said as I cleaned up after the sunset canoe ride. "This week looks slow for guests, so I can take off and – "

"I'll do it."

My hands tightened around the paddle I was lifting into its berth. Something pricked my hand. I stared at the welling blood.

"Nadia?"

"Hmm?"

"I'll go after him."

"N-no." I fumbled the paddle into place and swiped my hand across my jeans. "You can't, not with your foot. I'll – "

"No, Nadia."

"I can – "

"Shouldn't."

I swiped my fingers again, harder, wincing. Jack caught my hand and lifted it into the dim light of the boathouse.

"Got a sliver."

I balled my fist. "I'll be careful. I'll do proper reconnaissance work and make absolutely certain this is the guy. You can come if you want, and I'll let you make the decisions. I just need to see this through."

"You will. It's him? I'll call. Bring you in. He's all yours."

I opened my fist and stared at the blood, my heart hammering. As much as I wanted to find Sammi's killer myself, he was right. Scouting didn't require my personal touch, and it was better if I stayed put for a little while.

When my hand started curling again, he pulled my fingers flat.

"Only making it worse. Come on. Get it fixed up."

Jack went to Toronto alone. When the guests opted out of the bonfire, I drove him to Peterborough and let him take my work car from there. He promised he'd check in with updates a few times a day. He called the next morning, then afternoon, then evening. He didn't have much to say, just, "I'm looking," "Found him," "Following him," "Cased his place." The calls were a waste of his time, and I knew he was only doing them for my sake, but I wasn't sure what would be more frustrating: his single-sentence updates or none at all.

As for the person he was following, I knew only that he was male. Before he'd left, Jack had sidestepped my questions with "tell you later."

Finally, Thursday afternoon, I heard the words I'd been waiting for: "It's him." Then, "Need you here."

"In Toronto? Sure, I can be there in – "

"No. On the move. Heading your way. Can you meet up?"

"You're coming back?"

"He is."

It took me a minute to decipher his shorthand: Sammi's killer was heading out of Toronto, coming this way. On the move. After another girl.

For a moment, words wouldn't come. All I could see was Sammi's corpse, streaked with dirt, staring up in outrage.

"You there?" Jack said.

"He's on the trail, you mean. Of another – "

"Maybe just hunting."

Hunting…

I took a deep breath. "Right. Okay. Um, so where -?"

"On the 401. Heading east. Just passing – " A pause, as if looking for signs. " – Oshawa."

"So should I -?"

"Get ready. Tell Emma you're leaving. Wait for my call."

The next ninety minutes seemed like nine hundred. Finally Jack called again. He was outside a restaurant in Kingston. His target was inside.

"Might be nothing," Jack said. "Different job. Meeting a client. Still… Thought you'd want to head out. Catch up."

"I do."

Two hours later, after quickly assembling a disguise, I was there. For the last thirty minutes, the target had been parked outside a community center, reading a news paper.

I'd left my truck in a grocery store lot a block away, and joined Jack in my work car parked beside a church. From there, we watched the target as he waited in his compact car, tucked between a minivan and an SUV.

Even with the binoculars I'd lent Jack, I couldn't see the man. He had a newspaper stretched across the steering wheel, either reading as he waited or just wanting to look as if he was.

"Work name, Rainman," Jack said. "Real name, Ron Fenniger."

"You know him?"

"Not personally. Evelyn checked him out years back. Possible protégé. Seemed promising. Didn't last."

"Where was he putting his money?"

"Up his nose."

An old story, and a common trajectory for professional killers. They start as garden-variety criminals, then discover they have a knack for killing – good reflexes, steady nerves, and the ability to blend. They realize how much money there is to be made in contract hits… but it's like a lounge singer suddenly pulling in twenty grand a gig with no idea how to spend it. They find places – women, booze, dope, gambling, all the usual vices.

That's when it falls apart. The reflexes, the nerves, the ordinariness that made them a good hitman disappear. So they have two choices – retire fast, or find themselves on the other end of a gun, facing an associate hired by someone who deems them a liability.

As Jack explained, Fenniger had begun his crash-and-burn, then leveled out, learning to keep his drugs and work separate. But someone like that would never be top-tier again. He'd made a couple of small mistakes, enough to keep a middleman from recommending him to a big client. He could only pull in top-tier money if he didn't mind taking risky jobs with subpar clients who'd turn him in at the first sign of trouble.

According to Evelyn, though, Fenniger had withdrawn his name from the pool with one middleman, who figured he'd retired. But it seemed he'd just found a way to bypass the middleman, going into business for himself, with clients who wouldn't care how good a hitman he was, because as far as they knew, they were hiring a baby broker.

"Do you think he's meeting with one of those clients now?" I asked.

Jack shrugged. "All I know? Moving too fast. Three girls in four months?"

"The pace doesn't seem to be causing him any trouble. As far as Quinn can tell, none of the missing girls are still being investigated."

"Lotta money. But lotta work."

"You think he's getting greedy and overextending himself. Could be. It probably seems like fast, easy money in an untapped market. I doubt he could keep it going for long, though. Is that what you mean? I should back off and let him hang himself?"

"Nah. This rate? Could kill half dozen girls by then. You don't want that."

I didn't miss the pronoun. I wouldn't want that. As for Jack, well, I'm sure Jack wasn't keen on the thought of a hitman targeting young mothers, but left to himself, I'm not sure he'd do anything about it.

"Are you saying you'd rather not be involved? Because you don't have to – "

"Not saying that. Just… thinking."

The community center side door opened, and out streamed a conga line of teenage girls and baby strollers.

And Fenniger began to hunt.

He was as accomplished as any predator, zeroing in on the best prey even as the door closed behind the last girl. He targeted four with his camera. All were Caucasian. All pretty – though that wasn't a difficult criterion at an age when youth itself makes most girls attractive. But he winnowed out the cute girl with glasses and the beautiful overweight one, both of which could suggest a hereditary condition that might not sit well with prospective baby buyers. Ignored, too, was the blond with the upscale, shining new megastroller, who probably came from a more affluent section of town.

Fenniger made no move to leave his car, just surreptitiously snapped photos, camera lens resting on top of his paper, as if he was still reading. When one of his choices lifted a dark-skinned baby from the stroller, to adjust his hat, his number of candidates dropped to three.

His favorite seemed to be a strawberry blond with a quick smile. When she headed toward the sidewalk, his reverse lights came on… until an older model sedan pulled into the lot, a middle-aged woman jumping out to help her daughter get the baby into his car seat.

His next choice headed to a bus stop across the street with two other girls. Fenniger eased the car into the spot behind his. It lacked the cover of the minivan and SUV, but would be easy to slide out of quickly when the bus arrived.

As he watched her, he pulled at his lower lip, head slightly tilted, gaze sliding now and then to option three, a girl with dark curls swaddling her baby against the chill as she cooed at him.

I knew what he was thinking. Option two wasn't as pretty as three, but she was blond and fair, whereas three seemed to have Mediterranean blood, and could be a tougher sell. Yet three was alone while two laughed and chatted with her friends, more vivacious, probably more popular, with more people to miss her. And number two hadn't so much as glanced in the stroller since leaving the building, while three couldn't take her eyes off her baby. Which would be the happier, healthier, better adjusted child? More important, which would provide those important "happy mother and child" photos?

I knew what he'd decided. When the dark-haired girl bundled her baby into his shabby stroller, he turned his car off, then got out. He spent a couple of minutes fussing with things in the vehicle, working out the kinks from sitting while giving her time to get a head start.

"Yes, I'm following," I said when Jack glanced my way. "I'll leave a big gap. With that stroller, she's not going to break into a sprint and disappear. Even you could probably keep up."

"Want me to? I follow direct? You circle the block?"

I shook my head. "I'd rather you wait here in case he comes back for the other girl."

I waited until the girl reached the first street corner, with Fenniger tailing twenty paces behind, then I got out of the car.