The Secret Friend

45

On her way back to her office, Darby called Coop and gave him a quick rundown of her meeting with Tim Bryson.

Coop was already driving back into town with the fingerprints he'd collected from Tina Sanders' mailbox. He agreed to meet her at Hannah Givens' home in Brighton.

The events of the day crowded her thoughts. Darby wanted to hit the gym. A run on the treadmill would sweep her head clean but there wasn't any time. She put on her coat, grabbed her forensics kit and headed out. Walking outside in the dark, frigid air, she wondered where the surveillance was. She also wondered if Malcolm Fletcher was watching.

Safe behind the wheel of her Mustang, her thoughts turned to the Virgin Mary statues. In her mind's eye she saw the Blessed Mother's sorrowful expression, arms held wide open, ready to embrace. The face vanished, replaced by Fletcher's strange black eyes. Darby thought she heard him laughing.

She didn't want to think about the former profiler. She focused her thoughts on the man who shot Hale and Chen. That man had placed a statue of the Virgin Mary in their pockets. He'd sewed them shut and tied the end off with a knot so the statues would stay with them. He'd placed a sign of the cross on Chen's forehead and dumped her body into Boston Harbor. Why? What was the significance of the statue and why was it so important that it stay with the two women after they were dead?

You cared for them, I know you did. Why did you keep them alive for so long only to turn around and kill them?

Darby wondered if the killer was possibly schizophrenic. Most schizophrenia was based on a specific delusion – UFOs, secret government organizations implanting microchips in people's brains to eavesdrop on their thoughts. A lot of schizophrenics believed God, Jesus or the devil spoke directly to them.

With Hale and Chen, there seemed to be an organizational element at work in the way both women were killed and dumped in water. And then there was the length of time between the abductions. Emma Hale had been held somewhere for roughly six months – half a year, Jesus – her body discovered in early November. Chen's body was found two days ago. It was February. Her stay had lasted only a couple of months.

As a general rule, schizophrenics weren't organized offenders. They were impulsive killers. The crime scenes were sloppy. With Hale and Chen, there was no crime scene.

Emma Hale, the first victim, had left a party at her friend's Back Bay apartment. It wasn't a long walk home but it had been snowing, so Emma had called a cab. She grabbed her coat and went outside to smoke. Twenty minutes later, the cab pulled up to the apartment building but Emma Hale wasn't there.

Judith Chen had studied late into the evening. She left the library and somewhere on her way home had disappeared.

Both women had not made it home. Had they been abducted by force? If a strange man had tried to grab Hale or Chen, both women would have tried to fight. They would have kicked and screamed. No witnesses had come forward to indicate this had happened.

Darby felt certain the killer didn't do this – he wouldn't want to draw attention to himself. He was more cunning. He needed these women. Before approaching them, he would have a plan in place to get them quickly inside his car as quietly as possible. Had the killer driven up to them and offered a ride? Darby considered the possibility. If this had happened, the killer wouldn't drive a clunker or a van – vans always sent a message of danger. Appearances would be important.

Both women were smart and well educated. Darby felt confident that neither of them would have accepted a ride from a stranger. Either they knew him or he had acted in such a manner as to make them feel comfortable about getting into his car. To do that, he would need to have known something about his victims. Had he followed them, observing their habits and routines, their friends and class schedules? Or were they randomly selected?

Random selections were desperate. If these women were randomly selected, they would be used and discarded. They wouldn't be kept somewhere for months. Maybe they were victims of opportunity. Maybe the killer simply approached a variety of women to see which one would climb inside his car. Maybe he had posed as an undercover cop and used a fake badge to lure them. Or maybe everything she was thinking right now was a complete waste of time and energy.

Darby spotted a Starbucks and pulled over. She was walking back to her car when her cell phone rang. The caller ID window said unknown caller. She waited until the fourth ring to pick up, just to be sure.

'Are you ready to discover the truth?' Malcolm Fletcher asked.