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  “I’m going to talk to the media this afternoon, after we present the profile to Sheila’s people. We’ll warn the lesbian community to be on alert,” Danny said. “How many more do you think he’ll kill, before he comes for you or Katie?”

  “He’s cut off from communication with Dalton, his master. He’s more likely to make a mistake, if he’s stressed. He may panic and go for me sooner than he anticipated. That may be how we catch him.”

  Danny took his eyes from the road, glaring at Rainey. She pointed at the cars braking in front of him. He slammed on brakes, avoiding a rear-end collision by inches. Neither spoke until the traffic began to move again.

  Danny gripped the wheel tightly, keeping his eyes on the cars in front of him, his tone somber when he spoke. “You want me to let you set yourself up as bait.”

  Rainey could see she was going to have to sell him on the idea. “Let me draw him out. I won’t be alone. Put a tech truck on me. Watch and listen. See who I see, listen to what I hear. You can help me find him. If what Dalton suggested is true, I might not see it coming, but you will.”

  Danny quickly replied, “I’m a little bit like Katie on this one. I’ve already witnessed enough of your near death experiences. You keep tempting fate and it’s going to catch up to you one day. Setting yourself up as prey should be our last resort. Give us time to work the profile, before we do anything that risky.”

  Rainey stared straight ahead. “I don’t have the luxury of time. People I care about are in danger. I’m not setting myself up as prey. I’m assuming the role of predator and I’ll do the hunting, this time. You can either help me, or take my credentials back and get out of my way.”

  Chapter twelve

  Danny’s team was waiting in the conference room Rainey visited with Sheila, yesterday. Crime scene photos from the newest body find had been added to the wall with the previous victim’s photos. Rainey scanned them quickly as she entered the room, before she began greeting her former teammates. The second victim bore a striking resemblance to Katie, which caught Rainey off guard. Danny had not mentioned the victim’s description. She was taller and more muscular, but her hair and facial features were very close to Katie’s. It shook Rainey a bit, and then she closed her Katie box. She had to focus and Katie had no place in this room.

  Roger, the team member she had known the longest, was the first to reach her. He was a strong, quiet man, who looked a lot like Harry Belafonte in his older days. He hugged Rainey, saying, “It’s good to have you back.”

  “Thank you, Roger, but it’s just temporary. Good to see you.”

  James, the tech guru that usually traveled with the team, looked up briefly from his laptop screen and smiled. “Nice to see you, Rainey.”

  “You too, James.”

  Paula, a tall, Nubian beauty approached next. Rainey was surprised to see she was extremely pregnant.

  “I guess you got busy after we last saw each other,” Rainey said, indicating the other woman’s protruding belly.

  Paula rubbed her hands across the bulging fabric of her top. “Yep, this is my last case before I go on leave.”

  Rainey looked at her deliriously happy former colleague. “It’s true what they say. You look positively glowing. I’m very happy for you.”

  “Thank you, Rainey. It’s good to see you, again. Sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  Young Agent Curtis stepped forward, grinning from ear to ear. He captured Rainey in a bear hug. “So good to see you, Rainey. We missed you.”

  “Good to see you too, Curtis. How’s your wife?”

  “She’s as fantastic as ever. She said to tell you hello.”

  Danny broke up the reunion, before Rainey could speak to Eric, the young trainee she met last summer. He nodded in her direction, which she returned, and everyone took a seat at the long conference table. Danny stood at the head of the table.

  “Rainey and I just visited Dalton Chambers. Our suspicions were correct. He has communicated with this UNSUB. Rainey and Katie Meyers are the ultimate targets. That’s about all we got out of him.”

  Roger asked, “Any idea if the UNSUB followed him here from Virginia?”

  Danny answered, “No, we believe he’s from the triangle area. This last body was found on a very remote trail. It would be hard for a person unfamiliar with the area to find the scene. Men, clearing the trail of winter debris for a riding club, found the body by chance.”

  Rainey picked up one of the folders on the table. She wanted to familiarize herself with the information again. James slid a tablet computer in front of her. A sticky note was attached to the top, saying, “This is a clone of your old computer. Your sign in and passwords restored, change them. File on desktop – Chambers’ Copycat.”

  Rainey flipped the cover open, typed in her information, and opened the file. Her mind and body remembered rooms like this, these people, and walls covered in pictures of victims. She felt very alert, which was surprising considering her hangover. Even so, Rainey poured a cup of coffee from the carafe, sitting in the center of the table, to ensure she stayed that way. She found the scanned documents removed from Dalton’s cell in the desktop file. Rainey lost herself in Dalton’s correspondence while the others talked.

  Rainey quickly went through the news articles written last summer. The story the Y-Man gave to a reporter detailing her attack was there. Dalton read it so often the smudges and worn spots showed up on the copy. There were dozens of pictures and print articles in Dalton’s possession. The news media had taken the tragedies Katie and Rainey experienced into the realms of sensationalism. There had been a frenzy of coverage that died away only with the approach of Hurricane Earl. Rainey had never been so glad to know a hurricane was coming in her life. Reporters lost interest in her and Katie’s personal lives and they were finally left alone.

  Rainey read Dalton’s fan mail and looked over the church bulletins and newsletters. She was reviewing the autopsy report on the second victim, when she heard Danny say her name. She looked up to see the admonishing look on his face.

  “Rainey, I need you to engage here. What’s your opinion? Who are we looking for?”

  In an instant, she was back in the game, her mind clear. She knew the profile. The information she absorbed while the others were talking fell into place. She felt the rush of knowing this was the one thing she did really well. Behavioral analysis was Rainey’s calling. She studied crimes of human wickedness and read them like a book, picking out the main player’s motives. Rainey stood up and moved to the wall of pictures. As if the last two years had not happened, Supervisory Special Agent Rainey Bell commanded the room.

  “Look at this first victim, Lisa Jones. She was 31, a nurse, not a big woman, but she was well built and from what I read, a regular visitor to the gym. Her friends described her as flirtatious, outgoing, and always willing to help others. The pictures we received from those friends show a socially adept, attractive, young woman. It’s the same with the second victim, Kim McNatt; similar body types, personalities, habits. Without the heads, these pictures could be of the same woman. These were alpha females, high-risk victims for the UNSUB; they would fight for their lives. This matches Dalton Chamber’s preference for victims.”

  Curtis interjected, “You left out they were lesbians.” He was immediately embarrassed, looking away from Rainey to his iPad.

  Rainey smiled. “Yes, they were lesbians, which is different from Dalton’s victims. There are two possibilities here. Either the copycat was directed by Dalton to kill lesbians as some sort of message to me, or it means something to the UNSUB. My guess is, the UNSUB’s fantasies already included killing lesbians and Dalton exploited that.”

  “The second crime scene is more organized than the first,” Paula commented. “From reading your murder book on Dalton, it appears the UNSUB got more of the details correct.”

  Rainey moved to the area with pictures of the first body. “Look here, see these shallow cuts on the neck. I think this is when he st
arted to panic. He followed Dalton’s instructions to the letter, up to the moment he had to kill her. Then he hesitated. Afterwards, the panic consumed him. He could not complete the tasks assigned to him. He left the body for some time and then returned to dispose of it and the head. It was imperfect. The kill had not gone as he fantasized it would. He failed the master.”

  Roger spoke up. “So it was probably more the failure than remorse that compelled him to get rid of the body.”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Rainey answered. “He would have preferred we did not find that one. Look at his second victim.” Rainey moved to the photos of Kim McNatt’s headless body. “This victim is almost exactly as Dalton would have left her.”

  Curtis, recovered from his earlier embarrassment, asked, “You say almost. What’s different?”

  “He didn’t play in the blood. He has no taste for it. Once she was dead, he disposed of the head, probably in the river, and left the scene.”

  “But he completed the task assigned to him by his master,” Danny added.

  James looked up from his laptop, where he had been viewing the crime scene photos. “What’s this hole in the ground in front of the second victim? It looks like a pole or something was shoved in there.”

  Danny answered quickly, “That’s part of Dalton’s instructions. He’s practicing.”

  “What’s he practicing for?” Curtis asked.

  Rainey showed no emotion, when she replied, “That’s where he plans to stake out Katie’s head, when he kills me.”

  “Oh, my God,” slipped from Paula’s lips.

  Eric’s youth prevented him from having the couth not to say, “Wow. What did you do to this Chambers guy? You must have pissed him off, big time.”

  Roger was usually the quiet voice of reason, but he snapped at Eric. “You stay around long enough, you’ll piss someone off, too. Right now you’re pissing me off.”

  Eric slumped back against his chair.

  Rainey continued the profile. “We might want to look at this UNSUB as the subservient partner in a serial tandem. The crimes have both organized and disorganized behaviors, suggesting two minds at work here. One partner who is highly intelligent with psychopathic tendencies. The other, of average intelligence with psychological problems, rather than an antisocial disorder. If we look at it that way, then we’re looking for an UNSUB who is approximately Dalton’s age. He is physically fit and strong enough to control these women. He is not as socially adept as Dalton. He will have used a con to get these women to go with him, probably the “man in need of help” ruse. I don’t think you’ll find him unattractive, but he will not think he’s good looking. He will be shy around these women, until the moment he takes control. He could display a tough exterior, but he is insecure on the inside. He has low self-esteem. He could not have done these crimes without his partner directing him.”

  Danny expounded on Rainey’s train of thought. “The UNSUB would then be the disorganized partner. He will not have had a happy childhood and probably a missing or abusive parent. These types are drawn to groups like the military, looking for acceptance and guidance. They are rarely successful. He is easily manipulated by strong personalities. He’ll have a job where he is never in charge, always following someone else’s directions. If he is in a relationship, he does everything to please his partner, and most likely feels disappointed in his efforts. When he discovered Dalton Chambers, he found his soul mate. The one person who could relate to the fantasies that plagued him his entire adult life.”

  Paula interrupted, “If he fantasized about murders before he met Chambers, what does he get out of copying someone else’s crimes?”

  “He’s pleasing the master,” Rainey replied. “That’s his satisfaction. Dalton Chambers represents to this kind of mind the type of person he wants to be. It’s hero worship. The closer he comes to mimicking Dalton, the better his release, which he more than likely achieves reliving his successes while having sex with his wife/girlfriend, or manually. That’s why the first crime was different. It didn’t hold up to the standards set for him, so he wasn’t able to use it for relief of his frustrations.”

  “Okay,” Roger said, “how do we proceed?”

  “We recommend the locals canvas the area where the victims disappeared, extensively,” Danny explained. “I’ll make a statement to the media warning the lesbian community to be vigilant. We’ll send in undercover officers and patrol cars at night, as well. Someone has seen this guy. Someone knows him. We just have to find that person.”

  There was a knock at the door. Sheila stepped in. “I’ve assembled everybody in the bull pen.”

  Danny looked around the room, before he answered, “We’re ready. Just give us a minute.”

  Sheila left the room. Danny leaned down, placing his hands on the table, making eye contact with each team member, except for Rainey, when he said, “Rainey has asked to place herself in the line of fire, to use her presence to draw out the UNSUB. After what you’ve heard about her personal interests in this investigation, do any of you have any objections to her remaining involved?”

  No one spoke. They all looked at Rainey. She stood in front of the backdrop of horrifying pictures. She eyed each individual. The look Rainey gave was meant to reassure them she knew what she was doing.

  Danny waited the appropriate amount of time for responses. When none came, he said, “All right then, let’s go give this profile.”

  Rainey hung back as the team filed out of the room. Danny started for the door last. He turned back to her.

  “Are you coming?”

  “No, I’m a distraction. Too many people out there know - even saw - what happened to me. I don’t want them thinking about that while you give the profile. I’m going to call Brooks, see if she found anything.”

  “Okay… Hey Rainey, give Katie a call. Set up a time after the press conference when I can go see her.”

  “Sure,” Rainey said, softly.

  Katie flooded back into her mind. Those emotions had been in their appropriate box while she was in agent mode, but now rushed forward with a vengeance. Danny opened the door to leave.

  “Danny, if something happens, will you make sure Katie knows what she meant to me?”

  Danny didn’t say, “Nothing’s going to happen,” the usual reaction when someone hears an appeal like Rainey’s. He knew it was more than a possibility that he would be required to fulfill that request.

  “Yes, Rainey, I’ll tell her.”

  Danny closed the door behind him. Rainey returned to her seat. She opened the file with the bulletins and newsletters from churches around the country. Rainey learned from the fan mail that Dalton requested his fans put him on their church mailing list. Most of his correspondents were church people. Some were honest Christians, trying to save his soul. The others were the type of sick, demented, women and men, who find serial murderers attractive.

  Rainey was drawn to one bulletin in particular. On the cover, a color picture of a stained glass window depicted a woman on her knees praying. At first glance, Rainey thought it was a man with long hair, a disciple or a saint, but now she could clearly see breasts under the long cloak. She used the zoom feature on the tablet to look at the picture more closely. The praying hands of the woman were wrapped with a gold braided chain, resembling rope. A small, gold cross dangled from the chain.

  Rainey quickly punched Brooks’ number into her cell phone.

  “CITU, how can I be of service?” Brooks sounded extremely professional.

  “Oh, you must have done something really bad to be answering the phone like that.”

  “Rainey Bell, is that you?” Brooks asked enthusiastically, and then just as quickly changed her tone. “I am not happy with you. Can’t even call or email an old friend. Just take off with not so much as a goodbye or kiss my ass.”

  “Last I checked those particular lines of communication work both ways, and don’t tell me you don’t have my number or my email address. You probably have a satellite
image of my house. How far is it from my front door to my office?” Rainey asked, teasing.

  “Thirty yards. By the way, I love the Mountain Dew hillbilly sign, but don’t try to distract me…”

  Rainey cut her off. “See, I could feel you watching me. I knew it. And under what official guise did you gain access to that image, oh great one?”

  Brooks laughed. “Okay, you got me. I had to see where you were. How are you? Is life good there in the countryside?”

  “You should come and see for yourself.”

  “Honey, you know my black ass ain’t going no further south than it already is. You feel me?”

  “That is such a crock of shit and you know it. You can’t tear yourself away from that computer room. You’re afraid it will die without you.”

  “Girl, you know I can’t leave my babies here alone, they need me.”

  Rainey could just see Brooks looking around her room filled with monitors and whirring fans. “All right then, put your babies to work for me.”

  “McNally filled me in on this copycat down there. I saw your temporary reinstatement paperwork go through yesterday. I assume you are working the case?”

  “Yes, and I found something I need you to look into. Can you pull up the documents Danny sent you, the ones from Dalton Chamber’s cell?”

  Brooks responded, “I’m running the documents through a word recognition program. So far no hits on anything remotely connected to you or the Raleigh-Durham area.”

  “Look at the church bulletin from the House of Holy Redemption, in San Diego.”

  Rainey heard fingernails rapidly tapping on a keyboard. Brooks followed quickly with, “I got it up on my screen. What am I looking for?”

  “Find out everything you can about the church. I see it has a return P.O. Box instead of a physical address. It’s probably bogus.”

  “I’ll dig around. Should I call you or McNally with what I find?”

  “Call Danny. He’s the lead on this.” Rainey paused and then added, “Thanks, Brooks. When this is over, we’ll have a nice long chat.”