Stolen(44)
“Would’ve had to have been someone with access to Angelina’s journal. And clever enough to predict that the police would latch on to her as suspect. It’s simple, but one miscue can throw an entire investigation off course.”
“Victimology isn’t just key to profiling, it’s key to crime solving. If the police were focusing on the wrong victim, that would explain their inability to come up with a viable suspect.”
Spense turned his palms up. “What bothers me about Angelina as victim is the ransom.”
“We’ve covered that—”
Spense shook his head. “Not the ransom note. The ransom itself—it was paid, remember? And Laura was released unharmed. That doesn’t fit with Angelina being the primary target.”
No, it didn’t. “I don’t think we have all the pieces to this puzzle, yet. But we do have something.” Caitlin laid out Angelina’s autopsy photos on the table. Then one by one, she scrolled through the photos of their Jane Doe that she’d snapped on her phone before the body was moved.
Spense downed the remainder of his coffee and crumpled the paper cup in his hand. “Same MO. Same location. Same victim age and physical type.”
“Our UNSUB just might be a highly intelligent individual driven by sexual compulsion: a sadist clever enough to come up with the idea of leaving a ransom note to make his crime look like a kidnap instead of a murder-rape. Then he makes use of the ransom paid, because why the hell not? He releases Laura alive, and that takes the heat off. She’s been drugged, so she can’t identify him. It all fits with a kidnapping, so the police never realize who and what he really is.”
“I’ve never heard of a sexual sadist like that.” Spense pulled his cube out, solved it, returned it to his pocket. She knew he was taking her hypothesis as seriously as she was or he wouldn’t be working his cube. “Maybe he’s more like what Hatcher called The Opportunist.”
She didn’t have a Rubik’s cube, nor could she solve it if she did. She had to make do with doodling circles with her finger on the table instead. A few beats passed in silence, and then, she could practically hear something snap into place in her head. “What if we’re both right. What if we’re dealing not with a sexual sadist per se, but rather with a sexual opportunist?”
“Is sexual opportunist an actual diagnostic category, because I’ve never heard of it.” Even as he challenged her with his words, he was nodding an affirmation. He couldn’t dismiss the facts as coincidence any more than she could.
Imitating one of Spense’s favorite mannerisms, Caitlin turned her palms up. “If it isn’t, it sure as hell ought to be.”
“And if we’re right, that Angelina’s death was sexually motivated, I can tell you one thing for sure.” His voice lowered ominously. “Somewhere out there, there are other victims.”
Caitlin met his gaze. “And if we don’t catch this monster soon, there are going to be even more.”
Chapter 26
Friday, October 25
8:15 A.M.
Campus Ridge Apartments
Denver, Colorado
Laura rubbed her chest. There was a sore spot where her heart was trying to drill a hole through her rib cage. She’d run all the way from campus. Now, like a kid who’d gotten the wind kicked out of her by a schoolyard bully, she collapsed into a heap on the ground. She was breathless, and she was scared to pick herself up, because she had no idea what would hit her next.
On instinct she’d come straight here—to her apartment building—the first and only place that had ever been hers alone.
It was walking distance from Holly Hill College.
It was familiar.
It’s freakin’ dangerous.
On Monday night, she’d been kidnapped from this very building.
Easing herself into a full upright stance, she realized she could breathe a lot better this way. As oxygen returned to her brain, she could think a lot better, too.
Best not go inside. Her monster might be waiting. Best to stay here in the bushes like a hunted rabbit until she could figure out what to do.
Youth hostel.
That’s right. She’d had a plan when she’d woken up this morning. She could still find a youth hostel and stay there overnight, though spilling her guts to Ronald Saas was no longer an option. Apparently she’d never met the man, and she certainly couldn’t trust him with the locks of hair she had in her pack. The dinner had been a setup, and the real Saas might very well have been in on it, too. Her stomach clenched. This was a major setback, since she’d been hoping to find an ally—someone who could help her investigate and get to the truth.