Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

She flipped the little white card over.

Theodore Robert Bundy.

Grace was thirteen when it should have ended. She and her mother were watching TV nonstop, waiting for Ted to die. It was January 24, 1989. She remembered seeing on TV a man from Florida who was standing next to a hand-lettered sign that said FRYDAY IS TUESDAY and wearing a BURN, TED, BURN T-shirt, which he was selling (twenty dollars for two). He unflinchingly told a reporter that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with selling the shirts. After all, Bundy was a killer, and that certainly was far worse than making money off one.

Sissy O’Hare didn’t agree with the man and told Grace so. She didn’t agree with all the profiteering that came with Ted. The authors who insisted their books were about “educating” rather than making money, the movie people who wanted their films to “tell the true story” and ghoulish women who followed Ted like he was some kind of Pied Piper to hell. All of them sickened her. All of them. There was something so very wrong about those people who were making their livelihoods off someone who made a sport of killing young women.

“See that man selling T-shirts?” she asked Grace as they watched the pending execution unfold on TV.

Grace nodded her head, her eyes glued to her mother’s.

“He’s doing something evil and he doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t know about the pain behind what Bundy did. He doesn’t understand that turning Bundy’s execution into a carnival only celebrates what he did.”

Grace nodded.

“There is only one type of person with any honor in this, that’s the man-or woman-who carries a badge.”

Grace looked a little unsure.

“Police, honey. They are the only ones I want to see happy in a mess like this one. They are the ones I want to see smile because they put the bad guy right where he belongs.”

In the second-floor offices at the Tacoma Police Department, Grace Alexander and Paul Bateman looked at the photographs of the three faces who’d commanded the attention of the homicide unit for the past few weeks. The first, though this had been unknown to Tacoma police, had been Kelsey Caldwell, seventeen. The second to go missing had been twenty-four-year-old Lisa Lancaster. The newest face put up on the wall, adjacent to the pictures of every member of the police department, belonged to Emma Rose. They were in the war room, the detective’s conference room. It was the place where cases were discussed, evidence was weighed, and theories were shared. Until the possibility of a third missing girl made its way to that room, there had not been a pattern. Two does not make a pattern. Two can be a coincidence. Random. Just one bad bit of bad luck after the other.

But three? Everyone knew that like in the old game tic-tac-toe, three in a row was significant. All three girls were similar in age, size, build. Their facial features were blandly pretty, their hair long and dark. On their own they might not have been noticed, but in a group of three everything that was common about them became remarkable.

“They guy’s obviously hung up on a type,” Detective Bateman said. Coming from him, the comment was almost funny. After his wife ditched him, he’d hooked up with a woman who looked so much like her a few people thought they’d gotten back together.

No one had used the “S” word yet. Calling something a serial killer case was the epitome of TV-style police chatter. But there they were. Three young women, girls really. Pretty maids all in a row.

“The newest girl has been missing for a little more than a day. Parents called it in after they found out that she didn’t get to work,” Grace said.

Paul nodded. “Yeah. Last seen at her job,” he said.

“Where does she work?” she asked.

“Starbucks. Lakewood Town Center.”

Grace went for her coat. “Good. I could use a cup of coffee.”

Just before they left, Paul picked up the phone. The call was brief. He locked his eyes on Grace’s.

“ME’s office. Tissue’s a match. It was Kelsey’s hand.”

Grace didn’t say anything. In her bones, she’d already known that.

Where were the rest of Kelsey’s remains? And, more important, who would have done that to her?

The Lakewood Towne Center Starbucks was like a lot of such places-loud with people talking, blenders buzzing, and a thick layer of the aroma of coffee permeating everything and everyone. The only thing of note was that one of its workers was missing and the staff that was behind the counter was jittery when the police detectives arrived. Not jittery in the overcaffeinated way that its patrons often were, but the kind of jittery that came from deep concern.

Emma Rose was dependable. If she wasn’t at work and she wasn’t at home, no one thought there could be a good outcome.

“When she was fifteen minutes late, I texted her,” Sylvia Devonshire told the detectives.

“Did she text back?” Grace said.

Paul added three packets of Splenda to his drink and stirred. Grace looked over at him and shook her head, but said nothing.

“Is it that unusual? I mean, fifteen minutes. That’s a tight leash you’ve got on your people.”

Sylvia shrugged. “It is what it is. You try making twenty drinks for some schmo’s office suck-up and you need everyone you can.” She looked up and smiled at one of the schmos in line. “Just a second. Aphrodite is making your drinks now.”

The man nodded impatiently, obviously indifferent to anyone’s needs but his own.

“See?” she said, this time in a low voice.

Paul stopped stirring. “Okay, so Emma is dependable and you were worried. Anything you can tell us about her last shift?”

Sylvia pretended to be busy and looked away.

“Sylvia, you’re thinking about something,” Grace said.

The young woman looked up. “I don’t know,” she said.

Grace leaned a little closer. “That means you know something.”

Sylvia wrapped her arms around her chest, trying in a very real way, though unconsciously so, to hold it all inside.

“Tell me,” Grace said.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

“No one is in trouble but Emma Rose,” Paul said.

Grace looked over at her partner. “Look, he’s right. But Emma’s parents are very, very worried.”

“Is there something going on with Emma and her parents?” Paul asked.

Sylvia shook her head. “Oh no. Her parents were cool. They used to come in and sit over there.” She pointed to a pair of leather easy chairs. “You know, hang out before she got off and then they took her out for Thai.”

“That’s nice. But something is bothering you,” Grace said. “What are you thinking? We’ve got to find her.”

“I hate to bring it up.”

“What? Sylvia, what are you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to cause trouble. He’s a nice kid.”

“Who? Who’s a nice kid?”

“Oliver. Oliver Angstrom. He was always talking about how hot Emma is and, you know, how he wanted to ask her out.”

“She’s a pretty girl,” Grace said. “I’m sure she got a lot of attention.”

“Right. Customers liked her, too.”

“We need you to focus now, okay? What about Oliver?”

Sylvia looked down at the counter. “He was going to ask her out. Finally. I knew she wouldn’t say yes, because, well, she’s so pretty and he’s so geeky. Sweet, but geeky. But not geeky and scary.”

Grace knew the difference. She’d once dated a geeky guy in high school. Smart, brainy, was sexy. Loving Star Wars too much, not so.

“I don’t know if Oliver asked her out or not, but I do know that they were together. They cleaned and closed.”