Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

She nodded. "And that's where I ran into Nell."

Nell, still leaning back against the dresser, said, "My unit operates out of Quantico, and sometimes we're tapped to help teach some of the courses offered. I was between assignments and ended up helping the instructor speaking to Casey's group that week. We recognized each other."

"After twelve years?" Max asked.

Casey said, "Don't forget, I taught both of you in high school. Not to swell your head, Max, but some students really are more memorable than others. You and Nell, I remembered."

Max decided not to ask why. "Okay, so you recognized Nell. And then?"

"Well, nothing much happened then. We had lunch a couple of times. Talked, briefly, about Silence. I told Nell about my concerns, about this recent death that seemed so difficult for our sheriff and his people to resolve."

"But there wasn't much to go on," Nell continued, "especially not at a distance. So there really wasn't anything I could do, even offer anything helpful in the way of advice. Casey finished her course, and we said good-bye. Then, a couple of months ago, she called me. By then, three men were dead, and the odd little twist about their sins coming to light afterward seemed to pretty strongly indicate there was one killer. A very unusual sort of killer."

"Which attracted the interest of the Bureau?" Max lifted a brow at her.

"Which attracted the interest of my boss, the leader of the unit I belong to. He's a profiler, instinctive as well as trained. When I gave him all the information Casey had passed along to me, he was able to develop a tentative profile of the sort of person likely to be the killer."

"And?"

Nell looked at the mayor, who said, "And we immediately had a problem. According to Agent Bishop's profile, the killer was likely to be a cop."

Max whistled softly. "Which might explain why the murders are going unsolved."

"Which might explain why." Casey sighed. "Worse, what it meant was that I couldn't trust the local police — any of the police. They were all suspect, from Sheriff Cole down to his deputies, and even those not directly suspected are likely to have loyalties that could color their thinking. So I could hardly go to any of them with the information that our killer might well be a cop." She shook her head. "We needed help from investigators outside the town, outside the parish, and we had to keep it quiet because we certainly couldn't let it be known that our own sheriff's department was under suspicion."

"But the Bureau is very picky about sending in agents if the local authorities haven't asked for our help," Nell continued. "States' rights, various jurisdictions — it can get tangled and ugly in a hurry if we aren't very, very careful how we handle things. Still, Casey was in a position to ask for our help in a unique situation and to authorize us to begin investigating, so the decision was made."

"To send you in?" Max was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea that Nell — the half-wild, fey girl he remembered so vividly — was now a federal cop.

"To launch an undercover investigation," she corrected. "No agents wandering around in town flashing their badges or muscling in on the local cops. Since we knew we'd have to investigate those local cops while also working to solve this series of murders, we could hardly operate openly.

"Something much quieter and a lot more subtle was needed. Obviously. And an agent who wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb. I was chosen partly because I have a nice, innocent — and authentic — reason to be here. Settling my father's estate." She spoke without emotion. "Even the most suspicious person would be unlikely to figure me for anything other than a reluctant daughter returning home because there were things I had to take care of here. So I was perfect for the job."

Max shook his head. "They didn't send you down here alone, surely?"

"No."

He stared at her for a moment, then looked at Casey.

"Nell is my contact," she said. "I don't know the other agent — or agents — involved."

"Which is the way it stays," Nell said, looking steadily at Max. "Undercover means under cover. The safety of an agent often depends on how secure the cover is; what you don't know, you can't betray, consciously or unconsciously. If you hadn't presented a potential problem by — rather obviously — following me around today, there wouldn't have been any need to tell you this much."

"Thanks a lot," he muttered.

"Don't mention it."

Casey smiled slightly, but said, "If anybody else noticed you following Nell, Max, they'll probably chalk it up to… renewed interest, shall we say? Old gossip can have its uses. Since there was always a… mystery… concerning you two, people will tend to focus on that."

"Great," Max said without looking at Nell. "It's always been my ambition to look like a lovelorn jerk."

"Better than looking like a stalker or a murderer," Casey reminded him matter-of-factly.

"We all know I'm already suspected of the latter." He kept his gaze on her. "Which makes me wonder why you two decided to bring me in on this. It can't be only because I was following Nell all day. Aren't you taking quite a chance? I could be the killer, you know."

"You aren't a cop," Casey reminded him.

"No, but that profile could be wrong."

"It isn't," Neil said. "Certainly not on the major points. Bishop is very good at what he does."

Max shrugged. "Okay, but even the best make mistakes sometimes. I could still be the killer."

"You aren't," Nell said.

"You can't know that."

"Yes, I can." She waited until he reluctantly met her gaze, and added evenly, "And you know how I can."

Max was far too conscious of Casey's silent attention to say any of the things he wanted to say to Nell. He didn't know how much Casey knew but, even more, he wasn't about to open up old wounds and take the distinct risk of having Nell rub salt into them.

So all he said was, "So I'm off your suspect list. Who's on it?"

Casey said, "Just about everybody else, if you want the truth. Virtually all the men, anyway."

"You're sure the killer is male?"

Nell nodded. "Pretty sure. According to Bishop's profile, he's probably white, likely in his mid-thirties to mid-forties, and almost certainly a cop, though he could also be someone to whom cops are a hobby and his interest in them an obsession. Whichever it is, he knows police procedure, understands forensics, and has no intention of making a mistake that might get him caught."

"He doesn't want to get caught? I thought most serial killers did, at least on some level."

"This isn't a serial killer, at least not in the accepted sense. This killer isn't choosing victims at random or because he has no connection to them. This is personal to him, very personal. He's picking his victims in order to expose their secret crimes, their secret lives. Which means he knows them, and probably quite well. He doesn't like secrets; somewhere in his life, maybe his childhood, a secret damaged him and somehow changed his world or his perception of himself forever."

Max frowned. "So he wants the truth to come out, no matter the cost."

"That seems to be his motivation, at least in part. We also believe that in killing these men, he's attempting to punish them for their secrets. Whoever is responsible for the secret in his own life was probably out of his reach and somehow escaped punishment for that sin or crime. Because he couldn't get justice for himself, he's trying to get it for the innocents in these men's lives — or at least that's what he believes."

Nell hesitated, frowned. "Bishop thinks there's something else too, some other piece of this guy's reasoning that would help explain either what he's doing or his choice of victims."

"That's wonderfully vague," Max noted.