Chris Mooney - The Secret Friend

She paused several times to adjust the light's wavelength. At 525 nanometres, she discovered a full latent print. She called Coop.

'Bingo.'

'You're shitting me.'

'I shit you not,' Darby said. 'I have a nice latent print on her forehead. It's at the tip of – get this – a cross.'

'There's a cross on her forehead?'

'My guess is he baptized her before dumping her into the water. Don't you remember anything from Catholic school?'

'I've tried to block it all out,' Coop said. 'How are we going to lift the print?'

'My recommendation is to use superglue – Keith's setting up the fuming chamber right now. We'll put Chen's body in the chamber, and once the cyanoacrylate has set, we can dust the print using an ultraviolet powder and then develop it with something like Ardrox dye. Since you're the fingerprint expert, I'll let you make the call.'

'Thank you.'

'You're welcome,' Darby said. 'Now haul your ass over here, and bring that partial latent thumbprint with you.' Darby left Coop and Woodbury to lift the print from Chen's forehead and drove to Natick.

Judith Chen lived with a roommate in a duplex, on the corner of a crowded street. A Natick patrol car sat in the driveway. The rest of the street was quiet. Good. The media wasn't here.

Darby showed her ID to the patrolman.

'Bedroom's on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs,' he said, stepping out of the car. 'Parents were here earlier. They didn't take anything.'

'What about Chen's roommate?'

'I don't know. She moved back in with her parents – she's from Long Island, I'm pretty sure – she left here must have been in early December. She's taking a semester off. Got all spooked about Chen's disappearance and didn't want to live here alone. I'll get you her name and phone number.'

The house was dark. Darby turned on the light and climbed the stairs.

A bathroom was on the top floor. It was spotless. Darby wondered if the roommate had cleaned it before leaving.

She opened the medicine cabinet. The left half was empty. The right side contained items which most likely belonged to Chen – vials, tubes and containers of various makeup and lotions; a lot of Alka-Seltzer and cold medications. There were two prescription bottles – Paxil, an antidepressant, and something called Requip.

Darby walked down the hallway. It took her a moment to find the light switch for the bedroom.

Hanging on Judith Chen's wall was a framed picture of her holding a Labrador puppy – the same photo Darby had tacked to the wall inside her home office.

Some of the picture frames were on the floor. Darby wondered if the parents had taken them off the wall earlier in the day. The bed had a pink comforter and matching throw pillows. Darby saw the indentation marks where the parents had probably sat.

Darby was glad the room seemed to be in order. She wanted to see how the woman had lived.

A small Dell laptop sat on a tiny desk. She turned on the lamp. Three large chemistry textbooks and several spiral notebooks were staked in the corner. Everything was coated in dust.

Darby put on a pair of latex gloves and flipped through the notebook pages full of complex chemistry and calculus equations.

An hour had passed when her phone rang.

'You're going to love this,' Coop said. 'The print from Chen's forehead matches the partial print we recovered from the handle of Hale's jewellery drawer. I'll put the forehead print into AFIS. Keep your fingers crossed.'

The notebooks didn't contain any 'To Do' lists, Post-It notes or handwritten reminders like where to meet friends for dinner. The desk drawers contained computer manuals and several paperback copies of Jane Austen novels.

Darby turned on the laptop, relieved when it didn't ask for a password.

Chen used Microsoft Outlook for email and the calendar to keep track of appointments. Darby sorted through the months leading up to her abduction and found only entries containing Chen's class schedules and the dates that certain projects were due.

Her phone rang again. The caller was Tim Bryson.

'We've catalogued the security DVDs. Care to guess which ones are missing?'

'The ones from the day Emma Hale disappeared to the day her body was found,' Darby said.

'You got it. I vote we put people on Hale and see if Fletcher shows up.'

'I saw the security tape. If Fletcher is working for Hale, why did he sneak inside?'

'I don't know. Maybe he isn't. Maybe Fletcher is going to try and approach Hale, or maybe he's simply acting alone. All I'm saying is that we should cover all the bases.'

'I agree. You think the commissioner will go for it?'

'That's the next hurdle. What do you have on your end?'

Darby told him about the latent print found on Judith Chen's forehead and the matching print recovered from Hale's jewellery drawer handle.

She hung up and turned her attention back to the laptop. The files saved in Microsoft Word contained homework assignments and several essays for an English composition class.

There was a small folder holding digital photographs of Chen with what appeared to be her family and female friends. There were several photos of her with the dog and a white cat with black fur around its eye and chin.

Darby was examining Chen's internet search history when her phone rang again.

'Good afternoon, Dr McCormick.'

It was the intruder, the man with the strange eyes, Malcolm Fletcher.

'I didn't think I'd hear from you again,' Darby said, wondering how Malcolm Fletcher had got her number.

'I want to talk to you about the man who killed Emma Hale.'

'Do you know something?'

'I might.'

'And why do you want to share this information with me?'

'If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.'

'Another quote by Shaw?'

'Very good. I thought your generation had abandoned reading. What do you know about Themistocles?'

'He was an Athenian political leader.'

'Impressive,' Fletcher said. 'Themistocles led his people to victory over the Persians and was later banished by the same people he saved.'

'You've lost me.'

'In the end, it always comes down to a matter of degrees – how far you are willing to go, how far you're willing to push your way through the dark. I shouldn't have to warn you, of all people, that the truth is, more often than not, a terrible burden. You may want to give that some thought.'

'What are you suggesting?'

'I'm extending an invitation to meet the man who killed Emma Hale and Judith Chen.'

'How do you know the same man killed Hale and Chen?'

'Judith Chen was shot in the back of the head, like Emma Hale – at least that's what the papers are reporting. Are the cases connected, Dr McCormick? Or may I call you Darby? After reading so much about you, I feel as though I know you.'

'What should I call you?'

'Think of me as your secret friend.'

'How about you tell me your first name?'

'What would you like to call me?'

'How does the name Mephisto sound?'

A quiet laugh. 'Are you worried I'm going to hurt you?' Fletcher asked.

'The thought had crossed my mind.'

'I didn't hurt you last night.'

'Hard to do when you have a gun pointed at you.'

'I suggest a private meeting at the Sinclair Mental Health Facility in Danvers. I'll contact you in two hours.'

'And if I say no?'

'Then I wish you the best of luck finding the man who killed Judith Chen and the other women. I have no doubt of your abilities. You're certainly much more dedicated, and considerably brighter, than Detective Bryson. He should have discovered the missing necklace months ago.'

Click. Malcolm Fletcher was gone.

Darby called Tim Bryson. She filled him in on her conversation. Bryson listened without interrupting.