Chris Mooney - The Secret Friend

Safe behind the wheel of her Mustang, her thoughts turned to the Virgin Mary statues. In her mind's eye she saw the Blessed Mother's sorrowful expression, arms held wide open, ready to embrace. The face vanished, replaced by Fletcher's strange black eyes. Darby thought she heard him laughing.

She didn't want to think about the former profiler. She focused her thoughts on the man who shot Hale and Chen. That man had placed a statue of the Virgin Mary in their pockets. He'd sewed them shut and tied the end off with a knot so the statues would stay with them. He'd placed a sign of the cross on Chen's forehead and dumped her body into Boston Harbor. Why? What was the significance of the statue and why was it so important that it stay with the two women after they were dead?

You cared for them, I know you did. Why did you keep them alive for so long only to turn around and kill them?

Darby wondered if the killer was possibly schizophrenic. Most schizophrenia was based on a specific delusion – UFOs, secret government organizations implanting microchips in people's brains to eavesdrop on their thoughts. A lot of schizophrenics believed God, Jesus or the devil spoke directly to them.

With Hale and Chen, there seemed to be an organizational element at work in the way both women were killed and dumped in water. And then there was the length of time between the abductions. Emma Hale had been held somewhere for roughly six months – half a year, Jesus – her body discovered in early November. Chen's body was found two days ago. It was February. Her stay had lasted only a couple of months.

As a general rule, schizophrenics weren't organized offenders. They were impulsive killers. The crime scenes were sloppy. With Hale and Chen, there was no crime scene.

Emma Hale, the first victim, had left a party at her friend's Back Bay apartment. It wasn't a long walk home but it had been snowing, so Emma had called a cab. She grabbed her coat and went outside to smoke. Twenty minutes later, the cab pulled up to the apartment building but Emma Hale wasn't there.

Judith Chen had studied late into the evening. She left the library and somewhere on her way home had disappeared.

Both women had not made it home. Had they been abducted by force? If a strange man had tried to grab Hale or Chen, both women would have tried to fight. They would have kicked and screamed. No witnesses had come forward to indicate this had happened.

Darby felt certain the killer didn't do this – he wouldn't want to draw attention to himself. He was more cunning. He needed these women. Before approaching them, he would have a plan in place to get them quickly inside his car as quietly as possible. Had the killer driven up to them and offered a ride? Darby considered the possibility. If this had happened, the killer wouldn't drive a clunker or a van – vans always sent a message of danger. Appearances would be important.

Both women were smart and well educated. Darby felt confident that neither of them would have accepted a ride from a stranger. Either they knew him or he had acted in such a manner as to make them feel comfortable about getting into his car. To do that, he would need to have known something about his victims. Had he followed them, observing their habits and routines, their friends and class schedules? Or were they randomly selected?

Random selections were desperate. If these women were randomly selected, they would be used and discarded. They wouldn't be kept somewhere for months. Maybe they were victims of opportunity. Maybe the killer simply approached a variety of women to see which one would climb inside his car. Maybe he had posed as an undercover cop and used a fake badge to lure them. Or maybe everything she was thinking right now was a complete waste of time and energy.

Darby spotted a Starbucks and pulled over. She was walking back to her car when her cell phone rang. The caller ID window said unknown caller. She waited until the fourth ring to pick up, just to be sure.

'Are you ready to discover the truth?' Malcolm Fletcher asked.

'I spoke to Tina Sanders,' Darby said.

'Did she tell you about her daughter?'

'She did. For some reason, the woman is under the assumption that I know what happened to her. Is there something you'd like to tell me?'

'If you want to know what happened to Jennifer Sanders and the others, drive to Sinclair,' Fletcher said. 'This time, I want you to come alone.'

'Why?'

'I've decided I want you all to myself.'

Click.

The phone call was short, less than thirty seconds. Did Fletcher know the call was being traced? This time he had asked her to come alone. Had he somehow already spotted the surveillance or was he merely anticipating it?

Darby pulled onto the highway and called Bryson. He promised to call her back and did, twenty minutes later.

'I just got through talking with Bill Jordan, the man heading up your surveillance,' Bryson said. 'Fletcher wasn't on long enough. They couldn't lock on to his signal.'

'Is there any way he could have found out about the trace?'

'No. My guess is he's playing it safe, trying to hedge his bets. I've got to run and coordinate with Jordan. He's still scrambling to get his people together.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'It's like you said – he left us the same Virgin Mary statue we found in Chen's and Hale's pockets. It's hard to ignore that fact.'

'He wants to meet me alone.'

'Jordan's using some undercover narcotics detectives. They'll pose as Reed's security people and escort you inside.'

'Tim, if Fletcher does, in fact, know something, maybe I should go in there alone.'

'I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.'

'If the man wanted to hurt me, he's had ample opportunity,' Darby said. 'What does Fletcher have to gain by killing me?'

'If I let you go inside the hospital without any sort of protection, the commissioner will have my ass. If something happens to you – if you go in there and stub your toe, the city would be liable. You could sue me, the city.'

'You want me to sign a waiver?'

'I'm not going to debate this with you. You want to drive up to Sinclair, then go, but we're going to be there.'

'I'm driving there now.'

'Okay. We'll make sure all the exits are covered.'

'How many are there?'

'A lot,' Bryson said. 'This past weekend Reed showed me all the different places people can sneak inside. His security can only cover so much of the campus at any given time. When Fletcher calls, keep him on the phone and we'll do the rest. Is your phone fully charged?'

Darby checked the battery level. 'It's still got some juice,' she said. 'I have a charger in my car.'

'Good. Everyone will be in position by the time you arrive.'

'What if he leads me into the basement? The cell won't work down there.' They had discovered that during their weekend search. The basement was too far underground, the walls too thick. The signals either dropped or cut out completely.

'I'm hoping it doesn't come to that,' Bryson said.

Jonathan Hale sat on his office floor, elbows propped on his knees and hands buried in his unwashed hair as he stared at the pictures of Emma and Susan scattered across the rug.

All day Saturday he had scoured the house for the photo albums and removed each and every picture and arranged them on the floor. It was now Monday evening. He had spent the entire time holed up in here in his office drinking bourbon and reliving the memories buried in each of the pictures. Some were clear but most had either faded or dulled.

When he nodded off, sometimes he had flashes, clips of memory that didn't make much sense or carry any significant weight – Susan kneeling on the boat dock, rubbing sunscreen on Emma's pudgy little arms; Emma cutting off her doll's hair then crying after Susan told her it wouldn't grow back; Susan at a Rolling Stones concert sipping beer from a paper cup while Mick Jagger belted out 'Sympathy for the Devil'.