Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

She kept her face blank. Mitch hadn’t just been there; he hadn’t merely seen Lisa in passing. He’d interacted with her. And nobody at the tavern had thought to mention that.

Could be they figured she already knew, since Mitch worked for her. Or could be they were scared to mention it, knowing how highly Stacey thought of her chief deputy.

Whatever the reason, she needed to find out exactly what had happened between Mitch and Lisa-both that night, and before it.

Damn. Yet another name to add to her list of people to question. Mitch, her brother, his best buddy. That list was growing more personal by the minute.

And more disturbing.

From all reports, Amber Torrington had been a snotty, mean-spirited teen, liked only by her parents, because they had to, and by her boyfriend, because she put out.

Maybe because she was only missing, not officially dead, those who knew her felt free to speak badly about her. Her so-called friends, her boss at the clothing shop, the security guard who’d heard her shouting at her boss from five stores away-they’d all sung a familiar refrain. Spoiled brat, vicious temper. Not generally liked.

Dean tucked each bit of information away as he accompanied the local police conducting interviews Sunday. Each confirmation of what she’d been like convinced him that Amber’s personality was significant to the investigation. The reason niggled at the back of his brain.

“Girl’s address says the family’s rich. Once again, he didn’t make any effort to grab somebody who wouldn’t be missed,” Mulrooney commented as they walked toward the mall security office. Stokes strode on the other side of him, carrying an evidence bag containing the spent.22 shell casings they’d found in the tree line skirting the upscale shopping mecca. She would take them back to D.C. for analysis. None of them had any doubt they’d prove to be from the same rifle as the third case, when the cameras had also been shot out.

“No, he didn’t,” Dean muttered. “Or to even pick up her phone, or move her car.”

“Either he was in a hurry, or he thought he was covered by shooting out the cameras and overhead lights.” Out of shape, Mulrooney huffed a little as the three of them strode through the quiet mall, which was pretty empty on this summer Sunday afternoon. Well, empty except for the media crews busily sniffing for any dirt and broadcasting the slightest unconfirmed detail to the world.

“He couldn’t count on having a lot of time for the guards to check out the department store alarm,” Dean said. The one the unsub had, undoubtedly, caused.

Jackie finished his thought. “Or even that they’d all go. One of them might very well have done his damn job and stayed behind.”

Funny how quickly the three of them had landed on the same page. They had fallen into an immediate rhythm on this, their first major case. Every idea was considered, its merits debated, all with professional respect it had taken years to earn in ViCAP. Blackstone’s CATs were already becoming a team, right down to Lily and Brandon, whose phones had to be growing out of their ears by now with all the phone calls they’d shared.

Mulrooney said, “If one had stayed behind, maybe he’d have noticed the feeds from the other end of the mall going out one by one and come to investigate before the unsub had time to subdue Amber.”

Possible. But the guy had worked fast. And he was an excellent shot.

Made him wonder if Stan Freed owned a rifle. Made him doubly wonder just what kind of weapons Warren Lee kept stockpiled out at his place.

“You notice how he picked a real piece of work this time?” Mulrooney asked.

“Uh-huh.” He’d definitely noticed. And suddenly the detail that had been nagging at the back of his brain clicked in. He stopped suddenly, right in the middle of the mall. “In the other cases, Jackie, you said the interviews on the previous victims all hinted that they were difficult.”

Jackie nodded. “Yeah. They were headstrong. Which I took to mean bitchy.”

Just like Amber. There was the connection. “We’ve been thinking they were different from Lisa only because of their financial and social situations, not their personalities.”

Mulrooney saw, too. “Meaning he must have known what each of them was like.”

Dean nodded. “Yes. But how would he know that about them?”

“Unless he’d been studying them.”

Bingo.

They knew that in another case a friend had come forward about a strange man watching the victim weeks before she’d disappeared. They’d already suspected he had to have picked out his victims in advance based on proximity and circumstance. Now they knew it was more than that.

He’d actually gotten to know them.

“He’s been inside this mall.” Dean started walking again, his gait quicker this time.

Mulrooney and Stokes matched his pace. “Probably even within the last few weeks,” Jackie said, “since he knew she’d be working Friday night.”

He’d followed Amber. Stalked her. He’d chosen her, made his plans, and then waited for the right moment, the right auction, to make her his next victim. He knew her schedule and her habits.

And he might very well be on a mall security tape from one of his previous visits.

“You think he believes he’s doing the world a favor by killing mean girls?” Mulrooney asked as they passed a cluster of giddy young shoppers.

“Lisa wasn’t a mean girl,” Jackie murmured. “She was a lost girl.”

A sad, abused lost girl whose father had died and whose mother might as well have, too, for all the care she took to protect her daughter.

“Right,” Mulrooney said. “She was pathetic. He was experimenting. Then on to the main events. The challenges: successful women, attractive women, family women.”

None of whom, apparently, had been nice women.

Reaching the mall office, they met up with the head of security, a guy named Baker, who’d been playing a game of cover-my-ass since the minute they’d arrived. With good reason.

He’d neglected to check out a surveillance camera covering the back of the mall, which had stopped working Friday around five. That camera might have revealed the unsub lurking near the Dumpsters, the loading dock, or the nearly hidden employees-only entrance of the store where Amber worked.

He’d left the video surveillance room unattended because of an alarm at one end of the mall, bringing his entire security team with him for what had turned out to be a broken glass door, shot through from a distance.

Finally, he hadn’t bothered to check out the car left overnight in the parking lot, despite all the other unusual activities in the mall that night. The asshole had decided some kids were playing pranks, shooting off a BB gun. Frigging moron. He deserved to be fired.

But for now, they needed his cooperation.

“How long do you keep the mall security tapes?” Dean asked the man the moment they strode into his office.

“They recycle every twenty-four hours.”

Damn.

Seeing Dean’s frustration, the man mumbled, “But there’s a backup. The files dump to a server that holds on to them for a week before automatically purging them.”

One week. Would the unsub have risked stalking his victim within a week of taking her?

Mulrooney had obviously had the same thought. Lowering his voice, he murmured, “The auction came up quicker than anybody expected.”

Meaning he might have moved up his schedule. Accelerating could have made him sloppy. Made him take risks. “And he knew she’d be working,” Dean muttered, figuring the store wouldn’t have made up the schedule more than two weeks in advance.

It was worth a shot.