Kay Hooper - Sense Of Evil

Hell, she hadn’t even mentioned it since they’d left the motel, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He knew Isabel was dealing with issues of her own at the moment, and he knew he was a complication in her life. He was even reasonably sure that the simplest thing he could do would be to leave her alone to sort out what she had to.

But as Isabel herself had said, the simplest thing wasn’t always the smartest thing.

So what was the smartest thing?

Studiously not looking at him, Isabel said, “Okay, we’re agreed that the note doodled by Tricia Kane suggests she was one of Jamie’s clients.”

“More than suggests,” Hollis said. “The only thing on that old highway of any interest is Jamie’s playroom.”

“Agreed, but that doesn’t mean Tricia was a client. We don’t know why she was meeting Jamie. Hell, maybe she was painting her.”

“There were no sketches of Jamie or anybody who looked like her among Tricia’s work. Besides, do you really think Jamie would commission a painting of herself in full S amp;M ensemble?”

“No.”

“Then what other reason could they have for meeting there?”

“Maybe Tricia was interested in buying the building. It was one of those Jamie planned to sell after what happened with Hope Tessneer.”

“We checked that out,” Mallory said. “At least as far as we could. Jamie kept her official appointments in her date book, and that included appointments to show her own properties during the last couple of months. No appointment listed for May sixteenth.”

Rafe spoke finally, saying, “Odds are, Tricia was a client. Or a potential client. You did say at least one of Jamie’s partners could have been from Hastings.”

Isabel nodded. “I did say that, yes.”

Hollis looked from Isabel to Rafe curiously. There had been no opportunity to discuss what they had found out from Paige, since both Mallory and Ginny had been in the room and other officers had come and gone fairly steadily, but it didn’t take a sixth sense to feel the tension between them.

Hollis had been debating whether to tell them about the visitation from Jamie, though she had pretty much decided just to tell Isabel later, when they were alone. After all, it wasn’t as though she could provide anything new in the way of information or evidence.

Rafe said, “Then Tricia might have been a regular.”

“Another Hastings blonde with a secret sexual life?” Isabel leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “And it seemed like such a nice little town.”

“I said the same thing,” Hollis murmured.

“It was a nice little town,” Rafe said. “And will be again. Just as soon as we catch this bastard.”

“And all we’ve got to help us catch him,” Isabel reminded the group at large, “is a fairly useless profile and what we know about the victims.”

“You haven’t revised the profile as you’ve gotten deeper into the investigation?” Rafe asked Isabel almost idly.

“Not really. This guy leaves so little behind that the only real thing we have to study are the victims he kills. All single white females, all smart and savvy, all successful. Beyond that, and until now, all we really had connecting them was the color of their hair. Cheryl Bayne’s disappearance puts the importance of that into question-definitely.”

“But even before then,” Mallory said, “we found Jamie’s secret. And her secret playroom.”

Isabel nodded.

“Which could have been an aberration as far as the victims go, having absolutely nothing to do with the killer or his motivations. But then Hope Tessneer’s body turned up, having very likely been a… toy… for our killer after she died, probably accidentally, and probably at Jamie’s hands. Connection. And now this note, which is a pretty fair indication that Tricia Kane was or planned to become involved in Jamie’s S amp;M games.”

“Another connection,” Rafe said.

“But there is absolutely no sign that Allison Carroll led anything but a perfectly traditional sex life. Also no sign that she even knew either of the other victims.”

Rafe shook his head. “Maybe we missed something. Or maybe there was nothing there to miss. Maybe she was as good at keeping secrets as Jamie was. As Tricia was.”

“Regarding Tricia, there were no regular withdrawals from her bank account in the last few months,” Mallory noted. “But that isn’t to say she might not have sold some of her sketches or paintings for cash. A couple of her friends mentioned that she’d sold things to them. She could have paid Jamie without leaving any trace of the money.”

“Yeah,” Isabel said, “but how did she find Jamie? I mean, how did she know the services were available? I doubt Jamie advertised in some bondage magazine.”

“Word of mouth?” Rafe suggested. “A referral from another client? All these women had something to lose in the sense of not wanting their… extracurricular activities to be made public. Jamie could have been pretty sure of their silence.”

“Still, she would have wanted to have control-” Isabel broke off with a frown, then continued. “Wait a minute. The photos we have show Jamie unmasked. What if that’s the reason Emily took those particular photos? Because they were the only ones that showed Jamie’s face?”

Finishing her supposition, Rafe said, “What if Jamie was always masked when she met clients? Except for the client she trusted, the one in the photographs?”

Mallory said, “According to all that info you guys got from Quantico on the S amp;M scene, that actually makes sense. For the submissive to not know who was dominating her-or him, I guess-could be an important part of the experience. For some of them, it might even be necessary that they not know the identity of their… mistress.”

“We have got to find that box,” Isabel said. “And I want to talk to Emily again first thing tomorrow. The patrol’s still watching her, right?”

Rafe nodded. “When she’s out of the house, they follow; when she’s home, as she was last time I checked, I have a squad car parked across the street from her house. If anybody asks, they’re under orders to say they’re making sure none of the media bothers the family.”

“Good cover story,” Isabel said.

“And plausible. Since Jamie was the first victim, the family really has had to put up with a lot of media attention. Allison and Tricia didn’t have family in Hastings, so nobody can really know if those families are being watched as well.”

“Hey,” Ginny said suddenly, “did you guys take a good look at these doodles?”

“I was just looking at the time and place of the appointment,” Hollis admitted, unwilling to explain that images often blurred or faded oddly when she looked at them, particularly those drawn two-dimensionally on paper.

“What’d we miss?” Rafe asked his young officer.

Ginny hesitated, then pushed the note across the table to him. “Look at that doodle on the right. The two circles connected with a sort of chain.”

Rafe had to look for a moment before he realized what he was seeing. “Jesus. Handcuffs.”

“It’s about time you got off,” Ally told Travis. “I didn’t have to hang around the police station waiting for you, you know. I do have other offers.”

He grinned at her. “Then why didn’t you accept any of them?”

“You’re getting too goddamned cocky, I’ll tell you that much. Here I am, wandering around downtown on a Sunday evening when the only other women out are brave, and needless to say brunette, hookers-”

“I think those are other reporters, Ally. Hastings doesn’t have hookers.”

“You sure about that?”

Recalling a certain trip to a certain house when he was about sixteen, Travis felt his face heat up. “Well, not streetwalkers, anyway.”