“Lawrence also theorizes that our killer keeps records—writings, drawings, photographs.” Bernie closed her eyes and shivered. “Thomasina Hardy has been missing for thirteen days and we’re no closer to finding her than we were the night she disappeared.”
“Our boy’s smart. He’s out there laughing at us. He thinks he’s invincible.”
“What good is this profile if we don’t have even one suspect?” Bernie wrapped her hands around her coffee cup.
“It can help us rule out quite a lot of men,” Jim said. “Lawrence thinks our guy is young, under thirty-five, highly intelligent, possibly with some college or even a degree, and that he’s a mobile killer, that he moves around.”
“So what do we do—interview every man in Adams County under thirty-five who is intelligent, educated, and charming?”
“I think we need to find out more about the victims in the other states, starting with Heather Stevens and Shannon Elmore.”
“You’ve already talked to the lead detective on those cases, what more can you do?”
“I can talk to him again, ask him more questions. My guess is he knows more than he realizes. Things that might shed some light on who our killer is.”
“So call him.”
“I did first thing this morning. I’m just waiting for him to return my call.”
Bernie lifted the cup to her lips and drank. “You make good coffee.”
Jim grinned. “You make a good friend. One that I don’t want to lose.”
When she didn’t look at him or respond, he clamped his hand down on her shoulder. She tensed. “Bernie?”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You haven’t lost me. We’re still friends.”
“Good friends?” he asked.
“I think we’re headed in that direction.”
“I’m not going to be dating your sister, so if you’re worried about me chasing after Robyn, don’t be. I know you were concerned about my using her and—”
Bernie laughed and shook her head.
“What’s so funny?” he asked as he lifted his hand from her shoulder.
“You are. I was never concerned about your using Robyn. Don’t you think I know that my sister is the user and not the usee in each of her relationships. I was worried that she’d break your heart.”
“Were you now?”
“I was. I worry about my friends.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Dad tells me that Kevin is still upset with you. What are you going to do about mending fences with your son?”
Jim raked his hand through his hair and reared back in his chair. “Damned if I know. I love that boy more than anything on earth, and yet all I seem to do is hurt and disappoint him. I can’t believe he walked in on Robyn and me. What were the odds of that happening? And I don’t know where he got the idea that there was something going on between you and me.”
“The three of us have spent a great deal of time together lately and we’ve had a lot of fun. Kevin and I have a marvelous rapport. I believe he liked the idea that if his dad was going to have a girlfriend, she’d be somebody he genuinely liked and someone who felt the same way about him.”
“It makes sense. You’re the kind of woman most kids would like to have for a mother.”
“Well, thank you, Captain Norton.”
Jim chuckled. “So, should we return to the way things were—you and Kevin and me? Or would the three of us spending more time together feed this fantasy he has of you and me as a couple?”
“That’s a difficult question. I don’t know. Maybe we should both talk to him again. Together.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight’s fine with me. Why don’t I call Mom and tell her that you and I are coming to dinner, and that afterward we plan to talk to Kevin about our relationship.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?” she asked.
“For being my friend.”
He couldn’t go to her until tonight. They would make love for the final time, and then he would say good-bye. She’d be heartbroken when he told her that he no longer loved her, but she wouldn’t be surprised. She had to know what a disappointment she’d been to him. Poor Thomasina. She had tried so hard, done everything he’d asked her to do, and yet she hadn’t measured up. None of them had measured up to his ideal. To his perfect woman.
Perhaps Abby would be different. She wasn’t classically beautiful the way some of the others had been, but she was lovely in a sultry, earthy way. And she was older, already thirty, but still young enough. And she had the kind of body that men had wet dreams about. He fantasized about sucking on her big tits. Licking, sucking, biting. Just the thought of her whimpering with pleasure and pain excited him. She was the type who would enjoy variety. Ass fucking. Blow jobs.
But he couldn’t begin his courtship, his seduction of Abby Miller, until he ended his relationship with Thomasina.
He sat and watched the students as they walked from the building, some preparing for another class, others heading for their vehicles. It was such a delicious little coincidence that Jacque and Stephanie had both attended the community college and that Thomasina had taught here. And now there was Abby, another night school student, who’d signed up for classes she seldom attended as a smoke screen to cover up her illicit affair.
He smiled, thinking about how the sheriff’s department was wasting time trying to figure out what it meant that all the victims were somehow connected to the college. He hadn’t deliberately set out to choose women who were students or even teachers at the school. But it had worked out to his advantage, giving the authorities a red herring.
If only Sheriff Granger and her hotshot chief deputy knew that there was a far more important reason they should be looking at Adams County Junior College than the obvious.
He would outsmart the local law just as he’d outsmarted the others—in Georgia, in Tennessee, in North Carolina, and in South Carolina. He was a smart man. He’d been a smart boy. But women didn’t appreciate men with brains, not any more than girls appreciated boys with brains.
Don’t go back there. Don’t remember what happened.
She had been the prettiest, most popular girl in school and he had worshipped her when she hadn’t even known he was alive. The first time she smiled at him, he’d nearly died on the spot. And when she spoke to him one day, he’d been speechless at first, and then tongue-tied. She’d been so sweet, so friendly, so nice.
He could see her clearly in his mind’s eye—slender and dark haired, with big brown eyes and a smile so warm that it could have melted the polar ice caps. She always wore pink lipstick and nail polish, not a gaudy hot pink, but a pale, ladylike shade. Even now, he could still smell her delicate perfume, a flowery gardenia fragrance. And he’d never forget the delicate gold ankle bracelet she wore every day, whether she was in slacks, shorts, or a skirt. Her parents had given her a string of real pearls for her sixteenth birthday, and whenever there was a special event at school where everyone had to dress up, she wore her pearls.
He had loved her with all the innocence and adolescent passion of an inexperienced sixteen-year-old boy. A virgin. A nerd. A bookworm.
Emotion tightened his throat. The memories were bittersweet. Ecstasy in the beginning, and then a torment beyond bearing