Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,90
he did a lot of now.
“Ahhmmaax,” he tried again. “M-m-max.”
Zandra laughed. “He’s trying to say Alex, but it keeps coming out Max. That’s what I’m going to call you from now on. Max.”
Hanna sailed in from outside, cheeks flushed, grinning from ear to ear, and holding an envelope in her hands.
“Mother,” Zandra called. “We’ve decided to call Alex ‘Max’ from now on.”
Frances gave a strangled, “Aahhmmmaax,” and Hanna and Zandra laughed together.
Hanna plopped onto the couch. She patted the cushion next to her. “Come, ‘Max.’ Join us.”
Alex sat beside her. “What’s that?” he asked.
She took some pages out of the envelope. “It’s the deed to the one hundred acres of land behind us. I bought it outright. It’s yours. After I’m gone, you’ll have it.”
Zandra wrinkled her nose. “I would rather have the money. What are we supposed to do with a bunch of land?”
“It’s a blank slate, Zandra.” Hanna put a hand to Alex’s cheek. She stared meaningfully into his eyes, her own brimming with unshed tears. “It’s a blank canvas, my love. All for you.”
Forty-Eight
Back at the station house, they assembled in the conference room once more. Drake started. “There was no railroad construction in the East Stroudsburg area in March of 2014.”
Josie said, “We don’t know that what she heard had any connection to a railroad. She never heard any trains.”
“What else could it be?” Drake asked.
“I just don’t know yet,” Josie said.
Noah said, “We don’t know for sure that he was keeping her near East Stroudsburg, either. That’s just where he let her go. He let her go in the same town as he kidnapped Robert Ingram. That’s part of his pattern. That doesn’t mean he lives in any of the places he’s either abducted people from or displayed their remains.”
“He’s right,” Josie said. “We need to expand the search if we’re going to look at railroads.”
Drake hung his head. “Do you have any idea how many miles of railroad there are in this state? That could take years to run down.”
Mettner said, “Start with the eastern edge of the state. That’s where most of this guy’s activity seems to be concentrated. Where are we with the mirror victims? What have you found out?”
Gretchen flipped open her notebook. “It’s more of the same. Each person seemed to vanish into thin air, leaving everything behind. No clues. No video footage. Nothing. In 2008, thirty-five-year-old Antonia Yanetti went for an early morning jog in a park near her King of Prussia apartment. Never came home. Her live-in boyfriend reported her missing. Her phone and ID were found in the brush in the park. No witnesses. She was never heard from again. In 2010, fifty-three-year-old Terrence Abbott left his job bussing tables at a downtown restaurant at eleven-thirty at night to go home to his apartment and never made it there. His wallet, watch, phone, and cigarettes were found in the courtyard of his apartment building. No cameras. He was an ex-con. Only his mother kept in touch with him. When she didn’t hear from him for a week, she filed a report. In 2012, twenty-six-year-old Kendra Darden, a deli worker, went for a walk in Fairmount Park and was never seen again. Her purse was found near the Wissahickon Creek—her phone was inside. She lived with her grandmother who filed a missing person report.”
“This is great work, but it doesn’t help us find this guy,” Mettner groused.
“True,” Josie said. “But we have uncovered a lot of his secrets. He’s not as smart or as savvy as he thinks he is. We have to exploit that somehow.” She turned to Drake. “I was looking through the file when I was in Callowhill. There’s a handwritten note on the psychological profile that says something like, ‘employ Supercop strategy.’ What was that?”
Drake sighed. “My contact in the Behavioral Analysis Unit suggested it. It was a strategy developed and rolled out by John Douglas and the BAU in the 1980s to catch certain offenders, in particular, serial offenders they believed it would be most effective on. The idea is that we choose one member of law enforcement to get out in front of cameras and address the killer directly and really get into his head. It would be someone the killer would identify with and come to think of as a main point of contact with police. The Supercop would try to build a rapport so the killer will make contact and thus, make mistakes.”