CHAPTER FOUR
Laura rushed along the corridor, seeing Nate right up ahead of her and wishing she had slightly longer legs to allow her to catch up. At the sound of her shoes on the floorboards he glanced over his shoulder and then slowed his steps, waiting for her.
“Good timing,” he said, as she caught up. He looked like himself, like she could always rely on him to be: tall, Black, and handsome, with the kind of muscles that didn’t occur too often outside of law enforcement and Hollywood stars. Not all FBI agents spent half their downtime in the gym, but Nate was one of the ones who did, and it meant he was always someone who could be relied upon for the heavy lifting.
He was even casual, laidback, not at all surprised or awkward about seeing her here in the hall on the way to Rondelle’s door. He must have known she would be on the way, but that wasn’t why she would expect him to react a little differently than he used to.
They hadn’t spoken much lately. There had been their grand falling-out, in which he got to a breaking point about whatever she’d been hiding from him for years and called it quits on their working relationship. Then there was the subsequent falling-out in which she told him the truth about her abilities and he refused to believe her. Finally, there had been the awkward distance between them when he did believe her but didn’t know how to accept it.
But now here they were, back together for their first case since all of that, and he was looking at her like they’d been working together just like normal as recently as yesterday.
“Yeah,” was the incredibly articulate answer that Laura managed to wring out of her brain before it shut down. It was probably for the best – she didn’t want to say something that would make the awkwardness return.
“You know anything about the case yet?” Nate asked, as they started walking down the hall again.
Laura shook her head. “When he called, I just told him I’d get over here quick to cut down on the delay.”
Nate shrugged. They were approaching the door now. “Guess we’re about to find out,” he said, and knocked.
They heard the muffled but still infinitely audible voice of Rondelle bidding them to enter, and Nate turned the handle before stepping aside to let Laura in before him. She did so, ducking under his outstretched arm to find Rondelle eyeing them both with dry amusement.
“The dream team back together again,” he said, grabbing a file from a stack on the side of his desk and opening it to check the contents before tossing it forward. Laura moved to grab it before it slid off the edge of the desk and onto the floor, flipping it open reflexively and holding it where she and Nate could both read it. “This one isn’t too far from home, you’ll be pleased to know. No flights – you can drive over there within a few hours. You’re headed to Mariesville.”
“Are we still getting a hotel?” Nate asked. “It’s a long drive to make back every night when we never know if we’ll be called back for new evidence.”
“I have booked a motel for you within the city limits,” Rondelle said, tilting his head along with the emphasis to stress the downgrade. “It’s a bit of a curious case. Not that there’s such a thing as a ‘normal’ murder, when it comes to you two. You know I like to make sure I have my best agents tackling the weird ones.”
“So grateful for that,” Laura muttered, flipping through the pages loosely until she came to a photograph. There were a few of them, part of the limited materials they had available to them before they actually got on the ground and saw what the local cops were dealing with. It was pretty odd, she’d give Rondelle that. There was a female corpse in the photograph, quite clearly positioned with a mannequin behind her as though they were spooning.
“Is that a mannequin?” Nate asked, with a look of disgust. It was true that they always dealt with the odd cases – but that didn’t mean each new one wasn’t shocking. That each new one didn’t erode their faith in humanity just that little bit more.
“I’m afraid it is,” Rondelle replied. “This is the second such case which has come up for them in as many days. The mannequin element is very interesting, but it’s also a signature – and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it’s the kind of signature that often points to a serial killer in the making. To put it bluntly, if you don’t get over there and stop this from turning into a rampage, I believe the victim count could start to spiral rapidly over the next few weeks.”
Laura sighed. Wasn’t it always like that? That was part of the curse of being one of the best-performing agents in the FBI. With every difficult case they solved, it made it that much more certain that they would be assigned to the next difficult one as well.
“Look, I won’t go too deep into it,” Rondelle said. “You know the drill, and I’d rather have you get over there soon. The locals are way out of their depth, and if you don’t get over there fast, I’m afraid we might end up seeing some lost opportunities to nip this in the bud before he really gets started.”
“Right,” Laura said, and looked up at Nate as she closed the file. “Guess we’d better get on the road, then, hey? Are we taking your car, or mine?”
Nate gave her a horrified look. “You think I’m driving my car hours across country to a crime scene?” he asked, and she laughed.
With any luck, it seemed like things between them were going right back to normal – which was perfect, because any awkwardness would have got in the way of their investigation, and it sounded like they had lives to save.
***
Laura yawned and reached for the file, tucked up high on the dash, pulling it down to take a look at it. “Right. Better start taking a look at these details,” she suggested.
“Hit me with them,” Nate agreed, keeping his eyes on the road. In the end, they’d agreed on neutral ground: taking one of the FBI cars from the compound and leaving both of their own behind. It was just like having a hired car, except there was considerably more paperwork. At least their own vehicles wouldn’t take the brunt of what would hopefully be limited to a few days of driving around madly.
“Right,” Laura said again, as she tried to scan down the first page to grab the salient information so she could start translating that into narration. “So, we’ve got two victims already, like Rondelle said. The first one found was a man. He was also with a mannequin. Neither of the victims have any kind of link between them that the local PD could find, and at first glance their profiles are pretty disparate. Different ages, home addresses aren’t close by, different body statistics. Nothing that immediately jumps out as a pattern.”
“Wonderful,” Nate said with heavy sarcasm. “I do love it when they give us a challenge. Where were they found?”
Laura turned the page. “Our male victim, John Wiggins, was found in an alleyway. It was a secluded spot, and he was found in the morning, with the initial report suggesting he was left there all night. Then the second victim, Kenya Lankenua, also in an alleyway but in a different part of town. She was found late last night – it looks as though she may have been discovered not long after being left there, by a young woman who was just stumbling home from a bar.”
“Method of killing?” Nate asked. It was like he was ticking off a mental list of the important facts – which, to be fair, he maybe was.
Laura consulted the file. “Blow to the back of the head with a heavy object, in both cases. Blunt force trauma.”