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She kept her mouth shut, and he couldn't tell if she was mad or just too shocked to speak.
He said, "I want to check on Anna upstairs before we leave."
She nodded.
He tried again, "Amanda asked me how you were doing last night."
Faith suddenly gave him her full attention. "What did you tell her?"
"That you're fine."
"Good, because I am."
He stared his meaning into her: Will wasn't the only one holding back information.
"I am fine," she insisted. "At least I will be, okay? So don't worry about me."
Will pressed his shoulders into the wall. Faith was silent, and the low hum of the emergency room was like static in his ears. Within minutes, he found himself fighting the urge to close his eyes. Will had fallen into bed around six that morning, thinking that he'd manage at least two hours' sleep before he had to go pick up Faith. He'd negotiated down the morning's activities as each hour passed, thinking first that he'd skip taking the dog for a walk, then taking off eating breakfast from the list, then finally removing his usual coffee. The clock had ticked off each hour with excruciating slowness, which he marked every twenty minutes when his eyes shot open, his heart in his throat, his head still thinking he was trapped back in that cave.
Will felt his arm itching again, but he didn't scratch it for fear of drawing Faith's attention to the gesture. Every time he thought about the cave, those rats using the flesh on his arms for a ladder, he felt his skin start to crawl. Considering how many scars Will had on his body, it was foolish to obsess about a couple of scratches that would eventually heal without leaving a mark, but it kept troubling his mind, and the more his mind was troubled, the more he itched.
He asked Faith, "You think this Kidney Killer thing has already hit the news?"
"I hope it has so when the real story comes out, those Rockdale County idiots look like the ignorant pricks they are."
"Did I tell you what Fierro said to Amanda?"
She shook her head, and he relayed Fierro's ill-timed accusation involving the Rockdale County chief of police's pole.
Faith's voice was little more than a shocked whisper. "What did she do to him?"
"He just disappeared," Will said, taking out his cell phone. "I don't know where he went, but I never saw him again." He checked the time on his phone. "The autopsy's in an hour. If nothing comes out of this kid, let's go to the morgue and see if we can get Pete to start early."
"We're supposed to meet the Coldfields at two. I can call them and see if we can make it closer to noon."
Will knew Faith hated sitting in on autopsies. "Do you want to split up?"
She obviously did not appreciate the offer. "We'll see if they can move up the time. Our part of the postmortem should be fairly quick."
Will hoped so. He didn't relish the idea of lingering over the morbid details of the torture Jacquelyn Zabel had endured before she'd managed to escape to safety, only to fall and break her neck while waiting for help. "Maybe we'll have something more to go on by then. A connection."
"You mean other than both women were single, attractive, successful and pretty much hated by everyone who came into contact with them?"
"A lot of successful women are hated," Will said, realizing the moment that the words came out of his mouth that he sounded like a sexist pig. "I mean, a lot of men feel threatened by—"
"I get it, Will. People don't like successful women." She added ruefully, "Sometimes other women are worse than men."
He knew that she was probably thinking about Amanda. "Maybe that's what's motivating our killer. He's angry that these women are successful and they don't need men in their lives."
Faith crossed her arms, obviously considering the angles. "Here's the trick: he's picked two women who won't be missed, Anna and Jackie Zabel. Actually, three women, if you count Pauline McGhee."
"She's got long dark hair and brown eyes like the other two victims. Usually, these guys like a pattern, a certain type."
"Jackie Zabel's successful. You said Anna was well put together. McGhee drives a Lexus and had a kid on her own, which, take it from me, is not easy." She was silent for a beat, and he wondered if she was thinking about Jeremy. Faith didn't give him time to ask. "It's one thing to kill prostitutes—you've got to go through at least four or five before anyone notices. He's targeting women who have real power in the world. So we can assume he's been watching them."
Will hadn't considered that, but she was probably right.
Faith continued, "Maybe he thinks of it as part of the hunt— doing reconnaissance on them, finding out about their lives. He stalks them, then he takes them."
"So, what are we talking about here—a guy who works for a woman he's not particularly fond of ? A loner who felt abandoned by his mother? A cuckold?" Will stopped trying to profile their suspect, thinking the characteristics were a little too close to home.
"It can be anyone," Faith said. "That's the problem—it can be anyone."
Will felt the frustration he heard in her voice. They both knew that the case was reaching a critical point. Stranger abductions were the hardest crimes to solve. The victims were usually randomly chosen, the abductor a practiced hunter who knew how to cover his tracks. It was sheer luck finding the cave last night, but Will had to hope that the kidnapper was getting sloppy; two of his victims had escaped. He might be feeling desperate, off his game. Luck had to be on their side, if they were going to catch him.
Will tucked his phone back into his pocket. They were less than twelve hours out and close to hitting a brick wall. Unless Anna woke up, unless Felix could offer them a solid lead or one of the crime scenes revealed a clue they could follow up on, they were still solidly on square one with nothing to do but wait until another body showed up.
Faith was obviously considering the same problems. "He would need another place to hold a new victim."
"I doubt it's another cave," Will said. "It would've been pretty hard to dig. I nearly killed myself digging the hole for that pond I put in my backyard last summer."
"You have a pond in your backyard?"
"Koi," he provided. "It took me two full weekends."
She was silent for a few beats, as if she was considering his pond. "Maybe our suspect might have had help digging the cave."
"Serial killers usually work alone."
"What about those two guys in California?"
"Charles Ng and Leonard Lake." Will knew about the case, mostly because it was one of the lengthiest and most expensive in California's history. Lake and Ng had built a cinderblock bunker in the hills, fitting the chamber with various torture devices and other implements to help them act out their sick fantasies. Both men had filmed themselves taking turns with the victims—men, women and children, some whom had never been identified.
Faith continued, "The Hillside Stranglers worked together, too."
The two cousins had hunted women on the margins, prostitutes and runaways.
Will said, "They had a fake police badge. That's how they got the women to trust them."
