AllFreeNovel
Share Us
4
Alex couldn’t help thinking about the missing woman at lunch. Where was she? Logan was right. If she’d wanted to run off, there were better ways to do it. Maybe the parents weren’t involved, but statistically, family was implicated when someone went missing. Authorities usually looked closely at a spouse, but Tracy Mendenhall was a widow.
When they got back to the office Alex requested a check on the parents’ financial records. An hour later she got a call telling her there was no sign of an inheritance or any influx of money that might cause Tracy to stage a kidnapping. Nor was there a significant outflow of money. It was awful to think about, but family members sometimes paid hired guns to dispose of troublesome relatives.
She was going through the notes in Lucas’s file when Logan came up to her desk. “I think we have a problem,” he said. She knew that expression. Something was wrong.
“Four other women are missing in our general area. The descriptions match Tracy’s. Young, attractive, long dark hair, same approximate build. I requested information from all the different police stations in Prince William County, but not everyone’s gotten back to me yet.”
That niggling feeling Alex had turned into a cold stab of fear. She swallowed the bile in her throat, pushing away the images that too often tried to force their way into her mind. The ones that kept her awake at night, making her afraid to sleep because they waited for her to let them in.
“Any bodies?” she choked out.
She noticed Logan’s raised eyebrows and took a deep breath to calm herself. Her heart was pounding.
“No. And no leads.” He sighed. “This makes five in the same county.”
Alex frowned. “If we do have a serial, where are the bodies? Even if they’re well hidden, eventually they’re found. Of course, Gacy buried twenty-nine on his property and threw four others into the Des Plaines River. And Dahmer had the remains of eleven in his apartment. But they were the exceptions, not the rule.”
Logan nodded. “You’re right. Maybe this is just a coincidence?”
“I doubt that, and so do you.”
“Then maybe we’ll see something to help us with our profile when we get the records about the other disappearances.”
“We’ve got to get busy generating a victimology for all the police departments,” Alex said.
“Let’s start now. We can update it as information comes in. We need to get this done before a body actually does show up.”
Alex nodded, the words she wanted to say stuck in her throat. Could Logan tell something was wrong?
“I’ll start on the checklist while you let the police at each station know we’ll send it to them as soon as it’s ready,” she finally managed to say. “If they can effectively canvass the neighbors, family, and friends of all the missing women, that will help us determine if we have a pattern here.”
Logan stared at her for a moment, but then he nodded and set off for his desk.
Alex knew she needed help, but fear and pride prevented her from asking for it. If she told Jeff and Logan the truth, they’d make her take another break, and she just couldn’t go back to the psychologist the Bureau assigned to her. Her job was her identity. Without it, she was nothing. If they made her stop working again, she was certain she’d shatter into a thousand pieces. She prayed every morning, asking God to take away this unreasonable fear that had worsened in recent weeks. But where was He? Why wouldn’t He answer? After He saved her from a madman who’d tried to destroy her, she’d had so much peace. The reality that God loved her had been a burning fire in her heart.
So why was she feeling like this now? She felt sick ... and guilty. God must be so ashamed of her. She should be stronger by now. What did the Scripture say? Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might? She didn’t feel strong, though. She was so weak. What was wrong with her?
Yes, she knew she was loved and treasured by God. How many times had she been told that? But she still needed something to define her as a person, didn’t she? Surely God wasn’t interested in people who were useless.
The psychologist’s response when Alex informed her she was ready to get on with her life suddenly came back to her. “I’m glad to hear that,” Dr. Keegan had said. “But just remember this, Alex. Many times relapse is part of the healing process. Sometimes people who’ve been through severe trauma go through a period of euphoria and believe they’ve recovered. But the damage done to their inner selves is just hiding in the dark. Waiting to come out. And eventually it will.”
Alex remembered the feeling of superiority that caused her to dismiss the doctor’s concerns. She didn’t understand. Alex was a Christian. She wouldn’t relapse. God had healed her, and she would stay that way.
Yet she hadn’t been able to banish the images that tortured her. Sometimes she still woke during the night gasping for air, her hands clawing at her neck for a noose that wasn’t there. And for a few seconds she was convinced she was still in that warehouse, struggling to breathe, her life ebbing away. Strangely, death wasn’t what scared her. The process of dying was what turned her body cold and made her feel out of control. She’d battled images from her childhood for years. But this was worse. Much worse. How much more could one person bear?
She moved to the break room, where her hands shook as she poured coffee from the carafe into a mug. This had to stop. Whatever it took. She would not let a psychotic serial killer rob her of the rest of her life. She just couldn’t.
Tracy lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for the lights to go off. She’d thought about that day over and over. If only she’d been smarter. Not so gullible. But it wasn’t really her fault.
When she was first brought to this place, she could hardly keep her eyes open. Her eyelids felt as if they were weighted down. Little by little, flashes of memories came back to her until she was able to recall everything that happened.
She’d gone for her usual morning jog. When she’d come around a corner, she’d noticed another jogger sitting by the edge of the path, holding his right foot and lightly groaning.
“Are you okay?” she’d asked him.
When he looked up, she saw a good-looking man with blue eyes and dark hair with a casual cut that fit his face.
