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“No, Sophia, don’t come.”
But it was too late. She’d already disconnected.
CHAPTER 34
“I just think it might help,” Rebecca Travers was saying from the other end of the connection.
Rivers, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder while clutching a bag of groceries, unlocked his door and stepped into his condo.
Rebecca had phoned to tell him she wanted to make an appeal for Megan’s safe return via a televised press conference. And, she’d said, her family was willing to set up a reward for information leading to Megan’s safe return. Since the investigation had stalled, Rivers had agreed, knowing full well the headache that would ensue when all of the fake tips started coming in, each one having to be checked out. It was remarkable how often a few hundred dollars could loosen someone’s tongue, and Rebecca was offering five thousand. That amount might spur someone to come forward. Rivers, however, wasn’t betting on it. “Okay, I’ll set it up with the PIO,” he said. “She’ll get in touch with you.”
“Thanks.”
He clicked off as he dropped the paper sack onto the counter near the refrigerator, beer bottles clinking as the bag nearly toppled. “Steady,” he ordered the bag and retrieved one bottle before stuffing the remainder of the six-pack and a jug of orange juice into the refrigerator. After shrugging out of his jacket, he cracked open one of the beers and retrieved a wrapped deli sandwich from the bag. As he added extra mustard to the ham-on-rye, he called Roxy O’Grady’s number and left a message that included Rebecca Travers’s request and cell number.
Only then did he take a bite, washing it down with a long swallow from his bottle of Heineken. As he consumed the sandwich, he thought about the missing woman and wondered how she’d disappeared without a trace.
“You’ll figure it out,” he said without a lot of optimism as he eyed the small personal items he’d “borrowed,” all laid out on the counter separating the kitchen from the living area of his condo:
James Cahill’s work gloves and sunglasses.
The necklace from Megan Travers’s apartment.
A tube of lipstick from Sophia Russo’s coat pocket.
Jennifer Korpi’s tension ball.
Rebecca Travers’s pen.
Yeah, of course, it was a little crazy—well, maybe a lot crazy, but he felt compelled to touch the personal items from a case, to feel a physical connection to those involved, be they suspects, victims, or perpetrators.
But, at the very least, it kept him focused.
Once, when he was still married to Astrid, she’d come across him with the items he’d lifted for a particularly grisly case in San Francisco, where a serial killer had actually run a stake through each of his victims’ hearts, as if he thought they were vampires. The killer had been insane, of course, but Astrid, upon finding her husband’s tokens from the victims, had seemed genuinely alarmed before collecting herself.
“You’re crossing a dangerous line here, darling,” she’d said in a tone of amusement tinged with worry as she’d entered his den, a glass of wine in one hand. “You’ve got your little ‘treasures,’ just like the killer with his souvenirs, yes?” She’d eyed him curiously as she’d slung a leg over the corner of his desk, then picked up an earring from one of the killer’s victims. Rubbing it between her manicured fingers, she added, “This isn’t just unusual, you know. It’s freaky. And vastly illegal.”
He hadn’t said anything, just watched her from his chair.
“You could lose your job.” She eyed him over the rim of her glass, her short, sun-streaked hair catching in the light from his desk lamp.
Not if I don’t get caught. Not if you don’t rat me out.
“Or they could . . . send you away, to a psych unit. When you add this to that trance thing you do—how did you describe it? getting into the victim’s or the killer’s head?—I’m telling you, you’re one step away from the loony bin.” He’d felt his jaw grow so tight it had ached, but he hadn’t said a word. “Oh, well, it’s your funeral, I suppose. Just, please, don’t take me with you.”
Wouldn’t dream of it, “darling.”
“Face it, Brett, you’re disturbed. Deeply disturbed.” She’d dropped the earring back onto his desk and made a sour face. “Some secrets are better kept locked away.” Tapping a fingernail on the desk’s surface near the bow from a patent-leather shoe of another victim, her green eyes glinting, she’d said, “This isn’t a game, you know. It’s your life. My life. Our life.”
And she’d been right, he thought now.
He’d wondered over the intervening years if, indeed, it was a game with him, getting away with something.
Or was it a deeper psychological anomaly?
Whatever the reason, tonight he was undeterred. He swiped a paper towel across his face and hands, then tossed it and the wrapper into the trash.
In the dining area, he took a seat at one of the bar stools and started the ritual.
