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Paige started with Hope Jackson. Putting on headphones, she started to listen to some of Hope’s music, watching the videos of her performing out on the street. Paige kept an eye on the background of the videos while she did it, trying to use her knowledge of human behavior to try to spot anyone who seemed to be paying Hope too much attention, or who seemed like a potential threat to her.
It quickly became apparent why Hope was performing out there rather than in some big venue. She was an ok singer, but definitely nothing special. Dozens of better people got rejected on TV talent shows every year, and it was a long way short of what Hope would have needed to have a chance of stardom. There were posts about how Hope wrote her own songs, but to Paige, those songs sounded mostly like near copies of other, more successful, songs.
Paige knew that she was being harsh towards the dead woman and wondered if that was down to the way things were going with Christopher. She didn’t know. She hoped not. She was just trying to be realistic. And it might be relevant. The videos suggested, for example, that Hope wasn’t some rising star on the cusp of breaking through to the big time, which in turn suggested that her murder wasn’t down to jealousy over that aspect of her life, or because of some dark dealing in the music industry.
Paige kept looking at Hope’s social media. The few posts that Paige could find that weren’t about Hope’s music were about her pets or pictures of her spending time with a small group of friends. From the files, Paige had an address for Hope, so she plotted it on a map alongside Aiden Martlet’s address. The two lived nowhere near one another, so that probably wasn’t the connection.
Paige switched her attention to Aiden, looking at what she could find of his life. There was much less up online than for Hope, perhaps because he wasn’t trying to promote himself the way she was with her singing. The file said that Aiden worked at the Arnville city museum, so Paige looked that up, finding quite a large museum dedicated to a mixture of objects and artworks from around the city. Again, Paige didn’t get the immediate sense of anything there that might provoke someone to commit murder.
The only point of connection between the two seemed to be the places where they’d been killed. Both bodies had been left tied close to Arnville’s boardwalk, suggesting to Paige that the killer had a preferred stalking ground for his victims. She guessed that the authorities in Arnville would be issuing warnings already, suggesting that people stayed away from the area until the killer was caught. At least, she hoped that they were. The alternative gave the killer far too large a pool of potential victims to choose from.
Was it as random as that? Simply people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time? If so, would they have any better options than just staking out the entire boardwalk, hoping to catch the killer as he struck?
No, Paige didn’t want to believe that. There had to be more to this than the simple selection of victims by random chance. The killer had a reason he was doing this, and his choice of victim fit in with that. It was just a question of working out how.
To work it out, though, Paige would need more information than she currently had. Looking out of the window, she could see the coast approaching, the ocean visible in a vast swathe of blue in the distance, the landscape below more arid than around Washington, the colors of it somehow harsh and primary. Somewhere down there were the answers she was looking for.
The only question now was whether she and Christopher would be able to find them. Ordinarily, Paige wouldn’t have felt any doubt about that, confident in their abilities and in the number of cases that they’d already solved working together.
That was just it, though. They’d solved the cases by working together, with Christopher’s experience as an investigator and ability to run down suspects matched by Paige’s psychological insights. Now, it felt as if things were subtly wrong between the two of them. If that affected their ability to work the case as well as they needed, then this killer might find himself getting away.
No, Paige couldn’t allow that, she wouldn’t. She would bring this killer to justice, whatever it took.
She just hoped that the coroner would have something to help them.
CHAPTER SIX
“We need to get to the coroner’s office, I’ll drive.”
Paige was more than willing to go along with Christopher’s suggestion. There was a car waiting for them, a black sedan that had obviously been arranged by Agent Sauer. Paige wanted to try to make progress on this case before they went to their hotel. It was already mid-afternoon when they landed in Arnville, and Paige didn’t want to let this whole day slip away without trying to get closer to the murderer stalking the town.
Arnville was a pretty coastal town with views out over the ocean and palm trees lining the sea front. Paige’s first impression of it was heat that made her feel slightly less comfortable in a suit more appropriate for Washington. Her second was of a bright, lively town that seemed to cater to plenty of tourists with its streets given over to a mixture of restaurants and galleries, small art studios and attractions. The streets were busy, and Paige found that she could guess who were the locals and who were the tourists using some of the basics of behavioral psychology. It was easy to pick out the ones looking around at the town from the people just hurrying to get to work, the ones who were slightly lost from the ones who clearly knew their way through the city.
Paige caught something else as she watched them too: a hint of fear. Paige could see people looking around nervously as they walked as if trying to make sure that no one was coming up behind them. She could see the way the crowds avoided side alleys now, even in daylight. It seemed that news of what had happened in the town had everyone on edge.
The coroner’s office was on a side street behind a series of offices, in a quiet spot where it presumably didn’t attract a lot of attention. There was a figure waiting for them outside: a man in his fifties wearing a grey shirt and dark slacks. He was slightly overweight, with thinning hair. As she got out of the car, Paige spotted the badge on his belt.
“I’m Detective Basman,” he said as they approached, “You’re the Feds?”
Paige frowned at that. She hadn’t realized that they would be meeting anyone at the coroner’s office.
“Sauer called ahead,” Christopher explained, “and I messaged when we landed.”
He hadn’t mentioned before that he was going to do either of those things. It was only a small thing, but it left Paige wondering about just how much the sudden distance between the two of them was going to affect their work. They needed to be confident that they could communicate with one another if they were going to work together effectively as partners.
“Detective Basman,” Paige said, holding out a hand, “It’s good to meet you.”
He took her hand, the grip strong as if trying to test Paige.
“Likewise, but I should tell you that there are those in my department who aren’t so happy about the FBI being around.”
“They want to solve the case themselves?” Paige guessed.
Basman shook his head, though. “They’re more worried about the attention having the FBI here hunting a serial killer will bring to our town. I know that the mayor wasn’t happy about it, which means that my chief isn’t happy about it.”
So, Paige and Christopher were probably going to be on their own for most of this. Ordinarily, Paige wouldn’t have worried about that. She would have known that she and Christopher were up to any challenge that a killer could throw at them. Right now, though, it was worrying because Paige simply didn’t know if things were going to work the same way with Christopher in this case that they had in the past.
“They’ll be happy enough once the killer is caught,” Christopher said. “And I guess that if you’re here, Detective Basman, that means that you don’t share their view?”
