It’s hard to concentrate on my cases. Another night’s restlessness has taken its toll. I know I had another nightmare last night, but once again the foggy, dreamlike veil blocks my memory. My weary body and puffy eyes are a testament to my insomnia. I smile to myself, imagining Sam’s response to my obvious lack of sleep. One guess what she’ll think kept me up all night! God, Sam. Between work and Josh I never phoned her back to see if she was feeling better.
I pick the handset up, but then sense someone in the doorway. I look up, expecting and hoping to see Josh. I think perhaps I owe him an apology.
Instead it’s Rivers.
“Morning, boss,” I say, eager to hide my weariness and my disappointment that he isn’t Josh. I fiddle with my keyboard, moving it closer to me. Rivers is silent, I look up. I’m immediately concerned by the look on his face. “What’s up?”
“It’s Sam, Sophie.”
“What?” A tiny voice squeaks out of me.
“She’s missing. Cops think she’s been taken from her apartment.”
“What?” I stand up, sending my chair reeling backward. It hits the wall noisily and bounces back.
Josh enters my office with a strange look on his face.
“Have you heard?” I ask him.
“Heard what?”
Rivers intervenes. “Wright’s missing and there’s evidence of a struggle at her apartment.”
“Oh my God,” Josh says.
“What happened? When?” I ask, leaning heavily on my desk.
“Her cleaner called it in. She turned up at seven-thirty this morning to find clothes and furniture strewn all over the place. Sam could have been abducted anytime in the last thirty-six hours.”
“She phoned in sick yesterday, didn’t she?” Josh says.
I’m too shell-shocked to say anything.
“Yes, but it certainly looks suspicious now.”
I should have known something was up. Sam’s never been sick the whole time I’ve been here. If I wasn’t so distracted by Marco…
“Did she speak to Janet personally?”
“Janet swears it was her voice on the phone. Croaky, but her voice. But we can’t be certain. We’re getting phone records pulled now.”
“What about the drive-bys? Did they see anything?”
“No. Patrol cars have been going by every couple of hours, but nothing so far. We’re tracking down the officers on duty in the past thirty-six hours.”
I nod, still not able to absorb what’s happened.
“I’ve got to get over there.” I start for the door, gathering my bag and searching for my keys on the desk. “Who’s heading up the investigation?”
“They’ve got Sandra Couples on it.”
I know Sandra. She’s the best in Missing Persons.
I remember the vision I had at Sam’s place, an image of the killer. I saw him behind Sam! It wasn’t an image from Jean’s death, or Teresa’s or Susan’s—it was a premonition of Sam’s abduction!
“Oh my God,” I say, stepping backward and sinking into my chair, nearly missing it. “It’s the D.C. Slasher. He’s got Sam.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Josh says. “It could be a kidnapping. Someone who figures they’d get a good ransom for an FBI agent.”
“We’re looking into both possibilities,” Rivers says.
“Who’s working it our end?” I ask.
“The Washington Field Office. They’re the best people to investigate it at the moment.”
“I want in.”
“Anderson, you and Wright are friends, you can’t be objective.”
“But I know her. I know her movements. For God’s sake, I was with her the night before last.” I can’t believe Sam’s missing. And he’s got her.
“The night before last?” Rivers says.
I nod.
“If it was a fake phone call yesterday, you might be the last person to have seen her. What did you do?”
“We worked on the Slasher profile at her place.”
“What? Wright was supposed to be off that case!” Rivers shouts, taking his glasses off.
“She was helping me out. Handing over the case. I left around ten-thirty. Please, sir, you’ve got to let me help with this case.”
Rivers is silent. I think he knows that I was helping Sam out rather than the other way around, but he doesn’t pursue it.
Finally he speaks, putting his glasses back on. “Look, go over and tell Couples what you know. I’m not saying you can work the case, but you can go over to Wright’s, have a look around and talk to Couples.”
I stand up. “Thank you, sir.”
Josh steps farther into the room. “I’d like to be involved too.”
“Get real, Marco. I’m not sending you both over. We’ve got D.C.’s finest, Agents Krip and O’Donnell from the field office, Marty from the lab and now Anderson’s going over there too. How would it look?”
Rivers is right. If we send over too many from Quantico, it looks as though we don’t trust the local forces or even our own field agents. There’d be political ramifications.
“Besides, we want to keep this quiet for the moment. The last thing I need is the press getting hold of it.”
“I’m gone,” I say, maneuvering past Rivers and Josh.
They both look at me, and Josh mouths, “You okay?”
I force a smile and a nod before dashing out the door.
I unlock my car and the memory of last night’s dream comes back. Murder. Could it have been about Sam? No, it can’t be. Not Sam. I remember the blood in my dream and bile rises. He’s got Sam. I begin to hyperventilate and I lean on the car. I take in deep, slow breaths. Think of something reassuring…
He keeps them. He keeps his victims for three to eight days. I’ve still got time to find her. Time to find him.
Sam’s apartment is busy with activity when I arrive. I flash my FBI credentials to the local cop at the front of her apartment block and proceed up the stairs. I show my badge again at the door to Sam’s apartment. Inside there are about ten officials. Camera flashes go off every couple of seconds, and several forensics people are at work, looking for fingerprints and other evidence. Marty is directing one of the photographers, getting him to zoom in on a piece of pottery that lies shattered in Sam’s hallway. A potted plant. Dirt surrounds the pottery. The place is a mess. There was one hell of a struggle.
Marty sees me right away and comes over. At first he doesn’t say anything. What can he say?
Then: “I’ll let you know the minute we find something.”
“How does it look?”
He looks away.
“That good?” I bite my lower lip.
“We have fingerprints, but it’ll be a day or two before we see if we’ve got any unfriendlies.”
“You’ll need to eliminate mine as well. I was here the night before last.”
Marty nods. “Yours are on the FBI database anyway.”
Sandra Couples sees me and walks over.
“Agent Anderson,” she says formally.
Marty takes this as his exit cue and gives me a forced smile before going back to supervise the forensics team.
Now in normal conversational range and just the two of us, Sandra’s tone changes.
“God, Sophie, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this has happened.” She pushes her hand through her neat, graying bob. Her skin is weather-beaten, no doubt from the fifteen-odd years she spent down in Florida, and her large, hazel eyes blink every couple of seconds.
“Thanks, Sandra.”
“I’ve got my best guys on it.” She looks over her shoulder at the hive of activity.
I get straight down to business. “I was here the night before last.”
She nods and flips open her notepad. “What time you leave?”
“About ten-thirty.”
“Looks like you may have been the last to see her.”
“That’s what Rivers said. The call’s being checked?”
“Agents Krip and O’Donnell are getting her phone records. So what did you guys do on Wednesday night?”
“We were working on the Slasher case, looking over the profile.” I look at the photos and files, still spread across the dining-room table.
Sandra follows my gaze and nods. “We haven’t touched anything there yet. Do you want to have a look? See if it’s the way you left it?”
We walk across to the table. Why didn’t I realize Sam was in danger? Why didn’t I realize that the image of the killer was a premonition? I wish the visions had never come back.
Come back? Why had they come back? Why now? First John, then Sam. Someone close to me was in danger when I was a child, and that must have triggered my psychic abilities. I shiver, remembering how I felt as John’s killer. And now the premonitions are back because someone else I love is in danger—Sam. But I didn’t see it.
I’m overwhelmed by guilt. Old guilt from John, and now new guilt from Sam. It’s too much.
I pull myself back. I need to be objective to help Sam. To save Sam. I look around the area and the struggle is obvious. The coffee table is cleared of magazines, glasses and the clock. These items are strewn across the floor.
Sandra sees me eyeing the area.
“This is where the struggle started,” she says.
I pull out some surgical gloves from my bag and move straight to the area. I kneel down with my back to Sandra, examining the area. It looks as if Sam was dragged across her carpet, grabbing at the coffee table for leverage and for a weapon.
I look up. Sandra’s standing next to me, waiting until I’m finished. I stand up.
“She ran this way—” Sandra points to the only path between the living room and Sam’s bedroom “—and into the bedroom.”
The bed is ruffled but not slept in, and the bedroom window is open.
“Have you found her gun?”
“Yeah, it’s underneath the counter in the kitchen.
Think it may have been kicked there in the struggle.” We make our way back into the main room.
I look around. “So, how the hell did he get in?”
“No sign of forced entry, but the bedroom window was open.”
I shake my head. “I don’t buy it. Sam told me she was checking the locks. Being careful.”
Sandra scribbles in her notepad. “We’ll keep looking.”
“Any idea of the time all this occurred?” I ask.
“Yes, actually.” For the first time Sandra smiles and the creases that run between the sides of her nose to the corners of her mouth deepen. “Doesn’t get better than this.”
She puts on her gloves and carefully picks up the clock that’s usually on Sam’s coffee table. She turns it around.
“Ten forty-five.” The hands have stopped.
“So we’re either looking at fifteen minutes after you left, ten forty-five the morning she phoned in sick or ten forty-five last night.”
“What about the neighbors?”
“I’ve got two of my people interviewing everyone they can get their hands on, but most people are at work.”
“Someone must have heard something.”
“That’s what we figure. Downstairs particularly, but no one’s home.”
The people who live directly under Sam would have been the most likely to hear the scuffle. Glass was broken and the potted plant would have made quite a racket as it toppled over.
“So, do you want to look at this stuff now?” Sandra asks, pointing to the dining-room table and the D.C. files.
“Sure.”
I move toward the table, trying desperately to recall how it had looked when I left on Wednesday night. Was anything missing? Was anything new on the table?
“Is that how you left it?”
“I think so.” I finger the photos with my gloved hands. “To be honest, it would be hard to pick up one missing photo, or one extra.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“We’ll have to check the files against the inventory. Make sure everything’s there.”
“My guys have photographed it extensively.” She pauses, and then whispers, “Do you think it’s the Slasher?”
I look up at her and bite my lip. “Yes.”
My visions are proof of that, but I’m not going to tell anyone about them. Sam is still alive and I’m going to save her. If I can just control these visions, maybe they can help me do just that.
“I might call in Flynn and Jones. Get them to check out the place too,” Sandra says.
“Good idea. We’ve got to find him, and fast.”
Sandra puts her hand on my arm.
I return my focus to the table and see Sam’s completed profile underneath a stack of photos. “Make sure you run this for prints, Sandra.”
“We’ll try everything.”
I think about our guy, our perp. He wears gloves but I can imagine him wanting to touch the paper that words about him were written on. It would make him feel closer to it and give his ego a boost—to hold his own profile in his hands. It would add to the thrill.
“I’ll give Flynn and Jones a call now.” Sandra flips open her phone.
“Mind if I hang around?” I ask out of professional courtesy.
“Go for it,” she says, dialing the number and walking away.
I look at the table and case notes sprawled across it but I still can’t see anything out of place. I lift up some of the photos, careful not to upset the orderly mess. Given that there are over sixty photos and dozens of printed pages, I decide the process is futile. We’ll have to compare the contents of the files with the inventory list.
I force myself into Sam’s bedroom, hopeful to find something. Some clue. I resist the urge to curl into the fetal position and cry. I need to stay rational and focused on the case. That’s the way I can help Sam.
I sink down on the edge of her bed, staring glassily into the mirror above her dressing table. I’m going to assume Sam was taken the night I was here and then the perp forced her to phone in sick, to delay the inevitable discovery of her disappearance. I close my eyes and do the math in my head. I’ve got between thirty-six and a hundred and fifty hours to find Sam, if the guy sticks with his pattern of holding the victims for three to eight days.
I open my eyes and see it.
A small pendant hangs from the side of the mirror. Insignificant enough, except that I’ve never seen Sam wear it, and the shape it forms is an exact replica of the tattoo I saw on Jean’s thigh. This symbol must mean something. The killer’s deliberately left this in Sam’s bedroom, taunting us, assuming no one would discover the clue, or know what it meant. I use a pen to lift the pendant off the small hook it hangs from and hold it up to the light. A small smile plays on my lips. The killer has slipped up and I’m one step closer to saving Sam. This is the something we were missing.