The Profiler

And now that her immediate emotional vulnerability from that case had faded, and the most important investigation of her career had surfaced, she couldn’t make any mistakes. Not even for Kyle.

As she shuffled her feet, Kyle’s expression got serious. “Greg called. He told me you were on your way.”

Unspoken was that Greg had asked Kyle to watch out for her, but Evelyn heard it in Kyle’s voice.

He stepped closer, seeing far too much as he studied her. “I know you’re working on your friend’s case, Evelyn. If you need anything, I’m here for you.”

She nodded silently, unable to meet his gaze, unable to talk about it yet.

He must have sensed that, because he told her, “I’ve got the boxes. Go check in and I’ll carry them up for you.”

Letting Kyle anywhere near her room? Bad idea. Her mind might’ve been made up, but her hormones didn’t seem to have gotten the message. “You don’t need to do that.”

Amusement sparkled in his eyes, as if he could guess exactly what she was thinking. “Sure I do.”

Instead of wasting time arguing, she checked in and let him follow her up to her room. After he’d set the boxes inside, she shooed him out by telling him she had to be back at the station in three hours with a profile.

And when the door closed behind him, she breathed a nervous sigh of relief. She’d worry about Kyle later. Right now, she had to figure out if Cassie’s abductor really was back, or if Rose Bay had a copycat.

* * *

Turkey vultures soared overhead in wobbly circles, their wings spread in a wide V. They were scavenging, and Kyle knew what that meant. They’d found a fresh carcass.

Kyle looked at the sky, out in the distance, over the high grass that led to the marsh. In his line of work, he’d seen way too much of what one human being could do to another. But the kids always hit him the hardest.

Knowing how important the case in Rose Bay was to Evelyn made it even worse. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since he’d seen her at the hotel. How the hell was she profiling this?

He prayed she’d get the answers she’d been searching for all these years, but even if she did, they were unlikely to be good. And there wasn’t much he could do besides join the search for the girl who’d gone missing yesterday.

Behind him, police officers and civilian volunteers from the search parties were heading in the opposite direction, toward the overgrown field beside the cemetery. Overhead, a helicopter buzzed, on its fifth hour of an aerial search.

Officially, despite his training, Kyle wasn’t supposed to be involved at all. He wasn’t here for this case. But his current mission only claimed his nighttime hours, so he and his Bureau partner, Gabe Fontaine, had volunteered with the civilian search parties looking for Brittany Douglas this morning.

Gabe wasn’t aware of Evelyn’s connection to the case, but Kyle didn’t need to tell him about it for Gabe to want to help. In HRT, they were often a last resort—an overwhelming tactical solution when all else failed—so they’d seen a lot of screwed-up situations. But the ones where kids were in danger tended to piss off the guys the most. The rest of his team would probably take a shift later in the afternoon.

When he and Gabe had arrived, he’d pulled aside Noreen Abbott, one of the administrative assistants from the Rose Bay PD who was coordinating the search parties. He’d quietly told her their full names and shown her their badges, knowing they’d be checked out otherwise. All volunteers were, because sometimes the perpetrator joined the searches. He didn’t want anyone wasting time doing background checks on him and Gabe.

Exhaustion weighed down his steps. He’d managed a three-hour nap after his team came in from their mission around 8:00 a.m. But he and Gabe had vowed to help as soon as they were marginally functional. Sleep was overrated, anyway.

Except that now, as the turkey vultures narrowed in on something they wanted down below, sleep sounded like a damn fine idea.

“Shit,” Gabe muttered next to him. He swiped a hand over his forehead and Kyle knew it wasn’t the ninety-degree heat, but fear of what they might find that was making his normally unflappable teammate sweat.

“Not a good sign, turkey vultures,” a man said.

Kyle turned around, surprised someone had come up behind them without him or Gabe noticing.

And the man was big, considering his stealth. He wasn’t tall—he was actually a solid four inches shorter than Kyle’s six feet. But he was wide. And none of his girth was fat. He appeared to be in his sixties, although Kyle’s gut said he was younger, and the deep lines on his face were from hard living.

Kyle held out his hand. “I’m Kyle. This is my friend Gabe. We’re here on a company trip, so we figured we’d help with the search.”

The man’s dark gray eyes narrowed in his craggy face, then he put his hand in Kyle’s and shook forcefully, before pulling his hand free. “Frank Abbott.”

Gabe gestured back toward the sign-up table for the search parties. “Are you related to the girl handling the sign-in?”

“My niece,” Frank replied. “She works at the station. And I didn’t have any jobs today I couldn’t reschedule, so here I am.” He heaved out a heavy sigh. “This again.”

“You lived here during the original abductions?” Gabe asked.

“I’ve lived here all my life. Can’t believe this shit has started up again.” He shook his head, suddenly looking tired, and headed toward the marsh, glancing back to call, “You want to check this out with me?”

Hell, no. Instead of saying it, Kyle nodded tightly and fell into step beside Frank. The older man walked fast, with purpose, his jaw set in a grim line.

The sounds of the search party faded as they walked, replaced by the strange clapping sounds someone had told him were made by Clapper Rail birds. It would’ve been peaceful had the circumstances been different.

Beside him, Gabe and Frank were silent, too. Gabe had the same training he did, the same ability to force back fear and get the job done, but a civilian wouldn’t. To Frank’s credit, he didn’t slow as the low, nasal whine of the vultures reached their ears.

Kyle tried to prepare himself as they continued walking, as the marsh grasses got taller and thicker, as his feet began to get stuck in the muddy ground.

“Watch your step,” Frank warned, trudging ahead without looking back. “The marsh is low now, but to get to the vultures, we have to go in.”

“If there’s a body out here, wouldn’t the alligators have gone after it by now?” Gabe spoke up, shoving back blond hair in need of a cut.

Frank snorted and kept going. “No gators. Not in these marshes. Down the coast, maybe. But not here. Come on.”

Kyle followed, his shoes sinking deeper until it was difficult to pull them free. The marsh grasses crept up around his knees as they got closer to the water. High enough to hide a body. And definitely deserted enough. The sound of the other searchers had become nothing more than a low murmur.

Kyle knew that as soon as Evelyn gave her profile, she’d be out there among them, just like she’d probably insisted on doing eighteen years ago. It was easy to imagine her as a young girl. Her best friend torn from her life, abducted only hours after Evelyn had seen her.

Even at twelve years old, Evelyn wouldn’t have sat home hoping everything would turn out okay. He could picture her, green eyes too big for her face, long hair in pigtails, wearing the determined look that seemed to be her default expression. There was no way she would’ve tolerated being left behind.

And he knew there was no way she’d leave Rose Bay now until she uncovered the truth. No matter how horrible it was, no matter what it cost her.

The image of Evelyn faded as the smell of something rotting wafted up. Please, God, don’t let it be Brittany Douglas.

He tried not to inhale too deeply as Frank splashed into the low marsh waters, startling three turkey vultures. They gave deep, guttural hisses, then took off into the sky, revealing a carcass along the edge of the marsh.

The breath stalled in his lungs. It was the remains left by some hunter, but it wasn’t human. Just a deer. He shut his eyes and allowed himself a moment of relief.

Beside him, Gabe sighed. “Thank God.”

Frank stared down at the carcass, then off into the distance, where the marsh wound through tall grasses and eventually disappeared from sight. “Let’s keep looking.”

Far behind them, the search was continuing.

* * *

Each time Evelyn read the note that had been taped to Brittany Douglas’s bike, goose bumps rose on her skin.

It wasn’t so hard,

I went to the yard,

Where you’d left the poor child alone.

When I got there,

It felt like a dare.

I thought to myself, Take her and run.

It matched the notes from eighteen years ago...and yet, it didn’t. Back then, just like now, the nursery rhymes focused on two ideas. First, that the child was being neglected in some way by the parents. And second, that the abductor was rescuing her from that.

But eighteen years ago, the abductor hadn’t displayed such obvious joy at the abduction. That idea dominated the new note, a macabre revision of “Old Mother Hubbard.”

Unlike the notes eighteen years ago, which had talked to the victim, this one was directed at the parents. In context, the change made sense, given the increased focus on the abduction stage.

But was it because the abductor had developed a taste for the actual abduction? Or because it was a new predator entirely? She’d pored over the case details from the three old abductions and the new one for more than an hour, but still wasn’t positive.

And that was the most important part of the profile she’d promised to deliver to the cops in less than two hours.

So far, what she knew were the statistics. She knew the chances of a child abductor going dormant for eighteen years and then starting up again were slim. She knew Brittany Douglas, at eleven years old, was the average age of child abduction and murder victims. Statistics said Brittany had first met her abductor within a quarter mile of her home. Statistics also said she’d been dead before Evelyn had even arrived in town.

But it didn’t matter how slim Brittany’s chances were; if there was any hope at all, Evelyn had to try.

A rush of cold swept over her in the too-warm hotel room, leaving behind an intense fear. The fear that she might fail.

Evelyn tried to ignore it as she picked up the photograph of Brittany Douglas. With her long, dark brown hair, hazel eyes and shy smile, Brittany looked nothing like Cassie. In fact, none of the victims looked alike. The only similarity was age and gender. And the fact that the killer either believed—or wanted police to think he believed—that their parents were neglecting them.

“Damn it!” Evelyn sprang to her feet, raking her hands through her bun so violently she’d have to fix it before she went back to the station. The most important case of her life and she was blowing it.

Was Dan right? Was she too inexperienced in child abduction cases to spot the important details? Too personally invested to see the case clearly?

Evelyn blew out a heavy breath. No, she could do this. She’d been training all her life for this case. She was going to put everything she had into it. She couldn’t consider the profile from eighteen years ago, couldn’t review the original suspects, because it might taint her analysis. Especially if this was a new abductor.

She had to rely on her training and the case evidence to tell her about the perpetrator. And even though Brittany’s abductor hadn’t left much behind, he’d left something of himself. They always did.

Dropping back onto the hotel bed where she’d spread out the case files, Evelyn lined up the four notes. Direct communication from the abductor could tell her a lot or it could lead her totally off track.

A smart perp, knowing the police were going to analyze the notes, would use them to misdirect the investigation. And everything about this case, from the lack of forensic details to the high-risk abduction right out of the child’s front yard, screamed that this was an intelligent perp who planned carefully.

But the notes also had an odd intensity about them. He was taunting, yes, but there was more to it. The abductor had left clues to his identity in the words. And Evelyn vowed that would be his undoing.

She glanced at her watch again. Ninety-eight minutes and counting. Somehow, in that time, she needed to figure out whether the original Nursery Rhyme Killer was back or if they had a copycat.

* * *

The Rose Bay Police Station’s briefing room was jammed full. Cops, both in uniform and in street clothes, watched her, all with exhaustion slouching their shoulders and fear lurking in their eyes. FBI CARD agents stood stiffly among them, trying to look confident. The smell of sweat and dirt, of too many bodies packed too closely together, overwhelmed the inefficient air-conditioning. The buzz of voices came to an instant halt as Evelyn stepped up to the front of the room.

She gripped the podium with slick hands. She’d given hundreds of profiles in her year’s tenure with BAU, but she suddenly felt all of twelve again.

She had an instant flashback to the last time she’d been at the Rose Bay Police Station. She remembered sitting on a plastic chair, her feet dangling. She’d held tight to her grandpa’s hand on one side and her grandma’s on the other while the cops asked unending questions. Did she remember anything unusual from the day Cassie had gone missing? Had she ever seen Cassie talk to a stranger? Did she know anything that could help them bring Cassie home?

Now, just like then, those answers seemed elusive.

Someone in the audience coughed loudly, bringing Evelyn back to the present. She looked over the sea of law enforcement officers, and jerked backward at the animosity she saw in one cop’s eyes.

Jack Bullock. It had to be. He was in his midforties now, not the rookie who’d questioned her until she’d cried so many years ago. But there was no mistaking the too-sharp planes of his face, the deep-set brown eyes, the thick shoulders stacked on a stocky body. The thin streaks of silver through his brown hair and the lines etched deep into his forehead were new, but not the intimidating glare.

Evelyn redirected her gaze. “I’m Evelyn Baine, from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. My job is to review the evidence in your case to give you a new perspective—a behavioral portrait of your perpetrator. I’m here to tell you how he thinks, why he’s choosing his victims and what he’ll do next.”

The officers seemed to lean forward as one, glancing at one another as if to gauge their colleagues’ reactions to her. At the front of the crowd, Tomas was listening carefully, his deep-brown eyes filled with too much hope, too much expectation.

She prayed she could provide him and his officers with what they needed to find Brittany. Looking down at the profile she’d furiously finished minutes before racing back to the station, Evelyn began. “Your perpetrator is a male in his late forties or fifties. He’s almost certainly white.”

“Why?” someone from the back of the room called.

“Why do I say he’s white? Frankly, because High Street is still all white. Someone who’s not would be noticed, even now.”

“Even now? Does that mean he’s been here before? Is it the same guy from eighteen years ago?” Tomas’s voice vibrated with dread.

Nervous whispering rippled through the room.

“I’ll get back to that.” She knew discussing those details first would distract everyone. And she didn’t want them to miss anything that could help them find Brittany.

“First, let’s talk about how the abductor fits in. He lives close by, either here or in a nearby community, and has for a long time. It’s possible he moved away and came back, but he’s recognized here. He’s accepted as belonging, which gives him a plausible reason to be in the vicinity of the crime scene.”

“Hold on,” Jack demanded. “You think the asshole we’re looking for belongs here? He’s well liked?”

“Probably. It’s unlikely he has a lot of close friends, but he is socially competent. He doesn’t stand out. If asked about him, people would probably describe him as being decent, and if not likable, at least not unlikable. And he’s intelligent. He doesn’t act inappropriate around children, although a closer look into his background may reveal a suspicious incident. I’ll get into that later, when we talk about motivation.”

“This guy is grabbing kids,” the officer beside Jack argued. “How can he be decent?”

“I didn’t say he was decent,” Evelyn clarified. “Just that people view him that way. We’re not talking about the usual suspects here, because this guy is too smart to attract attention to himself. When we find him, people aren’t going to say they always thought something was off about him. Quite the opposite. Everyone will be shocked, because he’s been living among you.”

Officers shuffled, looking down at their feet, frowning. When they looked back up at her, their faces showed a mixture of trepidation, wariness and disbelief.

“The offender drives a vehicle that doesn’t stand out, and it is conducive to hiding someone inside. It could be a van with tinted windows or a sedan with ample trunk room. He also has a job with flexible hours. He works for himself, has hours that change, or a job that would require him to be away from the office for periods of time. The kind of thing where people wouldn’t notice unusual absences.”

“But Brittany was taken at night,” an officer near the podium pointed out. “Why would he need to miss work during the day?”

“Because he stalked her first. This offender is a planner. He knew Brittany’s routine and her family’s schedules. He wrote this note in advance and it fit the situation when she was abducted. She was in the yard alone at that time. And he knew she would be, because he’d watched it happen before. So he waited for the right time to grab her.”

Evelyn glanced around at the attentive officers and added, “He’s probably developed a ruse to approach children. He may have used it when he abducted Brittany, so she wouldn’t be concerned when he approached her in the yard, or he may have used it beforehand, to test her response. A lot of serial criminals do this, especially those who target strangers.”

“I thought you said this guy was known in the community?” Carly Sanchez spoke up, her voice clear and loud.

“Yes, but not necessarily to the children he’s abducting. So, he may try to test them. A child who’s eager to please or naive about strangers is a more likely candidate than one who’s street-savvy. Of course, this is also dependent on his motivation.”

“Which is what?” Carly pressed.

Evelyn wished she had one absolute answer for them. “There are two possibilities,” she began. “The first is that his motivation is exactly what he’s telling us in the notes—that he believes the child is being neglected. If that’s the case, he sees himself as her savior. And he has a tragedy in his own past involving an important young female. It could be a daughter, a sister or someone else he cared for deeply. He’s using that loss to justify his actions now.”

Jack jumped in. “What’s the other possibility?”

“Well, as I said, this offender is intelligent. He may be leaving the notes to throw us off track. And if that’s the case, then his true motivation is molestation.”

“Damn it,” Jack burst out. “We’ve got to go talk to Wiggins again.”

Before Evelyn could ask who Wiggins was, Carly demanded loudly, “Which do you think it is?”

“I don’t know.” It galled her, but pretending to have the answer when there wasn’t enough behavioral evidence to conclusively support either option would do more damage than admitting the truth.

Except perhaps to the stock these officers put in her profile, Evelyn thought ruefully as Jack shouted, “Isn’t it your job to know?”

The room went quiet, and Evelyn tried to pretend it didn’t bother her. “When I know more, so will you. But it’s possible both motivations are right. If the abductions are driven by molestation, the offender might have tried to convince himself as well as us that he’s saving his victims. An excuse he tries to believe to make himself feel better.”

Jack just scowled at her, but Tomas cut in. “What about the connection to the earlier abductions? You said you’d tell us if this was the same abductor.” He rubbed a hand across his temple and asked, “Is it?” as though he was afraid to hear the answer.

“Yes.”

Evelyn had expected an eruption of voices, but instead Tomas’s voice, barely above a whisper, seemed to echo as he asked, “Are you sure this isn’t a copycat?”

“Yes.” She’d gone over it again and again in her hotel room and it was the only way to explain the similarities.

“Take the notes, to start. I know there’ve been a few false confessions over the years, and those people always knew nursery rhymes were left at the scene, because that was in the papers. But the station has done a good job of keeping exactly how the nursery rhymes were changed out of the press. And these notes are too similar—in tone, content, style, everything—to be from a copycat.”

“Damn it,” she heard Tomas muttering, new stress in his voice.

“I’d like to have an expert in handwriting from the FBI give a second opinion, but the notes are our best indicator. And this perpetrator just knew too much to be a copycat.”

She frowned down at her profile, not really seeing the words, not really needing them. “The abductions are also much too similar to be a coincidence. The lack of forensic evidence and the pattern of abducting the child from her own property late in the evening or at night after stalking her first suggest a patient, determined predator.”

She surveyed the room, wanting everyone to understand why she’d concluded that they were looking for the same person. “I reviewed all the evidence from this case first, separately from the older cases. And everything about this abduction points to someone who’s done it before. It was way too savvy for a first abduction, and way too close in the details from the older cases that were never released to the public.”

“And he’s either molesting these girls or trying to ‘save’ them, whatever that means?” an officer asked.

“That’s right. Although, this time around, his motivation has definitely shifted. With this latest abduction, he’s enjoying the actual act of kidnapping more. He’s fantasizing about it beforehand and it’s part of the thrill, maybe as much as his ultimate motivation of molestation or his idea of saving them.”

“Then why did he stop for so long?” Tomas asked, his voice even wearier than it had been a few minutes earlier.

“There are a number of possibilities.” Evelyn ticked them off on her fingers. “He was jailed for another crime and recently released. He’s had an illness that prevented him from carrying out the abductions and he’s since gotten well. Or he was otherwise prevented from carrying them out for a period of time—because, for example, someone in his life would have noticed.”

It looked like Jack was going to interrupt, so she said quickly, “It’s also possible he didn’t really stop. If it’s molestation he’s after, he might have had an available victim in his life, like a family member. Or he obtained a position in the community that gave him easy access to children. He could have moved away for a while and still been abducting children without leaving the notes, so the cases weren’t connected. Or he was abducting children who wouldn’t be missed at all.”

“What, like runaways?” Tomas asked.

“Yes,” Evelyn said. “Another possibility, although unlikely, is that this offender’s precipitating stressors—whatever set him off in the first place and made him act on his fantasies—stopped and didn’t start again for eighteen years. Or that he relied on trophies to relive the experience and those satisfied him until recently.”