Wade is now at the coffee table where he’s set his briefcase, holding up his hands in a stop-sign fashion. “Back up. What am I missing?”
Lang’s cell phone rings and he murmurs something under his breath before answering the call and walking into the kitchen.
Wade focuses on me. “What is going on?”
“Lang thinks—” My phone starts to buzz and my lips press together. “Of course. Now my cell phone is ringing.” I pull it from my pocket to find Tabitha on caller ID. “The office manager. I have to take this.” I accept the call. “Yes, Tabitha, what do you have for me?”
“I’m told that the police have cleared the property. I did ask the security company to send out an extra man starting tomorrow night. We’re going to get a code on the door, too, but I’m told that won’t happen until next week.”
“That’s all fine. Thank you.”
“Okay. What else can I do? Because we want to get this under control. We thought security was the answer. We were wrong.”
“Get me the security feed tomorrow morning first thing.”
“I will. Absolutely.”
We disconnect and I set my phone on the table, and at this point, Wade has removed his jacket to stay awhile. “The building was cleared by patrol,” I shout out to Lang.
He leans out of the kitchen. “I know. I just talked to patrol. And what do I have to do to get you to keep beer in the fridge?”
“Bring your own,” I mutter, claiming a spot on the couch.
Lang disappears again and I’m pretty ready for him to take himself home for a shower right about now. Wade sits down in the chair next to me. “Catch me up,” he says. “Start with what the thorn in Lang’s ass is right now, not that there isn’t always a thorn in Lang’s ass.”
“We were having drinks at Dewy’s. We got the call from the office manager that someone had reported a strange man at my building. An anonymous caller, which is how we found out about Dave’s murder.”
“And Lang’s pissed he didn’t get to finish his drink?”
“And at pretty much everything else,” I murmur before I continue. “Patrol did a wellness check on Newman’s home right after we found out about my visitor. Newman was there. Lang thinks that means it couldn’t have been him at my door.”
“He didn’t have time to get home,” Lang says, walking into the living room with a bottle of wine and three glasses in his hand.
“Was he standing at your door again?” Wade asks. “Because the security feed will time stamp when.”
“He was,” I confirm, “and I checked the feed. We have him on camera and time stamped. He had time to get home.”
“He didn’t have time to get home,” Lang argues, filling the glasses.
“We’ve already had this discussion,” I say, accepting a glass. “He had a full hour. That’s plenty of time to get to Westlake. Lang thinks it’s the same guy who killed my father, which makes no sense at all. He’s letting Roberts’s disappearance mess with his common sense. We have the hoodie guy placed at a Poet murder. That and his own stench. He whored himself out last night and has yet to shower.”
Wade looks between us, sips his wine, and then sets his glass down. “Instead of getting in the middle of this fight, why don’t I give you two something else to talk about?” He reaches inside his briefcase and produces a file. “I come bearing gifts. I had this done as part of my class today.”
I set the wineglass down and scoot to the edge of the couch. “The report or the profile?”
“The report. I set you up to meet with a profiler in San Antonio tomorrow morning.”
I purse my lips. “I know why you did that.”
“Because you belong there and with us,” he says. “Because you love it every time you’re involved with the profile team. I also arranged for a couple of techs to meet with you and lend support, but this remains your case.”
“Thank you.” I accept the file. “Thank you for everything. Did you go through the report?”
“I had my whole class, some of the FBI’s finest recruits, go through the file.”
I perk up again and even Lang sits up straighter, setting his glass down. “And?” we both ask.
“And,” Wade says, “there are hundreds of cases across the United States in the past ten years where a toxin is named as the cause of death, but the type of toxin is not properly documented. However, there are only six that include bindings of the body to a chair with some deviation from The Poet’s current methods. Additionally, there are two cases that include bindings of the body and hands with suffocation with a plastic bag as the cause of death.”
The hair on my arms prickles. I was right. He’s killed before. He trained. He practiced. He started hunting and killing, and he got better at murder. He got stronger, but his biggest regret will be the day Roberts disappeared. Because that’s the day I appeared.
Chapter 58
My mind is racing a million miles an hour with questions, so many questions. I want to crawl into Wade’s mind and into that file and know everything now, but I slow myself down. I remind myself not to get buried in the excess, to focus. I ask one simple, important question to start. “Were poems left?”
Wade gives a shake of his head. “But those types of details are easier discovered by calling the detectives on the targeted cases.” He angles closer, his eyes alight with a secret he wants to share. “Ask the next question.”
I’m not sure where he’s going, but I’m eager to find out. “Were any of the cases in Texas?”
“Two.”
Adrenaline surges through me, but I don’t allow it to control me any more than I will allow the man in the hoodie and baseball cap to intimidate me. “When?”
“Both in the last six months,” he says.
“Where?”
“Brownsville and Houston. Brownsville was the first of the two murders.”
My gaze rockets to Lang’s. “Brownsville. That’s where Martin was trying to meet up with the person selling cyanide on the dark web.”
“And Houston is where Roberts suddenly decided to transfer,” Lang says, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Martin and the Brownsville and Houston PDs now. Maybe I’ll get lucky and catch the right detectives working late.” He’s all action now and with good reason. We’re getting close to him. We all feel it.
I turn my attention back to Wade. “What about the man with the hoodie? Were there sightings linked to any cases?”