The second option seemed absurd. He was seventeen and—if she had any input into it—would live under their roof for another three or four years, at minimum. And he didn’t have a job—he certainly would never be approved for a mortgage, not without her or George signing on.
Okay, so a random drive-by was the only solution, though the theory had its own plot holes. Unless there was a hot girl in the front yard, Scott didn’t pay attention to homes and had certainly never called a number on a real estate sign. She glanced at the tracking software, her son’s truck following a return route back to her house.
“Here.” George stepped into the office, a chilled glass of wine in hand. He came around her desk, and she closed the window before he could see the screen. He held out the flute, and she took it with a grateful smile.
“Thank you.” She took a sip.
“I’m sorry for going behind your back with Scott’s truck.”
“Just tell me you put gas in it.”
“I did.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “He’ll be okay, Nita.”
She nodded and let him put his arm around her. He didn’t need to know about the Realtor call. Not now. Not until she could figure out what was really going on with their son.
CHAPTER 21
I had spent two days immersed in the files, surrounded by death.
Randall Thompson, if he was the Bloody Heart Killer, had killed six boys. Six deaths and one escape. My job was to do an independent assessment based on the information I had about BH, which meant discarding anything I knew about Randall Thompson and approaching the profile without bias.
It should be easy, given how much information I had at my disposal. Full case files on each crime? I hadn’t had this much data since my doctoral days.
I stood in my office and stared at the wall between my office and Meredith’s. The two framed prints had been taken down and leaned against the love seat, giving me a large landscape to work with. I’d used a piece of chalk and divided the dark-green wall into three columns, each about six feet wide. The first column was labeled “Crime Scenes.” The second was labeled “Victims.” The third was “Possible Suspects.” I stared at the interior of each column.
Every serial killer is fed by a reason.
Some can’t handle their violent impulses. Each interaction with a person is a risk, and they control themselves through those risks until they break. After they break, they experience a reset of sorts and continue on. The kill is like a meal, one that satisfies their hunger for a period of time before they need to eat again. That type of killer is often sloppy, engages in crimes of convenience, and can be unpredictable in their choice of victim.
Others are sociopaths who see other people as dispensable. Killing isn’t done for enjoyment but as a solution. If a person is in the way or causing an annoyance in their lives, they handle them the same way they’d handle a mosquito—kill it, flick it to the side, and move on. They don’t grieve, regret, savor, or think about the killing again unless that action causes consequences or requires cleanup.
Then you have the attention seekers. They enjoy the power rush that comes from killing and want the media splash, the tearful families, the fear. They embrace the notoriety, the cat-and-mouse game with the police, the belief that they are outsmarting everyone. These killers are often the kind and helpful neighbors everyone loves, the ones no one believed would ever hurt anyone. They display their kills in public and make decisions based on the amount of media impact and legend status.
My initial steps were simple. First, gather all the information. Done. Then, establish the common characteristics and details of the killings.
There were a lot of commonalities, especially in the “victim” category. As I went through each file, I wrote details and pinned photos into the columns, building a sea of neat white fonts and images. The victims were practically cookie-cutter in nature. Seven high school seniors, all athletic, with thin builds and moderate muscle tone. Handsome and Caucasian. They were all popular, wealthy, and well liked—the studs of their respective high schools. As far as criminal profiles were concerned, these were low-risk victims who lived in safe areas and didn’t engage in dangerous activities. These weren’t the hazers or assholes of their schools. They didn’t deal drugs on the side, weren’t active in gangs, and had few to no enemies.
Each was taken from a different school, which indicated planning. The killer had probably stalked the victims prior to the kidnappings and carefully selected each from his peers.
I scanned over all the information. It looked organized—until you read it all and realized how disjointed it sounded. Still, I was making progress. I had done a superficial sweep and was now doing a deep dive of each kill, in chronological order. I was on the third boy, and patterns were beginning to emerge. I took a long sip of tea and stared at an image of Travis Patterson, victim number two.
The boys were taken from public places. Always outside, normally in parking lots. The kills never happened at the snatch point. Instead—and this was the most disturbing piece of the puzzle—BH took them to a separate site, where he held them for six to eight weeks before killing them and dumping their bodies in a third location.
Three locations was risky. It was three locations for possible DNA transfer. Three locations where he could be caught. Two times he’d have to transport a body and risk being captured on camera, having car trouble, or losing his victim to an escape.
And there was something deeply personal about the archetype of the boys that triggered something in the killer. My hypothesis was that the killer’s high school years had been traumatic with respect to his mental growth. The likeliest and easiest theory was that he was bullied by a boy very similar to the victim profile. Given the sexual nature of the torture BH inflicted, he was probably molested or raped by this bully or had struggled with a crush or sexual attraction to the boy—an attraction that could have been nurtured or rejected. Either could have led to hatred or inadequacy, which had festered and eventually sparked this series of killings.
My office door eased open, and Meredith stuck her head in. “You busy?”
“Just in my own thoughts.” I sat on the couch and tucked my feet under me.
“Well, I come bearing chocolates.”
“In that case, pull up a chair and settle in.” I patted the cushion beside me. “Close the door behind you.”
“Hush-hush stuff, huh?” She entered, stopping short when she saw my wall of notes. “Wow. How are clients reacting to this?” She gestured to the wall and offered the bag of M&M’s to me.
“I’m meeting them in the conference room this week.” I took it and shook out a handful of brightly colored chocolates.
“Good move. This is a little scary,” she said, nodding to the notes.
“Tell me about it.” I stretched out my arms and rolled my head to the side to ease a kink. “I’m cross-eyed from looking at this stuff.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You love it. Full case files?” She glanced over the stacks of green folders. “I’m surprised I’m not hearing you orgasm through the walls.”
I laughed at the crude analogy. “I’m not that ecstatic over them. But, yes. This is historic. Getting to be involved and having this glimpse into the cases . . .” I shook my head. “It makes me want to quit private practice and join the police force.”