“It’s just teenage heartbreak. You know, boys.” She dismissed the cuttings with a shrug. “But, yeah—we’re taking her to Dr. Febber at the Banyon Clinic. They specialize in teenagers. In fact, you’ll never guess who we once saw there.” She leaned in closer, and her wheels squeaked.
“Please don’t tell me.” I forced a polite smile. “Patient confidentiality is one of our pet peeves as doctors. Especially in mental health areas.”
Her face fell in disappointment. “Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
“Anyway, I’ll see you week after next? Back on our normal schedule?”
“Uh-huh,” she said listlessly. “Sure.”
Lela turned her cart around and lifted her hand in parting. I echoed the action. Poor Maggie. I’d had six sessions with Lela, and she’d never mentioned her daughter’s struggles.
I turned down the dairy aisle and picked up a gallon of milk, then a box of salted butter. What was it about our conversation that had jabbed at me? I moved back through it in my head.
Her daughter . . . Beverly High . . . Scott . . .
I stopped at the chilled wines and picked up a bottle of sauvignon blanc. I wedged it into an open space beside the milk and pushed the cart forward. Ahead of me, the line at the pharmacy thinned, and I quickened my pace, hoping to get in while there wasn’t a wait. I was coming down with something and needed to get a nasal spray before it got too bad.
I parked my cart, grabbed my purse, and stood in line. Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed the conversation with Lela, especially since I wasn’t meeting with her this week. The line inched up, and I made a mental note to continue our conversation about her daughter in future sessions.
Bored, I studied an end display of bandages, antibiotic creams, and other first-aid supplies.
I try and keep up with Neosporin, but as soon as the wounds heal, she opens them up again.
Was that what had stuck in my mind? If so, why? I closed my eyes, focusing on the image of Lela putting Neosporin on Maggie’s cuts. While it was an interesting visual, my mind stubbornly refused to cooperate. Behind me, someone cleared their throat. I opened my eyes and stepped forward.
Neosporin . . . Neosporin . . . Wounds heal.
The images from the BH files snapped into view. Close-ups of wounds. Cigarette burns. Cuts. Some healed, others fresh. I undid the top clasp of my purse and pulled out my phone. Checking the time on it, I called the office and hoped Jacob was still there.
His calm greeting brought a smile to my face.
“Jacob, it’s Gwen. Can you go in my office? I need you to take a picture of something.”
I waited as he found his keys and unlocked my office. Giving him directions, I led him to the area of the wall where I had pinned photos of all the wounds.
He made a noise of discomfort.
“I know, they’re gory. Can you take pictures of the entire section? Close enough so I can zoom in on the photos, please.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, you can get three or four in each photo.”
“Okay. I’ll text them to you.”
“Thank you. Please be sure to lock the door when you’re done.”
I ended the call and moved up, now only second in line. I was swiping my credit card and accepting the nasal spray when my phone began to buzz with incoming texts. Returning to my cart, I opened the group of images and began to scroll through them.
It was a good thing I hadn’t eaten. The photos were a horror show of pain, the worst being the penectomy close-ups. I swiped quickly through those and zoomed in when I found the image that had jogged my memory.
It was a neat line of cigarette burns down the center of a back. Unremarkable, except for the sheen that covered them. Almost like a snail had traveled across the wounds. It was ointment or aloe vera, and applied on an area that the victim could never have reached himself.
The BH Killer was doctoring them. Hurting them, then patching them back up. Why? Remorse? Guilt? Or was it something else, something deeper?
I looked up from my phone and thought through the implications of this. This was wrong—in complete conflict with the psychological profile I had created. An organized control-oriented killer didn’t provide first aid, not unless it was to keep his victim alive for a specific purpose. These wounds weren’t life threatening, so they didn’t require first aid. This was almost . . . I thought of Meredith, her question of aftercare. Yes. This was potentially aftercare, which, again, didn’t match my profile. While there were no absolutes in human psychology, there were patterns, and this would be breaking every pattern of human behavior.
I stuffed my phone in my bag and gripped the handles of the cart, spinning it to the left and heading toward the checkout, skipping the rest of my shopping list as I beelined for the shortest queue.
I had known that something was off. Maybe this was the key to figuring out what that was.
CHAPTER 30
I dropped the groceries off at the house and drove to the office. It was dark, Jacob’s computer powered off, the only illumination coming from an EMERGENCY EXIT sign above the stairwell. I flipped on the lights in my office and powered up my iMac. As it hummed to life, I cleared off my desk and withdrew the stack of case files.
I undid the thick rubber bands around each file and spaced them out around the large surface of my desk, putting Gabe Kavin’s in the middle.
My computer chimed, and I logged in, then pulled up the twenty-two-page psychological profile I had sent to Robert. I printed out two copies of the document and grabbed a red pen. Flipping on the desk lamp, I curved the neck so it shone down on the folders.
My first order of business was to determine if there was actually aftercare involved, or if the photo Jacob had sent me was an exception to the rule.
I opened the first file.
Trey Winkle was seventeen, a lacrosse player from Serra Retreat. He was found in a ditch along the entrance road to the Griffith Observatory. I flipped to the autopsy section and scanned the findings.
Some adhesive residue along a deep cut in his thigh. The wound was clean and looked cared for. A Band-Aid would be the likely explanation for the residue.
My killer wouldn’t use a Band-Aid.
I flipped to the next victim. Travis Patterson. Well fed. His hair was clean. Partially healed wounds.
I pulled out a pad of paper and took notes, moving through all five files before getting to Gabe Kavin’s.
I took a deep breath. A pattern was already established, but Gabe had been an anomaly from the start. His death was more brutal—maybe his care had been skipped.
But it hadn’t. Like the others, he was healthy at the time of his death. Also well fed and cared for, if you ignored the torture and rape every couple of days.
I set down the pen and rubbed my temple. If guilt and regret were responsible for the kindnesses, but the individual was still engaging in habitual violence, then we were talking about a disorder. This wasn’t bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. That would be characterized by manic swings or episodes, and there was no way that a manic individual would be able to execute this level of evidence-free and precise pattern kills.
I leaned back in my chair with a groan and looked up at the tray ceiling.
If the aftercare was an established pattern, which it was . . .
If the abductions, captivity, and kills had been well planned and executed with careful timing, which they were . . .