Caden went still. Daria had worked on other cases with him, but . . . “This is a big one, Annie. Probably a serial killer. You think she can handle this?”
“Without question.”
Her complete lack of hesitation settled his momentary twinge of anxiety. “Fine.”
“Truly, Caden, she’s better than I am. I’m putting you through to her. Hold on.”
Better than Annie? Not likely. The line clicked. “Caden?”
Man, she sounded too young to be as good as Annie said. “Yeah.” Not that age had everything to do with skills or being a good agent, but still . . .
“. . . has a camera in the den facing the sofa, so I’m sending the footage to your phone. You can watch it yourself.”
“Wait, you actually got something?”
“Yes. Our speech reader even got some of the words from Mr. Fields’s lips before . . . well . . . before.”
Before he’d been shot. He just prayed the father had been the last one to die and the kids hadn’t seen—
“Caden?”
He blinked the images away. For now. “I’m here.”
“Did you get the video?”
He checked. “I did.” Along with everything Annie had sent him.
“I added the captions to it so you can see what the words are.”
“Impressive.”
“I aim to please. Unfortunately, the camera in the kitchen area wasn’t working, so I’m not sure what happened after you see the gun fly back into the living area.”
“What?”
“Just watch it. It’s self-explanatory. Call me if you need anything else. I’ve also texted you my direct line.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.” She’d managed to reassure him she was up to the tasks ahead of her with that one conversation. Caden hung up and filled Zane in.
His partner rubbed his head. “Three?”
“Yeah. And at the moment, it looks like they could all be connected. Too many similarities not to be, even without the full workup of this scene.”
“Then it’s got to be the same person or persons doing this.” Zane’s hoarse, flat words pierced Caden’s carefully constructed emotional barrier. “I hate to say it,” Zane said, “but . . . I think we’ve got a serial killer running loose in this country.”
“Probably.” Caden kept his voice calm, detached, even as his heart thudded hard enough to hurt. Focus. “Serial killers don’t usually have a territory this wide. Three different states? And opposite ends of the country?”
“True. Not that it’s impossible, but what’s the connection that made them targets?”
“That’s the question of the day, isn’t it?”
“So, once again, we circle back to motive,” Zane said. “When we find out the connection, we’ll figure out the motive. Or vice versa. You know what I mean.”
“Exactly.” Caden rubbed a hand over his chin. “So, this is it. We don’t leave here until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Yeah, because if we don’t, what you wanna bet there’s going to be a fourth?”
“I agree.” He looked up as the officer Zane had assigned to find Mickey stepped next to him.
“No one seems to know where the teen is,” the man said. “The neighbor had the kid’s number. I’ve called it, but it went straight to voice mail.” He handed Caden a piece of paper with the number on it.
“Thanks.” He texted the number to Daria and asked her to find the phone. He looked at Zane. “We’re going to need to set up a task force.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” His partner coughed and pulled a pack of tissues from his pocket. “Be right back.”
Caden let his gaze scan the room, ignoring the chatter of the other officers coming from the open front door. He stopped at the mantel. Pictures lined it. Mostly of the children. Some of the family.
“Hey, Caden?”
He turned at an agent’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to want to see this.” She handed him a box. “Found it in the attic behind a wall.”
Caden opened the box and sifted through the pictures and other items. At first, he didn’t see anything that caught his attention. They were just things that someone had stuck in a keepsake box. But the closer he looked, the more intrigued he became—especially of the one with two people he knew. Ava Jackson as a child sitting in a swing and her father pushing her. What in the—
“Sorry.” Zane returned with a bottle of water. “Had to find some Motrin and blow my nose. Seriously, how can your nose feel stuffed completely full and when you blow it, noth—”
“I don’t need the details, dude.” Caden nodded to the tablet Zane still held in his other hand. The box could wait for now. “Let me see those pictures from the Houston crime scene again, will you?”
Zane pulled them up. “Why?” He popped a cough drop.
“Scroll through them. I’m looking for something in particular.”
His partner swiped one picture after another.
“There,” Caden said. “Stop.”
“What do you see?”
“The same picture on that end table in the Baileys’ home that’s over there on the mantel.” He pointed, then enlarged the photo for details. “There.” A do-it-yourself Christmas photo in a small black frame sat on the stone mantel next to others like it. An antique clock behind the pictures ticked away the minutes. He stepped forward. “But look, there’s a space next to it like another picture is missing. Now, look back at the picture Daria sent us. Same space next to that one?”
Zane raised a brow. “Yes. Exactly. You and that memory of yours,” he muttered. “Okay, then. It’s possible family number one and family number three knew each other and had the same photo that the killer took. Could family number two know one and three? But how? Or is that a stretch? Is there any evidence in family number two’s home to suggest a connection? Did they have the same pictures? Or were they pictures that the killer just liked and have no connection at all?”
The questions came rapid-fire, Zane not necessarily expecting immediate answers, but Caden said, “If family number two had the same picture, they didn’t have it out.” He scrolled through the crime scene photos from family number two. No spaces between pictures to suggest one was missing. “It could be any kind of a connection,” he said. “Could be a college fraternity or sorority. We also have to look at both spouses’ connections to each other.”
“Let’s watch the footage. Maybe that’ll help.”
Caden tapped the link to the footage. Zane watched over his shoulder as it began to play.
The picture was clear.
As was the barrel of the weapon aimed at the family.
Unfortunately, the killer’s face was not.
Beyond the gun, seated on the couch, were the staff sergeant, his wife, and the two younger children. All four of them looked terrified. Mingled with Michael Fields’s terror was fury. He appeared to hold himself still only out of fear for his family.
“That’s freaky,” Zane said. “I feel like I’m watching this from his point of view.”