Slight traces of tension rippled through Shepard’s shoulders. He knew the feeling. It was exciting when a piece of the puzzle presented itself.
She did not rush to comment, as if seeming to understand that gaining more of the girl’s trust needed to be slow and steady so she would not spook the kid. “I know we’ve talked about the man BB talked to before. You think maybe we can talk about him again? I’m trying to figure this guy out.”
The girl was silent a moment before she said, “Okay.”
“Where did you see Sonny?” Shepard asked.
“At his house.”
“What did the house look like?” With children, interview questions had to be specific.
“Brown.”
“Brown paint. Brown bricks?”
“Bricks,” Elena said.
“Did the yard have green grass or pretty plants?”
“Yeah. There was also a bath for birds.”
This information suggested to Ramsey that Sonny kept up appearances. That was not surprising, considering his killings went back so long. He was accustomed to masking his behavior.
“You said he had a mean face,” Shepard said. When the girl appeared to tense, Shepard scrunched up her face. “Did his face look like this?”
A ghost of a smile teased the girl’s lips. “Meaner.”
Shepard tightened her face another notch. “Like this?”
“You don’t look mean,” Elena said, smiling now.
She jabbed her thumb toward Ramsey and stage-whispered, “I bet he can make the right kind of mean face.”
The girl cupped her hand close to her mouth. “He can.”
Ramsey scrunched up his face and looked in a mirror across from the bed. “I don’t look mean. Melina looks mean.”
“I do not,” Shepard said lightly.
The girl’s eyes widened with amusement, and then she giggled softly.
Shepard was smiling, and he sensed a genuine amusement that he found was very satisfying. “Did something make Sonny mad?”
“Sonny didn’t like it when BB called him Sonny. He said it wasn’t his real name,” Elena said.
“Did he say what his real name was?” she asked.
“No.”
“What does Sonny look like when he doesn’t have the mean face?” Shepard asked. “What color is his hair?”
“Black. Like yours. And his eyes are brown like yours,” the girl said.
They went through a series of questions until they had a rough description of Sonny. He was likely in his midthirties, tall, not fat but not thin, brown hair and eyes, and he had several guitars in his house. It was a start, but with no last name or an address, Sonny would be impossible to trace.
“When you were at Sonny’s house, did he give anything to BB?” Ramsey asked.
“No.”
“Did she go back to Sonny’s house?” Shepard asked.
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. We went to the motel and I fell asleep.”
Which did not rule out the possibility that BB had left the girl and returned to Sonny’s house.
The girl yawned. “BB takes stuff all the time from everyone.”
Did the preserved fingers belong to Sonny? Had BB taken them for some kind of leverage? He made a mental note to check past known associates for Bonnie Guthrie.
“You’ve been a big help,” Shepard said.
The girl yawned again and blinked slowly. “Okay. When you find BB, can I leave?”
“You get to leave here really soon. I’ll talk to your doctor again when I come back later. I should know more this afternoon.”
The girl’s eyes widened with panic before she seemed to catch herself. “Do you have to leave?”
Shepard smiled at the child. “I can’t find BB if I don’t leave for a little bit. And we need to find her.”
The girl frowned. “Okay.”
Shepard smiled at the girl, but as she turned to leave, the girl grabbed her fingers in a surprisingly tight grip.
Shepard seemed to tense, as if absorbing the child’s desperation. She leaned forward and hugged the girl. The child’s arms clutched her neck, and her small frame melted into the agent’s.
Shepard patted the girl on the back. “I’ll be back. I won’t leave you hanging.”
“Promise?” Elena whispered.
“Promise. And don’t lose my watch.”
“Okay. I won’t.” She giggled.
Finally, Shepard was able to peel the girl’s arms free, and with one last squeeze of the hand, she and Ramsey left the room.
Shepard reached for her cell and dialed. After an extended pause, she said, “Mom, this is Melina. Call me back when you can. I have a favor to ask.”
Ramsey did not speak as the two strode toward the elevator. He pressed the button. “You okay?”
“Sure. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Save the profiling for the suspects.”
“It doesn’t take a profile to recognize your expression is tight and your face is pale.”
“Don’t,” she warned.
As the elevator doors opened, Ramsey was already texting. “I’m having Andy cross-check BB’s arrest records with the name Sonny.”
“Bonnie Guthrie definitely knows the guy from way back. She gets out of prison and stays in California for a year, and then something happens, and she ends up stealing a car, a kid, and body parts. My guess is the guy has access to money or something of value to Bonnie.”
“Agreed.”
The doors closed and she pressed the lobby level. “She just didn’t happen to find herself in Nashville. She had a plan. I went back and looked at the crash site. There are no skid marks.”
“I noticed that. She was hell bent on making it to the other side. But why?”
When Melina and Ramsey reached the first floor, her phone buzzed with a text from her mother. Back home. She and her mom had a system. If Melina called, her mom would text back. Given Melina’s job and schedule, texting was the only option that worked.
“I’m going to swing by my folks’ house and check on my father. If there’s an update, contact me.”
“Will do.”
They drove back to the TBI offices. Melina could ask him about what he was doing next, but she did not care right now. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Understood.”
She settled into the front seat of her car, letting the heat from the seat soak into her chilled skin. She was grateful for the solitude.
Old, latent fears long suppressed grew stronger and crawled from the shadows. They swirled and then joined to create a picture of another little girl standing on the side of a deserted country road. Her heart was racing with fear and dread, and her body was drenched in sweat.
Melina raised her fingertips to the base of her throat. Her pulse thrummed under her skin. Unwanted fears of abandonment and loss tangled together and wrapped around her chest.
“Nope. Not doing this now,” she said. “And fuck you, BB.”
She fired up the engine and then texted her mother, alerting her she was coming by for a visit.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tuesday, August 25, 11:45 a.m.
Ramsey returned to the hotel room he had used last night. He had reserved the room for three nights, but there was a good chance he would be extending his stay.
The DO NOT DISTURB sign remained on the door, and when he entered, he was glad to see the maid had not come. Though he carried all sensitive files and his laptop in his briefcase, he still did not like the idea of anyone invading his space while he was gone. Better to have a rumpled bed and day-old towels. If he needed anything, he’d have the front desk send it up while he was present.
He could have returned to the TBI offices but had opted for the seclusion of his hotel room. Loosening his tie, he dialed the hotel restaurant and ordered the steak and potatoes, just as he always did when he was on the road.
He shrugged off his jacket, hung it up in the closet, and removed his tie, which he also draped over a hanger. He removed his gun from the holster on his hip and placed it in the nightstand drawer between the two double beds, next to the Bible. Threading his fingers through his hair, he sat on the edge of his bed beside his briefcase, which he knew was loaded with a dozen files of open cases he was monitoring across the country.
He did not have to open any of them to recall the horrific details of each. There was a killer in Maine who had stabbed six prostitutes and mutilated their bodies. An offender purported to be female in Miami was hunting couples walking along the beach at night. In Denver, there was a man who kidnapped young women and held them for months as he sexually assaulted them. Only when the killer tired of his victim did he stab her to death and dump her body on a mountain roadside.
Each on their own would give normal people nightmares. In the early days of his career, pictures of mutilated bodies had wormed into his dreams and bothered him, but slowly over time, he’d hardened to the images. Now, he had been chasing monsters for so long he did not flinch over the myriad of ways a human could be murdered.
He had once worked with a senior agent who had reminded him that the best way to boil a frog alive was to put him in cold water and then slowly turn up the heat. The frog did not notice the temperature change until it nearly boiled. And by then, it was too late for the poor bastard to jump free.