She sat in the front seat of the rental car and clicked her seat belt. He slid behind the wheel, put on dark glasses as the soft scent of his aftershave mingled with rental car air freshener. The thick pine scent, like the bleach, was designed to mask the presence of previous occupants.
As Melina read off the address of the warehouse where the van had been found, Agent Jackson texted indicating he would meet them there. She acknowledged his message before punching the street number and name into the GPS.
This was the part where she was probably supposed to make small talk. Nope. She was going to let him go first.
“How long have you been with TBI?” Ramsey asked.
His tone was smooth, but the words were as practiced as a concert violinist’s notes. She imagined the honed script that came with an FBI badge. He was close to forty, which suggested he had worked with countless local law enforcement officers just like her.
“Seven years,” she said. “Most of it was in the Knoxville office.”
“Where are you from?”
She had one foot in the doghouse with Jackson and the other ready to race into this investigation. She reminded herself that her goals did not involve staring at the four blank walls of her office. “Nashville. My parents still live here. As I mentioned, Dad’s former law enforcement and Mom’s a retired schoolteacher. I have an undergraduate and master’s in psychology. I thought I wanted to be a social worker but found I didn’t have the temperament to hold hands and talk about feelings.”
“Nice to be back home?” He almost sounded sincere.
“It is,” she said honestly. “Mom makes enough food at Sunday dinner to fuel me for a week.” When he did not comment, she asked, “What’s your story? Your accent has a very slight southern drawl.”
A small smile tugged at the edge of his lips. “I thought I’d lost it.”
“Nashville has a way of reenergizing the faintest southern accents.”
He nodded as if making a mental note. “I’m from Virginia. Grew up near Alexandria.”
“Lots of tourist stuff. A lot of traffic, even then.”
“It’s worse.”
They wound their way around the beltway and soon found themselves headed toward the industrial south side. He moved down a series of side streets until they rounded a corner and came upon the collection of police cars.
“Are you sure no one else survived the Key Killer?” she asked. “Guys like him don’t come out of the womb knowing all the tricks of the serial killer trade.”
Killers evolved. Initial crimes were generally petty. Peeping Toms. Small fires. However, over time they honed their skills, graduating to animal cruelty, rape, and murder.
Like everyone else, killers practiced and learned by trial and error. Modifications to the Key Killer’s van had likely been ongoing as the killer learned, adapted, and evolved.
“If we can identify him,” Ramsey said, “we’ll most likely find someone who got away.”
“Catch-22. The woman could lead to this killer, but we can’t find her until we find him.”
“I had an agent search the crime reports in Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, and North Carolina. We were looking for prostitutes who had escaped a violent john. There were many, but none mentioned a van.”
“You said ten victims. So far, I count five. Where were the other women killed?”
“Three in Atlanta between 1999 and 2004. And two in Savannah, Georgia, in 2002.”
“That’s a rather defined area,” she said.
“Serial killers often have geographical preferences. Even truckers, pilots, and salesmen have territories or routes.”
Yellow crime scene tape now roped off a generous area around the open bay of a gray warehouse dotted with signs reading FOR SALE.
Ramsey parked behind a marked car and the two got out, meeting in front of his vehicle before walking toward the uniformed officer controlling access.
Each showed their badge.
The officer noted both of their names in a log that tracked everyone coming and going beyond the tape that Ramsey now held up for her to duck under.
The warehouse was dimly lit, but she could see the outline of the windowless van shadowed in the far north corner. It looked just as it had when it had emerged from the shadows toward her. Her nerves tightened as she imagined what would have happened if she had not broken free.
Melina handed Ramsey a fresh set of latex gloves, and then she slid on a pair as Jackson walked up. She offered him a set and he did the same. Their footsteps fell in time, echoing up toward the rafters of the large room.
Standing beside the van was Matt Piper, head of TBI’s forensic department. He was a tall, lean guy in his early thirties. He wore khakis and a blue button-down with the department’s emblem over the right breast pocket. He wore his hair short and neatly combed, and his shirt’s and pants’ creases were sharp, the laces of his shoes double knotted, and his nails neatly trimmed.
“Agent Ramsey, this is Matt Piper, head of the forensic team,” Jackson said.
Ramsey extended his hand. “Good to meet you.”
A spotlight in the corner switched on, illuminating the van. The plates were missing and judging by the screws that lay on the concrete floor, they had been removed hastily.
The cleaned tires and the exterior glistened in the new light. The vehicle was older than she had imagined. There was not anything about the vehicle that would have caught a cop’s attention. Bland vanilla. But that was the point. He wanted to go unnoticed.
A camera flashed as another technician moved around the vehicle snapping pictures. Melina studied the passenger side, imagining the sliding door catapulting open with alarming speed. Whoever this guy was, he knew his way around a toolbox.
“Piper, have you looked inside yet?” Jackson asked.
“No,” Matt replied. “We just arrived ourselves. Uniforms cordoned off but didn’t inspect it, per your orders.”
“Appreciate that,” Ramsey said.
Melina moved up to the driver’s side window and peered in. It was neat, no signs of anything out of the ordinary.
More pictures were taken, and finally a uniformed officer arrived with a slim jim, which he wedged between the driver’s side window and the rubber casing. The door lock clicked. He lifted the handle and opened the door.
The faintest scent of bleach wafted out. Most of the scent had dissipated in the last seven days, but it had enough punch to direct her mind back to a fear she refused to acknowledge.
Her stomach turned and sweat formed at the base of her spine. Absently, she touched the section of her hair that he had nearly ripped out. Her mind flashed back to the adrenaline-fueled moments when she had fought desperately for her life.
In the hours after the attack, she had replayed the attempted abduction over and over. She prided herself on being alert, but that night she had let her guard slip.
Ramsey pressed the van’s power door button. The door snapped open with an uncommon speed, making Melina flinch slightly enough to bring her back to the moment.
“He was out the door in a matter of seconds,” she said clearly.
“Ten confirmed kills,” Ramsey said. “It takes practice.”
“Yes. Every move was choreographed,” she said.
Another light in the warehouse switched on, and this time she had her first fully illuminated look at the cargo bay.
“You did retrieve the syringe from last week’s crime scene, correct?” Ramsey asked.
“Yes,” Melina said.
“The contents are being analyzed,” Jackson said. “We should know in a day or two.”
Four O-rings were screwed and welded into the metal floor. Cuffs linked to long chains were attached to each ring. The walls were padded. Hanging on the driver’s side wall was what looked like a toolbar complete with hammers, small saws, and a drill. On the driver’s side door were remnants of duct tape, where she guessed he had kept the syringe.
It was a do-it-yourself torture van. And she had been less than four feet away from being trapped inside here.
Melina smoothed her hands over her pant legs. Her father had always told her a good cop kept their emotions in check no matter how bad it got on the streets. Don’t ever let them see you squirm. Do whatever you need to do to hold it together, and later in private you can deal with it. When she had asked him how he dealt, he had laughed and pointed to his garage filled with woodshop equipment and lopsided handmade furniture her mother refused to let him bring in the house.
“We know this killer has been active for at least twenty years,” Ramsey said. “And over that time, he’s moved between at least five jurisdictions. The only jurisdiction to give him a nickname was Atlanta. There he was the Riverside Ripper because the bodies had been found near rivers or bodies of water. All collected evidence and did their investigations, but no one came close to catching him.”
Jackson shook his head as he reached for the backdoor latch. “I can only imagine what he did to them. This setup is a house of horrors.”
Melina glanced up and caught Ramsey’s reflection in the rearview mirror. Tension etched his features. She held his gaze a beat and then looked away, hoping her complexion was not too ashen.
“I saw the sketch you created with the forensic artist,” Ramsey said.