Dead Ringer. Sharon Dunn
her mind off the robbery.
Greg struck her as a sweet man, a stable man, but nothing went zing inside when she was with him.
“I was thinking, Lucy. I’m sometimes traveling through Mountain Springs on Sunday for my Monday meetings. Would you like to go to church together?” He leaned a little closer to her. “Maybe?”
She had promised Heather she wouldn’t dismiss Greg so quickly. “When is the next time you’re in town?” Maybe zing happened later.
“I have some clients to visit here in a couple of days, but that won’t be a Sunday.”
Going to church together felt too serious. “I don’t know…maybe.”
Behind her, the waitress asked the man with the newspaper what he wanted to eat. His newspaper rustled as he set it down. Lucy perked up when the man ordered pancakes and bacon. She knew that voice, the warmth of it. She removed her hat and turned toward him.
Detective Hawkins’s face blanched, but then he recovered and nodded in her direction. He held up a glass container of maple syrup. “I heard this was a good place to eat breakfast.”
“Best in town.”
The other man, the one with the curly blond hair, cleared his throat. He shifted in his seat and lifted his chin toward Eli in some unspoken signal. As she turned back around, Lucy felt a tightening in her rib cage.
Greg shoved a large piece of French toast in his mouth. “Your pancakes okay?”
“They’re great, thanks.” Lucy took a bite. The sweetness of the huckleberry syrup did nothing to deter her suspicion. The knowing glance that had passed between Eli and the other man bothered her. She couldn’t pinpoint it, but something about it felt strange, conspiratorial.
Greg chatted more about his work and the family ranch he had grown up on in Colorado. Lucy talked about helping a seventy-year-old widow learn how to fly fish. She angled in her chair so she saw Eli in her peripheral vision. Was he watching her?
Greg excused himself to pay the bill.
Lucy took a sip of her coffee. Any sense of trust she’d felt with Eli last night was gone. She set her coffee cup firmly on the table. Why had she thought Eli was different? A cop was a cop. People’s concerns and their fears were just a big, funny joke to all of them.
Lucy rose to her feet and gave Eli a backward glance.
He looked up from the manila folder he’d been flipping through. His eyes searched hers. She couldn’t quite read what she saw in his expression. Was it fear?
Greg slipped his arm through Lucy’s and guided her toward the door.
When they were outside the restaurant, Greg spoke up. “Maybe I’ll call you when I’m back in town in a couple of days. We can get together then.”
“Sure,” Lucy said absently. The look of fear on Eli’s face was etched in her mind.
Eli watched Lucy pass by the restaurant window. He had nearly choked on his water when she had glanced at him. He scanned the pre-postmortem photos from the file again. His heart squeezed tight.
William doodled on his notepad. “That guy Jackson, Mr. Ordinary, huh? You know what they say. Beneath that smooth surface lurks the heart of a killer.”
Eli continued to examine the photographs, taking in a deep breath to quell the rising panic. “Who exactly says that, William?”
“You know, it’s always the guy who is quiet and keeps to himself who is the killer.” William rested his elbows on the table and narrowed his eyes at Eli. “What is it, man? You look like you just took a left hook to the jaw.”
One by one, Eli passed the photos to William. Though the women had all died in different ways—poisoning, strangulation, stabbing—their appearance and membership in the online service linked them together. “Do you see it?”
“Yeah, they all are beautiful, dark-haired women.” William’s tone had become more insistent. “We established that.”
Eli took in a breath in an effort to slow his thudding heart. “I think I know who the next victim could be.”
“You mean, the woman Jackson was with…’cause of the dark hair.”
“I answered a robbery call at her house last night. I noticed the resemblance, but didn’t realize how closely she matched her victims until looking at the photos.” His mouth went dry. “If she is dating Jackson, she probably met him through the service.” Eli hadn’t failed to notice the daggers she shot toward him as she left the restaurant. Her distrust of police ran deep, and it took only the smallest irregularity to trigger it. She probably thought he was stalking her.
More than anything, when he’d seen the veil of protection fall across her eyes, he had wanted to explain why he was in the café, but he couldn’t. They had put too much manpower on the case to blow it. Going public with the investigation could cause the killer to go underground, then years from now after three or four more women died, they’d have to connect the dots all over again.
Eli spread the photos across the table. He could not shake the anxiety coiling through him. He tapped his finger on one of the pictures. “Look. Same hair, same eyes. Lucy Kimbol is a dead ringer for these other victims.”
The sense of justice that had led him to want to be a police officer rose up in him. They were going to get this guy. No one else was going to die on his watch. “I think we need to keep our eye on potential victims, too.”
“Manpower is limited, remember.” William rested his elbows on the table. “We’ll be watching potential victims when they are with suspects.”
Eli gathered up the photographs. “Not always. We have to rotate surveillance as it is.”
William shook his head. “You have to let go of the belief that you can protect everyone all of the time. You are not supercop. None of us are.”
“I just think when someone fits criteria for being a potential victim, we ought to do something about it.” Who was he kidding? Lucy wouldn’t accept police protection if it came tied up in a silver bow.
He’d have to find some other way to keep her safe.
THREE
Eli’s heart kicked into overdrive as he brought his car to a stop outside of Lucy’s duplex. He was probably the last person Lucy wanted to see right now. If the department wasn’t going to spring for the manpower to keep an eye on her, he would do it on his own time. Besides, his solution solved two problems. Two days in a motel was two days too many, and she had a duplex for rent.
In her front yard, three teenagers lined up, all holding fly rods. Lucy moved from one student to the next, adjusting their grip on the rod handle or demonstrating the casting.
Her long, dark hair cascaded down to the middle of her back. The vest with all the pockets, a T-shirt and khaki pants was probably the official uniform of fly fishers everywhere. Her cheeks were sun-tinged. Even in the bulky clothes, her narrow waist and the soft curve of her hips were evident. He liked the way the students seemed responsive to her instruction, remaining quiet and focusing on her while she talked.
Part of solid police work involved not jumping to conclusions. He could be wrong about Lucy being the next victim, but he didn’t want to take a chance with her life. How many dark-haired, blue-eyed women could there be in an area that probably had more cows and sheep than people?
The three teenagers held their poles midair and stared when Eli pulled into the gravel driveway.
Part of the profile of the killer was that the dark hair and blue eyes were symbolic in some way. The other aspect of his personality was that he probably traveled for his job or had enough time and money to cover the area where the killings had taken place. On the online sign-up forms, there was an option that allowed an applicant to restrict match choices to a geographic