The Coldest Fear. Debra Webb

       Four

      Bobbie had barely reached the end of the block when she spotted the cruiser in her rearview mirror. The Atlanta PD official vehicle rocked to a stop in the spot she’d vacated mere seconds before. Unable to help herself she’d sat a moment at the intersection and watched the two uniformed officers rush up the steps toward the house. LeDoux hadn’t said a word but she’d felt the tension vibrating from him.

      Eighteen minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of the Country Inn and Suites where LeDoux had a room. Definitely a step down from the luxurious four-and five-star hotels the agent typically called home when on assignment. Just another indication of how much LeDoux had changed over the past year. He didn’t wear his scars on his skin the way she did, but they were there nonetheless.

      “You’ll need a jacket or something,” he said. “Unless you’re planning to leave your weapon in the trunk.”

      Maybe it was the sleep deprivation or the burden of so many murders so close together but her mind felt as if her head were under water. Every thought, every reaction was far slower than it should be. Agreeing to come to this hotel with LeDoux was likely another sleep-deprived decision she would regret.

      He works for the FBI, Bobbie. He used you once...

      Considering she didn’t have a better plan, she popped the trunk and climbed from the driver’s seat. She glanced at LeDoux as she grabbed her overnight duffel bag from the back seat. There were a lot of people she’d let down. Her son, her husband, her partner, her friend, the chief. Special Agent LeDoux was guilty of that egregious sin the same as she was—all the more reason she shouldn’t trust him, except he had certain connections she didn’t.

      She moved around to the trunk and dug out the windbreaker she kept there for emergencies. Dragging on the jacket, she reluctantly admitted to herself that whatever LeDoux had or hadn’t done, she owed him. He had protected her that once when there was no one else—when it counted. He had allowed the monster to take him instead. His screams echoed deep in her soul. Bobbie shook off the haunting memories.

      “We have to go through the lobby to get to the room,” LeDoux explained as if the silence or her lack of a response had gotten to him and he needed to speak just to make sure they were both still alive.

      The two of them were like the walking dead—ghosts. Mere shadows of their former selves moving among the living. The breeze she’d noticed earlier felt colder now. She zipped the jacket and secured the car. “How long have you been in Atlanta?”

      She hadn’t seen LeDoux since late Tuesday night, some fifty hours ago, when they’d met at a crime scene in Athens, Alabama. Weller’s latest victim had been chopped into pieces and then displayed like a broken doll that had been reassembled by a two-year-old. Had LeDoux come straight to Atlanta after that to question Zacharias?

      “About twenty-four hours.”

      So what had he been doing between Tuesday night and yesterday? At some point this past week she’d gotten the distinct impression he was on thin ice with his superiors. Something else they had in common.

      When he reached for the entrance door, she asked, “Are you on the Weller task force?”

      He hesitated, his gaze settling on hers. “Not officially.”

      Before she could ask the next question poised on the tip of her tongue, LeDoux headed through the lobby. The clerk, young and female, smiled as they passed. LeDoux gave her a nod. The clerk grinned, checked out Bobbie and then looked away. Whatever else he was, LeDoux was an attractive man with plenty of charm when he chose to use it. When he and Bobbie worked together the first time, he’d had a wife. She’d had a husband and a child. Ten months and a couple of vicious serial killers had changed everything.

      Without speaking, they took the stairs to the second floor. LeDoux stopped at room 216 and swiped his keycard, then held the door open for her. Bobbie stepped inside, tossed her bag on the floor and surveyed the room. Window on the far side. Drapes pulled tight. Desk, chair. Small sofa. King bed.

      One king bed.

      “You take the bed,” he said, noting her gaze there as he locked the door. He crossed the room and rummaged in the mini fridge, found a bottle of beer and collapsed on the sofa.

      “If you’re not officially on the task force, then you’re tracking Weller on your own.”

      He shrugged. “Aren’t you doing the same thing?”

      Rather than answer him, she pitched another question at him. “You’ve watched Zacharias since you arrived?”

      Her real question was pretty clear. How did he get away or get himself injured and maybe dead with you watching? God she needed a shower. And sleep. It was three-thirty in the morning. She couldn’t think clearly anymore. Maybe she hadn’t been thinking clearly in a long time.

      Rather than answer her question, he opened the beer and chugged a long swallow. When the need for oxygen overrode his desire for alcohol, he lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his other hand.

      Finally he said, “The local cops interviewed Zacharias on Wednesday, as did the Bureau. I tried to question him this morning—” he glanced at the clock by the bed “—technically yesterday morning, round eight. He wouldn’t talk to me. Just before dark, five-thirty maybe, a local courier service picked up a small package at his front door. I followed the guy to see where the package was going. By the time I got back to Zacharias’s house he was long gone or he appeared to be.” He shrugged. “I took advantage of the unoccupied house for sale across the street. I’ve been watching his place since, waiting for him to come back or for the right opportunity to get inside. At some point I guess I fell asleep. When I woke up I saw your car and decided to find out what you were up to.”

      “So you lied to me earlier,” she accused, “when you said you were already in the house when I arrived.”

      He waved off her charge. “There wasn’t time to explain all the nuances involved so I ad-libbed.”

      Bobbie let his lie go for the moment. The way he referred to the Bureau—as if his decisions and theirs were mutually exclusive—reiterated her feeling that Agent LeDoux’s career was like hers, teetering on the brink of disaster. Bobbie crouched down and dug through her bag for the clean underwear she’d packed.

      “So you never saw Zacharias when the courier went to the door?”

      “I did not. I suppose anyone could have given the guy the package.” He downed another long swallow of beer. “But I never saw anyone else go in or come out of the house.”

      She tucked the panties into her back pocket and got to her feet. “Who was the package addressed to?”

      He lifted his shoulders in another listless shrug. “Who knows? The courier refused to tell me the name.”

      “You stopped him?” Jesus Christ. LeDoux really was flirting with the edge.

      “I followed him to the service center parking lot, showed him my credentials and told him I needed to see the package. He told me to get a warrant.”

      “Did you inform the agent in charge of the task force?” The package could be headed to wherever Weller was hiding. Anticipation had her pulse pounding. “This might be a major lead in finding Weller.”

      Rather than answer, LeDoux finished his beer and went for another. Images of Weller’s numerous victims filtered one after the other through her mind like flipping the pages of a macabre family album. Randolph Weller, aka the Picasso Killer, wasn’t just another serial killer. He’d spent most of his adult life as a celebrated, highly respected psychiatrist whose secret hobby was mutilating the corpses of his victims and then painting macabre scenes of the carnage. More shocking, the sick son of a bitch had served