Dead Ringer (29 page)

"Oh, yeah.
Fact, I doubt I'll ever forget her face." He
reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He removed
one, lit it, and took a deep puff before he said, "Petite.
Young.
Blond."

"Blond?"
That was different from the profile. "Can you tell how she was murdered?"

He
shuddered. "No. But I didn't see any blood."

Brett
came behind Kendall and looked at the man. "Do you think she could have been
strangled, like the other two women?"

The
man gasped. "What?"

Kendall
glowered at Brett. "We don't know the others were strangled."

Brett
looked unapologetic. "My texter said they were."

Kendall
grabbed Brett by the arm and pulled him away. "Why didn't you tell me this
earlier?"

"I'm
telling you now." He leaned toward her. "Since when did you become so
spineless?"

"I'm
not spineless," she said, her teeth clenched. "But if you start blurting out
facts to people while I'm interviewing them you make me look like a fool. Now
back off."

He
held up his hands, a glint of pleasure in his eyes. "Now that's the fighter
instinct I want to see. Go for the jugular."

Disgusted,
she turned from him. "Jeff, I'd like to interview you on camera."

Jeff
sniffed and took another drag.
"Yeah, sure.
Why not?"

She
motioned to Mike, who headed toward them. He clicked on his light and started
taping. Kendall asked Jeff a dozen questions and he answered them well. It was
a good interview.

When
they'd wrapped up, she and Mike moved toward the ring of police cars that stood
as a barrier between her and the yellow tape. The police had seen to it that no
one was going to get too close. They were careful with all their crime scenes,
but this one was locked up tight like Fort Knox.

She
started to work the crowd, moving among the few bystanders trying to find out
what she could about the victim. After an hour, she had little more to go on
than when she'd started.

And
yet, as the moments passed she felt a tremendous sense of loss as she thought
about the dead woman. She'd not known her but she felt as if she had. What was
wrong with her?

When
she spotted Jacob, who was ducking under the yellow tape, she jogged, with Mike
in tow, after him.
"Detective!
Sources tell me that
the latest victim was strangled, like the other two victims." She didn't know
for certain the women had been strangled but was looking for a reaction.

At
the sound of her voice, his head whipped around and he glared at her. He strode
toward her, mindful that the camera was trained on him. "We have no comment,
Ms. Shaw."

"Was
she strangled, like the others?"

Jacob
didn't speak, but the subtle shift in his expression told her that she'd hit
her mark. The women
had
all been strangled. Dear God. "The county has a
serial killer in its midst, doesn't it?"

His
expression turned fierce. "We don't know that."

She
knew he was just mad enough to lose it and give her a quote. "The other two
victims were in their mid-to late thirties with dark brown hair. This victim
had blond hair. Do you think the serial killer is changing his M.O.?"

Jacob
ground his teeth. She sensed that controlling his temper required all his
resolve right now. "No comment."

Mike
kept taping, but Jacob didn't rise to the bait. He ducked back under the yellow
tape.

"Why
do you think he's killing them?!" she shouted after him.
The
need to know felt more personal than professional.

He
kept walking.

"Come
on, Detective! Give me a comment!"

Silent,
he disappeared around the side of the building. She turned away from the tape
and shoved out a breath. Mike stopped taping.

Why was he killing them?

The
question replayed over and over in her head as she headed back toward the crowd
to ask more questions.

From
a distance, Allen watched the chaos at the crime scene. The text messages had
certainly stirred things up today. He smiled as he stared at the worried faces
of the crowd. Their worry and fear excited him. He felt more alive than he had
in years.

Sunday, January 20, 1:00
P.M.

Kendall
got under Jacob's skin every time she was in shouting distance. The woman was a
damn pit bull who'd push any button to get a quote. He'd have asked her how she
knew the other victims had been strangled, but the damn camera was rolling and
the last thing he needed was for his comments to end up on the news.

Tess
approached him, her face bright red from the cold. "Jacob."

"Yeah."

He
was so consumed by Kendall and the case he didn't even feel awkward about their
kiss on Friday night. "What do you have?"

She
was all business. "I've found a driver's license tucked deep in the victim's
pants pocket." She handed him the license, now sealed in a plastic evidence
bag. "The victim appears to match the picture. Her name is Amanda Sorenson."

Jacob
shoved out a sigh.
"Right.
Thanks."

He
flipped open his phone and dialed the missing
persons
officer on duty. He quickly learned that the parents of an Amanda Sorenson had
filed a missing persons report on their daughter thirty-six hours ago when she
didn't show up for work on Friday night.

He
tucked the phone back in his pocket and glanced around at the growing number of
cops for Zack. When he spotted him talking to Ayden, he made his way to him.

Ayden's
expression was grim and he looked as if he'd aged twenty years in the last two
hours.

Jacob
quickly updated the two. "We need to talk to the Sorensons before the media
gets to them."

"Agreed.
Someone is leaking information," Ayden said.
"I want hourly updates on this."

"Sure."

Jacob
and Zack ducked around the back of the building and got into Jacob's car, which
was parked away from the media cameras. Jacob fired up the engine and they drove
out of the development onto the main thoroughfare.

Zack
telephoned the contact number for the Sorensons, identified himself to Mr.
Sorenson, and the two agreed to a meeting. He closed his phone. "The guy sounds
like a wreck."

"Wouldn't
you be?"

"Yeah."

Somberness
settled between the detectives as they drove to the address supplied by the
missing persons' officer. Neither relished the conversation they were about to
have.

Twenty
minutes later they arrived at a neatly kept colonial brick house in a middle-class
neighborhood. They parked in the paved driveway and walked up to the front.
Jacob rang the bell and the door snapped open almost instantly. The two people
standing there were tall, long limbed, and fair, like their daughter. Their
hair had long ago turned gray, and he found himself trying to figure out which
one Amanda favored. He decided she must be a blend of the two.

"Mr.
and Mrs. Sorenson, I'm Detective Jacob Warwick. This is my partner, Zack Kier."

Mr.
Sorenson's gray eyes paled with worry. He held out his hand and shook Jacob's
and Zack's hands. "This isn't good, is it?"

Jacob
didn't want to have this conversation on the front porch. "Can we come inside?"

Mrs.
Sorenson's eyes filled with unshed tears as if she knew the worst. "Please,
come in," she said.

They
stepped out of the cold and into the warm foyer carpeted with an Oriental
runner. They followed the couple into a pristine living room that looked as if
it didn't get used often.

They
all sat. Mr. Sorenson was the first to speak. "What is this about?"

Mrs.
Sorenson looked at her husband and squeezed his hand.

Jacob
leaned forward clasping his hands in front of him until his joints ached.
"Mr. and Mrs. Sorenson.
We believe we found your daughter
this morning. She was carrying her driver's license and her face matched the
photo." He drew in a breath, dreading this part. "She was dead. We believe
murdered."

Mrs.
Sorenson dropped her head and started to weep. "I knew something was wrong when
she didn't show up to work. I knew it. I went by her apartment on Saturday but
she wasn't there."

"I'm
sorry," Zack said softly.

"How
did she die?" Mr. Sorenson asked. Anger mingled with sadness in his eyes.

"We
can't say just yet," Jacob said.

Mrs.
Sorenson's red-rimmed eyes pierced him.
"Why not?
She
was our child."

The
wall behind them was covered with pictures of their children. The pictures
scanned decades and included shots of them at their graduations, during
holidays, and with their sports teams. It was easy to pick Amanda out of the
mix.

"The
investigation is complicated. We think whoever killed your daughter may have
been involved in other crimes," Jacob said.

"Two
other women have been murdered in the last couple of weeks," Mr. Sorenson said.
"Are you referring to those women?"

Jacob
purposefully avoided the question. "Tell me about Amanda.
Boyfriends,
her job, friends."

Mrs.
Sorenson wiped a tear from her face. "Amanda had a boyfriend last year but she
broke up with him. He was a good guy and we didn't blame him for the breakup.
She never stayed with anyone too long. She liked her independence. She was an
artist.
A painter.
She was quite good and was making a
name for herself."

"What
about friends?" Jacob asked.

"She
had some girlfriends, but again no one close."

"She
kept to herself," Jacob said. He'd heard that statement when the other victims
had been described.

"Basically,"
her mother said. "She loved her art and her work. That's what she put her
energy into."

"Has
she always been a loner?" Zack asked.

Her
mother closed her eyes and dabbed the corners. She pulled in a breath and
looked at Jacob. "Amanda was always moody. She would spend hours alone in her
room listening to music and working on her art. I always assumed that that was
who she was. So I left her alone so she could paint. That generally calmed
her."

Three women.
Each lived alone. Each couldn't sustain a
relationship.

"What
kind of things did she paint?" Jacob asked.

"Flowers.
Clouds.
A white house with a wide front porch and a picket fence.
Little girls playing."

"Those
images don't fit your description of a moody woman," Jacob observed.

"Her
pictures always had
a sadness
about them." Mrs.
Sorenson swallowed. "I assumed those images had to do with her life before she
came to live with us."

Jacob
raised his gaze.
"Before?"

"Before
we adopted her," Mr. Sorenson said. "We adopted Amanda when she was ten."

Jacob
eased forward in his seat. "Do you know anything about her birth family?"

Mrs.
Sorenson shook her head. "No. It was a closed adoption. At one point we tried
to find out. She was having trouble sleeping and we thought if we understood
her past better we could help her. But the agency director told us the records
were sealed. She wouldn't tell us anything."

"Isn't
it common to know something about an adopted child's past?" Zack asked.

Mrs.
Sorenson smiled. "I suppose. Amanda was the only child we ever adopted. Our
other five children are ours." Her cheeks colored. "I mean they are our birth
children."

"Has
her name always been Amanda?"

"That
was her name when she came to us. And she never told us differently." Mrs.
Sorenson frowned. "But I suspect it was some kind of code name used by the
placing agency."

"Code name?"

"They
used to do that. Create new names for the birth mother and the adopted child.
Sometimes they made new birthdays. It was a way to protect identities."

Jacob
drummed his fingers on his leg. "Did she ever talk about her birth family?"

Mrs.
Sorenson shook her head.
"Never.
I tried to get her to
open up about it but she never would. I've been told that's not so uncommon for
a child who's been placed at a later age. I think the transition from Amanda's
old home to ours was abrupt and traumatic."

"Abrupt?"

"We
weren't given details." She frowned. "At the time I didn't question the social worker.
I thought if we could love her enough we could overcome whatever she'd been
through. But it was never that easy."

Mr.
Sorenson frowned. "She was always testing us. Seeing how far she could go."

Mrs.
Sorenson
smiled,
her eyes watery and red. "I think she
needed to prove to herself that no matter what we wouldn't give up on her."

"She
was placed in your home by the state?" Jacob asked.

"A private agency.
Virginia Adoption
Services."

Jacob
nodded. "Where did she go to school?"

"She
attended Virginia Commonwealth University. She earned a degree in painting.
Later she earned a master's in art history. She was a talented painter."

"Did
she sell her work?"

Mrs.
Sorenson offered a faltering smile. "She'd just sold a couple of pieces a few
months ago. She was so excited. Until then she'd worked as a clerk in a rental
car company to pay the bills. We often had to help her with rent." Tears welled
in her eyes and she started to cry again.

Mr.
Sorenson wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulder. "Can these questions wait?
My wife is too torn up about this."

Mrs.
Sorenson raised her head. "I can keep talking. I must keep talking. I owe that
to Amanda. I feel like I failed her in so many ways."

"Why
do you say that?" Jacob asked.

"I
wanted to bond with her so badly. I tried everything, but nothing worked. I
hate to say it, but there were times when I resented her. I gave her everything
and it was never enough."

"Have
you ever heard the name Rachel?" Jacob asked.

"No,"
Mr. Sorenson said.

"What
about Judith or Ruth?"

His
wife looked up. "I heard her say Judith in her dreams when she first came to
us. When I asked her who she was, she wouldn't tell."

Jacob
looked at Zack. This was the first tangible connection between the victims. "If
you think of anything that might link Amanda to the name Judith, Ruth, or
Rachel would you let us know?"

"Of
course," Mr. Sorenson said. "We'll give you anything you need."

The
couple rose and escorted the detectives out of their house. Neither of the
detectives spoke until Jacob had fired up the engine and pulled into traffic.

"What
the hell does the killer see in these women that we don't?" Zack asked.

Jacob
drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "We know Vicky was in foster care.
Amanda was adopted. Maybe Jackie was adopted as well."

"No
one said Jackie was."

"No
one said she wasn't. And it's a question we never thought to ask."

"You
really think this is the connection?"

"I
don't know. But it's all we've got right now."

It
was past lunchtime when Cole exited his house through the back door and crossed
the alley to Kendall's yard. He was certain that Kendall's house was empty. The
contractor had come and gone for the day. The roommate was gone. And Kendall
had left hours ago.

Now
was as good a time as any to have a look around her place.

Quickly,
he slipped through her garage into the backyard and hurried to her back door.
He'd been watching her for the last couple of days and knew she kept a key
hidden behind a loose brick by the back door. It was a stupid habit, one that
could cause her a lot of trouble. But for now he was glad because it made
getting in easier. He opened the back door, moved inside, and closed the door
behind him. He pocketed the key. "Hey, Kendall, it's me, Cole. Are you home? I
need to borrow an egg."
Lame.
But he didn't care.

All
he cared about was that no one answered him. And no one did.

He
moved down the back hallway, listening as his footsteps echoed in the house. He
stopped in the kitchen. The new cabinets had been installed. They looked nice.

He
hurried up the center staircase and headed to the room at the back of the house
she used as an office. He'd watched her from his house. Generally, when she
came home from work it was tea and quiet time in her office.

The
space was neat and orderly. The furniture style looked French, he thought, but
he couldn't be sure. She'd taken time to ensure that every piece went together.
Light blues, pale yellows, and whites made the space look feminine but not fussy.
A man could sit on the generously stuffed couch and read while she sat at her
desk.