Page 77 of The Last Close Call

“Crap,” she muttered.

The van made a slow pass, oozing down the row as the driver searched for a space. He rolled to a stop in front of a pair of blue dumpsters and parked directly in front of a NO PARKING sign.

The van’s side door slid open, and a woman jumped out. She wore a miniskirt and heels, and had a scarf looped around her neck. The thick white scarf contrasted with her wavy dark hair, and Rowan knew that was intentional. This was her winter look. Coming to you live from the scene of WCR’s second attack...

A man climbed out behind her and hefted a camera onto his shoulder, and Rowan got a sinking feeling inside her.

Once again Jack was right, and she should not have been surprised.

***

The meeting was already underway by the time they showed up.

“Traffic,” Bryan said to Heidi as he took a seat beside her at the conference table. Jack took the last remaining chair on the end in front of a huge screen where a balding man with glasses was saying something about police reports.

Bryan leaned close to Heidi. “Who’s this?” he whispered.

“FBI profiler. His name’s Skinner.”

Bryan looked down the table at Jack. This was the guy who had created the original profile of the West Campus Rapist. Jack had met the man personally and taken him to some of the crime scenes, but all that had happened before Bryan was on the case.

“Agent Skinner is joining us from Quantico. He was just filling us in on his updated profile,” the lieutenant at the end of the table said, looking from Jack to Bryan. This would be Heidi’s boss, Lieutenant Hood, who—as of bright and early this Saturday morning—had officially created the multiagency task force that Jack had been asking for for years. Bryan knew Jack welcomed the task force but wasn’t at all happy about the fact that San Antonio PD was running it.

“Hi, Jack. As I was telling the group, the profile’s been updated in light of the new case,” Skinner said, addressing his webcam.

“Which new case?” Jack asked.

“Amber Novak of San Antonio.”

Bryan glanced around the table, trying to put names with all the faces. Besides Heidi and her boss, there was Liz Lasco, who had driven down from Austin in her own car, as well as Detective Green from last night. Bryan hadn’t caught Green’s first name. So a lieutenant, five detectives from two different agencies, plus a fed. Not bad, given how shorthanded most departments were these days.

“Give us your bottom line,” Hood said from the end of the table. “What makes him stand out?”

Bryan caught the impatience in the guy’s voice. The lieutenant was heavyset and had a white buzz cut. Bryan pegged him for ex-military and already knew from Jack that the man had originally resisted any connection between the San Antonio murder victim and Austin’s serial rapist. But DNA didn’t lie, and now it seemed Hood was on board.

“I was just getting to that,” Skinner said, and Bryan shifted his attention to the screen. With his pasty skin and glasses, the man looked more like a college professor than an FBI agent. But he didn’t come across as stuffy, and Bryan was glad to see he was on a first-name basis with Jack.

“Let’s start with some background,” the profiler said, and his display went to a split screen with a photograph of the suspect appearing on the right side. “This is William John Anderson.”

“Where’d we get this picture?” Heidi asked. “He looks like a kid.”

“This is his yearbook photograph from high school,” Skinner said. “It’s the most recent one we have. His last known driver’s license photo is six months older than this.”

Bryan studied the photo. The guy had sandy blond hair and brown, deep-set eyes. His expression was sullen, but Bryan figured that wasn’t remarkable for an eighteen-year-old with a skinny neck and bad acne.

“He’s been linked to eight separate sexual assaults and one rape-homicide,” the profiler went on. “Plus the attack just last night.”

“Three homicides,” Jack said.

“What’s that?” Hood’s gaze swung to Jack.

“We can link him to three, including his parents, who died in a fire five years ago.”

“Is that confirmed?” Skinner asked.

“As of now, Round Rock Fire is standing behind their original arson investigation,” Hood said. “Until that changes, let’s keep it to one homicide.”

“All right,” the profiler said. “And here’s our most recent driver’s license photo.”

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