Page 47 of Ruthless Riches
12
Nate
“Nate?”
I looked up to see Detective Rader standing a few feet away from me in the police station waiting area. Behind him, several uniformed cops were sitting in a bullpen, taking calls for the Butcher tip hotline.
I stood and followed Rader past the bullpen and down a hall. He opened an office door on the left and stepped inside. “Thanks for coming in so quickly,” he said. “Take a seat.”
I sat at the table in front of me and looked up at him with a wide, expectant gaze. “Did you find something at Central Park?”
“Not yet.” Rader grabbed some paperwork from his bag and sat opposite me. “It’ll take a while to cover that much ground.”
“How much has the team done so far?”
“Two acres.”
My brows shot up. “That’s it? Two acres out of two hundred?”
Rader lifted a hand. “They only started this morning. Also, if we assume that the information you came across the other day is correct, the whole two hundred acres doesn’t need to be checked. Just the gardens.”
“How much does that narrow it down by?”
He wrinkled his forehead as he thought about it. “It’s around seventy acres all up.”
I let out a short, frustrated sigh and looked down at the table. If the team managed to go over two acres a day, it would still take thirty-five days to search seventy acres, unless they got lucky and found something right away.
Alexis didn’t have thirty-five days.
“We’ve also got a team of undercovers stationed in and around the park,” Rader went on. “It’s closed to the public while the search goes on, but if anyone tries to sneak in, our guys will get them and bring them in for questioning.”
“I doubt the Butcher will be stupid enough to go back there,” I said. “He already knows we’re onto the Central Park thing because he saw us there the other day. I’m pretty sure that’s why he took Alexis.”
“You’re probably right about that, but it’s still worth looking into,” he said, lifting a brow. “You never know—he might go back.”
I didn’t respond to that. I simply shook my head.
Rader leaned forward. “I know it’s hard, Nate, but try to stay optimistic. At this point, we’re almost certain that Alexis is still alive. The Butcher always keeps his victims for two to three weeks before doing anything to them, and killers like that rarely change their MOs,” he said. “I’m feeling very confident about the park search. I think we’re going to find those tunnels, and then we’re going to find her.”
I nodded slowly. That glimmer of hope about Alexis still being alive was the only thing keeping me going right now.
After I called Rader and Fernandez last night to let them know what Ruby, Laurel and I had discovered about the Fitbit watch, they’d organized for a team to start searching the park first thing this morning. One of them found the Fitbit in a parking lot near the main gate on Seewald Avenue.
That meant Alexis’s heart didn’t actually stop the other night. The Butcher was just smart enough to notice the Fitbit device and remove it from her wrist when he pulled her out of the car.
“Why did you want me to come in if you don’t have any updates?” I asked, looking back up at Rader.
“Well, we actually do have an update, in a sense.” He patted the sheaf of papers in front of him. “This information is going to the media in a couple of hours, but I thought I’d get you in here and tell you about it right away.”
I eyed the paperwork. “What is it?”
He leaned forward again, fingers clasping together on the table. “Do you know what a criminal profiler is?”
“Yeah. Like all that Mindhunter stuff.”
“That’s right.” He gave me a faint smile. “As you know, we’ve had the FBI assisting us with this case, and one of their best profilers has been developing an offender profile for the Butcher over the last few weeks. He flew in this morning to discuss it with us.”
“He’s finished it?”
