Page 424 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

Addie turned to her new colleagues.

“Talk it out.” Kyle took a sip of his coffee. “You’re the profiler. What are your instincts telling you?”

Addie had hardly put the thoughts together but figured that was a good idea. Sometimes it helped to speak aloud ideas. Even doing that could help pieces to fall into place.

“He’s starting again.” Addie frowned. “Or he never stopped. He’s been developing it all these years, working out how he operates. Now he’s ready. He did it with these two victims you found.”

Stella said, “And now?”

“There’s a reason I was brought back here.” There had to be. “How, I have no idea. But why now? It’s not like I was expected, so he couldn’t guarantee I’d be here. And it’s not like he’s taking advantage of me being here now. It doesn’t feel like that.”

“So it could be that he orchestrated your assignment?”

“It brings things full circle with me back in Benson. He finishes what Damen started, and he can make it his own from there.” She thought about all those silent phone calls. “Or he hates himself, and he wants to end it.”

Stella nodded. “He could want you to catch him.”

Kyle said, “Not the first criminal I’ve met who wants it to end. Wants to get caught because they don’t like what they do.”

“But knowing he hates himself doesn’t narrow it down,” Stella pointed out. “At least not in a way we can track.”

Somehow, Addie had to figure out how to marry up the two sides of her. The woman she was in Benson, a survivor with history here, and the FBI profiler she’d become. Both parts of her were going to have to work together to solve this.

“Question is, who in Benson had a hand in getting you back here?” Stella said. “The mayor? The police chief? Isn’t the mayor’s brother a senator in Washington, DC?”

Kyle said, “That guy might have juice enough he got you assigned here.”

“There would be an official request,” Addie said. “But who could’ve pulled strings behind it?”

Someone might have whispered in his ear, and the mayor made the request. She didn’t think the police chief was a likely candidate. Maybe someone within the police department.

“We could all go talk to the mayor. Pin him down.” Kyle had a gleam in his eye. Like a detective determined to put the screws to someone.

Addie would like to see that. But these two were outsiders. “I’ll go.”

“Sure?” Stella asked.

Addie nodded. “I’ll keep it casual. See if I can get him to open up about how it went down.”

“Good,” Stella said. “Something is definitely up in Benson.”

“At least you didn’t use the wordafoot.” Kyle grinned. “While you’re out, we’ll work on these two new cases.”

“Celia’s death still doesn’t make sense. It fits, and it doesn’t, at the same time.” Addie wandered to the board that held those case details and studied it again, hoping to see something she hadn’t gone over a hundred times already. “If he killed two in the same manner as Damen, then why kill a single girl differently?”

“Could be there’s a missing male out there somewhere,” Stella said. “Someone we didn’t find yet. Or another case labeled differently.”

Addie thought about Austin. “Who worked the two cases you just discovered?”

“The suicide was signed off. Not much of an investigation to speak of, and the state police took it because he was found out in the woods.” Kyle tapped the tablet screen. “The girl’s case was assigned to…”

The door opened. A pale man with dark hair and dark circles under his eyes came in, moving slowly.

Celia Jessop’s father.

Addie set a hand on her holstered weapon, ready for whatever might happen next.

The man raised both hands, despair in his eyes.

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