Body Count Read online

  I take a piece of predirtied laminated board from my bag. “This has got a couple of red-wine stains on it here, and this is a curry stain.” I point to a reddish-brown mark. “Always a tough stain.”

  I’m rushing it. I need to slow it down.

  I take out a cloth. “Now, you don’t need much of this little baby.” I purr the words, in character again. I squeeze the bottle so the white foamy substance oozes onto the cloth. I lean forward and reveal just enough cleavage to get his mind, or more likely his body, going.

  Boxley responds, shifting ever so slightly to get a better view. Creep.

  “Then it’s just a gentle wipe.” I speak slowly, softly and let the “p” sound pop on my lips.

  “Goldilocks, you’re getting me going.” It’s Marco’s voice. I don’t react. I’ll get him for that later.

  “Very impressive.” Boxley is clearly talking more about me than the cleaning products.

  I smile, let my eyes linger on his, then cast my gaze quickly down his body, averting my eyes at his groin as though suddenly aware of, and embarrassed by, my own actions. I follow it with a small yet forceful push of air through my nose that verges on a giggle. While he’s absorbing this development, I cast my eyes around the room once more, looking for any sign of a weapon.

  “See.” I show him the clean piece of laminated board. “Spotless.”

  He smiles.

  It’s time.

  I take the appropriate bottle out of my sales bag.

  “Our next product is the window cleaner.”

  I turn around and walk toward the window, exaggerating the swing of my hips. I spray the window and before I start the wiping action I look around at Boxley with my head down slightly, eyes up, and I smile.

  “You’re going to love this one.” My voice has a more serious, tougher tone and I’m out of character for a split second, knowing that soon he’ll be mine. I wipe the product away, giving our guys the signal. The bust is a go.

  “Mad Dog, this is seven, we have the signal. Repeat, we are a go,” a voice says in my earpiece.

  “Move in, people,” Flynn says.

  I turn around and notice a strange look on Boxley’s face. He’s looking at my feet. No, my ankle. Oh God, my ankle holster. Have my pants edged their way upward as my arm completed the wiping motion, high above my head? How could I be so stupid? My cockiness might cost me dearly.

  “Anything wrong?” I keep my voice casual, steady.

  Boxley looks at me, silent. I know that look. He’s about to take action.

  He lunges, arms outstretched. I dart to the side, just in time to escape his lethal hands, then immediately take a step forward with my left leg and send a swift, hard right kick his way. I aim for his back, targeting his kidneys, and the top of my foot meets its mark. He stumbles forward from the force of my kick and winds up on his knees in front of the window. He turns around to make another run at me. I grab my gun from the ankle holster and draw it, taking the safety off.

  “FBI!” It’s the first time I’ve announced myself as FBI and I like it. The adrenaline is well and truly pumping now.

  Boxley pauses.

  “I will fire, Robert, so don’t even think about it.” I look at him and all I can think about are his victims. I lower my gun from his heart to his crotch. It has the desired effect.

  “There are twenty police officers and agents on their way up here right now and we’ve got sharpshooters on the surrounding buildings.” He’s standing right in their line of fire. “Try anything and you’re dead.”

  “You bitch.”

  “Flynn, I have the suspect.”

  “Okay, Goldilocks, we’re a minute away.”

  I walk backward and unlock the front door, keeping my eyes and gun trained on Boxley. “Roger that, Flynn, door is open.”

  “You bitches are all the same,” Boxley says.

  CHAPTER 02

  I sip my peppermint tea, trying to elicit a soothing feeling from it. Instead, I wish I’d gone for coffee number five. I put the mug back down on my desk, lining it up with a day-old coffee ring. I could do with a dash of Clean-a-way myself.

  My office is quite small, like most of the offices in the unit, about ten feet by ten feet. But hey, it beats open plan. The decor is stark—white walls, gray furniture and fairly new blue-gray carpet. I’ve just finished an office tidy-up and my large wall-mounted whiteboard is sparkling clean. My four-drawer filing cabinet has only three files on top of it and my desk has more than a few patches of laminate visible underneath the papers. I’ve even placed the two visitor chairs neatly in front of my desk. To finish off, I water my corner plant, the office’s only homely feel, and contemplate wiping my desk.

  Even from my office I can see that the building is quiet and partially dark. I look at my watch. It’s seven o’clock and I should join the others. When they left half an hour ago my boss, Andy Rivers, was pretty insistent.

  “What are you doing, Anderson? File it tomorrow. It’s time to celebrate. God knows, you deserve it.”

  “I’ll come over soon,” I promised. But instead of going to the bar, I started filing the case notes.

  I place the last of my handwritten notes, case files and photos into the file and box it up, ready to go to the D.A. for prosecution. I’ll definitely be called to the stand for Boxley. Eventually my boxed notes will end up in the archives room, where all the solved ones go. Never to be seen again, just like Boxley; he’ll never see the outside of a prison again.

  I like filing the notes as soon as the case is closed. It’s symbolic. I try to erase the case from my memory, at least until the trial.

  I bend over my desk with my back to the door.

  “So—”

  I jolt with fear until I process the familiar voice. Agent Josh Marco.

  “—you did it, hey, Anderson?”

  “Marco, how do you do that?” He can enter a room without making the slightest sound.

  “It’s my job. What’s your excuse?”

  “Finishing up the paperwork and closing the file.”

  “Well, though I can see that’s more important than joining us for a drink, I actually meant how do you get so damn close with your profiles.”

  “Oh, that.” I act coy. “It’s my job. Besides, you get close too.”

  “True, but you…” He pauses. “Let’s say I’m impressed with your skills. In fact, you may just be the best profiler I’ve ever worked with.”

  I blush. I love my job and I like the thought of being the best, but I’m not there yet. “Nah.” I fidget with the files on my desk. I’m the rookie in this department and the compliment makes me feel uncomfortable. “We all get the profiles right,” I say.

  “That’s what they pay us for.” He smiles. “I’m going over now, you coming?”

  “Soon.”

  “Come on.”

  I look at my relatively tidy desk. I guess I can send the files to the D.A. tomorrow.

  “All right, already,” I say, putting on my best American accent.

  “You still ain’t got it.”

  “Getting there?”

  “Yeah, another year and you might be able to pull it off.”

  “Well I’d like to see you try. Americans are shit at the Australian accent.”

  “I reckon I come pretty close,” he says in a perfect Australian accent.

  “I’m impressed. You’ve been hiding this talent from me for six months?”

  “I had to go undercover as an Australian once, but if I tell you any more, I’ll have to kill you.” He leans on the doorway and gives me a wink.

  “That line might work on the girls in the bars, but it won’t fly with me.” I give him a smirk and an exaggerated flutter of the eyelashes.

  “Guess not, Goldilocks.”

  “Am I getting you going again?”

  “Always, Goldilocks, always.” He smiles.

  Over the past six months I’ve discovered bits and pieces of the Josh Marco jigsaw, but it still doesn’t amount to m
uch. I know he started off as a cop, was in the air force and did some time as an FBI field agent before coming to the unit. I also know he’s a good agent.

  “Come on. Let me drag you away before Rivers gets pissed,” Marco says.

  Rivers…I’ve got even fewer pieces of that jigsaw.

  “You said he’s single, right?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Heard he was married once, though.”

  “Divorced?”

  “Guess so. It’s the way things go in this unit.” He folds his arms across his chest. “No one knows squat about Rivers anyway. You know what he’s like.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” But the psychologist in me wants to know more.

  Marco straightens up and motions his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  I turn off my computer and put the boxed files under my desk. Case closed. And hopefully my mind too, closed against the nightmares.

  “I’ve just got to lock up,” Marco says.

  I follow him through the rabbit warren of corridors toward his office. The FBI offices at Quantico take up a small part of the large complex that is the FBI Academy, the national training center for the Bureau. The FBI has three hundred and eighty-five acres at its disposal, and the whole training complex includes three dormitories, a dining room, a library, an auditorium, a chapel, a gym, a large running track, a defensive-driving track, several firing ranges and the famous Hogan’s Alley—a simulated town that agents train in. There are also some centralized departments operating from Quantico rather than the D.C. head office. Our unit, the Behavioral Analysis Unit, is one of those departments, as is the Forensic Science Research and Training Center.

  The BAU takes up the basement of the building and consists of narrow corridors and small offices with not a window in sight. It took me a long time to get used to this place.

  Eventually we take about our tenth left and come to Marco’s office. His room is still set up for the Henley case, the one we’ve just busted, and the decor spoils my sense of closure. The whiteboards are covered with writing, including my messy script, and photos line the room. Lots of dead girls photographed from every angle, a photo of a knife, and photos of the locations where the bodies were found. Christine Henley was the first girl murdered. That was two years ago. But things really hotted up five months ago, a month after I’d become the newest addition to the unit. The killer murdered the mayor’s daughter, and the heat was on. Strings were pulled, and our involvement changed from the FBI’s usual consulting role to Marco and I working the case full-time and in the field. Sometimes it takes a kick in the teeth up high to get the resources together. Particularly these days when the FBI’s number-one priority is terrorism. Serial killers are small stuff after September 11.

  We got Boxley three murders after the mayor’s daughter.

  It’s the last victim in a case that always gets to me. I think about her a lot. Could we have got him before her? Should we have got him before her?

  I scan the room, reliving the murders, the chase. Marco watches me.

  “I’m not as organized as you,” he says.

  I smile and consider telling him that my filing isn’t really about a neat, orderly personality. But he can figure it out for himself. Or maybe he already has. He comes toward his door and I take a step back into the hall. He flicks the light switch, closes his door and locks it. I notice the closeness of our bodies, and the slight butterflies that I often get around Marco rise in my stomach.

  He turns around. “I’ll file it tomorrow. Let’s go.”

  We walk out of the building and I’m immediately hit by the late-fall wind. I draw my arms in closer to my body and put my head down.

  “You sure you’re ready for your first American winter?” Marco says.

  I rub my gloved hands together. “It’s bloody cold all right.”

  “It’s not even winter yet, you know.”

  “I think this is colder than Melbourne ever gets.”

  “Australia doesn’t really have a winter, does it?”

  “We do.” I’m amazed at Marco’s ignorance.

  “What temperature does it get down to?”

  “In Fahrenheit…” I pause, doing the mental calculation. “It’d be about thirty-five as the low and fifty-five as the high.”

  “Like I said, no winter.”

  I push my body into his and he feigns being knocked off balance.

  “Come on.” I pick up the pace, keen to get into my car and put the heater on.

  Marco walks me to my car first. I get in and start the engine.

  “See you there?”

  “Of course,” he says.

  I close the door and give him a wave. Once I’m out of the parking lot, it takes me nearly two full minutes of driving to get to the perimeter. I pass the security gates and drive to downtown Quantico, if you could call it that. Quantico itself is a small town that was built mainly to service the massive marine corps base. The township’s main strip consists of a grocery store, a bakery, a realestate business, an Internet café, two café restaurants, a few bars and four barbers—Quantico is crew cuts galore.

  From the bars on offer, the Bureau has picked Club Victor as its local. Most nights it’s wall-to-wall agents and marine officers, with a smattering of husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends thrown in for good measure. There are usually quite a few from forensics too—the fingerprint guys and lab techs. The only difference between Club Victor and the usual special-forces haunt is that police officers are replaced by the corps.

  The FBI agents often nurse soft drinks, or “soda” as they call it here, looking on the marines with some envy. I’m still getting used to the Bureau’s mandate about alcohol. We have to be “fit for duty” at all times, which means only a couple of drinks. I’m sure that rule’s broken by many of us in the privacy of our own homes, but in public the armed forces slam them back like there’s no tomorrow, while we get labeled sissies.

  Tonight, Club Victor will be full of agents who want to help us celebrate the case’s end, plus the usual crowd from the marine base. Then of course there’ll be our boss, Rivers, and maybe even the unit head, Jonathan Pike. Flynn and some of the other police officers who live on this side of D.C. may make the trip too.

  I pull in around the corner from the bar and break into a light jog to the main street. The flashing neon light gets closer and I walk down the few steps to the bar’s sunken entrance. A horn honks and I look up. Marco’s pulling in to a parking spot right out front. I give him a wave and then walk into the bar. The contrast in temperature is dramatic and within a couple of seconds a hot flush runs through me and settles in my face. I peel off my coat, and take off my gloves and scarf. The heat generated by forty-plus bodies crammed into the small bar, coupled with the building’s heating system, is stifling.

  The room is long and thin, with ten booths along the left-hand wall and the counter and bar stools on the right. It’s dimly lit and fitted out with lots of wood. Tonight the place is crowded. I search the faces for a familiar one in the mostly male clientele. I see our group toward the back.

  The door opens and Marco enters.

  “Drink?” he says, sidling up next to me.

  “Yeah, I’ll have a—”

  “Becks.”

  I smile. “That’s the one.”

  I stand near the bar and have a closer look at who’s here. There’s a group from the lab, including Marty, Marco’s roommate. He’s one of the Bureau’s top forensics guys, a team leader who specializes in fingerprints and blood spatter. He smiles at me and beckons me over uncertainly. He’s pretty shy. I smile back but then spot Sam Wright, the person I really want to see, standing on the other side of the little huddle that Marty is part of.

  As usual, Sam’s surrounded by males who are captivated by her every movement, her every word. I don’t know exactly what it is, but that girl’s got something. Her wavy brown hair hangs halfway down her back and is cut in long layers, and every now and again she runs her fingers through one side. He
r face is sculpted by high cheekbones and a strong jaw. Intense green eyes capture most people’s attention; however, by far her most distinguishing trait is her wide natural smile, in the style of Julia Roberts.

  I fight my way through a group of ogling marines. Rivers makes a beeline for me. He pulls me in next to him just as I reach the edge of the group.

  “Here she is,” he says, raising his full glass of beer skyward and nodding at me in a slightly paternal manner. “The Aussie wonder.”

  I was the one who saw Boxley’s pattern. It broke the case for us.

  Everyone raises their glasses. The blood rushes to my face. Sam gives me an amused wink and I grimace in response. I hate being in the spotlight. Most profiling work is behind the scenes, although the press try to make it more public. They love talking to the profiler on a case. But I avoid the reporters. And when the case breaks, I push the attention onto the local cops, the ones usually breaking down the doors and making the arrests.

  Marco arrives with my beer and clunks my bottle heavily. “Cheers,” he says.

  “Ah, and here’s the Rock. Cheers, Marco,” Rivers says.

  I’m still not sure why Marco is called the Rock.

  “Cheers,” I say, toasting and taking a swig directly from the bottle. It tastes better that way.

  With the official toast over, the other agents go back to their conversations. I like seeing Rivers like this, even though it’s only for an hour or so. Every time a perp’s caught from one of the unit’s profiles he transforms, letting himself live a little before his controlled, authoritarian persona returns.

  Marco disappears into the sea of agents, leaving me with Rivers.

  “So, how did you do it?”

  “What?”

  “You know what I mean. Your profiles are good. Exceptional in fact. That’s why we got you.”

  “I’m no different from the others.”

  “Maybe not yet, but I’ve got a feeling about you. You’re a natural.” He pauses. “I knew that from the moment I saw you.”

  “You didn’t even notice me,” I laugh.

  He smiles. “Okay, at first you were a face in a sea of many. But I noticed your questions.”