Julia Gray’s jaw dropped.

Elwood made a sound of disapproval. “Tinks—”

“No!” she snapped, standing up. “I’ve had it with this bullshit. Your daughter is dead, Julia. Somebody killed her. Horribly. Brutally. Would you like to see the pictures? Would you like to see what we had to see the night her murdered corpse fell out of the trunk of a moving vehicle?”

“No!”

“No, you wouldn’t, because that would take the attention away from you, wouldn’t it? Poor you. Poor you. What a burden your daughter was. You should be happy she’s dead.”

Julia Gray got to her feet. “That’s outrageous!”

Nikki looked her hard in the eye. “Yes, it is. Your daughter is lying dead on a slab at the morgue and you haven’t even asked to see her. You’ve just left her there—”

Elwood rose then to put space between them. Nikki walked away with her hands on her hips.

“I apologize for my partner, Mrs. Gray,” he said, taking up the mantle of Good Cop. “These cases are very stressful for us as well, especially for those of us with children and those of us who have worked on cases of child sexual abuse.”

“Penny was not abused,” Julia said staunchly.

“Dr. Warner told us she had become very manipulative toward men, that that was one of the reasons he decided he shouldn’t be treating her any longer,” Elwood said. “Was there some specific incident that prompted him to make that decision?”

“Michael has done nothing wrong.”

“We’re not suggesting that he has. We’re looking at the changes in your daughter’s behavior over the past nine months or so, and we think there might have been something that triggered those changes around the time she broke her wrist.”

“You said the accident happened on her way home from Dr. Warner’s office—” Liska started.

“What is wrong with you people?” Julia shouted, her anger bursting its seams. “My daughter was taken by some maniac! Some maniac who has already killed eight other girls. Now he’s taken another girl—that news girl—and you’re wasting time treating me like a criminal and accusing a good man—”

Even as she said it the front door opened and Michael Warner came in looking like a well-tailored superhero, his shoulders broad, his expression serious. Julia Gray went to him, dissolving into tears as she fell against his chest.

“Julia, what’s going on?” he asked. He looked to Elwood and Liska. “What do you people want from her?”

“The truth,” Nikki said. “Maybe you can help us with that, Dr. Warner.”

“We’re done dealing with you,” Warner said tightly as he put his arms around his weeping fiancée. “If you have any more questions, you can speak to my attorney.”

40

“They lawyered up,” Liska announced as they walked into the conference room.

Kovac glanced back at them. “Who?”

“Julia Gray and Michael Warner. We tried to broach the subject of Penny possibly having been sexually abused, and they lawyered up.”

“She’s leaving out the shouting, threats, and accusations,” Elwood said, going to the coffeepot.

“They were upset?”

“I was upset,” Liska admitted. “I can’t decide if I should feel badly for Julia Gray or snatch her by the hair and slap the snot out of her.”

“If you go for the second option, there should be mud wrestling and bikinis involved,” Tippen said. “We can bill it as a grudge match.”

She gave him the finger.

Kovac let the banter float past him. He had been staring at the television screen for too long again. He had borrowed a second television and VCR and wedged them side by side on the stand so he could play them at the same time. His vision was beginning to blur around the edges.

“Tinks, come look at this,” he said, fussing with the remotes, getting everything set up the way he needed it.

“Is it porn?” Tippen asked hopefully. “It’s been a long day.”

“We’re not at your house, Tip,” Liska shot back. She pulled out the chair next to Kovac and sat.

“The screen on the left is the footage from the Holiday station the night Penny Gray went missing. It’s a few minutes before she comes into the store. Tell me if anyone looks familiar.”

No one said anything as the tape played.

Kovac stopped it as Penny Gray walked out of the shot, backed the tape up, and played it again, freezing it when his person of interest appeared. “This guy,” he said, tapping the screen with his finger. “Does he look familiar at all?”

Liska squinted and shrugged. “My uncle Leo on my mother’s side?”

“No! Look harder.”

“Sam, I’m so tired, I can’t see straight as it is. If I look any harder, I’m going to burn my retinas.”

Kovac grumbled under his breath and hit Play on the second remote.

“This one is footage from the Holiday station down the road from where Dana Nolan works. This is from yesterday. She stops there regularly on her way in to work.

“That’s her,” he said, pointing to the girl.

Dana Nolan entered the store, waved to the guy behind the counter, went to the coffee station. A big guy in a parka said something to her. She tipped her head back and appeared to laugh. A minute later another man walked into the store—short, squat, bearded.

“That guy,” he said, freezing the frame and tapping the screen. “I think it’s the same guy. Don’t you think it’s the same guy?”

Liska shrugged, looking from one screen to the other. The images were distant and blurry. “Maybe. I don’t know. They’re both short and have beards and parkas.”

“They’re both short and have beards and parkas, and they’re in Holiday stations with girls who went missing,” he said.

“Doc Holiday trolling the Holiday stations?” Tippen said. “His idea of a joke?”

“Dana Nolan picked the store,” Kovac said. “If our bad guy was stalking her, then he just followed her there. But I’m sure the irony wasn’t lost on him.”

“I don’t know, Sam,” Liska said. “If Doc Holiday took Penny Gray, she was a victim of opportunity, like all his other victims. He had to just happen to be there when she was. But the girl had other people in her life who might have wanted her dead. What are the odds she got nabbed by a serial killer?”

“What are the odds anyway?” Kovac challenged. “And just because people in your personal life hate you doesn’t mean you can’t become a victim of a random crime.

“That’s not even my point,” he said. “I looked at this first tape this morning and I thought I should know the guy, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Then I see him on the footage of Dana Nolan.”

Liska shook her head. “I’m not convinced it’s the same guy.”

Kovac ignored her protest. “Think back. A year ago.”

“Oh my God,” she groaned. “I can’t remember last night!”

“Stop being a wiseass,” he snapped, irritated no one else seemed to be catching on. “Think back a year ago to Rose Reiser.”

“Rose . . . ?”

He watched his partner’s face as she processed the thoughts and dug up the memory. He saw the second the seed took hold.

“Oh my God,” she murmured. She took the remotes away from him and pointed them at the televisions like a pair of laser guns. She backed the tapes up and played them simultaneously.

“It can’t be that guy,” she said. “We checked him out six ways to Sunday.”

“What guy?” Elwood asked.

“The guy that reported finding Rose Reiser’s body last year,” she said. “New Year’s Doe was called in by a guy driving a box truck full of antiques and junk. But he was completely cooperative. He didn’t even complain when we went through his truck with a fine-toothed comb.”

“Frank Fitzgerald,” Kovac said. “He’s from Iowa.”

“Drives a box truck,” Tippen said. “Travels as part of his business.”