“Right now, I need to follow this trail here in Nashville. Let me work this out for you, because some of this information I’m guessing at. The geo profile indicates that Nashville may be a staging area. I think the killer may be based here. I believe he’s been in contact with one of the local reporters. I’ve been waiting to go over all of this with you until I could get a positive confirmation. I wanted to make sure the poems that were at the scenes match the poems he was e-mailing the reporter. They do.

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“Now, the story gets a little crazy here. The reporter, Whitney Connolly, was afraid for her twin sister, was trying to pass along a message to her. But she was killed in an accident before she divulged the information. We’ve found out that the sister’s husband, Jake Buckley, is a vice president with Health Partners. So there is definitely something to this side of things, and we need to get to the bottom of it.

“The killer e-mailed another poem to Whitney Connolly’s e-mail, one that doesn’t match what we have found so far. There’s a body in Louisville. Most likely, that’s what the poem correlates to, but we won’t know until we get some identification.”

“I don’t know, Baldwin, I just don’t know. This case, it’s gotten away from me. From all of us. Do you even know when he sends the poems? Is it when he takes them? Or when he kills them? Where’s he sending them from? Does he have a laptop?”

“I don’t know the answer to that one, Grimes. Did you check with the community hospital in Asheville to see if they have any employees unaccounted for?”

“I did, and they don’t have anyone that hasn’t shown up for work. There’s not a lot else I can do unless we get a missing persons report.”

“What about the colleges? There are several schools in Asheville. We know that Shauna Davidson didn’t work for a Health Partners hospital but attended a class there. Maybe there are students who come in to do lab work or something.”

“Baldwin…”

“I know, man, I’m grasping at straws. I’m just trying to think…”

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“No, Baldwin, wait. I think I’ve got an idea. Student health centers, right? They probably wouldn’t have any ability to do lab work. Maybe they send out.”

“Grimes, that’s a great idea. Start at UNC–Asheville, it’s the school closest to the hospital. Double-check they don’t have anyone missing, make some calls to the other schools, try to track this down. Then you can head out to Louisville. I’ll do what I can here to find out what’s going on.”

Disappointment spilled from Grimes’s mouth. “Oh. Okay. I’m waiting on some more information to come in from Louisville, but I’ll check things out here. In the meantime, you’ll let me know as soon as you hear something?”

“Will do. Go get the college checked out. I’ve got a feeling about that.”

Thirty-Six

Grimes drove through the gates of the University of North Carolina at Asheville and was struck by the beauty of the campus. It seemed like a very nice place to spend four years of your life. He followed the entrance drive to a large board that had all of the buildings laid out in a map. He looked for the student health center, found it and drove over there.

He got out of the car and went into the quiet building. There was a reception area, and he asked a pretty, blond girl sitting behind the desk if he could speak to the head of the center. She told him to hold on and disappeared. While he waited, he thumbed through a brochure that extolled the virtues of the campus health system.

A few minutes later, a woman came out from a back room, black hair shot with gray, hard lines etched deep in her upper lip. “I’m sorry, sir, but this is a private health center for the students of the university and you have to leave.”

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He badged her, making sure she saw the large blue-andwhite FBI card first and foremost. She was still mouthy.

“I suppose you have questions about that poor dead lamb that showed up here in town. Well, that wasn’t one of our students and we didn’t have anything to do with it. So I’d appreciate it if you left.”

“Are you done, lady? ’Cause I’ve got a few questions and I’d appreciate it if you’d shut up and answer them.”

The rudeness shocked her into silence, and Grimes took advantage of the quiet.

“I need to know if you ever send lab work or anything else to the Asheville Community Hospital.”

The woman looked at him for a moment. “If there’s something that needs to be done for a student we simply send the student there, to the hospital. They can do things we can’t in a few cases. A very few cases. We do have a full-service health center here,” she boasted.

“Give me an example. When’s the last time you sent a student down to the hospital?”

“Well, we had to send one young lady down yesterday for a chest X-ray. Our machine is down. She’s been ill and the doctor thought it would be a good idea to rule out pneumonia.”

Grimes leaned into the woman’s face. “Who is the girl you sent?”

“Now, I can’t tell you that. That’s private information. I would—”

“Lady, tell me who it was or I’m going to arrest you, so help me God. I don’t have time for this crap from you. Who? ”

The woman became indignant. “Well. You don’t have to yell. Her name is Noelle Pazia. There, satisfied?”

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“No. Tell me how I can get in touch with Noelle.”

“Well, I suppose I could call her if you insist.”

He put a hand on her elbow and propelled her toward the door to her tiny office. “Let’s go make that call. I’m trying to make sure one of your students isn’t in trouble.”

The woman gave him a look that made him think of his daughter’s pet rabbit, nose twitching in fear, and picked up the phone. She dialed an extension, asked for Noelle Pazia and held up a finger to indicate she had been put on hold.

“The campus operator is routing the call,” she whispered, though there was no reason for her to keep her voice down. Grimes paced a few feet in either direction until the woman spoke again. “Is Noelle there? This is Nurse Brooks at the student health center. She isn’t. When did you see her last? You know she’s very ill, she needs to be in bed. She didn’t? Oh my. Yes dear, thank you.” She hung up the phone and gave Grimes a look he could not distinguish, whether it was anger or delight he would never know.

“She wasn’t in her room. She didn’t sleep there last night as far as her roommate can tell. I assume that means she went to stay with one of her male friends.”

The nurse sniffed self-righteously, obviously not approving of such outrageous behavior. “A lot of the girls here do that.”

“You know that Noelle has a boyfriend?”

“Well, no, I don’t, I just—”

“Call that number again, I need to talk to the roommate. Tell her to meet us, right now. Go on, dial the phone. Then take me to her dorm.”

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The woman started to sputter but picked up the phone. She got the roommate and told her to meet them downstairs in her dormitory. The second she hung up, Grimes got a hold of her arms and propelled her toward the door before she had a chance to speak. She was in his car a moment later and pointing him toward the residence halls. His heart was sinking with every moment, he had a bad feeling that Noelle Pazia wasn’t staying in a boyfriend’s room, but was lying on the side of a road in Louisville, Kentucky.

He got out of the car and made his way to the front entrance of the dorm. A very pretty redhead stood in the doorway, a multicolored scarf wrapped around her neck, ends trailing almost to her knees. She looked concerned, and as soon as he was within earshot he heard her ask, “Where’s Noelle?”