Perfect Victim by Jay Bonansinga Read Free Book Online Page A

from the bank of elevators fifty feet away. Dressed in jeans and a fleece vest, her eyes raw from crying, Lois Geisel carried a large purse, a brown paper bag, and a newspaper under one arm. She walked with the somnambulant, zombie gate of the traumatized.
    Van Teigham’s voice kept crackling in Grove’s ear: “It was in the chapter on spatter patterns, bloodstain pathology—the artist rendering—I checked it again this morning—compared it to the CSI shots from the Finnerty scene. Pretty damn uncanny. Same exact pattern in the smudge marks across the sand, same exact volume. In the alley in Minnesota, too. Same story—”
    Lois Geisel walked up to Grove and put a cold, slender hand on his arm.
    Grove patted her shoulder, and made a “gimme one second” gesture, as Van Teigham’s drawl continued sizzling in his ear.
    â€œâ€”which got me to thinking, what about the other averages from your study? You can look at the two scenes yourself. They’re identical, they perfectly match the averages in your study. The MO, the body dump, the print dispersions, victimology, the whole shot. The archetypal killer. And I’m thinking, is this even possible? I’m wondering is this even within the realm of—”
    â€œOkay, Van Teigham, I get it.” Grove chewed on his lip, thinking. “Where are you right now?”
    â€œI’m at the Raleigh-Durham field office.”
    â€œOkay, look, I’ll call you back. Stay put. I’ll call you back in fifteen.”
    â€œI’ll be here.”
    Grove thumbed his cell off and folded it shut, then put an arm around Lois Geisel’s thin body.
    She gazed up at him through strands of gray hair. Her eyes, spiderwebbed with wrinkles and running mascara, looked parboiled. She managed a halfhearted smile. “Always working, you boys.”
    â€œSorry about that.”
    â€œI forgot to tell you.” She dug in her purse for something. “He wrote you a note.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œIt’s here somewhere. He was lucid in the ambulance for a while. Managed to scribble something before he…lost consciousness.”
    Grove looked at her. “Tom wrote me a note?”
    â€œHere it is.” She pulled out a folded piece of ruled paper. “He said something about getting this to you as soon as possible.”
    Grove took the note.
    Lois shrugged. “I didn’t even read it. I’m not even sure it’s legible. By that point, he was”—she swallowed the end of the sentence, her eyes welling up—“he was—”
    â€œHe’s gonna be okay, Lois.” Grove gave her a hug, the note crumpling in his fist. “Just a bump in the road—he’s gonna pull through.”
    From the look on her face it was clear she didn’t believe a word of what Grove what saying.
    For that matter, neither did he.
    Â 
    By two o’clock that afternoon, Grove was on a commuter flight to Raleigh-Durham.
    Before embarking, he called Maura from the airport, assuring her that Tom was stable and that there was nothing to worry about—something had come up that necessitated a quick trip down to North Carolina. Just for the day, no big deal. He’d be home by suppertime. From the resignation in Maura’s voice, Grove could tell that she was suspicious, worried, even a little aggrieved. But Grove would have to deal with that later.
    Now, seated in the rear of the small Jetstream aircraft, coursing high above the steel-gray coastal plains of the Chesapeake—one of only three passengers in the narrow cabin of twenty-nine seats—Grove was on his own dime. He hadn’t taken the time to notify Operations of this unexpected consultation. He hadn’t bothered telling anybody at the Academy; luckily he had no classes. But the truth was, he wasn’t even sure he was authorized to go on such a trip.
    None of these factors, however, currently occupied his