CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rebecca kept her breathing steady as she started the uphill portion of her run.This wasn’treallyuphill—nowhere in Veterans Memorial Park was particularly challenging—but it was enough for her to work up a sweat, and that was good enough.She wasn’t looking to set any records, just to stay in shape.
She heard barking to her left and turned to the dog park with a smile.The two-acre patch of grass was a recent addition to the park.It was donated to Woodbridge by an elderly woman whose family went back all the way to the colonial era.Rebecca had read the story in the paper, but she hadn’t paid attention to the details.She was just glad to have a dog park nearby.Her apartment complex didn’t allow dogs, and her lease wasn’t up for another eight months, so until then, this was the closest she could come to being around dogs.
She heard a branch snap to her right and turned that way to see a man jogging near her on the dirt path that followed this concrete one.She waved at him, but he didn’t wave back.He was looking her direction, but maybe he was looking at the dogs.She didn’t blame him.Dogs weremuchcuter than she was.
She chuckled a little at that and turned her attention back to the path ahead.The dirt path wound throughout the park, stopping at the dog park, the duck pond, and the basketball courts and leading walkers and joggers through several beautiful wooded areas.Rebecca liked walking those paths when she was on dates or with friends, but she preferred to keep to the concrete path when she was alone.Too many crazies out there.
Her smile faded.Just two days ago, a woman had been killed in a park in Quantico at the really big dog park there.Some asshole had jumped her in a stand of trees and shot her in front of her dog.
Rebecca shivered.No sir.Not for her.Spare her from that nonsense.
She glanced uneasily up at the sun.It wouldn’t set for another hour or so, but some of those shadows were starting to get long.Maybe she’d move her runs to the track from now on.The track was located on the north end of the park, a half-mile loop that was always teeming with college students and older people, both groups in skintight workout clothing.She didn’t like it because it was crowded and even more boring than the concrete walking path, but it was hard to get murdered in the middle of a crowd of people.
Well, it was okay.She’d be back to the parking lot in three-quarters of a mile.At her steady jog, that would take her eight minutes or so.She’d go home, lock her doors and windows, and watch reruns while eating her low-fat soy-based ice cream and convincing herself that it a) tasted good, and b) was healthy.
She heard another branch snap and turned to her right.The man from the dirt path was still there.The blood drained from her face, and when she saw the barrel of the small gun pointing at her forehead, she drew in a sharp breath.
She died before she could scream.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I’m sorry, Special Agent,” Meyers said.“There just isn’t anything there.”
“The notes?”Faith asked.“The documentation?He was clearly hunting the two of them.”
“That gives us enough to justify this search,” Meyers replied.“It gives us enough to look further, and probably enough to assign a couple of officers to watch him, at least for a few days.It doesn’t give us enough to arrest him.”
Faith sighed and put her hands on her hips.“Yeah.Damn it.”
The two of them were talking on Brian Meadows's back porch.It was late afternoon now.Faith, Jessica, Turk, Meyers, and a dozen Quantico Police officers had spent the entire day scouring every inch of Meadows's home.They had found files not just on Iris Caldwell and Mark Patterson but on a half-dozen other individuals who Meadows deemed nuisances.
“He could be planning to kill them next,” Faith suggested.
“He could,” Meyers replied.“Or he could just be a nosy asshole.We don’t have a weapon, and he has files on more people than just our victims.Some of those files are old, years old.
Faith looked past him into the house where Jessica was once more talking to Meadows.Now that he knew he wasn’t going to be carted off to jail just for spying on his neighbors, he was livid.From outside, Faith could hear him shouting demands that the investigators pay to have his house “repaired.”
Turk trotted past Jessica and Meadows, still sniffing for clues.He lifted his head up at the irate man, dipped his snout, and kept looking.
“The files he has on Iris Caldwell and Mark Patterson place him at the scenes of the crimes on different days than the murders,” Meyers said.“We don’t even have proof that he visited the parks on the days of the murders.If you’re really convinced that this guy is our killer, we can lean on him a little, but we’re running out of legally justifiable reasons to behererightnow.”
Faith frowned.The problem was that shewasn’tconvinced.Not anymore.She was hopeful at first, and then she was desperate.Now she was afraid that she had just wasted her time going after an innocent man.Not agoodman, but not a murderer.
She sighed heavily.“All right.Fair enough.Do put a watch on him, though.I’m not one hundred percent convinced he’s our guy anymore, but I’m not convinced that he’snotour guy.”
“You got it,” Meyers said.“I’ll make sure—”
He was interrupted by a call on his radio.“All available units, we have a ten-sixty-seven at Veterans Memorial Park in Woodbridge.Prince William County thinks it’s related to our ten-sixty-four at Rooster Memorial Dog Park.”
Meyers sighed heavily.“God damn it.”He pressed the talk button and replied, “Ten-four.Five-oh-two is ten-seventeen.”
He released the radio and rubbed his temples.Ten codes differed from agency to agency, so Faith wasn’t sure what information had just been exchanged.“If you need to get out of here, that’s fine.We’ll wrap up here, and Torres and I can handle the stakeout if you need us to.”
“Weallneed to get out of here, and there’s not going to be a stakeout,” Meyers replied.“That was a report of a dead body in Woodbridge that matches our two victims.”
Faith’s shoulders slumped.“Well, shit.”
