“We have questioned him,” Huck said. “It didn’t matter where he was kept—we would have interviewed him any chance we got in order to gain justice for his victims. Surely you understand that, Rachel?”
She blinked twice in apparent surprise that he’d used her first name. “Of course I understand that, Captain,” she returned. “Yet I find the custody arrangement odd and apparently a truly atrocious plan. Whose idea was keeping Jason Abbott in the local jail? Was it the FBI’s?”
“I truly don’t remember. All involved agencies agreed that Abbott would be kept at the Genesis city jail until trial.”
“But he has escaped.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I think the FBI just doesn’t do its job. You’re a state police officer, correct?”
He looked for the trap but couldn’t quite nail it down. How had he ever trusted this woman? “Yes. Fish and Wildlife officers are fully commissioned Washington State Police officers.”
“Did you insist that Abbott be put in a more secure facility?”
“Abbott didn’t escape the facility. He escaped the hospital.”
“Which truly seems like a bad idea, don’t you think? I mean, looking back? Tell me, Captain Rivers, are you still in a personal relationship with FBI agent Laurel Snow?”
Huck fell back on training and kept his face expressionless. Aha. So that was where she’d decided to pounce. “I don’t believe my personal life is any of your concern, Ms. Raprenzi.”
“It might be the public’s concern,” Rachel said, her smile reminding him of a stalking fox. “If that personal relationship led to the escape of one of the most dangerous serial killers ever found in Washington State. Were your decisions colored by your relationship?”
“I don’t see how they could be,” he said. “But I have to ask you, is this attack colored by yours?”
She reared back. “Excuse me?”
He peered at the camera. “I’m sure everybody knows that you and I were engaged at one point. Is this attack on Agent Snow one based on jealousy?” He lacked media training, but he knew people, and he knew how to get his point across.
“Of course not,” Rachel said.
Huck smiled, putting every ounce of charm he’d ever had into it. Hopefully his expression would read as sincere and confident. “Well, good then. We agree that nobody is motivated by personal relationships in this matter, and we all agree that we’d very much like to put alleged serial killer Jason Abbott back into custody for his trial.”
Rachel sat back. “Of course we do.The Killing Houris delighted to provide this public service to the entire area of Genesis Valley. So I have to ask you, Captain, word is just coming through that a dead body was found at the base of Snowblood Peak near Iceberg River, correct?”
“That’s correct,” Huck said. Damn it. He hadn’t known the media had gotten hold of the story yet.
Rachel’s face fell into perfect lines of concern. “Was the victim a woman?”
“Yes, but she has not been identified yet,” Huck said. “So that’s all I can share at this time.” The more he thought about it, the more the idea that the victim was his mother seemed farfetched. He had overreacted upon seeing the body, and he wished he had kept his damn mouth shut. All he needed was for Rachel to hear about his statement at the scene.
“Don’t you find it a terrible coincidence that serial killer, I meanallegedserial killer, Jason Abbott, escapes a hospital and then a woman is murdered the same night?”
That would probably be the headline in the online edition come morning. “We actually don’t know time of death,” Huck said. “She could have been murdered before Abbott escaped.”
Now disbelief filtered perfectly across Rachel’s features. How did she do that? And how the hell had he fallen for it so long ago? “Wouldn’t that just be a terrible coincidence?” she whispered.
“I can’t comment on the body that was found,” he said. “We don’t have enough details.”
“How was she killed?” Rachel persisted in asking.
He kept her gaze and avoided looking at the camera as he gave the truth. “I don’t know.”
“Did you view the scene?”
That scene had planted itself in his brain. “I did, and I still don’t know the cause of death.”
“Were her hands still attached to her body?” Rachel asked slyly.
Huck exhaled slowly. “Yes, her hands were attached, and I saw no signs of strangulation, which, as you know, was Jason Abbott’s MO.” Of course, strangulation and drowning both involved loss of breath until death resulted.
“Are you telling me there might be two killers out there?”
