“I like you, a lot, Brenden,” she told him. “And I know we are good together, we can be even better the more we get to know each other.”
Brenden wasn’t sure about that. He liked her, but he wasn’t in love with her, and he didn’t think he would ever be. She was a sweet girl, but right now he had too many things going on in his life. Maybe if Stephen hadn’t dropped a bomb on him a few days before, he would have been thinking differently. Then he figured what was missing between them. Paige was a great person and easy to talk to, but there wasn’t any spark between them. That was their third time sleeping together, and he was hoping to feel a spark, but he felt nothing. Plus, with everything going on in his life, he had conflicted feelings about Stephen and the child they have together.
“I like you too, Paige,” he finally said to her. “But you’re looking for a husband, and I’m not looking for a wife.” He winced at the way he sounded, but he wanted to be straight with her.
“Why don’t you just come out and say it,” Paige said then looked away. “I’ve heard it all before.”
“What are you talking about?” Brenden asked her.
She scoffed. “The one where you tell me ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ bullshit,” she snapped looking back at him.
That’s because it is.
“Are you seeing someone else?” she asked him.
“No,” he answered straightforwardly.
“Then why not give us a chance?” she asked, walking closer to him, she rested her palms on his chest. “I’m not saying we should run off and get married. But give us a chance to see how far we can go.”
He leaned down and kissed her again, that time on the lips. “I’ll call you.” She didn’t stop him and let him walk out the door.
** ** ** ** **
Stephen walked into the FBI building and into his department couple of weeks later, and was pleased when there weren’t any signs of Brenden hanging around. He’d been working at his new job for a short time, and each morning butterflies were dancing around in his stomach. Since about two weeks earlier, when he watched Brenden speed off in the parking garage, they’d been avoiding each other as much as possible. The older man had been nothing but an angry bear, brooding and growling at anyone who got in his way.
The office rumor mill was that Brenden got dumped by his current girlfriend. It never occurred to him that Brenden could have been dating someone when he’d told him about Nicholas. He looked around the office and saw Jaxson talking to another agent by the name of Mayson. Jaxson and Mayson had welcomed him without any reservations to the department. He begged his uncle not to make a big thing out of it. Since he’d worked with some of the agents when he worked on the O’Brian case, they pretty much knew him.
Brenden walked over to the two agents, there was the usual scowl on his face, his stance said he was pissed off about something, and Stephen prayed it wasn’t at him. Stephen closed his eyes and looked away from the three men. He did not understand how Jaxson could deal with Brenden when he was in his current mood. Stephen walked over to his cubicle, he had more pressing issues to deal with like getting his work done. He’d promised Nicholas that he would take him to the movies that weekend and to do that he needed to close his current case. He’d been working on a case dealing with the abduction and killing of three women.
The case initially belonged to another agent, but he got injured on the job and needed time to recuperate. The case was turned over to him for him to work on. A few of the other agents offered to help him, but he decided he wanted to work on it solo. He might be an experienced agent, but he was new to the department and still had to prove himself. So far things were not going so well. The unknown subject—or the unsub—changed the way he abducted and killed each woman. And the only thing that remained the same was their age range.
The victims were elderly and lived in an assisted living apartment. By the way their bodies were found, it seemed the unsub took care of them after he killed them. They were cleaned and from the pictures, had a peaceful expression on their face. Stephen profiled that the unsub knew the victims. The care showed that he was looking for a mother figure in his life, but the big mystery he couldn’t figure out was why he killed them. There was no rational reason to why he was killing the women unless he was being forced to.
Stephen had gone over the reasons in his head about who the killer could be. Two of the victims lived in the same assisted living apartments and the other one lived on the other side of town. The nurses and the janitorial staff were contracted out by two different companies, so nothing was connecting the nursing staff. But the only thing connecting the two homes was the maintenance company.
The unsub was from Providence, that was one thing that Stephen was sure about. The notes by the previous agent who worked on the case said he’d checked out the maintenance company and the employees and they all had an alibi. Just to be sure Stephen still interviewed all the employees that worked at both places on the day of the killings. He checked and rechecked the video tapes and logs just to make sure he was covering all of his bases. And nothing seemed out of place. Even with shift changes, someone from the nursing staff was always around, in all of the apartments there were panic buttons installed in the case of an emergency.
Stephen was confident the unsub he profiled was someone he’d interviewed before. He was good at his job, and never once incorrectly profiled an unsub, but he couldn’t help feeling he’d missed something. There hadn’t been another killing since the last victim and Stephen could feel the anxiousness that the unsub would kill again or already had but just hadn’t gotten rid of the body. There were signs that each victim was taken from their apartment, but their bodies were found elsewhere.
The first victim, Mrs. Nelson, was found at the park not far from Sunny Oaks Apartments Assistance Center where she lived. The second was found across town, some thirty minutes away, but was a resident of the Sunny Oaks Apartments. The third victim was found in the basement of the St. Mary Apartments. Three separate places. All three victims had different eye color, hair color, even their heights and weight. Nothing connected them, except their ages. Stephen thought about all the workers he’d interviewed, and only one person stuck out to him, the handyman, Lawrence Redding.
The company he worked for was contracted to most if not all of the assisted living apartments in the state. But his alibi checked out when the last two victims were killed. He understood that the guy might be a bit cagey since he was the one that had found the last victim. But the way Lawrence acted and the answers he gave to the questions Stephen asked did not sit well with him. The time of death for the last victim was estimated around ten o’clock, per the medical examiner's findings. When he asked the staff if the handyman was around when the body was found, everyone told him the handyman could still be seen working in the building during the time of the death.
The handyman was in two places at the same time. Unless he does have a partner and I’m missing the connection as to who it could be.A light bulb went off in his head.One person picked the victim the other did the killing.Shit,I need to keep my head in the game and stop thinking about personal shit. So, he isn’t working alone.
Hell, why did it take him this long to figure things out? Getting up from his desk and going over to the white board, Stephen stared at the faces trying to make the connection. That was his element. Stephen had never admitted it before, but he got a high finding the puzzle pieces that would end up in his team finding the bad guys. He thanked his uncle Tuck and his dad Nick for that. When he was a kid he loved putting puzzles together and they would buy them for him. Where it would take days for some people to put the most difficult ones together, it only took him hours.
“What are you looking for?”
Stephen didn’t look over to Jaxson. “Lawrence Redding’s brother, or the one pretending to be him.”
“Talk to me,” Jaxson instructed.
“I know in my gut that Lawrence Redding is the killer, but his alibi checks out. It’s too clean. All the others we talked to, they gave us an estimation of what they were doing at the time of the murders. But Redding’s was too precise, as if he was coached. Plus, his body language screamed that he’s hiding something.” He turned to look at Jaxson who had his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the board as well.
Christen was a very lucky man. Jaxson was hot as hell and loved his husband very much, it showed every time he talked about the man. Stephen admitted silently that he was a bit jealous of what they had, but he also respected how much they love and adore each other. Stephen, hoped one day he would be able to find someone to love him just as much as Jaxson and Christen love each other.
“Who do you think it could be?” Jaxson asked looking at him.
