A Profiler's Case for Seduction(65)

“Nothing concrete, although I’m certainly beginning to develop profiles on both Dora and Melinda based on their histories.” He tried not to allow his compassion, his grief for Dora, to play into his.

“I spoke to a schoolteacher who taught both of the girls in grade school. Mrs. Carlson is retired now, but she had a keen memory of the Grayson girls. She said that Dora missed a lot of school, and when she was there she was always sporting some injury or another...a broken arm, smashed fingers, a black eye. Mrs. Carlson said Dora tried to make friends, but because of the reputation of her mother, most of the other children either bullied or made fun of her.”

“What was wrong with her mother?” Richard asked.

Mark’s stomach tightened. “She was an alcoholic who ran a small café on the outskirts of town. According to Ida Carlson, Daisy Grayson was a disgrace, a mother who rarely parented, but spent most of her days drunk and bedding down men in a back room of the café. Dora worked part-time for her mother from the time she was fourteen until she was eighteen and married Billy Cook. That marriage ended two years later due to irreconcilable differences. After the end of the marriage Dora returned to working at the café.”

“And what about Melinda?”

“Ida said Melinda was in school almost every day, focused completely on her class work. She made no friends, but also wasn’t bullied or bothered by the other students. Ida said she thought the other children were afraid of Melinda, but she never saw Melinda do anything to warrant the fear. The day that Melinda graduated she left Horn’s Gulf and nobody heard from her again.”

“So, tell me about these developing profiles,” Richard prompted.

Mark frowned, thinking about the call from the old teacher and all the information she’d willingly shared with him about the Grayson girls.

“It’s obvious they both came from abusive backgrounds, but it’s equally obvious the two of them developed differently. I would guess that Dora was the scapegoat for much of the physical abuse, probably from the father. She’s the one who often showed up at school with signs of the abuse, while Melinda managed to skate under the radar. What’s interesting is that many times in cases that this, it’s the eldest who gets beat the most, and takes the beating to protect a younger sibling, but it sounds like that wasn’t the case with Melinda and Dora.”

Once again Mark fought against an overwhelming sadness as he thought of the child Dora had been and the brutality that had made her childhood “not a safe place to be,” as she’d described it to him.

“My initial thought is that Melinda developed coping skills very early. Those coping skills might have been the ability to scare the hell out of her fellow students, to isolate herself and focus only on her own needs and wants and the desire to escape. She apparently didn’t step in to help Dora in any way, which leads me to believe she lacks empathy.”

He frowned. “Dora, on the other hand, seems to have developed no coping skills. Despite the attitude of her friends, she continued to attempt relationships, leading to two bad marriages. She, too, was isolated but not by choice. She became an alcoholic and spent six months in a rehab center and that’s when her half brother Micah and Melinda got her set up here to start over.”

“So, what’s the bottom line?” Richard asked, obviously wanting to cut through the fat to get to the meat.

“With what I’ve learned so far, I believe that Dora Martin was a likely candidate to commit suicide.”

“And Melinda?”

Mark hesitated a moment and then looked at his superior. “Melinda was the most likely to be a full-blown sociopath.”





Chapter 14



The afternoon and evening had crawled by with agonizing slowness for Dora. Her last class of the day had gone by in a blur as she played and replayed her last moments with Mark.

Her mind could scarcely wrap around everything that had occurred in the conversation that had taken no longer than fifteen minutes or so.

By the time she reached the bookstore, she was exhausted. It wasn’t a physical exhaustion but rather a mental one, an emotional one. The good thing was she knew with time it would ease. In time she would forget the handsome FBI agent who had filled her life with laughter and a gentle caring.

But tonight the wounds were still too fresh, the pain too deep. She sat behind the cash register, just waiting for the time she could close up shop, head home and get a good night’s sleep.