Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(28)

She took the wine he offered, gestured with it to the map. “Detours, that’s how it looks to me. Maybe you need fuel for your vehicle, for yourselves, or there’s some attraction, or someone you know, so you jog off a few miles.”

“But come back,” he said, nodding, “to that same direction. What do they take from their victims?”

See, she thought. Cop thinking. “Cash and jewelry if there is any. A vehicle, or in some cases parts from a vehicle. Most – not all – of their known victims run in the high-risk area. LCs, the homeless, but they target others. Often remote areas. A woman in her seventies living alone. They used her residence as their torture/kill zone, took her easy-to-transport valuables. A guy in his twenties heading home on the back roads, late – from a bar. They used some vacant cabin for him.”

“And no trace?”

“They wipe it clean – maybe they seal up, maybe the forensics have been sloppy.” Too many to know, she thought, too many to pick over, step-by-step. “I can’t say for certain. But at least one of them’s organized enough to be careful. They haven’t found all the kill zones. The killers don’t leave the body where they work as a rule. They use dump sites, and generally a fair distance off. And plastic tarps.”

“So, someone might think they’ve had a break-in, but without the blood, the gore, not report a possible murder.”

“Exactly. And by the time they’ve put some of it together, the crime scene’s been thoroughly compromised. Lucky,” she mused. “Some of it’s just luck. Organized, careful, but lucky.”

“Come eat.” He took her hand, drew her over to the table.

The square white plates held a line of pork medallions drizzled with some sort of sauce, a golden huddle of roasted potatoes flecked with herbs, and a colorful medley of winter vegetables.

He had a much more creative hand with the AutoChef, she considered, than she ever would.

“The heart, the initials,” he began.

“Their signature.”

“Yes, but also a declaration, don’t you think? Not only we did this together, but we are together.”

“True love.”

“Wouldn’t they think so? The heart holding their initials symbolizes just that. Add the fact they don’t use their victims sexually.”

“Because they’re committed to each other, and that would be cheating.”

“Without the heart, what would you have concluded?”

Considering, she ate – whatever the drizzle of sauce was, it had some kick. “I would probably have concluded team. It’s possible for one killer to select, lure, overcome and torture with varied strokes. But it’s more likely two, given the range of the victims. A woman’s less likely to stop on the side of the road for a strange man, or open the door to one at night. Two of the LCs weren’t licensed for same sex – not that they wouldn’t have potentially gone off menu, but best probability: The client was male. Easier, too, for a lone woman to lure a single male with the will-you-give-me-a-hand-with-this-heavy-object ploy.”

“So your most likely conclusion would be a two-person team: one male, one female.”

“Most likely. I wouldn’t have ruled out a single, but most likely. But…” She nodded as she ate. “Without the heart I wouldn’t have seen them as a couple, as romantically linked. Sex, sure, but not romantically.”

She nodded again. “And they want to be acknowledged as that. Interesting.”

“Where’s the trigger?”

She smiled now, and though they were always low on her list, sampled the vegetables. “You know, not all criminals think like a cop.”

“The successful ones – even reformed – do.” He picked up his wine, studied her over it. “It’s unlikely they woke up one morning and decided. Well now, what do you say we take a ride out today, find ourselves someone to torture and kill – at least not without what they saw as cause. One of them may have killed in a rage or in defense of the other – the romantic angle again – or even by accident.”

“Which could have set them off,” Eve agreed. “Or they discovered torture as a sexual stimulant by happy accident during the commission of another crime. Or one brought the other in on his/her perverted hobby.”

Roarke glanced toward the board. “It appears they’re skilled hobbyists.”

“Yeah, and that’s a hitch for me. How do you get good at anything?”

“Innate ability and true interest lay a foundation. But it’s practice, isn’t it, that hones a skill. They didn’t start with the victim currently first on your board.”

“I don’t think so. You can see they’ve escalated, gradually. Less time between – but then a longer gap. Consistently they kept the victim alive longer until they settled on the two-day period. But the teamwork seems too smooth to have started where we have them now. And those gaps?”

“Victims not yet found or identified as such.”

“There the FBI and I are in disagreement. Their profilers think the twenty is it – or close. Twenty-one now with Kuper. I think those gaps are most likely as-yet-unfound vics. Killers like this don’t de-escalate unless they’re forced to stop for a period of time. They lean in my direction with the longer gaps, but they’re focused on this group, this route. They have a low probability of a vic before the woman in Nashville. And they’ve spent too much time debating if they’re serial or spree killers.”