Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy #3)(78)

“Maybe with the others the sex wasn’t at their homes. They were where he was staying or in his car or something. So he had to distance them from him.”

“Maybe, Jack. We’ll make a profiler out of you yet.”

Rachel pulled out her keys and unlocked her car.

“Now what?” I asked. “Where do you go from here? Back to the bureau?”

She pulled her phone to check the time on the screen.

“I’ll call Metz—he’s the agent heading this up—and tell him I talked to her and they can hold off in the morning. He probably won’t be happy I jumped the gun but it will keep his people busy on the other stuff. After that, I think I’m going to call it a day. You?”

“Probably. I’ll check in with Emily and see if she’s still writing.”

I hesitated before getting to the question I really wanted to ask.

“You coming to my place or going home?” I asked.

“You want me to come home with you, Jack?” Rachel asked. “You seem upset with me.”

“I’m not upset. There are just a lot of things going on. I’m seeing this thing I started getting pulled by different people in different directions. So I get anxious.”

“The story, you mean.”

“Yeah, and we have that disagreement: whether to publish or wait.”

“Well, the good thing is we don’t have to decide that until tomorrow morning, right?”

“Right.”

“So I’ll see you at your place.”

“Okay. Good. You should follow me so that you can get into the garage and use my second parking spot.”

“You’re giving me your second parking spot? Are you sure you’re ready for such an important step?”

She smiled and I smiled in return.

“Hey, I’ll give you a remote and a key if you want them,” I said.

The ball back in her court, she nodded.

“I’ll be right behind you,” she said.

She moved toward the door of her car, taking her phone out of her back pocket so she could call Agent Metz. It reminded me of something.

“Hey,” I said. “I couldn’t see the composite when you showed it to Gwyneth. Let me see.”

She walked over to me, opening the photo app on the phone. She held the screen up to me. It was a black-and-white sketch of a white man with dark bushy hair and piercing dark eyes. His jaw was square and his nose was flat and wide. His ears did not extend far from the sides of his head. The top of each ear disappeared into the hairline.

I realized he looked familiar to me.

“Wait a minute,” I said.

I reached up and held Rachel’s hand so she would not take the phone away.

“What?” she said.

“I think I know this guy,” I said. “I mean, I think I’ve seen him.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. But the hair … and the set of the jaw …”

“Are you sure?”

“No. I just …”

My mind raced back over my activities in recent days. I concentrated on the hours I had spent in jail. Had I seen this man in Men’s Central? It was a night of intense fear and emotions. I had such clarity about what and who I had seen but I could not place the man in the drawing.

I let go of Rachel’s hand.

“I don’t know, I’m probably wrong,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I turned and walked to my Jeep while Rachel got in her Beemer. I started the engine and turned to look through the passenger window to give Rachel the nod to back out first. It was then that I realized where I had seen the composite man.

I killed the engine and jumped out of the Jeep. Rachel had already backed halfway out of her spot. She stopped and lowered the window.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I know where I saw him,” I said. “The guy in the composite. He was sitting in a car today at the coroner’s office.”

“You’re sure?”

“I know it sounds far-fetched but the shape of his jaw and the pinned-back ears. I’m sure, Rachel. I mean, I guess I’m pretty sure. I thought he was there waiting for somebody inside. You know, like a family member or something. But now … I think he was following me.”

That conclusion made me suddenly turn and scan the parking lot I stood in. There were only about ten cars and the lighting was poor. I would need a flashlight to determine if anyone was in one of them and watching.

Rachel put her car into park and got out.

“What kind of car was it, do you remember?”

“Uh, no, I have to think. It was dark and he had backed into his space like me. Another sign he could have been following me.”

Rachel nodded.

“The quick exit,” she said. “Was the car big or small?”

“I think small,” I said.

“Sedan?”

“No, more like a sports car. Sleek.”

“How close was he parked to you?”

“He was like across the aisle and down a couple. He had a good view of me. Tesla—it was a black Tesla.”

“Good, Jack. Do you think that lot has cameras?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. But if it was him, how would he know to follow me?”