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“Not a huge surprise. If he’s been killing for twenty years, he’s smart enough not to leave prints. What are you doing now?”
“Trying to get a license plate. After making the call, he got into a gray Toyota RAV4 parked about a block away, but none of the security cameras were angled to get his plates. I’ve been looking at footage from cameras up and down the nearby streets to see if I can find him.”
“Good thinking. Send me some of the footage and I’ll do the same.”
For the next hour, they worked steadily, reviewing the footage from traffic cams along the most-used routes away from the trolley station. Finally, Kit spied the man’s SUV.
“Got him,” she crowed. “Tinted windows, so I can’t see his face, but I got his license plates.” Baz came around their desks to perch on the corner of hers, waiting as she typed the license plate number into the DMV database.
Then she sat back and stared at the man’s photo.
“Samuel C. Reeves,” Baz said quietly. “They always look so normal.”
Yes, they did. But Samuel Reeves didn’t look normal. He looked...
She wasn’t sure. Extra, somehow.
His eyes were green, his hair a dark brown that was almost black. His mouth had a serious set, but there was a sparkle in his eyes. If she saw him on the street, she just might pause and take a second look. He had a nerdy Clark Kent vibe that was earnestly appealing.
“He wears glasses, according to his license,” she said, even though he had none in the photo. There were, however, little indentations on the sides of his nose. “Heavy ones from the look of it. He’s also an organ donor.”
“No traffic citations, either. Not even a parking ticket. Guy’s as clean as a whistle.”
“He’s probably too young,” Kit observed, pointing to his birth date. “He’s thirty-five. He’d have been between fifteen and seventeen at the time of the first murder.”
“Old enough to kill,” Baz said. He tilted his head, studying her. “What’s wrong? You sound like you don’t want it to be him.”
Kit blinked. “I... I don’t not want it to be him. He just doesn’t look the part. Although I guess that’s how serial killers stay under the radar.”
“This is your first serial,” Baz said knowingly. “I thought the same thing the first time I ran across one. He looked like he could have been my next-door neighbor, but he’d brutally murdered nearly a dozen children. That we knew of.”
Kit shuddered at the thought. “You’ve mentioned him before.”
“It changed me, seeing those dead kids. Made me not trust anyone that looked normal.”
That she shouldn’t either was unspoken in his gentle rebuke.
Kit opened a new browser window and typed in Samuel Reeves. “He has a Facebook account.”
“Whoa,” Baz said, pointing at the third search result. “Hold on before you click on his Facebook. Look at that article. He’s a shrink.”
He was indeed. Dr.Sam Reeves, Kit read after clicking on the article, had delivered a keynote speech to a gathering of psychologists on serving homeless populations. “He also works pro bono at a teen shelter according to the bio on this site.”
“And volunteers at a retirement home,” Baz added, his voice heavy with derision. “He’s a regular humanitarian.”
Kit frowned at her screen, thinking about the short conversation she’d had with Dr.Sam Reeves. He’d sounded uncertain and almost panicked. She replayed the recording, listening to his words once again. When she finished, she shook her head. “I don’t think he was fucking with us.”
That wasn’t exactly true.
I don’t want to believe that he was fucking with us.
And that was disturbing. She never, ever allowed herself to be swayed by a suspect, but this man... I don’t want to believe he’s a killer.
Baz grabbed a chair and sank into it. “Talk to me, Kit. What’s on your mind?”
Staring at Sam Reeves’s photograph, she shook her head again. “I don’t know.”
Yes, you do. You like his face and you don’t want to believe he’s bad.
