Free Midnight Fear by Leslie Tentler

river felt like a slap across his face. The tips of his ears were cold, and he noticed Mitch’s nose was red from the time he’d spent outside.
    “Morehouse, tell the photographer to take shots of the crowd—just in case the perp came back to watchthe circus.” Mitch turned to Reid. “The uni’s conducted a grid search of the area an hour ago. There’s tire tracks that indicate a vehicle pulled off-road, probably to dump the body. I know it was in the dark of night, but this guy’s got some big, brass ones to put her here in a public park.”
    Reid scanned the broad perimeter of shoreline. A few bikers and inline skaters were getting their exercise on the promenade, moving along with their routines as if nothing unusual had happened. Just another murder, he thought. Leafless trees lined the path that ran along the peninsula, their bare arms stretched upward to a pale blue sky.
    “The placement was important to him,” Reid noted quietly. “It was symbolic.”
    It was also another direct challenge.
    “Johnston figured you’d think that, which is why he wanted you down here,” Mitch said, his eyes following Reid’s to the other side of the Potomac. A steel-and-glass high-rise stood at the water’s edge, housing pricey loft apartments. Two years ago, it had been the site of an abandoned, rundown factory.
    Although the dilapidated structure had been torn down to make way for progress, it was where Joshua Cahill had taken his last victim.
     
    The VCU offices were located in Judiciary Square, in a redbrick building off Pennsylvania Avenue that was in proximity to federal and municipal courthouses. Afternoon sunlight spilled through the plate-glass windowin the fifth-floor space Reid had previously shared with Mitch. He’d spent most of the day there, pouring through the Cahill case files with the other two agents.
    “We need to know who Joshua Cahill’s been in touch with,” Reid said, rubbing his strained eyes with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. Cahill had worked alone—was a loner by all accounts—but there was always the chance the copycat had reached out to him. He would want to get to know the killer he was emulating as personally as possible.
    Mitch directed Morehouse, who took notes on a yellow steno pad. “Call the penitentiary and have them send me the visitor list—if Cahill’s had any. And get a monitor put on his mail. He’s probably got pen pals.”
    “Aren’t those usually women?” Morehouse asked.
    “Just do it.”
    “He’s your partner, not your secretary,” Reid pointed out once Morehouse had left the office. He’d gotten up from behind the stacks of files on the conference table to sit on the edge of the credenza.
    With a snort, Mitch swiveled his desk chair in Reid’s direction. “He’s a rookie. Lucky to be in the VCU. Apparently his high scores at Quantico and a well-placed word from one of the Washington pencil pushers got him in here. You remember your rookie days, right? He should be glad I don’t send him to pick up my dry cleaning.”
    “Remind me why I liked being your partner?”
    “My charm?” Mitch grinned. “Or maybe it’s because I’ve always had your back under fire.”
    That much was true. Reid studied Mitch, who’d undone his tie and rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. Crime scene photos from the Cahill investigation were interspersed with the recent ones and spread out on his desk, along with the preliminary forensics report on the first victim. The report indicated there was no semen inside the body, no latent prints or other physical DNA evidence left behind on the skin. The killer had been careful.
    “Tell me about the first victim—Allison Murrell,” Reid said. “The one from Middleburg.”
    Mitch stretched and cracked his knuckles. “Like I told you over the phone last night, Morehouse and I went up there yesterday when the car was found. We’d had an APB out on it ever since we got the jewelry registry list and cross-referenced