Free Sense of Evil by Kay Hooper

Mallory lifted a brow at the blond agent. “So why’re you still here? Bait?”
    “No,” Rafe said immediately.
    Isabel said, “We have some time before it becomes an issue. This bastard gets to know his victims before he kills them, or at least has to feel that he knows them, and he doesn’t know me. In any case, the reason why I’m here is much more compelling than any risk I face as a possible target.”
    “And that reason is?”
    “As I told Rafe yesterday, patterns and connections are everywhere, if we only know how to look for them.” Isabel spoke slowly. “I have a connection with this killer. He killed a friend of mine ten years ago, and five years ago I was involved in the investigation in Alabama of the second series of murders.”
    Mallory was frowning, intent. “Are you saying you know him? But if you know him, doesn’t that mean he knows you? Knows you the way he has to know his victims? That thing that’s rapidly becoming an issue?”
    “No. I wasn’t in law enforcement when my friend was killed, I was just another shocked and grieving part of her life—and her death. And I was on the fringes of the official investigation in Alabama; by the time I was officially involved, he’d already murdered his sixth victim and moved on. So it’s at least as likely as not that he won’t even know I was involved in the previous investigations.”
    “But you’re on his hit list.”
    “On it, but I’m not next in line. I’m not local, so it won’t be easy for him to find information about me, especially since I don’t plan to become too chatty with anyone outside our investigation.”
    “What about inside?” Mallory asked. “We’ve had at least the suspicion that the perp could be a cop. Has that been ruled out?”
    “Unfortunately, no. Our feeling is that we’re not dealing with a cop, but there are some elements of the M.O. that make it at least possible.”
    “For instance?” Rafe was frowning slightly. “We haven’t seen the updated profile,” he reminded her.
    “I have copies here for both of you,” Isabel replied. “Not a lot has changed from the first profile as far as the description of our unknown subject is concerned. We have revised his probable age range upward a bit, given the time frame of at least ten years as an active killer. So, he’s a white male, thirty to forty-five years old, above-average intelligence. He has a steady job and possibly a family or significant other, and he copes well with day-to-day life. In other words, this is not a man who’s obviously stressed or appears in any way at odds with himself.
    “Blondes are only his latest targets; in the earlier murders, he killed first redheads in Florida ten years ago, and then, five years ago, brunettes in Alabama. Which, by the way, is another reason he wouldn’t have noticed me then even if he’d seen me; he’s always very focused on his targets and potential targets, and I had the wrong hair color for him both times before.”
    “What about the elements that could indicate he’s a cop?” Rafe asked.
    “The central question of this investigation—and the two before this one—is how he’s been able to persuade these women to calmly and quietly accompany him to lonely spots. These are highly intelligent, very savvy women, in several cases trained in self-defense. None of them was stupid. So how did he get them to go with him?”
    “Authority figure,” Rafe said. “Has to be.”
    “That’s what we’re thinking. So we can’t rule out cops. We also can’t rule out someone who appears to be a member of the clergy, or any other trustworthy authority figure. Someone in politics, someone well known within the community. Whoever he is, these women trusted him, at least for the five or ten minutes it took him to get them alone and vulnerable. He looks safe to them. He looks unthreatening.”
    Mallory said, “You said earlier that he’d killed a dozen women before coming to Hastings. Exactly