Free Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Redemption for Avery (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Ryker Townsend FBI Profiler Book 2) by Jordan Dane Page A

violations to hold him. It could give us time to build a case against him for murder,” Lovell said, pointing his spent toothpick at me. “With this guy’s record and the fact that he lied about his name, he’s looking pretty good for Lily Rae’s killing. Don’t you think? Give us time and we could tie him to the others.”
    I didn’t answer him. I had a question of my own.
    “How long has he lived in Big Bear?”
    “He moved here from Arkansas after they hired him. That’s been four years.”
    The disappointment on my face must’ve shown. The deputy grinned.
    “What’s so funny?” I asked.
    “I know what you’re thinking. You think four years isn’t long enough for him to be linked to the older murders, the bodies they’re digging up.”
    “You’re a mind reader.”
    “What you don’t know is…I heard he was related to old lady Sanderson. Betty was some kind of aunt.”
    “Was?”
    “Yeah, she died about ten years ago.”
    “How does that factoid help us today? Enlighten me,” I said.
    “I heard he visited Big Bear, plenty. Summers mostly. Old lady Sanderson would be anyone’s favorite aunt, living in a resort town, right?”
    “Thanks, deputy. You’ve been a big help.”
    When I pulled Crowley aside, I kept my voice low.
    “Have Sinead look into this Betty Sanderson. See if she can find any relationship to Altamonte and have her correlate the dates of the missing girls to see if they were taken in the summer months.”
    “You got it.”
    The autopsy on Lily Rae Hubbard was still pending a final result. It would take time for lab work and to finish processing the body for trace evidence. From seeing his arrest record, I knew Altamonte’s DNA would be on file with the FBI in CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System. If we were lucky enough to find DNA from the convicted sex offender on Lily’s body, we could link her murder to him, which would be a start.
    If Sinead could confirm Altamonte’s tie to the aunt and his summer visits to Big Bear Lake, that might explain some of the abductions, but we still had our work cut out for us.
    Crowley and I were the only ones who knew that I’d already come face to face with many of the missing. They would be identified in the thirty-four bodies recovered. Altamonte might not be responsible for all the deaths. With the missing person reports spanning decades, he would’ve had to be abducting and killing girls from a young age. We would need evidence to implicate anyone else.
    “Let’s do this,” I muttered to Crowley.
    We entered the darkened observation room next door and watched Wade Thomas Altamonte through a two-way mirror. The man sat at a table with his eyes darting around the room. Anytime a noise came from outside the locked door, he would fidget. With faded jeans and a black Nirvana T-shirt and hiking boots, he wore his dark hair long and had scruff on his chin, no doubt trying to appear edgy to the girls he taught.
    “Can you believe it? He teaches biological science, specializing in anatomy and physiology. A pedophile’s wet dream job,” Crowley said.
    I let Altamonte sweat for another hour before I’d seen enough.
    “I’m going in.”
    With Crowley in observation, I headed for the interrogation room. The man sat bolt upright in his chair with his first question on his lips.
    “Am I under arrest?”
    I tossed a file onto the table and sat across from him.
    “Mr. Whitehall, I have no reason to arrest you. You’re a model citizen and a school teacher.”
    The man’s shoulders slumped in relief and his lips twitched into a subtle smile.
    “But Dennis Whitehall isn’t your real name, is it Wade?”
    The man’s body stiffened and his smug expression vanished.
    “What do you know about the disappearance and murder of one of your students, Lily Rae Hubbard?”
    Altamonte clenched his jaw and wouldn’t look me in the eye.
    ***
    Thirty minutes later
    Ryker had Altamonte talking. The man hadn’t asked for a lawyer, but with the sweat