Colton Copycat Killer Read online

  “Oh. Yes.” That whole episode came rushing back to her. “We did.”

  “What was the argument about?” he asked her pointedly, watching her carefully.

  Sam’s voice was even more authoritative than usual. Ordinarily, she would have already volunteered the subject matter of the argument. It had always been in her nature to be as helpful as possible. But in this particular instance, nothing had changed about the way she felt regarding the argument.

  She couldn’t tell Sam what Celia had told her. Knowing would only hurt Sam and it would serve no purpose to tell him now. It certainly had no bearing on Celia’s murder.

  Raising her head like someone defiantly guarding a secret, Zoe answered, “It’s private.”

  “There’s nothing private about a murder,” Sam informed her.

  She stared at the man she had loved for as long as she could remember, trying to make sense of what he had just told her. Holding stubbornly onto her convictions, she brazened it out.

  “The argument had nothing to do with Celia’s death. I didn’t kill my sister, if that’s what you’re leading up to. Why would I?” she challenged.

  This was an entirely different Zoe than he had ever seen before. He wondered if it was just the stress of the situation, or if there was another reason for the change in her behavior. Could it have something to do with the plain Jane suddenly coming out from beneath her far more vivacious sister’s shadow?

  “I don’t know,” Sam answered. “You tell me.”

  “I am telling you—I didn’t do it. I’ll do everything I can to help you find whoever murdered my sister—but it wasn’t me,” Zoe insisted.

  Sam said nothing for a long moment, choosing instead to study her in silence.

  After what seemed like an eternity to Zoe, he finally told her, “I believe you. But don’t leave town. I may have more questions for you.”

  “Where would I go?” she asked him simply. “Granite Gulch is my home.”

  Sam merely nodded in absent acknowledgment, his mind already elsewhere.

  Whether the red dot was off center or not, the red bull’s-eye on Celia’s forehead was too reminiscent of his father’s signature trademark not to have something to do with Matthew Colton in some way.

  But what?

  Since his father most definitely was in prison, this had to be the work of a copycat killer. But if so, to what end? Why would this killer choose to follow in the old man’s footsteps, but deliberately elect to ignore the fact that Matthew killed middle-aged men? Why had he killed a young woman in her twenties?

  “Zoe,” Sam said as she began to rise from her seat.

  Zoe was on her feet, but her hands remained on the armrests, as if she expected him to tell her to sit down again. “Yes?”

  “Did you see anyone hanging around the bridal room when you left or when you were coming back?” Maybe she had seen the killer and hadn’t realized it.

  But Zoe shook her head. She’d already asked herself the same question several times, trying to conjure up someone in the shadows. But she always came up empty. She hadn’t seen anyone.

  “Everyone was in the church, waiting for the ceremony to start,” she told Sam.

  “Well, there had to be someone,” he said, talking more to himself than to Zoe. “Celia didn’t just shoot herself—the angle’s wrong,” he added almost matter-of-factly, as if arguing the fact in front of a board of inquiry.

  Since he’d already dismissed her, Zoe left the shelter of the chair. But she felt she needed to say something before she walked out of the room. Celia’s motive for tricking Sam into marrying her had been clear. Celia had loved money and she’d wanted to live the high life. The Coltons, once pariahs because of their father, were once more a wealthy family and had been accepted back into the community’s good graces.

  As far as she could ascertain, Sam was marrying Celia to give the unborn child he thought was coming a name. But maybe somewhere within all that noble behavior, he had actually loved her sister. For that reason, she offered him her condolences, even though the words were somewhat hackneyed.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Sam,” Zoe told him softly.

  Sam’s expression never changed. She might as well have said it looked like it might rain later. But he went through the obligatory motions and said, “Yeah, same here,” because, after all, she had lost a sister, and that loss undoubtedly meant more to her than his losing his wife-to-be did to him.

  What he did regret, far more than he’d ever thought he would, was that he had lost his unborn child in all of this.

  Zoe offered him a small, rather sad smile and said “Thank you,” just before she left the room.

  Sam rose to his feet a moment later. There was still a church full of people to question and he sincerely doubted the backup crew he’d called in had managed to make more than a small dent in that crowd.

  Leaving the reverend’s office, he started to go down the hall and back to the church, only to run into Trevor. His oldest brother had been invited to the wedding along with their other siblings and at first, Sam thought Trevor was looking for him to offer his condolences, just like Zoe had.

  But one look at the FBI profiler’s grim expression told him that wasn’t the reason why Trevor was looking for him.

  “Good. I found you. I just got a look at the victim,” Trevor said, not bothering to offer any perfunctory niceties first.

  His brother stopped directly in front of him, blocking his path back to the church. It was obvious Trevor wanted to talk to him away from the others, even though they were both law enforcement agents.

  This was, in part, a family matter and not a conversation either one of them would want overheard by just anyone.

  “And?” Sam asked, waiting for the rest of it, because there was obviously a “rest of it.”

  Trevor frowned, as if saying the words actually caused him pain. “Your fiancée fits a new emerging pattern.”

  For there to be a “new emerging pattern,” there had to be more. “Go on,” Sam urged quietly.

  Trevor gave him a quick summary of the details that he had. “In the past two months, two young women, both in their twenties with long dark hair, were found murdered in Blackthorn County. Each of them had a red bull’s-eye drawn on their forehead. And, in each case, the red dot was just slightly off center, same as your fiancée. Now here’s the really weird part—”

  “Right, because the rest of what you just said isn’t weird at all,” Sam commented sarcastically.

  His own world had ceased being normal the day his father had murdered his mother, but this seemingly baseless murder was hard for even him to come to terms with.

  Trevor continued as if his younger brother hadn’t said anything. Given the shock Sam had just received, minutes away from taking his wedding vows, Trevor felt that under the circumstances, his brother could be given a great deal of leeway.

  Trevor continued with his narrative. “The first victim’s name started with the letter A, and the second victim’s name began with B. And your fiancée’s name began with—”

  “The letter C,” Sam concluded. His eyes never left his brother’s as he tried to put the facts into some kind of coherent order. “So what are you saying, that this was all premeditated? That the killer is playing some kind of a sick game, copying his murders after another serial killer, then adding his own sick twist to it?”

  Trevor nodded. “Yeah, weird though it is, that’s what it’s beginning to look like,” he confirmed. “Up until now, it was only speculation on our part. Two similar murders makes for a coincidence. Three similar murders makes it a pattern, and,” he added, “it also throws these crimes into the realm of the murderer being a serial killer.”

  Sam paused, trying to assimilate this latest information he’d been given.

  “So i
t’s not just murdering when the urge hits him, killing women who just happen to fit a certain ‘type,’ the way Matthew did with his nine victims of choice. This killer had to know his victims ahead of time in order to stick to his pattern of choice.”

  Feeling momentarily oppressed and weary, Sam looked at his oldest brother. “How did the world get to be so screwed up?”

  “Not the world, Sam,” Trevor told him. “Just certain bad seeds in it. And to answer your question, I think it’s always been like this to a certain extent.”

  About to say something else, Trevor paused instead, searching for words to express his sentiments. Words didn’t seem to come easy to any of them in the family, he thought ruefully.

  Still, he knew he had to give it his best shot. “Look, Sam, I’m sorry about your fiancée—” he began.

  Unwilling to watch Trevor struggle needlessly, Sam waved his hand at his brother’s attempts to express his regrets.

  “Yeah, I know.” And then, in a far firmer voice, he told Trevor, “Let’s just get this SOB and make sure he doesn’t kill anyone else.”

  Trevor couldn’t have agreed with him more. “Amen to that.”

  Just then, a thought occurred to Sam. “You think he has a list?” he asked his brother.

  Trevor looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

  “A list of names,” Sam specified. “You know, women he’s interacted with or maybe just stalked for a while. Women who fit that rather run-of-the-mill description that seems to set him off for some reason. He finds out their names, writes them down, then alphabetizes them so he can eliminate them in order. All that takes time, planning,” he pointed out.

  “Who knows what he thinks,” Trevor countered. “But that would seem like the logical way to proceed,” he granted, and then laughed. It was a hollow, almost sad sound.

  “What’s so funny?” Sam wanted to know. The whole situation was the complete opposite of funny as far as he was concerned.

  “A logical serial killer,” Trevor answered. “It’s not funny, really. More like absurd,” he corrected.

  “Not to the victims,” Sam commented.

  For a moment, Trevor realized he’d forgotten how very personal the last murder was. He hadn’t meant to sound so insensitive about the woman who would have been Sam’s wife by now if she hadn’t been murdered.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “I meant no offense.”

  “None taken,” Sam assured him.

  He felt almost guilty at his lack of grief over Celia’s death. Everyone was treating him with kid gloves, assuming he was stoically bearing up to this tragic blow. He just didn’t feel right about deceiving them this way.

  But this wasn’t the time to come right out and admit he had no feelings for the woman, that all there had been was a sense of obligation, nothing more, behind the wedding.

  He had no time to deal with that right now, Sam told himself. There was a killer to catch.

  He thought for a moment, then asked abruptly, “Why women with long dark hair?”

  Caught off guard, Trevor shook his head. “No idea,” he confessed.

  “Maybe we can find the answer with the first victim. Victim A,” Sam clarified. But even as he said it, another idea had hit him. “If that actually was his first victim.”

  Trevor wasn’t following him. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Sam was extrapolating as he went, building on his initial idea. “Maybe our serial killer killed someone before that, someone the police didn’t find. The person our killer actually hated,” he specified. “The person all the other victims remind him of.”

  “Okay,” Trevor agreed. “But why kill these others alphabetically?” In his opinion, that ramped the murders up another notch, making them that much more difficult to execute.

  Sam thought for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Maybe our killer is an obsessive-compulsive type and whatever makes those birds tick makes him want to conduct these killings in this specific, macabre, alphabetical fashion.”

  It was, Trevor thought, as good a theory as any—and better than most.

  “You know,” he told Sam, “if you ever decide you want to move up from being a detective in a town the size of a green pea, the FBI Behavioral Bureau could use someone like you.”

  Sam knew he should be flattered by the invitation, but all he really was...was numb. But, this was his brother, and relations were still in the very early reacquaintance stages, so he proceeded as if he was crossing a river in a skiff made of eggshells.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. Two serial killers in one lifetime is more than enough for me,” he assured his oldest brother.

  They both knew he was referring to their father as well as to the current killer who had suddenly raised his head and thrown everything into chaos.

  About to return to the church and the remaining wedding guests that still needed to give their statements, Sam turned to his brother with another, more pressing thought. “You know, before we go on with this investigation, given what’s already happened, I think we should release this story to the local papers.”

  Trevor looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “The papers? What the hell for? Those reporters are nothing more than vultures. At the very least, they’ll just get in the way.”

  He probably hated reporters more than Trevor did, or at least equally as much. When the story had broken about their father, the reporters had had a field day, camping on their front lawn, following them everywhere and always, always snapping pictures and shouting out embarrassing, humiliating questions.

  But there was a reason for his break with protocol. “I’d be the first to agree with you,” Sam said, “but since this nutjob has already killed three women that fit a certain description and pattern, it stands to reason that his next victim will be a twentysomething, dark-haired woman whose name begins with the letter D.

  “It seems only right that we issue a warning so these women will exercise extreme caution and do what it takes to stay out of harm’s way. Otherwise, if this maniac kills a fourth victim, her death will be as much on our heads as on his.”

  Trevor sighed. “I wouldn’t exactly say fifty-fifty, but you’ve got a point. You want to release a formal statement to the press?”

  Sam was stunned by his brother’s suggestion. He had a tendency to clam up in front of a microphone. Press conferences weren’t his calling.

  “Me? Hell no. We’ve got someone in charge of PR at the station to do that.” The name of the woman escaped him at the moment. “If they have me talking to the news media, public relations between the police and the press will plummet down below sea level. Maybe even lower.”

  “Haven’t lost that charming touch of yours, have you?” Trevor laughed.

  “No occasion to,” Sam answered and it seemed to Trevor that his younger brother wasn’t really kidding.

  Walking into the church proper again, Sam saw the wedding guests were growing somewhat restless as they sat in the pews. He assumed a number of them had been interviewed by now, but everyone was being detained until the last statement was taken.

  Sam looked around for Annabel, the person he had temporarily put in charge of this phase. Spotting her, he called his sister over to him.

  Annabel was wearing a light blue cocktail dress and looked less like a police officer than usual. At the moment, she was in the middle of questioning one of the wedding guests. She paused when she saw Sam waving her over.

  “Be right back,” she said to the older woman, patting her hand. With that, she made her way over to her brother. The first word out of her mouth was, “Anything?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  Annabel was a great deal more loquacious than he was and she had the ability to get people to talk to her. He felt certain that if any of these people had the s
lightest inclination to talk and “share secrets” they would do it with Annabel.

  “Nobody saw anything,” Annabel replied needlessly. She did it to ensure the fact that her brother wouldn’t think she was hiding something from him.

  “Didn’t think so, but it was still worth a shot. Have all the statements on my desk when you and the others get finished.” That simple act, he thought, assured him of eyestrain and a headache the size of a medium boulder.

  “You got it.” There was a pause before she said, “And, Sam—”

  He was developing a sixth sense about this. He knew what she was going to say before she had a chance to say it.

  “Yeah, I know. You want to tell me that you’re very sorry for my loss.” He forced a smile to his lips. “Thanks.”

  Annabel hesitated for a moment, debating saying anything at all. Sam was obviously steeling himself off from the events, reacting to it only as a police detective, not as anything else. But remaining silent on the subject didn’t really sit all that well with her.

  “You know, you could try to look a little more broken up, all things considered,” she suggested.

  “It’s all on the inside, Annabel,” he replied. “I don’t believe in putting on a show for anyone.”

  “I know that, but other people don’t know you as well as the guys and I do,” his sister pointed out, referring to their other siblings.

  Sam shrugged. “Other people don’t count,” he replied and, to a good extent, he meant it.

  Chapter 4

  Sam hadn’t gotten very far with questioning the remaining wedding guests when he heard a commotion directly behind him.

  Turning toward the sound, he saw Zoe and several men—waiters, judging from the uniforms they had on—entering the rear of the church. The waiters were pushing carts before them laden with appetizers and soft drinks. In the center of both carts were platters of sliced roast beef. A third cart brought up the rear. It was filled with plates, glasses and utensils.