CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ivy was just getting home from school when Sam drove Paige back to the apartment.
“Hey, kiddo,” Sam said to Ivy.
“Hey, Sam,” Ivy said.
Sam left soon after. Paige made a quick meal for herself and Ivy, then Ivy went to do homework, and Paige went into her own room. She had told Sam all she could about Thames and the time she’d been on the run from him. What she hadn’t told Sam was that her first instinct after the Lambert murder had been to take Ivy and run away again. Though where would they go? If Thames had found her here, there was no reason to think he wouldn’t find her wherever she went next. The truth of that terrified her.
Sam’s anger on her behalf had been tangible. He’d vowed that she would have her life back, given her his support, showed his unity. Paige hadn’t expected that. They’d had sex. Paige hadn’t expected that, either. But what she and Sam did hadn’t felt like just sex. For the first time, Paige felt the difference between having sex and making love.
She had never called her encounters with anyone before Sam “making love,” not that she’d had many. First, she’d had college to get through, then she’d been seeking to build a career, and through all of that, she’d been raising Ivy. There hadn’t been a lot of time for men. But a lack of time wasn’t the only reason. She hadn’t met anyone who’d inspired her to want to make room for him in her life. No one had ever made her think beyond the moment.
But Sam did.
Sam made her want more. She wanted Sam in her life, but she couldn’t feel any joy over that. What she felt was heartbreak. She didn’t have a life. She had an existence. She was on the run, and until she found evidence against Thames, she would remain so. She’d felt alone for so long, but being with Sam had been like coming out of the darkness and into the light. After experiencing that light, stepping back into that darkness was so much worse.
For the next two days, Sam and Paige worked from his house rather than the Bureau office, where the activists remained. Though Sam had believed her about the postcard, they had no proof to link it to Thames. Paige didn’t expect forensics to find anything, and Sam couldn’t focus the investigation solely on Thames.
With Harry and Dom’s help, they were looking into Janet and her husband’s lives. Senator Glaxton had offered his full cooperation and that of his office. They were also looking into any perceived threats to Glaxton.
So far, their efforts had come up empty. It was as if whoever had killed this woman was a ghost. No one had seen anything or heard anything, and the trail got colder with each hour that passed.
Janet Lambert’s funeral was set for that Wednesday. Sam left at noon to attend. Until they knew for sure it wasn’t Thames they were after, Paige remained in the background.
She was in Sam’s home office, seated across from his desk. Like the other rooms in the house, this one was large and uncluttered, furnished only with a dark wood desk, two matching chairs, and a deep leather couch that backed up to one wall.
School was now out. Paige took out her phone and called Ivy. It would be a late night for Paige. After speaking with her sister, Paige ended the call. She heard Sam’s key in the lock.
Sam called out, “Paige?”
“In your office.”
He joined her there, loosening the knot on the black tie that matched his suit as he walked. He kissed her, then said, “I’m going to shower.”
The information on Thames from the penitentiary came in while Sam was upstairs. Paige called up one of the files on her laptop. Thames had been a loner on the outside, but that wasn’t the case once he was in custody.
Paige had heard of murderers attracting groupies, and Thames had received regular correspondence and visits from women. Death-row inmates were allowed three brief noncontact visits per week, and Thames met his quota each week. It disgusted Paige. The names on the portion of the visitors list she’d read so far all belonged to women.
Sam came up behind her and looked over her shoulder. “What have you got?”
“It’s the information from the penitentiary.”
“Anything?”
“Thames has groupies.” She showed Sam the lists. “He must think he’s a player now.”
Sam’s mouth narrowed, and he grunted. “A player. Anyone stand out as being more zealous?”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
While Paige continued to pore over the information from the penitentiary, Sam went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. Paige had declined one, and he took his back to his desk.
Earlier, the deputy director had called Sam for an update. Senator Glaxton was exerting pressure on the Bureau to find his sister’s killer and was in touch with the deputy director several times a day.
They were no closer to finding out who’d killed Janet Lambert. Paige was right. They had nothing at all. The crime scene had provided nothing. They had nothing to link the Lambert murder to Thames or anyone else.
Sam had ordered a canvass of the area. He read the report. There were houses in the vicinity of the park, but no one reported having seen or heard anything unusual. They’d interviewed the Lamberts’ staff. No one had noticed anything out of the ordinary with Mrs. Lambert. They’d looked at Janet Lambert’s phone records and e-mail addresses to determine if she’d made or received any strange calls or e-mails. If Thames had made contact with her, Sam didn’t think the man would leave a phone number, but Sam wanted to know if she’d recently started—or ended—a new relationship or friendship. They’d come up empty. It was looking like Janet Lambert’s death was random, or at least it had been made to look that way. The postcard had come back clean, just like the two that Paige had received. They hadn’t been able to trace where this most recent card was purchased or by whom.
Why Janet Lambert? Sam kept coming back to that. If not Thames, did they have a killer who got off on a quick kill? Possibly, but in Sam’s experience, killers and serial killers didn’t work that way. Rather than assume they’d come up against a new breed, Sam was going to maintain his course. He’d told Paige if they could find out why the killer had wanted the body to be found quickly, they’d have him. Sam had to answer that question.
Night fell. He rubbed his eyes, tired from staring at the same information and spinning it in his head different ways.
Sam ordered food, which neither he nor Paige touched. The food sat on his desk, uneaten, growing cold.
He focused on a crime scene photo of Janet Lambert lying peacefully on her side. Anger that her life had been struck down at the whim of another filled him. Why Janet Lambert, you bastard?
Lying on her side as she had been, it was no wonder that Holt had thought she was asleep. Sam recalled how the crime scene looked staged. Just as Thames’s known crime scenes had been. How could Sam use that to catch him?
Sam pressed keys on his laptop, calling up images of Thames’s three known victims. Sam had read the case files so many times he could recite the information verbatim. The bodies had turned up at various locations, one in a shopping mall parking lot, another lying in the sand on a popular beach, the third outside a theater. Paige had told Sam that she believed Thames had wanted those bodies to be found, had wanted to be in the spotlight.
Sam shuffled through papers on his desk. Janet Lambert was nothing like any of Thames’s victims. Her age, body type, even her hair color—it was all different. But her killer had also wanted her body found.
So far, Sam couldn’t find a connection between Janet Lambert and Thames, or Glaxton and Thames. Harry and Dom had worked the angle that Thames could have had a grudge against Glaxton, but Thames was not a revenge killer. His profile showed he killed for pleasure and nothing more.
Sam looked back over what had drawn the Bureau to Thames in the first place. An anonymous tip. Someone had called in and named Thames as the killer. Law enforcement had not been able to trace the caller. Paige believed the caller was Thames himself.
But if Thames had killed Janet Lambert, why alter his MO? Was he afraid of being caught now that his conviction had been overturned? No. That wasn’t Thames. He was a cocky, arrogant bastard who thumbed his nose at law enforcement. He would throw it in law enforcement’s face that it was him, and there was nothing the Bureau could do about it. He’d done that before. Sam continued to play that over in his mind, continued to eliminate possibilities.
“Sam, we have one.”
Paige’s voice broke into Sam’s thoughts.
Paige tapped the computer screen. “Mary Emerson. She lives in Connecticut and visited Thames weekly.”
“For how long?”
“Since his arrest.”
Sam left his desk and bent over Paige’s shoulder, peering at the screen with her. A photo of Mary Emerson appeared along with her pertinent biographical information. Emerson’s eyes were downcast. Her brown hair hung like string to the collar of a severe brown turtleneck.
“Of all of these women, there were three who went to see him most. Emerson was the most regular visitor.” Paige went on.
Sam studied the photo. “Other than the brown hair, Emerson doesn’t look like Thames’s type.”
“No. His victims were all in their twenties. Emerson is forty-five. But according to the prison records, all three women who visited him also wrote letters to Thames and sent care packages, but Emerson is the only one Thames wrote back.”
Sam struck a couple of computer keys. “Here’s Emerson on the courthouse steps in the background. Looks like Thames didn’t bring her into the camera shot with him.”
“He’d probably prefer for her to remain in the background.”
“Here’s another shot of him getting into a car with his lawyer.” Sam read the name. “Willman.” Sam paused. “That’s all there is. Once Thames and his lawyer made statements to the press and left, the cameras turned off. If Emerson wasn’t Thames’s type, then why was he with her?” Sam scrolled through photos of the other women who’d visited Thames. “These two are younger brunettes, yet Thames became more involved with Emerson. Let’s find out all we can about her.”
Sam put in a call to the central office and spoke with one of the tech analysts there. He requested background checks on all three women.
Not long after, Paige went over the information on Emerson. “Age forty-five,” Paige repeated. “One sibling, a married sister who also lives in Connecticut. Emerson herself has never been married. Doesn’t have children and works as an accountant for a small import/export firm.”
“Nothing remarkable there,” Sam said. “But there has to be something more.”
“Thames would get off on the hero worship.”
“Yeah, but he was getting that from the other two women, who were more his taste physically.” Sam studied the profiles on the other women. “Tammy Shore works in a health and fitness spa. Crystal Benedict is a dance instructor. Both divorced. No children. Both have siblings. Again, nothing remarkable here. I’m looking for some reason that Thames chose Emerson as his pen pal over one of these other two women.” Sam shook his head. “We need to find out what set Emerson apart from the others. I’m going to catch the next flight to Connecticut and speak with her.”