The Third Victim Part 31

"Second thought. School shootings are about displaced rage. Now, by all accounts, Danny has a domineering, intimidating father. I imagine he does have some displaced anger. So why didn't he target the football coach, a macho man like his father, or star athletes, who would represent the kind of boy his father wants him to be, or the school princ.i.p.al, a cla.s.sic father figure? Why would he deliberately seek out Melissa Avalon young, female, and an expert at the subject he loved the most? What about her would incite his rage?" "Maybe he developed a crush on her. She refused his attentions and he snapped."

"Third thought. Most shooters go after as many victims as possible.

Overkill and inciting terror in their peers is part of their fantasy.

They want to feel powerful. So why did Danny wait until after lunch, when everyone was back in their cla.s.srooms? And why choose smaller handguns when he's comfortable with rifles and they'd inflict more damage?"

"Maybe it wasn't a real school shooting," Sanders said with a scowl.

"Maybe he just wanted to get back at Miss Avalon because she hurt his feelings or looked at him the wrong way and it was more than he could take. So he snaps, plots his revenge against her, and the other two girls simply get in the way."

"Not a bad theory, Detective, but you have one problem."

"What?"

"You can't tie him to Melissa Avalon's death. You're saying that she's what this was all about, and yet she's the one victim you can't prove he killed. How do you explain that?"

Sanders finally spluttered to a halt. He was wide-eyed and thinking hard.

Quincy's lips curved into an ironic half smile.

"I don't know what happened yesterday afternoon in that school, Detective, but I think there's more to it than meets the eye. We need to keep our minds open at this point. And we need to know what's in those computers. Especially after what your technicians said."

"What did my technicians say?"

"That somebody tried to erase the Web browser history and cache files.

You don't erase what isn't important."

"s.h.i.t," Sanders said.

Quincy smiled again, but the shadows were darker around his eyes.

They all rose from the table. Rainie reached for money, but Sanders surprised her by picking up the tab.

Then they were outside, where the night air smelled of pine needles and fresh spring rain. No one had anything more to say. Sanders walked back to his car. Rainie and Quincy remained standing alone. She studied his face again, his blue eyes that could be both warm and hard.

She wondered if he was right about Danny, and the fact they still knew so little frustrated her.

She wanted answers for her community. She wanted answers for Shep and Sandy. She wanted answers for herself, so she could finally get visions of the school out of her head and the night would stop closing in on her.

The fed was watching her, the look on his face hard to read. She studied his hands again. Those hard-earned calluses. The absent wedding ring.

"I need somewhere to sleep," Quincy said at last.

She said, "I know just the place." Wednesday, May 16, 10:03 PmGinnie's motel hotel wasn't seedy. The mattresses were twenty years old and the scarred maple dressers had been picked up at garage sales, but the flowered curtains were hand-sewn, the worn white sheets freshly laundered, and the rugs vacuumed vigorously each day.

Ginnie ran the front desk, her gray hair in pink sponge curlers and her ma.s.sive frame covered by a dark blue muumuu with an orange-flowered print. She explained to Quincy that she had opened the Motel Hotel ten years ago when her fourth husband, George, had pa.s.sed away. After so many years of taking care of men, she'd decided to run a business where she could have a new man over every night. She winked flirtatiously when she said this. Quincy hoped she was joking.

Ginnie went through her spiel. She served homemade m.u.f.fins every morning, Toll House cookies every night. She'd wash your laundry for two bucks a load; please leave the dirty clothes piled by the front door. Finally, the Motel Hotel was not as rustic as it seemed. She'd installed state-of-the-art data lines so she could check her stock portfolio every hour online.

She slapped a laminated list of access numbers for local Internet providers on top of the desk. Then she invited Quincy to visit her site at BigMama.com.

Rainie suppressed a smile. Quincy began to back away slowly from the muumuu. Moments later he and Rainie were in the parking lot, where the tiny string of rooms spread out in a pink-painted V. "Where the h.e.l.l have you brought me?" Quincy asked Rainie as he found his door and fumbled with the key.

"Local color," Rainie told him.

"Only tourists stay at the Motel 6."

"Can't I be a federal tourist?"

"Of course not. Ginnie knows the best gossip in Bakersville after Walt, of course. Show up for breakfast tomorrow morning. Down a few bran m.u.f.fins. You'll be amazed how much you'll learn."

"And how clean my colon will be," Quincy muttered, and shoved the old door open.

Inside, Rainie watched as Quincy set his duffel bag on the single queen-size bed, placed his computer beneath the pine table, and identified the location of the phone jack. She imagined that she was observing a ritual the agent had performed in hundreds of hotel rooms in hundreds of small towns. He checked the closet, grabbing the extra pillow for the bed, then hung his jacket neatly on the back of a chair.

Next he entered the tiny bathroom, inspecting the stock of soap and shampoo. Finally he returned to the front of the room, studying the window and the door locks.

A single curved latch, which appeared older than dirt, held the window shut. Quincy grimaced. The door cheered him up about as much. One chain, easily snapped. One bolt lock that could be jimmied by a two-year-old. He shook his head.

"Is anyone around here aware of basic safety?"

"And spoil our small-town charm? The city council would never hear of it. Besides, what kind of idiot robs a fed?"

"I'm going to need a broom handle to jam this window," he said seriously.

"And a chair to stick under the door."

"Don't you carry a gun, SupSpAg?"

"Yes, but requisitioning sticks involves less paperwork."

Quincy went outside, found a suitable twig to jam the lower window casing, and jury-rigged the room the best he could. Apparently, he did take safety seriously. Then again Rainie had caught a glimpse of the photos he carried in his computer bag. She supposed if she did nothing

but stare at murder victims all day, she would be obsessed with bolt locks and window guards as well.

Finally, Quincy dusted off his hands. He'd done all he could do with his accommodations. Now his gaze drifted to the phone. Rainie watched him quickly look away. Unfortunately, there was little else in the room to hold his attention. Ginnie didn't believe in TV.

The night was thick outside. The room filled with shadows. Nothing left to do but say good night and hope they didn't wake up too many times, dreaming of little boys armed with a.s.sault rifles and little girls fleeing down long, dark hallways.

"Rainie," Quincy said after a moment, 'can I buy you a drink?"

Rainie was startled. She hadn't seen the offer coming. She stared at him harder and tried to decide what it meant. A drink. Just a drink?

With smart, capable Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy. He struck her as the kind of man who lived his life by certain rules. But his gaze was softer now. Not an agent anymore, she thought. A man addressing a woman.

She honestly wasn't sure what to do with that. She felt restless, edgy. She'd seen too much death, and tomorrow morning she would rise at the crack of dawn to examine it some more. She should be alone. Sit on her back deck, cradle an icy bottle of beer, and listen to the hoot owl mourn. But she wanted to go to a bar. Someplace where the music was loud and the dance floor crowded and all the women were pretty, while all the men had a gleam in their eyes. She could pick a date.

She could pick a fight. On nights like this, she wasn't sure which she preferred.

She just knew that sometimes she was her mother's daughter, and she never trusted herself when she was in this kind of mood. Go home, Rainie. You know the drill.

She studied Quincy instead. The firm set of his lips. The strong line of his shoulders. That blue, blue gaze of a man who knew what he was about. G.o.dd.a.m.n him.

Thirty minutes later, she'd changed into civvies and they were sitting at a bar.