Stranded

the weird part. Wendi Conroy disappeared lastmonth. Her car was found at a rest area off I-95. In Virginia.” He paused. “A rest area just south of Dale City.”
    He turned from the window and met her eyes, waiting for her reaction. They both knew that rest area. It was less than five miles away from her house—or rather what was left of her house—in Newburgh Heights, Virginia.
    “This is Albert Stucky all over again,” Tully said.
    “It’s not like Stucky.” Maggie hated that the mention of his name could still make her skin crawl. She had crossed her arms and was rubbing them before she even realized it. “I don’t know a Wendi Conroy. And I didn’t know Gloria Dobson or Zach Lester.”
    Albert Stucky had targeted women Maggie had come in contact with: a girl who had delivered a pizza, a waitress, her real estate agent. Of those he killed, he left a piece of them in takeout containers usually someplace obvious to be easily found and to shock the finder.
    “This is not like Stucky,” Maggie repeated, almost as if she needed to convince herself. Then wanting Tully to lighten up, she added, “He hasn’t left us any takeout containers.”
    “No, just garbage bags and a couple of mutilated bodies.”
    He started pacing the narrow lane between the beds and the TV stand, from the window to the door.
    “When he left you the map I thought it was just because he saw you on that CNN profile and he knew that you were working the arsons along with the Dobson case. It made as much sense as his bizarre scavenger hunt makes. But that’s not it.” He stopped mid-stride and looked at her. “He’s obsessed with you. Just like Stucky.”
    “Stucky wanted to hurt me.”
    “How do we know this guy doesn’t want to hurt you?”
    “Because he’s had plenty of opportunities.” She thought aboutthat for a second or two. The whole time they’d been searching for this killer she’d never once felt threatened. “It seems like he’s more interested in showing us his handiwork than he is in hurting either of us. Maybe he wants to be caught.”
    “He left you the map about the same time that he took Wendi Conroy from that rest area. A rest area that’s five miles away from your house. In Virginia. But instead of leaving her body somewhere close by, he brought her twelve hundred miles to Iowa to bury her so she’d be here for you to find. Oh, and on the way he stopped and bought a pair of orange socks to put on her and left the receipt for you to find, too. In a separate bag with the woman’s head. Does that sound like a guy who wants to be caught?”
    Tully was right. Both of them had studied and experienced killers who had played “catch me if you can.”
    “Now that you put it that way,” she said, “no, it doesn’t. It sounds like a killer who’s showing off.”

CHAPTER 20

    WASHINGTON, D.C.
    Gwen stumbled in the dark to find her ringing cell phone. Usually she left it on her nightstand. She didn’t stop to put on a light in her living room as she hurried from her bed and her deep sleep.
    “This is Gwen Patterson.”
    “I woke you. I’m sorry.”
    It was Maggie.
    “Is everything okay? Is R.J. okay?”
    “He’s fine. Everything’s fine. I forgot we’re an hour behind you. I can call back in the morning.”
    “No, this is okay. I’m awake.”
    She ran a hand through her tangled hair and snapped on a lamp. She looked to the clock on the mantel. It was after midnight. She’d been asleep for only a half hour but it felt like half the night. She rubbed at her eyes and sank into a leather recliner.
    “Where are you two tonight?”
    “Just outside of Sioux City, Iowa. We found it.”
    Gwen sat up. Maggie didn’t need to explain what “it” was.
    “A farm behind an interstate rest area,” Maggie continued. “There’s a lot of ground to cover. Some of it’s wooded and along ariver. I’m not even sure if we can discount the fields and pastures. There’re literally hundreds of acres that he’s had access to. The perfect hideaway. Several abandoned buildings and a vacant farmhouse to crash in as long as he avoided the meth-using lot lizard.”
    “The meth-using what?”
    “Prostitute. Lot lizard is what the truckers call them. We found her crashing inside the farmhouse. Long story.”
    Gwen could hear the exhaustion in her friend’s voice.
    “Her name’s Lily. Tully and I were hoping she might have seen something. But no such luck. At least, not that she can remember right