Worth Any Price Read online

  “C’mon pumpkin, let’s go get packed. We’re going on holiday to one of Poppy’s beach houses. Do you want to go to THE LAUGHING GULL or to the TUMBLING TURTLE?”

  “I want to go to TIDE’S AWASTIN’, it has a slide in the pool! And a swing in the back!”

  “Okay, I’ll make some calls and see what I can do. You go get dressed. And keep the door open.”

  At two o’clock, she, along with several police officers, loaded suitcases into her car. Then she locked the front door behind her. Earlier in the day she had met with a security specialist, given him a key, and arranged for a security system to be installed. She ordered groceries at Lowe’s Foods that she was going to pick up curbside on the way to Wrightsville Beach, and notified her father’s rental agency that she was booking the TIDE’S A WASTIN’ beach house for a few weeks to some out-of-town friends. She had keys to all her father’s beach houses, so she wouldn’t have to pick them up. When Velma, the office manager asked if they would require maid service, she said no. Velma probably knew what was going on since news of Kayla’s kidnapping and return was on every TV channel, but Laura knew that she could be trusted, Velma had worked for her father for as long as she could remember. Then she called Kayla’s school and told them she wouldn’t be returning, listened to all her phone messages, and even held an impromptu press conference on her front porch in hopes of getting the press out of the way for a while.

  She wasn’t answering her phone but did listen to the messages being left. There were a few terse words from her father using an airfone, telling her that they were on their way back from Europe, and would be home later that night. Her brother had called and said he was going to try to come over if he could get away from the office, and her ex was driving in from Raleigh to find out, “What the fuck is between your ears, for it sure isn’t brains!”

  She was glad she was getting out before the showdown. She hadn’t bothered to call and tell her ex that she was relocating this afternoon. Kel, well . . . she thought about calling him several times. But she needed some distance there, too. She was missing him, and it surprised her. No way should she be having feelings for this man, he was just a means to an end.

  The drive over the bridge improved her mood. It was exhilarating, she opened the sunroof and lowered all the windows. The ocean breeze ruffled her hair and swept to the back seat to toss Kayla’s curls. The salty tang coming off the ocean made them both raise their heads and sniff. Kayla smiled and sang words from “Under the Sea” and Laura laughed delightedly at her. Kayla was here. She was safe. And she seemed not to remember the misery of the past few days.

  Chapter Nine

  Kel caught the six o’clock news. One of his officers had relayed the information that Mrs. Wyndham had granted a press interview of sorts a few hours before moving out of the house on Masonboro. He could not imagine why she had consented to do that, and just shook his head as the announcer began the intro teaser that would hold everyone’s attention until they returned from a commercial.

  “Did she leave a number or an address?” he asked the officer who was just now reporting in.

  “No sir. I did hear her tell someone that she’d be at the rental unit sometime before three, but that was all. It might have been her father, she had a conciliatory tone.”

  The news anchor returned and then the shot switched to an onsite reporter who said a few things about Laura before climbing the steps to the porch of the Masonboro house and shoving a microphone in Laura’s face.

  Laura stepped away and in doing so, expertly made the newswoman defer to her. Laura’s sweetly cultured voice rang out as she thanked everyone for their concern and confirmed that Kayla had been kidnapped and now was safe at home.

  “Mrs. Wyndham, because of the Hilton incident, are we to assume that Kayla was a victim of The Voyeur?”

  Laura flushed, her coloring reddening from a combination of anger and embarrassment, yet she remained in control and looked straight into the camera.

  “Kayla and I were both victims of this horrible man, and although I am not proud of my actions, neither am I ashamed of them. I did what I had to because that is what we do for love. I had no choice. Getting Kayla back was my only concern and I will not apologize for any of it. Ever.”

  “Mrs. Wyndham, we know the kidnapper has set requirements for each parent, in your case it was a shoplifting episode and the Hilton confrontation. What others were there?”

  “I asked that the ransom requirements be kept private. It is disconcerting that everyone is so intent on finding out how I had to suffer in order to save my daughter’s life. Curiosity is fine to a point, but when satisfied, if it’s only going to be destructive, why can’t people be more compassionate? I don’t need to share my suffering with the world. I only need you to celebrate my victory with me. A monster has not perpetuated his evil in the ways that he could have. Yes, the last few days have been hard, unbelievably difficult. But everything I did, I did with Kayla’s welfare in mind. She is worth any denigration, worth any price, any humbling thing I had to do. I am a mother after all, and from the day I gave birth to Kayla, she came first. If the people of this city could find it in their hearts to give me and my family some space and some time to recover from this horrible ordeal, it would truly be appreciated.”

  “Have the police been involved the whole time? Are there any leads?”

  “I involved the police when I was able to. I don’t know what they have discovered, but I feel confident that in time, they will find the man who took my child.”

  “What has been your parents’ reaction to all this?”

  She gave a tiny, sideways smile and pursed her lips slightly. “I expect to find out soon, as they are due back later this afternoon. But I am sure they will be greatly relieved to know that their granddaughter is safe and unharmed. Everything else, we will deal with.”

  “Are you going to be attending the opening ceremony of the Wilmington Summer Symphony this weekend, and the UNCW graduation next week as you usually do?”

  “I haven’t decided, I doubt it though. My family will be my first priority for the next few weeks. This year’s season shows great promise, and even if I am not present, you can be assured of my continued support behind the scenes. And let me take this opportunity to congratulate the Wyndham Scholarship recipient in the event I’m not there to do it in person next Saturday. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to my daughter. I promised I’d watch The Little Mermaid with her. Again,” she said with an enigmatic smile.

  Laura went back into the house and the camera zoomed out, giving a panoramic view of the house and the woods along each side.

  Well, he had to hand it to her. She did a fine job. She didn’t give them any information they didn’t already have, and she put them in their place to boot. What a woman, he thought as he spun back around to his desk to read some reports. But thoughts of her and her panties kept crossing his mind, at first making him angry with himself, and then making him hard. He remembered that they had been the bikini type and that when he had removed them, he had been pleased to discover that though skimpy, they did cover her luscious bottom. He didn’t care much for the thong-type. There was no mystery there, and to tell the truth, he loved seeing panty lines through a woman’s clothing—to him, it was sexier than all-get-out. But his main reason for his preference was that he wanted to feel the soft spongy, pliant bottom of a woman before he saw it. And then when he did see it, he would rather it not have a dark line from the red or black thong, emphasizing the separation. He thought of a woman’s derriere as one entity, one pleasingly plump, enticing little ass. Most people were unaware that the symbol of a heart was derived fom the shape of a woman’s derriere when presented to her lover.

  He had to get his mind back on the reports—the woman had completely taken over his thoughts and he did not know what to do
about it. He dated frequently, but rarely did a woman remain in his thoughts, especially while he was working. And never in his life had thoughts of a woman caused this nervous, jittery feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Chapter Ten

  So far as they could determine, The Voyeur had come by way of water via a small boat that he probably kept tethered in the marsh. The tide constantly slapping against and over the bulkheads had erased any footprints within minutes, but one of the officers had found a chaw of tobacco sitting in a clump of reeds. It was on its way to the lab for analysis, even though the officer who had found it felt certain it had been there for quite some time. Kel was on his way to check out some security agencies. It stood to reason that this man had some experience with surveillance techniques, so while the motel TV was being taken apart, he decided to check with some of his friends in the security field.

  Steven McCall, a friend from his rookie days, was a private detective specializing in industrial espionage. He’d been all over the world sweeping board rooms and laboratories to keep corporate secrets out of the wrong hands, and if anyone had the answers to his questions, Steve did.

  “Unfortunately Kel, this sort of thing is commonplace now. You can buy miniature cameras almost anywhere. Radio Shack, Best Buy, heck, most of the stuff I need I get at Wal-Mart. You’re going to have a real problem identifying any one person from whatever he’s left behind, unless you have fingerprints, DNA, or voice patterns. And your guy may not ever have even been in that motel room or touched that television. There are clubs now that you can belong to. One person sets everything up, and for a fee, everyone shares in the action.”

  “There’s nothing hi-tech or specialized in any of this?”

  “Nothing you can’t pick up from any science magazine. Popular Science goes over this every other month. The only thing you’ve mentioned that narrows it down at all is the ease with computers the man seems to have. He’s confident and he knows what can be done with them.”

  “But how does he know the women have the same knowledge?”

  “Either he doesn’t care and leaves it to them to find someone to help them get this stuff on line to him, or he’s picked them because he knows they’re capable of it themselves.”

  “Good point. And one I really hadn’t thought about.”

  “Stands to reason if he knows so much about their personal lives, the kids and all, that he probably knows about their careers and interests.”

  “Yeah . . . .”

  “But you know this information is really not going to help you all that much.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because even in a city this size, there must be tens of thousands of people—both men and women—capable of this. Think of your own friends. How many would be able to tap a few keys and click a mouse and do this?”

  Kel thought for a moment. “You’re right, quite a few. This isn’t going to help.”

  “No similarities in the victims, no common denominator?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “I feel for you Kel, this is a tough one. Go back to the kids. Maybe you’ve missed something.”

  Kel ran his fingers through his hair and expelled a hard breath. “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels while I wait to see if the lab has anything we can go on.”

  “This guy’s too careful. If you’ve got prints or DNA, I’ll bet they’re not even in a data base.”

  “That’s what I’m beginning to suspect, too.” The despair in Kel’s voice was almost palpable.

  “Back to the chalkboard.”

  “Nah, I’m on my way to the psych ward.”

  “Ben Atkinson?”

  “Yeah. I contacted him earlier this week. I’m supposed to call him this afternoon.”

  “Maybe he can help.”

  “I’m hoping.”

  “Call me if there’s anything else,” Steve said.

  “I will. And thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “You saved me a lot of time. I was going to go to every security agency in the book.”

  “That would be like opening a phone book and trying to divine the perp.”

  “Seems I’m no further ahead than that.”

  “Something’ll break, it always does.”

  “I just need to get a handle on this before another kid is taken.”

  As Kel walked through the doorway and into the hall, Steve called after him. “You’re not going to do it without any sleep!”

  “Yeah, yeah . . . .”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ben Atkinson had agreed to meet Kel halfway between Wilmington and Raleigh, where he was attending a conference. The profiler was in demand across the country, both as a speaker and as a consultant as serial killers of all kinds continued to jump out of the woodwork across the nation. There was a great deal of confusion in the world of law enforcement as to exactly how many serial killers were in operation at any given time. Some said twenty, some said thirty, and some estimated the number to be in the hundreds. Ben believed that there was at least one in every major city—either one in the field or one in training.

  “Damn! I was hoping for more than this Ben.”

  “With what you sent me Kel, you’re lucky to have that. Most serial killers are usually on the street for years before we can even pull this much together.”

  “Contempt of cops or authority figures?”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t think you guys are good enough to catch him. He’s not really all that threatened by the idea of these women calling in the troops, he just doesn’t want anyone detaining them or talking them out of performing for him. By the time he’s picked up a kid, he’s anxious to see a show. He’s probably been waiting too long when the urge hits to set everything in motion.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The impatience comes through. The instructions are implicit. His methods for compliance are immediate. He doesn’t like the waiting game. And it’s either because he’s on a rigid time schedule himself, or he needs to prove that he’s the one in control.”

  “Could it be that he’s just uncomfortable once he has the kid and knows that everything has to come to fruition fast?”

  “Maybe. We are definitely looking at the shortest time spans I’ve ever heard of for the victims being returned, and they’re all relatively unscathed.”

  “So, he doesn’t want to hurt the kids?”

  “I don’t think he cares one way or another. They’re a nuisance for sure, but he seems concerned about keeping his end of the bargain if the women do as he instructs. He’s cultivating a clientele with the help of the media, and his new victims have to know his word is good or they might not do as he demands. And then the game will be over.”

  “A serial killer with a conscience? C’mon Ben, where you going with this?”

  “It’s just that I see him as a man with some pride. He gets in, he gets his reward, and he gets out. It’s almost like these women are his private harem. A club of sorts—women he has controlled, women who have bared themselves for him, shown him their deepest, darkest secrets. Maybe he even fantasizes that they like it, that they’re willingly stripping as a way of trying to seduce him.”

  Kel took in a deep breath and then slowly blew it out, his exasperation evident. “So we know what? What do we know that I can use to narrow this search down some?”

  “He’s smart, very educated. He’s older, probably in his forties, possibly not all that attractive; he was raised under a woman’s thumb or is currently under one’s now. And he has visual fixations and fantasies that control his sex drive. The kind of fantasies that men in college have.”

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Let’s take this one at a time,” Kel said as he looked up from the notebook he was hast
ily scribbling in. “Older . . . in his forties? Why?”

  “The words he uses and the way he uses them, hardly any slang. His grammar is impeccable, the punctuation, too. And some of the things he says just aren’t said in that exact way anymore. For instance, he says ‘titties’ instead of tits, boobs, or hooters, ‘toy with her breasts’ instead of fondle her, ‘have sex with a man’ instead of simply saying fuck him. He has some respect for these women. At least in his mind, they’re something special. In essence what he’s saying here is that women get fucked by men, that they don’t fuck men. The man has to be taking her on his own terms. And that’s the way he wants it. So he’s an older guy, a crass older guy. He’s sensitive, but he wants what he wants, and he wants their bodies in the only way he can have them. If he were good looking, he could have them for the price of a few drinks, maybe not the absolute stunners he’s been picking, but women decent looking enough, I would think.”

  “Whew! It’s amazing how you get all this from those simple notes.”

  “It’s years of training and files full of data, and hard-earned experience. Plus a lot of guesswork.”

  “So, how about the men in college thing? What do you mean by that?”

  “You remember, college boys like to show off any prize they have. Be it cars, tech equipment, or a girl. If you had a good lookin’ babe on your arm, and she had great tits, you’d want to share them with your best buds, show her off some. It’s the reason for all those free beer parties.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember. You get your girl to take off her top and show her tits to the crowd and all the beer you and she could drink was free.”

  “Something like that. There’s a different version at every school. The groups that pass the women—who are drunk out of their minds—around for everyone to sample; the ones who like to put on a porn show for their buddies to watch; and the ones who specialize in the girls gone wild theme with video cameras. You ever do any of that yourself?”