Chapter 28

Anna

Friday

Maggie decided to get an early start and found Lucas already at his desk.

“You haven’t been here all night have you?”

“No, I was at my sister's for a while. I’ve been here about an hour.”

“Well, I’m glad Carrie came and got you.”

“Ah, so you rang her then?”

“Yes, Lucas, I’m worried about you.”

“It’s okay, I’m better this morning and determined to find this son of a bitch and my girl. How did you go last night, Maggie? Any witnesses?”

“No, as usual, no-one saw much. One witness said she’d seen them leave the house but assumed they were going on a date because his arm was around her, which probably just indicates he had the gun on her. She said the car was a dark colour sedan but she didn’t know the make.”

“We can’t trace a car to either Wesley Robinson or Chad Wilson, so the vehicle is probably stolen or in another name entirely. We could look up all dark stolen cars, which would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. We don’t even know how long he’s had the car, if it’s even stolen.”

He shook his head, frustrated again. Why wasn’t anything falling into place when they had so little time?

“There would also be a lot of dark coloured sedans to go through. It could be black, blue or green, who knows - it was dark.”

“The results came back on the hair from Lindsay’s autopsy, and the DNA matches the one found on Kate. It doesn’t really help us much we have nothing to compare it to.”

Maggie’s phone rang and as Lucas listened to the one-sided conversation the realisation hit him hard. A body had been found. Chelsea!

“Maggie?” he asked when she’d hung up.

“It could be Anna.”

“What if it’s not?”

“His MO suggests it is. It’s too soon for Chelsea.”

Lucas drove to occupy his mind. Every moment of the past week passed through his mind and his heart set up a permanent residence in his throat. He told himself it wouldn’t be Chelsea. Maggie was right, it was too soon. He couldn’t even comprehend or consider the idea of a life without Chelsea, a world where she wasn’t in it. He’d given his heart and soul to her. If she was dead, his life would be over too.

Lucas pulled up at the warehouse but couldn’t bring himself to get out of the car.

“I’ll go and check,” Maggie said.

His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and the pain helped divert the torment in his heart. He closed his eyes, lent his head against the seat and waited for the long excruciating minutes until Maggie returned. He didn’t want to allow the images of her into his mind but they came regardless. A flash of her laughter and the thought of her kiss caused his chest to tighten and panic to surge through his body. What type of cruel world would take away someone else he loved, especially someone as lovely as Chelsea? He clenched his jaw against the pain threatening to consume him.

The last image of Chelsea saturated his mind - her engaging smile as he dropped her at her door the previous morning. As he’d driven away she’d blown him a kiss. Would that be his last moment with her?

He nearly leapt out of his skin when Maggie tapped on his window. He lowered the window and stared at her. She shook her head.

“It’s Anna Jones.”

Relief filled his chest, which instantly turned to guilt when he realised he was happy that it was Anna. This only intensified his fury towards the kidnapper, whoever it was.

“It’s perfectly normal to be relieved, Lucas.”

“Doesn’t make it right, though.”

“I asked Dave to do a preliminary ASAP so, if he finds anything, we can move on it straightaway.

When they got back to the station, Wesley Robinson’s file was waiting on Lucas’ desk.

“Anything in the file we can use?”

“Probably not, but his record is for manslaughter.”

“Who’d he kill?’

“His father when he was sixteen. After years of physical and emotional abuse, he slit his father’s throat one night after another particularly nasty bashing. The court went easy on him because of the abuse and he was released when he was eighteen after serving nearly two years. He grew up with nothing. His mother left and his father was an alcoholic who drank his wages.”

“It looks like it could be Wesley Robinson after all. Same MO. He grew up poor and probably resents Chelsea because she didn’t. They were getting married weren’t they?” Maggie said.

“Yes,” he said with a clenched jaw.

“So he could have just married into the wealth. Why leave her and then plan to kill her?”

“I guess that is only something he can answer. I haven’t been able to work that out either. Years of abuse obviously affected him. He also worked in the kitchen as a baker’s assistant while inside.”

“There’s our flour. He must have been working somewhere, but where?”

“If we could find that out, maybe we could get his address. I already checked and haven’t found any employment records,” Lucas said.

“Perhaps we could show his photo around at the café, see if he ate there. Maybe someone knows something about him. If he didn’t go there, maybe there is another way he knows all the girls. This could be a way to lead us to him. We can read over the files with Robinson in mind now, particularly the calls. Maybe we’ll be able to link something up.”

“It’s worth a try, I suppose. What else do we have?”

Maggie’s phone rang as they were leaving. “The ME has finished his preliminary report on Anna and wants to see us,” she told him after hanging up.

They made their way down to the lower level to David’s office and lab.

“Good afternoon, Detectives.”

“What have we got, Dave?” Maggie asked him.

“Well, cause of death is consistent with the other four girls. The wounds again have different levels of clotting.”

“Did you find any trace substances?”

“Not this time. No trace of flour at all that I can find. This girl has either been cleaned or he didn’t transfer any this time. No seminal fluid or hairs from the rape kit but signs of trauma, so once again he may have used a condom or didn’t ejaculate. I would be more inclined to go with the latter as there were no traces of a condom having been used, same as before.”

“Any other differences, besides the flour?” Lucas asked him.

“Yes. With regard to the wounds, this time the cuts were inflicted over a shorter period of time, as though he rushed, or there was less time between each cut.”

“So, he’s either escalating or he was in a hurry to move on,” said Lucas with a grim expression. “This means we could have less time.”

“He could have been in a rush to reach his real target in Chelsea. He might take his time again with her.”

Lucas glared at her.

“This is a good thing, Lucas. It means we have more time to find her. The quicker we do, the lesser the injuries.”

“I hope you're right. Anything else?” Lucas asked the ME.

“Not at this stage. I have only done the preliminary. I’ll let you know if I find anything else inconsistent.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

“Was he working somewhere? Where was the flour coming from? Why isn’t there any this time?” Maggie now sounded as aggravated as Lucas felt.

They were waiting impatiently for the lift to take them back to their floor.

“He must have been working somewhere using an alias.” He paused. Lucas turned to Maggie as a thought entered his mind. “Wesley Robinson and Chad Wilson are the same person.”