“He took their grandchild,” Miles countered.
Beck nodded at him. “Yes, and maybe that was enough this time.”
“He rented a beach house, a two-month rental, under the name Trevor Caine,” Morrison continued. “While he may not use that identity again, you should keep it in your records. He posed as a writer.”
They laid out the facts and evidence they’d gathered. Then Beck took over again.
“It’s our conclusion he rented a house rather than booking a hotel because it’s an area where beach rentals are common, and he’d attract less notice.”
Beck leaned over, laid a hand over Morgan’s. “Morgan, I know it might seem we’ve made no progress finding him, stopping him, but we were able to track him from New Orleans, and eventually, we found the agency where he rented the car he used to drive to South Carolina. He’d changed his appearance, but two of the staff there ID’d him, so we knew the name he used, the look he used. Using those, we tracked him to Myrtle Beach. We found the hotel where he’d stayed a couple of days.”
Morgan said nothing, just nodded.
“We alerted local law enforcement. We’d begun canvassing the rental agencies when the alert on Quinn Loper came in. We missed him by hours.”
“But she’s dead anyway. I’m sorry, I understand how much time and work you’re putting into this. But she’s dead anyway.”
“Yes, she is.”
The regret came through, enough that Morgan wished she hadn’t spoken the horrible truth.
“We weren’t in time. But he made mistakes. He stole her car, a high-end Mercedes convertible. And he didn’t disable the tracking system.”
“I’m not sure what that means. I’m not in the high-end car club.”
“It’s an embedded system. It means they tracked him—tracked the car.” Miles’s eyes narrowed. “But you don’t have him.”
“No, but we have the individual who bought the car, and who’s previously taken in trade or in sale other vehicles from Rozwell. We have this person in custody.”
“He knows where Rozwell is?”
Morrison took over. “He claims no, and we believe him. He claims he thought Rozwell was a car thief, that he knew nothing about the murders. We tend to believe him on that, especially since facing potential charges of accessory after the fact, multiple counts of murder, he’s cooperating.”
“We know the vehicle he took in trade,” Beck told them, “and the name he used for the registration. We have his description at that time, and which direction he took, when he took it. These are major mistakes, Morgan, a breakdown in his discipline. We have an APB out on the vehicle, on the name he’s using.”
“Is he coming here?”
“Our information is he brought up a map on his laptop while his new car was prepared for him. He mapped out a route west, likely as far as Kansas, so not here. Our conclusion is he’s not ready for you yet.”
Beck opened her briefcase, took out an evidence bag. “He put this on the victim.”
“My bracelet.” In the summer sunlight, her skin went cold. “The one he took when he killed Nina.”
“He wants you to know he’s thinking about you. To keep you on edge. But the fact is, Morgan, he’s on edge. He wouldn’t have made so many mistakes otherwise. He knows cars, he knows tech, but he forgot about the tracking system in the Mercedes.”
“We can put you in a safe house,” Morrison began.
“My mother and grandmother live here. What if he comes for me, and hurts them instead?”
The thought of it, the risk of it, turned the hard knot in her belly to ice.
“And how long do I stay shut away somewhere? A week, a month, a year? I can’t live like that. No one can live like that. Miles—”
“No,” he said. “You can’t live like that. We’re doing everything you advised us to do. If there’s more, tell us and we’ll do that. How many times is she supposed to let him take what she has, what she is? How many times does she have to start over?”
Saying nothing, Morgan watched him. His voice stayed absolutely calm, and turned cold enough to freeze the air.
The invisible suit, she thought. He put on the invisible suit. For me.
What he said, how he said it, meant, in that moment, everything.
“She shook his confidence, isn’t that it?” Miles demanded. “You have profilers—isn’t that the reason he’s fucking up? She dented his shield, so she has to pay. But he has to make sure he dents hers, too. Shakes her confidence. Otherwise, he’d have gone after her right away. It’s got to eat at him, but he’s waited more than a year.