Read Online Lawman by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online Page A

coincidence.”
    â€œI don’t. The cases are too similar,” Garon said doggedly.
    The ASAC smiled. He’d known Garon a long time. He knew how determined the agent could be. “That would be my gut feeling, too. Stay out of trouble.”
    â€œI’ll try,” he replied. The grin gave him away.
    Â 
    H E PHONED M ARQUEZ and they met at a local diner. Marquez looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes.
    â€œYou look like you’ve been burning the midnight oil,” Garon remarked.
    He laughed, a little hollowly. “I take these homicides seriously. I phoned the Oklahoma P.D. where the other red ribbon murder occurred. That was an eleven-year-old girl. They found her facedown in a patch of brown-eyed Susans near a cemetery.”
    â€œAssaulted?” Garon asked.
    Marquez nodded curtly. “Yes. Strangled, as well. And then stabbed about twenty-five times. Just like this one we’re working on. Too similar to be unrelated.”
    Garon’s lips made a thin line. “A very personal attack.”
    â€œExactly my feeling. The perp hated the child, or what she represented. It was overkill, plain and simple. Something else—there was another victim, same basic MO, over near Del Rio, about ten years ago, killed with a knife and left in a field. I was looking for similar cases and happened to run into one of our older investigators who remembered it. It wasn’t even fed into a database, it was so old. I e-mailed the police department over there and asked them to fax me the details.” He ran a hand through his thick, straight black hair. “Little girls. Innocent little girls. And this monster may have been doing it since the nineties, at intervals, without getting caught. I’d give blood to get this guy,” Marquez added. He paused long enough to give the waitress his order and wait until she could pour coffee in his cup before he spoke again. “He’s got to be a repeat sex offender. He’s too good at what he does for a sloppy amateur. It takes a wily so-and-so to take a child right out of her own bedroom with her family in the house. And he does it over a period of years, if the cases do match, without getting caught or even seen.”
    â€œThat piece of red ribbon?” Garon murmured, sipping coffee, “must have something to do with a fantasy he’s acting out.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” the younger man said. “The detective who told me about the Del Rio case also remembered hearing of a similar cold case, from twelve or more years back, but he couldn’t recall where it happened. He thinks it happened in south Texas.”
    â€œDid you look in the database for that case?”
    â€œYes, but the Del Rio case wasn’t there. God knows how many others aren’t, either, especially if they happened in small, rural towns.” He smiled. “I told my lieutenant about that Del Rio cold case, and about the other two children in Oklahoma who were taken from their homes and found dead. I said we needed to get the FBI involved so you guys could do a profile of the killer for us, and he laughed. He said the deaths had no connection. So I went to the captain, and he called your ASAC. Thanks.”
    â€œNo problem,” Garon mused. “Most veteran cops hate paperwork and complications. Nobody wants to be looking for a serial killer. But we might catch this one, if we’re stubborn enough.”
    Marquez pursed his lips. “I asked one of your squad members about you,” he said. “He says that you’ll chase people to the gates of hell.”
    Garon shrugged. “I don’t like letting criminals get away.”
    â€œNeither do I. This guy’s a serial killer. I need you to help me prove it.”
    Garon paused while their steaks were served. “What sort of similarities are we talking about, with that cold case in Del Rio?”
    â€œAll I have is sketchy