Read Online Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent by Kylie Brant - Free Book Online
Authors: Kylie Brant
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stomach drew tighter.
As if recognizing that, Raiker said, “Ellie keeps a pair of scissors on her nightstand. She’s been doing a lot of paper cutting and folding artwork. Her mother said she found it calming. The scissors are the only item her parents can determine that are missing from her room. She may have wounded her assailant, which would be a break for us. Techs didn’t find any other blood, but if the scissors were dropped afterward, before being collected and taken away with her, that would account for the stain on the sheet.”
“Or he might have used them to subdue her.” Agent Travis spoke the words that everyone else was thinking.
“As well as this was planned out, no way he intended to attack her in her own bed,” Kell stated. The stubble that was beginning to shadow his jaw was a shade darker than his hair. The seemingly random observation had Macy giving herself a mental shake. She was more tired than she’d thought if she was noticing anything about Kellan Burke other than his annoying habits, which were legion. “He’d have come prepared, maybe with tape or a gag, some way to bind her, but he had a specific method in mind to get her out of here quickly and silently. If he was smart—and so far we have no reason to believe otherwise—he’d have drugged her. Instant submission, no battle. He wouldn’t have needed the scissors. Likely he took them away from her.”
But not, Macy thought darkly, before blood had been drawn. From Ellie or her attacker?
“That’s how we figure it, too.” Whitman loosened his tie. The top button of his shirt had already been unfastened.
She clicked through the pictures until she came to the thermal coffee mug on the counter in Hubbard’s kitchen. “We bagged this to get a sample of Hubbard’s DNA. We also brought the toothbrush from his bathroom. Seminal stains showed up on the bed in the master bedroom in the house.” And she refused to read too much into that. Would Hubbard really have brought the girl back to a familiar location to rape her when there was an imminent threat of exposure?
The neighbors had seen nothing. But pedophiliac offenders often exhibited poor impulse control, taking chances that seemed too risky to contemplate. The danger increased their pleasure. She forced herself to calculate the timeline, pushing aside assumptions and dread to concentrate on possibilities. He would have had plenty of time to get the girl off the estate, back to his house, attack, and kill her, she realized sickly. If that had been his intention.
But it begged the still unanswered question of who the real target of this crime was—Ellie or her father.
She was wandering too far abroad from the evidence at hand, always a shaky proposition. It led to erroneous assumptions. How many times had she heard Raiker preach that?
“Mr. Mulder has complete files on all his employees. Background checks, DNA profiles, and fingerprints,” Whitman put in tersely.
Concentrating on the pictures, she flipped through to ones showing Hubbard’s living room. “You can see from the floor that the carpet had been recently vacuumed. But the bag in the vacuum cleaner was new. The garbage cans were all empty.”
“Someone took pains to clean up. Or cover something up.” Kell worked his shoulders tiredly. “We bagged his bankbooks and investment information. No record in either of a sudden infusion of cash.”
“That would be too easy,” Travis muttered.
“Any keys that might lead us to a safe-deposit box?”
“Nothing like that,” Agent Travis said. “I figure he’d have taken that with him when he took off. Looked like he packed and left in a hurry.”
“Leaving his birth certificate and account information behind.” She looked at her boss, who showed no signs of weariness. She’d often wondered if the man slept at all. “How long will it take to access his phone records and financial accounts?”
“We should have the warrants for the banks and for cell
As if recognizing that, Raiker said, “Ellie keeps a pair of scissors on her nightstand. She’s been doing a lot of paper cutting and folding artwork. Her mother said she found it calming. The scissors are the only item her parents can determine that are missing from her room. She may have wounded her assailant, which would be a break for us. Techs didn’t find any other blood, but if the scissors were dropped afterward, before being collected and taken away with her, that would account for the stain on the sheet.”
“Or he might have used them to subdue her.” Agent Travis spoke the words that everyone else was thinking.
“As well as this was planned out, no way he intended to attack her in her own bed,” Kell stated. The stubble that was beginning to shadow his jaw was a shade darker than his hair. The seemingly random observation had Macy giving herself a mental shake. She was more tired than she’d thought if she was noticing anything about Kellan Burke other than his annoying habits, which were legion. “He’d have come prepared, maybe with tape or a gag, some way to bind her, but he had a specific method in mind to get her out of here quickly and silently. If he was smart—and so far we have no reason to believe otherwise—he’d have drugged her. Instant submission, no battle. He wouldn’t have needed the scissors. Likely he took them away from her.”
But not, Macy thought darkly, before blood had been drawn. From Ellie or her attacker?
“That’s how we figure it, too.” Whitman loosened his tie. The top button of his shirt had already been unfastened.
She clicked through the pictures until she came to the thermal coffee mug on the counter in Hubbard’s kitchen. “We bagged this to get a sample of Hubbard’s DNA. We also brought the toothbrush from his bathroom. Seminal stains showed up on the bed in the master bedroom in the house.” And she refused to read too much into that. Would Hubbard really have brought the girl back to a familiar location to rape her when there was an imminent threat of exposure?
The neighbors had seen nothing. But pedophiliac offenders often exhibited poor impulse control, taking chances that seemed too risky to contemplate. The danger increased their pleasure. She forced herself to calculate the timeline, pushing aside assumptions and dread to concentrate on possibilities. He would have had plenty of time to get the girl off the estate, back to his house, attack, and kill her, she realized sickly. If that had been his intention.
But it begged the still unanswered question of who the real target of this crime was—Ellie or her father.
She was wandering too far abroad from the evidence at hand, always a shaky proposition. It led to erroneous assumptions. How many times had she heard Raiker preach that?
“Mr. Mulder has complete files on all his employees. Background checks, DNA profiles, and fingerprints,” Whitman put in tersely.
Concentrating on the pictures, she flipped through to ones showing Hubbard’s living room. “You can see from the floor that the carpet had been recently vacuumed. But the bag in the vacuum cleaner was new. The garbage cans were all empty.”
“Someone took pains to clean up. Or cover something up.” Kell worked his shoulders tiredly. “We bagged his bankbooks and investment information. No record in either of a sudden infusion of cash.”
“That would be too easy,” Travis muttered.
“Any keys that might lead us to a safe-deposit box?”
“Nothing like that,” Agent Travis said. “I figure he’d have taken that with him when he took off. Looked like he packed and left in a hurry.”
“Leaving his birth certificate and account information behind.” She looked at her boss, who showed no signs of weariness. She’d often wondered if the man slept at all. “How long will it take to access his phone records and financial accounts?”
“We should have the warrants for the banks and for cell
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