Second Honeymoon Part 17

Instead, some buffoon of a thief did it for him. A druggie.

A neighbor had called the police after spotting a man climbing through the bas.e.m.e.nt window of Kingslip's two-bedroom ranch house in the small town of Lamont, about thirty miles from the airport.

When officers arrived at the house, they not only caught the thief but they also caught a major break in the murder case.

Papered all over Kingslip's bedroom were close-up photos of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of underage girls-homemade digital prints-taken from every conceivable angle and cropped in a way that never revealed a face. It was like trying to identify a mannequin.

At the very least, they had a child p.o.r.nographer on their hands. But then Sarah arrived and noticed the kidney-bean-shaped mole in one of the pictures. It matched the description given to her by the parents of one of the missing girls.

Within an hour, Sarah and half the Tallaha.s.see police force were storming the tarmac at the airport in 102-degree heat. Kingslip, a baggage handler, confessed on the spot. "All you had to do was ask," he'd said.

Then, immediately after he was read his Miranda warnings, he started to laugh. It was the kind of twisted and demented laugh that Sarah had heard too many times in her career chasing serial killers.

Kingslip's laugh may have been the worst of them all.

"There's one more out there, and you'll never find her," he had said. "That poor, poor little girl, she won't last much longer. She'll be dead and gone like all the others. She's probably dead already."

Police chief Trout reappeared with two rubber bands and a puzzled look on his face. "Here," he said.

Sarah took the rubber bands and quickly used them to tie her hair into two pigtails behind her ears. Trout watched her and nodded. He got it now.

"I'm not going in there with you, am I?" he asked.

Only he wasn't really asking. It was a rhetorical question. He'd gotten to know Sarah a little bit since she'd arrived from Quantico-enough to be sure of one thing. Two things, actually.

Sarah Brubaker was as determined as anyone he'd ever met.

And Travis Kingslip was all hers.

Chapter 27

SARAH CLOSED THE door behind her and grabbed one of the conference room chairs. She wheeled it right up in front of Kingslip and sat down. Their knees were almost touching. She didn't want to be this close to him, but it was necessary. Actually, it could be a matter of life and death.

He was wearing a blue jumpsuit two sizes too big and reeked of cigarettes, sweat, and jet fuel. His hair fell from beneath his trucker hat like strands of black string that had been dipped in grease. His teeth looked like rotted pieces of candy corn.

Immediately, his eyes went to her chest. It was no sneak peek; it was a full-on gawk. He didn't have to say what he wanted to do to her at that very moment. His dark, cold, soulless stare left little doubt.

So far so good, thought Sarah.

There was no time for small talk or breaking the ice. No time to gain his trust. She needed him to like her, and this was the quickest way, down and dirty. Sorry, Ms. Steinem.

Kingslip rattled his hands and feet. "Why don't you take these handcuffs off, honey? I promise I won't bite," he said. "C'mon, take 'em off."

"Maybe I will," said Sarah. "But you have to do something for me first."

Kingslip's words on the tarmac were echoing in Sarah's head, one line in particular. That poor, poor little girl, she won't last much longer.

He was hiding her somewhere, he had to be. Was she already dying? Had he hurt her? Killed her?

Sarah could hear the clock ticking louder, but she knew she couldn't race through this. She figured she had only one shot; she had to get it exactly right.

"Where is she, Travis?" she asked, her voice calm but firm. "Tell me. Just tell me the truth."

"I'll never te-ell," he came back in a singsongy voice, creepy as h.e.l.l.

"Is she near where you live?"

He kept staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "You're pretty, do you know that?"

Sarah did know that. It had been both a blessing and a curse in her life, especially in her career. Right now, though, she needed it to be a blessing.

"Is she near where you live, Travis?" she repeated.

Every inch of his house in Lamont had already been searched. There were no secret rooms, no hidden attics or bas.e.m.e.nt wells, nothing in the freezer. This wasn't Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.

Kingslip didn't answer. Not that Sarah needed him to. She was watching more than listening. A flinch, a twitch, a blink from him-something would tip her about what he was thinking.

She kept going. No choice. "Is she close by?" she asked. "Somewhere near the airport?"

Bingo.

It was his eyebrow. Right on the word airport, the left one curled. For a split second and by a fraction of an inch, but she saw the "tell" clear as day.

Sarah leaned in even closer to him, his stench so repugnant she wanted to vomit. "She's near the airport, isn't she, Travis? Is she within walking distance, or do I need to take a car?"

He chirped again. "I'll never te-ell."

He already had, though. It was the eyebrow again, this time on the word car.

But she'd already searched his car in the parking lot, and there was only one vehicle registration on file for him with the Jefferson County DMV.

Unless it wasn't his car.

"Is she in a car, Travis? Do you have her in someone's car? Whose car is she in?"

He suddenly looked like the pigeon at the poker table who couldn't figure out why everyone was calling his bluffs. How does she know? How much does she know?

"You'll never find her," he said, turning angry on a dime. He suddenly didn't like her so much, but that was okay. Sarah had another hunch to play.

"Why won't I find her?" she asked.

"You just won't, that's why."