indirect—with our subject, Archer Lowell.”
Anne Marie, Evan, and Miranda all nodded.
“Archer Lowell, age twenty years, ten months, first child and only son of Lionel and Sissy Lowell. Father left home when the boy was three. Graduated from Fleming Regional High in 2001, ranked three hundred twenty out of three hundred seventy-three students. Worked as a driver for All-County Auctions from June of 2001, until he was arrested for stalking and assaulting Amanda Crosby in 2002.” Jared looked up from the sheet of paper that lay before him on the table. “Your sister, Detective.”
“Correct.” Evan’s jaw tightened.
“He entered a plea, accepted a reduced sentence at the strong urging of his lawyer.” Jared folded the sheet of paper neatly in half. “So much for past history.”
“So what’s he done since he’s been released?” Will asked.
“Nothing yet. At least, nothing that we know of,” Jared said.
“It’s what he’s expected to do that’s the problem,” Miranda told him.
“What’s he expected to do?” Will frowned.
“Murder three people,” Anne Marie replied.
“Who is he going to murder?”
“If we knew that, Will, we wouldn’t be having this meeting,” Jared said, holding up a hand to stop the conversation while the young male waiter returned to serve their lunch.
“Anyone need anything else?” the waiter asked. Assured that no one did, the young man left the room, and once again closed the door.
“Somehow I get the feeling that I’m the only person in this room who doesn’t quite know what’s going on.” Will’s gaze went from one face to the next, stopping when he reached Miranda.
“That must be a first,” she murmured as she picked a slice of tomato from her sandwich.
Ignoring her, he turned to Jared.
“How ’bout you bring me up to speed?”
Jared nodded and finished chewing a mouthful of sandwich.
“Several months ago, there was a series of murders in Lyndon, a community about thirty-five miles from here. All women whose names were listed in the phone book as Mary Douglas or M. Douglas.”
“Wait, I heard about this. Mara Douglas, your sister, was the intended victim,” Will addressed Anne Marie.
“That’s right. That’s how the Bureau became involved in the first place. I called in Aidan Shields from medical leave to work with us.”
Will turned to Miranda.
“You called me during that investigation. You wanted information on an old case from Ohio. The victim was Jenny Green. . . .”
“Proving that the rumors about Will are all true.” Miranda glanced at the others. “He never forgets a damned thing.”
He continued, “You wanted copies of the statements of a suspect you’d interviewed at the time. He’d been let go.”
“Right again.” Miranda nodded. “Here’s the story in a nutshell. We had several victims here in eastern Pennsylvania. Evan was the lead detective on these cases because, at the time, he was with the Lyndon Police Department. Something about the crime scenes reminded me of a case I’d worked on about six years earlier. That Ohio case was the first time I’d worked in the field, so everything was memorable. I remembered wanting to reinterview a suspect who’d just flat-out disappeared. I called Will to look up the file, get the name of the suspect for me. Once we had that, and a little information on him, Aidan followed that thread to a man named Curtis Alan Channing.”
She paused to sip at her water.
“Channing was a serial killer who’d been a real busy boy over the years. But he’d flown so far under the radar that his prints weren’t even on file anywhere.”
“If he was under the radar, how do you know he was a serial killer?” Will asked.
“The Bureau has been running his DNA through the data banks,” Miranda explained. “So far, we’ve had hits on old, unsolved cases in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. He was not only busy, he was clever. He could have gone on for years.”
“Then a few months
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